Let the Construction Begin! :)

I have purchased what I need to put together a nice, large, deep sand box for the girls. The dimensions are going to be 6 ft. x 6 ft. x 2 ft. (LxWxD) though we'll see about the 2 ft , dimension. This also means that I'll need 72 cubic feet of sand to put in it on top of 6 cubic feet of pea gravel. This also means that I'll be relocating 72 cubic feet of packed soil out of my yard. I have a couple of low spots in the yard so I can fill those in, but that will not account for it all. I need to find a neighbor who needs some soil. :)

I have a feeling that I'll need this long weekend in order to complete this project and recover. At least I'll have a nice break in the middle when I go down to Provo to assist Bob in the assembly of her beast! :)

Anyway, that's all the excitement from me. This post was brought to you by the letters R, S, T, L, N, E, and the number 8.

Stupid Trash Man!

What's with the trash guys? The idiot emptied our trash, but didn't empty it! It's not like he has to get out of his truck to pick it up by hand, the thing has this handy claw on the side and that does all the work. I went to put the thing back in it's little hiding place on the side of the house and found that it was still half full!

I'm interested now to see what happens this week. :)

So, Dubby finds it amusing that I've actually used the word alacrity. I'm not sure what to make of that. Believe it or not, folks, but I have a pretty large vocabulary. It comes from all the reading. Speaking of which, I haven't done as much of that recently as I'd like, so I think I'll start reading another book. Probably the next one in the "Stone of Truth" series by Terry Goodkind. Any of you who like fantasy, will enjoy this series. There's also a love story buried in all the coolness, so it'll appeal to lots. :)

Hmmm... Perhaps I should start reviewing some of the books I have to see if I can get some of you to read some of them. This is something I should consider... I could have a posting for AT LEAST every day of the year. It's worth considering... Would you all like to see something like that? Let me know either way. :)

I'm outtie! This post was brought to you by the letters U, D, Q, and the number 4.

Ugh!!!

Well, It's been more than a week since my last post, so I changed the title of my blog a bit to reflect the alacrity with which I post to the thing. My apologies to all if you've worried that I've passed away, etc. :) That is NOT the case, though it may seem so.

Anyway, I just walked over to the Delta Center, here in Salt Lake City to get free tix to the Circus. We were successful in acquiring the tix, but it's pretty warm outside today. The Delta Center is only a few blocks away, but the sun was beating down on me and I had no shade. I also made the mistake of wearing a dark shirt today. Needless to say, it was pretty "Ugh!" out there today.

I want to send a shout out to all the folks that read my blog regularly, though I don't think that number is all that large. I want to say "Thank You" but that would be too easy, so instead I'll sing a song for you. (insert song of your choice, by the artist of your choice here) There! *bows* I hope you all liked it!

For those of you interested, my WoW character is on the Ysera server and is a member of the Kuhcaw guild. Her name is Amyrylyndyl (yes I'm playing a female character) and she'’s an elf Hunter (Thanks, Thrynn, for the name of her cat :). She has finally made it to level 31 and is (by comments from other members of my guild) cruising! I haven't created any Alts yet as that would mean I have caught up to the rest of my guild (in the 40s) and have time to work on another character. Perhaps any Alt I create will be on another server. We'll see. :)

Time to go! This posting was brought to you by the letters H, O, T, and the number 31.

A.C. ... and Thanks!

I LOVE AIR CONDITIONING! I'm talking about the REAL stuff, not the fake Utah, feeble excuse for AC they seem to love out here. It was installed on Thursday and the house has been at a nice comfy 73 degrees since. :)

Thanks to Cathryn for naming Cat. Keturah is her new name and I've had some comps on it already. You have my thanks! :)

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything for a while, but I've either been busy working, doing odds and ends around the house, caring for everyone, or gaming (WoW and Sidewinder - mostly WoW though). I'm trying to catch up to my friends so I can go on raids with them. I have 11 more levels to go until I'm close enough. Once I catch up, I won't play quite as much, because I won't be playing catch-up... Do you buy that? :)

Karen is still pretty sick. She does lots of hacking and attempts to remove her lungs (by coughing them out) and a good deal of moaning in pain afterwards. I figure she'll get better at some point and move back into the bedroom, but I'm not sure when...

Anyway, I'm going to keep this post short-ish and tell you that it was brought to you by the letters W, S, G, and the number 29.

Quick!

This post will be short and quick since a storm's on its way and I don't know how long 'til it gets here.

Cathryn, did you get the attempt from today to send the newegg wish list? How does it look to you? Is that in your price range? Comments? :)

Dubby, I'd be happy to assist you with your computer questions. I just sent something that I hope will help you. :)

Karen, get better quickly so you can move back into our room. :)

Everyone, please give me some suggestions for Cat's new name. :)


This post was brought to you be the letters F, A, S, T, and the number 7.

Hello?!?

Hello? Is there anyone there? Have I fallen from favor with my readers? It's either that or my last post wasn't worth commenting on.

This post was brought to you by the letters B, Y, E, and the number 0.

Too Long... Sorry.

I just realized, that I haven't posted in more than a week. Too many things have happened in that time frame. It's been too long... Sorry. I have good reasons though.

My last post indicated that the IT department had just been cut in half. Well we just lost another third. My direct supervisor, (head of the IT department) announced last week on Wednesday, that Monday, July 31 would be his last day here. That's tomorrow, folks.

I've been selected to run the IT department (all 2 of us), so this is a bit of a promotion. I'm happy I still have a job, but it doesn't make me happy to see the direction the company is going. I'd feel much better if we hired 2 more people into the IT department and began training them into backups of the 2 remaining full time members of the department. The company would collapse inside of 2 weeks if anything were to happen to either of us and that scares me immensely! It doesn't look like the owner cares about the IT department at all, however and in fact sees IT as nothing but an expense.

I need to do what's best for my family and to that end, I'm making sure that no opportunities pass me by. That being said, I'm NOT going to quit until and unless I find something better at a bigger, more stable company. Anyone know someone who needs a good Sr. Sys Admin? :)

Anyway, in WoW, my character has graduated to level 25 and is doing pretty well. I'm told that I'm moving along at a pretty good clip. That would make me feel better if I could actually catch up to some of the other people I play with. I think I'd do better if I hadn't chosen some of the things I chose with the character earlier on. Oh Well! That's life I suppose. Anyway, I'm taking suggestions for the name of my pet cat (in the game). It's basically a large black panther that advances along with me. The game names it "Cat" be default, but I can select a name myself. Of course, once I select a name, it's final. So... Anyone have any suggestions? :)

We're getting REAL air conditioning! It'll be installed on August 10 and the Swamp cooler will be ripped outta the house! Silly Utah folks stilol believe swamp coolers are useful. That means I'll have to relocate a few things out in the yard and I'm NOT looking forward to all the digging it will require. Such is life, eh? :)

This post brought to you by the letters A, C, and the number 10.

Mixed Feelings

I now have mixed feelings about my company. About 3 weeks ago, the controller of the company left abruptly. I had thought I was becoming pretty good friends with this guy, but then he left under less than favorable circumstances. Apparently, there had been some financial details that were slipping past him or he was missing or something and it turns out that the company wasn't doing as well as we all believed. Suffice it to say that once the real data came out, it was clear that we owed the Feds some money and we weren't doing as well as we had believed. As a result of this, some rather unpleasant events occurred.

The lay offs began in the IT department first. Half of the staff of 6 was let go in the span of an hour. The lucky ones with a job after the smoke settled were my boss (a developer), a developer (and scripter), and the sys admin (me). I'm lucky in that my boss, the guy who had to implement the lay offs, went to bat for me and made it clear to the owner that without me, the computer infrastructure of the company would collapse in pretty short order. He tried to save another of the unfortunates, but could only get so far with the owner.

The IT department wasn't the only department affected. Another department has to cut its hours in half, 2 other departments are losing 1 member each with the possibility of one department losing 2 members. Have I mentioned that I work for a rather small company and that losing that many people is pretty significant? As far as I can tell, that's approximately 20% of our workforce in one fell swoop. I hope we can pull out of the dive it feels like we're in.

On the positive side, I still have a job, I've been told by the president of the company that I'm critical for the company's continued health, and I got the backups to work correctly finally. This week has definitely been filled with mixed feelings when it comes to the place I work.

I'll live and I'll get through it. I'll also update my resume just in case. I'm so jaded...

This post was brought to you by the letters P, I, N, K, S, L, I, P, and the number 3. Please excuse the duplicate letters, they requested to be allowed to do so.

Stupid.

What is wrong with people? Why can't people live up to their end of agreements? The previous owner of the house we're living in has still not completed his end of a legal, binding contract. He was supposed to arrange the installation of an AC unit, a gutter, and get a furnace inspection by the end of June. It is now the 17th of July and none of this has happened. I've attempted to contact him with little productive response. I suppose I'll have to sue him. I don't want to do that, but I might not have a choice. The temps have been near 100 degrees recently and the "swamp cooler" that Utah residents are so fond of just can't "cut the mustard" as it were. It's been mid- to upper-80s inside the house with the cooler on full bore. I keep just handing the girls glasses of ice water to try to keep them hydrated.

Why do people have to be so stupid? Why couldn't he just do what he said he would? I suppose I was the stupid one for believing the guy would actually live up to his word. Now, Karen, Sara, and Rebecca have to suffer for it with me. Such is life I guess.

This rant was brought to you by the letters U, G, H, and the number 100.

H-O-T!!!

It was 103 on the Fahrenheit thermometer at one point today. That's too hot for my tastes. So far I'm not a big fan of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, but I haven't really given it much chance, though days like this one don't help it too much. Anyone else want to weigh in on this one? What do you think of the Salt Lake Valley. I'm not a fan, I'd rather be in Virginia or Ohio, or anywhere that is lush. Yes I know that means humidity, but I grew up with Humidity and a good AC unit can work wonders when it comes to humidity.

Too bad people around here don't believe in AC, instead they use "Swamp Coolers" which work by sucking air through water soaked filters that cool the air (and humidify it in the process) that is then blown into the house. The biggest drawback is that once the ambient humidity hits a certain level (I'm not sure what that level is, FYI), the system is no longer effective in cooling the air. Basically, when you really need to be cooled off, a "Swamp Cooler" can't do the job. I can't stand to be hot, when I get overheated, I have pretty bad problems. It's almost like I'm having a continual case of heat stroke/exhaustion when I get hot.

We're supposed to have AC in our house. The former owners agreed to install it in order to get us to buy it. Unfortunately, we haven't heard anything about when that will happen. It was supposed to happen by the end of last month, but it hasn't happened yet. If it doesn't happen by the end of this month, he'll owe us $100, but I'd rather have the AC unit than the money.

We'll see what happens. I'm going to go attempt to cool off a bit.

This post was brought to you by the letters W, O, W (yeah, I know it repeats), and the number 19.

One more day.

I've decided that the weekends need one more day. And every weekend needs to be mother-in-law free. Basically, part of each day of my weekend was burned because of my mother-in-law. This leads to the feeling that one's weekend was wasted. I won't get into details because it's not necessary, but I want to be completely done with her for a while. She is such a drain on my time and emotions, that I feel older than I am when I have to exchange more than a few sentences with her. Nevertheless, The weekend could use another day.

On to brighter things... My Night Elven Hunter is now 17th level! Pretty soon she'll be able to find better armor and weapons. If you don't know WoW, just ignore the previous sentence as well as this one. I'm trying to find some good coupons from Dell so I can buy Karen a good laptop. I keep finding some pretty good deals, but the coupon codes have a limited number of uses (in this case 4000) and then they expire. It SUCKS! Basically, once the general public finds out about it, the ebayers have already used the coupons up. I don't blame them, but Dell needs to do away with the limited uses and they'd have quite a few more sales. I'd have made a purchase by now if that were the case. :)

Anyway, it's time for me to go enjoy WoW now, so I'll post again later! :)

Tonight's post was brought to you by the letters A, F, K, and the number 17.

Explain, Please.

I'm sure there are a number of you who read my blog (even if that number is 0 :) and wonder why I pick the letters I do when I do. Usually, I pick letters that are significant to the blog entry, but occasionally, I'll just pick random letters. Sometimes you just have to know me in order to pick up on it. :) Once you find that you're picking up on the significance, you should call and arrange an appointment to your local head shrink as you'll have no doubt delved too deeply into the enigma that is me. HAHA!

Anyhoo... That's my $.02 worth. Please feel free to salt and pepper to taste so that you can swallow the explanation.

Today's post was brought to you by the letters P, I, K, and the number 4. (Put the letters of these last 2 postings together in order and you get my nickname. :)

WoW Addict!

I'm now a WoW addict. I made the joyous mistake of purchasing the game. It's a boatload of fun, folks!

It other news, I haven't been posting as much the past week and I'm sorry to you all for that. I'll endeavor to perform better in the future.

This posting will be brief as I have a killer headache and will probably go take a nap under a fan to try to make it go away.

This post was brought to you by the letters I, S, E, and the number 11. Words are Bob's deal. :)

Low Point, Please?!

WARNING! Slightly depressing post follows! WARNING!

I'm not sure if a week can be much worse? An unimaginable number of things went wrong this week that has taken a pretty serious toll on my mood. Everything from lost files (with a broken backup so we couldn't restore it) to unplugging the production SQL Server in the middle of the afternoon, to disassembling a DAT tape autoloader to remove a bad tape from the embedded DAT drive. The week is only about half over, and I dread what tomorrow and Friday bring... I just hope I've reached the low point... Please!

The only bright thing is that we were able to convince the boss to allow us to spend a little money to purchase a piece of software that will safeguard the company's data. We've been working on the upper management on this for quite some time now.

Tonight's post was brought to you by the letters U, G, H, and the phrase "wrung out". The numbers get the night off.

The New Member of the Family...

Please join me in welcoming Tree to the Harris family. I'm sure Karen will eventually tell you all about it. Yes, we did indeed acquire a Red Sunset Maple and located it in such a way that it should shade about half of our back yard once it fills out. (in about a decade! :)

Did you think I was announcing something else? HA!!! Anyway, There was a boatload of digging and a pretty serious amount of lifting done this weekend as I also installed an over-the-stove microwave oven on Saturday, the same day as the tree went in, and we had company today. There was a good bit of work that went into getting the house presentable for that occasion.

Let's see, what else... Oh! FYI, DO NOT write "wash me" on someone's car unless it's on the window. It actually scratches the finish and doesn't come off once the car is clean. No big worries, though I'm sure that a good waxing will fill in the scratches (surface scratches only) and make the car look really good. Maybe I'll re-clean Lizzzie (yes, 3 'Z's) some time this week and give her a good waxing. Then, the following week, I'll give a good cleaning and waxing to Karden. We'll see.

I'm tired and I really need to just go to bed early so I can at least partly recover from the weekend. I'm sure I'll be able to recover from the days off by going to work, right? :)

Anyway, I'm heading to bed. Tonight's silliness was brought to you by the word increment, the letters R, S, M, and the number 5.

Clean!

I washed the cars today. Both of them. You might think this isn't anything particularly noteworthy, but my wife and I know that it is quite significant. This is the first washing of this sort the cars have seen in very nearly a year. I know that's a sad, sad thing, but we've been living at Karen's parents' house and it just didn't seem like the thing to do. There were too many other more important things to do, but now that we have our own house and our own bills, I feel I can take the time (and water) to clean them sufficiently. As an added bonus, I'll be able to see out the side windows again. Yay!!! :)

On another note, we're getting little things around the house done bit by bit. I think we've both gotten it into our heads that it doesn't need to all be done immediately (just in a big hurry :), but we are allowed to take our time. Of course, it's not like anyone will be telling us what we can do and when we can do it (with the possible exception of Karen), so there's no real rush. We'll have our house-warming when we have it.

We're resisting the urge to go out and buy stuff for our new house, though I do go out and get things that I know we'll need, but only so often and a few things at a time, but there's this couch that I know Karen loves and to be honest, I like it too. :) It has a love seat that comes with it too, and we'll have to see what develops as to whether or not the set makes its way into our house.

OK. I've filled you in on a few things - I see no need to overwhelm you with a novelette in a single posting, so I'll end this one for now. Speaking of which, what kinds of things do my readers read? I'm interested to know if my audience is a bunch illiterate Tooks (Merri and Pippin), or brainiatic bookworms. Please post a reply so I can get a good count. Thanks muchly! I appreciate it.

This posting has been brought to you by the word expurgate, the letters X, R, F, and the number 9.

BOO!!!

I was just checking to see if everyone was still reading my blog. It's been so long since I updated this here thing-a-ma-bob that I figured you'd all fallen asleep! :) Heh! I guess it's time for me to stop slacking off when it comes to posting and updating my blog. That being said, I'll say good night for now and wrap my head around what I want to say to everyone.

Tonight's posting was brought to you be the word, existentialism (just for you, Bob) and I'm giving the letters and numbers the night off.

P.S. BOO!!! Are you awake yet?! :)

Update pending...

Please bear with us. We know it's been a while since a good update has been provided, but we're moving! Give us a break! :)

We'll give an update to everyone as soon as everything's been completed.

Stop Waste - What?!

So, as you probably already know, we had another set back last night in that we had a pretty significant water leak come up and give us a smack down. I'm positive Karen has told you all about it, so I won't. Instead, I'll tell you how it was a false alarm and the water is back on at the house. I won't go into details, but the long and the short of it is that after turning the Stop Waste valve off and back on again, the massive leaking from that very valve stopped and it turns out that if the valve isn't 100% on or off it will do that as designed (it's designed to release the pressure in the sprinkler lines once it's turned off, but will release the pressure if it's partly on as well).

Anyway, we've decided it would be better if we concentrated on the upper level and the furniture, then the rest of the house incrementally as time allows (we might have time to do the rec room before moving in and maybe not). I'm fairly certain that the main level will have to wait until next week some time. Perhaps longer, depending on the other projects that need to be addressed.

Anyway, that's the update so far. From my point of view at least. :)

Special thanks to the letters, R, S, T, L, N, E and the number 8.

OUCH!!!

Can anyone out there tell me why my lower back would hurt when I spent a lot of time painting ceilings?! SHEEESH! Anyway, I'm way behind on my hoped schedule. Hopefully I can get back on track (read that as not loose any more time) and be able to use some of the down time I have built into my schedule to finish on schedule.

---Beginning of Product Critique---
By the way, the Wagner Power Roller is NOT the tool to use when painting ceilings. It weighs about 3-4 times as much as a conventional roller and isn't as long as a conventional roller with a short extension. I haven't tried it on walls yet (it may be the perfect thing for walls), but I will when I start to paint the many walls of Baked Scone :) The roller itself provided good coverage when I had the energy to hold it to the ceiling for more than a moment. The edging tool that comes with the Power Roller is useless though. I get much better results with a conventional brush. The cleanup time is abysmal as well. It takes 45 minutes plus to perform the cleanup tasks they recommend which is much longer than you want to use the thing if you try to use it on a ceiling. I'm not sure it was worth the money to get it, but I'll wait until I use it on a bunch of walls before I judge that one.
---End of Product Critique---

So there is one coat on the ceilings of the bedrooms and hallway upstairs. There's the vaulted ceiling in the living room and kitchen/dining room on the main floor to do and the ceiling of the rec room on the lower level to do. I got a chance to look at my work today. I wasn't impressed with my work. Too many missed spots, though the coverage was pretty good. I'll stick with a conventional roller for the remainder of the ceilings in the house to be sure I have a good result.

Tonight's painting plan is that I'll get the second coat on the ceilings of the bedrooms and the first coat (at least) on the shelves of the pantry. I'll do it first and see if it needs a second coat (I hope not). The rest of the evening may see me working on the ceilings of the main and lower levels or furniture. It just depends on what's needed and when we need it.

The washer and dryer pair arrived today. The guys were really quick with the install and testing of the units. I'm happy with the machines and I think Karen will be as well.

The Landscaper is supposed to show up today to complete the sprinkler system repair and then we can get the lawn watered properly so that it will green up.

I'll be happy when the AC is installed as well since it is really hot these days. It's supposed to get up to 97 today! The swamp cooler just doesn't cut it and anyone who says it does is smoking something. You should try to locate their stash and share! :)

OK, enough ranting. I'm glad to be back in the home owners' club even though it is going to be a boatload of work for a while. I look forward to getting it finished enough to live in it and get a little rest before the next big project. Who are we kidding?! There's always a next big project!! I'll rest eventually.

I'll try to give another update tomorrow. For now I think I'll just ache a little. :)

Later!