Monday

The cold Weather continues....it was in the upper 30's overnight, though the house held the heat without using the furnace. It was 60 inside this morning when I got up and I know the furnace had not run since I had shut it off the other day. It's a balmy 52 right now and partially cloudy though thunderstorms are predicted and temps just below freezing overnight.

I had a massive pounding headache this morning, bad enough to keep me home from work guilt-free but since I will be out Wednesday when they come to install my fiber service I dragged myself in. As I type this at lunchtime my head still is bothering me, though not quite as bad. I would not mind going home and crawling into bed though!

My Son Chris has his first day today at his new job; I hope it goes well for him and he enjoys it!

Sunday

Another quiet day.....the X phoned as I was getting ready for an e-bike ride reminding me I had promised to look at her lawn mower which won't start. I must have gotten up wrong (I had Tails napping on me and did not want to disturb her) because I twisted my back when I got up to answer her call. Fortunately the e-bike ride and some subsequent stretching exercises took care of it over the course of the day.

I told her I would be there in an hour or so after my e-bike session. I was pretty sure the spark plug on the mower was either shot or fouled, so, I managed to find my spark plug socket on the first look and headed over.

I removed the spark plug from the mower and it was fouled, so with some emery paper I got it cleaned up, reinstalled, and the mower running on the third pull of the rope.

I am sure Scott was thrilled that I fixed the lawn mower since he would have to cut the grass now!

I went inside to tell the X who was sitting on the floor trying to extricate Chris old baby blanket from the vacuum cleaner. She told me she and Scott had tried to pull it out. I sat down in a chair, and within a couple of minutes had it taken care of.

She invited me to dinner, and I headed home, picking up the ingredients for my side dish which would be Perogies in a sausage cheese sour cream sauce.

I went back there a few hours later and the five of us ate; the X had made a nice London broil, one of the kind that are packaged in a marinate, and it was very good.

I headed back home and spent some time cleaning up, playing FATE on the PC, and continuing my effort to watch all the recorded TV on the Dish Network PVR before I cancel the service Thursday after the Wednesday scheduled install of my AT&T U-Verse fiber optic service.

That's about it....a very uneventful weekend.

midnight postings and ramblings

A very late or early hour for me to be blogging but.....

WHAT A FREAKING DIFFERENCE 24 HOURS CAN MAKE

Friday night it was 80 degrees and Saturday it was 50! Insane!

Chris came over Friday night, he and I watched The Dr. Who premier from the previous week and an hour long Good Eat we had never seen where Alton is stranded on a deserted island and makes all kinds of food using native ingredients, while slowly losing his mind and making a companion out of an old coconut....quite bizarre yet entertaining!

Not much going on today (Saturday); no kids, so Tails and I hung out home. I tried to fix the screen slider off the living room, I took it down figuring the wheels were broken but all four were fine, I tried adjusting them all and still cannot get it to slide right in the track without jamming.

Did some more cleaning in my office today, it's almost to a point where I won't die from shame when AT&T comes out Wednesday to install fiber.

High a nice long chat with the X's brother Kevin today, it was really good to talk to him at length, seems we rarely have a chance to do that these days.

Speaking of the X she came over this evening and we watched this weeks Supernatural and a Just Shoot Me (How the Finch Stole Christmas) which neither of us has seen since we were living together. A blast from the past indeed.

In my mission to watch all the stored TV off of my Disk Network PVR, I am doing well! A week ago there was almost 100 hours of recorded TV programs, today there is barely 10! If all goes well this Thursday I will call Dish Network to cancel my service! Whoo Hoo! Can't wait for fiber optic service!

Recipe - An alternative to the Burger King Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper

I don't know about the rest of you but breakfast is one of my favorite meals of the day. I could eat breakfast any time. Bacon and eggs for lunch and dinner are fine by me.

Of course many people around the world eat breakfast at fast food places, and it is well known how bad this type of fare is for you nutritionally.

While I realize those who 'eat on the go' may have no choice (or willpower to nab something else), those that are willing to do a little work can come up with a healthier and tastier alternative which is what I've done with this recipe.

I recently (yes, I admit it!) tried the new Burger King Cheesy Bacon BK Wrapper which consists of scrambled egg, smokey cheese sauce, bacon, and hash browns wrapped in a flour tortilla. While sound in concept, it falls short in a number of areas. Nutrition being the first, plus there is barely enough bacon and potato to taste, and in my humble opinion the smokey cheese sauce added nothing except perhaps calories.

I realized that I could not eat these on a regular basis, and I yearned for something like this that I could! So, concept firmly in mind I set out to make Chris' Cheesy Bacon Breakfast Wrap. I spent a few days on and off thinking about this. The hardest part was trying to find nutrition information on Burger King's offering. There is none on their site but I finally found it on an excellent site called The Impulse Buy.

See below for nutritional breakdown compared to the Burger King version, ingredients, and preparation.

Nutritional Breakdown - Burger King Version
390 calories, 24 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 150 milligrams of cholesterol, 1080 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbs, 1 gram of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, 14 grams of protein

Nutritional Breakdown - My Version

292 calories, 10 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 33 milligrams of cholesterol, 1190 milligrams of sodium, 31 grams of carbs (17 grams net carbs) , 14.5 grams of fiber, 2.5 grams of sugar, 27 grams of protein

Wow! Mine has 25% fewer calories, less than half the total fat, no trans fat, 75% less cholesterol, much more fiber, and double the protein. Note it does have a bit more sodium since I am using two slices of turkey bacon and a bit more sugar (why do they add sugar to fat-free cheese anyway??). Oh, and mine, at least to my palette, tastes much better


Recipe - Chris' Cheesy Breakfast Bacon Wrap

Ingredients (for 1 wrap)

2 slices Louis Rich Turkey Bacon
1/3 cup egg beaters

1/3 cup (two ounces) Simply Potatoes Shredded Hash Browns

1 LaTortilla Factory large low carb whole wheat tortilla
1 slice Kraft Singles Fat Free Sharp Cheddar

1 fluid ounce (1/8th cup) 2% Milk

Freshly ground black pepper

Notes:

• I have tried many brands of Turkey Bacon; nothing comes close to the Louis Rich variety; it is delicious! Other brands have been passable to something like shoe leather consistency, so, get this brand! If you have ever had turkey bacon and not liked it, and you have not had this, you just have not had turkey bacon. In some places it is now being branded as Oscar Mayer with the Louis Rich in smaller type. Same product, available at many grocery stores and Costco/Sam's Club.
  
• Two of these wraps make a nice dinner. If you wish to make more than one, multiply the ingredients above by the number of wraps you wish to make.
  

Preparation:

• Lightly spray with Pam-type no stick spray a non-stick skillet and cook turkey bacon how you like it, be it crispy or not, turning once.
• Remove pan from heat and remove turkey bacon from pan. Lightly spray pan again with Pam and add shredded potatoes. Cook until lightly browned (or more depending on preference).
• While potatoes are cooking lightly whisk egg beaters and milk. Make sure potatoes are distributed evenly over the bottom the pan and then slowly pour in egg beaters mixture. Lightly sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper. Cook covered over low heat until top is done. Uncover and remove from heat.
• Cut cheddar cheese slice in half and place end to end on tortilla along with two strips of bacon, and add contents of pan. If making more than one wrap divide contents of pan across tortillas after proceeding above with cheese and bacon for each one. Roll up, eat, and enjoy!

WHY does eating out have to be so bad for you at fast food places? Here is a very satisfying breakfast wrap that is much better for you.

Food, Kids, Computers, TV, and Weather

Not much happened over the weekend; the weather was nice, we ended up grilling some Steaks on Sunday; Saturday I made three cheese and garlic herb tortellini with garlic and mushrooms for dinner; the X was working a show over the weekend so I invited her to stop in on her way home for a bowl of food. And good news, she's finally on the mend and seems to be mostly recovered. There was enough leftover so I gave her a bowl to take with her. She and I watched an episode of Dirt while we ate. After growing up with Courteney Cox Arquette in Friends and Family Ties it is so shocking to see her play the evil, scheming, and seemingly heartless lead character on Dirt!

Chris goes for his drug test today and then his first day of work is Monday. This is so exciting! If he does well and likes this company he could be working there after he graduates in three years. He'll be working 8AM to 5PM which means he'll need to get up fairly early since he needs to allow time to get to work. I hope he gets into the routine OK; he's used to staying up all night, going to bed in the AM, and getting up sometime in the mid-afternoon. Even when on campus he'll be up most of the night and grab a couple of hours sleep before classes; I don't know how he does it; ah to be young again!

Danielle appears to be making a bit of an effort to be on the Internet less and spend some more time with me watching TV and such; she still spends way too much time doing non-creative things. She barely uses the tablet and pen anymore that I got for her last birthday, but Scott uses it quite a bit so its not like it is going to waste. Danielle is still taking a lot of pictures, mostly of Tails and has captured some good shots.

Scott, sadly, is moving into his second week having insomnia again; he is worried about stuff that may happen over a year from now when friends go off to college and his loses touch with them. Hopefully he will sort this out and move on and do what I've been telling him, which is not worry about things that will never happen. I've also mentioned that good friends will keep in touch! Scott is such a good, sensitive, and talented young man; I hope he overcomes this as he gets older.

Tails is as cute as ever and has adopted my bed as a resting place when she wishes to be left alone; now that the weather is warming up I leave my room and the windows open and this allows a good flow through ventilation with the rear sliders opened.

Its been in the 70's since Sunday and will be through the end of the week though temps are expected to drop into 60's and possibly 50's over the weekend, though the weekend is forecast to be dry. We shall see.

I ordered AT&T's U-Verse fiber optic service last Friday. For a few dollars less that what I am paying now, I will have phone, TV, and Internet delivered over a fiber optic link, with more speed, channels, features, and even HD programming! If I add in the cost of what Dish Network would charge me add another savings of $20 each month!

Such geeky features too! Check out the U-Verse site here. I can't wait they come on the 30th! Its an all day install (6 to 8 hours). I spent some time cleaning my office and the utility room where they will have to work, though my office needs additional cleaning to get it beyond the embarrassingly dirty/disorganized stage that I would not want strangers to see. Weird how that works isn't it? My kids and others I know see it and it does not bother me at all!

The new Home Theater PC is now fully setup; I had four problems that took me a couple of weeks to solve 3 of, and the fourth is an issue with Microsoft Media Center; it's a know issue and from what I see on the Internet, Microsoft says the fault is with the video drivers I am using which makes it the video card vendors issue....and of course the video card vendor says it Microsoft's fault. I have logged tech support calls and we shall see what happens. I brought the box in for the old one, once I do a couple of minor things to that I can box it and sell it. Then the last pending computer job is to build one for the X wife; back before they changed the rules at work I obtained a decent desktop Pentium 4 machine which will certainly be better that her Pentium II PC she's been using for the past 8 years. I will have to load it and install it at her place.

The New Camera

So, last week my new camera came. Having a decent 7.1 mega pixel Shirt Pocket Form Factor Casio camera with a 3x optical zoom I was not really in the market for one. But woot had this one on sale for $99 last week:

It is factory refurbished. I never buy refurbished unless it is factory certified by the original manufacturer and comes with the full years warranty, not that 90 day deal you get from some places. It looks brand new and features 12 mega pixels and a 5x optical zoom while still fitting in a shirt sleeve pocket. Read an independent review of it here. A good deal, since the lowest price I could find the same factory refurbish elsewhere was $179.

I LOVE THIS CAMERA! It also takes HD video at 1280x720 resolution and unlike most digital still picture cameras that do video, it will auto focus and let you use the zoom while filming. The shots I have taken have been gorgeous, and it also has a built in panorama mode where you take three pictures, such as of a nice scenic landscape or cityscape, and it stitches them into one wide picture. See an example below and remember it has been scaled down somewhat so as not to use too much picture quota on the blog. The original shot is just over 30 megabytes and has dimensions of 6124x1648. Click the picture for a larger version.

doo doo doo, looking out my back door!

Danielle is happy because the previous camera has been delegated for the kids to use and she has been following Tails around taking many pictures!

Speaking of Tails, here is a shot of her taken with the new camera; look how cute and fuzzy she is!!! Click the picture for a larger version. Awwwww!

Oh, Day of Days!!

Yesterday I called my Dad to see how he was feeling; he was very excited! Evidently there is a clinical trial of a new treatment for those with emphysema that may help hi,! He will be going for pre-screening Monday to see if he is eligible. Pray for the best please!

I know from talking to his girlfriend he is not in good shape! She mentioned they went out to her doctor the other day and he had his O2 with him; he was so winded when they got there he ended up in a wheelchair because he did not have enough breath to walk. I am hoping this procedure is doable for him, but it is the first glimmer of hope we have seen for him. I will be cautiously optimistic until I hear back from him next week.

So, I get off the phone from my dad, and it rings again, it's Chris, my 19 year old who has been looking for a job suitable for his co-op program at Kettering University, and he's got a job! Wow! And not the one in Detroit which would have totally sucked because we would hardly ever see him, but close enough to town so he'll still be in the area 6 months of each year!

THEN, On the geek side, the phone rings again, and it's the X, she's met someone at work who does AT&T sales and she's telling be about fiber optic service being available in our area, so, I will be signing up today. For what I am paying now for my phone, Internet, and Satellite TV, I will get so much more over a fiber optic connection including HD TV which I do not have and would cost me an extra $20/month over what I will be paying.

I have not had a day this good since before the divorce! I think that's entirely too long to wait for such a day. I am still giddy today.....is this what happy feels like?? ;)

So, it was such a good day I was almost afraid to go out of the house this morning!

Monday Evening's bad news!

Note this was written Tuesday so adjust time references relative to then.

I arrived home last night to very visibly upset children who, after being calmed down told me of a terrible situation, our good friend, teacher, and companion, the satellite service was broken!! After the kids and I got over the shock of the receiver is stuck in a test loop I accessed the situation; it was dire! We could not even watch any of the recorded content)! I called Dish Network and after being disconnected twice after being on hold almost 20 minutes finally got someone who could speak, but strangely enough, not under English!

The first thing I did was inform them I ran the self test and the box was stuck in a test loop and would do nothing else no matter what buttons on the unit or the remote were depressed.

So, of course thing I am told to do is:

"OK, press the menu button on the remote so we can go to the main menu."

"Uh, I just told you nothing works the box is stuck in a test loop. It's error 502 which states the box will do nothing until the satellite feed into it is fixed.

"Now, sir, please, I just need you to go into the main menu so I can check a few things." was the reply........

No matter how patiently I described it quite a few times, that I couldn't 'go to the main menu BECAUSE THE BOX IS STUCK IN A TEST LOOP!! Yes, at this point I was raising my voice somewhat.....I wonder where they farm out their L1 support to.......

After a seemingly endless eternity of trying to get that across I asked for and was transferred to a supervisor who immediately says "Hmm, error 502 the box must be stuck in a test loop!" right after I gave him the error number.

After asking me why I was sobbing he scheduled the maintenance call. They can't have anyone come out until Thursday the 17th (whimper!) so I must work from home that day.

I got the typical 9AM to 5PM window.....I think the kids may be too addicted to TV....I found them sitting on the floor in front of it mesmerized by the test loop display, the younger one whispering to the older one "look, my favorite screen of the test loop is coming up!"! I noticed this not because I was sitting there watching with them you understand, but because I am a concerned parent and the house had gotten very quiet!(Gee, I wonder which screen of the test loop I'm missing right now!?!!???)

If you in any way enjoyed this post OR have had bad dealings with tech support, check out this older post entitled If there's no Internet this must be Wednesday!. It is both a horrifying yet amusing tale of my worst tech support experience that happened with my ISP back in 2006 (wow, have I really been blogging this long.....Chris Falco: Proudly boring the world for over two years now!)

Note my recanting of the the interaction with Dish support might be a bit embellished, but, it is atypical of support from large companies today. I was disconnected by their automated systems twice...and I was told to press the menu key after patiently explaining it would not respond to any commands......

L1 support by the way is the first level of tech support; most times these people are not technically oriented and thus paid less; they troubleshoot by rote utilizing scripts....which can be very frustrating to the more technical savvy customers.

A Long week

It's been a very long week since my last writing here; as touched on in my last post the X is still sick, and on some days barely able to function; Sunday for example she had a blinding headache that really took a lot out of her! I worry about her because she pushes herself and suffers from what I call 'weight of the world on your shoulders syndrome'. She's been on at least two different antibiotics and assorted meds for the symptoms and as of this morning she is only marginally better. She needs to relax and smell the roses more.

I've done what I could, offering to run errands, watch the kids extra, and making her meals whenever I can.....I worry about her and hope she feels better soon.

Not much to tell other than that, though I may do a post or two about the new bargain prices camera, problems with my satellite service and tech support experience, and other issues. The kids enjoyed their week and two days off and are now back at school for the first day. I do not realize they had yesterday off too until my door burst open Sunday evening and Scott, surrounded by members of his entourage entered, Scott announcing that they were here to take the Rockband instruments over to a friends house where he was sleeping over.

The new Home Theater PC is 99% setup, and the old one is 88% ready to be sold, having been restore to factory defaults over the weekend and then having all the latest service packs and updates installed.

The weather is slowly moderating and doing the typical West Michigan thing; for example; it was below freezing overnight, 32 when I awoke and by mid-afternoon the temperature will have risen over 30 degrees to take us into the 60's!

I hereby proclaim that WINTER IN WEST MICHIGAN IS OVER and this weekend, with a Devil May Care attitude, I shall drain the snowblower of any remaining gas, and perhaps this very evening pour what's left of the gas can into the Mustang!

Anyway, for those that stop by on a regular basis, I just thought I'd take a brief lunchtime moment to post this.

Flight 405 Video

For those of you have never seen the video about Flight 405, it is a MUST SEE. It depicts a large jet having to make an emergency landing on the highway.



I'd be very interested in comments from anyone who watches this or had seen it.

Just another Monday in West Michigan

I had half a day as a personal day Monday so I just worked from 6P30-AM to 10:30AM and headed home. Scott and Danielle are at my house this week and have the week off. so Sunday night before retiring I put all the items I need for work into my bathroom so as not to disturb them. I got dressed and then headed right out the door by the garage.

After arriving home I rode the exercise bike and then headed out to the garage. A couple of months ago I had bought a holder for my iPod that plugs into the cigarette lighter and then broadcasts the sound from the iPod over the FM radio band. I finally decided to take it out of package and try it out. It worked flawlessly and I was berating myself for not having used it awhile back. I backed the car out of the garage and headed down to Forest Hills foods to get legal size envelopes to mail my taxes in. After getting them addresses back at the house the kids and I headed out.

It should be noted it's another glorious sunny day in West Michigan; the temperature at 2PM is barely 60 but Scott and I forgo wearing coats.

We stopped at Wendy's first for lunch then PetSmart for a couple of cat related items, and finally the Post Office so I could send out the taxes. Normally the accountant files mine but the X mishandled Christopher's (my oldest boy) taxes and had him claim himself as a deduction which he can't do as he's claimed on mine. SO my e-file bounced and now here I am paying for his amended return processing and running around with paper forms and such......oh well!

That done we returned home and Scott headed off for a bike ride, and Danielle, well......need I say anything??

Scott and Ben arrived back at my house and around 5:40 Ben departed. Scott, Danielle, and I headed over to their Mom's house so they could clean their rooms. After leaving there we parked on the side of Forest Hills Food and Scott headed off to China Garden to get dinner while Danielle and I went into Forest Hills Food; the X has been sick all weekend and was feeling terrible today after being diagnosed with a viral infection. She has so much on her plate with trying to run her company and all, I worry about her! We picked up something she needed at the store (her dinner was being taken care of by Scott next door) and I picked up a get well card for her as well.

We met Scott over by China Garden and then headed back to the X's where I ran in with her food and card, asking Christopher to serve his Mom because I wanted NOT to have this infection if I could avoid it! I also got to try some spicy beef jerky he had to procure which he said they made him sign a wavier for! Chris' friend Mike was there and he thought the jerky was very hot while Chris and I thought it had a nice spicy taste but certainly nothing major!

I exited the X's house and returned home where Scott, Danielle, and I enjoyed dinner watching a Simpson's episode (Treehouse of Horror XVII) and an episode of "The Critic". We followed this with an episode of "Monk" and then Danielle departed for the computer while Scott and I watched Psych.

The Weekend

Saturday: After getting up around 8:30 I spent some time continuing the finishing touches on the migration of the old HTPC to the new one which I had moved into the entertainment system cabinet last weekend. iTunes was not recognizing anything except the few songs I had purchased. Post thinking and troubleshooting about this the answer turned out to be somewhat easy; on the old HTCP my external drive was drive E: and on the new it had gotten mapped at J: because for some reason the card read slots were taking the first four drive letters. I had to disable both USB disk devices and then trial and error fashion re-enable the one the drive was plugged into. After doing that changing it to drive E: was easy, iTunes came up and all my songs were accessible. I re-enabled the other USB device and the card reader slots mapped above them.

Danielle arose around 10:30 and after a good morning headed downstairs, I rode the exercise bike around 11 and after I had finished up Scott had wakened and we headed out for some errands. We stopped at Costco first for some items. I had to wait when I finally got to the register as they were changing tape. "Good News!" exclaimed the cashier brightly, "You get to be first on a new roll! Isn't that great!" The person next to him who boxes your purchase looked at this guy askance as if to say "What planet is this gut from", and I brightly interjected "Oh my god, something must seriously be wrong with me, you know because here is this great thing, like, first with new register tape, and for some reason I find myself unable to drum up even mediocre interest!" This set the boxing dude into much laughter along with patrons and the supervisor who were within earshot. As I was handed the receipt I muttered pseudo sotto voce "I can't want to get home and put this in my memories box! This is truly a day to remember!!" which caused a fresh burst of laughter.

We zipped over to GameStop because after I had sold a couple of xBox 360 games to a coworker a bit back I had told Scott we would get a game we both liked, but, nothing suited both our interests. I had promised them Wendy's for lunch but I guess the mild weather brought out the bad parent in me and I asked if they'd still like that or going into Coldstone next door. They picked the latter and they each gave me a taste of their 'lunch'.

At this point Scott was awake enough to drive and with him at the helm we headed out to Best Buy to look for a good wireless mouse as the performance on my current one was lacking. I found something suitable there, paid, and since I had to go through the ATM machine for some cash, I drove and after procuring additional fluid assets we headed off on the next mission looking for a rental game for the Wii Scott wanted. I 'did Scott a solid' as I told him and backed into a space at Family video because his weak spot is still parking lots. He remarked there was nothing 'solid' about this....

No Soap at Family Video for the rental but down the hill at Hollywood video we obtained the game using a free rental I had from a previously defective rental DVD. Back at home I ran the cabling from the HTPC to the Onkyo receiver; the old hookup was an optical audio cable and a DVI to HDMI from the HTPC to the Onkyo. The new setup would be a single HDMI to HDMI with both HD audio and video. Once I got this working I marveled how things sounded much better and with one less cable across the floor. (Not that you'd notice on the right side of the plasma display with the mega bundle of cabling from that device and the xBox 360!)

Scott and I then watched a Scrubs, I played around some more on the HTPC. Scott headed out for a bike ride, and a bit later figuring Danielle had been on-line long enough I took her with me to Forest Hills Foods for some shopping and a refill on the propane tank for the grill, because this weekend I, like cooking legend Biker Billy, planned to Cook With Fire!

For dinner, I made pasta. For Scott, the usual pasta with marinara sauce. For Danielle and I, I oven roasted fresh broccoli, mushrooms, and garlic cloves in some olive oil and tossed that with pasta, olive oil, a bit of 2% milk and some grated Romano cheese. It was awesome!!

Thanks to the patience of my friend Brian, who had loaned me Meet the Robinsons weeks ago, Danielle, Scott, and I watched that and found it incredibly funny, in fact downright hilarious. It's now on my list of DVD's to pickup.

The kids have off next week and had Friday off too, so, I let Danielle stay up until midnight, and Scott until 1AM, I headed to bed around 12:30AM.


Sunday: ANOTHER GORGEOUS DAY! Blue sky and sunny, around 9AM I headed down to Forest Hills food to see what types of family packs int he beef variety they would offer, I snagged a five pack of New York strips for just under $20 and shucked four ears of corn on the cob to have with dinner. The remainder of the morning passed in exercise bike riding, computer puttering, and getting myself and the house cleaned up a bit. I also made a nice spicy (using Red Monkey seasoning) turkey bacon rollup with lettuce and tomato on a Flat Out flat bread.

At 12:30 PM there was a knock at the door; Emma had arrived. As Scott was not up yet I sent her in to wake him, she was trailed by Tails who wanted to join in. After Scott was up and the two of them got some food together (Scott made himself Ramon noodles and Emma some rice balls wrapped in seaweed) we sat down to watch Hot Fuzz off of HD-DVD; Danielle decided to stay on the computer (what a surprise). Scott and I remarked afterward that the movie was even better the second time around and Emma enjoyed it too. After the movie I went back to playing around on the computer and Scott and Emma headed for the family room. Emma left around 5:30 and I fired up the grill after putting a pot of water on the boil for the corn on the cob. By 6 PM we were eating perfectly grilled NY Strip steaks, all of them seasons with Montreal rub and mine also had Red Monkey Barbecue Spice rub. Danielle and I each had an ear of corn on the cob; Scott had two. We all remarked it was a most delicious dinner.

After dinner the rest of the evening was spent on computers and watching TV, by myself, and on and off with the kids.

Snow, work, kids, and such.

Thursday night it was snowing again and by yesterday morning we had another inch on the ground. I am hoping that's the last of it. After 107 inches of snow for the year, I have had enough.

At work, we are finally getting ready to be transferred into our new division at GE next week which is basically an IT support group. It will be a big change for us all; for example none of us will be doing any hands on technical work going forward once the Grand Rapids site is fully transitioned; we are not looking forward to that at all, but, on the other hand it is good to have a job. It will be strange, we will now be 'guests' or even tenants of the Grand Rapids location but not part of that business, which means we'll all be moved into an area together (goodbye my window seat that I love!) and have different benefits, vacation and holiday policies. Goodbye week off at Christmas!!!! Aarrggggg!

Danielle is over her strep which is good, though it made her lose 3 days of school and fall a little behind. Scott is doing well. Thursday night I took them both to Hobby Lobby to get Scott a sketch pad, I ended up spending over $50 getting the each a set of sketch books and pads, plus an artists carrying case for Scott and a set of artists pens for Danielle; when it comes to creative things like this I can't say no!

Chris came home from Kettering University yesterday; this is his second B session of his freshman year where he is supposed to be working with a partner company but he still does not have one. Of the eight 3 month B sessions to graduate he needs five with a partner company. He had an interview in the area a week or so ago is hoping to hear from by Wednesday so he does not have to go to Detroit for an interview. Then too he would have to live in that area instead of being able to stay at his Mom's house. He had exams this week and I was IM'ing with hm the other day and he feels he did good in them. He is the typical student, staying out until all hours, catching a bit of sleep, and then running off to class.

I thought my takes were all taken care of but the accountant told me they were rejected by the IRS. Turns out the X did Chris' on-line for him and somehow set it to claim him as a deduction for himself which as a full time student being claimed on my taxes he can't do, so, now amended tax forms for him and me had to be done to fix it for of course additional money, but, considering I get a very good refund using the accountant I have no issues with paying the extra $50 to take care of this.

Last night the X stopped in bringing dinner which I ordered from First Wok, Scott had his friend Ben over so he joined us for dinner. Afterwards the X, Danielle, and I watched "The Mist" which turned out to be pretty good. A bit after they left she called because Danielle had forgotten her antibiotics. Since I knew the X had to journey out sometime between 11 and midnight to pickup Scott and that Danielle would be in bed already I ran them over the her house.

I often marvel over the way my divorce works out with the X; last week we ended up having sinner together four times for example, I like to call this a 'dysfunctional' divorce....and I really wish I could stop carrying the torch for her..but the heart has a mind of its own... I do hope her business issues resolve this year, she works so hard for so little return, it just does not same fair.

Yesterday after work I also began the chore of setting up my new Home Theater PC, I worked that on and off until 2AM this morning. I'll probably do a separate post on that later.

For the cat fanciers out there Tails is doing fine; she enjoyed being up late with me last night, often sitting in the chair next to me at the kitchen table where the new HTPC is being set up, or curled up on the couch with me when I was sitting there.

The sun is shining, the temperature, which had dropped into the low teens overnight is predicted to hit upper 40's today, so perhaps we are finally going to see some spring like weather. I guess that's all for now!

FOOD FIGHT!!!!

How many times did your mother tell you NOT to play with your food??? Well, in her wildest moments she never could have imagined THIS:



Thanks to my friend Barry for sending me this!

Danielle and Strep and Tails and Foot

Yesterday Danielle came down with strep throat, a really nasty case. I worked from home and took her to the doctor and then went and got her meds. Today she is feeling a little better which is good, she was SO pathetic yesterday morning!

On a totally different note here's a picture of Tails enjoying her foot; I included this because Tails cheers Danielle up when she is not feeling well.

Click picture for a larger version

Easter Day 2008

It was a very nice Easter!

I awoke around 8:30AM, puttered on the computer, drank a nutrition shake and a bit later rode the exercise bike. After getting cleaned up I had Scott and Danielle make their Mom Easter cards and at 12:30 we arrived at her house for the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Christopher, home from college for the weekend, hid the eggs and we learned a new thing; he has ADHD and forgot where he hid most of the eggs so later in the hunt when they were missing 20 eggs out of the 104 that were hidden he was running around to get them!

There were not real eggs but hollow plastic ones the X fills with assorted candy.

The kids all got Easter baskets, shown below, then we headed back to my house to pickup Scott's wallet.

While Scott ran into the house I backed into the street, and backed back into the driveway so the car was facing the street, the experiences with Scott backing the Mustang out and almost hitting the tree across the street racing through my head!

Scott, wallet in hand, or at least in pocket, came out of the house and we headed off to the X's parents house for Easter dinner with Scott driving. He drove very well, excellent in fact, so much better than the last time we made this journey some months back. I was sure to praise him alone and again in front of everyone.

I( had not been to Mom and Dad's for awhile, so, I caught up on the news and also got to see their remodeled kitchen (most nice!) including new range and microwave. I once again engaged in the mental debate of spending money on a new oven for my house.....sadly no conclusion was reached and the debate will rage on!

Mom was having rouble with her PC again so I spent about four hours working on it, tweaking, tuning, scanning for viruses, and came across a new scam, this program called Macro Virus she has downloaded as a virus scanner said she has 212 infected objects, but, they were bogus; SpyBot defined this program as a scam, it lies about all these viruses to try and get you to pay for the registered version, then it 'cleans' them saying they are all gone afterwards. Slick trick, huh??

Mom's PC's biggest issues seemed to be a combination of too many temporary (over 25,000) files, fragmented hard disk, too many startup programs not needed running, and system restore running. Taking care of all of these too time, and as dinner was being served I left a disk check running and enjoyed a fabulous Roast Beef dinner,with baked potato, fresh asparagus with Hollendaise sauce, Holiday break (like a cinnamon nut loaf almost, salad, gravy, and sauteed mushrooms. I complimented Mom on how good dinner was and mentioned I could not have done better myself! From me, that is high praise! I even mentioned I was not sure I could have done the roast beef as well; i will have to put that to the test one weekend! Dinner over I continue work on the computer, took a break for a thin slice of strawberry cake, and then we headed home around 6:30PM with Scott driving, once again doing most well!

The rest of the evening was spent relaxing with TV, Fate on the computer, with bed around 11 PM.

Tails got canned food at bed time even though she had it before we left for Easter festivities earlier in the day; figured that was her Easter dinner.

The only negative thing off the day was that this year Danielle did not ask to color Easter eggs; I attribute this mostly to all the time she spends on the computer, which I think more rigorous action is required to break her of this habit.

Happy Easter!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE

The picture below is from the card Danielle drew for her Mom:

And this one Scott made for his Mom on the computer:

Both can be clicked for larger versions.

Who you gonna call???

Ghostbusters has always been one of my favorites, from the first and second movies, to the cartoons, and the Ray Parker Jr music video which you can watch below:



Universal Studios used to have a live Ghostbusters show and pavilion which recreated the inside of their firehouse, it was awesome! Ecto-1, their 1959 Cadillac was parked at various parts of the studio lot. Somewhere I have a analog picture of it.

Imagine my disappointment the year we went back to find it gone, replaced by Twister (the movie about tornadoes; enjoyable but not Ghostbusters! Now they are making a video game.....I can't wait! Click the banner at the top of the screen to go to the game site.

So, Who you gonna call?? Ghostbusters!

Sorry for the lack of updates

Sorry for the lack of posts these past couple of weeks, just been feeling sick, or having back issues, or just plain blah with many issues on my mind.

I had the day off today so I took care of a bunch of errands. I headed out around 9:30AM, it was very windy and the temperature just below freezing. First stop was to get Mr. Mustang an oil change, then I picked up some cash at an ATM, and stopped at the UPS store to send my X10 Icon remote, which I bought to replace me Harmony 880, back to X10. They advertise their Icon Remote as a Harmony 880 killer, well, let me tell you the thing is a piece of garbage in that it would not control half of my devices, though the 880 it was supposed to kill had no trouble doing so until I killed it accidentally! X10 has some interesting items but their customer service really sucks. I had sent them a detailed letter about the faults of the remote and all I got back was a form letter which at least had my RMA, so, I will get my money refunded. I have no respect for a place with poor customer service!

So, with that out of the way I went to Lowe's next as I needed furnace filters. I use the 3M heavy duty allergens filters and my furnace is a weird size so these are hard to find. Luck was with me they had two packs of them which saved me about 3 bucks a filter so I bought 2 2 packs.

I popped into work for a couple of hours to take care of a few loose ends from the week, which was very hectic. Work is becoming a real chore lately, what with having to do my old job and trying to learn my new job and working on the integration into GE's environment.....it's very stressful, and I am not very happy with my job lately though I am pleased to be employed, all the fun has gone out of the job.

I headed off to the accountant next, where for the past few years I have been getting good tax refunds. It's certainly more expensive than using Turbo Tax or another program on the PC, but they do a great job and I get good refunds. Just as I was starting back from the accountant snowflakes started falling.

Oh! I did not mention they predicted a big storm yesterday? One that they swore would miss our area.....well, it did not.

So, as I was getting off the highway which is right by my house I decided to continue on to Forest Hills Foods where I picked up the bare necessities (the simple bare necessities!) to get the kids and I through today and tomorrow. The store was a mob scene, probably fueled by the fact of the encroaching storm and people shopping for their Easter holiday.

I got home a little after one and loaded up the crock pot with ingredients for chicken soup (which was delicious), and Scott's girl friend Emma came over for dinner and liked it too.

Scott's way of asking me if she could come for dinner was me overhearing him telling her on the phone to be at our house at 6PM and we were having soup! I thought that was pretty amusing actually.

So, there's got to be around half a foot of freaking snow on the ground now around 11PM and it is still snowing! I guess we will break the 100" mark after all!


Some other things that have been going on...

A week ago was White Day so the day before, after I arrived home from work very sore and stiff, and having already stopped for groceries and wanting nothing more than t sit and relax Scott announces he has to bake a cake for Emma for White Day, so I got to take him to the store and get the ingredients, run him over to Gamestop for some game he wanted, and then stop at his Mom's house so he could get cake pans which I do not have. AND I got to pay for all the ingredients and help him make the cake! Even with my jaundiced views of relationships who am I to stand int he way of true love??

That White Day Friday evening Chris came home from college for the weekend, I made a pot of sauce (I think that's the third time now) in the crock pot and the X came over. We had a nice pasta dinner, Chris eating chicken wings as he hates pasta, and then the X, Chris, and I watched Stargate SG-1 The Ark of Truth, which was the movie that closed all the lose ends when Stargate SG-1 was not picked up for an 11th season. It was AWESOME and they did a fantastic job of closure.

Last Sunday Scott was out bike riding and he totaled his bicycle and bashed himself good, he was sore most of the week and the bike was a loss. I suggested Sears be checked for a replacement bike, and, after checking local bike shops and finding the prices way too high the X went to Sears and got a fantastic deal on a road bicycle for Scott. I paid for it, and she and Scot put it together, she doing a good job except for the fact she put the handlebars on backwards which became evident when the front wheel would not go on!

Last night the X popped by bringing Quizno's (fourth time for dinner in a week's period....I thought we were divorced!) and she, Scott, Danielle, and I watched "I am Legend" which I thought was excellent.

Danielle has really been enjoying the iPod Nano I bought her as a reward for her last three good report cards. She has been spending way too much time on the computer though and she has been ignoring my suggestions of policing herself before Mom and Dad do it...so....some checks and balances are going to have to be put in place. For example, this evening I sent her to bed on time instead of letting her stay up later like I usually do.

That's about it for now.........I'm going to go to bed shortly and either dream of warm weather of have frozen nightmares of a post apocalyptic freezing wasteland!

The week in review

This was the lovely morning that greeted me a week ago Saturday after additional snow the day before:

I was feeling a bit sick, had been the day before, but the day was gorgeous. As it got later I was feeling worse and worse. I called my dad to say hello and got some bad news; he had seen a second specialist who confirmed what his previous doctor had said his lungs were failing and there was nothing that could be done. I was stunned and spent the rest of the weekend in a fog, particularly after more bad news from some other family back east in the medical and other areas.

By Monday I was flu-like sick as I had all the symptoms except a fever. I was home sick Monday and Tuesday though I did work about half a day each from home just trying to keep up with all that is going on.

I felt bad in body and mind all week and work was very hectic on top of that. I was so ready for the weekend and Friday was the start of a week with the kids which always makes the weekend more enjoyable.

I don;t know what I did, but I managed to wrench my back badly that evening and by Saturday it was about the worst it has been in a couple of years. Of course Scott had plans that required various transportation plus because he had late-ending driver education which I had to drop him off early at (plus pick up one of his friends on the way) we also had to stop at the X's so they could get their stuff for the week at my house which we usually do after school on Friday.

Unknown to Scott and Danielle getting in and out of the low to the ground Mustang when my back is like this is very painful, all I wanted to do was take some presumption pain killers and lay flat on my back in between sets of my exercises. But because the last pickup I had to do of him and two friends was at midnight, I was unable to do that until 2AM this morning (1AM but daylight savings time you know) since all day I had to keep my head clear for driving. I could not deny him his fun, he's been through a lot too this week; he had a friend pass away at school. She fainted during practice for the talent show and was dead two hours later. For him this is the second friend who has died in a 6 month period. So, as Lucy had said in Charlie Brown, I just gritted my teeth, dealt with the pain all day, and got the job done.

Sunday morning after a fitful nights sleep my back does not seem to hurt any worse......though I fear it will be delivery food for the kids this day though when I go to pickup Scott from the friend's house he slept over last night I will drag him to Forest Hills Foods with me so he can do the bending and lifting of some groceries we must have.

So, that's been my week and why there have been no posts during that period. I hope everyone else has been doing OK.