Say What?

Micauley was doing a project tonight in which everyone in his class had to interview a veteran.  I thought it was odd that it was presumed every student could just “poof” find a veteran to interview, and I said this to Micauley.  He looked at me and said, “well most students’ grandparents were drafted.”  I stood there and thought for a second and started to say your grandparents were not in WWII, then it hit me – Vietnam.  He was talking about “grandparents” who were in Vietnam.  That was WAY bizarre, but I guess every generation has a war that they could have been in (which makes me question some of the decisions being made if every generation has a war).  You don’t believe me?  WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia/Somalia, Afghanistan/Iraq II – every age group falls within this entire range.  However, I’m just used to “grandparents” being in WWII, parents having been in Vietnam and friends of mine being in Iraq (Part I).  It’s just strange to imagine that kids today will literally view Vietnam as a “long ago” war that grandparents are in and that Laos and Cambodia are new resort areas…

Sprinklers Are Fun!

In case you were not aware, automatic sprinklers are fun!  Until we moved into this house the only “sprinkler system” we had was the one I hooked up using timers and hoses and it worked well.  Now the fun is non-stop with blowing out sprinklers, sprinklers not aiming at the right spots, water pressure to the sprinklers, zoning everything, timing specific zones, filling sprinklers up in the Spring, etc… it’s a nightmare, so the point that I’m not sure they are worth it.  I really don’t see much advance to all this over a hose, a timer and a sprinkler head.  Regardless, we have them.  Getting them turned on this year wasn’t difficult, but it was certainly a comedy of errors.  The end result?  I’m off to Home Depot to purchase two new solenoids for zones 1 & 3 – we’ll see how it goes.

Bye, Bye, Bye

No, this is not an official post regarding the fate of the website, it’s about a former employer.  About 10 years ago I worked at the CFP Board.  I would keep in contact with one or two people from there and most of the people I knew had left.  However, there were a few brand new people that even as late as last year were still there.  Today I was trying to locate the actual address of the building, so I got onto their website and it kept showing an address in Washington D.C., which they had a small office in to do legislative lobbying.  Eventually I just gave up trying to locate their address and I called the 800 number.  I asked the guy who answered where they were located and he said Washington D.C., so I clarified, “no I’m looking for the legal department and ethics enforcement department, they are in Denver.”  He responded, “oh, all offices, including those, moved to Washington D.C. in November.”  I responded, “Wow, everyone moved to D.C.?”  “Not really” he said, “most of the people did not come with the move.”  Ouch.  That was a few hundred people who clearly just lost their jobs due to a move.  Even their “employment opportunity” page lists Director-level positions – all the people I had to fight with when I was there, now they are all gone in one swift motion.

T-Minus 1 Day

So there is one day left on the voting and apparently there is a mad rush to “change” votes. Even Micauley who was the first to vote “no” has changed his mind and prefers the new website. On the downside I have been trying for days to edit the code on the original website to get the banner across the top. No luck so far. Aside from all the fun stuff the new site does, I’m drawn to keep the old one for two reasons. First I get to play with the code a lot more than with the new one and honestly I enjoy that. Second, the old one is hosted by Aaron so I would prefer to maintain it there if at all possible, if only because I have so little contact with him now it’s just a way to keep that going. Not that I think changing where a website is hosted would do that, but you know…

Did I already post about the Linton Spring Fling? Tiffany headed up a big fund-raising event at the school this past Friday. They only do it every two years and it was a giant success. I’m very proud of her. It was a carnival, food concession and silent auction, all rolled into one. Now of course that means we have “left over materials” across the house, but tomorrow being Micauley’s 14^th birthday we have people coming over, so magically the entire house will be clean! J

Alright, we are watching How I Met Your Mother – second best show in the past decade.

I Got Nothin'

The title says it all.  I have absolutely nothing to talk about, but yet, I post anyway.  You’re welcome.  Our house looks like the basket fairy threw-up in it.  And I don’t know what Tiffany is doing, but it’s 10:30 at night and the blow-dryer is on (and she doesn’t blow-dry her hair).  She’s nuts, which incidentally is why our house has the aforementioned basket fair waste…  Tomorrow is the PTO’s “Spring Fling”, which loosely translates into the fund-raising equivalent of the “everything bagel”.  What?  Too many metaphors (or similes for all those English teachers out there).  Well, it’s true in this case.  It’s a silent auction and mystery balloons, and games and raffles, etc… You name it and they are probably doing it tomorrow.  I’d give you more of a description but I’d have to ask Tiffany and that would require she stop working, which ain’t gonna happen.

 

Almost got our sprinklers back on – two stations don’t want to turn on, but they will turn on manually.  So at least I know there is no physical damage, but I’m hoping they wouldn’t turn on because of the “flood” in the box – oh yeah, by the way, there is a valve that opens in the box that you must shut before you turn the water back on, otherwise you end up with lots of water in the box.  I hear that’s not good.

 

Micauley has a friend sleeping over tonight – yup on a Thursday.  I don’t know many of the details and I suspect I should because the story I have is it’s too hard to get up in the morning so they thought he’d do better here.  Ummm?  Ah, I won’t even post my thought on that.  Overall a good day.

Prep School

The weekend is about over and it has dawned on me that preparation is what I do.  I prepare for things, sometimes I even do them, but mostly I prepare.  Trials?  Sure, I love doing them.  They are one of my favorite things, and even though I get to do lots of them, they are but a small fraction of the number I prepare for, as most resolve before trial.  But, they must all be prepared for, just like all the others.  Outside of work?  The same thing.  We are going to Europe again at the end of the summer, but for months and months I have been “preparing”.  Whether it’s looking at apartments online, or reading about the cities, researching local dress and even as boring as downloading “packing lists” – I do it all and enjoy it.  Today, I even practice packed – yup, I’m that exciting.  Why you may ask?  Well, stuffing 21 days worth of clothing and stuff into a carry-on suitcase has its obstacles, so if I needed to revise what I was packing or even give up on getting everything into one carry-on, I needed to know now so I still had time to fix it.  Turns out my planning was good and it worked relatively well.  I guess that’s good, but now what do I plan for?

 

On a different note – have you tried skype?  It’s pretty cool.  Download the program and within minutes you are doing video phone conferences with friends and family – free!  However, I suspect it will become about as annoying as IMing people.  I recall during the brief period when I did that – you are always looking to see how is “online” so you can send them a message.  Well, same thing with skype (www.skype.com).  You can talk to people, but they must be online.  Sure you could call them first, but what’s the point in calling someone to tell them to get online for a video call?  That’s like emailing or texting someone and asking them to call you right back – if you’ve got something to say, say it in the email or text!!!!  If I’ve got something to ask you, I’ll ask you on the phone, no video call needed!!!

 

We also watched movie #3 in Tiffany’s selection from last week.  Recall move #1 about competitive siblings, with divorce and sex with the babysitter thrown in for good measure, all with a bizarre ending.  Followed by Two Weeks, which we shall not talk about, but you can go read the other blog entry if you need to refresh.  Tonight’s light-hearted romp was about a man who married the woman of his dreams and then cheated on her with some Japanese woman, she found out about it, wrote him a letter pretending to me the other woman just because she wanted to be loved by him, then she got sick and died.  Yeah, fun!!!!  I believe there is an anti-fun section at Blockbuster that Tiffany stumbled upon.  Little does she realize I will go rent 4 movies next week and they will all feature Will Farrell, Mike Meyers or Bruce Willis – because in my movies there will only be ridiculously juvenile humor, no drama, over-emphasized sexual innuendos or lots of crap getting blown up – or all of these if I happen to run across Moonlighting on DVD.  There will be no love stories where people die, no families torn apart by cancer and definitely not a combo - love story where someone dies from cancer.

 

In fact, is there any way I can watch a comedy movie with other people on Skype about Italy?

FW: Are You Kidding Me?

The recent winner of the “Are You Kidding Me Award” goes to makers of “premium” undershirts.  Through a series of events it was determined that I needed to purchase better undershirts.  Yes, I know you can’t see them, but apparently you can see about 2 inches of the collar if you are not wearing a tie, so therefore they can be noticed very easily by most females – I’ll assume most guys are not checking out my undershirt and judging me based on the thread count of a neck band.  Ok, so maybe some new undershirts were in order (at least to replace the ones that have had holes burnt into them from all the bleach I use in cleaning them), but the particular ones we ended up looking at were ridiculously expense (I think) – especially considering what they do – sit under another shirt.  You are in essence purchasing a 2 inch display from under your shirt.  Ridiculously expense you ask?  I’ll just say that we went to the outlet store to see if they sold them for less than the retail store – they do.  But, if a pack of three undershirts is $5 less at the outlet store and that is not a 50%, 40%, 30% or even 20% discount, then that’s insane.  $5 off should be a 100% discount for undershirts – ok, maybe 50% off.  You think I’m going to purchase one pack of undershirts for that much?  No, I refuse!!!!  Ok, I own two packs now…

Colorado

You're from Colorado if----

When the weather report says it's going to be 55 degrees, you wear shorts and sandals.

It snows 5 inches and you don't expect school to be cancelled.

Your sense of direction is: Toward the mountains and Away from the mountains.

You think that May is a totally normal month for a blizzard.

You plan your Halloween costumes around your coat.

You wake up to a beautiful, 80 degree day and you wonder if it's going to snow tomorrow.

You don't care that some company renamed it the Broncos still play at Mile High.

You actually know that South Park is a real place not just a show on TV.

You've been to the original Chipotle or Big City Burrito.

When people out East tell you they have mountains in their state too, you just laugh.

T-Minus 11 Days

Yes, there are just 11 days left until “Blog Decision 2008” and for the first time the exit polls are showing “keep it” in the lead. 

 

Yes, the last post was deleted, apparently it was too “saucy” for everyone’s delicate sensibilities.  Ok, it may have contained a joke that was probably inappropriate for me to post for everyone, including my kids, but hey, who would have thought there were Parent Police wandering around – oh wait, I did know that didn’t I?  Well then, who would have thought there were heartless Nazi Parenting Police (I know, I’ve actually been called that before too, but I don’t think I’ll come up with any good ones that I haven’t heard before).

White vs. Black - Priceline.com Style

I’ve never used Priceline.com before, though I have looked at it a number of times.  My problem has been that normally when we are looking at a hotel or flight I’m picky enough that I don’t want to just stay anywhere.  However, I’ve been looking around for a place to stay the night before Tiffany and I fly out to Italy.  Last time we went hotels were cheap and we stayed somewhere for $32 – that’s right.  Same hotel was showing $125 per night and it’s nothing fancy, just what I would consider an “average” hotel room.  So I’ve been looking and looking, still nothing.  In fact the best deal I had seen was $71 but it was not a very nice place.  So I went onto Priceline.com and finally figured why not try it.  Tiffany and I aren’t very picky about this hotel.  We want a place to stay the night before we fly out, so really any hotel around DIA will work.  They let pick the “star level” of the hotel and the general area, but that’s it.  So, I went with a 3 out of 4 star level hotel, which they show the average price being $160 a night (plus you can see all of the hotels listed, so you know you are limited to those hotels).  At first I entered a price of $75, figuring I’d start low and then slowly go up to try to get the best price.  Right before I hit enter, I noticed all of their ads flashing, save up to 50% off of retail.  Hmmm,  Well, 50% of the average is $80, so maybe to make sure I’ll start really ridiculously low so that I know I’ll get rejected and then slowly go up.  Fine, so I change it to $50 and submit.  15 seconds later I’ve purchased a hotel room for $50.  This makes me VERY nervous, as in, hold on, you just purchased the hotel room our editors marked as “3 star” in a fit of rage right before they quit, when in reality it’s a 1 star dump with wires sticking out of the walls.  I pulled up the website to the hotel and tried to check the three most important things I could think of:  1) What do the rooms look like, 2) How far away from the Airport is it and does it have shuttle service, and 3) What is the normal price?

 

You know this could go either way don’t you?  I could be telling everyone how happy I am or how screwed we got.  Which was it?  Rooms are very nice, it’s 15 minutes from the Airport with complimentary shuttle service 24 hours a day and the “guaranteed lowest prices” listed on their website are $180 a night.  So, I’m very happy – but it still will be a while before I use it again, I just can’t deal with the “unknown” factor when buying something.

Two Weeks

We just watched the movie “Two Weeks”.  The acting was amazing and so was the writing.  Really there wasn’t much from a technical standpoint that I could criticize, however I never want to see it again, nor would I recommend anyone watch it.  In short, the “two weeks” is the two weeks a group of siblings are together while their mother dies of cancer – I think Tiffany found it in the comedy or children’s section.  As good as I thought all of the elements of the movie were, it further strengthens my belief that is not what I see movies for – 1 guy taking on an entire army and winning, sure; a hilarious story about a road trip, yup; mystical plots of elves, orgs and vampires, check.  A realistic take on a family dealing with their mother dying, um, I’m good, why don’t you catch me in a couple hours when you are done.

Change Me

So three votes, only one person has been willing to enter a vote – though I don’t count Micauley’s vote anyway!!!  The other feedback has been… not happy.  Why is it so narrow/small?  Are there dates on there?  The pictures were nice.  Put the Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler... back up there, etc…  I don’t know if those are growing pains that can be fixed or if they are fatal flaws.  I’ll keep trying to update and see if I can find answers.  if not – well, http://theayrauds.servebeer.com is still there!!!!  And actually I still visit it every day.

 

(oh, and we’ll see if the fonts go through – I’m trying it on email again and the font is screwing all up)

Round II

As you’ll see there is a “slide show” function on the webpage.  Once I can get this piece of crap up and working, we’ll see if that works.  We’ll also see if an even more interesting feature works – email posting.  You see, the post you are reading was actually just written as an email.  I then send it to a “special” email address and it automatically posts.  Now you don’t even have to have web access, just be able to send an email and you can post…

 

Today was a crazy day for Tiffany, soccer, piano, soccer, laminating, book club, PTO meetings, etc… In fact she is passed out asleep on the couch right now (ok, she’s done that for 4 out of the past 5 nights, but tonight she probably has a reason).  April is always a killer month for us as my birthday is like a starting gate of 4 or 5 birthdays all together – in fact From April 22^nd to May 8^th there are 4 birthdays – what the hell happens in mid-July???  Ah, vacation season…

I Just Work Here

What the hell did he do to the website you ask? Why is it taking so long for a post? Well, I've been playing around trying to update the website and add features. The problem is that I never had a place on the web to actually save pictures, videos, etc... so that I can post them. For years Aaron has been very nice about letting me use his server to "park" all my ramblings, and in case you didn't notice, almost all of the stuff on the website are actually embedded pictures from someone else's website.

So, I'm looking at google and seeing if their blogger site is the answer - so far it's not.

Anyway, during the week or so that I've posted nothing, I've been very busy celebrating yet another birthday. All resulting in one giant conclusion - I'm too old to celebrate two days in a row. Sad, but true. Ever since Thursday our house has been very entertaining, but our patience has greatly declined, I suspect because of all the "celebrating"...

I had a big day yesterday - though I can't really say why. So why mention it? Because that's the kind of guy I am...