It Was an Amazing Thing

I got in my truck this morning and had instant heat coming out of the heater!

I've owned my truck for at least five years I think... I'm not sure. It's a decent truck--Very comfortable and nice to drive, and most everything works. On the inside of the glove compartment is a list of all the ordered options that the truck came with from the factory back in 1986.

One of those items was a block heater.

For those of you that don't know, a block heater is exactly that--A way to heat the engine block. It doesn't have anything to do with the radiator--Only the engine block itself. It's actually a small coil device that is installed into one of the freeze plugs on the side of the engine block, down low and underneath were you can't see it. It has a standard 3-prong 115v plug on the end of it, and it's neatly coiled up and tied down under the hood of my truck.

As long as I've owned the truck I've never thought about plugging it in before, because until I divorced and moved it spent it's whole life parked inside of a garage, safely out of the weather. See, when you get to park in a garage, you're so happy about the fact that you're getting into a nice, dry vehicle and don't have to scrape ice off the windows and stuff that you don't really think anywhere past that fact. The fact is, when you get into a vehicle that's parked in a nice, dry garage and drive off, you still have to go a ways before you start to get heat out of your heater and defroster. After all, the engine has to warm up first.

Yesterday I went out to go to work in the snow and ice and my truck wouldn't start. It was probably a choke issue... I either flooded it by pumping the gas too much, or the choke flapper never closed completely and it never got the right fuel mixture to start in such cold weather. In any event, the engine refused to start and the starter started turning slower. At that point I just got out of it and went over to the Neon and started it up and scraped its two days worth of snow and ice off the windows before heading to work.

That's when it hit me. I should give the block heater in the truck a try. When I got home from work, I stretched my heavy-duty extension cord out from the garage and plugged it into the truck. Because my extension cord is an outdoor cord, it has this strange feature that makes the translucent receptacle end glow orange when it has power to it. For that reason, I tucked it up into the engine compartment so some passerby wouldn't think my cord was having a meltdown ring my doorbell. I plugged it in, carefully noting whether or not any strange things happened (smoke for instance). After noting that everything seemed okay and no breakers blew, I went inside and forgot about it. This morning, I was anxious to try it out. When it was time to leave, I first went out to the garage and unplugged the cord, then did my usual exit out the front door. After popping the hood and unplugging the cord, I tucked it in under my Neon to keep it out of the way (the other end went under the garage door into the garage). I got in my truck and hit the starter. Wow... I had never heard it turn over that fast! It started up immediately and ran smoothly right off the bat. I reached down and turned the heater and fan on and, well, you know the rest.

I almost laughed all the way to work this morning!

Snow, Ice, & Cold

I finally decided that my wood stove alone just wasn't going to get the job done. Sure, it has the ability to heat my whole house and heat it well, but it just takes too long. On weekends it's killer--I leave it going all day, but on weekdays it doesn't work that well. I get home at say 3:30 or so and I start a fire. I stoke it and keep it building nice and hot to get lots of coals. After a couple hours, the living room is nice and comfortable, but the upper floor (i.e. my bedroom) just starts to get comfortable by the time it's time to go to bed. So now I leave the master bedroom and living room electric thermostats at 60. I came home today and it was decent. Not "naked warm" by any stretch, but the wood stove had a lot less it had to catch up.

It's been fairly cold for our area lately. We get hit with record rains and some flooding a couple weeks ago, and now it's cold. It snowed a bit last night, so I knew I'd be taking my truck to work this morning. When I got up there was only about a half inch of snow, but I knew I'd run into more. I made it a point to leave for work about 10 minutes early because I knew traffic would be slow, and besides, I needed to get some gas. My truck is very good in snow and ice, and I think it's partly because it's a full size truck, and partly because it's one of the last with "part-time" four wheel drive. That means I have to get out and turn the front hubs to lock them in. It also has very good tires for snow. Anyway, my 10 minutes totally evaporated. I only have to go from this town to the next one, but I was actually 10 minutes late because traffic was moving so slow. The roads were fine, but people were being cautious. Way cautious. I was going so slow on the freeway that my speedometer wasn't even registering. I only have to go 2 exits to get off for work, but I had to bail after only one--It was just ridiculous. I was very surprised when I pulled into the parking lot and saw the moped parked there that belongs to a recent-hire. I'll tell you what, that guy has really impressed me with his ethic. He has ridden that thing in pouring rain and everything and has never been late. And this morning with snow and black ice?! I went up to him when I got there and said, "Man, I don't know how you can sit on that stool in front of that press with balls as big as you've got." I like that guy.

We had a fairly small crew today, and instead of some of the oddball stuff I've been doing lately, I filled in and ran a thread tap into holes for 4 hours. The threads were already there in the fastener holes, but after the parts get heat-treated, the threads change slightly, so it was basically "cleaning up" the existing threads. At any rate, after 4 hours of that, I have one helluva sore arm. I seriously overused one particular muscle.

Schools were closed today, so I didn't have to pick Sarah up after work. While it didn't matter to me, I'm glad for Teresa because I wouldn't have wanted her to have to drive up the hill this morning to take her to school. She stayed home from work today as well, so they both got to relax and watch news reports on TV all day I guess.

I ordered myself a new comforter from Amazon the other night. The cheapie I bought a couple weeks ago is okay, but I want a real down comforter. Mostly for the quality and warmth, but also partly for the noise (or lack thereof). My cheapie makes a lot of rustling noise, remember? Anyway, I got a killer deal on a nice one. Highly rated by specs and customers, and it was sale-priced as well as having free shipping and a $25 off online coupon. It ended up being $102 plus tax. I'll keep my existing one on the spare bed.

Well, that's enough for today. Turn up that thermostat!

The Return of "The Hum"

Those of you that have followed my blogging for some time may recall a post I made in my other blog (I should have archived that blog before deleting it) about The Hum. Fortunately, it's not anywhere as bad as it was last time it surfaced, but it's there nonetheless.

What is this hum you ask? Well, if you Google Taos Hum or Bristol Hum you will learn all about it. Although both of those are heard by lots of people in their area, mine is heard by me and me alone. It's almost a constant humming sound, but has just enough variation that it almost sounds like someone's radio playing in the distance or a car idling somewhere outside. Funny thing though--When you open a window there isn't a sound out there.

It's both spooky and a nuisance. Last time it drove me nuts. I had it for about a week I think, and it was loud. It definitely affected my sleep. This time I seem to be a bit more lucky. It's mild, but it still kinda pisses me off.

Yesterday was a great day. I spent almost the entire day indoors with a nice, hot wood fire and zilch clothing. Very relaxing.

I posted the pile of antique Kaypro computers on Craigslist this weekend. I hope to sell them just to get them out of here, but it would be nice to make a little coin on them too. So far I've had four responses, but none of them buyers. They were all guys wishing me the best, saying how much they wish they could buy them and relating stories of their past geek lives in the computer world of the mid 80's.

Looks like another dusting of snow last night... Just enough to put a little white on everything. We had the same thing Saturday night. I'm just happy it isn't windy out--I need to put my garbage and recycling out, and I really like it when I come home and the containers and lids are still here.

Back to work I go... It was a good 4-day weekend!

Black Friday

I didn't see the usual chaos this year on the first "official" shopping day of the Christmas season. I have a feeling that the news will report this year's sales as a lower than usual.

I got up early to get a couple things I wanted. Some of the stores opened at 5am, but the one I was most interested in didn't have a time on their ad: Home Depot. I made my way up to their store in nearby Kent because it was right across the street from Target. Target had a hot deal on a movie I wanted for Sarah, so I thought I would hit them first, then go right across the street to Home Depot. Wrong. I got there and early enough and there was quite a line already forming, so I naturally assumed they would be opening at 5. Wrong again. I saw their ad, and frankly, I didn't see a single thing that was worth standing in line in the cold for over an hour. I went across the street, and although there were cars were in the parking lot, no outside lights were on at all so I left.

I went back to Auburn to hit Lowe's (another store I had my eye on) and they weren't open yet. Jeez... I'm batting zero here.

I went back to Kent to Home Depot, this time parking and going up to the door. It turns out that something was wrong with all their lighting and even their giant store sign out front and they were open. None of them were on and they looked closed. All I wanted was the hot deal they had on a nice 12-gallon 5hp shop vac for $27. It was so cool... Like the store was open just for me. There was nobody at any of the cash registers even.

I went back across the street to Target and parked. It was almost 6am and the doors were about to open. The line was huge! I don't stand in store lines... I'm sorry. I walked up to the door and was hanging out near the door a couple minutes before 6 and some guy near the front said, "The line is back there." I said, "I am not standing in a line to get into a store." He muttered something. When the doors opened and I ambled in, I heard some boos... Fuck em. If they would have paid attention, I was ambling. I was in no hurry, and was not going in to snatch some hot item out of somebody's hands. Actually, the first thing I did when I went in anyway was to go straight for the bathroom. After I came out of there I made my way back to the area where the videos were and found that they had a huge pile of full screen only of the one I wanted--No wide screen ones. Figures. I felt lucky that I got to leave without having to stand in a cashier line.

By the time I went back to Lowe's, they were open and I bought what I wanted, which was just a hot deal on a 4-foot stepladder. From there I went in and out of a couple other stores like Rite Aid and Walgreen's, picking up a few insignificant loss-leaders.

When I got home I commenced unloading the pile of cut wood that was still in the back of my truck under wraps. I was about halfway through that when Sarah called on her cell. They were up shopping and I invited her to come on by for lunch. I told her I was going to barbecue, and that if she wanted she could bring a board game or two and hang out all day. Boy, that's all it takes--She loves board games. When Teresa dropped her off a few minutes later I was still unloading wood. Sarah had two games and her school backpack. It seems that there was a lot of homework to be done this weekend and she needed to squeeze it in wherever she could. While lunch was being cooked and eaten we watched a new movie. She ended up napping on the couch for a couple hours while I did some laundry. When she woke up I had her start in on her homework (mom's orders). I ended up taking her home at 9pm after a good visit. We watched lots of TV, munched, talked... But never did get to play any board games.

Maybe next time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday I had resigned myself that it had to be the day I would cut up my wood at work. I was mentally prepared for it. I wasn't looking forward to it though--Mainly because our rain just hasn't really let up at all, and I didn't feel like having to deal with wet wood or tarps. But as I said, I was mentally prepared for it.

I got off work and picked Sarah up as usual, expecting to do 4 things during the course of the evening: Go shopping here in town (specifically to the market that has the good meat deals), go shopping at Winco Foods (the big behemoth store with the great loss leaders), buy a Seattle Times paper (I wanted to make sure I stayed abreast of any ads coming up the day after Thanksgiving), and cut all my pallets into firewood.

What I ended up doing was having a couple of beer and some Cheetos while I caught up on the day's events online. I got up to go to my favorite meat store, and grabbed a movie to take back to the library. On the way I decided to stop by Sarah's house with my previous day's paper (she needed some headline clippings for school) and to see if she had anything to go to the library. Well it turns out that she didn't, but I did get something better: My divorce settlement check! It turns out that I've been officially divorced for some time now (a couple months?) and never really knew it. Anyway, I told them I was going to Winco after a little while and they were welcome to go with me. About an hour later I swung back by. Teresa said that Sarah didn't want to go, so I told her that if she wanted, I'd take her. Funny isn't it? We ended up going grocery shopping together on the day I get my divorce money. The only odd thing was that we kept our groceries in separate halves in the trunk. One thing I should have done differently while I was shopping was to keep track of how much I was spending that night. They had turkeys for 22 cents a pound if you spent $50. Well, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to spend that much, and really didn't go there for the turkey anyway. It turns out that I spent $46. Can you say stupid?

After dropping Teresa off and going home and unloading my groceries, I switched over to my truck and went to work. I got there at about 8pm. I worked my ass off cutting my pallets up, me and everything around me totally covered with sawdust. I was raining cats and dogs so I brought my tarp, but then it occurred to me that all I had to do was stack it on a pallet and wrap it good with that stretch wrap that we use to wrap pallets to be shipped. Then I just fork lifted it into my truck. I ended up with a solid block of cut wood that was 40" x 48" x 24" high. I ended up getting out of there at 5 minutes before midnight. That basically means that I got to sleep at 12:30 and got up at 4am. I left the wrapped pallet in the back of my truck. I never did get anything more to eat than those two beers and the Cheetos...

When I stopped at the bank yesterday after work to deposit my paycheck, I also opened a money market savings account with the 37 thousand Teresa gave me. It's only 4.63% but it's better than nothing. Now I have 37k that I didn't have before and don't know what to do with it.

I ended up getting into the wood in my truck last night. I didn't want to unload it all (still raining) but I was watching a movie with a pizza and I wanted some of that quality hard oak. It made for a nice fire for sure.

I got up this morning, built a big fire, and started my coffee pot. Then I threw some dirty clothes on and jetted out for a newspaper. Wow, that 50 cents sure bought one helluva thick paper this morning! It was very cool to open up my door when I came back home, and be greeted by a roaring fire and the smell of coffee.

Sarah and I are going over to my parents house at about noon, then later on she and her mom will have dinner with her dad and his girlfriend. I sure hope I can get rid of this headache that I woke up with.

Thanksgiving has sure changed...

'Twas a Busy Day

Although I was going pretty much nonstop yesterday, I didn't seem frazzled or rushed at all. I guess that means that everything fell into place well.

After I got up yesterday morning and had my usual coffee time, I hopped in the truck and jetted out to Tacoma to look at a freezer for sale for $50 on Craigslist. It was a beautiful dry, sunny morning. We had prearranged that I would get there at 9am, but evidently she wasn't quite on track because she answered the door in a towel (which is always a good thing!) She's selling things she owns to bail her boyfriend out of jail, which in most people's opinion (mine included) is a no-win situation. But hey, love is blind, right? Anyway, the freezer hasn't been used much recently, and has spent it's life on a covered back porch. It was pretty dirty, but in basically sound condition and still had both of its baskets inside. When I talked to her the night before on the phone, I had her plug it in so it would be cold the next morning when I picked it up, which it was. In retrospect, I probably should have brought a thermometer with me just to see how cold it really was, but it was freezing as a freezer should be at least. It's only a 5.0 cubic foot model chest freezer, which is just about 3 feet tall and 2 feet square. That's just the right size for my needs and doesn't take up much room. My little above-fridge freezer just doesn't cut it for me. I like buying things on sale, and it's hard to even fit a couple extra pieces of meat in there, let alone more bulky things like loaves of bread.

The place I picked it up from was right near the Goodwill store in Tacoma, so I stopped in and wandered for a while, eventually buying nothing. Across the street was a Ross Dress for Less store, so I stopped in there and bought myself a comforter. It's just your basic white comforter, and unless you buy expensive, this one is like most: 95% feathers and 5% down. Still, it was only 30 bucks and is pretty well made.

I also made a stop at Costco on the way home to buy printer cartridges for my printer. I may not have made the best decision on that though. I thought about it long and hard, and decided to gamble though. The problem is that it's not that great of a printer to begin with, and add to that you never know how long they're going to last you anyway. Mine uses separate cartridges for each color, and they are $13 for each color (3 of them) and $25 for each black one. Costco price was for double packs: $33 for two blacks and $53 for 2 sets of colored ones. All in all it was a spendy thing, but over time (assuming I don't smoke the printer) I saved $42. Sometimes it's painful to buy "long" on an item, but it makes the most sense. Oh, I also bought a giant Costco sized bag of Hoody's peanuts as a treat to me.

After I went home and unloaded the freezer (it is light, so I did it easily myself) I had to move a few things out of the way in the garage so I could roll it (yes, it's on wheels) towards the back where it will live it's life. After I did that, I opted to cut up a whole bunch of 2x4's that Teresa had given me a few weeks back as firewood. When that was finished that and I cleaned up my mess, I eyed the Harley sitting out in the cold sun. It eyed me back. Then it winked at me. I wasted no time downing the rest of my beer and getting my leathers on, and away I went. It was actually a really nice winter day for riding--Not too cold. It was nearing the end of the afternoon though, so I didn't ride too long. I did make one stop at Lowe's for some hardware though. I got a nice smile from a lady shopper in there too, who evidently doesn't see too many men walking around in there wearing leather chaps and such. I ended up buying a bunch of little things I need--One of which was the ends I needed to make a custom-length extension cord to power the freezer with.

After I went home and got a good fire going, I got hungry. I suddenly had a desire for Skipper's fish for some reason. I called Sarah's house to see if she wanted to go, but nobody answered, so I sent her a text message. After about an hour and a half went by, I decided to just go, so I stoked the fire and left, opting to walk the three blocks to Skippers. I just sat down and started eating and the phone rang. It was Sarah and I told her that I just sat down and if she could get her mom to bring her down I'd buy her dinner. After a couple minutes the phone rings again. "Are you still there? Oh, did you walk down?" She was calling me from Teresa's car in the parking lot, obviously wondering why my car wasn't there. She came in and we had a good (well... Okay, mediocre) dinner and walked back to my nice warm house. We finished up by watching Date Movie. It's a pretty good spoof and we laughed a few times.

And here it is... Sunday morning. By the way, the comforter works great! I took out the acrylic cheapo crappy one I had on the bed under the top blanket and put the new one in so I could actually compare, and I'm impressed with the difference. It was money well spent.

Now, back to the coffee...

Oh, and I just HAD to post this...

Hope you like it. Just my strange sense of humor showing through again...

Catching Up

That's what this post is... Time to catch up. Throughout the week, so few interesting things have happened that I evidently waited for them to accumulate into a worthwhile blob of blog. I guess my (or your) wait is over.

This is the time of year when things are at a reasonably slow and steady pace at work, and that means that things are more predictable. Sometimes it's good to have the factor of unpredictability thrown in, but not all the time. I like to take it easy on occasion just like most people do. The good thing at work is that they got rid of the guy in tooling a few weeks ago, and ever since that happened things have been going very well. Our tooling department is very important to an industry like this. That goes double for a high-speed press like I run. The slightest little imperfection in the grind of little portion of the die (I know... Blue-collar talk) and it's practically impossible to get things to operate right. It's kind of the trickle-down effect: One little thing can end up affecting many other things downward from it. At any rate, our tooling work is being done by a very proficient guy that they have on contract. He owns his own shop and we bring him in to work whenever we need it. He's been a lifesaver lately and we all breathe so much easier.

I'm getting low on firewood. I have a big stack of my special pallets at work all ready to be cut up, but nobody is working there this weekend. I guess I'll go back to work after dinner on Monday evening and take care of them. We have a shift that works until 1am so that time of evening won't be a problem. I'm pretty sure I have enough to get me through this weekend.

Sarah was over for dinner with me on Wednesday night. It was great to have her. She ended up staying late after school for a club she's in and by the time she called me to pick her up I already had the house all cozy warm (fire of course!) and dinner mostly ready to eat. She had a bunch of homework and started doing that on the couch. I could tell that she enjoyed being here because she was comfortably warm, had good light, lots of room to work (she likes the whole couch and coffee table) and had a nice, big TV to provide the necessary ambient noise. We had a good dinner and she and I both enjoyed ourselves. Teresa was at her brother's house for a birthday party for one of his daughters. I could go on and on about how miserly he has become of late, but I think I've addressed that enough in other posts. When Teresa stopped by to pick Sarah up, I asked her, "So, did you get fed Top Ramen with only half of a seasoning packet like he feeds his girls?" She laughed and said no. This time it was the thing that her family uses for special occasions: Papa Murphy's take & bake pizza (it's good but cheap--A very important factor to them). I told her too bad... We ate better.

I'm a little frustrated with my car, but I have no one to blame but myself. I've had signs that the heater core was letting go since way back when in early summer, but did I put a new one in? No. So now that I really need it I guess I'll have to finally get off my ass and do it. I put it off because it's a very labor-intensive job on a Plymouth Neon. The whole dashboard has to come out. That means an awful lot of cussing and skinned knuckles. I need to feel just right to tackle a job like that. I may actually get into it this weekend, who knows. I know I would surely love to feel HOT air and NO MOISTURE coming out of my heater and defroster. I remember the days when that car had such a killer heater... I could have warm air coming out in less than 6 blocks back then.

Thanksgiving is almost here, and for me that means something a little different this year. I used to be kind of indifferent about the big shopping day on the Friday following, but I have to admit-- I really love a great deal. Almost every store has "loss-leaders" to entice the crowds in at an ungodly early hour. It's not that hard for me though, because I always get up early anyway. I live in an area where I can do a lot of shopping very quickly. The stores are close by and I know all the traffic patterns and back roads for easy access. Add to that the fact that I have one less person to shop for this year, and I think I'll do well. I'll be able to concentrate on myself and Sarah for the most part. The trouble is that I'm not subscribed to any newspapers like I was at this time last year, so I won't know exactly what's in the ads unless I buy them. The trouble is, not all the ads appear on the same day. It looks like I'll have to buy a paper each day this coming week, starting with Sunday the day after tomorrow. I don't want to miss out!

Today was my coworker Elaine's birthday. I bought her one of those BIG Hershey's Special Dark candy bars as a gift. Like most people (ladies especially I think), she loves chocolate, and her favorite is the semi-sweet kind. I know part of the reason she likes it so much is that it is the fact that it's high in anti-oxidants. Anyway, I wrapped in a big pile of packing paper and put it into a box. After taping it with package tape, I added that special "Rick" touch--Steel strapping. Say what? We have a steel banding system that we use on heavy crates and to attach items to pallets and the like. I put one around her present in each direction just like ribbon, only instead of scissors, she needed tin snips to get it open. It was great. She told me that up to that point it was the high point of her day. What that means is that her husband didn't do to well in the early morning hours of "birthday acknowledgment". I hope for his sake that he does it all well this evening.

I received a book at work today that I ordered on Ebay, called the Field Guide to Meat. I like to have things shipped to work so I don't have to worry about insensitive delivery people leaving my package in a bad place at home. Anyway, this thing was advertised as used, but it looks absolutely brand new. It was cheap too. It's a very small book--Much the size of a thick paperback book, but it has a huge amount of information in it.

Well, I think I'll stop there for now. This post is already way too long.

And I'll leave you with this thought: Remember, if you can't be good--Don't get caught being bad...

Multitasking

Today, I was sort of like that old commercial: "I'm cleaning my oven!" You know--They're somewhere else, doing something else, and they'd look into the camera and say, "I'm cleaning my oven!"

Okay, I wasn't cleaning my oven.

It's just that it occurred to me at work today that I was sort of doing the same thing because I had two things going on at home while I was at work:

• I had my computer downloading movies (The DaVinci Code among others)
• I had my dinner cooking away in a crock pot.

I haven't used the crock pot in a while, and I felt the need for a mildly interesting smell to greet my nose when I got home from work. I had a small 2-lb. roast in the fridge and it was the perfect way to cook it. To make it happen, I did all the prep last night, cutting up potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery. I put everything except the meat and the spices into the removable crock filled with water and into the fridge. This morning before I left, I just drained the water, put it all together, and and refilled it with the right amount of water. The key to making it work though, is in my timer.

I have a heavy duty mechanical timer that's made for appliances like that. Here's a picture of it:

You just set the little buttons around the dial to the times you want it to start and stop, and plug it in. Unlike most timers like this, it has a 3-prong plug in it, so it's made for heavy-use items. I learned a very important thing the very first time I used that timer with my crock pot: Make sure to turn the crock pot ON. Yep, I went to work one day right after I moved here... Expecting to come home to a nice smell in the house and enjoy a nice dinner. It was stone cold. The timer was functioning perfectly, but the crock pot switch was off. I was both pissed and amused, and it firmly embedded itself into my mind: It will never happen again.

At any rate, tonight's dinner was great, and the movies all came in just fine too.

Good Friends Make Good Times

How many people do you know that show up at your door with thick, marinaded New York steaks and all the fixings? Well that's what Rhon did! Having the fortune of being off work on Friday, she showed up here about an hour after I got home from work. I expected her of course, and looked forward to her visit all day at work on Friday. It's always good to give a bachelor a good warning you know--We almost always have some sort of thing that needs to be cleaned or hidden...

A few days earlier I scored a hot deal on a small Weber charcoal grill. It's the same as their full size kettle, but it's only 18" diameter instead of 22.5". This one is like new, and it came with a cover and an assortment of grill utensils... All for only $5. That's right--Five bucks. To top it off, it was only over in the next town, so I was there and back in just over a half hour. I hoped to use it to cook the steaks I knew Rhon was bringing, so I got charcoal, but the weather screwed us over on that deal. We ended up doing the indoor method on the George Foreman grill (everybody should have one).

We spent the whole weekend doing fun, lazy things. After all--The weather outside was totally bad. It rained buckets for most of the weekend. We really enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove. That, coupled with my assortment of movies made for a great weekend. Oh, and alcohol too... Had to have that! We did go out to a couple stores too, so it's not like we just stayed shut in and just enjoyed each other's company.

I'm getting low enough on wood now that it's almost time for me to cut another pile of my "special" pallet boards up at work. I have them all stacked and ready for me.

I got my electric bill today, and because I've done nothing but burn the wood stove, my power bill is only 51 dollars. Not too bad at all. I remember last winter when I moved in here I paid about $175. Hey, I like comfort, and even if all I have is baseboard heat, I'm still going to be comfortable. That's life.

Today was a good day at work. Everything went smoothly and quickly. I took the whole bag of my Halloween candy to work with me this morning. Elaine has a candy dish that she has in her work area, and I put the whole bag on her desk for her to find when she came in. That was over 100 mini candy bars, so that should keep her from having to buy anything for the dish for quite a while. I'm just happy I got em out of here...

I was pretty pissed this morning when I got up. I slept fantastic, so it wasn't that--It was the fact that the wind was blowing like hell, and it was garbage day. This is also the bi-weekly day for them to pick up my recyclables as well. There was no way I was going to put my bin out there in that weather though. By the time I would have gotten home from work it would have been nowhere to be seen. I have lots of garbage space because I have a large sized can (I don't always put it out every week anyway), but it means that I will have to wait another two weeks before I can get my recycling bin emptied, and it fills up quickly.

After I picked Sarah up at school today, we went to the library and to a grocery store. When we got back to her house, I disassembled a desk thing that was in the computer room. It originally had my old server computer on it, but that hadn't been used since right after I moved out, so I threw it in the car trunk. Teresa wasn't home, but they had be rearranging the computer room this weekend and she wanted the desk out of there. It's butt-ugly, so I'm not sure what she's going to do with it, so I put it out on the covered deck out back. I would bet that it will still be there in spring.

Well, I guess I'll wander downstairs for something to eat.

A Busy Evening

I never really got to sit still very long last night.

I picked Sarah up from school, dropped her off, and went right home to change clothes. It was time for the parent/teacher conferences. I'm not sure why I go to those things all the time. She's a good student and brings home good grades. I guess part of me wants reassurance that things are going okay, and part of me wants (or doesn't want) to know if there's a problem that may not show up in the grades.

When I was young things were different in some ways (okay, lots of ways). For one thing, class sizes were smaller, and it afforded a teacher the opportunity to pay a little more attention to things, and notice when kid was having trouble. A good example would be a teacher noticing a student needed glasses. Given today's hectic teaching methods and curriculum, how long would a kid flounder before something was noticed and done about it?

I guess that's the main reason I go to the conferences. Another reason is also the fact that I'm the "removed" parent. If I didn't go, I would eventually be considered an uncaring parent. I guess that's probably the reason Teresa didn't go last night--She already was "hands-on" and knew what Sarah was and was not doing. I dropped by their house afterward and gave them all the papers I got from the conference.

After doing a stop at home and starting a fire in the wood stove, I sped down to Puyallup and did a surprise visit with Steve in the hospital. I got there at about 7:30, and his wife Maria and her oldest daughter were both there visiting as well. He was pretty groggy. Basically, they took his gall bladder. From everything they said, it was pretty bad off. Everybody hopes that his attacks of pain will be over now. After telling him I was only there to see if I could have all his "stuff" if he didn't make it, we all made smalltalk for a half hour or so and I sped off.

By the time I ended up sitting back down at the computer last night, I was getting droopy-eyed and ready to drop.

I Used to Like Voting...

...But not any more.

The government has screwed me. I moved--Everyone knows that, but I still live very close to my old house where Sarah and Teresa still reside. I called the county voter's office a few months back and talked to a very nice lady, and got my address change all done nicely. She told me that I probably wouldn't get my new voter's card before the primary, and I assured her it was okay because I essentially just live down the street from my previous address anyway.

Today I picked Sarah up from school and we went directly from there to the place that I used to vote at. I say "used to" because I still haven't received my new voter's card in the mail. I wanted to take Sarah with me to show her the new electronic voting option they have. I went in there expecting the unexpected, and I walked up to the lady at the desk of my previous district. Hmm, she doesn't have me on the list. She checks the master list for the whole polling place.

Nothing.

Okay, I sort of expected that. I looked on the wall as we were leaving to see all the available polling places for our town, and went to my next choice based on location. I went through the same thing. Nothing. Nobody on their list by my name either. This time, however, the lady set me up with the phone number to find out my pertinent information. After calling it and drilling down through a couple of voice menus, I find out my new polling place.

It's way farther away. To put it in perspective, there are three polling places closer to my home than this one is. Okay, no biggie... At least I know where I'm going now. We go in and go through the voting process, and then another thing hits me: One of the crucial races I wanted to vote on isn't even on my ballot! WTF?

To put the address thing in perspective, my parents live closer to my "new" polling place than I do and they still go to the place I used to go to. All I can think of is that they (the powers that be) must have something in my address wrong. That might also explain why I didn't get my voter's registration card. This is just too weird.

On a brighter note, my dad just left here after bringing me a six pack of Corona, and (get this) he even brought a lime! I couldn't believe it. He was feeling so warm and fuzzy after my taking him the Cars movie the other day he was just beside himself.

Weird shit happens some days...

Deals and Downloads

A few days ago I went to renew my prescription, expecting to get hit with the usual $20 copay for only one month's worth of drugs. As my readers may or may not recall, I got away with a 3 month supply last time do to a snafu on their part, and I was feeling good about that. Well, I didn't get that this time. I did, however, get a little bit of a reprieve: Now they're allowing people in my insurance plan to get a 30-count bottle of 1000 milligram pills instead of the usual 500 milligram pills, and are also furnishing us (we poor nameless insured masses) with a free pill cutter. The trouble was that my pills were so big they didn't fit into it and I had to modify it. But I have to say, after I "adjusted" it, it made short and easy work of cutting 30 pills in half. Whatever... 60 days for the price of 30 is fine by me.

Yesterday I was out and about with my loss-leader shopping list, and ended up at Fred Meyer. They had a store brand of blank DVDs on sale at $12.99 for a 50-pack, and were 30% off that for clearance. $9 for a 50-pack of blank DVDs is pretty good. I bought 3 of em. I probably should have bought more, but they might still be there in a week or two. They've been there quite a while up to this point.

That actually leads directly into this next part of my blog entry. Yesterday morning I re-enabled my newsgroup subscription. I know none of you know what newsgroups are, but think of it like an electronic bulletin board, only instead of just notes and text, people can actually post whole files such as programs, music, and movies, and if you have the right software you can snag em for free. Although Comcast does give its subscribers newsgroup access, they limit us to only 2 gigs per month. To put it into perspective, one DVD movie download is over 4 gigs, so as you can see, the "included" Comcast service is only good for little things. The service I have (13 bucks a month) allows for unlimited and anonymous downloads. I used to have it over at the other house, but let it lapse at the beginning of summer because I was spending so much time outdoors. Since I started the service yesterday morning, I've already downloaded six movies and a program. My dad was plenty surprised today when I took him a copy of Cars and he told me it isn't even out yet until this Tuesday. He was pretty happy to say the least. I think I'll be able to pretty much stop my library copying now... There are so many movies to pick from online it's ridiculous. It's a good thing for winter months too.

I was just out doing a little shopping at Walmart and Fred Meyer. I went to Walmart for a couple lampshades, but I also ended up buying 4 screw-in black light bulbs. They were on Halloween clearance for only 50 cents each. I might play with them every now and then. They might make a pretty cool porch light! I ended up buying a nice little hunk o' roast beef for the crock pot at Fred Meyer. I'll use my timer and have the crock pot do the work for me one of these days while I'm at work. I love coming home to the smell of dinner cooking.

Well, I guess I'll go and put a potato in the oven. I'm hungry and can't wait for dinner. I'm going to put a chicken breast into the good ol' George Foreman grill, seasoned liberally of course. Yum.

Friday Morning

Sometimes you can tell when a person like myself has a pretty good week--Not many blog entries. It seems to almost be a gauge of how things are going, as much as what is going on.

Rhon has been smacked with a killer bout of the flu this week, so I gave her a call last night. Right away I was both glad and sorry that I called. Glad because I could tell that my call meant a lot to her, but sorry because it was a struggle to talk without coughing. I could feel the pain she was experiencing in her coughs. I know that no kind of sickness is ever any good, but the flu can be real trying. There's always the feeling of freezing to death when you have a fever, but then there are all those other crappy symptoms that may or may not be present in varying degrees that really take the wind out of your sails. I'm sorry you're feeling so bad Rhonda... I hope your couple days of rest will put you back to feeling good again.

Sunday I was thinking about buying something online when it occurred to me that I should wait. See, like most people I've had a Visa card for quite a while. I use a debit card for my day-to-day purchases, but never online. For those purchases, I use a Visa card. Anyway, my Visa is a joint card with my name and Teresa's on it. She no longer has a card, but for liability reasons I've been meaning to get her cleared off of it. To do that, all they can do is close your account and reopen a new one for you. I just wanted to wait for a zero balance to take place first. I have my Visa card on autopay so it is never late, but I have some things set up to use it (like my long distance phone carrier) automatically every month. Really, it's just a matter of timing. I need a new account to change all my existing users to, then one by one I change their payment information to the new card, then close that old account. To make a long story short (whoops, too late for that!) I reapplied on Sunday, so my new one is on its way. That's good... I want to buy some things.

This week started out with nighttime temps in the upper 20's, but fortunately it has changed to the usual rainy crap that we all pretend we're used to. I hate rain, but I also hate scraping windows in the morning. I'm not as lucky as some people are--My cars are parked outside. I do still miss not having my car in a garage, but I think if my big garage is all I miss from my married life, I'm WAY ahead.

This is the slow time of year at work, so I've been busying myself with cleaning and organizing projects. I seem to have a knack for that sort of thing, and I get results. I've been working hard the last couple days in one particular area of the shop that's "out of sight/out of mind" and I'm almost finished. It was one of those enclosed areas where there bins of hardware, supplies, tools, and many other shop-related things. It used to be called the Maintenance Area, but I always called it the Hardware Store. For the last year or so, it was practically impossible to even walk into it. But that was before Rick hit... Things are different now.

We finally got our truck back at work the other day. I'm talking about the big truck that one of my cohorts crashed several weeks ago. We've had a rental truck ever since that happened, and it was a nice new one. One of the owners and myself went out on Wednesday and turned it in and picked ours up from the repair shop. Back to the old plain no-frills truck again.

The Fright Fest that Fizzled

Yep, fizzled, failed, flopped... There are lots of F-words I can think of to describe last night's Halloween (or lack thereof).

You know what? It pays to do your homework before assuming something without facts or data. Take last night's Halloween for example. I now live in a townhouse with many townhouses on either side of me, and directly across the street is a huge apartment complex--And not the best apartment complex either. I'm pretty sure it doesn't cost an arm and leg to live there. Those are the kind of places where kids usually take advantage of something like Halloween. Free goodies for free--Goodies that they might not normally get at home for whatever reason. Anyway, I assumed that I would have a lot of trick-or-treaters. To further fuel that stupid assumption, I bought two (yes, 2) big bags of candy.

I had six. Yes, six total trick-or-treaters. That translates to 3 times someone was at the door.

I was actually pissed off about it last night. I felt like such a fool. I usually don't pull anything so blatantly assumptive, especially by the amount of excess that I piled on. I should consider myself lucky I guess, because I didn't go nuts on any decorations or anything. I guess it being my first Halloween in my own place, I blindly overlooked common sense and logic in favor of hope and expectation. It was like another milestone that I was reaching in this year of lifestyle change.

Now I've got candy. Lots of candy. I'm damn sure not going to eat it all. Don't get me wrong--I like candy as much as the next guy, but I don't need to go overboard on candy. After all, I'm trying to get myself into a little better physical shape. I'll end up taking the bulk of it to work I'm sure.

When I dropped Sarah off at her house yesterday after school, I went in for a while. One thing let to another and I ended up helping her carve her Halloween pumpkin. That was probably the high point the day for both of us. She didn't go out trick-or-treating this year for the first time, and didn't quite know what to do with herself. She called later and we talked for a while and we laughed about my candy excess. They had over 40 people at their house, which is down from the usual 75-ish they usually have every year. It couldn't have been the weather, because it was clear and cold and beautiful for it. It had to have been the fact that it was on a Tuesday night.

(sigh) Anyone want some candy?