Ain't Technology Grand?

I finally got internet at home. More to the point: I finally got internet to work at home. To be perfectly honest, some huge guy named Robert Tech 124 finally got internet to work at my home. Now I can update my blog in the comfort of my own PJs.

But since I still have nothing interesting to relate to all of you, it hardly seems to matter.

The biggest news I have this week is that I finally took care of my HazWOPER refresher for the year. No, I don't really need it for this job, but those of you who have sat through the 40-hour initial course will understand why I would rather pay out of my own pocket for the refresher than let my certification expire and have to sit through the whole course again.

Tears of despair threaten even as I think such a thing.

Definitely better to pay to spend 8 hours with an online course that tells you things like "to clean up an acid spill, you should pour a base on it." At least I got a good laugh out of this.

In other news, according to Weatherbug it's 95 in Farmington, but the humidity is 8%, so the heat index is 88. Here it's 94, but the humidity is 39%, so the heat index is 98.

I want my desert back!

If I Water My Computer, Will It Grow More RAM?

This is my current office during a rainstorm. Some of you are unimpressed. You are probably the ones who never saw pictures of my old office during a rainstorm.



Can you see the difference? See all the rain pouring down the INSIDE of the building? See the line of buckets and trash bins trying to catch the rain pouring down the INSIDE of the building? Now let's look at the inside of my new office again.




See the remarkable lack of interior precipitation? It is entirely possible that there is something good about Houston, after all.

Hurricane Season #1: The Saga Begins

I have experienced my first official Tropical Storm Watch. Or Alert. Or something. Anyway, there was a tropical storm and it's hundreds of miles away but it was all over TV like a tornado warning.
Yay for flood insurance. Like my sprinkler, something I never wanted to own, but now find myself really excited about.

Finally

I have pictures of the inside of the house. Here they are:

Living room












Dining room

Kitchen. That's the range with the self-cleaning hood most of you have heard so much about. It's really fun. I'll show you when you come over sometime.

Bathroom

Bedroom. Note penguins pretending to be innocent stuffed animals, incapable of wreaking havoc and destruction everywhere they go. But the party hat is a dead give-away.

Guest room

I Brought Back Cookies from the Italian Store

Had a good time in NY. Had pizza and Italian cookies in NY. There might be some other point to NY, but I don't know what it might be.

The strangest things happened friday morning - we got up, made a plan for the day, and got NINE PEOPLE out of the house before 9 a.m. How bizarre is that? Kind of makes one wonder what was about to go wrong, doesn't it?

Nope. Nothing went wrong. We went for a lovely walk and saw this sign of life in rural upstate New York. We got et by a bunch of skeeters, but that hardly counts as something going wrong - that's just spring happening to you.

Dan graduated on saturday. Here's a picture of him and Briahna (she's graduating today). Doesn't he look all growed up and competent? I mean, if you didn't know him and all? Don't worry Dan, most prospective employers will buy it... and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late.

It very politely did not rain on graduation - good thing, too, or the cookies would've got wet! They were pretty good cookies. They had cookies shaped like pony heads, with green sprinkles (school color and mascot), chocky chip cookies, M&M cookies, peanut butter cookies, and some others. There was lemonade, too.

Another day it did not rain was tuesday. I guess I should say the other day it didn't rain. Maybe it did rain, but it didn't start till after we got done with our hike, and that's the only important part of the day. We went to a waterfall. Two waterfalls, actually.
This is the first one. It's called Beaver Meadow Falls. It's near a meadow. The meadow supposedly contains beavers. Didn't get to see one. Saw a muskrat, though, which probably tastes a lot like beaver (Paul? Dale? Input on that topic?). The second one is Rainbow Falls. Didn't get to see a rainbow, either, but there was some snow next to the falls. I like snow.

We went to China Buffet after the hike. We actually got to go to TWO China Buffets this trip. It was awesome. And they were totally different buffets, which is not often the case with China Buffets. They had different sauces on their sauteed green beans, for instance, and one place had sushi and chocolate fortune cookies, and the egg rolls were different... but the lo mein was the same. I am pretty sure that all China Buffets sign a pledge to serve the same lo mein. It's probably their way of taking over America - as if China Buffet needed any help taking over our thoroughly distended tummies.

So... that basically sums up vacation. Hiking and China Buffet. There was also a day of mini-golf, but I don't have any pictures of that, and it was a very stressful mini-golf day. Not ready to talk about it yet.

PAID Vacation Time?

Yes, paid. I haven't had paid vacation time for the last two years. It's already become a foreign and exciting concept. I leave tomorrow to go to NY for Dan's graduation. My baby brother is grajumatating! He's a big boy now! Now he'll have to go find a Real Job.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Dull is Your Friend

Hmm. It appears that it's been a while since I posted something. That's probably because nothing terribly interesting has happened lately. But that's probably for the best. "Interesting" is usually synonymous with "expensive to fix" in my world.
We got our rush project out on time. Last week was the big industry conference. That was kind of interesting, I suppose. Lots of free stuff, of course... I got a poster and two stress-squeezie-things and a lanyard and a bottle of Tabasco and a pen and three business cards and two tote bags and a bottle of sunblock and there was cake and cheese and crackers and cookies. Oh, and there were some interesting speakers, too.
Finally got my birdfeeders up. The first bird I saw on the seed feeder was a cardinal. Boy cardinal. His girlfriend was hanging out on the ground. That seemed like a good portent for future birdwatching.
Second thing I saw on the feeder was a squirrel.
The squirrel baffle seems to be working so far.
So far I have sparrows, house finches, doves, and mockingbirds... which is to say, my backyard does not appear to be a Ring of Death. I also saw a blue jay try to land on the feeder a couple of times yesterday, but the tray was in the dishwasher and he wasn't having much luck landing on the tiny perches. I told him to come back today and try again. Not sure if he was listening.
Now I am at work. We have another rush project this week. Bill better not be getting any ideas...

Another Brilliant Plan Crushed Beneath the Wheels of Life

I really did plan to have some photos of the inside of the house to show you today... I really did. But the deadline on our rush project got bumped up another three days, and I ended up working this weekend instead of unpacking. And for some reason, when I got home from work yesterday, I was not filled with motivation to unpack. The sofa was assembled, and free of boxes, and that was all I really wanted out of life at the time.

I did end up unpacking one box last night... the box of DVDs and video tapes, since I could do that while lying on the floor (fulfilling another of last night's life-goals) yelling at the TV (thing about hockey teams is that sometimes they have to be reminded that the point of the game is to get the puck IN the net. No, not the net behind your goalie, the OTHER net. With the OTHER team's colors in front of it. Do I have to drive up there and show you myself?), but all the other items left to unpack are Hard. It will require Thinking to determine where they go.

Screw that.

Tell Me Again Why Moving Sounded Like a Good Idea...

I am here. My stuff is here. Big piles of stuff. Mostly books and tea.

Also, I fixed it so those of you without Google accounts can leave witty remarks, too.

Now I Just Need Stuff to Put in It

I finally have a place to live. Thank Heavens. I am so sick of looking at lousy rental properties. This one is pretty nice, though. It's a house. Here it is:

Look! TWO garage doors. For TWO vehicles to go in. Two. That's more than one. Pretty nifty, huh? The one on the right even has a garage door opener. I could open and close that thing all day...

Simple minds, simple pleasures.

Here is the back porch. There's a toad living in it. He has a little hole in the little strip of garden inside the porch. When I watered the flowers there, he hopped out and went looking for a bush to hide under. Luckily for him there is something dark purple and leafy in there, too. I don't have a picture of him. On account of the dark purple leafy stuff being in the way.

This is the backyard. Being watered. I watered the lawn. How very growed up of me. I have never had to water a lawn on my own before. It occurred to me at this point that I really have no idea how to do it. Yes, I have a pretty good grip on the basic concepts involved, but the actual application thereof is a little lost on me.

Gravel doesn't require watering.