Reality Check

I had one of those experiences this weekend that stops you dead in your tracks.....

I got a call from an old friend Saturday night. He told me that he had just heard that our class was having a class reunion in about half an hour, and that he just heard about it himself. Quick math on my part and figured 20 years, what?, Huh? no way!! 20 YEAR reunion. I actually paused and thought, "nooooo, it can't be that long", but yes it was. I was just going along in my life, happy as a clam, then WHAM... REALITY. Damn I am old.

I guess being in the phone book makes it real hard to get ahold of me or know what my address is. Not that I would have went anyway, but it would have been nice to have that option. I can imagine who was actually at this event over the weekend. The same click that hung out together in high school so I didn't really miss anything. I went to the 10 year reunion and we actually voted (as a class) never to have another reunion. Obviously someone didn't get the memo.

Monkeyjack works in the martix

A few days ago Scott posted a couple pictures of Keith on his blog and indicated that they worked in the matrix. Of course you know I couldn't leave those pictures alone...

Hope you are feeling better Keith!!! Love the leather !!!

Jeff's Move

Man what a day!! The morning started out with me trying my hardest to get to Jeff's apartment by 9:00am. But with kid wragling in the morning the family and I didn't actually make it there till almost 9:30. I was real worried that I was holding up the move and had people waiting for me, but when I pulled up I didn't see anybody. Then Jeff and MR came out of the apartment. Now I have been to Jeff's apartment once but that was about a year ago and I was thinking, "it's only a two bedroom apartment, how much stuff could there be?". I found out that he and Paula were able to get alot of stuff into that apartment. So the three of us proceeded to load up the truck, up and down a flight of stairs. Hello leg muscles. The funny thing is that the truck was getting real full but the apartment was still full of stuff, so the apartment was winning. I tried to stack stuff as high as possible, but I didn't want to break or scratch anything. About halfway through loading the truck I said that we would need two trips for all the stuff, so we decided how to best use the space available in the truck for the first load. Finally a couple more people showed up toward the end of the first load which was good since we were getting real tired and sweating so much that our shirts were pretty much drenched due to the heat and humidity.

The next part comes the washer and dryer cluster f***k. I will let Jeff tell the story about that, but pretty much in a nutshell. The delivery company delivered Jeff's new washer and dryer to the apartment by mistake and REFUSED to take it to their house which was less than a mile away. He kept saying that he couldn't go to another location, and that he had a schedule to keep. And my response was "you could have been there by now rather than arguing with Jeff". This guy was a toal asshole. I was real close to getting into it with this dick, but hey, it's not my washer and dryer so I figured that it was best to let Jeff take care of it. Found out later that it was the delivery company's mistake and not Jeff's, so they got their delivery fee returned along with another $50 from Sears. So if you buy from Sears, pick it up yourself.

The unload at the house went alot faster (like they do). There was alot of activity at the house when we showed up. People painting rooms, doing electrical work, replacing door locks, unloading pick up trucks, and kids running all over the place. I was thinking "where were all these hands for the loading?", but everyone actually had a job already so I was thankful to get help unloading. After a quick bite to eat we got the truck unloaded and headed back to the apartment for load #2. That load went alot faster with a few more hands as well as not as much stuff. It started to rain when we were leaving for the house, but it actually felt pretty good. Unload #2 went fast again with lots of hands to help. I was soaking wet with sweat and real tired so after load #2 I took the truck back and met with Jen and the kids for home. I felt kinda bad not staying around to see if I could help with other stuff, but I was pretty much spent, and there was already a bunch of people in the house. I am sure I would only get in the way. Another shower and then the comfy chair for the rest of the day.

Jeff and Paula's new home is a real nice place with a huge backyard. (you will have to ask him about the crop circle). I think they will enjoy this place for many years to come.

ENJOY HOME OWNERSHIP JEFF AND PAULA!!!

Night Golf II

Friday night was the second time I played in the Kiwaniis Night Time Golf Outing. This year I asked everyone I knew who played golf or knew what a golf ball looked like to play with me. Last year when I played I really didn't press anyone else to play with me since if it wasn't fun, I didn't want to be blamed, but I had a blast last year. This year's list was growing to around 6 to 8 people to play, but unfortunately it quickly died down to only 4 due to illness and other commitments that came up. My mom and I headed out to Lakeside golf course around 7:00pm. We got ourselves organized and grabbed some food. This year they kept it pretty simple with hotdogs, burgers, and brats with sides of beans and potatoes. The potatoes were simply delicious where they were kinda in between sliced and mashed with this fantastic cheese flavor. I had seconds and then thirds after we were done playing. Before we teed off they had a 50/50 drawing for cash. Now I usually don't enter these contests since I never win, but what the heck it's for charity and I had $5 burning a hole in my pocket. Of course I missed the winning number by only 2, but then realized that my cousin Marc had bought the next 5 tickets in the roll, so I ran inside and told him to look at his tickets and sure enough he had the correct number. He ended up winning $78 in the drawing. Lucky bugger. My friend Gina showed up a little later and we took upon the challenge of trying to find her a pull cart to rent at the golf course, but there weren't any available. I still find it hard to believe that at 7:30pm at night that all the rental pull carts were still on the course, but there was another night time golf outing going on at the same time on the par 3 course, so maybe. So we ended up throwing some of her clubs in mom's bag (already on a cart) and she played with some of my clubs on the course.

So with full tummy's.. OUT TO THE COURSE.

We started on #1 hole which is good since we didn't have to walk far to our first hole to tee off (shotgun start all over the course). Since the advent of daylight savings I wasn't sure if it would be dark enough on the first couple of holes to see the lighted golf, but it was just perfect time of the day to just see them. Gina and Marc hit their drives pretty safe on the left side of the fairway and then it became my time to hit. First hit of the year for me sad to say, no practice, no bucket of balls beforehand. I hit the ball very well and then noticed the ball start to curve for a nasty slice heading for the ONLY FREAKING WATER ON THE COURSE. 3...2...1.... spashdown. Son of a biscuit. So I was close to the clubhouse and decided to grab another ball before heading down the fairway. I had to pay $8 for another ball and glowstick. Of course my luck I actually ended up finding my ball on the edge of the water after already "activating" the new glowing ball. It took me a couple of holes to get warmed up, but I finally started hitting the ball pretty well. All of the team had good shots and bad shots.

You never really know what the weather will be out on the course, but it ended up being a very humid and warm night. Unlucky for mom and Gina who wore long pants and long sleeved shirts who were very hot the whole round. They were expecting a mosquito attack on the course, but I think all night only one mosquito buzzed my head. It took around 3 holes for the beer cart to find us, but lucky for us they were never far from us after that. I could have really used some water instead of beer for the heat, but the beer was just as tasty. I was a little concerned since we seemed to play alot faster than the group in front of us, so we had to pause a couple times to make sure we didn't hit our balls into the group in front of us. They were really hard to see. Toward the end of the round we were all getting pretty tired and had a few drinks in us, so we started hooping and hollering whenever we hit a halfway decent shot. That was fun.

We finished playing and went back inside the clubhouse to wait for everyone else on the course to come back in so we could count up all the scores and see who "won". It was already after midnight when we headed for the clubhouse. I don't remember it being that late, but that might be due to a later tee time due to daylight savings. As we waited for the rest of the groups to come in we ended up having leftover hamburgers and potatoes. Overall results for the night is that our group came in 2 over par and in second place in the mixed groups (missed by one stroke) and we ended up winning some door prizes. Everyone in our group had a real fun time and I think I can count on them comming out next year for sure, and hopefully get some more friend out there too. I finally got home at 1:00am not looking forward to getting up the next morning to move Jeff (yawn). That's the next story.....

You are freaking kidding me

Every once in a while I wish I was a police officer. Not necessarily because I would actually want that job, but more for people always doing stupid things in front of me. Since a real cop never actually is around I would love to be able to pull people over. This is my story:

I am going home yesterday and I get off I-469 and try to turn left onto Maplecrest Rd. I have to stop at the offramp and wait to cross the lanes of traffic. Some times I sit there for a few seconds and sometimes its a few minutes since I have to try and cross 4 lanes of traffic going 50 mph (at least) going both ways. So I am waiting and finally see my opportunity, but then this punk on a crotch rocket comes flying up the road to my right. And he is really giving it some gas and winding it out. This is one of those times when I wish I were a cop to nail this yahoo. But then I look to my left and see a plain white Chevrolet Impala. Could it be? Could it be? YES IT'S A COP!!! JUSTICE I SAY. SOMETIMES WE WIN!! This cop in the unmarked police car quickly slows down in front of me and I am thinking that he is going to do a quick U-turn and nail that little s.o.b. NO, cop does an illegal left turn onto the 469 on-ramp, ignoring the motorcycle. WTMFH? I actually threw my hands up and yelled at the cop, but to no avail. I just had to shake my head. I know he probably has other stuff to do then nail kids on crotch rockets, or he wasn't on duty, but I was so expecting to see some read and blue lights. Sigh

A little something for MR

USB BBQ

I thought with MR's job and his love of Steak that he could possibly use this at work. And there is video of it working.. kinda

"This is one hell of a mod. Using 30 USB ports spread out over five USB PCI cards, this barbeque was created. The PC is still functional, too. Enjoy cooking a 1 ounce steak on that tiny grill—and no, I don't have a damn clue what they are trying to cook in the picture and video. It looks like a piece of bacon, but who the hell BBQs bacon like that? Hit the jump for the video. – Travis Hudson

Click this link to see the Video

Memories

Every once in a while you come upon a smell or sound that reminds you of your childhood. A couple days ago William got out some play-doh. Now I haven't really had a chance to play with, or be around play-doh for quite a number of years, but as soon as I opened the little plastic jar, the smell of the play-doh brought back alot of memories. The smell was exactly as I remember it 30 years ago as well as the texture of the doh. The same texture that stuff had from years ago was kinda comforting (in a mental health sort of way). In these days of everyone trying to "improve" stuff, it's good to know that some things are just the same way they were ... and there isn't anything wrong with that.

We came.....We Saw..... We kicked it's ASS !!!!

(Title from Ghostbusters)

Another marathon session from myself and my father-in-law has finally finished the monster swingset/playset. Overcast skies made the forecast for Saturday look bad, but we decided to go for it. We started working on it around 11:00am or so dragging out the tools and stuff that we would need. I still had to make many trips to the garage to grab the pieces and parts as we needed them which sucked, but it was better than getting everything out there and then having it rain on us. Yes I know "who cares if the pieces get wet, it's a freaking outdoor swingset!!". But I liked to keep that parts separated so we didn't have to worry about using the wrong pieces.

I gave my father-in-law an option a couple times during the day to stop working, but he got into the "lets finish it" mindset, which was fine with me. Jenny unfortunately had to work during the day so our "hardware separator" was unavailable for the day (which made the day longer), but my mother-in-law was able to watch the kids during the day which was nice. Finally as it was getting dark (around 8:30pm) we put in the last screws and bolts. The clean-up was quick where we just threw everything into the wheel barrow and threw it into the garage.

Jenny and her mom had ordered Riverbend Pizza. So with muscles aching, and a cold beer in my hand, I ate my pizza. The next day it felt good to look outside and see the completed project. I would never have thought that it would have turned out so well. I hope that my boys get years of enjoyment out of it.

Anybody wanna buy a rock???

As noted in my blog before, I am in the process of some pretty big landscaping projects including the removal of a couple tons of flagstone rocks. The pile of rocks is getting bigger and bigger with only being about halfway done. Now I have plenty of offers from friends to help me get rid of these stones (for free of course) to their own houses and projects, but I decided to see if I could make a little money for mulch and other projects. Now I know that these stones aren't cheap and that people pay big money for landscaping projects, so I figure some landscaping company would be more than happy to get these stones off my hands. Cha-ching!!

So far I have called 5 landscaping companies and no one will buy these stones or know of anywhere that will. This one place actually recommended that I take them to the landfill to get rid of them (yeah right). I guess that I didn't realize that once these stones were in the ground that they aren't good anymore.. they're freaking stone!!!!! I am still trying to figure out why someone wouldn't buy the stone because they are "used". I can see they wouldn't want to bother if I only had a couple stones or a small pile, but these piles are a couple ton at least (so far). I have found out that these rocks sell for .20 - .25 cents per pound. I would be happy for .10 a pound if they came and picked them up (I don't deliver a ton of rock). I have one more message into a landscape company that might be interested, but if not, then a sign goes on the pile in the front of my house or in the peddlers post. Used Rock : Driven only on Sunday : Stored outside : Etc, etc. So far my neighborhood has proven to be a hotbed of getting rid of stuff including an old frige that lasted a week, and a dishwasher that lasted an hour, (of corse they were free). I think the rocks are next.

Yes I am Crabby

The poison ivy has made me a little edgy and crabby the past couple of days since it is continuing to spread and nothing was keeping it in check. I decided to go to the doctor for some real stuff.

I have had this before... numerous times, so I know what cures it. I call the doctor's office and try to get an appointment just for a shot of Cortisone and a prescription for some topical medicine. I tell the nurse how bad it is and she tells me that I should probably see the doctor. Damn #1, there's a wasted hour even with a specific appointment. My doctor has 5 rooms in his practice so he is always behind in time. I get to the doctors and have to fill out paperwork since I hadn't been there in 9 months, and then finally called back. They take my height and weight at the office before going into room #5. Now I have weighed myself at home and actually have been loosing some weight due to the manual labor of cutting sod and working on landscaping so I am wondering if I have lost anymore from the last time. She says how much I weigh (none of your business) and I say, "excuse me... there is no way". This is where I find out that our scale at home is off at least 10 lbs, and not in my favor. Damn #2. So I am depressed a little bit. The wait for the doctor was relatively short I think due to the fact that I was the last appointment of the day and he wanted to get outta there. So he looks me over and says, "yep, that's a bad case of poison ivy" (No Sh*t Sherlock, what was your first clue) so he prescribes some medicine and I talk him into letting me get the topical cream as well. I just spent about an hour there for something that I could have done in 5 minutes with a nurse's aide. So I head out of there and head for the pharmacy, keeping in mind that Jenny's boss asked her to come back into work for a little bit that night so I am trying to get home as soon as possible. The pharmacy is not that busy for 6:30pm at night. I drop off my prescriptions and wander Walgreens. I actually like to wander Walgreens to see all of the cool stuff, toys for the kids, seasonal decorations, and of course the Halloween Candy (shudder). They told me it would be around 10 to 15 minutes which isn't too bad. So after a little wandering I decide to sit down next to the checkout counter and wait. Finally, after a while, they start calling names for prescriptions that are ready to be picked up, which starts forming a very long line with only one person checking people out. My name gets called and I get in line. Of course my luck, everyone in front of me has some sort of freaking problem. One guy pulls up his SHOPPING CART full of stuff to pick up a prescription. WTF? Damn #3. How sad is it that you do your weekly shopping in the Walgreens waiting for your prescription. I am sorry, but if you have that much crap go up to the regular checkout that doesn't have a line of people waiting. This is alot like the reason I don't go into gas stations (or so called "convienence" stores) anymore (I pay at the pump) I will get stuck behind the one yahoo buying lottery tickets and has to hand pick every one separately, and scratch them off right there too!! I don't mind buying one or two items with prescription, but please. Anyway the next person in line has a few items as well, but it isn't a shopping cart full so I figure it will go relatively fast. NO, she swears the the Disney kite that she has is on sale for $1.49 instead of the $1.99 so the person has to call for a price check which of course no one answers. Damn #4. I almost offered her .50 cents to leave. So after a few minutes the clerk takes the 40' walk to the toy isle and sees that it is on sale. Now the next person in line goes into this speech about how his insurance is different, but his wife is on the account but hers is alright, etc. etc. etc. Damn #5. Why the heck didn't he solve this problem when he dropped off his prescription to the girl at the unbusy counter????? Next lady in line goes to pay for her prescription, but doesn't want the generic, so they have to try and find all the paperwork again and see if they have non-generic. Damn #6. Finally I get up to the counter, give them my name, pay for it and leave. I almost said to everyone else in line "see how freaking easy that is??"

Finally I rush home after being at the pharmacy for over an hour only to find out that Jenny's boss changed his mind and decided not to have her come in after all, so I didn't need to rush. Damn #7. Jenny could have told me that an hour before but my phone's battery died. Damn #8.

BUT, I have my medicine and I am feeling better and a little less crabby... Believe it or not.

Manual Labor S**ks

I took this weekend to beat up on myself and see how much my body could actually take. I think I won't be doing that again anytime soon.

Saturday I got a sense if determination and decided that I was going to work on my Sod cutting project for the swingset/playground. I got an early start in the day and thought that I would get as much done this weekend as possible so we could start assembly of the monster swingset next weekend. Much to my surprise I was able to get all of the sod cut up and reassembled to different parts of the yard on Saturday. Much in my favor was that it never got much above 75 degrees all day so it was easier to work outside than in the 90+ degree stuff that I had done a few weekends ago. Yeah I looked like a goof in my ratty shorts and no shirt with a headband on (sweat was getting in my eyes and on my glasses) but I got the job done. Jenny worked Saturday night so I spent the rest of the day resting and playing with kids.

Sunday we decided to start on the swingset which was extremely slow starting. All of the lumber is in the garage (sorted out) so I had to carry pieces to the back yard. I would get all of the lumber needed for a step or two in the instructions. Making the going slow was the fact then Jenny had to take care of Andrew and I found myself stopping numerous times because William was "helping" me or he wanted something. He also got bit by a wasp and was crying and screaming for a while until he finally calmed down. His hand swelled up a little bit (poor kid)Finally my mom showed up to watch the kids and Jenny helped me by sorting the hardware. She would have the hardware that I needed for the step I was working on ready to go which made things go a ton faster. We moved along pretty good and by the time we decided to stop for the night it was almost 7:00pm and we had put a good 10 hours into the project for the day. I think we are on step 22 of 96. It actually kinda looks like a swingset, but there are more days of hardwork ahead, and I am not half as sore as I thought I would be. Either I am getting used to the hard labor or the stuff Sunday wasn't so hard, just long (so to speak)

The most annoying part of the weekend is that I got freakin' poison Ivy. Now when I get poison Ivy I don't just get a little itchy spot, it gets in my blood and spreads all over the place and takes forever to get rid of. I usually go to the doctor for some cortisone, but lately the over the counter stuff has worked pretty good if I get on it soon enough. So I am spreading cream all over my arms trying to knock it down. The strange part is that I have no idea where I got the poison Ivy from since I wasn't in any woods or anything. I am thinking that one of my tools (rake or shovel) has poison Ivy on it, so I will be getting out everything that I came in contact with in the past week and scrubbing it down. Dang it..

Mutiny on the USS Sylvan

Yesterday the family and I visited Monkeyjack and his family at their family's lake cottage. What I thought would be a quiet relaxing day turned out to be a huge party with alot more people than I thought would be up there (around 13 people) It was fun, but I felt sorry for Lori since all she seemed to do was put food out and then put it away all day. Of course the added excitement of the two puppies (not so much puppies anymore as full grown dogs). They would employ their stealth modes every once in a while to get up on tables and eat whatever wasn't bolted down, or one would distract the adults while the other went for the food. So keeping an eye on those two was a task in itself.

After lunch we decided to take the kids out on the water to take them tubing. Unfortunately the speed boat was not working correctly so we used the pontoon. William and I sat in the back of the boat watching the pairs of kids take turns on the tube and I was taking pictures (monkeyjack's camera). Toward the end, Monkeyjack's son wanted to tube, but he needed to be accompanied by his dad so I volunteered to drive the boat since I had alot of experience with that. The first attempt to pull them met with a stalled engine, but I quickly got it refired. The strange part is after I restarted the engine and gunned it, it seemed to go alot faster than it had all day (maybe a fuel problem). Since it was still a pretty slow pontoon I looked for wakes from other boats and would get them out of the pontoon's wake to hit the other wakes a little harder. I felt bad since I found some real good wakes and pounded them pretty good. I had to stop the boat a couple times since once Charlie hit the wake a little hard and hurt is neck, and then he had a couple itches he had to scratch, and then finally he said he was done. When Monkeyjack got back into the boat he asked if anyone wanted to ride the tube back to the cottage. All of the kids said they wanted to but only if I drove the boat and not Monkeyjack since I was giving a bit of a rougher ride. MUTINY !!! But Monkeyjack didn't mind so I gave one of the kids a ride back to the cottage, but unfortunately the engine was bogging down again and all of the wakes were getting smaller and smaller so no rough rides. Get me that speed boat next time and I will throw a few kids off .... he he heeeeee

Testing Animated Gif

Working on an animated logo for my brother's possible new website. It looks better on the website www.daveandjj.com . Also, I am playing with a new website front page. You can check them out at www.daveandjj.com/new and www.daveandjj.com/new2 . They are both the same thing, but one is bigger than the other. I am just playing, but I like the background. I just keep tweeking and can't really get exactly what I want just yet. I don't think I ever will. More playing comming up with new software just aquired from Keith.. stay tuned.

Old Stereos never die

Back in the mid to late 70's we had a "Craig" brand name stereo. This was the typical stereo of the day having AM/FM/8-TRACK/TURNTABLE. Yes 8-track, and you could record onto a blank 8 track tape. Well this stereo went through many uses in our house, and the last one being a kind of practice guide for my brother's drumming. He would throw on an album and put on headphones and try to match the drumming on his drumset for hours on end. I even tried to duplicate some of the records but was nowhere near my brother's talents. Anyway, the last time I saw this stereo it was pretty much used up, with a wadded piece of paper jamed in the turntable to keep it from changing speeds.

Fast forward a little bit to around 7 years ago.

We were cleaning out my Aunt's house after she had passed away and I found the exact same "Craig" stereo in her front room, but in mint condition. She had bought it back in the day but hardly ever played it, ( I think it has a spike jones ablum on it still ) so I grabbed it and took it home. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I figured it never hurts to have a turntable around or even an 8 track player since I still have a few albums and 8 tracks around.

Fast forward to last week.

I am organizing my basement to work on some boat anchor computers and to get an idea of how to lay out my "Sea Shanty" basement remodel. I decide to put together my stereo to give me a little music while I tear into the old computers. I have a newer stereo receiver with all kinds of inputs in the back. I can input 8 different components, have speakers all over the place, and heck I think it will even make me a margarita if asked nicely. Well I put together all of the components and turn it on.... and .... static. No FM antenna, Damn. You think I receiver like this could find out a way to get a radio signal without a stupid antenna. So after a couple of attempts to hobble together a make shift fm antenna I can't get it to work. So I decide to see if I can input the old "craig" stereo into the new receiver and get it to work. After a few plugs here and there I turn everything on and the old "craig" stereo works (even without the fm antenna). It seems weird to imput 70's technology through 00's technology, but hey it works. You may ask why I imputted the old stereo through the new receiver, well you see it's the only way I could listen to it since I haven't quite figured out a way to get the speakers to connect directly to the "craig" stereo (different connections from then to now). Now where are my 8 tracks....

Boo

I was in Walgreens yesterday and saw that they were already putting out the halloween candy. Granted it was a small display, but still, it's freaking 90+ degrees outside. Besides MR's party I really don't want to think about it getting cold again. I complained to Jen about this and was informed that they have had costumes at the Disney store for a couple weeks at least. They can't keep the captain Jack (Pirates... arrrg) costumes in stock, but unfortunatly they don't have adult sized.

A side note to this posting... I was going to put a little halloween graphic on top of this blog to give it a little more flare. I went to yahoo images to look for some halloween clip art or something cute or funny and came across this:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Say it isn't so !! Luckily it was a special offer for last year's halloween and hopefully they won't reissue this stuff again. I am getting a little gaggy right now just thinking of the last Jones soda experience from last Christmas (urp).... I read a review of these flavors and they were, how shall I say it, up to Jones' standards. So of course I will be keeping an eye out for it for MR's halloween party. he he he he he he