Yeah, what happened in the back yard is frightening all right. Had one of the willow tree’s larger branches break. And when I say larger branch, I MEAN larger branch. Check out the photos of the fallen branch:
            

Thank goodness it happened at night and there was no one around the tree when it happened!

It’s been that way recently around here.

We’re planning a bunch of work on the house this summer (and guess who gets to be the main worker-bee?). We’re taking out a home-improvement loan to cover the costs. I’ve been prioritizing and setting up an ordered bullet list of the tasks:

• Painting the outside of the house will come first; we’re going to paint the house, the trim and get new shutters.
• New garage door. The 1970’s vintage fiberglass door we have isn’t cutting it any more.
• Remodel the deck. We’ve talked about this for a while. We’re going to take out the seating/walls on the sides and then take up the floor. Then, after staining/sealing the joists, we are going to use plastic composite fake wood for the deck floor and put up a belvediere.
• Insulate the attic – I think it needs it, KC is not so sure, but it’s not too expensive for the return we’ll get.
• Replace the gutters (with seamless of course).
• On the agenda (at least for me) but optional are:
  • Replace our sliding patio doors; they don’t lock very well and are showing their age. If we replace the sliding doors with doors that have blinds built-in then we won’t have to replace the blinds, otherwise we’ll have to replace the blinds as well.
  • Replace the commode in the lower bathroom; the lavatory and the cabinet were both temporary purchases when we got them 12 years ago.
  • Get some new furniture. The recliner that KC sits in is falling apart and the loveseat in our upstairs living room isn’t far behind. The downstairs family room could use a new couch as well. Maybe we’ll get a set?
  • Get a nicer entertainment center for our upstairs living room. The one we have now is OK, but with new furniture we should probably get a new entertainment center as well. One for a 27″ TV, stereo, VCR and DVD.
  • Get a big-screen TV. Yes, I like the 27″ I have now but a 50″ would be so much nicer!
  • If we get a big-screen TV, we’ll have to remodel some open shelves that we have to accomodate all the “junk” we have in the current entertainment center. It holds cassettes, video tapes, DVDs, LPs and odds ‘n’ ends cabling and such.

Also, when this happens, we’ll do before – during – after pics!

I’ve been having some issues with my computer, but it’s all fixed now. Check out the picture; you can really see it’s working at top optimization!

Once again, Are you more… (a day late).

01) A believer in unwritten rules or a believer in written rules?
Written. A portion of my job is writing the rules!

02) Water or fire?
Water. You can live longer without fire than without water.

03) Earth or air?
Air. Same reason.

04) Someone who eats their eggs plain or someone who spices them up somehow?
Spice them up. I like using Red Robin spice on them.

05) Eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast and coffee for breakfast or muffin and a coffee for breakfast?
Eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and toast. No coffee, thank you. Gimme some orange juice.

06) Honest or likeable?
I try to be honest; a byproduct of being honest is being liked.

07) Chicken or fish?
Chicken. Yeah, I like fish, but KC doesn’t like any kind of seafood.

08) Admiring of Mahatma Gandhi or admiring of Martin Luther King Jr.?
Actually, neither. You know, for being men of peace they sure had a lot of violent followers.

09) Hoping this summer is a hot one or hoping this summer is a cool one?
I hope it’s a cool one. The way the price of oil is going it will cost a lot more if it is hot and we have to run the air conditioner.

10) Juicy or sweet?
Juicy. I can’t stand sweet any more… too much diet soda.

Wednesday again; Are you more… again!

01) A conscientious lawn mower who cuts it at least once a week or a procrastinating lawn moving avoider who lets it reach nigh jungle level before you cut it?
KC actually mows the yard; I use the weed-whacker to take out the grass around the willow trees in the back yard. We try to do it at least once a week.

02) One who likes to have sex while music is playing or one who likes to have sex without any musical distraction?
Doesn’t bother me either way. As long as it isn’t the cheesy 70’s porno “bow-chicka-bow-wow” stuff.

03) The kind of person who would have a fire (bonfire or in a firebowl) despite local laws prohibiting them or the kind of person who wouldn’t because, hey, they’re illegal?
Hey, they’re illegal. Here in town if there’s smoke, the fire department comes over. If that happens you have to pay for their visit AND pay the fine. Yuck!

04) A hard-spot-to-get weed-whacker user or an “if the lawn mower can’t reach it, it’s not getting cut” type?
Definitely a weed-whacker guy. I even do parts of the lawn around our willow trees (where the roots are actually up out of the ground).

05) Preferring of wooden decks or preferring of stone / formed concrete blocks / brick decks?
Wooden decks, but they are more maintenance.

06) A fan of winter sports (hockey, skating, curling) or summer sports (baseball, golf, volleyball)?
More a fan of summer sports (of course, you “strategically” left basketball out of the winter sports list!!)

07) Happy with your neighbours or unhappy with your neighbours?
Happy. Of course, for one I’m sad right now. He just passed away and his wife has Alzheimer’s, so the house is now empty.

08) One who tries to shoo away bees / run away from them or one who leaves them alone knowing they’ll just go away once they realize you’re not a flower and not a threat?
I leave them alone for now and come back with a bug bomb; hey, it’s my place, not theirs!

09) A lover of structured fun or a lover of unstructured fun?
If it’s fun, either will work. I can wing it as good as anyone, but sometimes it’s nice to have a framework.

10) Selfish with your possessions or selfish with your personal time?
Neither. I am a good neighbor.

Happy Birthday, Breezomatic!!

I’ve just finished loading Suse 10 Linux on J’s laptop and guess what? It works! Not only does it work, but it works great! I’ve got it hooked up to my home wireless network. The hardest part was actually getting the darned thing to load as it took a long time. It’s a Dell Inspiron 8100 and is a bit slow; it wasn’t anything to do with Linux as it was with the slow processor. So now when I give this back to her I can give her a hard drive with Suse Linux 10 and a hard drive with Windows XP SP2. Guess which one takes up more space? That’s right, the Windows one. Guess which one has more functionality? That’s right, the LInux one.

Contrary to what some of the goofballs that I argue with on the Yahoo discussion boards say, I had absolutely no problems loading Suse 10 on this laptop. And I say “this laptop” in the virtual first person. I’m typing this entry on the Dell Inspiron 8100 with an Orinoco wireless card connected to my home wireless network. Now the only thing this laptop needs is a new battery. The existing one won’t charge. Let’s see… where can I find a refurb battery for this laptop? Hmmm.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I know you won’t read this because you don’t own a computer, but this goes out not only to my mother but to the mother of my children. KC, happy Mother’s Day.

Yeah, that’s right… Santa Ana, CA. That’s where I’ve been the last couple of days. Left Monday morning and flew via Minneapolis to here. We’ve been working on “acquiring” a company, IT style. Yeah, there’s a business end to it; but what we do is set them up on our network. Not just setting the users up with email and a login, but migrating their network to our domain and setting up all the objects on their network on our domain. The worst part was Monday night, or should I say Tuesday morning? We got busy with the process about 2pm and we finally knocked off about 2:30am. Made for a really long day, especially when we had to be back on-site at 7am. With about a 15 minute drive each way that makes for either a short night’s sleep or a long nap.

The big players involved in this migration are happy with the way it’s going, but I’d like to think we could have done better. There’s always room for improvement, right? At least one of the printers needed service, so we’ve had issues with that. And there’s the whole Mac to PC thing; the company had Macs for their workstations – some users liked them, some didn’t and others were indifferent. Overall, though, we moved them to PCs because our support staff doesn’t have much if any experience with Macs. However, overall it has gone quite well. I’ve been involved in three other migrations and only one went as well or better. So I’ll take the compliment and move on from there.

We will be done here on Thursday morning and I’ll be flying back home then. Tomorrow will be a big day, especially for solving “little” user issues. We’ve got all the big ones tackled, but anyone who has done this before knows there are usually a thousand and one little things that users want: toolbar setups, file locations, how do I’s, etc. After all that, though, it will be a good thing to get home.

My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and, when I confront him, he denies everything. What’s worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating.

Also, since he lost his job over four years ago, he hasn’t even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around, and talk with his buddies while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn’t even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do?

Signed, Clueless

We have a theme this week. Are you more…

01) Lawyer or accountant?
Probably more of an accountant; after all I did teach math for 14 years.

02) Dentist or family doctor?
Have to be a doctor; I absolutely detest going to the dentist.

03) Chiropractor or massage therapist?
Chiropractor. Let’s get those bones crackin’!!

04) Engineer or architect?
Engineer. I’ll get the numbers right before I design it.

05) Sports announcer or news meteorologist?
Anyone who’s read this blog knows I’m more of a sports announcer.

06) Garbage collector or sewage system inspector?
Probably garbage collector. You should see some of the “junk” I’ve collected over the years.

07) Plumber or electrician?
Ahhhhh, both? I’ve done both and they are similar.

08) Lead hand/foreman or supervisor/manager?
Lead hand/foreman. I like to get in to a project and work on it, not just watch it from “above”.

09) Astronomer or astrologist?
Astronomer. Astronomy is more of a science than astrology; some would even make the claim that astrology is not a science at all.

10) Advice column writer or editorial column writer?
Advice column writer. I spend a lot of time on the Yahoo message boards giving my advice (but also my opinions) as well as the WordPress support forums.