A Day (or Two) in the Life of Scott Hanno

Hello again and Happy Sunday! Not much going on around here as it monsooned rain all day yesterday although it was nearly 70' but today is almost the exact opposite of that and has been whipping winds and only in the 40's - at least the sun shined for a couple of minutes today. I did end up going out this afternoon and raked up four more big ole bags of leaves and after today I think that almost all of the leaves are off the trees now so I just need to finish it up one more day. I also had a tree limb break off so I had to saw that up and take it out to the road, it wasn't real big but still took me a while to clean it up.

And it was a rough week last week as I had my training classes all day Tuesday through Thursday so I did that during the day and the did my day job in the evening after that. I swear that the place wears me out and by the time the weekend gets here all I want to do is sleep. But at least yesterday was a good day for that but I'm hoping to take a day or two off so that I can get some other stuff around the house done.

I am happy to report that I ended up buying my front door yesterday and I think that I'm really going to like it. But it's kind of funny as I was looking at metal doors with 3/4 square windows and at the last minute I fell in love with this fiberglass door with an oval window - almost the exact opposite of what I thought that I was going to get. And it's got a wood finish to it which I think that I'm going to love on the inside of the house but then I'll need to paint the outside the same green to match my existing door to adhere to the HOA but I think the inside will look great with the hardwood floors. Now I just need to buy the other door for the garage (they were out of them yesterday but they are a stock item) and then find someone to put them both in one of these days. I'm not getting very far trying to find someone at work to do the work for me so I might need to expand my search a little bit but I'm sure that I'll find someone to do the job one of these days.

Not too much else going on with me, my low tire pressure light has been on in my car all week and even after I got air one night in the dark it was still on but then finally I tried it again when I got gas and it finally went out - I was starting to think that the thing was defective. Gas continues to drop and think that I paid $2.17 today - let's see how long it takes the airlines to drop their prices back down. I talked to my brother last week and we were talking about his big birthday that's tomorrow - he's the BIG 50 this year and I don't think that he's taking it too well. I guess that the daughter and the kids have moved out so it sounded a little bit calmer around there but still not all too much with the four dogs and six cats, ect.

Well, I think that's about all I wrote for this fine day so I hope that you have a great beginning to your new week. Talk with you soon.

Oh, and if you have the time try and let me know how you do with this little survey and I want to know if you are part of the 98% ..... of course I ended up falling in the other 2% thing -

At the end of this message, you are asked a question. Answer it immediately. Don't stop and think about it. Just say the first thing that pops into your mind. This is a fun 'test'... AND kind of spooky at the same time! Give it a try, then e-mail it around (including back to me) and you'll see how many people you know fall into the same percentage as you. Be sure to put in the subject line if you are among the 98% or the 2%. You'll understand what that means after you finish taking the 'test.' Now - just follow the instructions as quickly as possible. Do not go to the next calculation before you have finished the previous one.. You do not ever need to write or remember the answers, just do it using your mind. You'll be surprised.


Start: How much is:
15 + 6









21




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3 + 56








59




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89 + 2












91




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12 + 53







65



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75 + 26















101




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25 + 52





















77




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63 + 32







95





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I know! Calculations are hard work, but it's! nearly over..





Come on, one more! ...








123 + 5
















128







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUICK! THINK ABOUT A COLOR AND A TOOL!

























Scroll further to the bottom....

































A bit more...

































You just thought about a red hammer , didn't you?





If this is not your answer, you are among 2% of
people who have a different, if not abnormal, mind.



98% of the folks would answer a red hammer while doing this exercise. Did you?

posted by Scott @ 9:13 PM

Hello and good evening you to. And here it is the end of another weekend and its back to the grind tomorrow and I'm not sure how these two short days fly by as quickly as they do. It was a pretty uneventful weekend for me, I finally made an appointment with Stanley Steamer to come and do the carpet cleaning and they were here yesterday and took care of all of my carpets. I ended up getting some of those "super slider" things that you put under furniture so that everything slides across the carpet and I had them move everything upstairs from one corner to another. Otherwise they are always just cleaning the same areas and the furniture never gets moved but this way it should all look the same no matter where the stuff gets placed.

And while they were in here I was outside raking leaves and only did the front yard and half of the back but still bagged up six huge bags of leaves and there are still more sitting on the trees. I also mowed it since I didn't bother with it last weekend and it's still looking pretty good out there but I still want to do my stone border project out front one of these days. I'm also still working on my door project but haven't found my perfect(ly) priced contractor yet but I should be getting closer to finding someone from work one of these days. And my bathroom vanity project ..... if I were to finish both of those things I don't think that I would have anything left.

So I hope that you went and voted last week and I'm certainly glad that that is all behind us, I went on my way to work around 6:45am and it took me about 30 minutes from star to finish. I still think that they need to develop a way where we can just vote using the Internet from the comforts of our homes, heck we do all of our banking on-line and that works so I am sure that there is a way. But I was kind of surprised that we only had one electronic voting machine and the line was huge so for the rest of us we just colored in the little circles with a #2 pencil and then they scanned in the results. Kind of reminded me of my old SAT test days! And I am kind of glad that it turned out the way that it did - and least if nothing else the other countries in the world should start to like the USA a little bit better again.

And this week is going to be kind of a strange week as I am in a TLPe training class for three days setting up a new computer yield management system for the Westin. I am hoping that it won't actually take three full days as I all ready use the program for my Sheraton and there is really no way that I can go three days and not do any of my normal stuff. But it could be a pretty rough week if I end up having to do both. I can't believe that it's almost the middle of November all ready and the big T-Day holiday is only a few more weeks away.

I was going to try and put the soft top back on my Jeep but never did get around to working on that - I did find a youtube video that kind of explained the process so I'm hoping that I might be able to figure it out when the time comes. I drove that around yesterday and it's still not bad with just the bikini top on it if the windows are up and really isn't all that windy anyways. But it won't be long now before we'll have snow on the ground.

I guess that is about all that I have to say for this fine day so I'm going to end now and get on to other things. I hope that you have a great week ahead and if you ever have a chance feel free to send me a note. Talk with you later!

posted by Scott @ 8:44 PM

Evening to ya and welcome to November! Where the heck did October go, and September and the rest of the summer? I guess that it'll be the holidays again before we know it and I'm thinking that I'm not going to be liking that time change thing as it was all ready getting dark around here at 5pm. But I guess that it's a fact of life and there's not much we can do about it so I guess I'll just accept it and make the most of it ..... at least it will be lighter for a while in the morning. And changing all of the clocks back was certainly a pain in the butt.

Yesterday was beautiful around here and was close to 70' and felt great after having such a cold and windy week. But I didn't end up doing much as the lawn didn't need anything from me and the leaves for the most part are still on the trees. I did end up going to Lowes and checked out new doors and am thinking that I need to find someone to help me replace both my front door and the door leading out to the garage. And at least I got the garage door to open and close again but it's not the smoothest operation that I've ever seen. I am trying to get one of the Engineers at work to help me but I haven't found the right one yet but I'm pretty sure that I can talk one of them into it one day - and it'll cost me less that hiring a contractor to do it for me. I almost took on the garage door project myself and the door is easy enough to buy but I am a little worried about ripping out the old one and then not being able to get the new one in.

The irrigation guys were here last week and shut off the sprinkler system but then the ended up ticking me off as they called me on Thursday demanding a credit card number for payment. I guess that they normally only work by prepayment but the principle of the matter turned me off on them for life. I am going to use the company that replaced my water line a few months back and told the other company where they could take their billing issues.

I also got my 4th quarter tax assessment from Loudoun County the other day and it's like a double whammy when your assessment on the value continues to go down but then they increase the assessment rates so that you are paying more in taxes overall. Something is just not right about that picture but again, what are you going to do about it? And election day is just a couple of days from now and I'll probably go and vote before I go into work on Tuesday and my voting place is at the elementary school right around the corner and the lined hopefully won't be too long. I've got to tell you that I'm registered republican and have always voted that way but I still haven't made up my mind yet and might be leaning the other way ..... to tell you the truth I can't believe that these two are the only two choices that we have.

And we had our budget review meeting on Friday afternoon which was at the owner's offices in Chevy Chase MD so we were there from about 1pm until 5pm and then it was an hour ride home to go the 15 miles, have I told you how much I really dislike 495? And in preparation of the meeting we practiced for most of the day on Thursday and did find one part of our plan that we couldn't explain and of course they called us on it right away. But in the end they didn't end up making any changes to either budgets for either hotels so I guess that it's put to bed - and now I can take some vacation time off now that that's out of the way. But the whole process was exhausting and I came home and dealt with trick or treaters but I would have rather taken a nap as I wasn't really in the mood for it.

And my next project is to get ready for the installation of TLPe at the Westin which is Starwood's computerized revenue management system which will require me to put together a bunch of historical reports and all that good stuff. Then we are having a three day meeting with them in mid-November and the we go live around the first of the year ...... there always seems to be something going on. At least once we do have it it will make my life a little bit easier as the system monitors demand and opens and closes rates based on it and right now we are doing it all manually so once it's live at least it should have some benefit to me.

So I guess that's all that goes on this day with me. I hope that everything is going well for you and that you have a great week. Talk with you soon and take care until then!

posted by Scott @ 9:01 PM

What up? Nothing here, it monsooned all day yesterday so that made for a pretty short weekend. I ended up working on my painting project some more and took the door off leading out to the garage with the intent on painting it and replacing the hinges. But after painting it and three trips to Lowes and Home Depot later I had to come to the conclusion that they don't make my hinges any more and that I was stuck using the old ones. It's a metal door so I'm stuck using where the holes are and none of them anywhere lined up to be where I needed them to be. And today I finished that up but after rehanging the door the dang thing won't close and I'm not sure what I am going to do about it yet. Right now the door is just pushed into the jam but it doesn't do me much good as I can't open and close it - it just stays closed. At least it has a fresh coat of paint, the dang thing!

And today was the perfect fall day after yesterday's rain, so I ended up mowing the lawn and bagging up a big bag of leaves. My lawn sprinkler guys come this week to shut the system off and blow it out with air so I guess that I am done with that until spring comes along. Just as good I guess as we have all ready had a few days down below freezing but nothing cold enough to freeze the ground but I don't think that it's going to be much longer for that - and every night this week is forecasted to be right around 32' ..... makes for some scraping of the car windows in the morning if I wasn't too lazy and just remote start it and let it do its thing.

Last week we had our 2009 budget review at our corporate office and that was a little rough, at least we spent the rest of the week making changes to it and then have the owners meeting this Friday at their office I think. And coming back from Fairfax the other afternoon at 5pm reminded me of why there was no way that I was making that drive as it took a good 20 minutes of sitting in traffic just to get out of the town. It would easily be an hour drive each way ..... and I'm very happy with my 15 minute commute to Reston.

Not much else to report though as I said that it was a pretty uneventful weekend around here. I took the Jeep to the grocery store today and still love driving that thing and think that I might need to work on putting on the soft top so that I can drive it through the winter .... it could be kind of fun driving it around in the snow. And I think that's about all that I have to report this day so I hope that things are well with you too. Drop me a line if you need anything, otherwise I hope to be talking with you real soon. Have a great week - and get your costume ready as the big day is just days away!

posted by Scott @ 8:48 PM

Hello and happy Sunday evening to you. Fall has definitely arrived around these parts and after being in the 80's for most of last week it was down in the low 40's last night and only in the 60's yesterday and today and if you can believe them it might even be down into the mid-30's tonight. But I think that's the worst of it and it should be slightly better than that all next week but it's still forecasted to be in the 60's during the day and down in the 40's at night. The lawn is still growing and the leaves haven't really started to fall but I don't think that that's going to be much further off either.

I really didn't end up doing much of anything this weekend but got the lawn all done yesterday morning and then had an eye doctors appointment for my annual and guess that it went fine although it is getting a little harder to read the small print day by day ..... and guess the tiny little budget numbers that we've been staring at probably aren't helping matters any. But she (the doctor) dilated my eyes and that made it almost impossible to see outside in the sunlight so I didn't end up doing anything outside the rest of the day. She is also going to check with my Lasik Eye people to see if they think that a "touch up" would help improve my reading but also thinks that they are probably going to say that I'm better off waiting a little while if and when we do it again. She also gave me a contact lens to try out and see if that helps but I tried wearing it today and it was pretty uncomfortable and didn't seem to improve anything. I guess the solution is a work in progress.

And last week I ended up attending a meeting with Starwood Hotels at our new corporate office in Old Town Fairfax which was kind of fun - but the offices were about 10 miles away from my hotel and it took me 20 minutes to go the first nine miles and another 20 minutes to go the last mile and I am dang glad that I'm not doing that every day. Plus I got lost which didn't help matters any either. The offices are brand new and state of the art but I still like my office at the Westin even better than that. We also announced that we have found a replacement for me in my old role and that he would be starting in about a month or so and dang if that process didn't take long enough to fulfill.

This week I found out that we are doing our budget review with the corporate team and are going back to the offices on Wednesday afternoon and I'm sure that we will be spending Monday and Tuesday getting ready for that. And then after that we have a meeting with the owners to review it again the following week but hopefully after that we will be done with the process for another year.

I have my front door all picked out and found a contractor to put it in that would save me about $100 off of having Lowes do it for me but I haven't done anything about that yet. I'm also not sure if I mentioned that my granite guy that did my kitchen sent me his business card since he moved his office and I spoke with him about replacing my sinks in my two bathrooms as that has been another project on my list for a while. But both of them fit in between three walls and one of them has a cabinet with drawers and I want to replace that in both but it's a weird size and I haven't been able to find it in any store - so I guess that they would have to custom make it and then I'd do a granite sink on top of it. I'm in no major hurry to do that project but some day I will for sure. I also stopped by Lowes yesterday and looked at landscaping rocks to change out my planter border from the brick looking things that I have now as I have always liked the looks of the browish wall thing - but for $2.50 a piece I think that it will cost me a fortune to replace, not to mention all of them that I would have to load and unload from my car.

I guess that's it for now so I hope that you are doing ok and that you are ready for another new week to begin. I still can't believe how fast the weekends fly by, not to mention the weeks and the months and Halloween is right around the corner and then those other two holidays will be right behind it. Well at least Spring should be here soon as well. Ok, that's it so I'll talk with you on another day. LATER!

posted by Scott @ 8:52 PM

Hello everyone and how is everything going on your end of the world? Not too much happening here but the weather is still superb and I think that I spent 12 hours outside yesterday just enjoying it before it moves on. I ended up getting around to sealing my driveway and it's in the process of drying now, the only downside about that was that I had to park my Jeep in the garage before I started and haven't been able to get it back out yet. But you are suppose to let it cure for 48 hours before you drive on it so I should be good to go to park on it once again by tomorrow night. I can't actually say that I have ever sealed a driveway but I've been reading about it and guess that you are suppose to do it every three years, plus it now looks like it is brand new and looks great. It's kind of a messy job though so I'm glad that I don't have to do that every year but think that it's probably worth doing it just to make it last longer.

I also worked on the yard and the leaves are starting to fall from the tree in the backyard all ready and I bagged up what was on the ground and am sure that it is only the beginning of that process. But I am loving this weather and have completely turned off the air and the heat over the last week but it has been getting pretty nippy and down in the low 40's at night so it does get mighty cool in here. Actually I did break down and turned the heat on for a few minutes one day last week but other than that I've had the windows open enjoying the fresh air.

Oh, and while I was at Lowe's yesterday picking up my 10 gallons of driveway sealer I was checking out front doors and I was pleasantly surprised with the cost of the actual doors they have but blown away that it costs more to have them install it than it does to buy it ..... so I might have to find a contractor on my own and see what price I can get on installation. One of these days I think I am going to move foward with that project and think that will also help with the energy efficiency of the house. And on that note I was shocked when I went to get gas tonight and found the price to be at $2.99 a gallon when just a week ago it was more than $3.60 - that's a 17% drop in a week but I haven't seen the prices of anything else come down yet. You would think that everyone would want to try and motivate people to buy stuff but I think across the board everything costs more these days and that's not helping the cause.

And on the work front I think that it should be a fairly normal week, our budgets and business plans are pretty much wrapped up so there's not much more to do there but to review them and get ready for the ownership review in a couple of weeks. And it certainly is a shot in the dark trying to predict what business is going to be like a year from now based on these days but I guess that all we can do is present our case for what we think is going to happen. I also need to go to a meeting at our new corporate offices on Tuesday that should last most of the day and will put me behind for the week, but I should be able to work around it and get everything done. We have an annual meeting with the team at Starwood who comes to the office to unveil their plans for the future and since they don't have a replacement for my old position yet my old boss asked me to attend. At least it will be great to see everyone again, plus see the new offices while I am there too.

I did speak to one of my old friends (Brian) from home (Sherrill NY) yesterday after playing phone tag with him for a week. I think that it's been close to a year since we last talked and we both vowed to stay in touch more often but we'll see how that goes. And I think that is about it for me, I hope that you are getting your Halloween costume put together as that day will be here before you know it - I started to stockpile on the trick or treat candy today and will keep that up for the next couple of weeks. Take care and I will speak with you soon - have a GREAT week!

posted by Scott @ 8:49 PM

Evening to ya 'all and what is up with you? We've been having some mighty fine weather around these parts and Fall is definitely in the air with the nights down in the 40's and the days a perfect 72'. It seems like it's been like that for the last week now and that's all that they show on the 10 Day forecast as well ...... perfect Jeep driving weather if you ask me! Not too much going on here with me though.

It was a pretty rough week last week and we had the Owner's Meeting on Tuesday so that meant all Monday and Tuesday were spent on that, and then we are working on finalizing the budgets and business plans so I spent a lot of time on that. But we aren't done yet so that will also be this week's project as well and I should have spent more time on it this weekend but didn't do barely a thing with it. But I did finish up a few more projects around here and got the lawn done and it's even looking pretty good these days. And dang if there aren't a lot of squirrels running around out there these days ...... good ole Patch would be having a field day if he was still here. But I've been watching the little critters quite a bit lately and it seems like they are all over the place and guess that they aren't much more than little rats with very furry tails - but did you know that if they fall from a tree they can use their tail as a parachute to break their fall? I also didn't know that they lived (and slept) in trees and that they are around year round, I think they are kind of cool actually. If you are interested in reading more about the little guys this site was pretty helpful in answering a number of my questions - and you can click here to learn most of what you have ever wanted to know.

And last week was also my first week in my new office at the Westin and I am really liking it much better than my old office as I actually have time to get work done which is a really good feeling. I did have a couple of challenging days with my computer as IT switched my network from one hotel to the other and that lost all of "my document" settings and also messed up Office '03 so then I had to spend time trying to get it back to the way that it was - but guess that I am almost there. I was freaking out on Monday as they did all this right as I was getting ready for the Owners Meeting and lost Excel and I was right in the middle of me trying to put my reports together. But I guess that everything worked out ok in the end.

I am thinking that I need to take some time off and finish up a few more projects before we have snow on the ground as I want to seal my driveway and need to do that while the weather is still good. I might just take another one of these Friday's off and see how much I can get done but guess that once the budgets are done than I should be able to take as much time as I want. I've also been thinking Mexico but think that the price of flights right now might put that idea on hold for a while.

I watched a really good DVD this weekend (well one good one and one not so good) and if you have a chance try and check out the movie "August Rush" as it was a really cute movie about a kid prodigy musician - you can click here for the trailer.



Nothing new with me though and it's back to the grind in the morning. I think that it might be a pretty uneventful week though as there isn't anything out of the ordinary going on that I am aware of at the moment but you never can really tell, but guess that we'll see. I hope that you also have a very peaceful week on your end and hope that you are enjoying some awesome weather as well - and try and stay in touch when you can. Talk with you soon.

posted by Scott @ 8:55 PM