What's the Holdup?

OK. In 5 days, tax returns are due. How many of you fine folks have completed and filed them? A lot fewer that should have, right? :) If you're getting money back, why haven't you filed them?

I know why they haven't been filed if you owe, but it just doesn't make any sense not to file if you're getting money back. If you wait until the last minute, it will take longer to get your money back. It just seems like a no-brainer to me, but I'm sure that far too many people out there haven't filed yet. It's a shame really...

OK, enough of the finger shaking. Hopefully you'll all get a giant return and will be able to afford a huge trip or something. :)

Please forgive my rant, I just needed to get it out. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters I, R, S, and the number 15.

Custom Thank You Cards!

We all have to send Thank You cards at some point. In some cases, we have to send a lot of them. Most of us will trek out to our local department store of choice and pay a lot of money for a generic card that looks like all the others and says something that isn't your words. Why not use your own words on a card that you customized so that it will be unique? Why not do all this from the comfort of your own home? Take a look at these Thank you Cards and pick one out that you like. You can even customize the text on the interior.

This one was my favorite even though it's a business card. They have a pretty large selection of cards. They are geared towards business cards, but most of these have personal applications. I'm sure we could all find at least one that matches the way we do things. I'm pretty sure my wife would prefer to have this one.

Be sure to go to www.cardsdirect.com and take a look at what they have. If you don't like what they have in stock, you can customize cards with a picture of your choosing.

Get all these options for a better than most price! Check out their prices and be aware that you can have custom, professional quality Thank You cards for a niceprice in about a week. How can you do any better?

This post was brought to you by the letters C, A, R, D, and the number 4.

Leeches...

I gave blood to the American Red Cross today. So now I can say that I've contributed to society. :) Unfortunately, I seem to have the same sort of difficulty with the needles they use as with the ones the doctor's assistants use to do blood draws at the doctor's office. The thing works for a moment and then the person has to giggle the needle around in my arm so that it'll work again.

OUCH!!! Please, for the love of all that's nerdy, DON'T DO THAT!!!

At least this time the needle didn't go all the way through my vein and hit the nerve.

Anyway, I gave blood and they'll be able to tell me my blood type. :) I can give again near the end of May if I remember what they said correctly. Hopefully, that experience won't be the same as today's um... fun.

This post was brought to you by the letters A, B, O, and the number 470.

Interesting.

Just how much stock can a person place on announcements on April 1? :) Why not see what the Queen has to say about those sorts of things. An additional hint could be found in the sponsors of my last post. A little rearranging and you'll get there. :)

Good news! I now have an office at work! I got a call this morning asking which tasks I was working on and to move my equipment into an office around the corner. Apparently this office was earmarked for me already, but I wasn't put into it when I was hired. Go figure! :) I no longer have a window, but I do have an office.

I'll have to use the company webcam for a periodic view of the outside. :) Besides, I'm in IT and we typically don't like too much of the "Evil Day Star." :)

This post was brought to you by the letters O, F, F, I, C, E, and the number 23.

April...

Wow, it's April already! Time flies these days. Things have been busy and both the Queen and I have been slacking on posting regularly. We have our reasons, of course, but the Queen is much better with words than I am so I'll let her tell you all about it.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing to put in the first crop of our garden (if the snow will ever stop that is). At least as a result of the very wet winter, we are officially out of the drought! Yay! Water! :)

The pager went off twice last night. :( I was up from 2am until 4am with about 10 minutes of sleep in the middle when I fixed one issue before the second one hit. I'm pretty tired at this point.

I'm going to get back to work now. Later!

This post was brought to you by the letters, O, D, L, F, O, E, and the number 1.

Happy Birthday Princess!

The Princess had a birthday today. Unfortunately, both the Queen and I are under the weather and her celebration was quite minimal. I have to apologize to her for ruining her celebration. Hopefully whatever I have (it feels like the stomach flu or some such) will clear up enough to allow me to go to work without too much issue.

So, in keeping with traditions...

Happy Birthday to you-
Happy Birthday to you-
Happy birthday, dear Princess,
Happy Birthday to you!

I could go on, but I don't think I will. :) Hopefully I'll feel better soon.

This post was brought to you by the letters F, L, U, and the number 8

Queen Grump.

The Queen is not feeling well. This is NOT a good thing. When the Queen is not feeling well, her fuse is clipped to the length of about a millimeter and packed with a lot more punch. Woe be to you if you're in her line of sight when the fuse becomes lit.

In her defense, we were pushing her buttons, by not feeling badly. We should have known better. Silly family... :)

I can understand her shortened temper as mine becomes shortened when I'm not feeling well just like hers, but it's a real bitch to be on the receiving end of it. :) I'll have to try to do something that may help her feel better. Hmmm... perhaps I'll offer her some chocolate (anyone have some Belgian chocolate), a warm, comfy blanket (we've got a couple of those around here), and a hug (any time she wants one). :*

Wish me luck! :)

This post was brought to you by the letters S, I, C, K, and the number 6.

10 Years

The Queen and I've been married for ten years now and we're going out to celebrate tomorrow night. :)

Happy anniversary to us!

This post was brought to you by the letters H, I, T, C, H, E, D, and the number 10.

1 Month!

Today marked 1 month at the new job. So far, so good. I'm getting the hang of things and people seem to appreciate my efforts and understand that I'm new. I think it'll all work out and I'm beginning to understand how all the software interacts with the various databases. Yay! :) I've put a lot of hard work into learning the particulars of this specific position.

Next week I have training for 3 days which means 3 consecutive days of getting there at 7:00 and leaving at 14:30. Joy - NOT!

So far this week the pager has disrupted my sleep each and every night. I'm hoping tonight will be different, but I doubt it. Anyway, I just wanted to mark the occasion. :) Now I can get back to my regular posting. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters D, B, A, and the number 1.

Leashed!

I am now officially leashed! My new job has seen fit to provide me with a cell phone/pager with which to keep me in tune with the SQL Servers.

Yipee!

Then again, maybe not. Along with the leash, I was informed today that I'm now going to get a turn in the rotation... starting on FRIDAY!!! As in 2 days from now! Sheesh! I thought I had until at least the 1st of next month before I was thrown to the wolves. Oh well... :)

Wish me luck!

This post was brought to you by the letters T, R, E, O, and the number 750.

Paintballin'!

I've always wanted to go paintballing, but have never had the opportunity. I'm still interested and I'm planning on looking for someone out here to play with. You know of anyone? If you're interested, please let me know. If you're really into the game, I know where you can get some good paintball equipment. Go check out the folks at www.pntball.com and check out their selection of Tippmann guns, Smart Parts guns, spyder guns, and more. There's a whole laundry list of other equipment from Empire, Gen-X, VForce, Draxxus, and others.

Whether you're looking for a new mask, a nice extra capacity hopper, a new elbow, or a new barrel, or even a complete kit, www.pntball.com is the place to go. Hopefully, I can get a group of people together this spring and summer and we'll be able to go paintballing.

This post was brought to you by the letters F, U, N, and the number 4.

First Week

The first week is now over and I've started the second week. I have to say that last week was nothing but tiring. There was so much information thrown at me that I haven't recovered yet.

I will say that so far this week, I've had a chance to digest more of the information that from last week. I've been able to actually USE some of it productively. :) Yay me! I still have quite a way to go with it though.

They're interested in me enough to have me look into some training courses they could send me to which means they're interested in investing more into me. It also could mean that they think I need a lot of help, but we'll just stay on the positive, right? :) Right!

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you how things were going at the new place. I'll post at a later date!

This post was brought to you by the letters D, B, A, and the number 2005.

Day One.

Today was my first day at my new job. I met some pretty nice folks there and I think I'll be fine there once I get up to speed. I'll have a bit of homework to do in order to freshen up my DBA skills. Ayone know where I can find some good, free, online tutorials? :)

Please keep in mind that it's possible that I've seen a particular tutorial, but I appreciate anything that you recommend, because it's quite possible that I didn't see it with my search. :)

Anyway, I'm off to do a little homework. Wish me luck at work!

This post was brought to you by the letters J, O, B, and the number 5.

An Excerpt...

Seen on a VD card the Queen gave me yesterday.

FRONT:
Roses are red,
and sometimes they're thorny.

When you're not with me,
I get really...

It starts out pretty interesting doesn't it? I'm supposed to be thinking a certain way on VD, right?

INSIDE:
...corny.

I know what you were thinking.

Shame on you.

Tell me which one of you wouldn't have been caught by that one?

No lies! Be honest!

That's better... :)

FYI: I still wore all black yesterday. I can't stand VD. :P pthpthpthphthtph!!!

This post was brought to you by the letters C, O, R, N, Y, and the number 7.

New Entertainment

I have found yet another way (or twelve) to decrease productivity. Find some web comics! :) I have a few links to some of the ones I follow on the right side over there, but there are tons more available. Check out www.keenspot.com for a couple dozen different ones.

I'm going to add a few more to my list of frequented webcomics. Be warned, that they may not be agreeable to you. They are NOT the same comics you'd find in your Sunday paper. :) You have been warned!

This post was brought to you by the letters C, O, M, I, C, S, and the number 6.

Accepted!

I have accepted the position I was offered yesterday. There is a pay increase of just over 12.5%, a LOT more benefits (costing me slightly less out of pocket), and a TON less responsibility. Not to mention, the company is a LOT more stable than my old one.

I'd say I'm MUCH better off now. :)

My thanks to Dubby and everyone else for the great reference. I start work at 8am on Monday!!! Woot!

This post was brought to you by the letters J, O, B, and the number 18 - yeah, I repeated the sponsors - sue me. :)

An Offer!

Today, I picked up a packet of paper from my second choice of employment. It is a job offer and since it appears that the curse of "The Financial Department" has delayed the decisions of my first choice, I'll probably accept it.

As a result of the curse, it will be a couple more weeks at least until my first choice would have an offer for me. The other drawback about my first choice is that they want to bring 3 contractors for a short term contract and at the end, offer the best 1 person the position. The offer I got today from my second choice is a direct hire position. Which do you think is better for me and you only get 1 guess? :)

I'm pretty sure that unless my first choice pulls something out of a hat (like an offer for a permanent position) tomorrow morning, I'll be accepting this offer. They want me to start on Monday. Can you tell I'm pleased? :)

This post was brought to you by the letters J, O, B, and the number 18.

Bullseye.

Perhaps I need to get a personal fire-suit. You know, the kind professional race car drivers use to protect them from fire. I say this because apparently, I wear a shirt with a giant bullseye painted on it. This bullseye happen to be completely invisible to me. It's either that or I'm blind. I'm not sure exactly which.

Twice today, the Queen has become unglued about something completely out of my hands, and directed her ire at me. Trust me, you don't want to be the recipient of that fire storm. I can accept her flames if I'm the actual cause of it. You know, if I had done the typical husband thing and screwed up her plans or her property, I would actually deserve it.

I see no reason to be anyone's whipping boy just because they need to be pissed off at someone. I could even deal with it if I got an apology when I'm wrongly persecuted. Unfortunately for me, that's not happening and I need some creative assistance in resolving this issue.

I'm sure I'm not the only one around here with this problem. How do the rest of you handle it. I'm not sure whether to become unglued myself (probably not a good idea), scream something sarcastic back at her and let her stew in her own juices, shut up and take it (I KNOW this one isn't a good idea), demand an apology and tell her to redirect her anger at the true target, or something else that I haven't considered.

Do any of you nice folks have a suggestion? I'm on my knees and asking for assistance. Thank you very much.

Upset!

Wow! What a game! The Giants won 17-14 over the Patriots! That was not expected. I guess the Giants just wanted the win more I guess. :)

Congrats to the Giants! They beat my Cowboys on the way here and now they've beaten the unbeatable.

Congrats!

This post was brought to you by the letters W, O, W, and the number 1.

The American Money Sink...

You all have 3 guesses to figure out what the Great American Money Sink is. OK, so you don't really get 3 guesses and this isn't the one at the TOP of the list, but it's pretty close. :) A house is at the top of the list, but the automobile follows closely behind.

The multi-function light/windshield wiper/washer switch in the steering column of our 1996 Dodge Intrepid died today in the middle of what can only be described as a mini-blizzard and when it died, it did so rather dramatically. :)

Apparently, there was acrid, black smoke that poured from the steering column for a while while the switch was in its death throes. This absolutely freaked the Queen out and she called me nearly hysterical. Like a knight in shining armor, I went to her rescue and once the machine was back home (I drove it :), I investigated and found the source of the issue.

Tomorrow she'll be picking up a used replacement part for $35 (a new one runs $145) and I'll install it tomorrow afternoon. Joy! :)

Wish me luck!

This post was brought to you by the letters C, A, S, H, and the number 145.

The Interview

It went well! :) I'm happy to say that it went much better that I had anticipated. I was grilled of course, but the same thing had been done to me when I interviewed for the place that just gave me my pink slip.

I was impressed with the scrutiny of the people interviewing me and I think they were impressed with my responses, at least the remarks they were giving each other during the process seemed to indicate that. They also said to me point blank that they were recommending me for a second interview. They also used some of the interview time for the next guy to talk to me further. After they kept me for 15 minutes of the next guy's interview time, they introduced me to the man I'd be having the second interview with and I talked to him for an additional 20 minutes. I'm not sure if I had my second interview already or not. :)

Their plan is to bring in 3 people on a temp-to-perm basis for this job, work us like mad for a month or so, and then keep the 1 or 2 that did the best. They seemed to indicate that I was by far the best of the crop they had interviewed to date.

Wish me luck! We'll see what comes of it.

This post was brought to you by the letters L, U, C, K, and the number 1.

Interview...

In less than 2 hours, I have an interview with a local company. Although it's another smaller company, I'm hoping it will go well. If it does, then I'll have income again after only a short time without. :) I really like the sound of that. If it's not what I'm interested in, at least I'll have had a chance to polish up my interviewing skills.

Wish me luck! I'll post later today with my impressions on the interview.

This post was brought to you by the letters H, O, P, E, and the number 3.

The Search Goes On...

So far the search has been exhausting. I've looked into at least 60 positions and have applied for about 30 of them. I have a lot more to do, but I have confidence that I'll have a new job by the end of the month. Wish me luck in achieving that goal. :)

Anyway, if you're wondering why I haven't posted since last Tuesday, this should answer that question. I apologize for not posting something about my situation sooner.

This post was brought to you by the letters R, E, S, U, M, E, and the number 30.

Nailed!

The hammer fell today at work and I happened to be one of the 2 folks caught under it. That's right people, I was laid off today any I'm not happy about it. I could rant and rave about how I hate the company and spit bile about the situation, but I won't. I'll simply say that through no fault of my own, I'm no longer a full-time employee there (I'm a contractor until the end of the month) and I'm available to anyone looking for a full-time Senior Systems/Network Administrator in the Salt Lake City area.

The owner of the company decided he wanted to suck more money out of the company into his own pocket and decided that since he doesn't like IT, I was just so much overhead. He'll find out shortly, when the systems begin to crash that I wasn't for show. I wish the rest of the IT staff good luck in finding employment elsewhere, because they'll need it.

Stay tuned for the next development...

This post was brought to you by the letters P, I, N, K, S, L, I, P, and the number 2.

Relationship Maintenance

Hey guys, (ladies too) are you looking for some ideas to help maintain your relationship with your significant other? You might want to get some romantic ideas from RomanceForEveryone.com. They have a lot of suggestions and ideas on how to keep your relationship from fading.

Whether or not you're a romantic at heart, you could probably make positive use of the information found on the site. I know we could use it here in the castle. :)

Anyway, make sure you check out their sweet love notes or the read a love poem to your wife. You can also do this for your husband, girlfriend, or boyfriend. Take a look and see what you can find. There's plenty of information for anyone who happens to be picky.

This post was brought to you by the letters S, A, P, P, Y, and the number 2. :)

The Lumber Is Gone

The tree has been disassembled! It's nice and cozy in its box in the basement. The lights (lingerie) came off it pretty easily. :) We now have a lot more usable space in the living room now. It's a nice change.

If the weather will cooperate with me, I'll be able to take down the lights on the outside of the house, but it looks like that won't happen before February, if then. Oh well, such is life, eh? :)

This post was brought to you by the letters G, S, I, N, V, and the number 45.

Art Appreciation

I'd love it if my daughters, Pink Princess and Purple Dragon, became famous artists and supported the Queen and me, but I won't count on it. In the mean time, I'll continue to check out Park West Art Gallery to see the good stuff. I don't claim to be an art connoisseur, far from it in fact, but I do know where to see the kind of art I like.

You should try them out as well. If you really like something, you can get it from them as well. They have auctions frequently and I'm sure there will be something you like there.

Who knows - you might discover the next Van Gogh!

This post was brought to you by the letters A, R, T, and the number 7.

Timber!!!

The Queen is stripping our Christmas tree. Soon, it'll be mostly naked and it'll be up to me to remove its lingerie and bed it.

For you gutter-minded folks, that means remove the lights, take the tree apart and pack it in its cardboard box. :) You should be ashamed you even thought that way about our innocent tree. :P

Anyway... The tree and its associated decorations are coming down and will soon be packed away.

This post was brought to you by the letters X, M, A, S, and the number 9.

I Want To Go On A Cruise...

...for my honeymoon, albeit 10 or so years too late. The Queen and I never went on a honeymoon when we were married oh so many years ago. I've wanted to go on a cruise again since 1992 when I got to cruise to the Bahamas with my college roommate. I know the Queen hasn't really gone on a cruise and I think she'd really enjoy herself.

As I said before, I cruised to the Bahamas. It was incredible to be out on the ocean in the sunshine simply relaxing and forgetting all about anything that had worried me before. The ship made port in several locations and I got the chance to go snorkeling above a live reef. That was one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had.

I think I'd like to cruise to the Hawaiian Islands next time, though I'm not sure how long that would take. :) I'd also be interested in another Caribbean cruise, only this time with the Queen instead of my college roommate.

If you've been considering a cruise to somewhere warm and exotic, try Apple Vacations, Disney Cruise Lines, Princess Cruise Lines, or any of the others you can reach through the good folks at www.all-travel.com.

Right now, it's a little on the chilly side here in the U.S. Why not warm up the blood and go on a cruise.

This post was brought to you by the letters Z, X, Q, and the number 0.

Breakfast For Dinner

Tonight, we had breakfast for dinner. There were a number of items in the freezer that were various types of breakfast food and we needed space, so, we had breakfast for dinner. Toaster Strudel, Eggo Nutrigrain Waffles, and Pillsbury Maple Pancakes all played a big part in the sustenance had in this household tonight. Add to that a big glass of milk and we're all set. :)

What do you expect from royalty? We're known for being lazy anyway (royalty, that is).

I think every household should have breakfast for dinner every so often. It brings out the kid in us. Don't you agree? :)

This post was brought to you by the letters Y, U, M, and the number 6.

Now Where's My Password?

I've lost my password enough times that I need to have a utility to help me get them back or recover it using the Excel password recovery tool they have over at www.password-studio.com.

If you have a password or eight from an Office product or products, you need a utility like this. Take a look at what they have to offer and see if it fits your needs. I just wish I had something like this when I lost all my passwords. Everyone who has a computer needs a good set of utilities just in case the worst happens. Just don't forget your passwords, OK? :)

This post was brought to you by the letters O, H, N, O, and the number 5.

Quiet House

The house is strangely quiet. Just moments ago, the Dragon requested time to play on the computer. The Queen said no and the dragon proceeded to continue harassing her until the Queen raised her voice. Now the quiet is deafening. It won't last too long though - the offspring will be at each others' throats in no time.

I think the Dragon is getting a bit too pushy in pushing her boundaries.

So have your youngins done this recently?

Why must we snap to get them to understand no means no?

This post was brought to you by the letters N, O, and the number 8.

Recover a Stranded Web Site.

Have you had a computer failure and loose the local copy of your website? Want a local copy of your blog? Need to get that website you created for that long, lost computer course you made in college? How about the website you created several years ago and forgot the password to? You can get it if you have some software that can traverse and capture website.

Www.web-site-downloader.com has a piece of software that can download your site so you can view it or edit it while not connected or copy it to disc. The software indicates a quick, easy setup and download. Go check out their site and see what they have to offer.

I have had several sites that I wish I could recover and it took me quite some time to remember or recover a password, find ftp software and perform the download. This is another alternative. See what you think!

This post was brought to you by the letters W, E, B, and the number 6.

Visitor...

We have a visit from Diana this weekend and while we considered simply haveing her watch our kids, it just doesn't seem fair to make her do so. So, we'll pay her to do it. :) Free room and board for the entire weekend as well as a feast of food preped with loving hands for her to consume. She'll also got some tech support thrown in.

I'd say we getting the better end of the deal. :) LOL!

Good luck at BYUID!

This post was brought to you by the letters F, U, N, and the number 4.

Looking for Web Hosting?

If you're out there looking for a web host, be sure to compare for the best price and features according to what you're looking for. A good place to do your comparisons is over at http://www.webhostingchoice.com. With a few parameters entered, and a few clicks of the mouse, they'll churn out a comparison chart with a recommendation for you based on what you requested. You can then click on the hosts in the chart to get the specific features and services they each offer.

It doesn't matter if you're looking for a host for a personal site host or a business site. You'll find some good information at their site. Go on over and check them out!

This post was brought to you by the letters H, O, S, T, and the number 3.

Feeling Better

I'm feeling much better today. The chills, fever, and cough all seem to have gone the way of the Dodo. I'm really glad the worst of the sickness is over. :) Had it not been, this would have been an unpleasant weekend. :) Good thing I have the entire thing to relax and recover!

That's all for now, I'll catch you all later.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, O, O, D, and the number 24.

Inkjet Cartridges on the Cheap!

Which of you don't have a printer? That's right, very few of you. How many of you are rich? Again, very few of you. Why not save a bit of cash when you buy your inkjet cartridges? I thought you'd like that one. :)

If you're like me and have a Canon printer, please check out the cheap Canon printer cartridge at inkjetdeals.info. If you have a Brother, Dell, Epson, HP, or Lexmark printer, this is the place for you. Check out these tips for saving ink in your printers. There are some really good ideas in there.

Check out the site and save up to 80% of the cost of the name brands!

This post was brought to you by the letters I, N, K, and the number 80.

Sick Again

I'm sick again. That may explain my feelings of getting old. :) I went to work feeling down in the dumps and left within 2 hours because I began to feel even worse. I've taken meds for my sinuses (we're having some serious pressure turmoil in the weather lately), tossed back a few vitamin c tablets, Downed and Orange and some orange juice and napped most of the day under lots of layers of clothing and blankets.

I just took a shower and feel mostly human again. :) My head is still a little stuffy and I have an occasional cough from the drainage, but I think I'm through the worst of it. The aches and chills are all gone and I'm fairly certain I'll live.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

This post was brought to you by the letters C, C, C, C and the number 9.

Landscape LED Lighting

I just read about Landscape LED Lighting and I'm excited about the possibilities. I've mentioned before that I'd like to look into using LEDs all around my home.

Another possibility with LED Landscape Lighting is that it's possible to use solar panels to recharge the system and cut costs even more since LEDs require low voltage. It's not that you'd need to worry about the costs of using LEDs as they are up to 90% more efficient than standard lighting.

With creative use of up-lighting, back lighting, and indirect lighting, you can really make your landscaping POP! Take a look at the low voltage landscape lighting options at LizardLighting.com for more specifics.

I'll keep it in mind when I start planning out our landscape lighting.

Can we replace all our lighting with LEDs? It sounds like a good idea to me.

This post was brought to you by the letters L, O, W, V, O, L, T, and the number 90.

Feelin' Old

I'm feeling really old these days. It's really sad when you're falling asleep at 7pm. I took the Princesses to a movie at the planetarium tonight and part of the way through the movie, I found myself falling asleep to my horror! What's wrong with me?

I'm OLD! That's what's wrong. Perhaps I'll look into getting a new sporty car or something to help deal with this crisis.

This post was brought to you by the letters O, L, D, and the number 35+. :)

Decorative LED Lighting

Recently, the Queen told you that I expressed an interest in replacing out Christmas lighting with efficient LED lighting. I am indeed interested in replacing all our lights with LEDs. LED light strings can burn for 50000 hours or more! That's a lot of years of use.

They can be used year round if you're just a bit clever on your use. They can be used on the edge of a deck or in flower beds as accent lighting. They can be used along walks to provide some ambient lighting to avoid tripping hazards. When arranged appropriately, they can provide nearly any type of lighting you could want.

These lights are also extremely efficient. When a string of 2000 LEDs is used for 8 hours a day everyday of the year, they cost just $50 a year to operate. That's a lot more efficient that standard lighting. Please view the Christmas lights they have to offer at HolidayLEDs.com for more information.

I'm likely to use them for hidden lighting on the deck I'll be working on this spring and summer. That way I can make much better use of my deck well into the night.

This post was brought to you by the letters L, E, D, and the number 2000.

Happy 2008

Happy 2008 to you all! Hopefully, it will be a great and productive year for all of us. :) Please remember to be responsible for you actions and words. Enjoy yourselves!

This post was brought to you by the letters D, Y, Q, X, and the number 6.

2 Weeks in a Row?

[begin rant]

For the second week in a row, my pro football team has played like crap! I understand the need to rest up the starters, but c'mon! You can at least come to the game ready to play and have a good showing for the first half before taking the starters out and easing up.

The coach needs to get a piece of the owner's mind for this lack of preparation.

As you can tell, I'm not happy about this performance.

[end rant]

This post was brought to you by the letters L, O, S, S, and the number 3.

George's Revenge

George the cat got his revenge today. I put him in time out (in hindsight, stupid move not a good idea) and when I released him, he decided to leave me a steaming pile of poo under my bed. When I realized what he was doing and tried to put a stop to it, he dug his claws into me and hurt my hand.

He was put into the gulag isolation our spacious master bathroom while I cleaned up the poo and my bloody stump hand.

He is now napping on the old couch with a smug grin on his face.

This post was brought to you by the letter P, O, O, and the number 3.

I Will Ruin Your Life...

...if you have too much to do with me. So you should keep your distance.

The Queen has informed me that I make her feel as if she has failed every day. I think I understand what she means and I suppose that would ruin one's life. That was definitely NOT my intention and if I really have made you feel like a failure every day, then I'm truly sorry for that.

So, like all married men, I'm going to take the blame for whatever is wrong, because that's what we do. Even if it's ultimately cousin Richard's fault. That's what we do.

I'm sorry.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, S, W, I, and the number 9.

To answer a couple of questions.

I appreciate the assistance the fine people of Virginia have offered. :) The rest of you lurkers can get in on the action as well. :)

This post is an attempt to answer a couple of questions the aforementioned Virginians had. Hopefully this will make things clear. As I understand it, clicking on the Green bar at the bottom of the sponsored posts helps me boost my ratings and get a chance at more opportunities to post for pay. Replying to any of the posts I have that are sponsored helps me as well, though I'm not sure just how much it helps.

Thanks for your assistance! I really appreciate it!


This post was brought to you by the letters P, A, I, D, and the number 6.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

The Night Before...

It's the night before Christmas and finally, everything's wrapped and shoved under the tree where it belongs. I had to work today for a half day, and then I did the last little bit of shopping I needed to do to be sure the things I wanted to get for people were acquired without prior knowledge.

Since the Queen handles our finances, she'd notice purchases and harass me about going over budget. I didn't want that harassment, so I waited until the last minute to get what I wanted to get her. Either there were a lot of other people who felt the same way, or a ton of people who just waited until the last minute because each of the locations I had to visit were INSANE!

Anyway, I'm just glad it's over. Now I can just go to bed and wait until Santa comes to town and delivers for the Princess and the Dragon. :)

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Merry Christmas!

This post was brought to you by the letters H, O, H, O, H, O, and the number 8 (9 on foggy nights)

Winter

Happy First day of Winter! Today is the Winter Solstice which means the days will be getting longer from now until the middle of Summer! Yay! Perhaps it will motivate me to get out and about more. :) We can always hope, right? :)

Anyway, I wanted to wish you all Happy Holidays and good cheer to everyone.

This post was brought to you by the letters T, Y, M, C, and the number 12.

Final Journey

Journeyman has officially been canceled. That SUCKS! This was a great show! It had a nice mix of drama, science fiction, and action. The mix was so well done that the Queen, who does not like science fiction, actually liked the show.

I'm sure she's going to deny that she doesn't like science fiction - she just pretends for my sake sometimes - but what matters is that she liked the show, or at least seemed to like it. It's too bad that the networks have decided that shows need to be absolutely perfect in order to be successful.

At least they knew early enough that it wouldn't go too much longer that they wrote a suitable ending for it. :)

I'm done with this rant, so I'm gonna call it a night. Later!

This post was brought to you by the letters R, S, K, T, and the number 23.

Get Paid to Post

So I have a chance to get paid for informing you nice folks of my opinions. Of course, this requires you fine people to read my posts. :) So if you all kindly read and occasionally click on the included links, I'd really appreciate it. Please read up on the word of mouth ethics I need to follow. Let me know what you think!

I also have a chance to make a few bucks by doing this and I'd love to make enough to purchase a few nice things for my family. The wife and kids deserve something for putting up with my crap for all these years.

One of my tasks is to review something that I'm interested in and let you all know about it. So, I'm going to tell you how much I enjoy World of Warcraft and why. This game allows me to step out of the real world and into the imaginary world for a brief amount of time each time I play. The down side of the game, as with any game, is the possibility of the player to blur the lines between what's real and not, resulting in hours and hours spent online and ignoring the real world. My advice to the new player is to play with moderation.

If you intend to play this game, I'd suggest using a relatively new machine with a wide aspect LCD monitor to get the most out of the game. Be sure to crnk up the settings and be pleased by the amount of detail in the imaginary game.

This post was brought to you by the letters P, P, P, and the number 20.

Decor!

Head on over to the Queen's blog and check out some pics! If they aren't up yet, it's only a matter of time. :) Merry Christmas to all!

I'm tired so I'm gonna cut this short. G'Night!

P. S. There are only 7 more days until Christmas! All you kids be nice and Santa just might bring you something nice. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters P, I, C, S, and the number 9.

Playing like CRAP!

I'm a Dallas Cowboy fan. They are arguably the second best team in all of the NFL, yet today, they played like the 32nd team on the league of 32. The game isn't over, but even if the Cowboys win, I'm far from impressed with them today. Most of the team seems to have taken the day off. Most especially the quarterback, Tony Romo.

That annoys me. I'll get over it, though.

This post was brought to you by the letters S, T, U, P, I, D, and the number 9.

The Lights are Finally Done!

I have finally completed setting up all tht Christmas lights. We now have a family of deer in the front yard, some twinkly snowflakes, a couple of lighted topiaries, and some stake-based decorations. I think it looks pretty good, but I'll ask the Queen to take a few pics and show them off to you all.


At the moment, I'm a little chilly, so I'm calling it a day.

:)

This post was brought to you by the letters L, I, G, H, T, S, and the number 3.

Christmas Concert

We attended the Christmas concert tonight at the LDS Convention Center. While I wouldn't call it my favorite event ever, the music was pretty good actually. The music was choral and while that isn't my favorite type of music, it fit the season.

I do have a question for you readers, though. What is the purpose of getting dressed up in one's "Sunday Best" in order to go sit in the dark and view a concert? I understand wearing decent, clean clothes, but come on! It just seems to be a bit of overkill to me. Of course, that's my perception and I'd appreciate you guys telling me why people do this. :)

The only other issue I had with the evening was security. I told them I had steel-toed shoes on (the ones I wear to work) and I had to go through metal detectors 5 or 6 times, each time wearing a little less. I was nearly to the point of saying, "Nevermind! I'll just go home. I don't want to be here that badly." They finally believed me when after using the wand, they verified that my shoes were indeed setting off the detector. This is worse that Airport Security where they'll just have me remove the shoes and x-ray them.

Such is life I guess. I lived through it so I guess I'm OK.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, O, S, R, and the number 6.

We Gots Sofas!

We now have a deep red sofa and love seat. Thi is our early Christmas present to our little family. I appreciate my colleague for helping get them here. I'm not happy about my rec room's current layout, but the furniture's here.

Anyway, I just want to say WooHoo for the furniture! :) It's here and all done!

This post was brought to you by the letters R, E, D, and the number 2.

Furniture a No-No!

Talk about HORRIBLE customer service! We ordered a sofa and love seat from this local furniture warehouse and asked them if we could pick it up on Wednesday at 5:30. They said yes!

I arrange to get a truck through my brother-in-law and it turns out that a cargo van was available instead. Great! No need for bungies or tarps! So we yank all the passenger seats out of the van and schlep out to the warehouse to pick up our items.

We arrive and find that there is not a SINGLE LIGHT on in the place.

WTF!!!

It turns out that there is no one there on Wednesdays and whoever said yes is an idiot.

If it wasn't for the fact that we really liked this sofa and loveseat (and got it at a really good price), I'd have said "Screw it!" and demanded a return of funds. Instead, I'm wrangling my brother-in-law into helping me pick it up tomorrow. Sorry, Bro.

Happy. <-- Please make note of copious sarcasm!

This post was brought to you by the letters, S, E, R, V, I, C, E, and the number 0.

Geeking!

I got to go Geeking tonight! :) Those of you who know me will know that I really enjoy D&D. I got the chance to play tonight instead of Friday. I can't play on Friday since my wife has a Creative Memories event to attend and most of the rest of my group can't play on Friday either.

So we got to play tonight and we killed another dragon! What fun! :)

Anyway, I'm in a pretty good mood as a result. Too bad I'm going to bed as soon as I possibly can. I'm really tired.

This post was brought to you by the letters D, I, C, E, and the number 20.

A Play

Tonight, we went to see "The Foreigner". It was a play at one of our local theaters. It was pretty good. We kinda 'lucked' our way into it.

It was quite amusing actually. :) I enjoyed the interplay between the characters and was pleasantly surprised I liked it. I won't give too much away, but the play is basically about how a socially withdrawn man is left in the company of a bunch of deep southern people. It is explained that he is a foreigner and understands no English. As a result, he is privy to all the private conversations of those people. The entertainment ensues.

This post was brought to you by the letters P, L, A, Y, and the number 3.

Simple Electronics

Simple electronics really know how to get me going. We have icicle lights that I've been trying to hang for about the last 2 weeks. I tested each set so that I could be sure to put up only the ones that were WORKING.

So, I wander out there in the freezing temps, hang up some lights, borrow a longer ladder, hang up some more lights, turn them on and...

Oh. The. AGONY!

One section of the lights I just tested, and carefully hung on the house, is out.

So-- What now?

I get a replacement bulb and go out there to find the offending bad bulb. I give them all a viual inspectionn and they all seem fine. I check the wiring and it all seems sound. Only one thing left, start swapping out bulbs until I find the bad one. An hour later, I find it (one of the last few I change out). Grrr... Stupid simple electronics...

So now my fingertips, ears, and toes are all numb, but the lights are hung. Happy Day!

So, tomorrow, I get to put out the moving deer, light up the topiary bushes, and line the walkway with nice seasonal lights. Sounds like I'll have some more numb toes. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters T, A, I, V, and the number 8.

Correction...

I went back and re-read my last post and realized that it reads as if I lost my position at that point. In actuality, I was just insulted by being introduced at a lesser title than the one I hold and not actually demoted on the spot. Please accept my apologies for any confusion this may have caused. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters O, O, O, P, S, and the number 6.

Stupid People

So how many times have you been demoted by your boss in front of potential company partners. How many times has your boss given you a 20minute task at the last 2 minutes? Mine just did and I want to smack him for it. Grrr...

How stupid can a person be?

This post was brought to you by the letters D, U, H, and the number 2.

Exhausted...

Hello all. I'm exhausted.

Whether or not you want to know about it, I'm going to tell you why. :) In an effort to spend less money (and as a result put more money in his own pocket), the owner of the company where I work rented out half of our space. Chowderhead!

As a result, we've had to uproot all our equipment and put it into half the space. Also, we have a really important meeting with some potential partners tomorrow. So the entire week, we've been killing ourselves to get the place clean and presentable.

So, I'm tired and I'm tempted to play hooky tomorrow and stay home. I WISH!

This post was brought to you by the letters R, E, E, K, and the number 5.

Battlestar Galactica

So, which of you out there are Battlestar Galactica fans? I'm talking mainly about the new series, but the old one would be fine. So, is anyone other than me truly saddened by the fact that it takes so increadibly long between seasons these days? I really like this series, but to make me wait so long between episodes is brutal. Too bad I didn't have nice huge capacity DVR when it the series first started. Oh well, such is life.

I like the fact that this new series makes better use of ethnicity than the old series. If my memory serves me correctly, there was only one minority in the entire show. That would be Boomer. :) There were pitifully few (if any) women in any sort of leadership roles. This new series has women and minorities all over the place. I'd like to see another brother or sister as one of the top-tier characters, but I'm not going to complain. :)

That being said, go watch the mini-series and as many seasons as are on DVD. It's a really good show. I really like what was done to the Cylons. I think you will too :)

This post was brought to you by the letters B, S, G, and the number 2003.

Disclosure Policy

This policy is valid from 01 December 2007


This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact Isepik (Isepik at mikasare dot com).


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The Digging is Complete!

I finally finished the expansion to my garden! At least the rough turnover of the soil by hand. :) I still need to till it up to properly incorporate the remaining plant material and grass clippings into the dark clay-like soil in order to loosen it up and enrich it. Next year's garden will be better than this year's garden was. :) It will be bigger overall and the things I plant won't be so crowded. I'll actually be able to weed it, not that weeding is fun, but I'll be able to perform said weeding next year since things will not be so crowded. :)

There are a few sprinkler heads that I'll have to change out and a few other specific things, but the hardest part is done! Yay me!

I'm sure most of you aren't interested in my gardening exploits, but there they are anyway. :)

The next large-ish project is to put in some duct work in the basement so it will be heated this winter. We'll see when that'll get done. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters G, A, R, D, E, N, and the number 7.

Turkey!

Tomorrow is Turkey Day! I get to cook the turkey! This bird is HUGE. Nearly 24 pounds of turkey meat waiting for me to season and shove into the oven.

JOY!

Anyway, I need to do some prep.

Later!

This post was brought to you by the letters T, H, C, and the number 23.

Haiku for Our Four-Legged Friend

Energy bundle,
active dynamo of fun -
Harry the fur ball.

To appease my royal family, Here's an alternate final line.

George the curious. :)

This post and the doggerel it contains was brought to you by the letters G, H, S, and the number 8.

Blame this on Gun Fighter

I will torture you all now with bad haiku and blame the Gun Fighter for it. :) You have my apologies.

Consumed by apathy,
subsumed in indifference,
the laughter has died.

This post was brought to you by the letters H, A, I, K, U, and the numbers 5, 7, 5, and 17.

Complainer...

Long time, no see. It's been nearly a month since I've last posted. I've been tempted to post quite a few times since then, but I realized it was a complaint and consciously decided not to post because it was specifically a complaint. I don't want to be known out there in the blog-o-sphere as a complainer, because I'm not. I'm sure the Queen will have something to say about that, but she's in a unique position and can comment as she wishes.

So, I'm going to try to cut down on my percentage of complaints in the coming posts. Let' hope I can make it happen. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters W, H, A, H, and the number 26.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the Queen! :) She is 29 today. :)

This post is brought to you by the letters Y, S, F, B, and the number 29.

Vista?

So... M$ releases a new OS at the end of last year and so far, in nearly a year since the release, they haven't solved some simple compatibility issues with software that's LESS than a year old. In fact, software that's been released since the new OS was released doesn't work with it because of OS issues. M$ says there are issues with it's memory management which is at the root of a bunch of problems. Yes, I'm talking mostly about games (and the demos).

The argument can be made that it's the game manufacturers' responsibility to make their software compatible with the OS, but it also means that the OS manufacturer needs to make the OS able to deal with NEW software and give the game manufacturers USEFUL tools and specs (that aren't out of date immediately and/or changed every 2 months) to use to develop their games. I don't think M$ has lived up to their responsibility, especially since their OS costs so much more than it should.

If you compare the features that Vista offers, to the other OSes out there that offer comparable features (notably nearly any version of UNIX, any distro of Linux, or release of MacOS), you'll find that Vista is over-priced by a factor of 10! MacOS X for instance costs about $40 and Apple is still making money on each copy they sell. If Vista cost only $40 a copy, I think we could more easily swallow its flaws. As it is, $400 a pop should buy me an OS that was ready for the main stream and has all the tools that was promised. This thing is reminding me of what happened with Windows ME (and even M$ admits that ME was a failure).

This may or may not happen with this OS, but I'm only partially impressed with the OS. It has NOT lived up to the hype so far. Sure, you can perform word processing, web browsing, and other mundane things in this new OS, but you can't play the graphically intensive games people want to play. There are 3 versions of Battlefield, for instance, that you can't play on a Vista box. There are a number of other games that perform significantly WORSE on Vista than on any other OS. This was after making adjustments for Vista's memory issues.

Oh, by the way, WoW seems to work fine, but then again, this machine is so much faster than the other machine I was using that I wouldn't be able to notice any performance issues Vista did or did not introduce because the rest of the equipment is so much better.

I think I'll have to dual boot my machine in order to run the apps I'd like. Currently, it looks like I should get a second hard drive and install XP Pro on it. That way, I can have my gaming setup on one drive and everything else on another.

This post was brought to you by the letters X, P, and the number 2.

At home

So Last Night, my walking pneumonia decided it wanted to kick my ass again and the net result is I wake up with a 101 degree fever, pretty hefty lower back pain, sweating through my shirt, and no sleep for my trouble. What gives? I felt OK yesterday and have been on the Doctor's meds for a few days now.

The fever broke less than an hour ago so I decided to get dressed and imitate a human for a bit. :) I guess it's time to remote into work and get some things done.

This post was brought to you by the letters T, E, M, P, and the number 101.

Finally

Hello all. It's finally happened. Last week, I was allowed to order my laptop. I got the rep to expedite it and it arrived yesterday. I'm using it right now! :) Of course, the Queen isn't happy with me at the moment because I've installed WoW on it and I'm waiting for the updates to download. :)

I'm so far really happy with my new laptop. It's a Dell Inspiron 1720 and it's pretty much maxed out. I'm stoked! I just have to finish installing the rest of my software. That'll take the better part of the rest of the week.

I've been diagnosed with mycoplasma (walking pneumonia) and I'm on meds to clear it up. I'll be better in a few days.

This post was brought to you by the letters U, D, I, S, and the number 8.

Long, Long Time

Hey, it's me. Yes, I'm still alive, though sleep has been a luxury that I've been missing out on, but that's not why you're reading this. You're reading to see if I'm ever going to post again. Well, here it is! :)

Seriously, I think my life is a bit boring, but I decided to please (maybe) you with it anyway, because it's been TOO LONG!!! :) The last couple of months have not been the most pleasant from an employer point of view. I've been putting in too many hours, working too hard, for too little pay, and too little appreciation. That being said, I'm still employed and plan to stay that way. :)

So, I'm still alive and still in pretty good health, though I'm not getting enough sleep. Such is life, eh? :)

On a good-ish note, The Queen was finally diagnosed (after 20 years or so) with mild asthma attacks. For the last couple of decades, she's had Bronchitis 2-4 times a year and it turns out that the majority of that was probably NOT Bronchitis. Instead, it was asthma attacks! Head on over to her blog and read about it.

I'll post more later. Right now, I'm going to try to get as much sleep tonight as I can.

This post was brought to you by the letters P, A, Y, R, A, I, S, E, and the number 20%. :)

Equipment's here! Anyone have time to put it in place?

The equipment I mentioned in my previous post has arrived. Unfortunately, I haven't had very much time to work on getting it in place. I need my boss to allow me to take the company offline for a day so I can relocate the equipment to the rack where it'll be more safe in case of environmental issues (the collapse of the $30 folding Wal-mart table that $16-$20 K of hardware sits on that happens to house the company's entire business. At least I'll be able to mount every server as well as all the tele-com equipment in the rack once I get the chance to really work on it. The next few days to weeks will be really busy.

This post was brought to you by the letters S, L, E, E, P, and the number 0.

Work Sux!

As you can probably tell from the title, I'm not particularly enamored with my place of employment right now. Basically, as a result of the greed of the owner, all requests for equipment that will give a modicum of disaster aversion over the last year have been denied. As a result, we suffered that catastrophic failure that all Sys Admins hate. The production database server's hard drive failed and this last week has been hell! I've had 2 16+ hour days, most other days were 10+ hours and I went in yesterday as well. The week before, we hit the wall in terms of storage space (we need more hard drive space!) and had to babysit several business critical tasks until 2am several nights. Since hitting the storage space wall, I've been staying up until 1am at least each night in order to babysit the servers remotely.

My immediate supervisor told me to order the equipment I need and that he'd take the heat. :) Nice-ish guy, but it was too late to avoid the galactic headache associated with the owner's actions (that should probably be LACK of actions) that caused the issue in the first place. To top it off, I'm salaried so there will be no real compensation for the last week and a half of pain.

Anyone need a Senior Systems Administrator? I'll consider relocating for the right package. :) I'll have to clear this with the Queen of course, but I'll consider it.

This post was brought to you by the letters N, A, S, and the number 16.

2 Weeks

It's hard to believe it's been 2 weeks since I last posted. The dates don't lie about it though. :) No changes as yet.

Why is it that I can't ever get on track the way I want? It's as if the universe has decided that no matter what, I'm always going to be just a bit short of my goal.

On a happier note, a different group of friends has decided to form a guild on a different WoW server and have asked me to join. I'm running an undead warlock on the Horde side. I'm interested to see some of the play from the other side. We'll see what happens, I might stick with it for a while.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, I, W, Y, and the number 45.

Possible change...

Hi all,
Sorry to have been so long since my last post, but I'm considering a change. I'm not going to go into details, because this post will turn into a rant if I do. It's work-related, so don't worry yourself too much about it. It may take a while before I work it out and get back into regular posting.

This post was brought to you by the letters U, N, D, E, R, P, A, I, D, and the number 1.3.

Violation!

Yesterday was P-Day! Yes, I got to go into the doctor's office, get bare, and get poked and prodded until the doctor declared me fit to live. After that not-so-pleasant experience, I'm told that my cholesterol and blood pressures are both better than they were 1 month ago. :) That's encouraging, right?

Anyway, I went to work after that and there was a bunch of drama with a member of the sales team getting absolutely fed up with their supervisor and quitting on the spot. I can't say that I blame her as her supervisor is an unmitigated ass, but it's not my department.

That evening, the Pink Princess had baseball clinic and first practice on her new season of coach-pitch baseball. That went pretty well though I'm going to need to work with her a bit on throwing, catching and batting. :) She has enthusiasm, so that makes up for a lot, but I think she can be one of the better players on the team is I work with her a bit.

That night, our stupid neighbors decided to play basketball until after 1am so I called the cops on them. I guess their cop-radar was on and they stopped just after I put the phone down. Then the Purple Dragon had a couple of nightmares and I had to deal with that.

Suffice it to say that I was draggin' when I arrived at work this morning. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters T, I, R, E, D, and the number 1.

You Leeches Suck!

I suppose they all have to start somewhere, but I apparently had an apprentice leech this morning. I'm not sure if giving them a pound of flesh could have hurt any more that this morning's experience.

Not getting enough blood flow? Just wiggle the needle a bit - push it in, pull it out, eventually you'll get the end to where it needs to be so the essence of me can come pouring out.

Perhaps it's part of their voodoo ritual that requires inflicting pain on the target of the spell. I don't know and I don't care as long as I don't get the same lab tech next time.

Amateur...

This post was brought to you by the letters, O, U, C, H, and the number 675.

Leeches...

I'm scheduled for a physical at the doctor's office next week. In order to do that, they want me to show up at the doctor's office about a week early so they can slurp out some blood. That means no food or drink from midnight tonight until they have their pound of my flesh tomorrow.

I plan to be there when they open the doors so I can minimize the damage to my system. :)

The Leeches! How dare they use some of my essence to perform their foul alchemy! I shall hire a wizard of my own to counter their fell intentions! Or not... :)

Anyway, this post was brought to you by the letters S, D, K, and the number 21398.

Relax...

I've been ordered instructed by my doctor to figure out a way to relax on a regular basis. Well, not quite as plainly as that. She said that my blood pressure is a bit high and that they need to see 3 high readings in a row before they are inclined to take steps since she's new to me and all. I have another appointment next month to see those blood-sucking leeches nice folks at the family doctor's office. I'm hoping the queen will be willing to assist me with those relaxation techniques. Perhaps I can convince her that having chicken multiple times a week is a suggestion prescription from our doctor! :) That would be nice...

Wish me luck!

This post was brought to you by the letters I, S, K, and the number 5.

Long Weekend

It's been a long weekend already and the 3rd day hasn't even started. :) I've been doing things around the house and attempting to rest and enjoy the holiday a bit. The vegetable garden is in and doing well so far - though we received 2 more tomato plants this evening and I plan to add them to the garden tomorrow evening.

I plan to do some painting tomorrow and will paint the accent wall of the master bedroom as well as the walls of the upstairs hallway. This is after I've made breakfast for the family since I slacked a bit this morning. :)

Anyway, this will be a short post as I want to do some prep for tomorrow's painting task. Thos post has been brought to you by H, D, L, and the number 6.

Of Doctors and things...

I have been remiss in my duty of informing you all of what's going on here in our little kingdom. You all have my apologies for that. The truth is that there's nothing much to tell other than I've gotten our garden very nearly complete and my sore throat is interesting in it's ability to avoid diagnosis. :)

The garden was finally tilled thanks to a nice neighbor that allowed us to borrow their tiller. I have planted our strawberries, pumpkins, tomatoes, bell peppers, corn, peas, onions, and carrots. I'll be planting the cucumbers and zucchini after work tomorrow. :) After tomorrow, it's just a matter of keeping the garden weeded and watered. We'll have some veggies in just under 2 months.

As for the sore throat, I noticed a very mild case of sore throat when I woke up in the mornings early last week. It was so insignificant, that upon getting out of bed I completely forgot about it. On Thursday about mid-morning, it suddenly became a jagged knife stabbing me in the front of my throat whenever I swallowed anything. It was so bad that I decided to go to the doctor so I could get it diagnosed. It hurt so much that I didn't eat lunch and instead went to the doc in the middle of the afternoon. If you know anything about me, then you know that I rarely go to the doctor, and that it had to be pretty painful to send me running to a doctor. Do you know what the doctor said? Of course, you don't - you weren't there! :) But I've already given you enough information already in this post that you'll guess the message if not the exact delivery. They can't find anything wrong and all the tests they ran came back negative. She told me to take OTC meds for the pain and sent me on my way.

I've been dealing with the stabbing pains since then and they have actually eased a bit since then. Hopefully, it really is nothing, though I'd like to see them find something so there's an explanation for it at least. I know the vampires certainly took enough blood to study - or maybe it was to make mixed drinks. Sheesh!

Anyway, that's all for this post. I'll do better with posting. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters A, G, H, and the number 7.

Oops!

Apparently, I'm more at fault that I gave myself credit for the issues last Friday. To all parties involved, you have my apologies...

This post was brought to you by the letters O, O, P, S, and the number 3.

Happy Birthday...

Warning! This post is a downer. Unless you want to be abruptly and unceremoniously ripped down from your life high, move right along.

You have been warned...

So I officially turned "One Year Older than Dirt" a few days ago. Better than the alternative, I suppose. Anyway, I knew there was a reason I HATED birthdays and this birthday helped to solidify that feeling. The Queen became livid pissed at me for helping pick up a room after I got home from taking the Princess to baseball practice. Then, she screams at me to inform me that dinner's ready. It wasn't a pleasant experience. The net result is that she's yelling/screaming at me shortly before her family is supposed to come over and wish me Happy Birthday. I put on my "Hey, how's everybody doing?" mask and pretend nothing ever happened. I'm guessing that I did/didn't do/say something that pushed her over the edge. I can only guess because we haven't spoken much since then. I don't know why she became so angry, but I was the target, and that doesn't feel so good nor does it seem very fair to me. That's part of marriage, right?

I think I'd appreciate it if there is no celebration for any of my future birthdays. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the fact that people WANT to celebrate, but it seems that my birthday celebrations always tend to devolve into something I don't want to remember.

My apologies to all of you for posting something that is bound to bring you all down. Next year, I'll treat my birthday as what it is - just another day.

I did get some nice presents, but I still don't feel particularly good about the event.

This post was brought to you by the letters R, A, T, E, D, and the number 4 (out of 10).

I'd like to thank...

Everyone who voted for me. :) I've been nominated for Hottest Daddy Blogger by OTJ! You have my deepest thanks. I don't really hold out hope of winning the thing (primarily because I don't think my blog is quite popular enough), but I oh, so appreciate the thought. :) Also, it looks like I have 4 whole votes (that may have changed by now) and I know that 3 of them are from the Queen, OTJ, and me. At least I'm NOT on the last page. Thanks to everyone who has voted for me so far. :)

--Start shameless plug--
Please vote for me!
--End shameless plug--

The Princess has had her first baseball game a couple days ago. Of course, there was no score kept, there were no outs recorded and everyone got a chance to run the bases. She had a boatload of fun - that's really all that matters, right - and I'll be purchasing a glove for her soon so I can assisting her here in the back yard with her fielding, catching, throwing. :)

Anyway, this post was brought to you by the letters V, O, T, E, and the number 4.

What's up with that?

GEEK ALERT!!! SCIFI SPOILER ALERT!!!

There, now that I've scared all you normal folks away... :) What do you think of the final season 3 episode of Battlestar Galactica. How can so many people in high positions be Cylons? The big question is how was it done? Were they human at some point? Did the actual human get kidnapped and replaced? How did they do it?!?! :)

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love that show!!! The reason I've waited so long to post this is to keep from spoiling anyone's enjoyment of the program. 5 never-before known cylon models all placed in key positions in the Human fleet. Colonel Ty, Chief Tyrol, Lt. Thrace, Thrace's husband, and the president's chief of staff.

Finally...

Phew! The giant project at work is finally over! Everything's been done and deployed so now there are just a few minor issues to mop up. I should have time to post more entries and comments for a while. :)

The weather is finally beginning to act like spring. Warm days and mild nights. It's caused the grass to grow green and a few flowers to peek out at us. It's caused me to start working on an area to put in a garden as well as look into other projects that need to be completed.

It also means that it's finally warm enough in the basement to spend a bit of time down there without sprouting icicles on my nose. :) Look forward to hearing about more of my WoW exploits as well as how geeky I am.

Let's hope my friend, M, is good for D&D this week. He took last week off to spend time with his wife. Kinda silly to cancel a session for that, right? :) Kidding!

Anway, it's good to have the pressure valve opened a bit at work so there's not quite so much managerial stressing gonig on at work. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters, G, R, E, E, N, and the number 12.

Of Parties, and Gardens, and Things...

Whew! The party's over... The princess had her public birthday party on Friday (public = people other than family). We had a house full of 15 (you read that right- 15) 6- and 7-year old girls. Some of them behaved absolutely horribly. We had to deal with all the drama that ensues when a bunch of females get together (yes, you read that right - it sounds horrible, but I haven't witnessed a large crowd of females without drama and until I do, I'll make that statement as if it's 100% factual).

Anyway, the party sucked far too much of the life out of the both of us. I wouldn't have a problem if we didn't have to suffer through any more of these parties - especially if there is a gaggle of girls.

I have been working on putting in a vegetable garden. OK, I've been digging in the dirt so that we'll have a place to plant the vegetable garden. I've have just under half of the space tilled and will be working on it for the rest of the week - if I don't get snowed out Tuesday afternoon.

The Queen and I just had our 9th wedding anniversary.

Work is very busy this week so I'll probably be somewhat scarce in new entries.

This post was brought to you by the letters G, I, R, L, S, and the number 15.

Makes me wish...

Days like today make me wish I worked outdoors again. :) The weather was gorgeous! It was just about 70° with very little breeze and I would be ecstatic if it were like this year-round! Of course we need to have a bit of rain on occasion, but I can live with that. The princess and the dragon are outside enjoying the swing set and I just came in from uncovering the deck furniture. If it stays warm enough, perhaps we'll eat on the deck. Of course, that depends on what the weather does in the next 30 minutes or so. :)

The Queen is off getting the finishing touches for dinner. So far, it's been a pretty good day. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters N, I, C, E, and the number 70.

High Pressure

I'm sure you've all had enough of my complaining about work and the asinine ideas the owner has about what's most important to keep his business afloat. The business is based on a service provided to clients through a web site and via email. The entire business relies on the servers. This mental giant refuses to pay for physical protection for the equipment nor will he pay for proper electrical protection for his equipment. His servers are sitting on a folding table!!! There's no redundancy and the core machines are out of resources. How long does this intellectual colossus think his business can continue to function on the ragged edge? I'm also under pressure to get our developer (a new employee mind you) to deliver a significant code change before becoming familiar with our software source code. Oh, by the way, we only have the 1 developer since it costs money to have 2 at the same time. Go figure...

Anyone out there in the Salt Lake area looking for a senior level windows systems administrator? I'm only half kidding. If the pay and benefits are right, I'll consider it. :)

OK, enough of the stupidity. If you don't read OTJ yet, you should. She has managed to figure out exactly why some of us blog. If you're wondering why blogging seems so important to some of us, then give her a read. Be warned, that she is very popular and you'll probably see a ton of comments to each of her postings. They're pretty entertaining posts and she loves to play with photoshop. Enjoy!

It's been a while since I posted as it would have only been complaints about work. Please accept my apologies for slacking on you all. :) I'll try to post more often.

This post was brought to you by the letters M, T, O, E, and the number 9.

The Quest is Complete!

I was just on a quest to procure dinner. I was triumphant! KFC came through for us! :) We had chicken, well a 12 piece chicken dinner w/ potatoes, cole slaw, and biscuits. Sorry, nothing any more exciting than that, dear readers. :)

The quest was not without perils, however. It seems that Utah is chock full of horrible drivers. I'm positive, though not 100% sure, the every state in the union requires a driver to use the signals when turning and changing lanes. They also require people to take steps to avoid accidents. Steps such as looking for oncoming traffic and NOT pulling out in front of it. I'm quite happy that I don't trust any other driver on the road when I'm out and so I drive extremely defensively. I try to ALWAYS be aware of what other vehicles are around me and where my escape routes are. Who knows what could have happened if it weren't for my mistrust.

Incidentally, The Queen and I took the princess and the dragon sledding today. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters Y, W, G, E, and the number 7.

Chicken was Made!

We had chicken a couple of nights ago. It was nice. It had been a while. We'll have to make chicken more often. :) Hopefully the Queen will forgive me for asking so often.

I'm looking for a junior developer. Anyone know someone in the Salt Lake Area who wants a job? I need to hire an entry level .NET developer. Anyone interested? :)

My character died last night in D&D. It was a sad, sad, day. She was turned into a wraith and then attacked the party. She had no choice in the matter. Now, it's time to create a new character so her death can be avenged. :)

I'm in a strange mood today, so I'll keep this short. Who knows what I'll say if I don't. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters, O, D, D, and the number 1.

Queenie is Pissy!

The Queen is in a foul mood. MSN's websites all suck and have screwed up her various and sundry free accounts. Unfortunately, I seem to be a magnet for her ire. Why is it that I am the target for her anger when Microsoft "screws the pooch"? I guess I'll just have to avoid her until either the problem is fixed or she figures it out. I don't think she wants my help, not that I can fix anything, but it sucks that she blames me for anything technical that happens. I guess it my own fault that I get blamed. That doesn't reduce the intensity of situational hooverage, however.

If anyone out there has figured out how to change existing email information associated with the MSN Live service or MSN games, please let me know. I'm planning on looking into it myself, but if anyone else has had any run-ins with MSN's services, please let me know. Better yet, contact the Queen and let her know. I appreciate any assistance you can provide.

On the bright side, the Datona 500 coverage starts in about 30 minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing a ton of wrecks. :) I don't want anyone hurt, but I like seeing the cars get trashed. It feeds the testosterone need in me.

This post was brought to you by the letters M, A, D, and the number 24.

1 Million Dollars

The Admiral has asked anyone who reads her blog to tell what would be done if they had a million dollars. Here's what I'd do. Set up college funds for my girls, pay off all debts, move into our dream home, and buy our dream cars. I figure this would take about half of it. The rest of the money would be invested for early retirement with a few donations here and there. I'd continue to work, though a large portion of what I earned would go toward that early retirement I mentioned.

I feel that once I have a million banked after the debts are all paid, I'm in good shape to retire because I could life on about 5% interest pretty well when there aren't any expenses other that utilities. :) I'd retire immediately if I started with 1.5 million.

This was a nice exercise in "What If". Thanks to Admiral Bobcat for this assignment! :)

On another note. I'm home sick today. Rather, I came back home sick today and have slept for about 3 hours since returning at this point. This isn't a good way to spend VD, but then again, I'm not that enamored with this particular holiday anyway. That would explain why I'm wearing all black today. I'll let you all know that I am NOT stupid, however. The queen did receive something I know she likes for this useless commercialized holiday.

If you love someone, don't wait until February 14th to tell them. You should be telling them EVERY day in the things you do and the things you say. Your actions at the very least should say it each and every day. That is all.

I think I'm going to go back to sleep now. :)

This post was brought to you by the letters D, S, E, L, R, and the number 8.

Find a Scape Goat

So now they're trying to fabricate a reason to blame computer games for the actions of a troubled individual. Get real folks! If a person has trouble separating reality from fiction, it's NOT the fault of the game!

I can't believe the media is going along with this nonsense! C'mon, folks! a person is responsible for his/her own decisions even if that person has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. It's like blaming cars for auto accidents.

OK, enough of my ranting. We have a DVR now! :) Yay! That means we aren't held at the mercy of the networks anymore! We can play with the girls without missing our most favorite television shows. Yeah, that means we're really boring, but that tends to happen once you've had kids and they aren't in their teens yet. :) Once they get to their teens, I hear things get really interesting...

I think I've been working too much. I have a touch of the illness that has been going around for the last few weeks and haven't been getting the rest I need in order to fight it. I think I'm losing the fight though. Each morning finds me feeling worse than the previous. I need a day off in the middle of the week. I think that would help. I think I'm going to go to bed early tonight as well so I can get an extra hour or so of sleep. It might make a difference. :) Please send me "Get Well Soon!" vibes so I can get back to normal. Thanks! :)

This post was brought to you be the letters T, I, R, E, D, and the number 6.

Some People...

My long awaited Monday night 24 session was interrupted today by some idiot gunman trying to kill some local residents at a local mall. As a result of his stupidity, all the local stations went to live coverage of the developments. This started about 15 minutes before the 2 hour 24 marathon was supposed to start. This means that no 24 for me tonight. I guess I'll have to try to find it on the Inter-web (a phrase from one of my friends).

I feel for all the families who lost members tonight, but if the guy had waited until there weren't so many families around, and he was surrounded by SWAT before his attempt to commit suicide, there would be far fewer families contemplating burial of loved ones. Please don't misunderstand me, I don't approve of what the guy did, and I DO know that it was a serious matter. I just don't get why so many people decide to try to take out innocent by-standers when they decide to take their own life. My stand: "If you really feel the need to end your life, then do so. That's between you and God. By all means, leave everyone else out of it!"

I'll dismount my soapbox now.

Abrupt subject change: The one bright note to this evening is that our DVR was installed tonight. We now have the ability to record 2 shows while watching one that was recorded earlier. Now we aren't so dependent on the TV schedule. Yay!

This post was brought to you by the letters N, U, T, C, A, S, E, and the number 54.

Too Much Time Wasted...

...on people who don't deserve my time makes me feel bad. The owner of the company I work for is apparently too ignorant to realize that his entire business is based on IT, but he's too cheap to take care of that part of his business. (It would make my job so much easier if he would. I guess I'm just asking for too much, eh?) Anyway, I've neglected you all and that makes me feel bad as well. Let me apologize now for that neglect. My work has had me far too busy over the course of the last 2 weeks. I can't see any let up any time soon, so I'll apologize in advance if I'm a little too busy to post very many times.

My heart goes out to OTJ for her recent loss. You have my sympathy. I have a good idea how you're feeling right now.

As for my DILF progress, I lost another couple of pounds last week for a total of 5 pounds, but managed to gain it back over the weekend. LOL doesn't that just suck! :) That just means I get to start all over again.

This post was sponsored by the letters S, U, C, K, and the number 1.