Monday, that's not my fun day!

More snow overnight, at least it was just a couple of inches of snow so I shoveled that before I left for work. I left the office at lunch time and headed out to look for a new snow blower. I had exhausted the possibilities on-line and the quickest I could get a decent unit here via delivery was 12/30. Since snow is forecast tomorrow going into Wednesday, and this coming weekend, and on and off the other days, I opted to get a replacement ASAP! Of course this cost me about $120 more than the unit I could have gotten free delivery on, time was of the essence to me.

Home Depot had a very hefty unit on sale, which I procured and arranged for delivery tomorrow. It is a lot more powerful than the dead one and has an 8 inch wider cut which should make clearing the driveway much quicker. I spent more than I wanted to, but, it should last a lot longer being it is heavy duty. The warranty was twice the length of the expired unit.

I worked from home for the remainder of the afternoon, and around 5 PM headed out to shovel again as it has been snowing on and off all day. Imagine my horror when I discovered since my arrival home the plows had been by in force, and the bottom of my driveway was clogged from the street to the sidewalk with heavy chunks of icy snow, three feet deep in some places!

It took about an hour to clear this, me taking my time between my back and heart rhythm issues I don't want to take any chances! Once again I had a deep appreciation and respect for those that do heavy work for a living!

Tails and I are relaxing now, I have to go into the office around 8PM to learn a new procedure because the people doing it now have been laid off. Sigh! I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to have a job these days!

If I am not too long at work I plan to stop at the grocery store to pickup the majority of items I still have need of for Christmas dinner.

Oh!! One particularly nice note of the day was that Brian and his wife Carrie sent me a Christmas present, a Star Trek Original Series Communicator. It was in fact the high point of the day. Thanks you guys!

And Carrie, EXCELLENT work on the cookies! While I should not have had any, I had two in the morning and then one later; they were delicious!!

Sunday, or KaBoom!!

I spent a good portion of the day indoors doing additional cleaning and organizing. I started catching up my DVD database. I had not realized I was so far behind entering DVDs into the system. Fortunately I have a little bar code scanner that scans the UPC codes and then the program imports this and pulls all the information (and cover/back shots) down for each DVD.

After fixing the driver for the scanner which for some reason was not working I began. Easily 40 titles had not been indexed since they were acquired. I got the majority scanned and have a small stack of about 8 DVDs that will have to be entered manually.

I went out around 4 PM to snow blow. We had close to another 6 inches overnight and during the day the strong winds caused this to drift to over a foot in some places. I started up the snow blower, engaged the gears, and headed over to the leading edge of the snow by the garage. I pulled the lever to engage the impeller and KABOOM!! A Dreadful thunking noise issued from within the snow blower's casing and voluminous clouds of noxious black smoke issued forth!

It was obvious that it was a gonner. I removed my ski cap, held it over my heart, and thanked it for four years of tireless service. Then, to do a sailor or trucker proud I recited a string of litanies not suitable for our younger viewers! I then spent about 90 minutes clearing the snow with a shovel. I was exhausted, sweaty, chilled to the bone, and sore when I finished.

I had dresses in layers to keep the coat from getting sweaty and I jumped into a nice warm shower. My back was already complaining about this activity, but, what can you do?

Making myself some Ramon was all I could handle and then Tails and I settled down to watch TV as I vowed not to move from the couch until bedtime unless the house caught on fire!

Around 8 PM the X brought over Scott who did not want to drive in the bad weather so he could pick up some things he needed for his stay at his mom's. She mentioned in passing that he should come over tomorrow and help me shovel. He groused stating that it was his day off why would he have to do that. Set your phasers on stun, I was flabbergasted! I love my kids but sometimes they can be very self centered. They forget things like my cleaning off his car on the mornings it snowed on school days, and before he had to go to work a couple of days we had the heavy snow. Not to mention the countless other things his mom and I do. I got very angry and after he had his stuff I told him he could go. As he was leaving I thanked him for making my day!

He and the X departed and I learned from email today they continued the conversation on the ride home. She reminded him of how little they do compared to all the work and chores we had as kids and how the constantly complain when asked to do something simple like emptying the dishwasher. Plus the fact that we work full time and still do all the tasks we need to do to run the houses and take care of the kids."Times are different now" was all he had to say.

Note this does not apply to Danielle, she is constantly helping the X and I with laundry and other chores, often without being told. She even does some of Scott's chores when he complains he is tired from work.

Sadly going forward he's going to see a change here at my house; no extras, no more game purchases, etc. unless there is good reason like a birthday or a really great report card. Perhaps that will make him understand it materialistically since he can't seem to understand it from the heart. I hardly slept at all last night, and have been in a foul mood all day today. I'm seriously considering selling the second xbox I recently bought for the family room. It's obvious he does not appreciate it. I'd welcome any opinions on this.

Snowy Sunday

As if the Snow on Friday was not enough, and as if it were not freaky enough that the weather forecast was right about it, once again I am surprised that yesterday's predication for more snow was right on the mark. I noticed early in the AM hours that it was snowing and it was snowing when I got up around 9 AM. It's almost 11:30 AM now and it is still snowing!

I took a panoramic shot out the back slider, I'll get that off the camera later and post it. One thing I really like about my 12 megapixel digital camera is it has a built in panoramic mode. You can snap and overlap up to three images and the camera automatically stitches them together. It does this with ease producing far better results than the software I had purchased a few digital cameras ago.

Right now it is time to disturb Tails (who is nestled under the blanket between my legs) so I can ride the exercise bike. I will then ponder how to spend the remainder of the day, which will probably include more house cleaning, laundry, and other mundane tasks. I have no plans on venturing out into the cold (the living room digital clock which features a built in weather station reports the exterior temperature is 8.7 degrees) since Tails and I have food and drink enough for the day. Since I have to go to work tomorrow I will snow blow after it stops snowing though.

Saturday (not in the Park)

I had planned on going to Meijer early Saturday since I still needed a turkey. I woke up a bit before 7:30 Saturday morning, so I decided what the hey, and off I went into the 15 degree weather!

The streets still had some snow and ice but the highway was much better. I arrived at Meijer without incident and parked in the lot which was still coated with snow and ice despite obviously having been plowed multiple times,

When I went through my diabetic education classes early last year one of the things the nutritionist told us was to always park at the far end of the parking lot wherever we go. Except at work I do this without thinking and I had done so this morning. As I slowly navigated the treacherous parking lot in an effort not to slip I regretted that decision!

I did my shopping, securing an excellent Butterball turkey, and saving $15 on it! Birds up to 16 pounds had $8 off, birds over 16 pounds had $15. Since I am making lasagna as well I only needed a 16 pound bird and I was fortunate to get a nice 16.1 pound one for the additional savings.

They were also having a sale on roasting pans so I got a full turkey roaster with lid, and a spare bottom pan. I use this for the lasagna, as I don't make no little lasagna, I make it in the bottom of a 20 pound turkey roasting pan! I also picked up a smaller oval shaped roasting pan since this year, for the first time, I think I am going to make the stuffing outside of the bird, though I will add some turkey drippings to it before roasting it. In previous years since the divorce I had borrowed the X's roasting pan. I figured since I needed to get a pan for the lasagna, why not get the turkey roasting pan too. One less thing I need to borrow around the holidays.

I also stocked up on Tails' preferred brand of cat food and treats, as Forest Hills Foods, right by my house, does not carry these, and on Tails' favorite canned cat food which is 20 cents cheaper a can at Meijer.

While the store was not crowded at all because of the early hour, I did notice Meijer was following the same rule all stores seem to have which is:

"Whenever there are three or more people in line, we will close another register!"

Since the bottom of the roasting pan I had did not have a UPC code (only the top for the set had those) I knew some adjustment would have o be made by a human so I skipped the you bag it yourself registers. Finally checking out, I then had the fun adventure of pushing the shopping cart through the parking lot to where the Mustang was parked on the outskirts, nearly overturning it a couple of times when the front wheels got stuck in the snow,

I headed home and plunked down for a short rest. I then began slowly cleaning the kitchen and dining rooms. I've pretty much given up on having them clean when the kids have their week at my house, so I usually clean the house the day the go back to their mom's for her week. I had them a day extra because the X, as she frequently is, was out of the area (in this case out of the state) on business, She would be back this evening.

Danielle got up, and, I sense a disturbing trend here, we played Left 4 Dead. Scott got up as his friend Alex arrived at 10 AM. I made Scott empty the dishwasher, and they disappeared to play the xbox downstairs. As Alex was here until 3:30 PM, I saw little of my kids until I made them a late lunch around 3:15. Scott and Alex had Ramon soup, and for Danielle I cooked some Dreamfield spaghetti and tossed it with a dash of salt, some olive oil, a pinch of garlic powder, butter, and grated Romano cheese. I had a bit of this myself.

Scott headed off for work, Danielle was picked up by the X (who had to wait until Danielle and I finished the level we were on) around 5PM.

Once again I was reminded how much I dislike when the kids leave for their week at their Mom's. This will be even worse because the kids Uncle Kevin and his wife and daughter will be out on Christmas eve from New Jersey. I offered the kids extra time at their Mom's house so they could be there with them since they will be here until New Years. While I will really miss the kids during my week, I felt it was the right thing to do since they rarely see Uncle Kevin and Company. I'll see them for Christmas dinner and I'm sure I spend sometime with the group since I get along great with Kevin and family.

Tails and I spent a quiet evening at home watching some Christmas specials and other TV. My favorite was A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart playing Scrooge. I was in bed early around 11 PM, but my thoughts would not quiet for a long time, and I last remember seeing the clock say 1:11 AM.

Friday Part II

Since Scott had to go to work Friday at 6:30 the driveway had to be cleared. Again the weather forecast impressed me with it's accuracy (or blind luck!) as shortly after 1 PM the snow stopped.

We had been snug and warn inside and spending the majority of the day watching TV specials and playing video games. At 4 PM I gave Scott my Xbox 360 and he took my place int he game Danielle and I were playing, and I headed out.

There was a foot of snow on the ground. And as this snow was so very fine, it was very heavy! I started up the snow blower and began easing through it. I have a good 5 horsepower machine but even on the lowest forward speed setting it was having some trouble. I took it slow and easy. My next door neighbor has one of those snow thrower machines, and he did my sidewalk up to my driveway, I thanked him, though I could have done the job quicker with my machine it was a nice gesture! If I beat him out there today I shall do the front walk on his house!

One of my neighbors across the street always shovels his snow. Today he accepted defeat and came over to borrow my unit to finish clearing his property, particularly the bottom of his driveway! You can just see my snow blower on the left side of this (size greatly reduced) panoramic show I made looking from the bottom of my driveway towards the cross street.

I worked on clearing the snow off of Scott's heavily encrusted car (see picture below) so he would not have to before departing for work.

Scott left for work and Danielle and I gamed for awhile before watching TV. A bit later I headed to China Garden to pickup some takeout food for Danielle and I. The rest of the evening, even after Scott's arrival home, consisted of more of the same; TV and Video Games. We all had an early bed time of 11:30 PM.

They Nailed It!

Well, the weather forecast was spot-on last night! They said it would not start snowing until midnight or later, and when I went to bed at 11:30 last night no snow had fallen. Around 3 AM I looked out the window and it was snowing fiercely and there was already a few inches on the ground. I awoke again around 6:15 AM and turned on the TV and as expected the kids school was canceled as there was not easily 5 inches of snow and it was snowing harder than it had been at 3 AM. Danielle has already been watching the news in the living room so I told her to go back to bed.

It was a perfect day for working at home, so I decided to get in another hour's sleep figuring no one would be int he office on time, and of course they would call me if anything came up.

I got up, freed Tails from her room in the basement, and connected into to work. After going through my e-mails and such it was around 8:45. I had a meeting at 9:00 AM (Conference call) so I went to check on the snow and the weather. They said the snow was now falling at a rate of 1 to two inches an hour! The snow on Scotti's car was already above the bottom rim on his wheels and the wind was blowing hard.

Right now I would say there's around 8 inches on the ground. The kids and I are safe, warm, and have food and drink, and heat! I see no need to journey outside for snow removal until 5:30 PM so Scott can get out of the driveway for work. Danielle was up around 9:30 and Scott around 10:30 and they disappeared downstairs to play Castle Quest on the xbox 360.

The storm is supposed to start slowing down shortly and will hopefully b done before I have to clean the driveway. Once will be enough!

Tails has been having fun running in a frenzy between outside viewing locations in between hanging out with the kids and napping.

Here's a video I shot out the back of the house. I'll post some pictures of the snow later or tomorrow.

YARB! (Yet Another Random Bloggette!)

It was about 12 degrees here this morning when I got up for work. Single digits overnight.

It is 25 right now. By midnight the snow is forecast to start, by the time it ends tomorrow they are saying 6-12 inches - we shall see what happens!

We had three inches yesterday morning...fun times here, a couple of days with the roads ice covered and the temperatures so cold the ice on the streets would not melt it....

The extended forecast shows snow in some form or another through next Wednesday!

On another note, Scott and Danielle had their Christmas Concert (both are in Choir), so, I took the cowards way out and ordered from Vitale's our favorite Italian place that provides delivery. Danielle and I, and later Scott and I, got to play some Left 4 Dead together before they had to get dressed for the concert. We also watched some TV afterward.

First the first time in I don't know how long (a couple of years at least!), Danielle wore a skirt! I took a picture of the two of them, I'll try and remember to post that with another picture I have in mind regarding an event this past Tuesday.

Weekend in review (and Monday too!)

More spine-tingling excitement from the Falco clan!

The major fun Saturday was the washing of the kids bed linens and pillows, 7 loads of wash required for this and it ran for a good part of the day. LOADS of fun...pun intended!

I also went online and did all my Christmas shopping for the three kids, and all this via Amazon.com. Being a member of their prime service is certainly worth it, particularly around the holidays. All 2 day shipping is free, and overnight shipping upgrades are available for $3.99.

Sunday I took the kids to the mall, making them get up early, so we could be there for the 10 AM opening. This is the fourth year I have done 99% of all my Christmas shopping on line. This year due to financial constraints I won't go into here, only family, I am very sad to say, will be getting presents. (Note though in my spirit of giving I am happy to take your presents!) So anyway, unlike their Dad, the kids still need to have a trip out to procure some or most of their items.

So, I had no problem with this, but did not want to have to deal with crowds just so they could sleep in as is their habit. So, Danielle was awakened at 8:45 (her choice so she could straighten her hair) and Scott around 9:00, so we could be out of the house on time.

Scott still groused a bit about the early wake up call, adding that people would still be in church at 10 AM, but I hate crowds at the mall, and having to wait in line to pay for purchases, so, we went. We arrived about 10 minutes before the stores opened so we used the time to part and walk to the first store we would be shopping at.

The mall was indeed not crowded at all, I don't know if this was due to people being at church, the economic state of things, a combination of the two, but for whatever reasons we got in and out rather quickly, even having time to stop for a pretzel at Auntie Em's before heading out. Total time in the mall was less than two hours!

Sunday the weather warmed up and the temperature rose into the low 40's. It has also risen to about 35 on Saturday. While the driveway pretty much lost the inch of ice it had the roof only shed about half of it's icy covering.

I made homemade chicken soup for dinner Sunday, timing it to be ready after Scott's friend Alex had departed, and because the X had been sick for a couple of days, I made her a container and ran it over to her. She was most pleased, and Scott tells me she had the second serving for lunch on Monday. Scott, Danielle, and I had it for dinner last night too. It was delicious!

I had Monday off of work for personal reasons I won't go into, but I did go out and do the majority of the staple shopping for Christmas dinner. Since I painted myself into a corner I will be making Lasagna and Turkey for 10 people, I think I am going to make the Lasagna Christmas Eve day or there is no way I can pull this off, particularly with my small stove! I planned on getting the turkey too, but I wanted a Butterball, and the only ones that had were either too small or too big.

Danielle and I watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, and I was quite surprised how much better this was than I had anticipated. We did not go to see it, and I am very pleased we watched it. Great viewing for kids of all ages, particularly older ones like myself who remember the cartoons and Christmas albums. Note the link above takes you to a history of the Chipmunks but has links to the cartoons and movie.

Danielle continued to impress me with her video gaming. She and I have moved from Easy to Moderate difficulty on Left 4 Dead and have been having great fun over the weekend and last night playing it.

The Great DVD Giveaway

I have quite a few DVDs in my collection. Last year I bought a program to automate the tracking of this and even procured a cheap bar code scanner so I can just scan a DVDs UPC code and the program automatically looks it up and populates the database entry.

Over the past two years I have been having random DVD giveaways at work. The reason behind this is because I end up with duplicates. Reasons for this include, but are not limited to:

• I might get an HD-DVD or Bluray version of previously owned DVD title.
• I was stupid and forgot I had a DVD and did not discover it until after I could have returned the duplicate.
• I had one movie from a trilogy and later I bought the boxed set of the trilogy
• A new special edition was released, like this years remastered special edition of "A Charlie Brown Christmas.

So, because of these reasons I periodically have spare DVD's.

Rather then saving them for a garage sale or trying to sell them by other means, I bring them into work and I wait until a point in the day where most people would be in, and I send out an e-mail detailing the DVDs that are free for the asking.

The rules are simple, reply back with your choices in order of preference. You can only get 1 DVD each time I do this, and yours must be the first reply I get back for the given title. When I have half a dozen or more DVDs this generates quite the flurry of activity considering I mail this to 30 or more people. I've given away around 40 DVDs in this manner.

So, it is a nice thing I like to do, and until yesterday all I received in return were some thanks, which really is all I required. I really do like giving more than receiving, though it took me a long time over the years to realize it truly is better to give than to receive. Please don't get me wrong though, anyone who wants to send me an Amazon Gift Certificate this year to help me replace my failing AV receiver is more than welcome to!

One of this weeks movies, the first Jurassic Park movie, was taken by my friend Brian. Yesterday he told me when he brought home the DVD I had given him he told his young son Brandon, that Mr. Chris (my nickname at work) had given him Brandon's all time favorite movie!

Dad! How did Mr. Chris know this was my favorite movie?? his son had asked, and then excitedly ran around the house brandishing the movie which he then settled down to watch.

It made my day! It made my week!! In fact it was the best thing that has happened to me this week!

More boring stuff.......

Monday night I went to bed with the thought of much snow and bad conditions in store for Tuesday morning based on the media slathering based on cold temperatures and and an approaching storm from the gulf of Mexico in addition to lake effect snow.

Well, the temperatures rose overnight to a good 5 degrees above freezing so the majority of what fell was rain on top of the snow. Travel was a bit hazardous but nothing major.

Then they predicted that by sun down the temperatures would plummet and the snow would continue all night for large accumulations. Wrong again! The temps fell (Nice sheet of ice under the snow in my driveway I discovered this morning!) but the snow only amounted to another 2-3 inches by me. This morning's ride once I got out of my driveway and off my street was better than yesterday's.

The sun is actually out now, rare to be seen in West Michigan winter, though through Friday evening the temps will stay in the 20's. Saturday and Sunday will warm into the low 40's which will be a nice break.

On the non-weather front work has been very challenging since an event I will not discuss here happened last Friday. It has been super ultra stressful, but, what can you do?

Scott and I played an hour of Left 4 Dead last night and had a good time, plus Danielle joined us to watch a couple of Scrubs re-runs, and How I Met Your Mother. Another quiet evening and as it was my dinner night of the X's week the kids stayed until about 7:30 when they headed to the X's house because of the snow.

I watched TV and also played some Left 4 Day solo with computer generated team mates.

The Weekend in Review

This post is so boring I almost did not post it!

Tails Kitty and I took advantage of the fact that there were no kids at my house and we stayed in. Because of the snow forecast for Saturday Friday on the way home from work I picked up supplies and Saturday we basically stayed in and watched the snow. It snowed most of the day (or so it seemed whenever I looked outside) yet there were barely an additional 3 inches as the snow was the finest I have ever seen.

Sunday I went out and cleared the snow, and other than laundry and some deep appliance cleaning, I watched TV, played on the Xbox 360, puttered around on the computer, and watched a number of classic Christmas specials off of the DVD set I was given for Christmas last year.

A quiet weekend, but a relaxing one!

Speaking of snow from this afternoon through Wednesday morning we have a winter storm warning in effect!

Winter Storm WatchorWhat else is new?

Last night was a quiet evening after work. After the requisite exercise bike ride I got cleaned up and settled down to relax. Scott had his friend Ben over and they brought home all the dishes from the International Fair which I mentioned previously.

After Ben left I made Danielle and I an omelet with diced turkey pepperoni, shredded potatoes, egg beaters, with slices of Kraft 2% sharp cheddar cheese melted on top. For Scott I boiled some water, added some skinless chicken breast tenders, and then a package of Ramon soup mix. The majority of the evening was spent watching TV.

A bit before bed I washed the dishes Scott had used. As they had soaked in the sink in soapy water for 5 hours the cleanup here was relatively an easy one!

It was snowing during the night, only about an inch, just enough to make the ride into work a slippery adventure! Of course it has been snowing since the ride in and now at lunch time there is at least 5" and it is still snowing. It's supposed to take a break but be back big time for the weekend. Of course, it is still snowing now and it was already supposed to stop. The Mustang, even with all season tires, does not like to go in the snow.

I am SO GLAD I got the snow blower working!

My plan for this evening, and the weekend in fact, is to hunker down and plan on going NOWHERE! The kids go back to their mom's this evening for the start of her week, so I can just kick back, queue up some of the holiday compilation DVDs I got as presents last Christmas, and enjoy the snow while being indoors.

This has been one of the most stress filled weeks at work I have ever had....I really need the downtime, and I am so looking forward to not having to get up in the morning for work.

Rice, rice, baby.

Today they had an international fair at Scott and Danielle's high school. Scott, just turned 17 on Saturday, is in his second year of learning Japanese. So last night we had fun making 60 rice balls with seasoning wrapped in seaweed. It required four batches of sushi rice (which is harder to make than regular rice!) The first batch was completed by 4:30 and the last by 10:30 PM.

Working around this at the dinner hour I also made the kids homemade French toast with real vanilla and I had an Egg Beaters omelet with turkey bacon. Danielle enjoyed turkey bacon on the side.

This morning we all had fun carrying all the dishes of these (they have to be in a single layer, not touching) out to my sons car. Needless to say he arrived home from school with rock hard rice encrusted dishes in hand which are now soaking in the sink. Superglue has nothing on the holding strength of dried sushi rice!

It was nice, my daughter pitched in to help too which was nice, and of course I got to do all the cleanup duty in between batches of rice and from dinner.

I also managed to play a bit of the Left 4 Dead video game with Scott supplying me with helpful tips. It's more fun when we play together but he came in on me about 80% way through a chapter in this series we play together. My daughter and I watched the second part of this weeks 2 part Heroes episode. And I made them my infamous French toast (made with heavy cream and real vanilla) for dinner with me having a nice healthy egg beaters omelet with turkey bacon.

All in all, a decent evening in spite of the incredibly stress filled day of work yesterday (and then again today). Sigh!

On the weather front, it is 24 degrees outside and the forecast for the next 8 days is "Chance of snow"......again I say sigh!

My street was so icy this morning! (How icy was it??) It was so icy that when I approached the corner at idle speed of the car, I still almost slid out into the intersection at the red light! This was after have to spend 15 minutes using my little portable pump to inflate the right rear tire which was almost flat (an anomaly perhaps? The tire was at full pressure after work today) which should have given me an indication of the day yet to come. Dare I say sigh again....no....I will use some self control and save it for tomorrow!!

It never fails

I thought I felt a bit weird this morning when I got up, after retuning in from snow blowing and grocery shopping my mild headache had blossomed into a real pounder and I have the feverish tired feeling.

Sigh! Were the kids not coming over this evening I would have retreated to my bed instead of shopping and clearing the snow, let's hope I feel better after some home made chicken soup and a nights sleep as it is back to work tomorrow.

It's Winter in West Michigan......Again!

It snowed for the first time in earnest though early last week we had just over an inch of wet heavy snow and of course the snow blower would not work so I had to shovel it.

I did get the snow blower working which is good because it began snowing pretty heavily with lots of wind last night. The power went off around 9 PM and was off for about three hours. It was maddening, because on one side of my house, the side that is next to the main street, is a small chiropractor's office, and it had power. The light by their back door seemed to be mocking me as did the light of the office building across the street from me opposite the chiropractor!

My whole neighborhood was dark and it was pretty localized; I called the X who lives on the other side of the park that sits between my old development and her newer one and she had power.

I soon saw the flashing lights of the power companies truck working on something near the street between my house and the chiropractor.

Tails and I settled in, her madly dashing about in the dark and me, on the couch with the oven set to 'warm' and flickering L.E.D. candles going. I watched Christmas specials on my Archos 5 Internet Media tablet which fortunately had close to full charge!

I see via my e-mail alerts this AM that the kids had a snow day, I bet they are pleased! I have the day off as well, I took it off to extend my thanksgiving vacation. Back to work for me tomorrow.

The conditions were right for this snowfall to be the kind that piles up on branches, wires, etc. It is quite beautiful actually!

Below are four pictures, the last one being my favorite, which can be clicked on for much larger versions, of the snow that greeted me this morning.

I'm sure the beauty will fade fast, or it's magic lost on me, particularly with the weather report showing snow every day this week into the weekend........ugh!

WARNING! Stuffin' Muffin Recipe Recall!

WARNING!! If you have not made the Cornbread Stuffin' Muffin recipe I posted earlier today, and you have pets, then for heaven's sake DO NOT MAKE THIS RECIPE!

Tails ate most of one of the muffins a couple of hours ago and I heard her making strange guttural noises in the other room. Below is the picture of her that greeted me.....do not let your pets eat these muffins!!!

Humans appear unaffected by these side effects. I wonder about small children.......

Recipe - Cornbread Stuffin' Muffins

So, I was really missing my cornbread sausage stuffing this year! Last night when I was doing my shopping prior to Scott getting off of work,I picked up a couple of packages of Jiffy brand corn muffin mix.

Today, an idea hit me, and while I was out running errands I stopped at the local grocery store and picked up some sausage and onion. A new recipe was born.

Note that in the spirit of Thanksgiving dinner this is NOT one of my healthy recipes though I may go back and do such a variation down the road. This is bad food, but, for a first try it came out fantastic!

Ingredients
1 8.5 oz box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
5 oz sausage (Jimmy Dean or Bob Evans Original recipe)
1 cup chopped sweet onion
1/2 cup milk
2 tbs butter
1/3 cup Egg Beaters
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp freshly ground back pepper

Preparation:
Flatten out sausage in frying pan and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning, 1/8 tsp garlic powder, 1/8 tsp freshly ground back pepper. Cook until edges start to brown, flip over and cook other side. Remove from pan in place in bowl lined with paper towels to drain grease. After sausage has cooled, crumble coarsely.

Reserve 2 tbs sausage drippings and add to this 2 tbs butter. Once butter has melted add onions and sprinkle with remaining spices. Stir well and cook, stirring occasionally until onions start to brown.

Return sausage to pan, stir well and cook an additional two minutes. Remove mixture to a bowl lined with paper towels to remove grease.

Make muffin mix according to package directions substituting the 1/3 Egg Beaters for the 1 egg and increasing the amount of milk from 1/3 cup to 1/2. cup This will be needed to make mixture a bit thinner so it seeps down into and over the sausage and onions..

Spray a 12 muffin pan with PAM or other cooking spray and then divide sausage and onion mixture between the 12 compartments. Top each muffin with the muffin batter and if need be carefully smooth to edges. Let set for 3 minutes and then bake per package directions.

These Stuffin' Muffins can be eaten as is, substituted for stuffing with your favorite poultry dish, covered with gravy, or served however you like.

Thanksgiving 2008

The X's mother invited me over for turkey dinner yesterday. A few weeks back I had announced I was not making a Turkey this year, I just needed a break from that, I've done Thanksgiving every year since we moved out here in 2000 even after the divorce.

Since I had been up late the night before I did not roll out of bed until 9 AM which is late for me. I gave Tails some canned Turkey for breakfast (she normally only gets canned food at night) as it was Thanksgiving. There were chores to be done, such as laundry, cleaning up the house, dishes, etc., so I got all this done and still had some time to watch some TV.

The X (who was packing a cake for Scott's birthday) along with Scott and Danielle picked me around 2 PM and we headed down there. Dinner was supposed to be by three as Scott had to be at work no later than 5 PM. I supplied two Sara Lee pies (blueberry and dutch apple), plus vanilla ice cream and whipped cream for dessert.

While we were waiting for the bird to cook the X chatted with her mom, and dad I chatted while watching the umpteenth rerun of Miracle on 34th Street. I know this is a classic, but it was not until 2006 that I first saw this movie, which I really like.

The X was not feeling the best, she had a lot of pain in her neck and shoulder, and it was making her a bit grumpy at times. Owning regular back and leg pain from my curved spine I could really sympathize.

For as far back as I can remember Thanksgiving day has always been the gathered family celebration for the boys birthdays who fall before and after Thanksgiving. This year Christopher opted to head to Louisiana with some friends for a road trip so he missed out on an excellent dinner. Years ago at a thanksgiving dinner at Mom's house in New Jersey one of her sons made the statement that they liked my thanksgiving dinner better, particularly the stuffing. You have to wonder what type of an idiot would say that in the room with their mother?!?? Mom makes a good Turkey dinner, just as good as mine I would say (except for the stuffing, but for me that's just a personal preference.) I love my cornbread and sausage stuffing seasoned with chili powder and other spices. Mom makes the more traditional bread stuffing with apples and such in it. And, it was Delicious, just not as good as mine, IMHO.

Mom's bird was running a bit late, I suggested she increase the oven temperature a bit as she knew Scott was under a deadline. As it was we did not eat until almost 4 PM.

Dinner consisted of the turkey, gravy, baked potatoes, a casserole of summer squash (which was delicious though I normally will never eat squash!), salad, cranberry sauce, stuffing, cauliflower with Velveeta cheese sauce, a vegetable medley, and two kinds of biscuits. In true Thanksgiving fashion, I seconds of everything as did most of the table!

Because we ate later than planned there was not enough time for dessert. Scott kept stressing out that he was going to be late for work, and he also got into a bit of a fight with his mom over his plans this weekend for his birthday tomorrow. He wanted to have a multi-night sleep over with friends and she said no, reminding him that his attendance has been off at school and there was no way he was going to be staying up most of the night two nights in a row before heading back to school Monday. Since the kids are at her house this weekend I just mentioned I agreed and let it go at that. Scott was not pleased, but,sometimes he loses sight of the importance of school.

Since we had to dash before dessert I suggested Mom and Dad develop a strategy for eating pie with every meal for the next couple of days to eliminate the pie and ice cream I had brought!

We dropped Scott off at Meijer about 10 minutes before his 5PM start time and then I was dropped off at my house. I settled in for the inevitable napping in front of the TV which seems to follow a turkey dinner!

Around 6:30 PM I was finally starting to feel a bit hungry for dessert, so, I headed out. Meijer was the only store open (the local grocery store was closed) so I headed over there, calling Scott's mom to let he know she did not have to go get Scott. She was happy because she was still in a lot of pain and could now take some medication and go have a lie down. I did not tell her that I planned to pickup him up anyway because of the way she was feeling.

So, I spied Scott in the parking lot industriously gathering up shopping carts, told him what was going on, and then did some shopping. He met me at my cat when his shift was over and I dropped him off at his mom's.

I headed home and enjoyed some apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I gave Tails an extra helping of her canned (Turkey of course!) to top off Thanksgiving for her. She seemed very pleased by this, purring extra loudly as she settled down to her repast.

All in all it was a good thanksgiving, though as this was the first year without my dad around, I really missed him, and, that made me miss my mother too who has been gone for 20 years now.


Things I am thankful for (in no particular order):

A roof over my head
A good job
My three children
An X wife that wants to be friends
Former in-laws who still want me to call them Mom and Dad
Kevin and Family in New Jersey
My Friend Steve in New Jersey
My Brother and his wife
A few close friends at work
Other friends back east
All my regular blog visitors, some who I have known for many years, though most I have never met.


So! How was your Thanksgiving??

Oh, note that the picture in my previous post was from last year's thanksgiving, I mean in case you though that I had made a turkey a 1 AM thanksgiving morning......

Happy ThanksgivingorEat, Drink, and be Scary!

However, wherever, and with whoever you celebrate Thanksgiving this day, may you and yours have a good one! So, eat, drink, and as the picture below shows, be scary!

Click the crazy man for a larger version of this picture

Video of the DayGummy Bear

Today's video comes courtesy of my daughter Danielle, so, it's suitable for viewing by all ages.

You'll never feel the same way again when you go to eat your next Gummy Bear. I tell you what!

Random Ramblings for Saturday

It's been a week since I posted last, but, I've had not much to say. The holiday season is upon us starting with Thanksgiving next week, and I'm already feeling the blahs about it. Divorce just ruined this time of year for me which I had always loved as a kid. I still enjoy holiday music and all the holiday specials.

I decoded I'm not making turkey this year as I have every year since we moved out to Michigan, it just feels too weird cooking for the me, the kids, the X and her folks. We're not a family and I just feel weird doing dinners like that. Sigh!

I asked the kids if they care if I decorate the house for Christmas, and they said they really do not care, so I won't be doing any decorating this year either. Thy are sadly past the childish delight of Christmas and I hate to say it, it seems the only thing they get out of the year is the presents.

On another front gas is down to $1.69 a gallon here by my house, I just can't believe it! I must fill up this weekend and fill the gas can for the snow blower. We've had some light snow already. Yesterday I came home, the sky was clear. I was inside for a couple of hours and then needed to go to the store for some groceries, imagine my surprise as I found a quarter of an inch of snow on the ground and roads. It was gone by this morning though them temps at night have been in the 20's and today it will be in the 30's.

Last Tuesday, the second Xbox 360, which was a replacement from Microsoft fr our first unit that did earlier this year, died too. Fortunately it was one of the infamous 'Red Ring of Death' failures so even though I am out of warranty it gt fixed for free. I just dropped it off at UPS this AM to send it out for repair.

Tomorrow is my older boy's birthday; he will be 20. Seems like just yesterday I was holding him in my arms for the first time. Th five of us will be going out for dinner later (another melding of the 'Dysfunctional 5' and tomorrow I will make him buffalo wings with our own sauce recipe (previously posted on this blog, use the recipe link at the top of the page to find it). The X will be out of town, she has business so I will get extra time with Scott and Danielle as this is the X's week, and she will be gone Sunday through Wednesday.

Scott fell at work the week before last and really screwed up his leg. Fortunately it turned out to just be a sprain and a soft tissue injury, originally they thought he might have cracked his kneecap. He was limping for days and is not feeling much better and went back to Work Wednesday night. He has to work Thanksgiving (Welcome to the work force my son!), and in fact is working all week this week as they kids are off of school.

Danielle is still doing much better since she went back on restricted, filtered Internet and is still spending lots of time with me and her mom.

Not much else to tell, just trying to deal with the blahs and keep busy. I am off from work until December 2nd, so that is nice!

If I do not post before hand, you and yours have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Rant of the day

KUDOS to the jerk in the silver Volvo XL70 who pulled out of Forest Hills Foods this morning around 9:30 AM and cut me off. I was doing 40 and this idiot barely made 30 after he cut me off and then, a mile later when the speed limit dropped to 25 for the school zone, he hit 40 and left me behind!

Geeze!!! What an idiot!!

What's on TV?

The fall season of TV has been upon us for a couple of months now; what's everyone been watching?

In the area of shows that premiered this season I've been watching Knight Rider (I love the new KIT Mustang!), The Mentalist (like a serious version of Physc), Fringe, Life on Mars, Caruso, Worst, Week, Gary Unmarried, Sanctuary, and 11th hour.

I've also been enjoying the new season of Dirty Sexy Money, Bones, Two and a Half men, How I met your Mother, Samantha Who?, Ugly Betty, House, Little People Big World, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Stargate Atlantis, Chuck, Heroes, The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy. My food network choices include Diners Drive-ins and Dives, Grill It, Iron Chef America, Dinner Impossible, Unwrapped, Thrown down, The Secret Life of..., and Good Eats.

I also watch selected episodes of the following in syndication: Scrubs, Bewitched, Stargate SG-1, Walker Texas Ranger, Married with Children, The X-Files, Star Trek (all the series), Charmed, Angel, the original Knight Rider, Night Court, The Bill Cosby Show, Sabrina the teenage Witch plus earlier episodes of many of the new series listed above as they have been on for years.

AND coming soon to a TV near you the kids and I are eagerly awaiting new seasons of Scrubs (moving to ABC from NBC), Monk, and Physc in January!

I'm sure I've missed shows in all three categories above but remember this is my lunch break at work and I am doing this from memory!

On the surface it may seem like I watch too much TV! Oh well, I have free time particularly when the kids are at their Mom's house though the three of us watch quite a few of these shows together. When my son Chris comes to visit his dad he and I watch a subset of these.

I used to have my major creative outlet making computer screen savers. In particular the Christmas one each year. Sadly since the divorce I find even four Christmases later I am still lacking the passion it takes to do this. In the past I would start the Christmas one right after Halloween and work on it nights and weekends instead of TV viewing. I did do one for the second Christmas after the divorce which turned out well, but, it was a labor to do and not really fun, so, until that feeling comes back....TV it is!

I must admit though between work I do at home, video games, computer time, taking care of the house and kids on my weeks, it can be quite a challenge, one that I am up for however! Thank goodness the DVR records up to 130 hours of programming and now that AT&T has enabled the Whole House DVR function I can watch recorded TV in my bedroom. The kids can watch recorded content in the family room too.

Video of the DayHarmonica Virtuoso at Carnegie Hall

You have to watch this whole clip, it is simply amazing what this guy can do with his Harmonica!! Incredible! A bit of culture here on me blog!!

Gas Prices Going Down

Over the past weeks gas prices have been falling. I was shocked this weekend that they fell below $2.00/gallon for the first time in what seems like ages.

This begs the question, why did they have to go up at all? You hear all kind of weasel speak about supply shortages, OPEC, etc. but if gas can be less than half the price it was earlier this year when it went above $4/gallon. I challenge our legislators to keep the prices reasonable going forward!

Of course this could all be a move by OPEC and the oil companies to stall and delay the wave of alternative energy initiatives that people had been talking about since the higher gas/oil prices. Let's hope they are not lulled into a false sense of security by these low prices and continue to explore alternative methods of energy.

I wonder if this means lower costs over the winter for heating as well. While I use natural gas, if heating oil prices fall steeply the gas rates may go down too in an effort to retain customers.

On the one hand this would be great, on the other hand I have to wonder just what is behind this.

Some Ramblings

Danielle got her Internet back after two weeks of no access. I gave her one of my older laptops and have K9 Web Protection and VNC server loaded on it.

The k9 Protection blocks content and records all access and the VNC server let's her mom or I instantly connect to her screen and see exactly what she is doing without her knowing it (though she knows we can now do this).

She has no IM client and knows if there is another infraction she'll lose the Internet for a month next time.

She has been so much better since she lost unlimited, unrestricted Internet, happier, doing more in her arts and crafts, reading more, spending more time with the X and I, it is simply amazing, and I am hoping she sees that the people she was spending time with online that she did not know were a negative influence on her.

Around my house last weekend I continued cleaning things up and emptied my entire bedroom closet, and in a few I am off to Lowes to get a closet organizer for the bedroom downstairs that Tails uses at night so I can better utilize that storage space. Next on the target is the front hall closet and then the kids closets.

Last Sunday I also made Chicken Parmesan and it came out killer, I used a slightly different recipe and of course I made homemade sauce for it as well. There was enough for leftovers for two nights!

The door at the bottom of the basement steps is now in place and primed, it just needs a final coat of paint.

The weather, which had been slowly creeping up since a couple of days before Halloween (it hit low 69's here for that) hit a peak of 70's Thursday, 70 Friday, and then overnight into this weekend temperatures plummeted, being in the 40's and 50's during the day and 30's at night.

And, I saw the dreaded first snowflakes of the season Saturday and some more today, but, it's still not cold enough for any accumulations.

Speaking of Halloween I bought candy and did not have a single visitor so down the street from me I saw scattered traffic, I guess no one wanted to brave the house at the end of the road! The kids were pleased as they had plenty of candy all week, and neither of them went out trick or treating this year. I miss the years walking them around the neighborhoods. Even the X has little traffic and her development has many children.

Scott is in his second week of his part time job and doing well! He has been told if he keeps up his performance he will be promoted at the end of his probation! I was most pleased to hear this, and they gave him a $10 merchandise card as a bonus for his hard work.

I think that's about it here in the Midwest....the kids are at their Mom's this weekend and the house is way too quiet! I hate the weekends without the kids.

Video of the DayChuck Norris Sings Meatloaf

This is so very, very, wrong!

Video of the DayDiet Mountain DewFeaturing Chuck Norris

Here's the longer one minute version of one of my favorite Diet Mountain Dew Commercials!

Video of the DayWill it Blend?Featuring Chuck Norris

Suitable for all ages. The Will it Blend web sites uses their industrial grade blenders to blend a variety of objects, from iPhones to...well........ Chuck Norris!

Kids, Money Burning Hole in Pocket, etc.

Kids:
Last Thursday it came to my attention Danielle was abusing her internet privileges. To make a long story short (she had been warned the day before about disobedience and breaking of the rules) I ended up taking away her internet access.

There was a brief cold spell so to speak, but after she began talking to me again she seemed to be in a much better frame of mind. Saturday she helped me break down my roll top desk and move it downstairs (my back loved that). Even broken into three major sections which comprise the roll top assembly itself, the slab on top of the desk, and the bottom section with drawers, it is heavy and bulky to move.

She also helped me carry the drawers and do lots of other work arranging and carting things around.

She spent more time with me over that four day period when she lost her internet access and Monday night when she went to her Mom's than she has in ages. We're evaluating ways to give her back some internet access though this will involve adding monitoring and filtering software to her PC, I'll post when applicable on this.

Scott has landed a part time Job at Meijer, a large chain out in this area, they are a combination of a department store and a food store rolled into one. He had 3.5 hours of initial training last night and has computer training today, and will probably start this weekend or sooner. He is very pleased because he has been looking for a job for quite awhile. Unlike my older son who, like his dad procrastinated, Scott made a genuine effort to get a part time job at age 16, and I am very proud of him.

I was really touched last night when he stopped in around 7:30 PM to watch a Scrubs with me since he had not seen me after school as he usually does. That really made my day!

Scott was also happy that I gave him my old TV from my bedroom, even though I also made him clean his room before he could set it up in there. While he has no TV connection, it allows him to play video games in his room.

I took the kids to Hobby Lobby over the weekend as well as Danielle,with a renewed interest in drawing and such, needed some new markers. They were also having a 50% off sale on all storage boxes, so I got us each a retro mock up storage box, and on a trip back Monday where we sadly realized that sale was over, I got them each another small sale item. A large clear fuax diamond for Scott because it looks like one of the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and another retro storage container for Daniele, who wants to redecorate her room.

Money Burning a Hole in my Pocket:
We have an update here; as you know I had around $350 from a payroll adjustment that I was going to spend on either a new case and video card for the HTPC or an HD TV for the bedroom. After shopping around I decided to wait until Black Friday because prices were just not god enough; for the $350 I could barley get a 19" HD TV for the bedroom.

I was on edelaino.com, one of those deal of the moment sits and i found a special on a 22" HD LCD PC Monitor with an HDMI port for $199. Since the TV box in the bedroom has an HDMI output I realized I really did not need an HD TV, I just needed an HD display, so, I snagged it up and it looks fantastic! It even has built in speakers.

While this was all well and good it caused quite the ripple effect, and the move of the roll top desk to the basement was part of this. My 'master bedroom' is very small. I have a king size bed on one wall and opposite that wall was the roll top desk with the dresser next to it. There was barely enough room to go into the bathroom with the dresser where it was.

Scott, as noted above, was very pleased with the ripple that caused the old TV to end up in his room!

To optimize placement of the HD Display I tried several rearrangements of the room, all were OK but none were ones I could live with, I even thought of flipping the bed around 180 degrees and mounting the HD display on the wall, the only thing that stopped me is since the head of the bed currently is wedged in a small space because the door into the bedroom protrudes into the room and than falls back about a 2 feet, if I turned the bed around it would be very difficult to tuck in the covers and such. With the head of the bed in there is is doable, just.

SO I decided to remove the roll top desk and center the dresser directly across from it with the HD display there.

Sadly, more ripple effect was about to happen! For those who remember this post from January, I had bought a nice four drawer file cabinet. I am the first to admit I procrastinate, and, while I had built the cabinet back in January as of this past weekend it had a mountain (well, almost 2 feet!) of paperwork stacked on top of it that needed to be filed away.

Since the drawers had to be removed from the roll top desk, and all paperwork and other items be removed from under the roll top itself, I easily ended up with another 2 foot tall pile of paperwork. I spent Saturday afternoon, and later Saturday night until 2 AM Sunday morning, sorting and throwing out items that could be trashed and shredding sensitive items that were no longer needed. What was left was filed away in individually labeled pendaflex file folders in the new cabinet.

Now, whenever something needs o be filed it is a joy rather than a chore, I just put it in the appropriate folder! The file drawers in the old roll top desk, now reassembled down in my basement office are delegated for historical storage. Right now they hold tax returns and other archival information.

It is way, way, cool! Yes, I should have done this ages ago, I now have an easily maintainable filing system, a bed room that seems somewhat bigger, and HD TV in the bedroom.

Kid Moment of the Day!

I call today's Kid moment of the Day! "What planet is my son on???"

So, last night around 8 PM I was shopping at Forest Hills Foods. I heard a bunch of voices a couple of aisles over but though nothing of it. I turned into the main aisle that runs the whole width of the store and there at the other end approaching my with two of his friends is my 19 year old son Chris. He's looking in my direction the whole time we are approaching each other but as we got closer and finally passed he did not even notice me. I whirled around and smacked him on his back and, quite startled, he turned around to see who had hit him.

I waved, smiled, and he said "Oh Hi Dad!" and went on his way.

I just thought it was funny, I wonder of there had been fire, or broken glass, or a slavering dog in his path would he have seen them???

Happy Haunted Halloween

Halloween is on the horizon and a few years back I made an excellent Halloween Screen Saver for Windows PC's. This will run on Windows 2000 and up through Vista. A screen shot, without animation of course, is shown below. Note the lights flicker in a ghostly manner and there are many animations and animated characters, It is, one of my best creations. There is also spooky music.

So, look at the picture below and if it seems interesting you can snag a copy here. Of course you can click the picture below for a larger copy in a new window.

Kid moment of the day!

The X is traveling this week; she has business in California. I know like myself she misses the kids when traveling, so, I sent her this kids moment and then decided it would make a good subject for a post today and possible future posts where circumstances permit it.

So, today's entry is entitled "Scott learns his car has a rear window defroster!"

I was running late this morning and looking out my bathroom window I watched Scott laboriously scraping the frost off his windows (Yes it was that cold here overnight). I was pleased to see this time he had started his car, since last time I noticed this he had it off and complained that the moisture on his windshield did not dissipate until he was nearly at school.

I was going to return to my morning routine when I saw him move to the back of the car and he then began doing this on the rear window. I ran outside and asked didn't his car have rear window defroster? He replied he did not know. I looked on his instrument panel and quickly found the button and amazed him with this discovery!

I wonder if he's found the brakes yet.......

And that concludes today's "Kid moment of the day!"

Technology Tales of Terror!Vista SP1 Update Update!

I thought it was time to post an update to my Vista SP1 Update; hence what looks like the grammatically incorrect post title. Not that I am professing to know anything about grammar!

Anyway, to make a long story short including having to escalate my original ticket to management at Microsoft because nothing was happening for days, steps they had me try that I knew could not work, causing me to doubt the technical ability of those who were helping me, and other back and fourths, Microsoft has agreed to send me a new set of Vista media free of charge!

That saves me about $40 and is all I wanted as an outcome to this incident; now worst case I can do a clean reinstall of Vista which would be excellent! I feel vindicated because it was the incredibly poor performance of Vista that caused me not to archive my media iso files and burn them to DVD after I got fed up with the inability of Vista to boot or do any task in a timely manner.

I shall post again on this subject when the media arrived! Of course, there is always the possibility that even a clean Vista Ultimate SP1 installation will run like a slug on a cold day, but, I feel my tenacious nature has been validated and one way or another I will have taken this incident from start to completion. Even though my original estimate was for a Sunday afternoon or work and now it's dragged into two weeks.....we shall have some form of resolution!!

And, most importantly perhaps Vista will be my bey-atch after all is said and done!

The Ramon JournalsHomemade Ramon Chicken Noodle Soup!

Here's a twist on the Ramon Journal entries, in spite of my back bothering me yesterday I decided to make homemade Ramon chicken noodle soup as the local store had the plain Ramon noodles in stock. I read the seasoning package from one of the packaged ones the kids like so much and bought the spices I was missing.

I contacted a large batch and was very successful on my first attempt! So much so that Scott said he liked mine better and with Danielle it was a tie. Not bad for the first attempt! I myself thought it was delicious, so much better than the packaged variety and so much healthier particularly in the sodium department!

Alas! For you, my dear readers, I am sad to say that there will be no recipe at this time! In true chef's fashion I did not measure any of the ingredients but will do so on the next batch!

Perhaps I will do that this coming weekend as I have the kids extra days this week as the X leaves for California tomorrow on business and won't be back until next week.

Money Buring a Hole in My PocketPart Two

Saturday while the kids and I were out and about doing some errands and getting lunch I priced some TV's locally. From my research and what I found locally, along with the fact that the video card I want right now is about $50 over budget (due to the extra chip for HD Audio Processing), I have decided to postpone this decision until black Friday. While I have no intention of getting up at 2AM to go stand in some ungodly line somewhere to snag the deal I want, many companies offer suitable discounts online during the day.

I am hopeful this would allow me to meet budget on which option I choose, or perhaps even a new one as it's over a month until Black Friday and that money, while not causing my pants to catch on fire, certainly is making known to me its burning desire to be spent!

Money Buring a Hole in My Pocket

I've often heard the phrase regarding 'money burning a hole' in someone's pocket and I am sure you have too.

Come on now! Unless someone put some coins that they heated up to the point that the metal was glowing into their pockets, or put in a wad of flaming bills, it just is not going to happen!

HOWEVER I can understand the intent of the phrase, as I have $350 unexpected dollars available to me since there was a payroll error in my favor regarding an increase I got a few months back that never made it into my paycheck. By my logic, since I was not getting any less money that was just paid to me, and I paid all bills due these past months, this is 'free' money meaning I can just blow it on something! While the money is not burning a hole in my pocket though the thought of spending it is almost overpowering!

I have three choices and I'd like everyone's opinion:

Option 1: - My Home Theater PC (HTPC) really needs another video card upgrade. Granted when I did the previous one some months back I knew it was stop gap, but it was very inexpensive. I am limited by the power supply in the HPTC case which is a custom sized job whose form factor does not come in a capacity greater than 250 watts. Most seasoned PC owners will tell you that's not a real lot of power especially if you want to run a high end graphic card. I'll spare you my weeks of lunchtime research but for about $350 I can replace the HTPC case with one that will take a standard PC ATX 500 watt power supply. In addition I can get the video card I want.

Option 2: - Small HDTV for bedroom. Until recently I would never have considered this as I have no HD content for the bedroom TV and the 27" standard definition TV is fine. U-Verse recently upgraded my service with their Whole House DVR. Before this upgrade the only TV you could record or watch recorded content on was the one in the Living room which is of course connected to my 50" HD plasma. This is where all viewing of HD content occurs. Now any of the three TVs in the house can watch recorded content. Some nights I go get into bed, particularly if my back is aching, a good hour before I am ready for sleep and I watch live TV. Now I can do that plus access recorded content which is great and helps me keep ahead of all the shows I record. The caveat here is that I have HD programs recorded (about 30-40% of what I record is in HD) and I simply will not watch that on the standard definition TV in the bedroom. Nor would I drink 50 year old brandy our of a Dixie cup! Come on! There are just some things civilized people will not do! For about $350 I can get an HDTV of similar size to replace the bedroom TV. This also has the benefit of being able to put a second TV downstairs for the kids to use. Now, there will be no contention for the TV when one wants to play video games and the other wants to watch TV. I plan to ask them their opinion of this after work today.

Option 3: The cheapest and simplest alternative to implement; DO NOTHING! However I will still have the nagging feeling about spending the money....nagging always nagging me!!


So, what do you think I should do? Crap! Is my pocket getting warm....or am I just imagining it........

Video of the DayThe Matrix

There are literally hundred of Matrix spoofs out there, but this is one of the best I have ever seen. YouTube took it down so I don't know how long this will last so check it out NOW! Suitable for all ages.

The Matrix Spoof - Metacafe.com

The Weekend

I did not have the kids this weekend, so, the majority of it was spent doing chores around the house, watching TV, playing on the computer.

Friday night my older boy Chris was coming over, we were going to do dinner and watch Ironman which my friend Mike had loaned me. The X called and discovered this and asked if we could all have dinner and she wanted to see the movie too. So we went to Applebee's, Scott drove back to his Mom's house, Danielle retreated to the computer, the the rest of us watched Ironman which we all enjoyed.

Saturday I really did not feel like riding the exercise bike, so since the weather was so nice I decided to take a walk to the store to pickup some items. I decided to take the long router which is about 2 miles. It was a nice day for a walk and I enjoyed it, having not been walking too much this summer .vs. using the exercise bike.

After I returned from the store and made a small pot of pasta sauce with pepperoni and meatballs. After dinner I made a sausage and pepperoni sandwich) I decided to do the walk again which turned out to be a mistake; about halfway through my right foot started hurting and by the time I returned home I had the beginnings of a blister. Sunday my legs hurt as well, a lesson that 7.5 miles on the exercise bike is not as strenuous on the legs as a four mile walk. I think the exercise bike burns up a lot more calories though based on the amount I sweat as opposed to the walk.

The X had some issues with Danielle over the weekend, to simplify she is using IM and texting way too much. We will have to deal with this going forward. I have felt that the X giving her a phone with unlimited text messaging was a major mistake.

Note: I Did NOT touch the Vista Issue this weekend!

Technology Tales of Terror!Two Computer Stories

WARNING: While this post does utilize my unique writing style, and
therefor in my humble opinion it is interesting, it is quite LONG and
delves into technical issues on computers. So, if you like that read on!

if you are looking for a recipe, go away!

Shoo! Scat! Scoot! I have computer issues to deal with!

Still here??? Then, by all means you must read on!

For our less technical visitors who decided to brave this out since no recipe was forthcoming, note that MB and GB used below refer to megabytes and gigabytes.

Not too much been going on worth note except in the realm of computers. Hence my lack of posts, but, since I felt I needed to post something.....on to the technical tales of terror!


Mom's Computer:
On Saturday I ended up going down to Mom;s house to help her with her computer. She was having some issues easily fixed, and one not so easy. The constant crappy performance and effects of using Netzero. Most often evidenced by Internet Explorer displaying the vague dialog that it has encountered an unexpected error and has to close.

Netzero, a company that I really, really, do not like. Not only do you have to pay these miserable people for access, but they provide NO FREE SUPPORT. So, if you are having an issue that is their fault you have to pay to have it fixed!

The best solution is to remove it, but Mom's locked into a yearly agreement. So, in the interim I set her up with a Gmail account and the went to export her Netzero address book so I could import it.

GUESS WHAT! Those nasty folks have NO WAY to export your address nook! I guess they do not want to make it easy. I ended up doing a print the address book which they do provide and copying/pasting the data out of the print preview window. I then reformatted this into a CSV file I could then import into Gmail. So, that was a fun way to spend four hours, but I got some time to chat with Mom and Dad, and I got lunch so that was OK!

Note too that this is also after having Mom's PC at my house for a week for hardware burn in testing, deep cleaning, performance tuning and optimization. We were able to verify the internet worked flawlessly by both Danielle and myself using Mom's PC for two days on my high speed connections without a single Internet Explorer crash or hang.

I spent countless hours on this, and five minutes after Netzero was connected her Internet Explorer started having those issues. I am hopeful that using Gmail will alleviate a good deal of her issues.

Oh! We won't even mention the first call I got when Mom had taken her PC home and the monitor would not come on......no....we just won't!

Finally, did I mention I really, really, hate Netzero??

Now....the preamble into the next story......

Over the past five days I have been trying to embrace Windows Vista. After all, I have a free copy of the ultimate edition which I got for being a Vista Beta tester. I had loaded it on my main PC after the beta in early 2007 and found it to be totally unacceptable. It was the worst resource hog I had ever seen, and was just so slow as to be unusable.

After talking to my good friend (who I do not blame for this!) David a couple of months back who sang the praises of Vista, I decided since Vista SP1 had been recently released, and supposedly this fixed a lot of issues including performance, to update my Vista partition on the home office PC. Having done many service pack upgrades on all versions of windows in the past, major and minor, I figured this for a few hours worth of work......I could not have been more wrong. WHAT A NIGHTMARE IT TURNED OUT TO BE. The Tale is told below:


Day 1 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
I booted up into the dusty and disused Vista partition and immediately I felt a cold chill! It started with the fact that the network card was no longer being detected by Vista. So, no big deal I booted back into the XP partition (Love XP! Love Dual Boot systems!), looked up the hardware designation of the network device which turned out to be a 3COM 3C940, and went off to the 3COM web site to get the Vista Drivers.

NO JOY here! No mention of this existed anywhere on the 3COM site! I began to google the model number and soon I was led back to the motherboard manufacturer as this was an embedded Ethernet controller. On the Asus web site I entered in my motherboard info and then went for network drivers. NO VISTA ONES!

Further googling was required, a lot of further googling as their were simply no drivers for Vista for this model! I finally found an obscure post from some intelligent person (after many dead ends and downloads of supposedly Vita compatible drivers) who mentioned that even though this is branded 3COM is is really a chip set made by another manufacturer entirely. One I had never heard of!

Armed with this info I was finally able to get a driver and get the Vista OS to see the Internet! After a quick update of the AntiVirus program and Spyware definitions, I set out to install some updates and SP1.

So, after much much chugging, and me already hating the performance of Vista, Windows Update says it has about 60 critical patches to install and about the same of optional patched, updates, etc. It says in needs about 256 megabytes of disk space. The Vista partition has about 1.5 Gigabytes free so I click on OK and go on about my business.

I came back to the office later in the evening, close to bed time, to find only 22 of the required patches had been installed and the rest had failed due to lack of space. Vista had eaten all 1.5 GB of free space!

What to do, what to do! I decided to disable hibernation mode which would delete the one gigabyte hiberfile.sys file and give me more free space. In XP this is simply done via the GUI in a couple of places. Not where to do this in vista though and the built in help was useless.

Back to Google! More frenzied searching to find out that the only way to disable hibernation in Vista is via a command line command! I did this, restarted Windows update, and went to bed.


Day 2 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
So after work I checked the PC, only 10 more updates had been applied! 10! And the gigabyte of space was gone again! 2.5 GB gone to apply updates!! Frenzied cleaning of the file system commenced scouring for temporary files, I cleaned the internet cache, temporary directories, logs not needed. This got me another 200 MB back. Windows Update would consume this like the mint on the pillow at a fine hotel! And you what that does....it makes you want more mints!!!!

So what to do what to do...... Part of me wants to chuck this idea and be done with it! Microsoft just extended end of life support for XP into next year! HOWEVER the tenacious part of me, the part that hates defeat, the part that will not be defeated would have none of this! I would beat this beast as I had beaten many other computer issues in the past! It make takes weeks and in rare cases months but I have always been able to fix any problem with my own systems! I am admin, hear me roar!!!! Vista would be my be-yatch!!

So, I fire up my trusty copy of EASEUS Partition Manager, an AWESOME piece of freeware and look at the partition map for the drive that contains Vista. It has three partitions, the Vista one sandwiched between an old unused partition of 500 MB, and my prized XP partition which has about 5GB free.

Thinking of the facts that many partition managers (let alone a free one) have issues with mixed XP/Vista partitions, partitions on a large volume, which this was, and the fact that resizing partitions always has inherent risks, I command EASEUS to delete the unused partition, shrink the XP one by 500 MB, and Grow the Vista one by another 500 MB. I hit the Apply Changes button, and after the expected message that I must reboot the PC, I headed off to bed. Partitioning takes time!


Day 3 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
I was very pleased to note after arriving home and rebooting the system that all was well! Another job well done by EASEUS Partition manager, one of the more risky ones I have used it for. XP/Vista partitions were fine and had been sized as expected. I restarted Windows Update and let it churn over the last 10 updates to apply. A couple of hours later I did a remote desktop connection to the XP system from the system I was doing my office work on, and discover the following:

Good News! All the needed updates had been installed!
Bad News! Of the first 2.5 gigabytes of space that had been reallocated to Vista before the partition resizing, NONE had been recovered! I would think most should be and will have to run Vista's dreaded Disk Cleanup tool.

I decided to go for broke and went over all the option updates. Of the 50-something, the majority were language pack files. Out of the remainder I only needed four, and two of these were driver files. The system is booting up now. I will login and the kick off the disk cleaning operation!

Well the built in Disk Cleanup was next to useless, I need something more intelligent because what I envision has happened here is that with the running out of disk space Windows Update got confused and I have multiple versions of files, installation kits, etc. lying about. I will have to look into this further!

I downloaded one trial version of a duplicate file finder; it had a limit of 30 files per operation and since there were thousands of duplicates I went in search of another tool. I found a tool called Duplicate Cleaner which was free, and, after some tweaking of the settings I recovered over 2 gigabytes of file space!

SOOOOOOO.....after all this, all thee updates and patches.......Vista SP1 still has not been installed! It is downloading now........which means the Vista Update Tale of Terror is not over yet......

Looks like we will be going into day 4.....the 2.6 GB of free space is now gone and SP1 was only 94% downloaded!! I downloaded the stand alone SP1 kit which weighs in at about 450 MB. I had it on a different drive than Vista. I looked at the release notes. A minimum of 7 GB free space is needed! If you have a 64 bit installation you need 13 GB!! My current XP partition, fully up to date, with lots of installed programs, is taking up about 5 GB of storage space!

Almost tasting defeat, but refusing to, I launched EASEUS again and shrunk my C drive (used mostly by Vista's boot loader, and my XP partition, and then grew the Vista one to have 7.5 GB of free space. Knowing that was going to be it for the night, I clicked Apply Changes and headed to bed, haunted by visions of failed upgrades that screamed in my head......


Day 4 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
Thursday - I have a personal day from work and have errands and family business to take care of. I check the PC when I get up, once again EASEUS has done it's work well, and the Vista partition has 7.3 GB of free space. I kick off the upgrade and head off to take care of business. I check in at one point and it is at a screen that says stage 3 of 3 is 100% complete, and warns not to turn off the computer. i continue with what I need to do. Three hours later the same screen is still being displayed, but by the frenzied (perhaps panicked?) flashing of the hard disk light I know Vista has opened a can of Whooop Ass on my hard drive! I wander away and will check back later.

Many hours later (almost 12 from when I started this morning, the same screen remains. The system is responsive in that I can make a remote terminal connection to it, but, like on the physical console the same 100% message is still displayed......I am afraid this must lead into


Day 5 of the Vista Upgrade Experience:
Since this occurred after midnight it is technically day 5. It's over. Upon sitting by the office computer I noticed it was not stuck at this screen, it was periodically rebooting and going from 0 to 100% within a matter of minutes, and then after a few more minutes, rebooting.

Some googling returned the fact that, for all practical purposes, my Vista installation was now boned and I in fact, was Vista's be-yatch who must hang my head in shame and defeat! This is a known issue with Vista SP1 as documented at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949358

Because I had system restore disabled and because I had no vista media (I downloaded it ages back as a thank you from Microsoft for participating in the Vista beta. I then burned it to DVD's which were subsequently destroyed over a year ago when my disgust of Vista's gluttonous nature towards system resources had shown no satiety! So, I can use none of the methods described to fix the issue.

Heck, if I had the original DVD's I would just blow the whole partition and do a clean reinstall. While researching this issue I also discovered that Microsoft is offering free technical support for Vista and Vista SP1 installation issues, so, in an attempt to amuse myself, I opened a support call. On that note I will close this Technological Tale of Terror, which I can always revisit at a later date!

A Picture is worth a thousand words

Look at the following picture....imagine the thousand words....and then check back to see a future post entitled

Technology Tails of Terror! Two Computer Stories

that provides the thousand words and then some!