Just Catching Up
11/11/17 05:46
Damn, it's getting cold outside. It was in the twenties yesterday and with a brisk wind to boot. It was just last week when we were outside with tee shirts on cleaning up around the yard. Nancy feels like the window to plant her bulbs is closing fast so we'll see where that takes her today. I am going to hold out hope that we'll have a few more days of moderating temperatures before winter's grip takes hold on the lot of us here in the Northeast. I think I have just enough wood stacked to get us through this winter with an occasional wood stove day but not a sliver more. I should probably call the chimney sweep guys and have them drop by for a cleaning and inspection before we start using the stove in earnest.
I picked up our new Toro snowblower yesterday and that puppy will come in handy for all but the more robust of storms. It replaces my reliable Toro of twenty years or so that died last year after spending really the last few years on life support. Nancy pitches in here and there in the winter with snow removal and her only request was that the machine have an electric start (it does). We picked up the machine midday and stopped by the Mac n' Cheese place next door to pick up some comfort food for dinner where they were having a 2 for 1 deal to celebrate their one-year anniversary. Nancy and I ordered two take-and-bakes: A regular mac and cheese for Nancy and I to split and a taco mac n cheese for Evan.
Believe it or not we are still in transition here at home. The bathroom renovation is done but the flooring in the living room has not yet been done and so things are, needless to say, askew. A lot depends on how quickly things get squared away in the garage since the contents of our living room will need to go into the garage while the flooring gets laid down. The garage, of course, is in a cocked hat as well and has been since I fixed the collapsed drop ceiling in the small room off the garage last week.
Once the ceiling was taken care of I took to cleaning out that little room like a man on a mission. It feels like I have a long way to go as I sit here this morning. I wouldn't say that it keeps me awake at night but I sure do get out of bed every morning thinking about what I can do that day to keep the ball moving. It's somewhat akin to cleaning out a storage room after years of inattention and neglect. All of a sudden, I can see the room in an entirely new light. There will be room to spare when all is said and done and with any luck I'll have space to store not only our bikes but Evan's boxes of starch and protein powder.
I have a large heavy oak desk in that room that needs to go to the recycling center so I'll need to figure out how to make that happen. It reminds me a little bit of my bringing our old treadmill to the Recycling Center not that long ago and the trepidation I felt in having to wrestle it not only into the back of the car but once at the center out of the car and into the bin. It turned out to be a piece of cake when all was said and done so I guess we'll see. There was a dusty old box of old liquor bottles sitting on the floor beneath that old oak desk for the longest time and now that it has been dug out that too will be going to the Center.
Nancy would have me put the bottles, contents and all, in a satchel and would have me throw them in the trash without any regard for the recycling rules in place at the center. The rules are quite clear: no bottles in the trash receptacle. They have bins set up for bottles broken down into categories: clear, brown, green, etc. I'll be emptying out the contents here at home and disposing of the bottles at the Center per the rules Nancy's preferences be damned. I guess it's easy thinking about breaking the rules when you are not the one breaking the rules. The last thing we need is to get banned from the Center for breaking the rules. Our collective gooses would be cooked. COOKED! And then there are the things that are heading to the Center without Nancy's blessing and under the cover of darkness. That is to say, I don't have the patience to have her sift through every piece of paper, every cardboard box, every this and that before she approves the disposal of same. Like I said, a man on a mission. She will just have to trust me to use my judgement in such matters.
The cold weather is coming on so fast that I suppose it's possible that some things will not get the attention they deserve in and around our yard. I need to tend to our back deck, the garden, and then there are a couple of piles of leaves in our front yard that need to get hauled across the street before the first snowfall. Before I forget, why is this damn curtain thing so difficult? We have a new window in our bathroom and we want to put up a shade of sorts but the window framing doesn't have the proper depth or something to allow for that so it is a real WTF moment. Did Nancy not discuss that with the contractor? We're running around in circles going here and there looking for solutions but slowly coming to the realization that what we were hoping to have is just not going to happen. I suppose curtains would be okay but we were really hoping for those shades that we could just pull up and down when needed.
I think I may have fixed this computer issue of mine. You know, the one where the computer screen is clear and bright one moment and has a blue tint and horizontal lines the very next moment. I ordered a video card thinking that was what I needed but when the card arrived the problem became infinitely more sporadic so I decided not to unpack the card in the event I wanted to return it. My Google searches came up empty or with references to the blue screen of death which was clearly not the same issue that I was experiencing. This has been going on for a couple of months now. The computer is usable when the screen turns a bluish tint and Nancy is surprisingly not put off by it so we have just tolerated it with a eye of course to having a fix in the near term.
It happened again yesterday when Nancy was sitting at the computer and I reached behind the computer to snug up the connection thinking that it could be a loose cord and the screen suddenly snapped back to normal. Was that it? Haven't had a problem since so we'll see. You can bet your bottom dollar that if it returns I will be snugging it up again and that will be the true test. This computer is 10 years old now so I will plan to replace it soon. Easy fixes between now and then would be a good thing.
On a more personal note, Mrs G got good news this past week so everyone is delighted to hear that. I told Nancy that we should take her out to dinner to celebrate the good news so we'll plan for that. Tomorrow is brother Wally's (pseudonym) birthday so I will plan to give him a holler and a big shout out on his 59th birthday. He is my brother from another mother but a brother nonetheless. Evan told me this past week that he was getting annoyed not being able to reach me by phone since I typically do not take my shitty Galaxy phone anywhere with me because I just don't like using the damn thing. That was just the impetus I needed to order the new iPhone X and that is precisely what I did. It will be good to have an Apple phone again. The Galaxy was an old phone that I had lying around and certainly one that came in handy after I destroyed my iPhone 6 Plus a couple of years ago by going swimming with it in my pants pocket (dumb shit).
I picked up our new Toro snowblower yesterday and that puppy will come in handy for all but the more robust of storms. It replaces my reliable Toro of twenty years or so that died last year after spending really the last few years on life support. Nancy pitches in here and there in the winter with snow removal and her only request was that the machine have an electric start (it does). We picked up the machine midday and stopped by the Mac n' Cheese place next door to pick up some comfort food for dinner where they were having a 2 for 1 deal to celebrate their one-year anniversary. Nancy and I ordered two take-and-bakes: A regular mac and cheese for Nancy and I to split and a taco mac n cheese for Evan.
Believe it or not we are still in transition here at home. The bathroom renovation is done but the flooring in the living room has not yet been done and so things are, needless to say, askew. A lot depends on how quickly things get squared away in the garage since the contents of our living room will need to go into the garage while the flooring gets laid down. The garage, of course, is in a cocked hat as well and has been since I fixed the collapsed drop ceiling in the small room off the garage last week.
Once the ceiling was taken care of I took to cleaning out that little room like a man on a mission. It feels like I have a long way to go as I sit here this morning. I wouldn't say that it keeps me awake at night but I sure do get out of bed every morning thinking about what I can do that day to keep the ball moving. It's somewhat akin to cleaning out a storage room after years of inattention and neglect. All of a sudden, I can see the room in an entirely new light. There will be room to spare when all is said and done and with any luck I'll have space to store not only our bikes but Evan's boxes of starch and protein powder.
I have a large heavy oak desk in that room that needs to go to the recycling center so I'll need to figure out how to make that happen. It reminds me a little bit of my bringing our old treadmill to the Recycling Center not that long ago and the trepidation I felt in having to wrestle it not only into the back of the car but once at the center out of the car and into the bin. It turned out to be a piece of cake when all was said and done so I guess we'll see. There was a dusty old box of old liquor bottles sitting on the floor beneath that old oak desk for the longest time and now that it has been dug out that too will be going to the Center.
Nancy would have me put the bottles, contents and all, in a satchel and would have me throw them in the trash without any regard for the recycling rules in place at the center. The rules are quite clear: no bottles in the trash receptacle. They have bins set up for bottles broken down into categories: clear, brown, green, etc. I'll be emptying out the contents here at home and disposing of the bottles at the Center per the rules Nancy's preferences be damned. I guess it's easy thinking about breaking the rules when you are not the one breaking the rules. The last thing we need is to get banned from the Center for breaking the rules. Our collective gooses would be cooked. COOKED! And then there are the things that are heading to the Center without Nancy's blessing and under the cover of darkness. That is to say, I don't have the patience to have her sift through every piece of paper, every cardboard box, every this and that before she approves the disposal of same. Like I said, a man on a mission. She will just have to trust me to use my judgement in such matters.
The cold weather is coming on so fast that I suppose it's possible that some things will not get the attention they deserve in and around our yard. I need to tend to our back deck, the garden, and then there are a couple of piles of leaves in our front yard that need to get hauled across the street before the first snowfall. Before I forget, why is this damn curtain thing so difficult? We have a new window in our bathroom and we want to put up a shade of sorts but the window framing doesn't have the proper depth or something to allow for that so it is a real WTF moment. Did Nancy not discuss that with the contractor? We're running around in circles going here and there looking for solutions but slowly coming to the realization that what we were hoping to have is just not going to happen. I suppose curtains would be okay but we were really hoping for those shades that we could just pull up and down when needed.
I think I may have fixed this computer issue of mine. You know, the one where the computer screen is clear and bright one moment and has a blue tint and horizontal lines the very next moment. I ordered a video card thinking that was what I needed but when the card arrived the problem became infinitely more sporadic so I decided not to unpack the card in the event I wanted to return it. My Google searches came up empty or with references to the blue screen of death which was clearly not the same issue that I was experiencing. This has been going on for a couple of months now. The computer is usable when the screen turns a bluish tint and Nancy is surprisingly not put off by it so we have just tolerated it with a eye of course to having a fix in the near term.
It happened again yesterday when Nancy was sitting at the computer and I reached behind the computer to snug up the connection thinking that it could be a loose cord and the screen suddenly snapped back to normal. Was that it? Haven't had a problem since so we'll see. You can bet your bottom dollar that if it returns I will be snugging it up again and that will be the true test. This computer is 10 years old now so I will plan to replace it soon. Easy fixes between now and then would be a good thing.
On a more personal note, Mrs G got good news this past week so everyone is delighted to hear that. I told Nancy that we should take her out to dinner to celebrate the good news so we'll plan for that. Tomorrow is brother Wally's (pseudonym) birthday so I will plan to give him a holler and a big shout out on his 59th birthday. He is my brother from another mother but a brother nonetheless. Evan told me this past week that he was getting annoyed not being able to reach me by phone since I typically do not take my shitty Galaxy phone anywhere with me because I just don't like using the damn thing. That was just the impetus I needed to order the new iPhone X and that is precisely what I did. It will be good to have an Apple phone again. The Galaxy was an old phone that I had lying around and certainly one that came in handy after I destroyed my iPhone 6 Plus a couple of years ago by going swimming with it in my pants pocket (dumb shit).