Miscellaneous

So I've been wanting to write something for a few days now, and I have a good topic I want to cover, but tonight I just want write a bunch of random thoughts that I have and see what comes out. So here goes... Stopped at Brays again on the way home from bowling and it sucked again. That's two weeks in a row. I don't know if they changed the wax paper they wrap the burgers in but the top buns are sticking to the paper! And it won't come off! Last week was worse than this week because I...

Since the Pikes Peak Cam is still down, this is my new favorite webcam. From the web site... "This view of the Santa Catalina Mountains looks north across the University of Arizona campus from the Computer Science offices in the Gould-Simpson building. A new image is generated once a minute." Beautiful. I wish I was seeing it in person.

Well, here we go. Another year. 2010. Wow. It seems like just yesterday we were all waiting for the computers of the world to crash on Y2K. There's a lot I want to do this year. A lot. Let's get crackin'. Thankfully I don't feel like Woody here today!

Only with gift cards.

I'm a little pissed at myself because I missed an opportunity to become the webmaster for my chapter's web site. I didn't even know they were looking. Why is this my fault then? Because when I joined I told myself that I should let them know that I am a developer and offered my services should they need anything. I didn't do it. I should still send them an email and let them know that I'm available should they need any help or any other software.

I think I would have liked to be a teacher. This is awesome and sums up this grossly underpaid profession pretty well.  

I went to McDonald's this morning on the way to work to get breakfast for my daughter and me. I went through the drive-thru and ordered two value meals that were exactly the same. Same sandwich, same drink. Since my daughter and I don't work in the same area I asked if they could put the meals in separate bags. I was told that in the drive-thru, they are not allowed to do separate bagging but they could give me an empty bag so I could separate them myself. Nice. This makes no sense to me whatsoever. It can't take any longer...

<knockingOnWood>I rarely get sick.</knockingOnWood> But I've been sick for that last five days. Sore throat, coughing, achy, and extremely tired. I could fall asleep at any moment. Today is the worse day yet. My throat is really sore. I'm still coughing and now my chest, back, and sides are sore from it. Ugh. I stayed home today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. UPDATE: So it turns out I had bronchitis. I finally went to see the doctor and got some medication. Even got a shot which I haven't had since I don't know when. After 15 days, I'm finally able to...

I think Classmates.com would be a great site if they weren't so damn greedy. They tease you with emails that say you have messages and that people have visited your profile. Of course you want to find out who's looking for you! But then when you go there you can't do anything without paying for a membership! I mean, there are ads ALL OVER THE SITE! They're everywhere! And they want you to pay to use the site too? Greedy. Greedy. Greedy. Get with the program Classmates.com. Social networking sites should be free. Look at Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace. Sure,...

With the stock market in the toilet and the housing market right there with it, "The Bunch of Dummies" is thinking about buying a house or two and renting them out. Pretty exciting if you ask me. The time is definitely right. Hmmm. Have the dummies ever made a right move at the right time? Stick around and see what happens. Gayla and I just got back from looking at a little house in Garden City. It's pretty beaten up so we'd have to do some work but that is expected. Three bedroom ranch on a crawl space. 1248 square feet...

In college, my favorite class was Astronomy. I absolutely loved it. This blows me away...

Check this out... Imagining the 10th Dimension Are you kidding me?? This guy needs another hobby. Personally? I think he's just making this stuff up as he goes along. Excuse me, I need an aspirin.

Today is the Great Lakes Regional Chili Cookoff and I'm goin'. We're riding our bikes and it's gonna be cold. There was frost on the grass the last two mornings but we're not leaving until around 11:30 so hopefully it will warm up a litte by then. Right now as I'm writing this it's a cold 44 degrees but at least the sun is shining and that should help. But still, we're only looking at the mid 50's by noon and a high of only 60 or so for the whole day.  I put the windshield on my bike so hopefully that...

So we have a full size refrigerator in the garage that I use for beer and pop. It's usually pretty full because well, when we run out of beer we get more. Duh! Anyway, the other day Gayla threw a bunch of beer in there and it wasn't like, straight. You know, in rows and columns? All neat and tidy? So when I saw it I was like, what the hell? And then I straightened it all up. Everything at right angles ya know? She comes by later and takes a beer out. FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE ROW!!! So now,...

I haven't said much about it here, but I've been hinting about it to my family for some time now. Today, I guess I took the first step of this journey in buying a helmet. Tonight, I am going down to the local community college and try to get in the safety class. You can call it a mid-life crisis but I'm gonna have to disagree. Oh, don't get me wrong. There is definitely a "mid-life crisis" component. But that is not the whole of it. Instead, I prefer to think of it as I, along with my wife Gayla, have spent...

I mentioned in a previous post about my "magic fertilizer" and what a great job it did on my lawn. Well, here's a before and after set that shows what it looked like last year  when no one lived here and what it looks like today. The before picture is from a Google Maps Street View image. Before... And After... Can you say "magic fertilizer"?

A couple of weeks ago "The Kode Man" and I were out front checkin' out the lawn, watchin' the sprinklers (I know, shut up), and having a beer after a long day of working in the yard. Sitting in the front yard by the way, is now Kody's absolute favorite thing to do. He actually comes to me and begs to go out and sit in the driveway! Strange. Anyway, it was a pretty decent day but we were due to have some storms because of a cold front that was coming through the area. I snapped these pictures as it...

Yesterday I picked up a BlackBerry Curve in Red! Very nice, very cool. I've been putting off buying a smart phone like this because I have a Dell Axim pda and I didn't want to give up on it. But, it's been a real pain carrying around my phone and my pda. I was changing my cell phone plan anyway so I thought what the heck. Besides, I can't be a geek with a plain old cell phone!

Very cool and somewhat depressing. I did the Life Expectancy Calculator and my virtual age is 59.8 and my life expectancy is only 64.2 years. I'm currently 48 years old. Yikes. The World Clock is pretty cool.

Every year I have a Super Bowl party at Big K's Pub in my basement. This year, I'm in dire need of a winter trip. I'm thinking Vegas. For the Super Bowl. Vegas Baby! I'm thinking the sports book at Caesar's Palace. Watchin' the Superbowl on a TV as big as my house! Sound good? I think so. Book it!

I am really lovin' gubb.net being the list person that I am. Very cool. Update: And the more I'm using it? The more I'm liking it!

Gayla and I when to Beaver Creek for dinner tonight. A commercial for Energizer batteries came on the TV. I told her I don't buy Energizer batteries because of that stupid bunny. I hate those commercials! I hate that freakin' bunny even more! God they're annoying. Seriously. I won't buy them because of that. She thinks I'm stupid. Hmph! Damn. I wish I was knew how to put one of those circles with the slash through it on another image. I suck at Photoshop. Oh well, you get the point. What the hell is that thing called anyway?

I played euchre at Jake's tonight with my mother-in-law. I had a good time. I didn't think I would because I was really tired when I got home from work. It was fun though. I didn't score a lot of points. It was cool. I won $5.50 of the euchre pot by random drawing. Hard to beat that. I'll probably play again next week.

THIS, is what I'm talkin' about!

   Bought this nice 6' x 9' area rug at Sam's Club today for the basement. It was only 30 bucks! Looks pretty good I think. The hope is that it will warm (temperature wise) things up at Big K's Pub. It tends to get cold down there in the winter.

My brother in law bought a new camera so I bought his old one. A very nice Canon EOS Rebel. I think it was made in 2003 and I got a great deal on it. I just got back from a week in Fort Lauderdale Florida yesterday. I took the camera with me and took a whopping 6 pictures. Six. Pictures. In a week. I must do better.

I can't even draw a straight line with MS Paint.

Last night I downloaded and installed Community Server. The installation was so easy and effortless! A simple double click on the msi file and that was that. It just works. Nice. I'm using it for my forums site. I was using ASP.Net forums, which severd me just fine, but it's time to move on. There is just so much more in the Community Server product. I would like to thank telligent for making the personal version available. Feel free to check the forums out and create an account! You can find them at http://bigkspub.com/ThePub/forums/default.aspx. I'm still in the process of...

This hits so close to home you can't even imagine.

For the first 21 years of my working life, I worked as a baggage handler for North Central/Republic/Northwest Airlines in good ole DTW. I have to say, it's not a nice place to work. There are however, some really great people that work there that are still putting up with the day to day nonsense. One of the ways they deal with the all the bullshit is to make fun of it. Way back before computers there was a newsletter titled the "Bagroom Blab". The writers were very clever and funny and it really was an entertaining read. They've now...

I don’t know about you, but I use my debit card for pretty much everything and also pay all my bills online using online banking. The last book of checks I went through lasted me over a year and outside of a couple other things, the only checks I ever write are for bowling and my stock club. Because I rarely use my checkbook I don’t record any of my transactions in the check register so I never know how much money I have left in my account. Yeah, I can always go online and check my balance there, but...

Saw this over at Noded. Pretty cool. HowManyOfMe.com ...

I've been looking forward to the Thanksgiving 4 day weekend for about a month now. It was really a great mini vacation and I couldn't ask for better weather. It's been in the upper 50's and sunny since Wednesday and it's near 60 today! Definitely unusual weather for November in Michigan. The bad thing is that I didn't do a damn thing except put my Christmas lights up on the house today. It was kind of a wasted weekend, but every now and then you need to sit back and do absolutely nothing. I did need some time to get my...

"Although they restricted themselves to one drink at lunchtime, Howard and Tom still found they were not at their most productive in the afternoons." Thanks to Darren at work for sharing this.

I've been off all week because my new company closes down between Christmas and New Year's day. It's really a great benefit to have the week off especially when we're such a small company. So I was sitting here earlier tonight getting myself mentally prepared to return to the grind tomorrow when the phone rang about 9:30. It was the owner of my company calling to tell me that we would be closed again tomorrow for the holiday. I was and still am totally floored! I am so lucky to have found a company like this to work for. It...

My in-laws went to Colorado last month to visit our family. They snapped this stunning picture of Pike's Peak while they were watching my nephews play football. Notice the fog down in the valley and the beautiful cloudless blue sky! We don't see that much around Michigan. Great picture Mom! Tell me again why we live in Michigan?

After putting the summer furniture away yesterday I spent about an hour blowing the leaves that fell from the tree in the backyard out to the street. I thought I'd get a head start since the tree was still pretty full. I woke up this morning and looked out the kitchen window to see this! When I was done yesterday, there wasn't a single leaf in the backyard! It's really windy here today and we're supposed to have gusts up to 50 mph. So much for getting a head start!            

It's always a depressing job to put the patio furniture away bacause that means they'll be no more sittin' outside and dreary, gray, cold, winter is right around the corner. So long summer of '05. You were a good one. One thing I don't put away is the grill. We BBQ all winter long.          

Here is today's Westland, Michigan weather forcast according to Intellicast.com... Thursday:Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High near 70F.I hereby submit that any time we have a forecast like this in Michigan in November? it's a holiday and we get the day off. Whadya think? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone? Help me out here people.

What a weekend! Saturday I went to the Michigan game and Sunday to the lowly Lion's game. Had a great time, maybe too great! Thought I'd post some pictures from the Michigan tailgate. Click on the image to see it bigger. Gotta love the flags...   These people used to tailgate in the golf course but I guess it's getting to be a pain over there so they thought they'd give this place a try. They have a real nice setup!    This is our group here... Playin' the midwest's favorite! Euchre anyone? We left Saturday morning at 9:30 am and I got home around...

My good friend Larry from Northwest is sharing his most inner thoughts on the mechanic's strike against Northwest Airlines over at Big K's Forums. You should check them out, he's pretty funny. Hopefully he starts writing in his blog again. http://www.bigkspub.com/BigKsForums/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=6  

  Hope everyone had a nice summer last Tuesday. Sigh.

A good buddy of mine sent me this picture that was taken, oh, I would guess 8 to 10 years ago. We used to take these fishing/camping/drinking trips out to Bruin Lake, which is near Brighton, every year. It was actually a fishing tournament. We called it “Bass-a-mania“. It wasn't anything serious, just a reason to get away and to put our boats in the water. We usually caught more hangovers than fish but we always had a great time! This is a picture of me playing a little "git-tar by the campfar“. (Sorry, that's a bad attempt at rhyming) That's Dennis...

Ok. Two days ago? I think it was two days ago, it was over 80 degrees here in beautiful, wonderful Michigan. As of right now, we're supposed to get 6 to 10 inches of snow this weekend. Six. To. Ten. Inches. God I hope I hit the Mega Millions tonight. Two hundred five millions dollars?! Palm Springs here I come! I don't even know that I'd tell the girls. My daughters that is. Gayla? I would definitely take her with me!

I didn't get home from work last night until after 8:00. It was a very long day. We're getting a release ready for Monday and of course, things that normally work fine always seem to blow up when you're in a crunch. As a matter of fact, I still have some work to do this weekend to get ready for Monday. Anyway, when I got home last night, the only thing I was in the mood for was a Bud Light! That equates to no dinner so I was hungry when I got up this morning. Mmm, mmm good. Did...

I've never even driven one. But right now? This very minute? I want one. I could even go for a tattoo. I better go to bed.

This is some cool stuff. I like the set of eyes that follow your mouse around on the home page.

Adult life is extremely stressful. I don't have to tell anyone that. When you have kids? It's even more stressful. Then there's work, marriage, the weather, money. The list goes on. So, it seems that there's always something heavy weighing on your mind. Have you ever had a moment when all that stress seems to just disappear? Even if it's just for a half minute or so? Well, for about 30 seconds today, while driving in my truck, the sun was shining, it was half way warm out, there was good music on the radio and for some reason or another, I...

I came across this picture tonight... Not too shabby. We did all the makeup by hand looking at the Kiss Alive album cover. We even won 1st prize for best costume! That was one of the two times in my life that I shaved my mustache off. I scared Jamie (my daughter) to death and she wouldn't come near me until it grew back! I'm talking without the Kiss makeup!!! I found a bunch of other old pictures from all the good times we had at NWA parties. I'll have to scan them all in and put them in an album for all...

I have decided that this is where I want to live... In case you're wondering, it's Palm Springs, California. Probably not much demand for software developers there. Damn.

I found this over at The Pub of Knowledge. Take the Cool Test. I laughed out loud.

So my sister was in town this past weekend. She's been wanting to do something for me to congratulate me on my graduation from college. We were going to meet her and her husband Will in Las Vegas but that didn't work out. Then we tried to get me out to Colorado for a visit and a weekend in their motor home, but that didn't work out either! So while they were in town this weekend they went out and bought me a new LCD TV for my bar! How cool is that?!!!! It's absolutely perfect and has an awesome...

Went to the gym again today and that makes three times this week. Nice job Big K! Woo Hoo! Sorry, I gotta pat my back or I'll stop going. :) It's amazing how quickly your body reacts. Of course I'm sore but that's a good thing. But what I'm talking about is I already feel better. Really. For example, my knees were killing me whenever I would go up some stairs or bend down. That? has already gone. No kidding. Heck, if I keep this up, I'll have to create a “Workout” category for these posts! Hey. Maybe I will.

I tried to write this cool post about all the good times we had during Saint Patrick's Days gone by, but it sucked so I deleted it. What I was trying to say was, Saint Patrick's Day used to be my favorite “holiday”. It probably still is, but now I have to work. I'm a “grown up“. Sometimes I hate being a grown up. The really bad thing is, instead of having corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight? which I love, I had Nachos Supreme from Taco Bell. Yuk. I know, I know. But that's what Gayla wanted. That's what Gayla...

I went back to the gym today. Woo Hoo!! The first time in, oh, I don't know. A YEAR OR SO!!! For me, the hardest part of working out is going that very first time. I don't know why, it just is. Plus, I'm in such bad shape, that I was afraid to go. No, not because I look so bad that I'd be embarrassed. But because I was afraid I'd have a heart attack or something while I was there. I can see it now... I'm on the treadmill and, Boom! I'm gone. The treadmill is still going so it...

I've been trying to change my eating habits lately. I say lately but it's really only been in the last few days. Well, that is, if you don't count all the other times I've tried. :) I've actually done ok considering we haven't gone shopping yet this week so there really isn't much healthful food in the house. One of my really bad habits is eating popcorn at night while watching TV. I know, popcorn, in and of itself, is not that bad for you. But, how good is popcorn with nothing on it? I think you get my drift. Can you say butter?...

I can't believe that it's already 10 PM on Sunday night. It seems like Friday was just a couple of hours ago. Saturday absolutely flew by because we got hit with about 8 to 10 inches of snow and I spent the day digging myself, my in-laws, and my sister in-law out. After that, because the roads were still so bad, I drove Kari to work so she wouldn't have to drive herself on the nasty roads, and by the time I got back from dropping her off, I had just enough time to jump in the shower and get ready to...

I finally scanned this picture into my computer the other night. It is my favorite picture of Gayla and me. Of course, it's about 25 years old and we look just a little different now. I think this was taken at one of the Republic Airlines (now Northwest Airlines) company picnics, and I would guess the year to be around 1979 or 1980. That would put us just around 20 years old. I can't see any wedding rings so I don't know if we were married yet or not. We were married in June of 1979. Yes we were drinking beer, and even...

Because we have such shitty weather here in Hell, uh, Michigan, I like to torture myself by checking on the weather in places like Florida, Arizona, and Colorado. I have to laugh everytime I look at the weather in Phoenix because it's always the same! The only thing that really seems to vary is the temperature. So, I am hereby declaring that the easiest and most boring job in the world is a weather person in Phoenix. Yep, you heard it here first. I have to think that the hardest part of this job is coming up with ways to...

So Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston are splitting up, huh? I told Gayla we needed to get divorced because I wanted to give her a shot. She just started laughing. As a matter of fact, she's still laughing. Hmph.

When I went to bed on Thursday night I would say there was oh, about 4 or 5 inches of snow on the ground. When I woke up on Friday morning I couldn't believe my eyes! All of the snow had melted! All I could see was the grass. We had a little rain over night and the outside temp was rising. We eventually went up to 59 degrees! 59 degrees! In Michigan! On December 31st! Unbelievable. It was really a nice day, and the sun even shown during the afternoon. It felt like summer! Really. I had 2 windows and...

Times sure have changed. The kids are out partying and the parents are home in bed. Happy New Year!!!

I really can't say that I've been busy lately although I have been doing a lot on the computer for the stock club and my sister. I created her a nice little home page with some links that she uses all the time so she can have easy access. I've also been doing some other work on the stock club application, but nothing that's really useful to the club as of yet. I've been trying to balance my computer time with getting things done around the house so I don't “waste” my whole vacation by sitting in front of the...

With all the pressure TV stations have to get you watch their news casts, it seems like the weather forecasts are getting the most attention. Every single storm that just might drop a flake or two gets the "Death Storm" logo around here. We can go to five different TV stations and get five different forecasts. It's actually kind of amusing to try and figure out which one is going to get it right. Last night we got the first big storm of the winter and I'm actually surprised that they all were right. Of course, if you consider...

There are some reality shows that I actually like. Survivor, Extreme Makeover, The Biggest Loser, Trading Spouses, and even the original, MTV's Real World. Although sometime, the kids on that show? really scare me since I have two daughters that age! So tonight we were watching Trading Spouses, which by the way, the family with the guy who looks like Santa Claus?, too weird, and at the end of the show Fox shows a commercial about this new reality series. The show will “star“ a young women and I think there were 6 or so older men. In the commercial, they...

Well, I got the tree up this weekend. I'm about two weeks ahead of where I normally am this time of year! I don't know what's gotten into me. Heck, I even put lights on the house this year. Had those up last week!! Must be my old age settin' in. I've set up a photo album for Christmas this year as well as other holidays. I'll be posting more pictures as I take them.

Meet Kody. The, most spoiled dog, in the world. Please excuse his, um, bad manners.

Holy smokes, I looked up and I had a total of 13 posts! So. I'm posting this. I'm not superstitious though. Really. Oh come on. It doesn't hurt anything.

I got some new Michigan stuff for Big K's Pub on my birthday which, by the way, was this last Monday. You'd think I have enough Michigan stuff. But you'd be wrong. ;) Check it out! Awesome flag huh?! This is from my daughter Jamie. I've got the picture turned 90 degrees. It's actually hanging on a door next to the bar. And my in-laws got me this awesome rug. I have it layin' right in front of the TV. Let's see, what else. Kari gave me a very cool “weathered” sweat shirt. And my sister in-law Staci gave me a Michigan pull-over jacket similar...

All I can say is that I hurt myself yesterday but have recovered nicely today. Please pass the leftovers!

We had our first snow here yesterday. Not too bad, just a "dusting" but man is it cold today! Last weekend it was sunny and in the mid 50's. Gayla bought one of those spiral lighted Christmas trees for the front yard and we put it out last weekend. I said I was going to wait until this weekend to put the rest of the Christmas lights up because I have the 4-day weekend. Gayla told me not to wait because ya never know what kind of weather we'll have. Well, she was right and I should've listened to her. Tomorrow...