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

Not a whole lot to report on this end of the world once again, it's Sunday night and another weekend is just about done - hot and in the 90's and humid as well. The lawn is mowed and the groceries are shopping and I got my haircut yesterday and that was about the highlights of the weekend.

My paving project started last week and I think for three days they had guys out there grading and dumping dirt and rolling it out and had it all nice and looking like it was ready to be paved. But then Friday afternoon we had one of our monsooning rains that lasted for like an hour and that washed the road all away ...... so I guess that they can start all over on it next week. I felt sorry for anyone that lived on the street though as there was at least 6" of mud that people had to drive through, some were four wheeling it in and throwing mud up behind them for like 20 feet ........ it's dried out since but it's still a complete mess. I really don't know why they even bothered to start to work on it until they were ready to start paving it as it's not like it doesn't rain every other day here ...... such a waste of time to me. I'm also thinking that it's not going to come out as nice as I had first though but I guess that I'll have to wait and see what it looks like before I make any judgments.

I also have my internet company coming out tomorrow to see if they can figure out why the heck I have to keep rebooting my modem to get my internet working again, seems like it's just about every day that I have to do it but I'm sure that it's not that often - I just say that to emphasis my issues. If nothing else I at least am going to make them bring me a new modem as I've had my current cable modem for more than four years and I'm sure that they have improved in that amount of time. The guy that I spoke with on the phone also didn't think that my signal was as strong as it should be so that could be my issue so I hope that they can figure out how to boost the signal to keep me on line more often - I'm more worried about when I'm not home and the thing locks up on me and there is nothing that I can do.

I upgraded to the windows xp service pack 2 on Thursday morning too - it ended up taking me close to an hour and a half and really threw me off schedule, but I guess that I survived no worse for the wear. No negatives issues to report though, I'm kind of liking the security center that comes along with it along with the firewall and all that stuff, although I did have to configure a few things to get everything working again.

And work is going to be crazy for the next couple of weeks as we found out that our budgets are due by the middle of September and I'll have to at least do two of them. On top of that I've got homework to do for a Hilton training class that I'm going to in a few weeks and that'll take me a while to get ready for as well. At least next weekend is Labor Day all ready so that'll be good for an extra day off - not that I won't be working for at least part of it with it being a Monday. But any day that I get to sleep in is ok with me ........ and summer is almost over so I'll be looking forward to some cooler weather as well.

I guess that's about all he wrote for another day, Montie is doing fine ....... and Megan if you read this welcome back to college and I wish the best for another new year! Talk with you all later, stay in touch when you can. Night!

posted by Scott @ 9:30 PM

Well, here it is and it's another Sunday night - go figure huh? And this will probably be a pretty short blog tonight as I don't have all that much out of the ordinary to report, it's still hot and the lawn is mowed. I did end up getting my silver maple tree planted on Monday of last week - the guy called me at like 7am Monday morning before I had a chance to call him and said that the tree came in on Friday and he wanted to send a crew out first thing to get it planted. Then two guys showed up probably around 7:30 and had it all installed in an hour or so. I know that they had a heck of a time trying to plant it in the same spot as where the pine tree root was so they shifted it a little but but used the grass sod to cover up my other bare spots and all is well again. I just hope that the poor little guy gets used to living here and doesn't die off from being homesick - guess that we shall see though. Here is a pic of it and you can click it to get a bigger one to open up - although he doesn't look like all that much yet I think that he'll grow up very nicely.

And I also found out that our participative paving project went before the County Board Tuesdsay morning and passed with flying colors, I called first thing Wednesday to see how it went and guess that no one objected and it passed with no problems. I also called the Engineer in charge of the project on Friday morning to see if there was anything that I could do so that I wouldn't have to live with a ditch and he went on forever about how perfect this road was for such a thing and what a mess it was and how overdue it was - I think that he's almost as excited as I am to get the thing done. He also thinks that he's going to use it in a brochure that he does for the Participative Paving thing and wants to show the before and after - he even went into what materials they are going to use and said that it was a perfect solution - I guess that it soaks up to 2" of rain per hour or something if that's possible. He told me to wait and see how the finished product looked before doing anything with the ditch - I'm not even sure that there will be one at this point but was hoping to head it off in case that was in their plans. They are suppose to be out this coming week to start to plan for it so I'll be watching for them and will get any information on what it will look like when they do. The guy also told me that there were three projects that got approved last week and we'd be the first one they get to - and thinks that it might all be complete in a month or so ........ I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't take longer than that.

Not too much else though, work is work and no changes there - my old GM (general manager) from Bay Point finally got rehired by our company and is going to be working in Atlanta as GM for one of our hotels - good move and long overdue. I was also talking with two of my friends from home last week and both of them thought that they would like to go back to school - one is more looking for a career change and the other for more of a hobby ........ I'm not so sure myself that I could handle going back and learning stuff but I guess it's never too late now is it.

The lawn is looking great and I edged it and everything but I still need to get out there and weed those planters but it's always too hot or the mosquito's eat me alive ....... one of these days though. And is it starting to get dark earlier these days or is it just my imagination - but I think that we're loosing like five minutes more of light each day and before you know it it'll be dark at 5pm again ....... at least it should be cooling off as well. And I guess that's about all she wrote, told you that I had nothing to say so that's it - talk to you later.

posted by Scott @ 10:10 PM

I just noticed in that pic that I have up of me on my blogger profile that I look a lot like my older brother ......... hehehe, I'm not saying that's a good thing either : And here it is another Sunday night in ole Panama City Beach, and yes we all survived Bonnie and Charley and are no worse for the wear. We actually got a lot more rain last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that wasn't even Bonnie related, I think that they said that we had 6" in 24 hours and it was monsooning a few times out there. When Bonnie did come through Thursday morning you wouldn't have even noticed it as there were no winds and just a couple of showers but nothing as bad as the two days prior to it.

And with Charley I have a hotel in Tampa that I work for and they were sweating it out thinking that the worst of it was headed right for them as that's where it was predicted to hit, and I guess that all of the hotels in the Westshore area got evacuated except for ours - so we were sold out as those who didn't want to leave had to come stay with us. Overall I think that we gained business out of the deal - and thankfully the storm didn't make it all the way north to Tampa but I do feel bad for those in South Florida. I actually remember when I was living in Orlando one year that a hurricane must have followed just about the same path - as Tampa evacuated and headed to Orlando and then it missed Tampa and ended up coming right over the top of Orlando - much like this one did but this one was definitely a lot stronger than the one that I saw. And I guess that there is all ready another one out there and possibly headed for the Gulf Coast - I think it's name is Earl or something like that and we'll have to see what path he takes next week.

Not too much to report here though other than the weather, it's been beautiful since Bonnie left as she took the humidity with her and left nothing but blue skies and high 80's weather - it was actually a very nice weekend around here. Got the lawn mowed but still blew off my planters - I just look at them and then decide that it's too much work to actually get started pulling weeds. One of these days though as they do look like crap.

Work is going fine so far for a second month in a row so that's always good, no update on my maple tree so I might have to give the guy a call this week ....... and oh - this Tuesday is the public hearing for my street paving project and I really want to hear how that comes out. After all of the years that they have been plowing this thing and bringing in dirt just to watch it wash away after each rain storm you'd think that they'd want it done as much as I do - I still think that we have a pretty good chance of getting it to go through but I don't want to jinx it.

I guess that's about all that I can think of today, sorry that it's nothing of interest but some days are just like that. I'm kind of dreading trying to find something on tv to watch with the Olympics on NBC for what - the next two weeks and I'm certainly not going to be watching them ........ I should have recorded something on my DVR but couldn't even find anything that was on earlier to watch. Oh well, watcha gonna do :) Have a great week and I'll talk with you soon.

posted by Scott @ 10:10 PM

Well, not much to report on this day - we had a "cold" front come through yesterday morning that felt pretty darn nice, it was still 90' outside but the humidity was no where near where it has normally been. But that's gone now and it's back to the 95% humidity and 90' temps but it sure made yesterday working outside rather enjoyable. I really need to do some work on my planters but need to wait until it cools down a bit, I pulled up a bunch of grass and trimmed a couple of hairy bushes, mowed the lawn and raked up a bunch of pine needles so it must have been a pretty windy week. Things are still looking pretty good out there - they even came last Monday morning and picked up the pine logs that I had laying out front.

Montie got his haircut yesterday and seems no worse for the wear, plus she did it pretty quick and he was back home in just a couple of hours so I don't think that he minded all that much. He had that bruise on his chest from a couple of weeks ago and it was pretty chunky but I guess that came off in his bath and is looking like it's healing nicely. Other than that I think that he's looking pretty good these days, at lease he's walking today as usually he's kind of stiff the next day.

I've been trying to figure out for the last couple of weeks why I haven't been able to open up my work e-mail using our web-based program, plus there have been a couple of other work sites that I haven't been able to get to work and it's been driving me crazy - I tried everything and thought that it was cuz I upgraded my AOL and they have a IE toolbar that blocks popups, but after removing that and my Roboforms, my new browser and editing the registry still nothing. But then yesterday I figured it out that it was my Norton Internet Security program that was blocking it - I tweaked that and now it's working just fine. I also found a cool registery cleaner that Microsoft recommended, after owning my pc for the last two years and with tons of added and removed programs my registry is a mess - and after running that program I removed at least 2500 invalid registry entries, hopefully my pc will run quicker if just by just a little bit. And while I'm at it - don't go anywhere near Symantec Winfax program, the thing doesn't work with Win XP and Office 2003 - no matter how hard you try. I gave up on it and went back to Hotfax Message Center, it's simple and works great.

I also think that I might be getting my new tree planted this week if all goes well, but I'll believe it when it shows up and is in the ground. I finally decided to go with the Silver Maple (click here for a pic) instead of a Red Maple as it grows a little quicker and my neighbor actually has one of both and I like the silver model much better. I just hope that they can plant in in the same place where the main pine was cut down or I'll need to figure out how to grow some grass on top of sawdust - the guy though that they could do it so we'll see how it comes out. And my eyes are still doing much better too and I ordered a box of the Accuview Bi-focals, at least with only buying for one eye it's half the price of buying for two! I'm seeing pretty darn good though - it's kind of amazing.

I watched American Wedding (Part III of American Pie) last night on Cinemax and it was even better than when I saw it at the movies a year or two ago ....... I'm still glad that I changed from HBO to Showtime and now to Cinemax as I can actually find something on to watch once in a while (as compared to nothing before!). I guess that's about it, work has been going ok and keeping me busy. We are entering the 2005 pricing season with all of our negotiated accounts and I'm still trying to figure out what my role in the process is ....... it's a full time job around this time of year and I've all ready got a couple of other jobs to keep me busy. Well, talk with you later - have a great week.

posted by Scott @ 10:40 PM

So, did anyone notice that I changed the template on my Blog last week? Guess not huh :( And what's up with you these days - I certainly hope that all is well in your world today! I went to Walmart this afternoon and it was 99' fricking degrees, I was outside for like five minutes today and was sweating my butt off ....... guess that these are the dog days of summer huh? It also ticked me off when I got back from getting groceries that I dropped a big ole bottle of laundry detergent on the garage floor and the top popped off and half of it run out onto the floor - that sure was fun cleaning that stuff up!

I also went back to the eye doctor last week, well a new eye doctor who gave me the entire run down including the dilating of the pupils, I didn't think that it was too bad until I got home and couldn't read a thing! But the good news is that I think that the new guy figured out my issue with my contacts not being comfortable, and he has me now only wearing one in my left eye and none in my right eye and dang if I can't see at least 10% better than I could before - plus it's a lot more comfortable and I don't even realize that I'm wearing the thing. I guess the whole deal was that the other doctor had me wearing a bifocal lens in my right eye when I didn't need it - and that was totally messing up my distance site so that even if I could see better with them closer up - I definitely couldn't see as well further out. It used to get all hazy towards the end of the day too and I'd look forward to yanking the things out at the end of my work day - but since I got the new one last week I have been wearing them right up until I go to bed ...... actually the way I think things were intended to be :)

I also had my pine trees in the front yard cut down last week too, was going to do only two but they talked me into doing three - they removed them completely and ground up the stumps and if it weren't for the logs laying in my front yard I would barely notice that they were ever there. They are suppose to come by tomorrow and pick them up - but if they don't I'll be on the phone as I'm sure that it's killing the lawn where they are sitting. I took a couple of pictures - here's one before they were removed and one after, the after doesn't look as green as I took it this evening just before the sun was setting. Hopefully the little one that is left by the corner of my house will straighten out now that he doesn't have to share his space with the other pine tree! I have also been researching what tree I want to put up in their place, and have narrowed it down to either a red maple or a silver maple, I thought for sure I wanted the red maple but I hear that the silver maple grows twice as fast so now I'm not sure. I have a landscaper trying to get one and he thinks he can in another week - so I have to get to him soon if I'm going to change my mind again.

Other than that work has been going pretty well, business was good during the month of July so that always helps and I can't believe that it's all ready the beginning of August - it'll be budget season in just another month :( I also found out that I don't think that I am going to Boston at the end of the month as we are taking over a hotel in Omaha, NE at the same time and think that I'll be going there instead, oh well at least I hadn't bought a plane ticket yet. Other than that though I don't have a whole lot to report, same ole same ole and hotter than heck around these parts!

Well, I hope that you have a great beginning to another new week and I will try and do the same! Talk with you later - drop me a line if you ever have a chance (you can do it right here!). Good night - I guess that it's time to kick back for a little bit before the end of my day.

posted by Scott @ 9:55 PM