Archives July 2003

I had a very nice weekend. A good mix of doing chores around the house yet still having plenty of time to relax and do what I wanted to do. We went out to dinner on Saturday. I had a lot to drink by my standards, (7 beers) but we had fun. We watched Old School with the couple we went to dinner with. Good thing I was drunk. It had a few funny moments but had one of the dumbest plots I ever had seen. Thankfully it was short movie.

On Sunday we finished up a project with landscaping the front of our house. We have spent 95% of the time landscaping and working on the back of the place since that is where we spend most of our time. Consequently, the front has looked rather bland and untouched. We wound up putting in a river rock border with a couple topiary’s and plants. It’s nothing fancy, but it looks way better than it did. Pictures soon.

I finally embarked on my home made RC plane project. I got pretty far but found out some of the foam I bought tears when you try to cut it. So, I need to find a suitable replacement. I’m looking forward to seeing if it will fly. If so, it will mean I can make 3 dollar RC planes 🙂

Bob Hope died today at 100. It makes me sad to see another childhood memory bite the dust. Granted, his last 10 years or so have not been worth living if you saw the same tabloid pictures of him that I did. Old age is brutal. Just think of poor President Reagan. Can’t remember his own name and craps in a diaper. What a way to go.

Speaking of morbid, depressing things, Fishy may be on his last legs. He is the first of the 2 male beta’s that I have. From what I read, fish only have a lifespan of a couple years. I think his time is coming. He hangs at the bottom and when he tries to swim it seems, wild and uncontrolled. I have been trying to treat him as I did before but it doesn’t appear to be helping this time. I hope he makes it.

After nearly 3 months down here, my mom starts her job today. She is nervous about it but I think she will do fine. She is a very good sales person and has the gift of gab. Crossing my fingers. She is bummed about not having all the pool time but she was bummed about having too much pool time too. 🙂

My mom has been living with us since the beginnig of May. She intentionally did not look for a job when she first came down because she wanted to relax. Well after 2 and a half months of being unemployed she was going pretty crazy. The idea of doing nothing but sitting by the pool everyday may sound enticing but even that gets old in no time. Well she started seriously hunting maybe a month or so ago. She got a job offer from one place that was way too far away and didn’t pay enough. She got a snub from another place that she thought she would have liked. But she finally landed a job with Haverty’s which is a large chain furniture store. This was the closest of all the places she looked into. They offer strong benefits and more competitive pay. She starts on Monday. It will be good for her to get out of the house, she needs to do something.

We saw Terminator 3 last night. It had great effects, a decent plot and lots of great Arnold action. I enjoyed it very much. 2 thumbs up.

We got 3 inches of rain yesterday. Our land looks like a Chinese rice field again.

This week I have been working pretty diligently on getting some Access databases converted so they can be utilized from a web browser interface. I am doing it through Dreamweaver which is much more powerful than FrontPage. It is also more complicated but I have been able to muddle through it. I have a good functional shell up and running. I just need to do some tweaking. When I get involved in stuff like this I tend to get tunnel vision and don’t like breaking out of my train of thought to do other things. (like update the blog)

My past weekend was ok. On Saturday I played golf. I had a typical round. I got off the tee ok but my short game and putting sucked as it normally does. I hit irons all day. It was hot as HELL. One player in the tournament had to call it quits early because he was feeling light headed. The course was very tight. It reminded me of Flying Hills from back home. Lost a lot of balls. Banged one off a roof.

Sunday I did some yardwork and worked diligently on finishing Frozen Throne. (I finished it, fantastic game) Sunday evening we had dinner at the neighbors. They made a HUGE italian meal. This is what they made for 4 people. Big salad with meats, cheese and lettuce, potatoes, pasta, meatballs, spare ribs, chicken, broccoli salad, chicken cutlets, pork cutlets, breaded mushrooms, and a couple other italian dishes I don’t know how to spell. It was the most food I EVER saw at a table. They had 2 or 3 desert choices as well. I felt ill from eating too much. Everything was great, just too much of a good thing.

Played volleyball for the second consecutive week. It was fun and so far my knee doesn’t feel any worse for the effort which is always a good thing. In a week and a half I head to PA for the grass tournament. I am REALLY looking forward to it. Should be a lot of fun.

Yesterday, Ali and I went to get fitted for our braces. It took awhile. They had issues getting a good impression of my bottom teeth. They stuck the goop tray into my mouth 6 times until they got a good one. We should begin the treatment in about 6 weeks. We are both looking forward to it.

Man this is funny stuff. Ebaumsworld ROCKS!

The gym is always a good place to get fit and do some people watching. Yesterday I saw a new member. He was young guy, probably early 20’s, shaved head, wearing big baggy shorts with a white, tight, tank top and a black leather looking baseball hat. He wore this high on his head so he almost looked like a mini conehead. A funny look for sure. Today he is there again. Again he has on baggy shorts but now he has on a tight BLACK tank top and a WHITE leather looking baseball hat sitting way too high on his head. I had a tough time not staring as he walked around. Maybe I’m just old and out of style. 🙂 He definitely was coordinating his look, however silly of a look it was.

I had a treat these past 4 days. 4 days off with nowhere in particular to go! I really enjoyed it. My wife was out of town so I had pretty much total free reign to do what I felt like. The past few weeks we have had time off but it was spent traveling here and there so it wasn’t much of a “vacation”. I took off Monday and Tuesday to use up my vacation which rolls over next month. I spent Saturday busting my ass trying to get a bunch of stuff done. I mowed all 3 acres and did several other outdoor projects. On Sunday, I did fewer projects and went to the beach for a little bit. On Monday I screwed off almost all day and then on Tuesday I had to pick up Ali at the airport. It was a good time.

A lot of my screw off time was in fact spent playing a new computer game I got called the Frozen Throne. It is an expansion to another game I already own. It is FANTASTIC. Highly involving like a good book. I spent at least 12 hours on it so far, maybe more. If you like RTS games I would recommend it.

I also bought a big pack of a special type of bulk foam that is normally used in home construction. However it also happens to be excellent raw material for building your own foam airplanes. I now have enough to make at least 12 planes. However I am having a hard time finding another raw material needed for this project. Cheap carbon fiber arrows. The arrow shafts are used as reenforcement for the wing. Walmart sometimes has these available at 3 bucks a pop. I checked the 2 local Walmarts. No dice. I’ll be looking for more sources. I’ll document my build process as it goes.

This weekend I am playing in another scramble style golf tournament. If it is anything like the last one I played it should be a great time.

I hit my non-creatine assisted personal best bench of 250 today at the gym. I have hit this number several times but haven’t been able to get past it. (When I took creatine I did 275 one time) It went up without much eye popping so I may be able to get 255.

Those small little victories help differentiate one day from the next….

I am using up my remaining vacation days so this weekend will be a 4 day one for me. Unlike my prior extended weekends, this one will be spent at home. I hope to get a lot of stuff done around the house, but get it all done Saturday so I can have the rest of the time to do “fun” stuff. Ali is flying up to PA for those 4 days for her Pop Pop’s 90th surprise bday party so it will just be me and mom.

I am flying up to PA in the beginning of August (again!) to play in the Ball Hog volleyball tournament. Since the Rumble was a washout, I was itchin to get to play at least 1 of my old tourneys up north. I have been putting off getting the airfare tickets, waiting for a good deal. Yesterday I got a fare watcher alert that was decent so I jumped on it. I went through US Airways and almost completed the booking process when their site screwed up. I was pickin seats but then it timed out and I wasn’t able to get in. Argh! So I closed down IE and reloaded the site and started over. This time the fare wasnt available for that day, the flight was now booked! Damn it! So I went back to Travelocity and booked it with United. A few bucks more but not bad. Crisis averted. Well I got home last night, fired up my email and see my trip confirmation from Travelocity AND US airways!! Evidently I was far enough into the US Air booking that I DID have a seat on the plane. Not only did I have 2 separate tickets to fly to Harrisburg, they were for different seats on the SAME planes! Evidently the flight on Travelocity was actually the same US Airways flight even though it was listed as a United flight! (because of their merger) Confused? Well the good news was I was able to cancel the one flight because I discovered the issue within 24 hours. What a mess.

While I was on the leg machine at the gym the other day I had an odd thought. Not sure why I was thinking about this except perhaps because one of her songs was on. You know how it is cool today to have a slang nick name using letters of your name to come up with somethin “hip”. Ya know like J-LO, P Diddy all that dumb stuff. I came up with one for Cristina Aguliera. C-RAG? Good? Hehe.

Had another Pygmy rattle snake on the property. Wild kingdom has nothing on us.

The webcam is back online. I hadn’t been running it much lately. No particular reason. Lazy I guess. Watch the most boring stuff on the web here!

If you are ever offered “ginger pickles” as an appetizer at a restaurant, politely shove them across the table to someone who you would like to make a distorted face as the awful taste of this “food” hits their taste buds. One of the most disgusting tasting things I have ever put in my mouth. Horrible….

As I was mowing grass on Saturday, I noticed some movement in water in the trench next to me. I stopped and took a closer look. Yep, another baby gator. This one seemed smaller than the first one we caught. No need to catch this one yet since it was not threatening my fish. I’ll be looking for it though.

Sunday I finished up a few outside chores after roller blading a few miles in the morning. Spent my extra hours flying RC planes, getting killed playing online Halo and commanding my army in Generals.

I’m having another episode of the blah’s. It’s a pain in the ass. It’s best described as a general feeling that things are not right or as they should be. Damn I hate getting older. It’s a pointless thing to dwell on I know, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.

The HULK was cool. Just wanted to repeat that….