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

What's up and I guess that it's that time again - Sunday night and here I am! And what a beautiful weekend it was around here, yesterday was sunny and warm and probably close to 65' ...... hard to believe that it's still January. Today was almost as warm as yesterday but it was cloudy this morning, but by the time I went to the grocery store this afternoon the sun was out again - let's just hope this weather sticks around for a while. And not too much to report once again, I haven't really done any major projects lately or anything like that.

I did make a play date for Montie yesterday and we went to a local park and met up with a couple of girls from work and went for a walk and was a great day for that for sure. But I don't think that he's used to doing that as he got tired out pretty quickly and we had to come home and he slept pretty much the rest of the day. But we did want to see how him and Daisy got along as I might be able to let Montie stay at her house when I end up going out of town and the two of them did just fine. Daisy even seemed to like me more than I guess she does most people. We then came home and raked up the side and part of the back yard and bagged up three big ole bags of leaves and have plenty more to do where they came from. I also trimmed my front hedge that is between the front walk and my driveway as it was all bushy and overgrowing and now it's all fresh and green and looking great again. That was about all that I accomplished over the weekend though, today I just did laundry and pretty much cleaned up the house.

Last week was pretty uneventful but busy I guess, I got another budget done for one of our new hotels which felt good to get it behind me. And it won't be long before my replacement starts for my hotel in Tampa and it will be kind of weird not working those guys any more but I guess that I can still check in with them when I want. We still don't have anyone for a couple of my properties. I dunno but it might be another month or more before I actually start doing my new job full time.

Oh, and Verizon continues to tick me off and I'm now on my fourth postponement for my service ready date for my DSL service and again it was suppose to be ready last Thursday but again it got pushed back another ten days. I ordered the dang thing on December 8th and I'll be lucky if it's working two months later - now what the heck is up with that. I still may end up going with cable but I'll have to take time off for them to come and install a line and a box and all of that stuff. I'm sure that I'd be doing something about it if I didn't have my temporary hook up but this works fine for now so I guess that I'll give them one more shot. The thing that ticks me off the most is that they can't even tell me if I will ever end up with service, they just don't know until they get it working and I don't know how they can operate like that.

I guess that's about it for today though, nothing really new on this end of the world today. I hope that things are well with you too, let me know what's up and drop me a line any time. Have a great week and I will talk with you sometime again real soon.

posted by Scott @ 8:57 PM

Well, I guess that another weekend has come and gone and it's back to the grind in the morning and I'm not even sure where the heck the time went. I did get the place cleaned up and picked up today and I'm kind of starting to like it around here, I took a couple of the tables in the living room upstairs and I'm liking having the open space. I also moved some lights around and think that I'm almost there, at least my furniture almost fits at this point but my second bedroom has become more of a storage shed.

I'm also really liking my new sink and is such an improvement over the old one that I can't believe it - and I did a pretty good job installing it and it came out perfect even if I do say so myself. I did end up having to call a plumber to hook up the drains as they were way off and went in to work late on Wednesday and worked from home while the guy was here. I can't believe how much an hour they charge but at least I still saved close to $100 from what Lowe's wanted to charge to install it for me. I also had to fix a leaky inlet hose on my toilet yesterday, I swear that the place is falling apart and is one thing after another.

And I cleaned really well today too and I swear I don't know where the heck all of the dust in this place comes from - but if I let it go for more than a week there are tumbleweed blowing across the floor but hopefully someday it won't be so bad. I don't know if it's having the dryer in the house or if it's the heat, or maybe it's just the wood floors and if I had carpet it would suck it all up. I'm also wondering what temperature most of you set your house at when you are home and consider to be comfortable - I had been setting it at 71' in the evening and much cooler at night and during the day but I'm not sure what my electricity bill is going to look like when I get a months worth - if you wouldn't mind can you try and let me know? You can click my temp and fill out a quick question if that easier - or let me know the next time that we talk.

I had to put the pup on some penicillin as I guess that his white blood cell count came out double what it should be and the doctor doesn't know why. He's doing fine and eating and sleeping normally but I'm hoping that after 10 days of taking his meds he might improve. I guess that I'm suppose to take him back after that to see if there was any improvement but haven't made an appointment yet - I really dislike doctors and so does Montie (he told me so, I swear!).

I also ended up having to go to our hotel in Reston yesterday to do an interview for one of our DC hotels, it came up at the last minute and wasn't quite what I wanted to do but oh well, I am no worse for the wear anyways. And on my way there was a car that rear ended a tow truck right in front of me, it's like the 10th time I've seen that since I've been here but I guess that if it's going to happen you want to do it with a tow truck in front of you as they can just hook you up and take you away! And I wouldn't doubt it if it happens to me some day as these people drive right on your butt and it's stop and go all the way.

And I think that it was close to 60' on Friday and Saturday although it cooled down a little bit today but it was nice to be able to walk out side and not freeze - but too bad that I didn't get a chance to get outside and do anything. Plus I'm sure that it won't last for long but I'm not even sure what the week ahead is suppose to bring. Well, till the next time I hope that you have a great week and I will talk with you again sometime soon. Take care till then!

posted by Scott @ 9:05 PM

Well, after spending the day working on it I got my old sink out and the new one put back in - now I just have to figure out how to get the pipes all hooked up again :| Here are a before and after but you can't really tell from them how much an improvement the new sink is ...... but I'm liking it!





Have a great Tuesday - talk with you sometime soon.

posted by Scott @ 9:02 PM

Another Sunday night and another four day work week ahead - gotta like these extra holidays! And I think that this year is the first year that our company has made MLK day a holiday for everyone, it used to be just for the corporate offices but I guess that this year everyone gets the day off! Not too much going on with me though, last week was my first five day work week and I didn't like it so much - but I now definitely look forward to Fridays and they mean a heck of a lot more than they used to working from home.

I had a couple of projects lined up for this weekend and I got one of them done - I bought a new home security system and got that on Friday and installed most of it yesterday but I'm still messing around with the programming. The hardest part of the whole thing was mounting the control panel on the wall as that meant running another phone line and power cord down to the crawl space and that took me at least a couple of hours but I'm getting the hang of it and think that it took me as long as it did the last time. The rest of the system is wireless so that wasn't too bad at all, got the doors monitored with fire and motion too. I called around when I first got here to see if someone would install a system for me without the monitoring and the best price I got was $795 and I did it for under $300 with a year of free monitoring. I like the company that I use and used them in PCB after I dropped ADT and think that they even do a better job at monitoring - plus ADT is now making you sign a three year contract if you go with them.

My next project is that I bought a brand spanking new Americast white kitchen sink, I think that it's the exact same one that I had at my house in Florida and now that I know how to take care of it I can keep it looking in much better shape. But I haven't even started the job yet as I pulled everything out from under the sink and the pipes have to be 20 years old and with the disposal and everything I'm not too sure that I can handle it. I might and haven't given up on it yet but I am also going to see how easily Lowes can install it for me. I also debated on replacing the faucet but it's got a brand new Moen pull out hose thing on it now and should do fine - it just makes my current sink look all the more like crap with it on it.

And dang if yesterday wasn't a windy day, the wind was whipping at like 30mph+ all day and then it started sleeting/snowing after that. It was nice and fairly warm up until about Friday but then something moved in and it was in the 20's again last night and maybe if we were lucky in the 40's today. My power went out last night too for like four hours and it got dang cold in here too, but at least I had my covers to keep me warm. Other than that all's well, I'm learning that my house is a pain in the butt to clean having two floors and dragging everything up and down the stairs - Montie gets all confused trying to follow me up and down.

I guess that's about it, I've got the day off tomorrow but will have to do some work or I'll be way behind come Tuesday morning. Oh, and the big news is that I was in a press release from our company and they squeezed me in at the end of the announcement on our new Regional team - you can read about it here if you are so inclined. The only downside is that now every sales person is calling me wanting me to meet with them so that they can sell me something. And I guess that's about it for this day, have a great week and enjoy your MLK Day!

posted by Scott @ 9:31 PM

Happy Sunday night once again although I don't have much news to report, it's been another busy weekend around here but that's about it. And it seems like everything takes me longer to get anything done - grocery shopping takes me forever and I think that I must have spent two hours in Walmart yesterday trying to find things. At least it was good to see some familiar items from my Walmart Supercenter, this one has just about everything but I just don't think that I could actually do my grocery shopping there. Now I'm trying to figure out how to buy the stuff that they have there and then the other stuff at another store but I think that would be too complicated to even bother trying. Found a place to get my haircut too.

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday raking the front yard and fixing the border bricks that go around the front of the house, plus I edged the front walk as it was so overgrown you could barely tell it was there. It was pretty cold too and think that it was like 26' for most of the morning and got up to maybe 40' but it wasn't all to cold out as long as you were moving around and stuff. I dunno but I think that I kind of like this weather but I guess that I'm also pretty sure that I'll get sick of it after a while. I had to take Montie to the vet first thing yesterday morning to get his vaccinations for when I need to board him and think that probably took me three hours of sitting around - plus they ended up giving him a complete physical which I hadn't planned on and he's in pretty good shape, the only thing they could find wrong with him is his teeth need a good cleaning and want to put him under to do it - but I don't know about that as I did that once a few years ago and he was messed up for a week. They do have me now brushing his teeth after meals and he's not liking that so much, I got him a baby brush and an electric one but he's not liking either very much. I can also now get him a license too now that he's legal and don't think that he's had one of those since I don't remember when.

I'm also starting to get a complex that everything that I try and fix I can't get it right, my front timer thing keeps messing up and I even replaced it and it does the same thing - it just turns on and off whenever it feels like it. Plus I tried to put a shelf up in my bathroom and ended up with a big ole hole and haven't even gotten it up yet as I am going to need to get some more parts at the store. I found the kitchen sink that I am going to buy to replace the one that I have but I'm afraid that I won't be able to get it in once I tear out the old one. I did get most of the remaining boxes put away though that were lying around and guess that if I haven't unpacked it yet than I can probably through it in a closet and worry about it later. At least I did get the movers scheduled to come back and pick up most of the boxes and stuff and will have to remember to do that next Saturday.

Oh, and Verizon really ticked me off as my DSL was supposed to have been ready on Friday but I got home and found out that they are having issues and postponed me for another 10 days so it's going to be like more than a month since I ordered it and what - three weeks since I moved in here. And to top it off they can't even tell me if my phone line is going to work until they actually get it working, so I might be waiting all this time and end up with nothing.

Work is going ok and have been trying out different routes but I think that Route 7 is probably my best bet unless it's a bad weather day and then I might take the toll road but it's longer but would probably be in better shape come a rainy or snowy day. Nothing out of the order in the office though, I'm pretty much doing my old job from a new office plus a few other things for the new job too.

I guess that's about my week in review and about all that I can think to mention to I am going to end this here and find something else to do ....... which won't be hard as it seems like I never have any time to just sit back and relax. So until another day have a great week and I will talk with you soon.

posted by Scott @ 8:59 PM

Happy New Year and welcome to 2006! And dang if I'm not worn out at this point, didn't do too much partying but I've been working around the house all weekend. I almost have the upstairs all organized and it's starting to look more like I like to see it. I think that I did at least six loads of laundry today and washed most of my work clothes and sweaters and stuff and should be good to go come Tuesday morning.

I also ended up rewiring the switch box in the hallway with four new switches with one of them being a timer that controls the light outside of the garage, I had the same thing at my other place and comes on at dark and turns off when I go to bed and it's working just fine tonight. And I got my DVD & home theater all set up and it's amazing that with like 300 channels I still can never find anything to watch. I still don't know what I'm going to do with the wires for the speakers in the back of the room though but they are just running along the walls at this point. Oh, and I hung three blinds in the front room upstairs as there was nothing there before and now also should try and find some drapes to hang. And I replaced the latch on the sliding glass door with one with a nice wooden handle and makes it much easier to open, plus it locks a lot better too.

It still seems like I've got so much to do around here and not enough time to do it but I guess that I just need to take it one day at a time and not expect to have it all done overnight. I am glad that I've had the time off that I've had to get as much done as I have in the beginning and these extra couple of days have also been great. I need to run a phone line from where my desk is down through the crawl space and splice it in with the line that is in the kitchen but I'm having a heck of a time with that as I don't want to make a huge hole in the wall in doing it but so far I haven't had any luck with it. My DSL line should be good to go by the end of the week and if I can't get a phone line run I may have to try and keep it wireless (but I keep loosing my connection every now and then the way it is now). I suppose I could ask Verizon to do it for me but I'm sure that they'd end up charging me an arm and a leg - plus I'd have to be home all day in order to let them in.

And I'm still not in any kind of routine at work yet and I'm not liking that too much, plus I think the hardest part about all of the changes is having to go into work each day and not working from home any more. It's taking me about 25 minutes to and from work but I guess that last week was extra light on the traffic so I'm not sure what it's going to be like come a regular week. And Thursday morning I got all the way to work and realized that I had left my laptop at home and walked out of the house without it, so I ended up having to drive all the way home again and then back to work - you can bet that I don't do that very often!

The weather since I've been here has been decent and haven't seen any snow since what was on the ground when I got here melted and it's been in the 30's at night and most days close to 50'. I really need to spend a couple of days out in the yard as well as the entire lawn needs a good raking, plus I need to redo the brick border thing that is out front ...... and I need to wash and vacuum my car too as it's still a mess from the ride up here with the Monto.

And one of these days I might get around to taking some pictures of the place but I've still got too many boxes left laying around for that yet. I guess that's about it for this day and all is well with me and I hope that it's the same where you are today. Have a great day off tomorrow and a wonderful week and I'll be talking with you on another day. Take care!

posted by Scott @ 9:23 PM