Beer Goggle Dreams

20:57 PM 06/02/2012

So I'm doing okay. Not fantastic but okay. Camping over the holiday weekend helped a lot simply because I had very little cellphone signal and was thus fairly disconnected. (Except having to send an email to a grumpy customer that I dropped the ball on.)

Currently I'm sitting on the futon after a fairly big bout of dirty dishes, misc computer stuff, and getting my onw digital picture frame working. (Hint - don't use xscreensaver - use gnome-drapes and hide the icons.)

Earlier this week I started getting exercise in the form of yardwork. Managed to cut down a lot of weeds - I swear the milkweed was 3 feet high minimum. But I managed to clean out and rescue at least three of the remains of the established raspberry plants after my neighbor accidentally cut most of them down. Hopefully those will do well.

The weedwacker overheated so not to be outdone I pulled out the ancient solid-welded smooth-blade hand weed-wacker and just continued on. Cut a whole lot of milkweed down and pulled a lot more out by hand. Still have a whole hell of a lot more to pull. Also pulled out all the thick grass-like weeds that had grown up and were choking out the peonies bushes. Lots of hand weeding. Lost of sweat and energy expended. Ruines some of that with a little bad food later (carbs) but I felt extremely good that day and the next so I'm sure it was a net gain.

Lots of the annoying Thompson (Thomas?) grass still remains to be removed. The darn stuff wraps and tangles the weedwacker so likely I'll end up pulling it all by hand. Hopefully get to that during the week after work but no promises.

Around the house I managed to start getting the kitchen cleaned up but I need to make my workspace out in the workshop the priority as I need to separate my formal work environment from the rest of stuff around here.

My iPad seems to be working well as an ebook reader. That said I will likely still get either one of the smaller Nooks or a Kindle simple due to battery life. I kind of like the idea of not having to charge my ebook reader for close to a month. That said nothing still beats a paper book. Unfortuantely I don't have the money or the space for much of any books right now.

Amazon/Barnes and Noble gift cards for Father's Day people! Hop to it! ^_^

The family is doing well. We're currently saving for another Lhasa Apso but aren't going to seriously look until we have the cash ready. While having Richie around we learned a lot about the breed and just like them in general. (Don't have enough space for a larger dog or I might consider a Tibetan Mastiff.)

Hmm...about 9:30pm here...gonna have to stop typing here and get more motivated. Hopefully I can be motivated to get enough stuff done out in the workshop tomorrow before my wife leaves that I can start putting the computer crap that's in the house out there. Gonna have to start up the A/C unit out there soon or at the very least get a good exhaust fan set up out there. (Surprisingly not cheap.)

If anybody wants to ship me a 12/24V DC or 110VAC network rack fan I wouldn't be adverse to accepting it! ;-)

Later!

22:13 PM 10/13/2011

So tomorrow my mom stops by for the weekend or so. No big deal there. (Reminder that if she reads this she should bring both her wireless router and the wireless camera so we can make sure it works properly.)

Only thing I have planned tomorrow is I have to go down and do even more maintenance on my father's old Isuzu - basically replace the clutch master cylider (two bolts) and bleed the system. No big deal and that should be the final straw for it.

Got some really good news today. I called unemployment and it turns out that I made enough money at my last contract job to file for another 24 week claim. This will help us out until I find another position. (Of course I also have to go to the Social Security office and file for a replacement card because I need it to file the unemployment claim and haven't seen it physically around here in years. The card that is.) Anyways that gets us out of trouble for the moment.

Still working on getting the workshop shuffled around before winter. Checked on flooring adhesives today and it turns out that I can get the tile put down for about $30 total. Much better than I'd previously thought so hopefully there's enough left over from my wife's next check to do that. I hope I hope. Maybe I can get my dad to spring for it...

The grass has started to take over the tilled space in the garden so I have to work fast this weekend. I need to get the boards cut for the beds so I can staple black plastic over the beds to kill anything in them. I should have enough construction grade bags to do the job I just need to get moving on it. That not being done is just sheer laziness on my part.

More good news - my car passed emissions with flying colors. Now I just need to use my welder to tack down the top part of the clamshell on the catalytic converter so it doesn't rattle any more. Thankfully because Dorothy is a 1998 Neon she's new enough they could do OBD-II diagnostics on her rather than the manual diagnostics. Bummer is I don't get the actual emissions numbers like I do with a manual test. Regardless she passed in the state of IL and because she's older than 2000 in our area she probably won't ever be tested again.

And finally I figured out that it won't cost me a fortune to re-pour the concrete in my basement that the previous owner cut out of the wall.

Now if I can just find the money for all this...

13:55 PM 07/06/2011

Managed to get out and do some yard work today. Got a parts tractor the same model as mine that had good blades and a number of other parts. Currently disassembling that for storage as I have enough room in the shed to fit all the spares.

And that is another thing I got done today. I organized the shed a little and got the old Suzuki into the garage, the lawn tractor and push mowers back into the shed, and the gas grill out. So I now have the grill out so we can cook with it once I remove the wasps from the frames and I have the Suzuki in the garage where I can take it apart. And the lawn tractor is now out of my way completely until I need it. (Though I need to replace the shed doors completely because one is horribly bowed outward. Easy stuff since I have the plywood for it.
( Time to fire up the air wrench... )

14:26 PM 04/19/2011

So after certifying for my unemployment this morning I got a cold call from a headhunter who found my resume on Dice.com and wanted to submit me for a position doing help desk call center work for a particularly popular medical insurance company.

It sounds like a good job, pays more than I was looking for, and is in damn near the same place I was driving for the last decade at my previous job. So I told the headhunter to submit my resume and let me know when they want me to interview. It's not the Linux admin job but I can't afford to ignore anybody willing to potentially hire me.

I haven't gotten back to writing as of yet. That, like many other things, is on hold until I become employed again.

I have to apologize to ellenmillion. I have something in the Torn World submission queue that I haven't finished edits on. What happened was very simple and it wasn't just because I entered my Extended Benefits phase of my unemployment that suddenly takes up all my time.

After much thought on the matter it turns out that the edits (deservedly harsh ones) hit me while I was down. I just couldn't handle them because of what else is going on in my life. I was trying to climb back up out of the bucket labeled depression and they just hit me the wrong way.

And it's not their fault either because the edits for the story in question are very very correct in their reactions about what must be changed. I just couldn't, and for the moment still can't, process them mentally or emotionally. Thus I have to apologize because I'm just not up to snuff at the moment.
( Dark chocolate cupcakes and a library in a tree... )

So this morning I woke up extremely sore but it was actually a good thing.

In the past I mentioned that I kept feeling like things were touching my face while I was trying to get to sleep in our bedroom. Well while we were out replacing our knife sharpener yesterday I ran across something I didn't think of before - sleep masks.

Never thought I'd say this but it worked like a charm. I still got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom but when I got back to bed I went back to sleep. In the morning I was sore because I didn't really move around all night. That means REM sleep.

I don't know what's going on overall but whatever it is the mask seems to help.

And I had some of the oddest dreams.
( Plucky Plumage... )

So...after studying for another week...I took another test online today for my CCNA...

...and got a 58%. (Previous scores include 74%, 80%, 84%, 76%, and 74% over the last three months.)

*headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk**headdesk*

I'm so tired of this. It just never seems to end or even slow down.

After I figured I finished writing out my latest story for Torn World the canon board handed me a ton of edits for it. Some rightfully so but frankly I'm just not in the mood all of a sudden. (I know it isn't but it feels like just another failure. Not their fault though.)
( Whiney Wanderings... )

So I didn't sleep well again last night. It was a combination of things that I won't go into here. If there weren't so many downsides to taking sedatives I'd certainly consider it sometimes.

Part of it is I've been off my diet recently. Not horribly but a lot of rich food that has caused me to pick up an extra 10 pounds so I'm now 5' 7", 235lbs in my shorts. I'll rectify this shortly.
( Dinking Drives... )

So I'm awake...yeah...*zzzzzzz*

*gets poked by a stick*

Huh? Wha? Oh...right...posting...

All-in-all it has turned out to be an okay holiday season. We survived it anyway. ;-)

We have a ton of cleaning to do. (Why is it there's always a ton more cleaning during the holidays than most other times?) Mostly dishes at the moment but we definitely have to vacuum and dust. I also have to clean out the hearth because it's chok full of ashes that can be used on the sidewalk ice outside.

Wondering why the blossoms on my bean plant look a little withered today. I wonder if mom accidentally watered them when she watered the tomato plants. That would explain it because you can't over-water in these pots or they quickly become waterlogged.
( More misc behind the cut )

April 15, 2009 8:38 PM 4/15/09

Go crazy! Don’t mind if I do!

I’m pretty close too what with the chaos at the office right now...

*ahem*

The weather was warm enough that I could go and ride the motorcycle to the store to get some headphones. (Managed to pick up a 2nd-gen 4GB ipod mini for $49 off of E-Bay to replace all the stupid hard-drive based ones that keep failing on me.) It was even warm enough to wear my tech vest without the arms though I did wear gloves.

( Is it summer yet? )

April 3, 2009 12:08 PM 4/3/09

So I’m home today thanks to a lesson in physics yesterday.

We’re pulling 30 years of crap wiring out of one of the company buildings so we can run new wire.

Now if anybody has never done this you have to understand something. On a suspended ceiling once you start pulling a cleanly cut wire from one end it will start accelerating of it’s own will due to gravity pulling the cable to the floor and overcoming the friction of the wire that is still laying on the ceiling tiles.

Anyone care to guess what happens when it reaches the end? That’s right! The end acts like a whip as it goes over the side.

I must have just been in the wrong place facing the wrong direction as all of a sudden there was a snap, a blue flash in my left eye, instant pain, and blurred vision. O_x

( Click on the missing eye to continue... O_x )