Daily Life
Final Day Off
Sarah found out in the morning that she didn’t have to go into Wheeler, and much like me, she was pretty excited about being able to be at home to do whatever she wanted. She spent most of the day cleaning around the house, but that made her feel good so more power to her.
I spent my early morning getting ready for a lunch meeting. I organized files on my laptop and get some other materials together. We met at 11:30 with a friend from church and talked about a website for her father and his fish fry. We had some of the food, very good, especially the corn hush puppies.
On the way back we ran a couple of errands, including up to the vacuum store to get a replacement belt for the cleaner. The guy there said you should change the belt every 9 months, we don’t think it has ever been changed, so probably a good reason why it was stretched 25% larger than it should be. We also hope it starts to clean better now as a result.
When we got back, I took a couple of hours to writeup my proposal for the website since I knew I didn’t want to have to worry about it later on during the weekend. It was then just after 5, and I sat down to try to finish the tracing on the Mr. Do Bezel that I had been putting off all week.
Sarah made some dinner, so I took a short break. Around 7:45 Jeff and Sarah arrived and Patrick and Katie right after.
Of course, we weren’t ready. Always embarrassing. So, we gathered up drinks, chairs and popcorn, and all carpooled over to the Drive In’s. On the way over, Sarah realized she left a candle burning, so she came all the way back to blow it out and barely made it back in time for the opening.
We saw The Bourne Ultimatum, and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Bourne was very good, Chuck and Larry just so so. I laughed at some parts, but there was a lot of humor that was trying too hard.
During intermission I went and played the Austin Powers pinball in the concession stand. I enjoyed that one quite a bit, and may like to own it. I didn’t care for the color pencil illustration on the backglass though. The gameplay was fun, there were some characters and the whole machine was very colorful. I like the theme, but I am a stickler for artwork, so I don’t know if I could get it just for that backglass. I need to try to find someone who owns a Batman pinball close by and try that.
The Drive-In was packed, I was pretty surprised. The commercial at intermission said they are planning on continuing to operate, even though they don’t make much money off ticket prices. They make most of their money off of concessions, and we brought everything in. But seriously, again, way too expensive for one night out if you ask me if you do concessions too, so I don’t know where I fall in that grey area of saving the theater and paying too much.
Day 4 of my week off
Sarah had a long day at camp yesterday, so she slept in today and I with her.
Around 10:30 she got a bug to go outside and weed. We went and did the front garden in the lawn, right below the kitchen window, and then we went over to the west side yard and started to work there. She was feeling really ambitious in the things she wanted me to do, and she asked if we could finally dig out the trees that were in the flower bed.
We had chopped them down two years ago? But I knew this would be a chore, and the previous owners never did anything, you could see multiple stumps on one where the tree had grown again many times.
It took me until about 12:45 to dig out two separate stumps. The roots went right next to the foundation and curved every which way, it was a pain. Digging out anything is a pain in our clay based ground, I had to have Sarah go out and get a spade shovel finally to do the job.
When I got back inside it was back to work on the blog. I started changing the post dates on my some 550 plus posts. This ended up taking me all day! I did finish it really late, but that is pretty much all I did all day. I worked on the theme a little bit more but it was a boring day of work and not very fulfilling.
I took a break for lunch to watch “Just Like Heaven”, a girlie movie Sarah had borrowed which I got sucked into. I am ashamed to say it was pretty good.
Then when Sarah got home just after 4 we went out and saw Shrek 3 at 4:30. That was, ok. I didn’t laugh all that much, and the movie really dragged on in parts. But I thought it was a fairly interesting story with the usual nice work ins of other fairy tale creatures from other stories. I’d be curious to see where they go with Shrek 4 in 2009.
On the way back we stopped and got my phone from Sprint. It wasn’t holding a charge, so I had it looked at. The battery was “defective” they said, and it had a year manufacturer warranty, so I got it replaced for free.
When we got back I worked more on the dates, and Sarah made dinner. I worked and worked the rest of the night. We took a short break together to play some Ms. Pac-man, but that was it.
I hope tomorrow to do some more productive stuff, shorter things I can finish and get a better sense of accomplishment.
Updating WordPress
Well, looking back, I am not surprised.
It was March when I last did something with this blog, I wasn’t even sure if I would follow through with it.
But today, I updated from 2.1 to version 2.2.1. This gets me setup to keep upgrading the website if I want to.
I got an unexpected week off from work, and I am trying to decide the best way to use the week. First priority is always trying to use that time to improve myself professional, or to make money to always better ensure our future and lifestyle. When doing freelance work, there is always some waiting, so that is what I am doing now. I have over three and a half days to change over my Rotheblog.com website. I would like to be able to have it contained to just this week, not start the project again and not finish it, and have it bleed over into my everyday life as a worry.
So, I think by the end of today I will make a decision on whether I should or not.
But, this is WordPress version 2.2.1 now, and hopefully I will make a decision on what to do before another version comes out and I just keep updating the base without doing any other real work.
Buck Creek Winery, Mr. Do! control panel
After church we went back for our second visit to Buck Creek, and again it was much enjoyable.
We got back early afternoon, and I started right away in working on the cabinet. I had four sides to sand down, so it would take a while. And it did. I made some other arcade related calls, and ran a quick errand. We worked on it all afternoon, Justin helped, and he worked on the monitor chassis. After I finished sanding, I cleaned the bottom of the cab, a little bit of the top, and then the inside.
We took a short break to watch a movie about a school, the holocaust, and paperclips, and then ate some dinner. Then, finally, after dinner Justin and I had a fresh cabinet to start loading the Mr. Do guts into. I worked on the control panel, Justin put together the power supply. The first obstacle was the monitor, and we had to use the rails from my other cabinet, meaning I am short a set for a little bit. I hope to have another set next weekend.
The girls came outside for a little while to talk about our summer vacation plans, and we just continued working. There was a lot to do, and we didn’t get as far as we hoped. But by the time we went to bed after midnight, we had a Mr. Do that powered on with controls that worked as well. The picture looked great. The control panel needs a lot of work, setting the controls up permanently, but the main hard stuff is done, and it felt good to get that far. Said goodnight and probably goodbye to Justin and went to bed.
February 10, 2007
In the morning we were around the house doing different things. But Sarah had wanted to get down to Petsmart and get Kellogg some new toys because his chewing needed to be controlled a little bit more. He was starting to chew on the entertainment center, Sarah’s grade book, and anything within reach. We expected no less, and figured we should probably get him some serious toys to show him we care because a sock with newspaper in it is kind of the cheap man’s doggie toy.
We came home with a toy that we named his “freezie”. It was a plastic based toy that you ran through some water and put in the freezer. It’s a teething toy that would get a little crunchy and make noise which would in theory interest the dog. For me, the thing resembled a little voodoo doll with all of the sown colors and miscellaneous strands coming off this way and that. We got a second things of rawhides since he had started or eaten three this week and it seemed to be a fun treat to get him. We also debated about getting his name tag. People had told us you didn’t have to register him, but we still wanted it for other obvious reasons. There was a deal with a form where you could send away for it, and it was cheaper and had no bearing on anything else so that was the route we decided to go.
Kellogg loved the new toy, and carried it around. It was pretty huge in his mouth, most of it hanging out, but I knew eventually that wouldn’t be the case and we would be buying bigger and bigger toys.
February 9, 2007
Today when I came home from lunch I had a couple of surprises. The first was I found Kellogg had pushed his way around the right side of the box and the extended box flap to get behind his box and hang out. He didn’t make a mess, which was relieving. That is the whole point of the crate though, is he is not supposed to go potty in there at all. So when Sarah got home she put a spacer box in the open area in back so he didn’t have any leverage to push things around and get back there.
The second was we had two unexpected packages sitting on the front steps. I took them with me on my way back to the office, they were from “Aunt” Brenda, so I knew that they were going to be things for the dog.
When we got home we sat around, took some video, and unwrapped the packages with Kellogg. Brenda sent a cute card of a handful of puppies in a red rider wagon with their paws out. The inside contained well wishes for our new family member, saying she had sent along some stuff to get us started.
Inside we found, two things of treats, one bag of steak flavored and one box of Milkbones, doggie shampoo, a puppy kong and spray cheese, and for us a couple of t-shirts, mine saying “Cereal Killer” with a skull and two spoons, and Sarah’s saying “Made in Michigan”.
Sarah filled up the kong with cheese, and he chased it around some and licked the cheese on the outside, but it was too big for him to get his mouth around. I would have normally not been surprised, but he got his mouth around the tennis ball so I thought he might like this too. When I sat down and really rolled it around to get his attention, he seemed to get into it a little more.
Tonight was also a big night for a different reason, we were having guests. Kenny and Lori were coming over to hang out and meet the puppy. We had really wanted him to meet some other people, and we also really wanted to see what his interaction would be like with guests in the house.
It was not what either of us expected. When they got there he ran away from them right away, back into his crate as his safety zone and then when he ventured out a minute or two later when they weren’t watching, the moment they turned around he started to hide out under the end table. He nuzzled up right next to the couch and the wall, with his back to us like he intended somehow to squeeze into the tiny crack. He sat there, looking up the side of the couch and not at us. Yet another great photo opportunity. His other hiding spot was on top of the beanbag, again, facing away from us sitting on his favorite blanket, uninterested when Kenny got down on all fours to play with him.
It wasn’t until after dinner and we had ordered Kenny and Lori’s laptop that Kellogg started to warm up to them. We got a movie and hung out in the living room and he let Lori pet him a little bit, but it still took another hour or so until he warmed up to Kenny.
He slept a good portion of the night since we weren’t doing much anyway. I think we gave him something that upset his stomach, because he was laying with his head out from underneath the blanket that we were all underneath, and he was stinking us out. I sat there, started to sniff the air, and it was so ripe it was surprising such a smell could come from a little dog. I looked at Lori and asked, “Is that the dog?” She laughed and said “I think so”. I am glad she thought so, and didn’t assume that since I smelt it I dealt it.
February 8, 2007
Today Kellogg went for his first “walk”. This meant Sarah took him on his leash down half of the street running and calling to him most of the way. I think that he was pretty confused about what was supposed to happen. He wanted to follow, but why was there a long strand around his neck, and how long did we do this for? He has a pretty walk and run, his walk is a strong little trot and his run is tentative, I wonder what it will be like when he is older.
And to keep the firsts rolling, tonight was the first night that Kellogg whined at the back door, just a little bit, to go out and go potty. This was really encouraging. Sarah and I had discussed getting a little bell to hang back there, that we would hit for the sound as we went out to train him to do the same when he needed to go. But maybe he would let us know his own way all by himself. Again, what a smart little dog.
