Hello and Happy Easter to ya! And not too much to report today on this end of the world as it's been raining pretty much all weekend, it's been close to 80' but it's been one heck of a wet weekend :( It started out that way Friday morning and we had one heck of thunder and lightning storm, it monsooned for about an hour and we lost power for a while and I bet that we got another 3-4" of rain in a very short amount of time. The rest of the weekend was nothing like that though and was pretty much just a drizzle that stayed around forever and haven't seen the sun since sometime last week. I think that we've got one more day of the wet stuff before we see sunshine again - but when it gets here on Tuesday it looks like it's here through next weekend!
I took Montie to get his hair chopped off yesterday morning as it's been over two months and he surely was a furry monster. Then I went to Home Depot and picked up some sod for my front yard and things aren't looking too great at this point and I think that it's a dead crabgrass issue that I'm dealing with. I was just going to sprig some of the bare areas but I ended up laying it all in one section by the front door and figured that I'll take it from there. I am really starting to get over that grass stuff though and am almost to the point where I just give up and stop worrying about it. Oh, and all of my trees are starting to bloom and the two sycamore trees in the back are getting greener and greener every day - quickly at that and finally the red maple that I planted last year in the front yard has just started to come out - I want to see what he's going to look like this year too and at least it's good to know that he's still alive! I didn't mow this week though, it was definitely too wet for anything like that but I did rake my butt off again.
I also got a couple of new toys in the last week that I've been playing with - one is a wireless keyboard and mouse and have been messing with that trying to get the hotkeys to work and Dell has been no help what so ever. They even sent me another brand new key board as they said that it must be the board that wasn't working as they had no idea why the keys on the top didn't work. I finally ended up downloading the program for a Logitech keyboard and that did the trick but I still can't figure out why they are so clueless about what I was missing - and now I have to ship back the other keyboard to them which is such a pain in the butt. The other thing that I got was an attachment for my vacuum cleaner to clean ceiling fans as they are such a pain in the butt - but this thing slides right on and sucks up all the stuff - worked pretty great too. I also got a program for my new cell phone that lets me download pics from it and also synch my Outlook calendar and contacts with it that I've been playing with - but I got it mostly so that I could get my pictures off of it and that works very well. Hmmm, I think that's about it for new things - oh, but I got my HD tv box on Wednesday and that is just like my other DVR recorder but with a few channels in high def and that works pretty well too.
I also got around to planning my Mexico vacation and got around to asking for an extension for my certificate as it was due to expire on May 1st and knew that they had no room up until then and also asked what dates they might be able to have me. Well they came back with the 2nd week in May or the week of Memorial Day and I picked one of them and made the reservation and got the time off - now I just have to book a flight and I'll be all set. As it turns out I think my brother and myself are going to go - that is if he comes through and I should be ok once he books his flight as then I'll know that he's not backing out - but even if he does I'll just go by myself - if we do end up going it'll be more time spent together than we have in the last 20 years combined. Who knows, we might get along great - but then on the other hand ....... hehehe.
Oh, and my brothers son (my nephew) sent me a note last week saying that he had a weeks vacation that he was taking and was planning on coming down here for a week in May. I think that it's him, his girlfriend and a couple of other friends but it will be kind of fun to spend some time hanging out with them as well. And my cousin from Rochester is coming here the first week of April for four days and I have them staying at the Marriott - I just hope that it's what they think it's going to be as they have never been down here. And I also hope that the Marriott takes care of them as it's a little bit out of my control at this point and can only ask those I know for a couple of favors. I'd also still like to take a week off in April to do my Spring Cleaning thing but I haven't started to plan that yet but I'll see if I can put something together as I missed it last year.
I guess that's about it for another day, I hope that you had a great Easter Holiday and that the Easter bunny took good care of you ....... but not like you did to him ....... Good Night!
Happy first day of spring everyone ......we finally made it through another winter! And it felt a lot like spring around here this weekend and was just about 70' both days, today was a little cloudy but yesterday was just beautiful. I even mowed my front lawn and that made it look some better but it's still got some growing to do before it looks fairly decent again. I also raked about 1/3 of the back yard and that's always a lot of fun, plus I weed whacked and edged so things are starting to shape up out there. Oh, and I went and had the oil changed in my truck, and then came home and changed the oil in my mower so I should be good for another year there too. And it was weird as I've been having these strange dreams lately - and one was about getting rid of all of the oil that's been stacking up in my garage that I never knew what to do with, but I took it with me to the oil change place and they got rid of it for me ...... guess it was perfect timing to have that dream as I think that it really meant something!
I also got a new phone the other day which is the coolest phone that I've ever owned, it's a
Motorola V551 and I also got the bluetooth headset to go along with it and bought them off eBay and got them for about 1/2 of what it would have cost me retail. But last Tuesday I went to the Cingular store to have them put in a sims card and program it for me, and then they tell me that they can't transfer my $150 credit balance (prepay account) from my old account and that I'll have to wait until I use it up or I'll loose it. I walked out of the store a little ticked off that I drove all the way there and they can't even help me, I got in my truck and then decided to go back in and call customer service - but it turns out they were still talking about me and finally decided to help me. So they tried to transfer it but lost my balance, then they called customer service for me and after about 30 minutes of hanging out they finally set me up. I guess that it had to do with the fact that I was using a TDMA network phone and was switching over to a GSM account and it was like starting over, I really didn't understand it and found it totally unacceptable. But for my troubles they ended up giving me the sims card for taking so long so that was another $20 that I didn't end up paying. Dang was I glad that I walked back in there though, not only did I keep my balance but I also didn't even pay for the card too.
I also found out that I can upgrade to HDTV wtih my cable company for another $3.00 a month since I all ready have a DVR player so they are going to be here on Wednesday with a new box which will be pretty cool. I was thinking about switching to Direct TV (the satellite thing) but they don't have local programming in this area so the guy that I talked with at Best Buy told me to forget it. Now I just have to watch all of my shows that I've got taped before Wednesday otherwise I am going to loose them and I won't know what's going on with them. I also switched over to a bundle package which included my phone line, cable tv and internet for about $20 less than I was paying, plus they throw in 300 minutes of long distance on top of that so it was definitely worth checking out. I think that I'm done switching things for a while though, now they can't even find my account when I call to ask about it .
Oh, and I added that little sign up box over there on the left where you put in your e-mail address and it sends you a note whenever I update my Blog, I can't say that it actually works but it might so if you wanna give it a try go ahead and be my guest - I'm just not sure what it says when it e-mails you. Spring break is definitely in full swing around here this week, I went to McDonalds for lunch which took me 30 minutes to even order anything and Walmart was aa ZOO tonight and was filled with them - well, at least it's good that they are still coming here.
And I guess that's about it though, work was pretty hectic last week and I'm sure that it'll be more of the same this week. I really need to work out my remote access issue with Annapolis as I need to get in there and fix things but haven't been able to yet - I just hope that I don't have to take a trip up there in order for me to be able to do what I need to do. Otherwise I don't have any trips on the horizon, thank God for that! And I hope that the weather is improving on your end of the world as well and that you have a wonderful week - take care till we talk again and I'll talk with you then. Night!
This will probably be a pretty short one tonight as I'm pretty much brain dead at this point and here it is time to start another new week. But I've been up in Atlanta GA staying at our
hotel on the campus of Georgia Tech attending our annual National Sales Meeting for work since Thursday and those full three days have pretty much worn me out. I flew up Thursday morning and got back this morning around 10am so at least I had most of today to get the laundry and grocery shopping done but that was about it. And it's back to work in the morning for another five days before I even see the daylight of a weekend again, that's the only bummer thing about the meeting.
I had a pretty good time although they keep you hopping and have to keep it "educational" to justify sending the entire sales staff of the company for a three day meeting - I think that there was around 180 of us but we did have our fun too so I guess that I can't complain too bad. We even had a actual "Frat Party" on Friday night that was even at a real frat house - I guess that they paid the guys off to leave the house for the evening and also spent like a week beforehand cleaning it up and that was unique and can't even say that I've been to one even when I was in college as I don't think that we had frats at Paul Smiths College.
The other weird part about it was with the mass murderer guy running around the city all weekend that was strange, the guy killed like three people on Friday and then another overnight but at least they had him back in custody by Saturday and now sitting in a federal holding cell. But that was all that was showing on tv whenever I had a chance to watch any - and they had live coverage all weekend even showing him being escorted back to jail. I don't think that he'll be seeing the light of day again, so at least that's a good thing.
I don't even remember what I did last week and seems like it was so long ago but I'm pretty well caught up all ready as I spent a few hours today digging through e-mails and updating all of my reports. So at least I don't think that next week should be all too bad, nothing much out of the ordinary any ways. And it was another beautiful day around these parts today and was in the mid-70's and sunshine, I could really get used to this kind of weather and am starting to itch for my springtime vacation week but think that I should probably run off to Mexico to use my week there instead as I'm running out of time to use it at this point. Kind of just what I want to do at this point is to travel for another week - but at least if I do end up going I'm not going to do anything else but sit on the beach and consume chilled cocktails all week :)
Have a great week and I hope that spring is starting to show on your end of the world as well. Take care and I'll talk with you again sometime soon. Night for now, ta-ta till the next time too!
I really should change that picture that's been on my profile for forever, maybe one of these days I might just get around to it but guess that it's easier to complain about it. And here it is another fabulous Sunday night and what a great weekend we had around these parts ...... it's really beginning to feel like Springtime now! Both yesterday and today it was sunny and blue skies and close to 70' both days with a nice cool breeze a blowing - wish that I could have spent the entire weekend outside in it.
But I did get out yesterday and raked both the front and side yard and bagged up three big ole bags of dead grass and pine cones and stuff - I'm hoping that if I clean it up before it starts to grow too much that when it gets around to it that it might fill in the dead spots - every year it's something else with that dang thing but hopefully this will be the Year of the Lawn for me :) But I sure do have a heck of a lot of weeds to be paying a service to come get rid of them once a month and think that they missed a few - pulled up a number of them yesterday too. And then after I finished that up I was so enjoying the weather that I broke out my roller blades and did that for about 30 minutes - I haven't put them on since I moved here five years ago. And now that I have a paved side street there is a huge block that I can use and it took me 20 or so minutes to go all the way around it - but then that wore me out so I gave up and now today my legs are sore from it ..... I guess you use muscles that you don't use otherwise or something.
And then I went and got my haircut and that was about it - today I did laundry till it was coming out of my ears after being away last weekend, plus I cleaned the house from top to bottom and went to Wally World and spent a ton on groceries, then to Subway for a toasted sub (yum!) and here I am sitting here writing this! I've also been working on a class that we have to do at our upcoming National Sales Meeting and me and another person are teaching the class so I've got to get that done before I run out of time. I think that I'm in pretty good shape though but still have more that I'd like to do. Oh, and the class is in Atlanta at our hotel at Georgia Tech - guess that it's a nice place and I kind of can't wait to see the place. Plus the meeting is always a lot of fun - so I'm kind of looking forward to it too.
Oh, and I got a bunch of photos sent to me by my family from the birthday party last weekend so I posted them on my site - I just didn't post a link to them so you'd never know that they were there unless you went to the pictures page. But you can click
here and that should also take you to them ...... can you guess which one is my brother? And my nephew is also in one of them with us - it's probably the only one taken of all three of us at any point in our life.
Other than that work is going just fine for the most part, I'm extremely busy but at least I haven't traveled in the last week! And this should be a normal upcoming week - at least I'm hoping as much but then I never know, I hear we might be picking up a couple of more hotels come the first of April so we'll see what that brings my way - I just hope not too much! I guess that's about it for another day - have a great week and drop me a line any time, k :?) LATER days Dude!
