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

Happy Memorial Day everyone - how was your long weekend any way? And I know that while I enjoyed the extra day off today I'm going to be paying for it the rest of the week as I will be starting out all ready one day in the hole ........ at least I worked a few hours today trying to get a jump but I didn't do nearly enough to even make a dent.

I didn't do all that much over the last three days, I've been dog-sitting for the Bartek beasts since Friday evening and they were the usual handful - and the biggest slobs that I've ever met! And remind me never to do that again on a holiday weekend as I must have spent six or seven hours waiting in traffic over the last three days trying to either get from this end of the bridge to the other or vice versa, traffic was insane!

And Friday night I upgraded my operating system on my desktop to Win XP Pro as I have been shopping around for a remote control program and just about bought a license for RemoteAnywhere and would have on Friday had the sales person been around. I used GotoMyPC for a month and that works pretty well, but for the amount of time I use it I can't justify spending $20 a month for it. At least the RemoteAnywhere program is a one time buy and then you can use it all that you want, and that was more of what I was actually looking for. But then I had this idea as we use Remote Desktop for one of our Hilton programs and then I did some research on it and found out that it is only available in the Professional version of XP and not the home one - so that was the biggest reason I upgraded - instead of paying $100 for the remote program I paid $179 and got a whole new operating system. And I have it all figured out and it's pretty darn sweet - I can even sit in my living room and connect to my desktop like I'm sitting right there. I still need to experiment with the remote printing thing as that should work - but I actually need to go somewhere before I can try it out. And the only thing that freaked me out as I was installing the new program as I got a disk read error, I was too far to turn back and thought that I was screwed, but I switched the cd to my cd drive instead of my dvd drive and the install progressed perfectly. Not much other difference between the pro and the home version though but my computer is now working better than it ever has.

I worked on the lawn on Saturday and it's HOT, low 90's at least and humid as all heck and it's not too enjoyable out there. Cleaned the house and shopped for groceries yesterday which is the norm, barbecued a nice steak on the grill and even had some corn on the cob :) And today I pressure washed two sides of my house and it was long overdue and now looks brand new, treated my lawn for grubs as it was recommended by Scott's and that was about it - plus the work that I actually did.

And tomorrow is back to the grind but I guess that I'm ready, got some good sleep over the last three days so hopefully I will be all bushy tailed in the morning. And I guess that's about it for another day, let me know how things are going with you and I will talk with you soon. Good night from PCB - hope all is well in your world today.

posted by Scott @ 10:17 PM

Auugh, I think that summer has finally arrived and I'm not liking it very much - today was 90' and humid as all heck and I didn't even want to go outside. I did spend much of yesterday out there working on the lawn and at least there was still a somewhat of a cool breeze blowing but that wasn't there today - it was downright HOT! Plus I think that I've got somewhat of a mini-cold on top of that so my head has been in a fog, woke up like that yesterday morning and it's a little worse today - so lets hope that it's all better by tomorrow. Not too eventful of a weekend around here though, didn't do much out of the ordinary actually ...... and even slacked a little bit on the house cleaning today although I did most of it.

I can't even think of anything to talk about either so I don't think that this is going to be a very long post. I'm still waiting for my doors for the shower and they should hopefully be in by the end of next week - but then they did say "2 or 3 weeks" so it's probably always three and they just say two to give you hope. I'm also not too happy with the guys at That Floor Store who were the ones that I bought the tile from and had them install it, but hopefully they don't rely much on satisfied customers word of mouth for their business as I don't think that I would recommend them. But honestly, the guy that they contracted to do the work did an excellent job and I tipped him well, but the whole process that I went through still has me a little less than satisfied. First it was the delay in ordering the tile due to personal reasons and no one else could help me, then when we did get the tile in they delayed me again due to the Parade of Homes and they were behind schedule, then the guy promised me that he's show up with the contractor to explain everything that he had promised me but haven't heard from him since that conversation - not to mention that I asked at least five times for a written estimate to be faxed to me and it's still not here ...... I'm just waiting for the final bill to show up to really tick me off :) But maybe they won't even have the nerve to charge me any more than my initial deposit - I guess that we'll see. Dang, how did I get on that topic :?)

Oh, and while I was outside yesterday my home builder guy "Tom" stopped as he was driving by, I haven't talked to him in a while and have all but given up on my dirt road staying dirt as I think the last time I talked to him it was suppose to have been paved by the end of last year. Well, I guess that it's still in the works and he's building another house down the (dirt) road and the paving project is still in the works - and he said that if all goes well it would be done by August ...... not sure I can hold my breath that long though. At least someone is still thinking about it - so maybe someday that might actually happen.

And I'm not too sure what the week ahead holds, business has been pretty rough so that doesn't make too much fun when revenues are down - when is this recovery that everyone is talking about actually going to happen? At least I have an upcoming three day weekend to look forward to, what are your plans for the big Memorial Day weekend? Not much else to report at this point though, tv also sucks tonight so I'm watching a Law and Order repeat ..... and I guess that everything is going to be a repeat for the summer. Oh, and this commercial just reminded me that I ordered a DVR recorder from my cable company and will be here in a week or so, and you can record up to 50 hours to the hard drive and watch it later - and you can even record live shows and pause it, then watch the end from there or go back and forward back to live show, plus they give you two pics-in-pics which is pretty cool. I also wanted to order HDTV too but they still only have like five channels available - so I guess that I'll have to hold off on that for now.

I guess that's it so I'm off, take care and have a great week. Talk with you later days dude.

posted by Scott @ 10:22 PM

Once again it's another Sunday night ..... just where do the weeks go these days :?) At least it'll be Memorial Day in a couple of weeks - guess that I'm all ready looking forward to an extra day off if I'm thinking about that all ready! And it was four years ago that weekend that I moved in here, the movers came on Friday going into Memorial Day and then my pup got there (along with my Mom) the Wednesday after that - and even someone used a sling shot to put a rock through my side bedroom window that Sunday night - not a real good way to start off with the new homestead that's for sure. Seems like it's been more than four years sometimes, but then again seems like it was only yesterday.

The shower is just about done and my guy finished up the grouting on Thursday and I let it dry for another two days, had the plumbers back over Friday morning to put the fixtures back on and it was cool that they didn't even charge me as it was included in the total project, plus I had them reseat my toilet that is in there as it's been messed up for the last two years when my floor tile guy put it back on - it used to tip slightly as the floor wasn't flat, then I overtightened it and broke the flask? so it moved back and forth ever since. They removed it and fixed it and leveled it and even gave me a new hose and it's as good as new now.

I still need to do a few finishing touches on my bathroom yet before I'm done, I need to repaint a piece of molding and put that back up on the floor board, regrout around the toilet so that it looks normal again, touch up some paint and reseal my tile grout again - I did one coat today but you are suppose to do two and then I'll be done. If you haven't all ready I have new pics of the final product up on my pics page - you can click here and take a look. The final step before it's complete is to have the doors for the shower installed and the guy came over on Friday to give me an estimate, and I ended up spending way too much but got the top of the line "frameless" version and they are custom ordered and will be here in 2-3 weeks. The door that I picked out looks something like this, mine is two pieces with the door on the right with the handle on the left ......

My only other option was one that was half the cost but looked like a sliding glass door or something and I just couldn't do that - I had this picture of what I wanted in my mind and went with the best, I have thus far so I might as well not stop now, right?

The lawn is still coming around, mowed it yesterday and it's growing like crazy now - must be the warm weather that we've been having. I was out picking weeds yesterday morning and this guy and his wife were jogging by and he yells out "it's a waste of time!" ....... I barely heard him with my headphones on but would like to see what his lawn is looking like these days! Washed the front of my house too as it was filthy, but only used a hose and not the pressure washer as I was too lazy to drag it all out. Summer is here though and it's in the mid-80's every day, and we are even starting to get our afternoon showers and had our first today - even though it only lasted about 15 seconds!

And the house is much cleaner tonight than it usually is, I gave my bathroom a deep cleaning to get rid of all of the remaining dust and even washed the glass lamp shade things, it's amazing how much light they actually give off once they are clear again. And mopped and vacuumed and that sort of thing - I also replanted my baby orange tree that I've been growing for the past few months into a much bigger pot and moved it out to the patio ..... I'm really hoping that some day I might actually be able to plant it in the ground but we'll see.

Sorry but I think that I've kind of been all over the board tonight so I apologize for that, and I guess that's about all that I've got to say so I'm going to end it here and say no more. Hoping for a normal week ahead and it might be, at least I can hope for it can't I :?) Talk with you later, have a great beginning to your new week as well. Good night for now, take care till we talk again.

posted by Scott @ 10:00 PM

Happy Mom's Day Mom, and to all of you other Mom's out there today! Another busy weekend and in the high-80's I'd say but there was also this nice cool breeze blowing that made it feel great, but I don't think that it'll be long now before summer has arrived - I can feel it all ready. The lawn is making some slow but sure progress, I finally realized that my weed guys have been killing off the viney weed things slowly but the dead weeds just sit there and make these bare spots, so until I pull them up some sections look like crap - so that's what I've been doing is pulling them up by hand ..... a slow process for sure. I also edged the street again and used my snowshovel to make a perfectly straight edge - I think that it's the details that make it look even better. But dang if I don't get filthy in the process, my edger just throws the dirt all over me!

Oh, and I've owned my refrigerator for like the last 10 years, and never realized that I had an ice maker although it looked like it was installed but I've never in my life hooked it up. That was until yesterday when I bought a hose from Home Depot and just screwed it on both ends and whala ..... it now makes perfect ice. Montie will probably be the biggest beneficiary with the new development with his "water on the rocks" as that's all that I've been using them for since as I don't use all that much ice but it'll certainly beat trying to load those ice trays filled with water. Oh, and I switched back from using the Swiffer mop thing to my old mop and bucket and can't believe how much more dirt that comes up and my floors now look great - I'm now not such a big fan of the Swiffer thing no more.

I also got my Sonicare 7800 last Wednesday and love the thing even more than my old one, it's got all of the features that I wanted on my old one and is like 1/2 the weight and has this thin stem and it rocks all around. I've also been doing the Crest whitestrips things too where they guarantee that it'll take 14 years of stains off in 7 days - and while I'm not quite done with my seven days (think that I've done 5) I can say that my teeth have ever been whiter - I even took a picture although it's kind of hard to tell. See what you think ....... never mind, I look like a geek :) I would recommend that you give them a try and you only have to do them like once a year or something, plus you might want to look at upgrading your tooth brush to the new Sonicare Elite if you have a chance.

Not much else to report, last week was a pretty quiet week and the job is going just fine and I look forward to repeat of the same this coming week if all goes well. And I guess that's about it for another day - hope all is well with you and I will talk with you again someday. Take it easy :)

posted by Scott @ 10:03 PM

Dang, here it is another Sunday night and the weekend is over - and not a bad one around here at that. It was the big ThunderBeach weekend thing around here this weekend which is like an annual biker weekend and it seemed even bigger this year that in past years and there were bikes everywhere - and that was all that you could hear was the rumble from them off in the distance (when they weren't driving by the house). Overall the weather yesterday was beautiful for it and it was in the mid-80's and sunshine all day even though they said that there was a possibility for rain but that didn't come until today and it was cloudy all day and has been raining since about 3pm.

I got up yesterday morning and went to Lowes and got about 25 chunks of sod and set out to "sprig" the holes in my front yard once and for all. And that means taking the sod and slicing it up and then digging little trenches and laying it down. It doesn't look the best right now but I think that it will really help to fill in where the grass has been lacking. My lawn guys came on Friday in the middle of a downpour and sprayed for weeds but didn't do any fertilizing so I also spread a couple of bags of that yesterday after I got done and today it doesn't look any more worse for the wear. I also mowed the front and side yards but didn't even both with the back as I figured it would do it some good to let it grow out a bit (plus when it's not all that long I have a heck of a time even telling where I've all ready mowed).

I had another perfect dental checkup last Thursday, it was suppose to be on Monday but I had to postpone it a couple of days with me being out of town and I'm still swearing by my Sonicare brush and my Reach flosser things, my cleaning took me like 15 minutes from start to finish and was a piece of cake. I also decided to purchase an upgraded Sonicare and ordered it the other day, state of the art 7800 Elite model which isn't even on Phillip's website yet. And I figured that it was time to replace my brush which I do after my 6 month check up and the new one comes with two brushes which is at least a $30 value to the $114 that I paid is actually only $85 upgrade, well worth it in my book. And the best price that I found yet was on www.dentist.net and you can click that and check out the model that I ordered. That's three years running with nothing more than a cleaning and I owe it all to my trusty brush, you should check it out if you haven't all ready.

I also think that I might be getting my shower finally put back together this week and they are suppose to have my tile in on Tuesday and then show up for the installation on Wednesday and guess that it'll take a couple of days ....... with any hope I might have things all put back together again by next weekend. Dang, it's been close to a month since I started all of this and will be glad when it's all behind me.

I also got my haircut yesterday and Montie got his done the weekend before and I guess that we are ready for another new week to begin ....... although I'm kind of beat at this point. I've got an owners meeting on Tuesday morning with San Antonio that I got out of attending in person but get to do it with a conference call and was thinking of using my webcam for it so that they can see me - but then I think that I'd rather have them have the camera so that I can see them ...... so I doubt that I'll even mention that as I don't actually want them watching me! Been a couple of busy months actually, and don't see much changing anytime soon.

Well, I'm going back to watching the mini-series 10.5 about the earthquake, not sure how many nights it's going to be on but hope they don't drag it out forever. Oh, I watched Matchstick Men last night on PPV and it was a pretty good flick so check it out if you haven't seen it all ready. Ok, that's all for another day - talk with you again someday soon.

posted by Scott @ 10:04 PM