Where did the time go?

Christmas has come and gone. I actually had a day off to enjoy it but of course I got sick. Now, I not only have to work again but I have to do it with a cough and a headache.

On another note, I read a hilarious article today called An Old Child's Letter to Santa over at Powell's Books.

Ever see a picture with somebody in the background that totally ruins that "intimate photo"? Or something going on that completely disrupts the purpose of the picture.
Here's a thread of some of those pics. You may have to look at them a bit to finally notice.
I saw all the pics earlier but it looks like some of them have exceeded the bandwidth now. might want to check again earlier in the day.


Papa Smurf is real.

The days are just blending together

My last day off was November 26th and my next will be December 15th, I think.

Birthdays.

Another year goes by and now I'm 31. Went out to dinner on Friday with a group of friends. It was fun but too short. Charlie and Leslie left and went home to put the baby to bed. Tom and Val went home, they're teachers and go to bed early so they tire easily. Then Ed and Emily went home because Ed had to work the next morning at 3am.

Today was a lot of fun, I worked. I was headed home and then got sent on a wild goose chase 20 miles back where I came from. sheesh.

Camille took Sherlock to be groomed a couple days ago and it is as if he is a completely different dog. Gone is all the long hair on his ears and back. Almost shaved and so very soft now. The picture just doesn't do him justice but ther really funny thing is that it seems as if he hates the camera. I don't know if it is because of the flash or what but when I try to focus on him he lowers his head as if he were ashamed or being punished.

Flavor Paper

I was listening to "Day to Day" on NPR and the story was about a new product from a company in NOLA that makes scratch and sniff wallpaper. I thought the idea was hilarious. It is super expensive, but think about it. Get done in the bathroom and then go scratch the wall to mask the smell! lol. Of course I'd imagine the scent isn't quite that strong but still, it is quite funny.

When it rains....

Went to the Bungles game on Sunday and they truly lived up to the name. Carson kept thinking that this was an away game and threw to the guys in white jerseys. I had a lot of fun at the game even though we lost. I managed to keep warm for the most part, except for my toes. I'll be going to next weeks game as well and hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to keep my toes warm.

Camille's car broke down the other night while she was driving. She called AAA and they sent someone to give the car a jump. Why they would think that a car that had been running and dies while driving needs a jump is beyond me. So they sent a tow truck. Camille had the car towed before calling to have me pick her up. What gets me is that they would have had the hood open to give it a jumpstart and since that didn't work, they declared that it must be a problem with the alternator. Why they didn't see that there wasn't an alternator belt at all is beyond me and turned a $10 problem into a $150 problem. The only good thing is that while it is in the shop they are fixing a gasket for the oil plug that was causing a small leak. Even though that's $5 part, to replace it you basically need to get an oil change since all the oil is going to come out when you remove the plug.

I didn't wake up in time yesterday to get the Camry to the shop for new tires so hopefully I can manage to get it in sometime soon. The Camry has been having problems lately too. I don't drive it nearly often enough as I'm in the van all day and Don't really care to be back on the road in my time off. Good for mileage though as I've had it 3 years and barely put 15K miles on it. At this rate if it last 200K miles I'll be retired by the time I get rid of it.
Then the company van is having problems too. A couple weeks ago I noticed that one of my rear blinkers/brake lights wasn't working. I had planned on getting this fixed at the next oil change. Today the other one went out. So the only brake light I have is the top rear light and I have no rear blinkers. To top that off, I have a blown fuse somewhere, tracking those suckers down is a pain as more modern cars and fans have one fuse panel inside and another in the engine compartment and it isn't standard from one brand to another as what fuse goes where. It probably isn't as bad as I make it sound but it is just one more straw on my ready to break back.

Cheating at Christmas

Saw this, or rather, I heard it as I walked out of the store today. I've been wanting to comment on how lazy we've become at decorating for the holidays for a while now and finally I have an excuse to do so.

There is a house on a busy street near mine that has something inflatable for every possible holiday. Right now there is an inflatable turkey up, gobbling at all the passers-by in their cars. By the end of next week, I expect we'll see Santa and a few reindeer as well. Valentines will bring a giant teddy bear, Easter will bring a giant rabbit and the ghost and spider just dissappeared after Halloween.

This being our third year in our house, I hope I can get some lights up or something for christmas, nothing this easy or expensive for that matter. I could pay someone to put up lights for me cheaper than I this.

Retiring to Mexico... Maybe Panama!

I can remember as a child being so excited to see the first snowflakes of the year. When I was driving this morning I saw a few and all I could feel was the dread of another cold winter and having to drive in the crap while dealing with all the holiday traffic.

As I deal with the ever increasing problems at work and now the cold weather, I grow ever more fond of the idea of retiring to Central America. I don't know that I ever would because as much as I complain about the cold, Camille complains about the heat. She says she'd love to go live by the beach and that she could deal with the heat by swimming every day but I have my doubts. My second reason would be medical care. I would have to really weigh my options there. How close are the hospitals and how good would my care be. Especially emergency care, and I wonder if I could fly to the US for regular visits? hmmm...

Time flies...

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Vacation has come and gone in a flash. Thanksgiving is almost here already.

I really was so mentally exhausted I didn't even want to write. I hate to bitch all the time and it seemed that that's what my last couple posts had been. I'll try to be a little more upbeat in the future.

2 more weeks.

Two more weeks until a much needed vacation. I don't think we're gonna go anywhere. We had been planning on going to New York City, but Camille changed her mind and so now we're staying at home. We may go down to Corbin for a day or two and ride some ATVs and hopefully go horseback riding. just looking forward to relaxing for a week before all hell breaks loose with the holiday season.

Officially, we're down three out of 13. When Josh S. quit, human resources let Chicago borrow the requisition for his job or something like that, so essentially we can't hire his replacement. Then the next new guy, Josh P. quit in the middle of his first week of being on call. Lesson to be learned, never hire another Josh. lol.

We just recently lost Chad. He was a good guy and a great tech when he wanted to be. He had stopped caring about the job long ago. But then early this summer someone close to him died and it seems to have hit him really hard. he was showing most of the classic signs of grief. I never saw the denial, but we all saw the anger as for about two months, he was really short tempered and started blowing up at everyone for the littlest stuff. Then he just gave up. He's big in to Disc Golf, and had been playing in tournaments all over the place on the weekends, but he decided it wasn't enough and started playing on the clock. Gotta practice for the weekend. Then came the Mary Jane. Chad was smart enough to not come around the warehouse when any co-workers were around, but according to several people the place reeked of MJ right after he left it.

The thing that really gets me though is just how much our company cares about its employees. I know I had said to at least 10 people, that I thought he needed some sort of psychological help. Can you believe I actually had people laugh when I made that comment?!

Looking at Chad, I was reminded of a lot of stories of veterans of Iraq who come home and either act violently (totally out of character) or try to self medicate with MJ or other drugs. It took a lot of GI's getting kicked out of the service for this behavior before they actually started to listen to people and start treating for PTSD. I just hate how our company only allows for two days bereavement, and mental health care is not included in the insurance plan. Even if it was, the company probably wouldn't give medical leave for a mental issue. They'd rather just be rid of the tech, like they did with Chad.

Now we may lose a fourth due to a customer complaint about a tech. I guess we'll find out in a couple days.

Sigh. I could probably go on but I'm getting tired just thinking about all that has gone on over the past couple weeks and what will go on this holiday season.

Now that's inflation!

Normally the vending machines outside wally world are 50 cents for the 12 oz cans and $1.00 for 20 oz bottles. so me being the tightwad that I am usually go for two cans. 4 more oz for the same price, that is until today. It was bright out so I was thinking that the 99.95 on the machine was a mistake or something. Then I put my 2 quarters in and hit the button, nothing happens except it flashes the 99.95. Looks like someone reprogrammed the machine's price. At least the coin return on this machine worked. Then I had to walk the quarter mile to get to the other side of the store to get a vending machine with the normal price, thank god it wasn't sold out.

The Week from HELL!

Monday, a fairly easy morning, the boss is on vacation, call volume is light... Then I start to look for more work to do so I checked the night guys queues and found 4 calls in one of them. Then I thought, Isn't he on vacation this week? pull out the schedule and sure enough he is. So I call the other night guy because his days off this week have been moved to compensate. Nice, he'd not checked the schedule because it is only on super rare occasions that his days off change.

So I called dispatch to find out who was working that night. Turns out, they didn't even know that we had a tech on vacation. When I told them about it and to look at the excel schedule sheet, the comment I got was " we never look at that, we just look at GANT" (our dispatch software). Problem was, someone never updated GANT.

To top that off, Corporate has decided that everyone in the Company has to take a class called Moments Of Truth. All about delighting the customers and stuff. So that means driving an hour north to Dayton for a four hour class. And the 9 of us remaining on the schedule have to all be up there within a three day span. Tuesday morning I had to get up at 5:30 am to make it up to world HQ in time for the 8am class. Now that was a long day but not nearly as bad as it could have been, One of our techs was working and had the Wednesday 8am class. So he left his house at 6am and then because he was on call that week, he wound up working till 10pm and had to be back out working at 8am the next day.

Wednesday afternoon was bad too, I think 6 of our techs all decided to take that same class. Not that they conspired to do so, but it just worked out that way.

Thursday I woke up to find that another of the techs was scheduled for two days vacation (to make a 4 day weekend) So that meant we were down yet another body. To top that, the dispatcher called in sick, so now we've got no TM guiding the dispatcher who isn't familiar with the territory and the calls are just flooding in. I know that the on call guys both worked at least 60 hours this past week

Thursday afternoon, I was working in a Starbucks and my laptop got a hard drive controller error. It took a few times but it finally managed to boot up. Thank god I had my USB flash drive on my keychain that day. I thought I had better save some of my documents that were stored on the drive. I had to leave the store to go get a part and since my batteries are crap, the laptop turned off to never turn on again. sigh. I can't even begin to explain how hard it is to do my job without a laptop. The boss won't even be back until monday so I can't see if he still has a spare laying around. I managed to get through Thursday afternoon and Friday by pestering what was left of my co-workers for part numbers. I tried calling each of them so I wouldn't be repeatedly pestering any one of them.

I wanted to go in over the weekend to get some more work done, but I really gather the willpower to do it. I didn't do diddly this weekend as I was just mentally exhausted.

I'm exhausted just writing all this, goodnight.

Iggy Pop

I must confess I didn't know who Iggy Pop was until earlier this week. Sure I'd seen pictures every now and then in some VH1 show, but the current day Iggy Pop doesn't look at all like the guy responsible for the song that is now and forever associated with Carnival Cruises. You can hear some samples of his songs on Amazon. I've also heard a several of his other songs in movies and such but never knew who it was or really cared until I heard and recognized "I wanna be your dog" earlier this week. I recognized the song from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Read the bio on his site. I find it pretty funny that Iggy and his band are painted as the pioneers who virtually single-handedly godfathered punk rock, garage rock and American heavy metal more than three decades ago. Why hadn't I heard of him earlier? I don't doubt that there are other, more musically inclined people who count him as one of their early influences, but wow, what an ego.

I also discovered Woxy.com internet radio. I really like a lot of the songs they play and I'm learning the names of some of the bands/songs i've heard growing up.

So Here's a few Iggy Pop songs to look up for those in the same boat as me.
I wanna be your dog.
Lust for Life
Real Wild Child

The Sushi Experience

Last night Camille and I went to a place called Sweet Basil for some sushi. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I wish I had taken my camera to take a picture because the sushi was presented to us on dishes that are little boats. it was really neat. next time I'll remember.

I have no clue what curry is like so I was a little nervous to get a regular entree, so I got a california roll and sushi nigiri (chef's choice). I loved the california roll which was I think crab meat with avacado and cucumber in a seaweed wrap with rice on the outside. This is your basic sushi that you could get in your local supermarket. The chefs choice was much more interesting. There were a couple of white fish that I couldn't identify (not a bad thing), salmon, barbequed eel, shrimp, and crab. I could probably do the sushi thing again but no salmon for me. I was doing good until that point and then I wanted to gag. I'd actually never had salmon before but I had heard about the strong fishy taste. Well, it is just as present when dipped in soy sauce and the pice of fish was a little big to try and eat at once. So that's when the taste + texture combo really got to me. yuck!

The best part of the night however was trying to get Camille to hold her chopsticks right. I've never used chopsticks before but it was surprisingly easy. I swear we worked on her grip for a good 15 minutes before the food came. But it was a lot of fun, and she managed to be able to eat with the chopsticks as well. Maybe I'll try using chopsticks again tomorrow night if we finally get my parents to go to Fuji Steakhouse with us.

Arachnophobia!

I decided to rake the leaves outside today as it was a wonderful day out and I didn't want to get far behind like in past years. I changed out of my work clothes and into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and flip-flops. After all who needs shoes for raking leaves?

I got about halfway down the hill when I noticed what appeared to be a white plastic bag sticking out of a hole in the ground. I pulled and pulled and finally got a large piece out. Then it moved! At first I was spooked but curious, I thought it might be a cocoon of some sort that had come unraveled. When I peeled it apart, out fell a spider. Not any little spider but a big as my thumb, menacing looking spider. I got my camera and a piece of paper to try and get a photo. He was not shy about showing those shockingly big front fangs. I got some photos and then let him go in an area I had already finished.

Now, I'm not normally afraid of spiders, I actually find them fascinating to watch. But when I continued to rake the leaves, I found my hair standing on end and I was checking my legs and feet at each 'tickle' of a leaf or heaven help me when something got in between my flip-flops and my feet. Unfortunately you'll have to settle for this other photo as none of mine turned out and when I went to find the spider where I had tossed him earlier, all I found was a cricket.
Needless to say the yard isn't going to get done today.

Salem loves Banana Republic

It sure is nice having pets for cheap amusement. This Banana Republic bag is one of Salem's favorite toys and it was free! Well, almost.

Now that we've got Sherlock, we've got double the fun. Salem is good at chasing toys thrown down the hall but as any other stuck up cat, he's too good to fetch. Instead he'll chase the toy till it stops, take a sniff and then come back, wanting someone to go pick it up and throw it back the other way. Sherlock loves to play fetch. What's even better is that he loves to chase the cat off when the cat is also chasing his toys. I'll throw a toy down the hall, they'll both go after it but it winds up with Sherlock chasing Salem into the bedroom, returning to the hall to retrieve the toy and then running back to me as Salem comes out of the bedroom to chase Sherlock back down the hall.

I love pets. sometimes.

The Pizza Incident

Ok, so tonight Camille was in a really pissy mood. She wanted to go out with her friends but they all had better things to do, like clean the house. We had skipped lunch and were getting pretty hungry early. I didn't really want to go out to someplace nice to eat and spend a whol lot of money so after suggesting a few places and getting turned down, I ask if we can just order a pizza. To which I get a resounding NO! So we decide to hop in the car and go out to Qdoba, but on the way Camille says, lets just go to the mall so I can get some Chinese food. After looking at the variety of choices she says, I'm going to Sbarro for some stromboli. I head over to Great Steak for a large super steak, come back to the table and what do I find she has gotten? Pizza! Grrrr!

Demolition = Fascination

I had some time to kill for lunch and saw a wrecking ball tearing into the old Parisian building at Kenwood mall so I grabbed some lunch to go and went parked in the lot across the stree to watch.

The funny thing is that I wasn't alone in this idea. I was only there for about 45 minutes but I think I was the only one actually eating lunch while watching. There had to have been around 10 other people in cars for a period of time, all watching the destruction. A group of people returning from lunch to the eye center across the street even stayed outside for a few extra minutes watching. People returning to their cars from shopping all had their eyes fixed while going to their cars.

Home at last.

Well, after a really long weekend, I'm back home and able to sleep in my own bed again.

As much as I like to travel, I think going on such a short notice is a colossal waste of time and money. The Company flew myself and one other up to cover the Boston South team for the labor day weekend. We managed to work through about half of the backlog, but if we had better dispatchers and were better prepared, it could have been down to near zero. Fortunately, one of their techs who was on disability came back on Tuesday. The TM for that territory seemed deeply appreciative even of the seemingly miniscule amount that we got done.

With all this travelling that I do, I should write up a guide for TM's in case they are ever put in the position of calling for outside help.

Boston Bound!

The Boss called tonight around 9pm to ask if I wanted to go to Boston for the weekend, and after a little deliberation I decided to say yes. So I'm in the midst of packing a bag for my Labor Day weekend from hell. I guess the territory up there has lost 4 people recently and they're a little short handed. I don't really know what I'll be doing while up there but i'll find out when I get there.

Just a bit warm.

While I don't know yet how hot it actually got today, I know it was somewhere in the upper 90's. Today I had the luxury of carting 5 boxes with desktop power supplies 4 blocks from my parking spot to the Federal Building downtown. After making it through security and up to the office where I needed to go, I was drenched in sweat. It didn't help that it felt as if the air conditioning was barely working in that building. I managed to replace 4 of the power supplies and then just when I'm putting in the last one, the power goes out to the whole building. Talk about fun. A couple of the elevators were still working which was good considering I was up on the 9th floor. The only light in the elevator though was a little tiny emergency light, no brighter than a child's night light. I can only imagine how much hotter it must have gotten inside that building as the AC was definitely not working at that point.

Opportunity Knocking!

They say that Opportunity never knocks twice, but I think it may have done just that. This time I made it a point to stop and take my photo.

So what happened to reason?

Missed Opportunity

I was driving to work yesterday and as I passed the Smith Edwards exit, I saw a giant inflatable rubber duck on top of one of the buildings to my left. I would have stopped to get a picture if I hadn't been in such a rush. I planned to head out early today to get a shot but alas, it was gone. If anyone sees it let me know. It was the rubber duck like for the regatta they have before the fireworks. sunglasses and all.

So you'll just have to settle for a photo of my own rubber ducky.

Whoops!

Part of my problem was probably timing, but I had been working yesterday on getting everything copied over to a new hard drive so I could reformat my main and get rid of a bunch of crap. I set the computer to copying last night and went to bed. When I woke up, I started the re-image process. I don't think I was fully awake because I probably lost a bunch of stuff by mistake.

Being as I've been surfing the net for years and always remembered to copy my favorites folder before reloading, I forgot this time. I had a ton of old bookmarks that were really junk anyway. Like the link to Dollar Bill Origami. Not that i'll ever need it but I did have some that I could have really used. I lost the links to a few of the blogs that I read on a regular basis. More easily remade links are all the ones for financial stuff, banks, credit card companies and such and all the news sites I check out. It really does free me from a lot of clutter but it makes for a little work that I hadn't been planning. Less time for fun stuff.

I also am having a hard time remembering my AIM password. I tried to reset the password but I can't answer my own security question "what is your favorite restaraunt?" I don't know, that was 10 years ago, sheesh. Tastes change.

I don't remember if my outlook PST file was saved in a particular folder or not so I may have just lost all my email. sigh.

I guess there is a positive side to all this, my computer now shuts down and restarts a LOT faster.

Chicks with power tools!

I took this photo today because just a couple days ago I saw an article on MSNBC about a company called Tiger Time Lawn Care in Memphis that has girls come mow your lawn in a bikini. I couldn't help but think about how much Eric needs a new assistant. Sorry man but James just can't draw in the business like this.

Salem is just hanging out.

I was getting ready to go to the grocery store this evening and turned the corner to leave and saw Salem just hanging out on the balcony. I had to get a pic. I posted a couple more over at flickr.

Beef, It's What's for Dinner

Saw this as I passed the truck today and I had to pull over, grab my camera and wait for the truck to catch up.

Large Mouth Mailbox

Ok so most of you know that for some reason Camille has a phobia of fish.

So anyway, we're driving out to Tom's parents for his graduation party and find this mailbox. I just had to comment that if she were a postal carrier, this would be the one thing to make her quit her job.

The party was fun BTW. I got Tom a shirt from Wire & Twine which he absolutely loved and that everyone totally agreed was perfect for him.

Playing Cornhole with Camille was kind of fun. She's never played so she threw the bags more like she was the pitcher at a fast pitch softball game and not lobbing it like in slow pitch. Which also reminds me that I want to make myself a cornhole set.

Wii Fit

Tom, this one's for you!

Easy to use guide to picking your candidate

Found this thanks to Chris Glass.
http://www.2decide.com/table.htm

Building stuff

Well, I'm finally getting to put all those wonderful tools in the garage to some use. Tom and I have been working on building some shelves for his wife's kindergarten classroom. This was the prototype that we had put together. After seeing just this unfinished set, she wants 4 more! And I got to buy more tools! I went and bought a guide that clamps to the workpiece to make cutting/routing a straight line much easier. This first set that we built turned out to be a few inches too tall.

I've really enjoyed working with Tom in the garage. It actually gets me doing something constructive. There are additional benefits too. I get the scrap wood, which may not be good for much but I can practice techniques on it. Cutting dovetails, staining etc. Then there is the favors that I get to call in later. I bought some cabinet grade plywood and a piece of pegboard for making a tool cabinet to hang on the wall and the pegboard is for hanging tools on the wall. Tom has already pledged to help with these two projects.

We're hoping that the other teachers in Val's school see these and want us to make more. Then with the little bit of money I can make I get to buy MORE TOOLS!

Still trying to beat the heat.

Well, the good thing is that more than likely, the AC unit just needed a new capacitor. it is about a $35-40 part. The bad news is that the repairman didn't have one in the size needed for my unit. He'll be back tomorrow morning. until then i'm hanging out in the basement reading and watching TV with the fan blowing.

Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

So, the AC went out yesterday. I went outside and it was just humming, fan wasn't turning or anything. I tried turning it off and back on and the fan turned but very slowly and loudly. so rather than risk blowing it up, I turned it off. Today is supposed to get up to 94º and I called a repairman who wont make it here until tomorrow. What a way to spend your day off.

Friday morning I went to the police station to follow up on Camille's purse. An officer there gave me a copy of the report and told me I'd have to go down and talk to the county attorney and see about pressing charges. Today, I went to the Kenton County Attorney's office in Covington and tried to inquire and the secretary/receptionist thought I was crazy. I first asked about pressing charges and she said they only take criminal charges on Tuesdays and Thursdays. ugh. then I mentioned that the guy had been arrested so she asked me "so charges have already been filed then?" i'm like I don't know that's why i'm here. god she was annoying. She seemed dumbfounded that I was in there looking for help. Finally someone else in the office came up and suggested she look it up in the computer. She did and the suspect is due in court on the 12th. She also took my information and said she'd have a victims advocate give me a call. What a waste of time.

Work Work Work!

Well, I've been really busy with work the past couple weeks, 20 hours of OT this pay period and such. I recently spent two weeks on call and it just happened to be really bad timing with both Dad's birthday and Father's Day falling in those two weeks.

Now it turns out I'm already on call again for the next two weeks because vacations have mucked up the rotation. I was supposed to have the family poker game at my house this Saturday but now that venue has to be changed. I can't guarantee that I'll be there but I'll try my hardest. We wouldn't have had to change locations if Camille were still available. But due to one of her (former) co-workers getting frisky with several of the male customers and then walking around the hotel drunk and naked, Camille's schedule is now mucked up too and she will definitely be working Saturday night.

Perspective.

I had a Dell call up on Mt. Adams a couple weeks ago and I got this shot from a little park on Hill St. It really is neat seeing where I grew up from the other side of the river. It is amazing just how much the place has changed too. Houses gone, others built. I pointed out my parents house, and even the window to my old room to the law student who's laptop I had just fixed and she was just in awe of how close to the city and the view that I had of the river as a kid. Granted, my view was nothing compared to her current apartment but I gather that she's not from the downtown area and didn't have views like these growing up.

Oddly enough, Bellevue was just named one of the hot neighborhoods in the area by the Enquirer the other day. It was also mentioned as one of the top ten in the latest Cincinnati Magazine.

Up all night.

Well, I had gotten about an hour's worth of sleep tonight when Camille called and woke me up saying that her purse had been stolen and to cancel all her cards. She also needed a ride home as her car keys were in the purse. I started calling the phone, I must have called it a hundred times, eventually someone picked up and I could hear them pressing numbers trying to turn the phone off.

We went home and tried to cancel the phone but I hung up after a half hour on hold with sprint. Camille then used my phone to call back to the drawbridge and it turned out that one of the people she suspected of taking her purse had been caught walking around in the kitchen of the restaurant. So Camille wanted to go back to the drawbridge. I went with her and the suspect was in the backseat of one of the cars. The guy couldn't give a straight story, he was with someone else and all his clothes were in the room but he didn't know which room etc. They searched the guy before putting him in the cruiser, but they never pulled the phone out of his pocket. Upon a second search of the guy later, they pulled out the phone and it was Camille's. They hauled him off to the station but with no room number, we have no clue where her purse is that has her keys, a couple credit cards and such. Not to mention that it was one of those expensive Vera Bradly purses with a nice leather wallet from banana republic.

Looks like I'm calling the locksmith in the morning. Grrr!

Outrageous!

In Newport the other day, a 10 year old kid was running from another boy who had been chasing him with a dirty diaper. He ran smack into a car and slid across the hood causing an 18 inch long crease and scratch. Newport police have charged the boy with first degree criminal mischief, a felony punishable by up to five years in juvenile detention.

Now kids will be kids. This little boy didn't do it on purpose and couldn't have known that the 36 year old car was worth so much. He probably doesn't even know much about money yet.

Furthermore what is a all original, 1971, mint condition Ferrari worth $1.5M doing parked on the street at 9th and Washington in Newport anyway? Repairs are estimated to cost over $200K. I don't know many single mothers with six children from Newport who could afford to pay that.

Sigh, original story here.

Zoo Babies!

I came home from work today and looked outside and found that one of our babies has emerged from the nest. I went out and took a couple pictures and actually managed to get really close. The bunny just stayed real still, only thing moving was that twitching nose. Came back inside and talked to Camille for a bit and walking past the window, looked out again and saw two of them out there! I told Camille and she walked outside to take a peek for herself. Imagine her surprise when she spotted the third was out of the nest as well.

The invasion continues...

I caught the chipmunk out again and managed to prevent him from going back under the stairs. instead he ran off into the neighbor's yard. I went over and peeked over the fence and got a great big surprise. A giant snapping turtle climbing out of their pool. I ran back and got my camera just in time to catch the turtle making it out. Looks to be an interesting summer if this kind of stuff continues.

I'm having some issues with my internet connection that are really ticking me off so you'll just have to check my flickr account for photos of the turtle.

I'm being invaded!

Ok, first it was Cutworms, devouring all the leaves of my trees, then moles, or assumed to be moles that were digging all over the yard. Then it was rabbits digging holes for a nest in the back yard. Now it is chipmunks. I knew that I had seen one in my neighbor's yard a couple of months ago but now I caught on right on my back steps. When I opened the patio door, he ran right into his little hole under the steps. Sigh, its off to the store I go for some concrete to fill the big cracks and other gaps where the steps have worn away.

I really don't mind the little creatures so long as they keep their nests in the woods. I was looking up options for getting rid of chipmunks and one was fox urine pellets. I'd sprinkle some of that but then I'd probably chase off the rabbit too which I don't want to do until her babies leave.

You would think that the smell of the dog would keep them away but noooo! they come anyway!

Bunny is back

Good news. Evidently rabbits don't abandon their young like birds do if there is a foreign smell in the nest. After all the calls we made when we found the nest, someone called Camille the next day and said to keep the dog away for about three weeks. That the mother would return twice a day to feed her young. I had seen her last night on the hill but never saw her make it back to the nest. This morning when I woke up though, all was good as momma had returned.

Angel and the bunny rabbit

ok, so I was walking through the dining room and saw Angel laying on the steps outside as usual when we let her out. She had her head up, looking at something so I decided to check it out. Turns out there was a rabbit in our backyard and totally within Angel's reach. I was so surprised that she wasn't doing anything. I ran and grabbed Camille so she could get a look and got my camera to get a picture. Well I guess this was enough for Angel as she went after and chased off the rabbit. After she came back, angel was checking out the spot where the rabbit had been sitting. Turned out to be a nest of babies. WOW! After taking angel back inside and not really sure what to do other than not touching the nest we called around to several places and never really got an answer. Looks like Angel is going to get to see the neighborhood now.

The really amazing thing is that Eric had just mowed the yard yesterday. Makes you wonder if the nest was there yesterday.

Seems to be the day for finding things. I was coming home from Lowe's today and saw the ground moving in between my flowers in the front. We've had a real bad problem with moles lately. I stepped on the ground where it was moving and it didn't move no mo! Hopefully that took care of one of them.

Funeral for a fallen soldier.

I had just come out of Jersey Mike's grabbing my lunch when I ran into the police blocking off the intersection of Kenwood and Montgomery Roads. A bystander informed me that a funeral procession was about to go through, so I grabbed my camera. I didn't even know who it was for at the time. I later found out that it was for Army Specialist Michael Frank who died in Iraq last week. I then sat in my car in a moment of silence for the fallen soldier. Watching the procession made me realize that this is as close as the Iraq war has come to affecting my daily life. A 15 minute delay out of my busy day. It makes you think about how little we as americans have had to sacrifice for this war, while thousands of families around the country have had to endure tremendous loss.

More Power!

So, last week I bought a new power washer because the deck was turning green. I've never seen the patio any other color so I decided to try it out. WOW! There's concrete under there. Funny thing is walking on it barefoot and wet, the green side actually felt slimy. Yech! I just wish I had tried the other nozzle on the deck first. I wound up stripping off the stain/sealer/whatever the previous owners used. For the record, I did learn from my mistake and tried the flat spray nozzle on the concrete first and learned that it doesn't do jack there. Now I get the joy of finishing stripping it and resealing the deck. sounds like a fun weekend project if my weekends weren't getting taken away by work.

One of our ATM techs quit so I get to fill in his schedule for 3 weeks. to be fair, i'm not the only one getting punished like this. there are two others. The last of us is actually going to take that schedule permanent in exchange for no longer being on call. I just hate it. Monday and Tuesday 1-10pm Wednesday and Thursday off and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday 8-5pm. To top it off I'll probably be on call for two weeks when I return from this nightmare.

They're Baaack!

The Cutworms are back this year. This time however, I'm going at them early. Last year we were on vacation and came back to find the trees, deck and house covered in them. This year at first sight, I went out and bought a bottle of insecticide that attaches to the hose and another hose so I can reach to the bottom of the yard. I WILL have leaves on my trees this year dammit! Thankfully the day after I spotted them, Eric came and mowed the yard which I'm sure took care of some of them, and then that night I sprayed the yard down. Hopefully it works enough to protect the trees. It got hot in the house without the leaves to block that afternoon sun.

More on finding old friends.

Well, the search for old friends continues. We really seem to be making progress in locating people which is pretty cool in itself. What makes it cooler is that Jeremy and I had been searching for one of our friends for the last two weeks. We thought we were getting close because we were finding all sorts of stuff, blog comments he had made and old email addresses. The amazingly enough, he contacted Jeremy. wow. Thats two more in the last two days.

Ever do a Google search for yourself? Kind of amazing all this stuff that just stays out there. My name can't be all that common and a few years ago a Google search would have found an old bulletin from my church. Now there's all kinds of stuff and it isn't me. Somewhere out there is a baseball field named Darrell Snodgrass field. cool. found a comment I made on an NPR website, and found out that there is a Darrell Snodgrass living in Arkansas somewhere and another in Alaska. There was also a battle in the civil war where the Confederates drove Union forces off of Snodgrass Hill somewhere near Knoxville.

The web is an amazing source of info sometimes, but you really can't control it.

Communications or lack thereof.

"It's a bit dangerous out there, and I guess men have to choose between marriage and death. I guess they figure that with marriage at least they get meals. But then they get married and find out we don't cook anymore." - Rita Rudner

Tonight was one of those rare nights where Camille was actually in the mood to cook. So naturally since I'm on call, I get called out because one of the night guys has disappeared for hours on end and isn't answering his phone. So much for dinner. Grr. Oh and guess what, I change back into my work clothes, drive 40 minutes to the store and just as I'm ready to pull into the parking lot, the guy comes back and says he'll take the calls back and that I can go home. Talk about frustrating.

It did get funny once I got home however as earlier in the day, Camille had bought flowers for the bed that runs along the front of the house. I get home and she has started planting them. I walk up the steps and she says " I have no clue what I'm doing, come back out here and help me. and I keep digging up worms." I come back out and she's planted them all right, but she never bothered to split out the plants. She removed the plastic from the six pack of petunias and just planted the thing whole, without separating them. So I show her how to separate and plant the things and just for kicks I threw a worm at her and told her to get used to them if she was gonna plant stuff.

We did manage to eat together tonight after all the planting had been done which made for a nice end to a hectic day.

It's party time.

Well, it's been a while since my last post so i better post something. Finished the major work for Charlie's bar on Friday at 3:30am. Laminating the top and finishing all the trim will happen once he gets some more $$$.

Charlie's party on Saturday was a total success. Lots of people there. I really enjoyed meeting a lot of people i didn't already know. I also won the Texas Hold-em match that we had going down in the basement. Woot! Only thing bad was the rain, it was nice and sunny for most of the day and then all of a sudden, total downpour. Thankfully, the bar downstairs was usable, because that's where all of the food went. Overall though, it was a lot of fun.

Rob brought his wireless guitar for the PS2 and it was amazing just how entranced people were with watching whoever was playing Guitar Hero at the time. Even more amazing was that Tom actually played a little towards the end after making excuses all day that he would be horrible at it because he has no sense of rhythm. I think he was having fun, but he'd never admit that.

I managed to take some pictures only to realize later that I had left a lens filter on and it made all my indoor photos really dark. sigh.

ROFL

Camille never fails to make me laugh. be it through honest mistakes or sheer blondeness. today she was sitting at her desk behind me and opened internet explorer and remarked that Yeltsin Arafat had died. I bet the look on my face was a good one. she then realized her mistake a few seconds later and we both had a laugh.

The other day she was talking about how she and Ginny sat around and "bullshat." I just had to laugh at her for that one. At least she can laugh at herself when she makes comments like these though.

I love you Camille.

Creative Differences

Friday I stayed over at Charlie's house and worked on his new bar in the basement. I loved how Ed said that the argument Charlie and i had was over our creative differences. I stayed till about 12:30am working on it, which wasn't bad because Charlie was working on drywall elsewhere in the house.

Yesterday I went over and only stayed a couple hours. The carcass is complete for the front section of the bar and I just have to figure out how to wrap in the rest as Charlie now wants it to be a little L shaped to accommodate a mini fridge.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day and I managed to actually get some stuff accomplished. The week before last, my boss did an audit of all the parts in my van and it was the worst one since I started. lots of missing crap. I do know that some of the parts that were missing were in my garage waiting to be processed (put in the system as used and FedEx labels slapped on) so thankfully Ryan gave me a little time to rectify the situation. So I spent a couple hours outside today working on that. didn't manage to get it all but i got most of it. I also managed to pull a few weeds that had reared their ugly heads through the new mulch.

All in all it was a great weekend.

Bumper Stickers and Idiots

I saw a couple stickers on a car today. First there was the standard W in the oval for all those bush supporters out there. the next was also equally normal, one of the support our troops ribbon magnets. but the one that really stood out and then made me laugh was a bumper sticker that says "Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism and Communism, War Has Never Solved Anything."

To me, this is a statement against war, not for the war. If by slavery, they mean our civil war, well that was about a lot more than just slavery. And we are only one country out of many who had slaves and none of them took wars to stop.

For Fascism and Nazism, sure WWII did strike a major blow, but it didn't completely wipe out either. Right here in Cincinnati we've got white supremacist groups wanting to take a march through predominantly black Over the Rhine.

And Communism certainly didn't die because of a war. It is still alive and kicking in North Korea, China and Cuba. It looks to be on the rise in South America with Venezuela and Bolivia nationalizing oil and gas fields once again.

War has never solved anything is the outright truth and totally goes against bush and his policies. So, is this person possibly torn between being a bush supporter and a war opponent or do you they they are just as smart as bush and probably thought that the sticker was trying to make a sarcastic comment about war being able to resolve conflicts?

Old Friends

Well yet another old friend managed to find me tonight. wow. This one brings back lots of memories, not just because of her, but because she's currently stationed in San Diego, where I went to school after boot camp. Brings back memories of me and the guys going down to TJ every weekend and holes where memories should be of us coming back. as the saying goes If i knew then what i know now... I certainly would have done more sightseeing back then. but hey I was 18/19 and sightseeing was boring to me back then. Jacque, if you get a chance, 10 years ago they said Rosarita, Mexico was a nice place to go. who knows now. Pity that even with my being there for six months, I never made it down there.

Around town

Out driving around town and I came upon all these old signs lined up along the wall. Turns out that right across the street is the American Sign Museum which I read about a while back in one of Chris Glass' blogs. Small world.

Fire Hydrant

Well Christina beat me to posting a picture of the R2D2 mailbox up at Kenwood mall but I bet she missed the fire hydrant at the entrance to the parking lot.

God of War

Well it would seem that I am tiring of the time sink that is World of Warcraft. I've started exploring new games again. Most recently I picked up God of War. WOW! it's a fun game but mom's this isn't a game for the kiddies. The blood and gore is everywhere but the killing isn't as lifelike as in Metal Gear:Solid. In that one you could see the main character slitting throats and a bunch of blood spraying out.

It only takes about 15 minutes of getting into the game to start seeing boobies everywhere. first it is the two women begging the hero to come back to bed. then later the Medusa and other scantily clad women.

Getting this game kind of reminds me of one movie Camille and I went to see. It was totally an adult comedy. Probably like Freddy got Fingered or something. I can't really remember. What I do remember is some little kid, and I do mean little, tricked his grandmother into taking him and his even younger little sister. I remember her scolding him and saying that she was going to tell his mother. it was so funny.

Ah, Spring is here - April Fools!

The beginning of this week was so nice with temperatures in the mid 70's and overnight lows in the 50's. I think Mother Nature was playing an April Fools joke on us because now it is freezing overnight and destroying all the early blooming flowers. had to bring in the bleeding hearts so they didn't get killed. how ironic sounding.

I really need to learn how to use the macro function on my camera so I can take some up close shots of flowers this summer. more importantly I need to practice holding the damn camera steady. it seems that so many of my shots are just blurry.

New game for everyone to try.

So i've been playing a game online that Ed introduced me to and i'm hooked. It is odd and sometimes hard to understand but more importantly, it is free and totally web based so you can play from any computer. There is nothing to download for all you fraidy-cats out there. If you decide to try it out, we're in Universe 27.

www.ogame.org

Don't ask me why they call it ogame, I don't know. I've tried finding out but no luck.

The light goes on...

Ok, there was a public pool here in Erlanger that Camille went to for over 10 years with her family. Tonight as we passed, she noticed that they had torn it down. So I mentioned how when i first started hearing about it from her family I thought it was the Tripoli swim club. Turns out it was Triple EEE. So i told her that i didn't think of it as the Erlanger Elsmere Edgewood club and you should have seen it. the light turned on and it was so funny to watch. she'd never put it together. we both laughed so hard.

What a House!

Ok, so i'm running a call today to fix a laptop and when i get to the house it is absolutely amazing. the rooms are just massive there aren't enough words to describe it. So i'll just give you a picture i took as i was leaving. That Hummer in the driveway belongs to their 18yo son. The pool, basketball court and tennis court are in back.

Just out of curiosity and because i'm getting pretty good at being a web sleuth, i looked it up and it is a $3m mansion.

Random Thoughts.

Meter Reading
ok, so i haven't seen the guy come by to read the water meter since we moved in almost 2 years ago. Saw him for the first time today, it seemed really odd, there was this truck coming up the street on the opposite side. For some reason i was thinking a mail truck, even though this was a pickup. when it got to our house I saw the driver leaning out his window with a long pole in his hand. evidently there are electronic sensors at the curb so he doesn't ever have to leave his truck anymore. cool. I know my parents house had something similar installed a coupl years ago but it is just attached to the side of the house, not way out at the curb.
Mmmm... Ice CreamI've never really been into many odd or specialty flavors of ice cream, and Oatmeal really isn't my thing but Camille had me try this Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk and OMG it was amazing. I had never experienced Cinnamon in an icecream and I was hooked. That was probably my favorite flavor until the other night she brought home some Ben & Jerry's Cinnamon Buns ice cream. It is my absolute all time favorite now.
Cool Website.
I was browsing today and came upon this website where a guy had taken a photo of himself every day for 8 years and made a video out of it. It is pretty cool, go check it out.
I could also spend hours here looking through all this guys great photos

New Photos from the Cruise

I put some photos in a yahoo album.
Caribbean Cruise

Think warm thoughts...

Well yesterday after the meeting was a pretty busy day. I got a lot done and got in some more OT. I finally made it back to my room about 9pm.
Did i mention that my rental has a remote starter? I parked beneath my window last night and I just now pointed the remote out at the car and started it up, it'll be nice and toasty when i get in. too bad the fun ends in a little over a week. oh well i'll just think warm thoughts and look ahead to my vacation next month.
I still have not crossed the Potomac, it seems that they split their group so that they don't have to cross it. It looks like there is a virgina group and a DC group under the same manager, which makes sense in some ways since traffic is so bad in DC. but it ruins my fun. I did get a picture yesterday though. In front of a walmart parking lot there was a small pond. it had frozen over like everything else out here but on this one, someone had pushed out some shopping carts. I know that no one is going to venture out to try and retrieve them and that as soon as the ice melts, they're sunk.
Oh, I saw another funny thing yesterday, a Home Depot with a parking garage. I guess that happens in big cities with no room but i had never seen it before. no storefront facade like i was used to seeing, just a two story parking garage.
I've been getting up really early here, hopefully i can continue the trend when i get back home.

sooo tired...

ok, i have been so damn tired that i haven't blogged for a few days so here's a recap.
Monday night didn't really bring much snow, enough to dust the cars and stick to the grass but the roads were just wet. Tuesday however was horrid. The federal government let all employees in the area out at 2pm which just made rush hour last longer than the norm for here. Tuesday night brought about 6 inches of ice. not solid stuff, this was more like the little beads of ice that you get in a slush puppie when you drink all the stuff. My car didn't have an ice scraper in it so i had to heat up the car and do it all by hand. About an hour before, a plow had come through the parking lot and left a nice mound of snow for me and everyone else to try and work our way over.
I had to be at a Food Lion grand opening at 8am in Manassas so that meant getting up at 5am, and leaving at 6 to get there in time. Why they need an NCR tech at a Food Lion opening is beyond me. It wasn't even a new store opening. it was just a remodel. Walmart grand openings i can understand, they usually have 30 lanes along the front plus all the department registers. This store had 9 lanes total. 9, and three of those were IBM self checkouts that we don't even cover. i was so damn bored, stuck there for four hours. and COLD!!! they could have turned the heat up a little in my mind and i was wearing several layers of clothing. From what the cashiers said, the back of the store was even colder (dock doors open) good god! What a waste of time. Didn't do much throughout the rest of the day ran some calls here and there but nothing exciting, just more food lions.
Last night i fell asleep about 8pm with the TV on so naturally i kept waking up throughout the night. got up at 5:30 again to be on the road at 6 for a 7am breakfast meeting which was pointless for us out of towners but the food was good. It was in the hotel restaraunt which was on the 17th floor of a holiday inn, overlooking the frozen Potomac. I wish i had my camera on me.
Hopefully i'll remember and write more tonight. if anything exciting goes on.

DC Day 1

Nothing really exciting happened today, light workload for most of the day. but 0-60 in seven seconds is fun. I gunned it on an on ramp and WOW, it really put me back in my seat. Which reminds me of another reason I like this car. I accidentally hit a button earlier, naturally after I'd been driving for hours, and the seats got hot. Woot! this will be great tomorrow morning. I've never had a car with heated leather seats before.
I didn't really get to take any pictures today, I saw a couple of frozen rivers that would have been cool shots but I couldn't stop on the highway to take a picture. It is supposed to snow tonight so maybe I can get up early and get some good shots. I haven't even crossed the Potomac into DC yet. I've been in Virginia all day. every time I saw a neat building or something, I was driving and surrounded by traffic. I was rather bored this morning, just some store visits to fill time.
It is amazing, since most of the team here is new (some haven't even been to Dayton for training) they have 9 people in the area from out of the country to run calls and train the locals.
Thankfully, Prison Break is not on this week because I would not have made it back to the hotel in time to watch it, however I did get to watch Steven Colbert.
"Barak Obama is not the first black man to run for president, he is just the first to have a prayer. Which is Ironic considering the last two were reverends!"

Off to a good start

Ok, my trip to DC is off to a good start. My flight was uneventful which is very good because it seemed that the more i fly the more i get scared of flying. maybe it was just the particular planes or something. no turbulence this time around. and the landing was a lot easier too. more experienced crew maybe?
So i get my rental car through National, and they tell me that it is intermediate class, so to walk out to the intermediate sign and pick any car as the keys will be inside. Woot! I saw a bunch of pontiac G6s which aren't all that. basically another neon with a different body. but then i saw a G6 GT. this thing is sweet looking and i'll post a pic asap.
I got to my hotel, just walking in it looked a whole lot better than that rathole i was staying in during the last trip. When i was checking in, i asked if they had any rooms with a fridge. The guy said normally that's an extra charge but since i was staying for two weeks he upgraded me for free. woot!
This hotel also participates in the water conservation program like the one out in california did. If i want my towels changed i just leave them on the floor. if they are hanging on the rack, they'll leave them. and I can leave a hanger on the door to indicate if i want my sheets changed everyday or not. I don't need clean sheets everyday so this is also good.
When i got here the first thing i saw is that there is no snow on the ground which is a nice change from back home. the weather here right now is beautiful so i'm going to try and go get some pictures taken while i can. It is a whopping 35 degrees out and it feels really warm to the 5 and 6 degrees that we've had the last week or two.