Blog Number 353

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I started the year out so well but it has been a week and a half since the last blog.  I really have not been any busier than normal.  I guess I just don't have anything exciting to talk about.  Today was Panera Saturday and as such we headed over to the Half Prices Books store afterwards.  We spent our budgeted $20 there.  I was able to find Jennifer Knapp's "The Way I Am" CD on the clearance rack for $3.  This completes my collection of her studio albums.  She has a Best Of CD along with a Live CD available but I will likely not buy those (or should I say unless I see them on the clearance rack).  I almost bought a couple of Lyle Lovett CDs but they looked pretty scratched up and not worth the risk.  While they do have a Half Priced Books store in Indianapolis, this is one thing I will miss about Texas (so many of these stores near me).  I have been trying to think about things that I will miss about Texas once we move.  I cannot think of many that I will miss about Texas (other than the obvious - Texas friends and Texas weather - it was -10° in Kokomo one day this week).  I can however think of a lot of things that we will not miss (like traffic on SH121) so I still think this is a good time to move back.  It is hard to believe that we will be back in less than 3 weeks.

There have been a lot of cut backs at my employer (like almost every other employer in the US) and I have lost a lot of co-workers in the past few months.  I lost another one this past week.  I can only describe my feelings as those of people returning from tribal council on the TV show Survivor.  You are sad that someone is gone but you are glad that you are still around.  Some of the people that are no longer with me were truly good workers, they were just on the wrong tribe.  It seems that no matter what they did to endear themselves to the company, it was inevitable that they would be let go.  I fear that there are others cutbacks coming down the pipe so this is probably not over yet.

I have absolutely no plans for this 3 day weekend although I do have a few hours work to do before Sunday night for work.  We are stocked up on "I Love Lucy" Season 1 DVDs from the Frisco library so we are set for family entertainment.  Next week should be busy as we are getting with friends for a final get together before we leave.  Well the wife is on her way back from the dog park and it is almost lunch time.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 352

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

It seems like our family is just waiting for January to be over so we can get on to the next phase of our life back in Indiana.  Seems like a perfectly good waste of a fine month (and our last warm January for a long time) but so be it.  We did manage to toss out most of our VHS movies (noting which ones we want to replace with DVDs) and our VCR.  This is the continuing process of deciding what we really want / need and what is just excess baggage in our lives.  The movies that made our "to be replaced with DVDs" list are...

• Runaway Bride
• An Affair to Remember
• Monsters, Inc.
• The Prince of Egypt
• Searching for Bobby Fischer

All but Monsters, Inc. can be replaced for $10 or less (new) but we have no immediate plans to buy the replacement DVDs.  Maybe we will get lucky and find them at our favorite pawn shop back in Kokomo (crosses fingers).

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My (Wife's) New Cell Phone

 

This is supposed to be a map of Greece around the time of Christ.  It was drawn by our ABF teacher this week on the white board in our classroom.  I have added a real map of Greece as a reference.  I will let you be the judge.

The daughter bought this bracelet kit today with some of her leftover Christmas money.  Notice how big the box is compared to the contents.  I have this feeling that sometime later this week or next I will be the proud owner of a new, homemade bracelet that I will be required to wear to work at least one day.  I will have to let you know how it turns out.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 351

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

It is good to get back into the old routine of getting up, getting ready and getting to work.  Except today that did not happen.  The son woke up this morning not feeling well at all.  He did not eat much of a lunch yesterday and we did not have dinner last night (as is typical for us on a Sunday).  After an hour or so of the wife and I attempting to convince him that he was sick due to having nothing on his stomach he finally ate a half piece of toast.  The kids had a dentist appointment scheduled for 10:30 and so I promised the wife I would work from home until they opened and she could call to see if they could reschedule.  If they could not reschedule before we leave for Indiana, then I was going to stay home until she and the daughter got back from their appointment.  Fortunately they could fit them both in next week and so I headed to work.  The car was covered with ice so I had to let it warm up a little.  The roads were not bad at all really and I rolled into work around 9 (ish).  By the time I got home though, the front tree looked like this...

You might have to click on the picture to appreciate the ice hanging off of it.  It was just 2 days ago I was walking home from the neighbors at 10 at night in shorts and a t-shirt for heaven's sake!  Maybe this is just to let us get used to the Indiana weather that we will have to endure after we move.

I managed to shoot a 300 game at Wii bowling last night (and again tonight).  I think I will give the PBA (Professional Bowler's Association) a call.  I am very impressed with how well Nintendo did with the bowling game on the Wii.  Of course it is a lot easier than real bowling but the pin action is very realistic.  I find myself knowing what pin I am going to leave once I "let go" of the ball.  Even on the slow motion replay of your shots, the pin action is very close to what happens in real bowling.  Bravo Nintendo!  Well I only have a little bit of day left before the wife falls asleep on me and she wants to watch a show on the computer.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 350

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it is just after 9 in the morning and I have accomplished all that I need to accomplish today.  This many days off in a row makes me a little restless.  Our dog decided that we all needed to be up from 2 to 3 this morning so I am feeling a little groggy.  She did let us sleep until 6:30 though but I tend to get a headache when I am in bed past 6 so I got that going too.  Aspirin doesn't help this kind of headache.  The only cure I know is noon.

Only 34 days to go until we arrive back in Indiana.  We only have one big (city provided) trash can so we are limited on how much we can throw away weekly.  I noticed a lot of the neighbor's trash bins were severely overflowing last week (after Christmas).  The trash truck uses this arm like thing to grab the trash containers so if your trash isn't in that container then it does not get taken away.  Because of this we have to plan our throwing away of things precisely.  The cheap beds we bought the kids are not going back with us so yesterday I had some fun taking the son's bed apart (using brute force and hitting it against a brick pillar on our back porch at times).  Parts of that bed were made very well while other parts were not.  The son is now sleeping on his mattress on the floor and now the daughter is upset that she HAS to sleep on her bed and has begged me several times this morning to destroy her bed as well.  If it would fit in our trash bin I would but there isn't any room left.  We have someone who is taking our couch and another person who is going to take our TV (both were purchased down here in TX).  The TV person has mentioned (bragged) before about having never paid for a TV in his life (he is my age) so I am keeping his streak alive I guess.  I threw out a scanner / printer / copier thing that quit working and also threw out my cheap LP player (that was missing a needle).  I am hoping to fit in the same size U-haul truck as when I moved down here so if I don't need something, it is going in the trash or going to someone who will come and take it away.

We are heading down the street to the neighbor's tonight to watch the Colts play the Chargers tonight.  As soon as the Colts scheduled playoff game was known, I quickly went on the lookout for a friend who would let us come over to watch the game.  I had to be careful since the Cowboys missed the playoffs so I called upon my only neighbor who is a Saints fan.  They are used to not making the playoffs so their period of mourning after the regular NFL season is shorter.  If the Colts win this week I might be able to find a Cowboys fan's house to go to to watch next weekend's game.  Maybe it would just be easier to sign up for cable (nah).

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 349

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I am really enjoying my (daughter's) new camera.  It takes 8 MP pictures and since my old one was only a 4 MP, this one makes my pictures look a lot better.  Being the cheap person that I am, I decided to go with the same brand (Kodak) as my old one solely since they accept the same rechargeable battery.  Of course they do not use the same docking station so the only way to charge the battery is to take it out of her camera and put it in my old one and then dock it.  So basically my old camera has been reduced to a battery holder solely for charging but it served me well for the few years that I have had it.

It was a little foggy when I woke up this morning...

I thought the Christmas lights looked pretty cool through the fog (and any excuse to use the new camera will do).  This house belongs to the neighbors across the street.  We did not get to know them that well but we do know that they are from Sweden and have been in Texas about as long as we have.  The son plays with their 13 year old a lot of the time and sometimes the daughter will play with their other son who is 4.  Last year when we first moved in he was a little difficult to understand as when he talked he combined baby talk with English and Swedish.  His mother had to translate usually.

The son took some of his Christmas money and bought a nerf-like gun that shoots little suction cup rockets...

This is a zoomed in photo of our light fixture that is about 12 foot off the ground.  I shot these two darts up there as the son promised me that (eventually) they would come down.  I shot these up there around noon yesterday and had to swat at them this morning while standing on the dining room table.  I suppose they would have fallen down eventually but I had to get them down before the wife noticed (though standing on the table did make her suspicious).

The wife is in full move mode now (though we are still 30+ days away).  She has lots of ideas on where we should live when we get to Kokomo.  She tends to swing from idea to idea very quickly as well.  So far this morning we have gone from living in my mother's house for a few weeks while we look for a home to calling a local builder (that call alone is deserving of a blog really but the wife does not blog and she needs to tell it really).  From there we thought about renting a house that some friends of ours have open until July and then we moved on to talking about calling her architect friend and designing a house.  All this before 11 AM as well!  I just make hand motions like I am riding a roller coaster and wait for the next big idea.  I am sure she might have a few more ideas before the week (or day) is over.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 348

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

The first day of this year started about like any other.  Namely, the dog woke us up very early demanding attention and breakfast (not sure which order she prefers them in though I think she probably has no preference).  She did wait until 6 AM though compared to 5 most mornings.  Since we did not get to bed until around 1 AM, I am thinking we are going to crash and burn early this afternoon.  This is not good as we are supposed to go 2 doors down for New Year's Eve party leftovers and college football.  The wife is going to do lunch around noon with some other friends so our 2009 is starting out very social.  That is one thing the wife and I have really learned during our time in Texas, how to be social.  Back in Indiana we always had family to hang out with or call on if we had a need.  Down here we had to rely on friends (good friends) for all of our support.  We got plugged into a great Sunday School class and have plugged in nicely (thanks mostly to the wife) with our neighbors near the house that we are in now.  I think it will be harder to leave behind all these folks in Texas than it was to leave our Hoosier friends (our lifelong Hoosier friends) a little over 2 years ago.

I don't really have any New Year's resolutions.  I have heard other people say that they only have one resolution and that was not to make any resolutions.  Perhaps I should make a resolution not to make a resolution not to make resolutions.  This will allow me to make a resolution later if I feel the need and allow me to say that I actually made a resolution.  I know that I am not going to make a resolution to blog 100 times in 2009.  When the guys were talking last night, we agreed that we welcomed the passing of 2008 since the economy turned so sour.  One guy though mentioned that we might look back this time next year and hope that 2009 was as good as 2008.

Anyway, here's to you faithful reader and here's hopin' your 2009 will be great and as always...

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon

Blog Number 347

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it seems I will fall short of the century mark for blog entries this year.  I don't recall making this a goal so I guess I should be satisfied with 98 (or so) blogs.  The insurance payout / lawsuit as a result of the April crash is progressing nicely and we should hopefully have it all cleared up before we move back to Indiana in February.  We are heading to the next door neighbor's house for a New Year's Eve get together with some other folks on our street.  The son is looking forward to staying up until midnight.  Last year was the first year that he made it (awake) into the new year.  He has been talking about extending his streak to two.  The daughter (7) has no aspirations nor can she see any reason not to go to bed when she gets tired (like every other night of the year).  Maybe the peer pressure will get to her but I honestly don't think she could make it if she tried (short of a caffeine boost sometime late evening).  We will see.

It is time to clear out the 2008 cell phone pics (from the wife's phone remember)...

Random Bad Quality Pictures With My (Wife's) New Cell Phone

  

The dog and I have this ritual every morning (and evening).  It seems that her chew bone is much more tasty and satisfying if it is enjoyed while being chewed on my feet.  If I move (or even adjust my feet) she simply picks up her bone and relocates to wherever my feet are.  This is a little painful at times but I allow her this small pleasure for a few minutes each day.

Tiger (the cat) has lost a little weight in the last few months since we put him on some light cat food.  He protested at first but when he figured out that was all he was getting, he ate it willingly.  This photo does not really give you a few of his shrinking gut so you will have to trust me on this one.

This pic is a few days old (duh) but we have started using this small chalkboard as a countdown to our move to Indiana (currently set at 37 days).

I don't usually put pics of other people on my blog but I wanted to share this one with you.  This is from a few weeks ago during the morning church service at the church that we attend.  The girl on the third row is actually playing a Nintendo DS.  This is not the first service that I have seen her doing this   I am not sure which is the greater sin (playing Nintendo during church or posting a picture of someone playing Nintendo DS during church on a blog).  I am voting for the former.

Well the wife just delivered a large bowl of hot oatmeal.  Feliz Año Nuevo!

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon