Mike's Place

Changes

2011-10-02T13:29:00.002-05:00

Starting now! I have turned on moderation due to the stupid items sent to my email from the comments section on my blog. No disrespect intended for actual people that visit here, but I'm tired of getting dumb email comment notifications to make my penis larger or ones that appear in martian type language. So, with that said, if any "real" people visit here and have a comment, go for it. All you other lazy aholes...stay away!

Time

2010-09-25T18:33:00.010-05:00

It's been quite a long time since I last posted anything here. I just haven't felt like posting. I have done a few projects since my last post though. For one thing I now live in a house instead of an apartment. But, more to the point of this post. I thought I'd show off a couple things that I have done. First is a helicopter model that I got last Christmas and finally got done sometime in June or July, the second is a motorcycle kit that I got several years ago when the hobby shop that I had been using went out of business. They aren't museum quality as my skills just aren't what they used to be. But I did have fun putting them together and also enjoy displaying them with the rest of the models I have put together over the years. Till next time, BYE!!

Photo Meme

2010-05-01T14:38:00.002-05:00

I'm a bit late in posting this but here go's.
This is a photo meme that I was tagged to do by Barb at Skittles Place.

This is the 8th photo from the 8th folder in my pictures directory. This photo was taken in the spring/summer of 2009. It was used in a Craigslist ad for some camping gear that we had but didn't use anymore. Yes, it did sell, and the people that bought it were going to use it that next weekend on a camping trip. So there you have it, my photo meme completed. I was supposed to tag 8 other people to do this, but since I haven't blogged for quite awhile, I won't do that. Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2009-12-07T17:49:00.010-05:00

This weeks theme for the Heads or Tails meme is "One". For this I'll post some pics of the "One" project I've been working on since before Thanksgiving. I'm surprised that it has taken this long, but with working 10 or 11 hour days, I just didn't have the energy or was waiting for certain parts of this project to get done before I could begin the next step to completing it. This "One" project is something that I got last Christmas and just hadn't gotten it put together till now. It is an 06' Mustang. I think it turned out pretty good. So, here are a few pics of my "One" project.

That's it for this post. Oh, to the folks that took the time to visit my last Heads or Tails post and I didn't pay your blog a visit, I apologize, I was just plain tired after going back to work for a full week after being off for 3 weeks. I'll try harder to visit those who visit me this week. Till next time BYE!!!

Head or Tails

2009-11-30T20:38:00.004-05:00

The theme for this weeks Heads or Tails meme is "Proud". For this I will post a picture. It's a picture that was made possible by the purchase of our home a few months ago. When we lived in the apartment, I didn't really have room to show off the things (hobbies) that I enjoy doing. Now that we have a home I do. The home has 3 bedrooms, 1 in which we sleep, the other 2 are used for our computer/hobby. Mrs Skittles and I each have our own room now to do things we like to do without interfering with the others activities. She doesn't even get after me to clean it up lol. Partly because I still have a lot of tools in my room while I fix things around the house. I also have a few storage bin/containers and a work table that we got from a flea market a few months ago that I use for my projects/hobby. So, to make this post relevant, I will post a picture of the bookcase that I have filled with model cars that I built and collected over the years. I am proud of these in that I built them myself. Not the ones I bought all put-together that is, but the ones I put together from kits. As a matter of fact I am working on one as we speak. I seem to have slowed down these days as it is taking longer than expected to get it done. I'll post a pic of it when I get it finished. OH, just to let you know, the cars on the top shelf of the bookcase are the ones that I bought that were put together already, the others were kits. The models I have put together may not be museum quality, but I am proud of them nonetheless. So here goes it. Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2009-11-15T23:14:00.018-05:00

It's been a long time since I last posted. I kind of got out of blogging for some reason. I still had things to say but didn't post any of it. So, maybe I'll try it again and see how it goes.

Skittles and I took a little trip this past weekend. I've been laid off from work for 2 weeks now with another one to go. I don't particularly like not working, but with the economy the way it is I guess I should be glad it hasn't been worse for me than it has been. In any case I'll take the 3 weeks off.

With being laid off and all we decided that our trip would be somewhat shorter (closer to home). So after some planning we decided to head to Pennsylvania. It's a beautiful state to begin with, with mountains and such to look at and also some pretty interesting sites to see. We decided also that since we were going there to visit Jeni from the Down River Drivel blog. Skittles has been talking to her on the phone and we figured since it really wasn't out of our way we would get to meet her.

The first order of our trip planning was a base of operations so to speak. We decided that Altoona Pa would do. It's kinda in the middle of the state and would give us easy access to all the places we wanted to see.

The first place we decided to see was the crash site of Flight 93 from the 9/11 series of terrorist attacks that happened. This site is in the middle of a big field in farm country. It's not really that far from the PA turnpike, but it was the most southern place we were going to see, so we started there and worked our way northward to other places on our list.

It's a bit sobering to visit such places. To know that people gave their lives to protect others from being harmed. A selfless act to be sure. It's nice to know that people haven't forgotten those brave souls. Many people still visit this site and with good reason too. It isn't everyday that things like this happen.

After we got done seeing this site, we decided to make a little detour and see something that we saw a sign for on the road to the Flight 93 site. It was a covered bridge. It isn't something you see everyday and both Skittles and I like to see these reminders of a bygone era. It had been refurbished with new foundations to sit on but otherwise looked pretty original. It was originally built in 1881.

Our next stop was the site of the Johnstown flood of 1889. The dam that burst and caused this horrific tragedy was actually 14 miles upstream from the town of Johnstown. There is still the remaining sidewalls of the dam that are visible. Any structures that were there are gone, and there is a railroad line running along the base of what was a lake, but you can get a sense of how big this lake was by seeing the area around it. As I have read, this lake was about 2 mile long and about a mile across and 60 ft deep at the dam. This should give you an idea about how much water headed downstream. It destroyed several other smaller communities on it's way to Johnstown also.

This pretty much concluded our first day of sightseeing as we were a bit tired and needed to get something to eat, so off to our base of operations it was(Motel6 makes for a cheap base of operations for us lol)

Our last day there we stopped by the famous Horseshoe curve near Altoona. It's really a railroad fans thing to see. As the name implies, it's shaped like a horseshoe and is a neat engineering feat for a railroad to accomplish. It curves around a mountain and to see it upclose you would have to take either the new tram that was installed or walk up 197 steps to the viewing area. As you see it from the parking area, the viewing area looks to be about halfway up the mountainside that it's on. Well worth it if you're a railroad buff. Unfortunately, it was closed for the season and we weren't able to get up to the viewing area. But I did take a few pics to give you and idea what it's like. We then stopped by the railroad museum in Altoona. We also got to see much of the huge railyard and work facilities that was once owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It's amazing to think that at one time this facility and a few others nearby hired over 15,000 people to repair and build rail cars and locomotives.

Then it was time to head home, but not before a stop to meet a friend. Skittles had phoned and talked to Jeni before so we had her address. I have to tell you, having a GPS unit in your car as you travel can be a good thing. You can find just about anything with these little gadgets. Actually it wasn't hard to find Jeni's house anyway. So we stopped and visited for a nice talk and some coffee. We also got to meet her daughter and grandchildren. We also got to see the new kittens and her dog Sammy.

The trip home was pretty uneventful which is good. We stopped a few times to stretch our legs and get a bite to eat. We were home by about 11:30 pm and concluded another trip. Till next time BYE!!

Field where Flight 93 crashed

Looking at what's left of one side of the Johnstown dam

Where Lake Conamaugh "was"

Looking from the other side of dam, we were on the top of the actual dam

Looking at Horseshoe curve from the parking area

Travel

2009-04-14T13:56:00.004-05:00

On our most recent vacation, Barb and I decided that since we were going to go into Oklahoma and see some sights, we were going to be close enough to Texas to just dip into the state to add it to the number of states that I have visited. This little foray into Oklahoma and Texas brings the number of states that I have been in to 40, 41 if you count Washington DC. Whoohooo! Maybe I'll get up the gumption to post a few pics from our last vacation too. We went to Shiloh National Battlefield in Tennessee and the Winding Steps scenic road through some mountains in Oklahoma. We also visited a blogger friend of Barbs in Missouri. A long trip but that's how Barb and I do our vacations. Till nest time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2009-04-13T21:58:00.005-05:00

Guess what, I'm participating in a "heads or tails" post! It's the first post I've made in quite a while. This week's theme is "reason". So I'm posting a picture of my puppy Hannah for it. The "reason" I'm posting this picture is because we(Barb and I) had our puppy Hannah out for a little sun and fun and I took some photos of her as she was playing. We even let her wade in the small pond we have in back of our apartment. I liked this picture so much that I use it for my wallpaper. One of the "reasons" I liked this picture so much is that my puppy looks so neat in this pose.
She is now 16 weeks old now and we've had her since she was 6 weeks old.

Interesting

2008-06-03T17:10:00.001-05:00

Barb over at Skittles Place had me try this neat little personality test. It was pretty easy and I'm a bit surprised at the answer. Go try it if you want :)

http://www.cmi-lmi.com/kingdomality.html

Your distinct personality, The Doctor might be found in most of the thriving kingdoms of the time. Your emotions and feelings are reality based. You are not misled with half formed ideas nor are you given to radical or high risk experimentation. You follow the tried and true and do not waste time thinking about things that cannot be seen, touched, heard, felt or smelled. On the positive side, you can become an exceptional expert in your particular area of the helping professions. You can deliver and maintain consistent and beneficial service to others. You do not lose sight of the reality of the situation and can usually control your own emotions. On the negative side, your emotions may want to be sensually satisfied which might lead to too much food, drink or other sensual pleasures. Interestingly, your preference is just as applicable in today's corporate kingdoms.

Heads or Tails

2008-05-19T15:12:00.003-05:00

This weeks "Heads or Tails" meme theme is "Peace or Piece". For this week I think I'll chose the former, Peace.

I'll start by telling you about part of the trip Skittles and I took a few weeks ago. We went to see the Rocky Mountains. What a beautiful sight they were indeed. There were several places that were so "peace"ful that we were just awestruck by it. The one that really comes to mind though was on the road that takes you to see the Royal Gorge. On this road which twists and turns up the mountains to get to the gorge there were several places where you could pull your car over and have a picnic. These places had picnic benches and beautiful scenery. We stopped at one to have lunch before going on to the gorge. When we got out of the car we beheld some very pretty scenes. You could look out from our vantage point and see many mountains surrounding the area. The other thing that struck us was the quietness there. There wasn't any sound other than the wind or the very seldom passing car. It was just so "peace"ful there that it made you want to stay forever.

That's my post for this week. I wish you could all have been there (not at the same time mind you lol) so you could enjoy it for yourselves. Till next time BYE!!

Camera Critters

2008-05-04T10:14:00.003-05:00

It's time for another installment of Camera Critters. It's easy to play this meme as you just need to take a pic of a critter and post it. I took this photo during our last trip. We had stopped early in the morning at a rest stop in Nebraska the second day of our ride. This is part of what the scenery looked like there.

Change

2008-05-03T23:14:00.002-05:00

On the bottom of my blog I have a map of states that I have visited. I have updated it to reflect the 2 new states that I have visited since I last updated it. One of those states is of course Colorado, the other new state is Kansas. So, I'm getting the map filled up and some day maybe I'll get it all filled lol. Till next time BYE!!

The Trip

2008-05-03T22:05:00.017-05:00

As most of you know by reading Skittles blog that we took a trip this past week. We went to Colorado first where we went to see the Rocky Mountain National Park, then headed south of there where we spent the night within easy sight of Pikes Peak. The next day we headed over to see the Royal Gorge (something I thought I'd never get to see). We ended up trying to make it to another National park only to think it would be better to make our way home ( we were kinda running out of time and the extra distance would have meant extra travel time). We made out way towards home with a neat stop in Hannibal Missouri. Hannibal is the boyhood home of one Samuel Clemens, better known by his writing name of Mark Twain. We got to see some very neat things there including going on a river boat ride. I've put up some pics for you to enjoy. I hope the mountain pics do the majestic Rocky Mountains justice. For this installment I'll only include the Mountain and Gorge pics. I'll post later with the Hannibal pics as I don't want to take up too much space. Till next time BYE!!

Pikes Peak as seen from the corner of our hotel

As a side note, I shrunk the pics so they would load faster, so if you click on them, they will come up a bit bigger.

Damndest Thing

2008-04-20T10:47:00.004-05:00

It's funny in a way. This has to do with the "new" car I have. When we looked at it at the dealer, it looked like it was a tan or dark tan color. Maybe it was the lighting as it was a bit overcast that day. When I saw it again to pick it up, it looked a bit more grayish to me. When I get close though, it's actually a greenish shade. I did get a color touch up pen with the car and it's labeled as "spruce green". But honestly, look at the pictures that Skittles took and the car looks more grayish doesn't it? Oh well, it doesn't really matter as we both like the color of it. It's just that in different light, it seems to be a different color. We did take George out for a long drive yesterday and it runs and rides great. Till next time BYE!!

Farewell to an old friend

2008-04-19T20:24:00.003-05:00

It's time to say farewell to an old friend of mine. This friend has been a loyal and good friend. This friend has been with me through many miles and many smiles, through rain sleet and snow. But, as with all things, it had to come to an end. I never really envisioned it to be like this though. So, just to let you know who this friend is, it's my car lol. I bought this car about 5 years ago, and it has been through alot with me. It's had some major work done to it(the engine was rebuilt), but otherwise has been a good car. I've put many trouble free miles on it, but with the odometer reading 171,000 +, it was time to end my relationship with it. Skittles and I had been looking around for a good used one to avoid paying high insurance bills and high payments also. Well, just on a whim, we stopped by a local Lincoln Mercury dealer to see what was on the lot. To our amazement there was a 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis with only 24,000 miles on it. The proverbial little old lady from Pasadena's car. We took it for a drive and decided it was the car we wanted/needed. It's roomy and comfy. Plus it's replacing a Grand Marquis of 93 vintage. Here's what it looks like. I didn't take any pics of the old one as it wasn't worth it. It had damage from a deer accident and was 2 different colors. So without further ado, heres George( we always name our cars). Till next time BYE!!

Camera Critters

2008-04-19T19:50:00.005-05:00

Another week and it's time for the Camera Critters meme. It's easy to play, just take a pic of a critter and post it. Simple huh? For this week's post I'm posting a pic of a bird (if anyone knows what it is, let me know). I saw this bird in the pond/marsh that's in back of my apartment. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a photo of it. Till next time BYE!!

Camera Critters

WoooHooo

2008-04-15T22:00:00.003-05:00

As some of you know, Skittles has been having problems with her car. As you may not know, my car is getting on in age. Don't get me wrong, it's been a good car for as long as I've had it, but it is getting to where I don't know if it's worth putting any money into it. So...I've been out looking around for something newer to drive. We've spotted a few good ones, but today while we were out, we stopped at a Mercury dealer to see what they had. We found one we both liked. It's a 1999 Mercury Grand Marquis similar to the one I currently own. My present one is a 1993 though with 171,000 miles on it. The one we looked at today only has 25,000 miles on it. A very interesting car. And in very good condition. Maybe the little old lady from Pasadena owned it lol. I'll let you know how the rest goes in time. Till next time BYE!!

Info

2008-04-15T21:58:00.003-05:00

To those who commented on my Heads or Tails meme, I'm working on replying to all of you as soon as I can. I've been working split shifts and am left with little time at home. So, just so you know, I'm trying to get to all of you. Thanks for your patience.

Heads or Tails

2008-04-14T08:21:00.002-05:00

This weeks theme is "Tip" or anything that rhymes with tip.

I'll go with the word Trip. As Skittles and I took a trip a few weeks ago to see some sights. It started out to be a trip to the east coast but ended up being a trip to West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. This is how some of our trips go. We start out in a general direction and end up going somewhere else. At least we were in the right general vicinity lol. I like these kind of trips as we just go where we want to go. It doesn't matter if we change our minds as we never make reservations for Hotels. I didn't take many pics on this trip as the weather was pretty overcast and it rained during most of the journey. Maybe I'll post one of the pics I took in a future blog entry.

Camera Critters

2008-04-12T22:31:00.003-05:00

Theres a new weekly meme that is starting and it's called "Camera Critters". It's pretty simple, on Sunday, you just post a pic of an animal or critter. I guess I'll start this one off with a picture of my pet cockatiel, his name is Charlie. He's quite the character.

You can find the blog site for the meme here.
http://www.camera-critters.blogspot.com/

Tagged

2008-03-29T09:39:00.002-05:00

I was tagged by Sanni from It's sanni-licious to do a meme. So here it is :)

If I were a direction I’d be South

If I were furniture I’d be A big comfy couch

If I were a liquid I’d be Mud

If I were a sin I’d be Is being lazy a sin? lol

If I were a gem/stone I’d be A lump of coal (diamond in the rough) lol

If I were a metal I’d be Steel

If I were a tree I’d be an Oak

If I were a fruit I’d be a banana

If I were a flower I’d be a daisy

If I were weather I’d be Cloudy

If I were a music instrument I’d be A bass guitar

If I were an element I’d be Earth

If I were a color I’d be Red

If I were an animal I’d be a bear

If I were a sound I’d be a quiet spring day

If I were a lyric I’d be "Saturday in the Park I think it was the

fourth of July"

If I were a song I’d be "In the living years"

If I were a music type I’d be Rock

If I were a perfume/cologne I’d be Stetson

If I were a feeling I’d be Happy

If I were a book I’d be War and Peace

If I were food I’d be banana pudding

If I were a city I’d be Grand Rapids

If I were a taste I’d be Tangy

If I were a scent I’d be Soothing

If I were a word I’d be Descriptive

If I were a verb I’d be Playing

If I were an object I’d be a rock

If I were a piece of clothing I’d be a worn pair of blue jeans

If I were a body part I’d be an arm

If I were an facial expression I’d be a smile

If I were a cartoon character I’d be Marvin the Martian

If I were a movie I’d be An officer and a gentleman

If I were a geometrical figure I’d be an oval

If I were one of the 4 seasons I’d be Summer

If I were a sentence I’d be incomplete

Till next time BYE!!

Mentally Drained

2008-03-27T00:09:00.002-05:00

I haven't blogged regularly for a long time now. But I just thought I'd write a bit about my work. Yeah, I'm mentally drained from what went on at work tonight. You see, I've been the Major Model trainer for my shift at work for almost a year now. That is to say that when we get a new car to build, I'm trained first, then I train everybody else in my unit. A few months ago, I got some help in the form of the Major Model trainer from our 2nd shift. This person has been a very big help to me and has learned the whole operation on our line during this time. These last few weeks though, we have been working split shifts in order to train all those on our 2nd shift. The shift supervisor has been there during the whole time. But, some of the people on this shift have been difficult if not impossible to train. Not to mention that tonight we ran a practice car to get the 2nd shift people familiar with it and this was the first time he had walked through to see what was actually done with it. Top this off with my now having to work another split shift tomorrow to run another car on 2nd shift because the supervisor thought his people weren't as well trained as they should be. Drats!!! Oh well, at least they didn't try to find fault in the methods we have used to train the people there. It's just getting to be a mental drain with all that's been going on. Lots of work to do in the next couple weeks and now it seems to be more to do before it's over. I guess that's about all for now. Just thought I'd do a post lol. Till next time BYE!!

New Home of Heads or Tails

2008-03-24T22:30:00.004-05:00

For those who don't already know it, Heads or Tails has a new home. I've put the link here for those who would like to visit it. Or you can use the convenient link I have posted in the " Family" link section on my sidebar. Oh, I also have updated the link to Skittles' Place. If you have the old link on your blog, you will be redirected to the new site, but if you want, you can just click on the link on my sidebar and it will take you to her new site. Repetitive I know...but I thought I'd put it there just in case. Till next time BYE!!

http://headsortailshome.blogspot.com/

Heads or Tails

2008-03-24T22:20:00.003-05:00

The theme for this weeks meme is " Surprise".

Both Skittles and I got a pretty good surprise this weekend when we had a new digital recorder installed for our tv. The install of this recorder wasn't really the surprise though as we had called to get it installed a few weeks ago. The surprise was how neat this new toy was. We can now record programs or even entire series of programs. We also got a short lived surprise as we got some premium channels for the weekend that we didn't order with the new box. Plus after watching some of the neat programming, we ended up getting more programs so we can have more to watch. Talk about couch potatoes lol. At least it will get us out of the computer room more. So there you have it. Our small surprise. Till next time BYE!!

2008-03-21T09:29:00.002-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles Place and thought I'd give it a try lol.

You Are a Cadbury Creme Egg

You're the type that stole little brother's easter basket so that you could have MORE CANDY!

What Easter Candy Are You?

Heads or Tails

2008-03-17T21:04:00.004-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails meme is any part of (or place in) a home. For this weeks meme I'm going to post something that I got from work recently. It commemorates my 20 years of service to Fords. Originally I was hired in as a Mazda worker even though our main product was the Ford Probe. For those who don't know it, this plant was a joint venture between Ford and Mazda. Several years into working at the Mazda plant, we were asked if we would like to be covered under the Ford UAW agreement and the only way to do that was to become part of Fords, so we did. It has now been 20 years since I started working there and it is quite the accomplishment. I am now the Major Model Trainer for my unit which means I train people how to work on new products (cars) that we will be building. This includes the new 2009 Mazda6 that will be built at my plant starting in a few months. We've also been building the Ford Mustang for several years which has been a very good selling vehicle. I guess you're wondering where this is going huh? Well, the certificate I received last week will someday be gracing one of our walls. I've included a picture of my certificate here to show you what it looks like. I also got a watch to go along with it. Pretty neat I think. The time has certainly flew by. It sure doesn't seem like I've been there all that time. I've blocked out my last name to protect the innocent lol.

Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2008-03-10T16:01:00.004-05:00

Ok, I cheated a bit with this weeks meme. This weeks meme however is "anything" green. So, I'll just use this for this week lol.

I got home this afternoon and Skittles had me try this little thingie that she found. It was quite interesting to do. One thing to remember is that you have to type all the colors in and you have to spell them correctly for them to count. I would have gotten 24, but I had included "blue" along with something that I hadn't spelled right and I just erased it lol. It's amazing how difficult it is to think of colors when you are timed at it.

23

Till next time BYE!!

Moon Travel Might Not Be My Thing

2008-03-01T12:26:00.003-05:00

Skittles had this on her blog and she wanted me to try it to see how I would do. Apparently I didn't have the same answers that NASA does lol.

42%

Till Next Time BYE!!

New Toy

2008-02-29T20:54:00.005-05:00

If you've read Skittles blog you already know that we went Christmas shopping yesterday. Not for this year but to finish up our last years shopping for ourselves. I had gotten a gift certificate for a hobby shop and hadn't decided what to get so far. So, off we went yesterday in search of the hobby store(the closest one is actually in the next state, Ohio lol). Well, I was like a kid in a candy store. So much to see and so many decisions to make. Trains, planes and cars. R/C and static models abounded. After doing a fair amount of drooling lol, I decided to get a new R/C car. It's actually a Monster Truck. It's made by HPI and is called the E savage. This thing is huge. Heavy too as it has 2 motors and 2 battery packs to propel it. I already had an electric R/C car but it's pretty old. I also have a gas powered R/C car that is really a stadium truck, much like the ones you see in real stadiums jumping over dirt hills and such. The neat thing about this new one is that it has a lot more ground clearance than my gas powered car. I had taken my gas powered one out to the site behind my apartment that is building new houses and tried to run it there, but it just doesn't have enough ground clearance for that kind of rough terrain. This one does lol. I've put a couple of pics here to let you see what the new one looks like. The first one is of the new truck, the second one lets you see the difference in size between the new one and my gas powered one. I'm looking forward to when the weather will be nice enough to run it in the dirt and see what exactly it will do. Oh, I almost forgot, I've named my new truck Barney. Barney you say? Well yeah, short for Barney Badass lol.

Till next time BYE!!

Lost Photo Op

2008-02-27T22:24:00.002-05:00

This happened Monday actually. I have been working split shifts for my job as Major Model Trainer. Monday was my day to start at 10:30 am instead of my usual 6:30 am so I could be there to train the second shift people. It had been snowing that morning and I awoke to a beautiful white covering of snow. What I didn't expect was the beauty that I would see on my way to work. Trees and other items covered in snow and begging to be photographed. It's too bad I didn't have my camera with me as I could have gotten some great shots. For one thing, I don't carry my camera with me to work, second, we aren't allowed to bring cameras into work and third, I wouldn't want to leave my camera in the car for that long of a time in the cold weather. I was hoping the snow would stay like it was that morning so I could maybe get up early and take some pics the next day, but it got warm enough during the day to melt most of the snow that was on the trees. Oh well, some other time perhaps lol.

Till next time BYE!!

Update on Skittles PC

2008-02-27T22:19:00.003-05:00

For those who are interested or who read Skittles blog I have an update. Her PC has been reformatted and should be ready soon. We had done a non-destructive restore a few weeks ago after it had not worked properly, but that didn't seem to fix the problems that it had. So, after putting up with a poorly working PC, she finally decided it was time to totally reformat her PC back to how it came from the factory. This meant putting in all the neat programs that she had installed on her PC which meant quite a bit of time to reinstall the ones she had saved and downloading the ones she got off of the internet.

In short, her PC is up and running and she should be back blogging soon.

Thanks!

Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2008-02-18T18:27:00.004-05:00

This weeks "Heads or Tails" meme is...The letter "P".

I have the perfect post for this week lol. At least I think Skittles would agree with me on it.

I have chosen the word "Plethora" for my post this week. In this I mean I have a "Plethora" of hobbies that I am interested in.

Just to name a few
Model Trains
Woodworking
Model Cars
Photography
Recording CD's
Working on Cars (real ones lol)

You get the drift by this list don't you? lol
I love doing things with my hands and mind. It keeps me off the streets as my Mom used to say.

I know this isn't a very long post, but I just thought I'd participate in this weeks meme as I haven't done so in a while.

Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2008-01-29T04:49:00.001-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails meme theme is someone you'd like to meet.

I think I'll pick Henry Ford for this one. He's really just one a many from the past that I'd like to meet. Part of the reason I'd like to meet him is that he surrounded himself with others who were smart. He himself was pretty smart as far as I know seeing as he came up with the idea of the moving assembly line. I just think it would be neat to be able to talk to him and find out more about him.

Till next time BYE!!

Another Post....lol

2008-01-22T14:00:00.000-05:00

I was just sitting here looking at the map at the bottom of my blog and realized that Barb and I have done some pretty good travelling over the years. Just last year we added Maine, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin to our list of states that we have visited. We'll have to see how many more we can add this year. The only thing wrong with this way of doing things is that we are running out of new states to visit lol. I must admit though, that I have enjoyed travelling immensely the way we do it. We get to see so much of this great country of ours.

Till next time BYE!!

Update

2008-01-22T13:43:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting regularly for awhile now. I've been busy playing a pc game called World of Warcraft. It does take up a lot of time and is addicting lol.

Some new things have happened since I last posted though. Barb and I got a new bedroom last year. She had been wanting some new bedroom furniture so we ended up getting a king sized waterbed and new furniture that seems to match it pretty well.

We had a dvd surround sound system that wasn't the best and kept sticking in the middle of movies, so we got a new surround sound system for Christmas. I also got some new tools for my birthday and Christmas too :)

I haven't done anything with my collection of trains so far this winter. Winter is usually the time when I get the bug to work on them but I just haven't felt like it so far.

We haven't really taken any good long trips since last summer, but I think that will change as I am supposed to get laid off one week per month in the next couple months due to slowdowns at work.

I think that's about all for now, I might try to do more blogging in the future, we'll see lol.
Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2008-01-22T13:18:00.001-05:00

This week's Heads or Tails meme is to write about any of the 5 senses. I don't think I'll hit on all of them but I definitely will hit on a couple of them.

This is longer than it has to be, but I think it might be interesting lol.

For Christmas I got Barb a new am/fm cd player for her car. I brought it home and wrapped it up so she could see what she had got, She had an am/fm cassette player in her car, but it had a cassette stuck in the player that just wouldn't come out. Her car also has the controls for the radio and heat on the steering wheel, so when I bought the new radio I told the people there that the radio had to be one that worked with it. So after Christmas I took the car back to where I bought it to have the new radio installed. First thing they tell me after they get the car where they install radios was that the radio that I had bought didn't work with the steering wheel control...UGH. So they let me see a couple they had that did and I got one that did work with it. But, they didn't have the correct interface controller for her car. They ordered it and it got in about a week later. I guess by now you're wondering where this is going and what it has to do with any "senses? lol. Anyway, I took it back this past Monday to have them install the interface and now everything works like it's supposed to, almost lol.

After I got the car back from them installing the controller, I thought everything was fine until I looked at the gas gauge. It wasn't working properly. This has happened in the past when we had work done on the car that required the battery to be disconnected. The gas gauge does this funny thing where it actually goes past it's stop and doesn't register anything. I've been told this is a fairly common thing on GM cars.

So to the point of this meme. I went out this morning and fixed the gas gauge on Barbs car. It took a good "feel" to get it apart and then figure out how to fix the gauge. I had to "see" where all the screws holding it together were also. After I fixed the gauge I reset her radio to the correct time and date also. So, I "feel" good about doing this also.

So, thats my input for this meme this week. I know it was a bit long, but I tried to relate it to the meme.

Till next time BYE!!

2008-01-14T21:56:00.001-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails meme theme is the Letter "C".
For this I think I'll do Choo Choo lol. I know this is actually 2 words, but if any of you have read any of my blog (when I was blogging that is) you'd know I love trains. When I was a youngster, I always called trains choo choo's. Probably a great many kids do also. It's what most grownups who try to tell a child what a train is calls them so!! I haven't been doing much with my trains this season. In the past I would have been working on them either by weathering them or assembling the kits that I had gotten, but I've been busy playing a game called World of Warcraft. That doesn't start with a "C" so I won't go into it . That's about all for now. Thanks for dropping by. Till next time BYE!!

2007-12-10T21:35:00.000-05:00

For this weeks Heads or Tails meme the theme is either heads. something in the air or in space or tails, something in or under the water.

For this week I think I'll be different and do something for both memes.

First thing I thought of for the meme was the something in space thing. That thing happens to be the orbiting international space lab. Part of the reason that came to mind was that there was supposed to be a launch sunday of the space shuttle that was canceled due to a malfunctioning fuel gauge. The shuttle will eventually take the rest of the space stations parts up in space so astronauts can assemble them. Although the shuttles are due to retire within the next 5 or so years, I hope they get the job done.

The second part of this came to mind when Skittles said something to me about trains not being under water when she explained what this weeks meme was. I got to thinking and came up with something to put in the meme. So here it goes. There is a train that goes under water so to speak. It's the train that runs under the English channel in the "Chunnel". This train carries passengers and autos between England and France. Before the Chunnel, folks there had to rely on ferries to cross the English Channel. Now they can ride in comfort in a speedy train and arrive safe and sound.

So, that does it for me on this weeks Heads or Tails meme. Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2007-11-26T18:58:00.001-05:00

This weeks theme for the Heads or Tails meme is "Mark".

For this my mind immediately went to Micro Mark. What is Micro Mark you might ask? Well if you have read any of my previous posts you would know that I love working on model trains and models in general. Micro Mark is a company that specializes in tools and such for building models. I get their catalog regularly and love looking through them to see what new gadgets they carry for building models. They also have a website that I have "marked" as a favorite on my computer. They also send me e-mails with specials that they have "marked" down in price. So, there you have my meme for this week. Till next time BYE!!

2007-11-12T17:52:00.001-05:00

This weeks theme for the Heads or Tails meme is "Road".

For this I'll tell about a few of the "roads" we've been down on our vacations. Anyone who had kept up with Skittles blog knows that we take some pretty neat vacations and all of them were in a car. We've been down some pretty interesting "roads" during our travels. I remember the first time we went to Florida, there was a road we traveled at night on our way from Ocala over to Daytona Beach that had wild pig crossing signs all over the place. Being from Michigan, I was used to seeing "deer crossing" signs on the road but this was the first I had ever seen about pigs crossing the road lol. Another interesting road we went down while we were in North Carolina was when at night again, we saw "wolf" and "bear" crossing signs. I'll tell you, it didn't make me want to get out of the car for anything. If we had gotten a flat tire, I'd just drive till I got to a gas station or something. We've been down some of the most beautiful roads you can imagine also. Through the Great Smoky mountains, Yellowstone and Vermont. So, that does it for my "Heads or Tails" meme this week. Till next time BYE!!

My Pornstar Name

2007-10-27T07:22:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place this morning and gave it a try lol.

Your Adult Film Star Name Is...

Sergeant Stiffy

What's Your Adult Film Star Name?

Heads or Tails

2007-10-23T04:13:00.001-05:00

The theme for this weeks "Heads or Tails" meme is "Train". I'll post about what I have been doing at work for the past couple months. I have been "training" other people on how to build new cars models that my plant is going to get to manufacture. I've been made the major model person and am responsible for teaching others how to do there respective jobs. The new model we are going to be making has quite a few changes in how things are done and it is part of my job to "Train" others in how these processes will be done. I'll bet most who read my blog thought I'd be posting on real trains or model trains lol. Just a different take on it this time. Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2007-10-15T16:46:00.001-05:00

This weeks "Heads or Tails" meme is to list 10 things in the category of my choosing. For this week I have chosen to list 10 hobby type things I enjoy. They are in no particular order.

Ten hobbies I enjoy partaking in.

1 watching real trains

2 model trains (ho scale)

3 gas powered r/c cars

4 building model cars

5 watching dvd movies

6 working on computers

7 working on cars

8 woodworking

9 photography

10 recording my old vinyl records into mp3 format

So there you have it. You get to know a little more about me with this meme.

Till next time BYE!!

Happy Birthday Skittles!!

2007-10-12T08:07:00.001-05:00

Today is Skittles' birthday. We don't have a big party planned, just more like a nice quiet time here at home. I'll be baking a birthday cake for her later today. We will have some of her kids visit us on Saturday though. This is the 7th birthday I have spent with her, the 2nd since we have been married. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her for being who she is, a wonderful woman who I enjoy spending my life with. We travel and enjoy doing things together. She's the one who makes our home a place that I enjoy coming home to each day. In short, I love her very much.

So, Happy Birthday Skittles :)

If you've read this you might go over to Skittles' Place and wish her a happy birthday too, I know she'll appreciate it.

Friday's Feast

2007-10-11T23:09:00.001-05:00

Appetizer
When was the last time you were surprised? About 2 months ago when Skittles came home and showed me the new GPS she bought for me :)

Soup
Fill in the blanks: My eyes are Green, but I wish they were Green. I'll stick with what I got lol.

Salad
If you were a Beanie Baby, what would you look like and what would your name be? Plump with a beard and glasses and be called Grandpa Beany.

Main Course
Name two things you consistently do that you consider to be healthy habits. Go to work and pay bills lol.

Dessert
What brand of toothpaste are you using these days? Do you like it? Why or why not? Pepsident, because that's what Skittles likes. I like it too because to me touthpaste is toothpaste!

Heads or Tails

2007-10-08T17:19:00.000-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails meme theme is "explore".

I came up with what I wanted to post on this meme pretty quickly. What came to my mind first was the trips that Barb(Skittles) and I have taken over the years. Usually during our trips we go on little side trips to see things that we either have heard about or seen on the map. Our trips also aren't usually planned to be just a get there and back thing. In other words, our trips are open to "exploring". This leaves us open to seeing and doing almost anything we want. I was going to post some pictures for the meme, but I have already done that in previous posts and it was difficult to just pick a few to put here.

I'll list a few of my favorite places that we have explored instead.

1 Yellowstone National Park
2 Mount Rushmore National Park
3 The Badlands both in N. Dak and S.Dak
4 The New England area. Too many neat places to name just a few.

So, that about does it for this meme. Seeing as Skittles and I have visited 38 states together and seen quite a lot together, I'd say we have "explored" quite a bit. Till next time BYE!!

Friday's Feast

2007-10-05T09:47:00.000-05:00

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you look forward to your birthday? Seeing as this year I turn 50, not that much anymore. It just isn't like it used to be when I was younger lol.

Soup
What is one word you don’t like the sound, spelling, or meaning of? The "N" word. I'm don't like it and don't like the double standards of it's use.

Salad
Do you wear sunglasses when you’re outside? If so, what does your current pair look like? No, but there are times I need too. As I wear glasses to see I need a pair of those flip type ones.

Main Course
If you were to write a book, to whom would you dedicate it? Probably to my wife Barb. We've done so much together and gone so many new places.

Dessert
Name a beverage that you enjoy. Pepsi :)

Desktop

2007-10-03T21:45:00.001-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and thought it was kinda cool. It was a meme that you were supposed to tag someone else to do after you did it, but I won't tag anyone, I'll just put it up for you to see. Basically, you make a picture of your desktop and explain what it is and why you chose it. For my desktop I use a picture that I took while on vacation in upper New Hampshire while we were looking for moose. I don't remember the exact name of the park or area, but this is a stream that leads to a natural feature in this area called the "basin". The "basin" was formed by the fast rushing water that has eroded the surrounding stone to look like a wash basin. A very neat area that we happened upon while cruising for moose lol.

Halloween Costume

2007-10-02T14:01:00.001-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and gave it a try. The questions are pretty wild lol.

Your Halloween Costume Should Be

A Bumble Bee

What Should You Be For Halloween?

Heads Or Tails

2007-10-01T16:47:00.001-05:00

For this weeks "Heads or Tails" meme the theme is "Stack" or "Stacks". ''

The first thing that came to mind as I had just written another post about where I work, is the "stacks" that protrude from the paint shop at my plant. They aren't smoke stacks that you normally see in a factory, rather they are designed to clear our paint shop of unused byproducts. while it may be true that some of the byproducts are incinerated before being sent out the stacks, you never see smoke coming from them.

I couldn't find a good picture of the ones like the ones that are on my plant. I have taught my wife Barb how to tell where the paint shop is on almost any auto factory. It's pretty easy once you know what to look for. Mostly it's the number and size of the stacks. Usually there are many small ones and a few bigger ones to look for. They are usually clustered in a small area on one building.

There are many stacks coming out of our paint shop. Plus we have several very large ones at the end of our building that are used to clean up any solids or harmful vapors that may escape the usual treatment process.

So that's what I thought of when I did this meme. Till next time BYE!!

What We Wanted To Be And What We Became

2007-10-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

This post actually came to me last week but I have just gotten around to posting it.

Much of it came about as a result of a conversation with one of the unit leaders that I have been working with in the paint shop where I work. It seems that one of the higher ups is taking a position in a different part of the plant and the unit leader that I was talking to had applied for the position. This position normally requires that one have some type of educational degree. But seeing as there was another person within the paint shop that didn't have said degree and had done this job, filling in for the person it belonged to had also applied for it, that part of the requirement was dropped.

The position in question really isn't that difficult to perform. It requires mainly a mind for numbers. Specifically, how many cars that are built in each bank of the paint shop. Each unit kind of performs independently of each other and has a bank of cars that the next unit can feed on in case of downtime in the previous unit.

All this to explain what was going through my mind. You see, I turned out to be pretty much a normal type guy after high school. I chose not to pursue college and have been making a living with my hands since then and not to shabbily, I might add.

But this conversation did get me to thinking about what might have happened to me had I chosen to go to college. Part of the reason for not going to college was that fact that I never considered myself the sort to sit behind a desk and shuffle papers. This isn't to make light of folks who do, it's just the way I then thought of jobs that college grads got.

If I had gone to college, doors that have been and are closed to me would have been opened up. I'm not stupid or slow, it's just that I wanted to work with my hands at the time.

I also thought about when I was much younger and had thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. At one point, it was either a football player or an automotive engineer. I thought I'd leave it open so I had some options lol. I never became either of those things. I found out when I was in high school that I didn't like football as much as I thought and the thought of more years of desk learning didn't appeal to me either.

I did however, a bit later in life, become a certified mechanic in the state that I live. I guess that's about as close to an engineer as I ever got.

Am I unhappy about the decision that I made so many years ago not to go to college. The answer to that is "NO". I have gotten to do many things and a few different jobs in that time and have gotten by fairly well. As for today and the job that I do, I am making a very good living with it. Could I be making more money if I had gone to college, "Yes" , but I am doing things I like to do and am happy with who I am at this point.

At some point I may post about what I am doing where I work now. As you know, if you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know I work in an auto assembly plant. But I don't have a regular assembly line job anymore. I (through seniority) got a much better job, and it's off line.

I bet that more than a few other people have these same thoughts from time to time as they go through life. What could I have been?

For now I'll just leave it. Just a few thoughts that I had during the last week. But as I said, someday I may post more detail about what I do at the plant. Till next time BYE!!

Heads or Tails

2007-09-24T20:41:00.001-05:00

Our pet cockatiel Charlie

Heads or Tails

2007-09-17T20:22:00.000-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails meme theme is Keys. For this I guess I'll just tell you a bit about me in as far as "keys" go. I always carry 2 sets of keys with me. One set is for the cars that Barb and I have and the other is for our apartment and such.

The first set (the car set) has keys for the 2 cars we own plus one of those automatic door and trunk opener for Barbs car, plus a few of those little cards that attach to your keyring so we get discounts at a few of the stores we go to. This set hangs on a big clip that attaches to one of my belt loops so I can get to them easily, plus they are probably the most used.

The second set has our apartment key plus keys for our storage unit, my work laundry locker and our mail box. It has another key on it but I don't really remember what it's for lol. This set is on a keyring that I carry in my right front pants pocket.

I have duplicate sets of keys made just in case I loose a set(which has happened before).

I know many people put all their keys on one keyring, but I like keeping these separate so it's easy to get at either set as I need.

There you have it lol, now through this meme you know a bit more about me and my habits.

Fish Water

2007-09-15T22:08:00.000-05:00

We (Barb and I) bought a fish aquarium and a bunch of fish(12 to be exact) a few months ago. I have to admit I knew very little about taking care of fish. The only other fish I ever had was a small goldfish when I was a youngster.

So we had our fish a few days and one of them died. There happened to be a guarantee that came with the fish that said the store would replace them if one of them died within I think 7 days after purchase. So I took the little fellow back to the store with a sample of the water it was in(part of the requirement for warranty). The nice fellow at the store tested the water and told me it had way too much ammonia in it. I asked what I could do to get rid of it and he suggested that it was either overstocking or not enough filtration. Well, we had looked online about how many fish we could put in our 20 gallon aquarium and it said that a general guideline was 1" of fish for each gallon of water in the aquarium. As most of the fish we bought were small we figured it was good.

Well, I waited a few more days and took another sample back and what do you know, it was too high in ammonia also. We tried a partial water change and a few other things, but a couple more fish ended up not making it. We even tried a chemical that was supposed to help get rid of ammonia and that didn't seem to do the trick either.

We bought a monitor thing that was supposed to tell us instantly if there was ammonia in the water and sure enough it registered high for it again.

So, we are down to 7 fish now. Just the other day, we did another partial water change(we had been doing that on a regular basis anyway) and bought a real test kit to check the ammonia level. Lo and behold, the ammonia problem seems to have vanished. The water is where it should be now. So, hopefully our fish can live in peace without having to suffer any ill consequences. This made us very happy indeed.

Just thought I'd blog about it lol. TIll next time BYE!!

I'm Not a Stellar Dad, But I Tried

2007-09-15T13:59:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd write here about some of my past. Particularly about my relationship with my children and how it has gotten to where it is today.

My children , a son and a daughter were born in 1986 and in 1990 respectively. Things were pretty normal during their early years as things go. They were happy normal kids and really never had to worry about things. They had more toys that you can imagine or maybe you can lol. The basement was full of their old toys as I was a packrat then as I am now. I helped them with their homework and science projects and whatever else I could.

Then came my divorce. Things are never easy in these situations. My kids were 14 and 10 at this time.

I came to find out that I was being blamed for the whole thing. As you can imagine, my kids who spent more time with there mother took the same view. Things were strained to say the least between my ex-wife and I.

After I moved out of the house there was still, in the best way I know how to say it, a hostility between my ex and I. I did however start seeing my kids once a week. My ex and I worked it out that I would e-mail her and make sure it was ok with her for me to pick them up on a certain day. So, every week I'd pick them up and we would sometimes go see a movie and do other things.

At some point in this time, I had been notified by the FOC (friend of the court) that they had made a mistake and I now was going to have what amounted to half my paycheck taken out in child support payments. This made doing things with them like going to the movies and eating out a bit much as far as available money went. I still had all the normal monthly payments to make such as insurance and phone and such.

At first my solution was to pick them up and go rent a movie and have dinner at my house. We did have the occasional fast food meal that they liked, but it just wasn't in the budget for me to do this all the time. One thing I would add here is that I tend to take budgets seriously and if I don't have the money for something, I don't buy it. This is one of the things that my ex and I had arguments over.

This seemed to work out fine with the kids for awhile. Then one week, I e-mailed my ex with the usual request to pick up the kids and the reply I got back wasn't pretty. There was a whole list of things that apparently was wrong with the way things were being done while the kids were in my charge. Just to list a few things about what the e-mail said was that the kids didn't like my falling asleep during the time the movie was playing. If any of you get up as early as I do(4:30 am) you'd understand that it's easy to take a snooze at 8 or 9 in the evening while watching movies. Heck, I do it quite often, you can ask Barb about that one lol. One of the other things that my kids complained about to my ex about was the food they were eating. My daughter was mainly the one complaining about this but my son wasn't happy about it either. One side note here is that my daughter is lactose intolerant. I tried not to fix things that had a lot of milk products in them. The gist I got out of this part of the e-mail was that they wanted fast food instead of home cooked meals. The way I saw it was that home cooked meals were much better for them than fast food. The last thing I'll touch on in the e-mail is about money. My ex said that the kids complained that I wasn't spending money on them. Well, if you have half your pay being taken before you ever see it, that might be expected.

When the divorce was being processed I had to go to a meeting that explained an ideal way things should be done when dealing with kids that have divorced parents. It specifically dealt with in one section that parents shouldn't try to buy kids love with expensive gifts. So what happens the first Christmas that I am away from my kids? My ex buys them each a DVD player and their own TV then tells me what she bought them so we wouldn't "duplicate" the things we got for them. I had no intentions of buying those kind of gifts for them. Heck, they were still kids so I bought them fun things to have.

I responded to the e-mail that I got from my ex explaining my point about all the things that were complained about. I got a reply that basically told me my reasons weren't good enough. My ex also told me that the kids didn't want to see me that week and that they would be doing other things in the next few weeks. I e-mailed her back telling her that was ok and that they could e-mail me when they wanted to see me again. Her response to that was "don't hold your breath". My kids never said any of this to me, they (so I assume) told my ex about it who wrote it in the e-mail.

So, I haven't seen my kids since then. It has been about 3 years since I saw them last. As I see it, I'm not going to force them to see me if they don't want to. I also won't play any "games" to get them to see me again. My son is now 21 and my daughter is 17.

It may not be a pretty picture, but that's the way it is. There are things that happen during and after a divorce that just aren't good. This is one of them.

About the Rant

2007-09-15T13:48:00.000-05:00

I had posted a rant the other day about things going on and have deleted it. The reason I have done this is because a family member wrote me a very nice letter explaining some things to me. Also, it was never my intent to cause any family members any problems. I understand some of their points and feel some are very valid. So in short, if anyone wishes to express any more opinions about this topic( and feel free to do so), please use my e-mail link on the side of my blog.

Heads or Tails Meme

2007-09-10T17:06:00.001-05:00

This weeks Heads or Tails Meme is September 11th remembrances or how you found out about it.

Well, I found out about what was going on while I was at work. A friend was listening to a radio with earphones and he told some of us that was working near him that at first a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. He said at first that it wasn't known whether it was a big of small plane as the station he was listening to didn't have too many details as yet. As time for our break came, we got to see what was happening on our TV's that were located in our break room. The pictures on the television didn't seem real. We found out that it had been 2 large airliners that had crashed into the towers. If I remember right, management called us back into the break room shortly after to let us watch more of the coverage and that's when we saw the collapse of the first tower. I think most of us sat there in shock as we watched. Soon after that, we were told we could go home as I don't think management figured many people were in the mood to get much done after seeing what had happened.

After I got home I called Barb (Skittles) to let her know I was ok. I also remember it being eerily quiet as there wasn't any airplanes in the sky. I also got in my car and headed over to Barbs as I thought it was a good idea to be with each other in a time like this.

Well, that's what I remember from that fateful day. I hope I never have to see anything like this again.

My Band Name

2007-09-04T17:01:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and had to try it.

Your Band Name is:

The Bad Mutha Geishas

Band Name Generator

Heads or Tails

2007-09-04T16:43:00.001-05:00

This weeks "Heads or Tails" meme theme is "school'.

So I'll tell you about a class I took a few years ago that was paid for by my company. We have a program that allows us to educate ourselves in a variety of things. This class I took was called "Racing Engine School". It was 2, 8 hour days long on a weekend and was very insightful. Of course, you won't learn everything there is to know about racing engines in 2 days, but it was still fun. I have a (background of auto mechanics anyway( I was licensed for a few years).

Quite a lot of things taught in this class was already known to me but I did learn some more technical aspects about building racing engines. All in all, with the books and knowledge I gained in this class, if I decide to build another race car like I had when I was younger, I will be better prepared to do it right.

Goings On

2007-09-02T10:25:00.001-05:00

I haven't been posting on a regular basis for the last couple of months. I just got out of blogging and have been doing other things. Seeing as no one really reads my blog on a regular basis anymore I just post when I feel like it. I guess that's what happens when you don't visit other blogs lol.

I'll start with my getting a new video game last week called Guitar Hero 2 and it's a lot of fun to play. I'm still playing on easy so far so I'm not making any money in the game but have been able to travel to 6 cities in it. I think I'll start playing in a harder level now that I have some practice with it.

Another new toy I got this past week was a GPS thingie made by Magellan. Although we haven't taken any long trips as of yet, I think it will come in very handy. For instance you can program it to show gas stations and such. This would have come in very handy when we took our trip to N. Dakota in May and almost ran out of gas getting to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It just happened to be about 70 miles off the freeway and there wasn't many towns in that area and we weren't familiar with the area either. But, I think this little toy will be fun to use as we do take some neat trips on our vacations.

That's about all that's new with the exception of getting some new sets of dishes, but that's not all that exciting for me(I'm a guy remember lol). Till next time BYE!!

Fortune Cookie

2007-09-02T09:39:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and gave it a try lol.

My Fortune Cookie told me:
You are dreaming. It is time to wake up now.
Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

I Got An Award

2007-08-30T06:30:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning and found this on Skittles' Place blog. Ok, she told me it was there lol. Nepotism really works lol. I guess I am supposed to pass this on to someone, but as I haven't been blogging much I'll just let anyone who reads this have it. Will anyone read my blog? lol.

Heads or Tails Meme

2007-08-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

This week for Skittles' Place Heads or Tails Meme the theme is Hobby or something that rhymes with Hobby. I think I'll do the easier one and tell about my hobbies. I seem to have many hobbies, just ask Skittles lol, but I'll just go into a few.

1 Model Trains- I got into this many years ago actually, when I was in my teens. I got a train set for Christmas and added some cars to it and put it on a 4x8 sheet of plywood. I kinda grew out of it when I got a bit older and didn't get back into it until I was about 35 or so. Since then my collection has grown quite a bit. I still don't have a layout to run them on but hopefully someday I will. Oh, I now have about 150 engines and cars. They are in HO scale.

2 R/C cars. I bought an electric one about 25 years ago and ran it around for awhile. It got put away also as new hobbies and such got into. I still have this one and have added a gas powered one. I found the gas powered one more fun and didn't have to change batteries on it, just add fuel when it runs out. Both are 1/10 scale so they are decent sized.

These are my trains layed out on our old dining room table. This isn't even all of them really, some I had new in the box that I didn't put on the table and have since added to them also.

These are pics of my gas powered R/C car.

What Carnival Ride Are You?

2007-08-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and gave it a try lol. I'm not so sure it's all that accurate, but it was fun!

You Are a Carousel

You are young at heart and a truly playful person. No one would ever accuse you of taking life too seriously.
You are definitely in things for the fun. You find joy easily, and you are often building up anticipation for your next adventure.
In relationships, you tend to want to be babied and taken care of.
And while you may be a bit high maintenance, you are incredibly loyal.

Your life is simple and satisfying. Each day you treat yourself to something you enjoy.
You have a lot of emotional attachments, and experiences are extra vivid to you.
You tend to be nostalgic and sentimental. The past is important to you.
Comfortable around all living things, you have a special connection to animals and children.

At your best, you are whimsical, free spirited, and creative.
Even if your schemes seem a bit strange, they usually work out wonderfully.
At your worst, you are spoiled, demanding, and impossible to satisfy.
You've been known to act like a brat if you aren't getting your way!

What Carnival Ride Are You?

7 P's Meme

2007-08-26T14:01:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by bundle-o-contradictions for the 7P's meme. I have to admit that I forgot about it and thought it was time to get it done. So here go's it.

Passion An interesting one. I have passions for different things. The one thing I will write about here is my passion for model railroading. I don't yet have a place to run my trains, but I would love to in the future.

Purpose I feel my purpose in this life is to provide and protect my wife Barb. It may be a silly thing to some, but I do take it seriously. After all, I made the choice to marry her :)

Pursuit Another interesting one. I think in life we all pursue things and I am still pursuing myself. At the present, I would say that I am pursuing an actual home for Barb and I to have. One that we can call our own and do as we please in it. As for living in an apartment, it's all nice until you want to do things like leave your dog outside for more than a few minutes and there isn't much you can do such as growing a garden or things like that.

Position A few things come to mind when I think of this one. As far as work goes, I am in a good position. I currently have been chosen for being the one who helps with the new line balancing task and teaching and helping others do the new tasks that are associated with this. Also, in life, I think I'm in a good position as far as things go. I hope to be( as in the last "P" paragraph) position to buy our first house together in the near future.

Pummeling About the only thing that really comes to mind is the pummeling, financially and emotionally, that came with a divorce in 2001. Not as much emotionally as the marriage was over, but financially speaking, from having to pay some pretty high child support payments from a mistake that the Friend of the Court had made. It made living somewhat difficult at times.

Progress The thing I think about for this is the progress I have made in as far as travelling has gone. Before I met Skittles, I had been to 8 states. Since then I progressed to having been to 37 of them. Wooo Hooo! And it has been in these travels that I have had some of the best times in my life and seen some of the most wonderful things I have ever seen.

Personality I think I have a pretty good personality. I have a decent sense of humor and think I'm kind to others. I guess the most telling thing about my personality is that my grandchildren love me. I've always thought that little ones know who loves them without anyone having to tell them that.

Well, I hope I did a good job on this meme. It's just my thoughts on these words and what they mean to me.

My Monster Name

2007-08-26T13:15:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Skittles' Place and gave it a try lol.

Your Monster Profile

Undead Goblin

You Feast On: Coffee

You Lurk Around In: Corn Fields

You Especially Like to Torment: Blondes

What's Your Monster Name?

My Weekend

2007-08-20T20:37:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd post a bit about how my weekend went.

First was a nice visit from my mother in law and her friend from Florida. It had been about 2 years since I had seen her and it was very nice indeed to see her again. She always has interesting stories to tell and it's nice to see her and my wife together. They stayed here for 2 days which gave us time to get to know her friend and have some good times.

The second part of my weekend happened on Sunday. While my mother in law headed on over to the other side of the state to visit with the rest of the family, I was talked into driving over there to visit with them again lol. I must admit I didn't mind going as I was going to be able to see not just my mother in law, but all 4 of my grandchildren in one place. Such a feat isn't usual unless it's Christmas or Thanksgiving. I will say that I had a very good time seeing all of the family, but it was most fun playing with the grand kids. I even got to hold the youngest of my grand children who is about 18 months old and usually shy around others. Probably the best part is that I got to hold her without her crying as we made our way around the block to see Barb's daughters house. I like it when grand babies like me :)

So, that's how my weekend went. I hope you all had a good weekend yourselves!

meme note

2007-08-20T20:34:00.000-05:00

To bundle-o-contradictions, I am working on the meme that I was tagged for, I just haven't finished thinking about what to write yet :)

Heads or Tails

2007-08-20T20:30:00.001-05:00

For this weeks "Heads of Tails" meme the subject is "luck".

I'll recall a bit of luck that happened about 3 years ago. I had been driving over to the other side of the state to see my then girlfriend/fiancee Barb (who is now my wife :)), and as I recall I was
laid off and had started to drive back to my side of the state to pick up my last weeks paycheck. I had traded in my pickup truck the previous year (which had died lol) and bought a used Mercury Grand Marquis to drive.

Well, as I got onto the freeway to head back, a few miles into this journey the low oil pressure light came on and the engine started to make lots of bad noises. I knew there wasn't much I could do but head back to Barbs and see about some other way to get my check.

Well, part of the "luck" came into play as I made it within walking distance of her apartment just as the engine gasped it's last breath. The other part of my "luck" happened in that the previous year I had bought a 95 Dodge Intrepid for Barb to drive. I was lucky enough to have another vehicle to use to get back and forth so I didn't have to immediately get another one. To end the story, I eventually got the engine in the Grand Marquis rebuilt and it still lives today.

Wordless Wednesday

2007-08-14T19:58:00.000-05:00

Heads or Tails Meme

2007-08-13T19:25:00.000-05:00

Barb over at Skittle's Place has started a new Tuesday Meme thing called Heads or Tails. This is the first week of this new meme and for this she has chosen the theme "Beginning(s)".

For this meme I think I shall write about a new beginning that actually started when Barb and I got married in October of 2005. It happened sort of quickly in a way even though we had been engaged for 5 years lol. The beginning that I am going to write about has to do with a storage locker that we had to rent to put our extra things that we didn't have room for in our apartment. We at first had a small 8X10 size one that fit our needs at the time, but, I had quite a few tools and such stored at my mothers house that I lived in when I got divorced. When my mother had to have hip replacement surgery last year it was decided that she would move in with my sister and her husband. Well, this meant that she would be selling her house and I would have to find another place to put all my tools. The place that we had our storage locker at didn't have a big enough locker to hold all our stuff in one location so we ended up renting another one closer to our apartment.

When I actually moved all my stuff into the new storage locker, many things were just boxed up and thrown in there in the neatest fashion that I knew how. I did erect a couple of nice shelves for my tools but there was just too much to put in there in the allotted time for me to do it neatly.

Now on to the beginnings part of the story. lol. It was just about 2 weeks ago during my annual shutdown time at the plant where I work that Skittles and I tackled the chore of cleaning and organizing this storage locker to resemble an organized area. I had had several boxes of papers and such that needed to be gone through to see what needed to be saved and others that needed to be shredded. Other items that were just thrown into boxes were somewhat neatly arranged in like categories for storage so we knew where things were. This epoch adventure has netted us some valuable open space and has made getting to things like christmas items and our camping gear much easier. It had been a long time coming and had been forgotten about for too long. But, I am happy with the way it turned out and now we don't have to worry about it till we move into our own home someday.

UP BigBoy Steam Engine

2007-08-12T11:57:00.000-05:00

If you've read any of my blog you'd know I like trains. This video I found on YouTube features the largest steam locomotive made in the US.

My Patronus

2007-08-11T18:46:00.000-05:00

I saw this at Skittles' Place and thought I'd give it a try.

What Form Would Your Patronus Take? (With 10 Excellent Results & Pictures)

Your Patronus would be an Eagle!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Fun Game

2007-07-31T18:06:00.000-05:00

I found this at Skittles' Place and tried it. It was a bit hard for me as I use a trackball style mouse. It was still fun though.

What Kind Of Train Are You?

2007-07-30T20:50:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Skittles for finding this quiz for me to take. It suits me pretty well as it deals with railroads !

You're the American Orient Express!

With a deep-seeded yearning for the past, you insist upon
reliving your old glory days and even improving upon them. While no one
can argue that the results are beautiful and even luxurious, there's an
air of snobbery and privilege that also follows you around. You're also
trying to ride the coattails of someone much more famous who shares your
name. Nevertheless, you offer great opportunities for people, even if you
only really offer them to the rich. Though you claim to be in a hurry,
you're not really in a rush at all.

Take the Trains and Railroads Quiz
at RMI Miniature Railroads.

New State Visited

2007-07-15T08:37:00.000-05:00

For those who visit my blog, I have added an additional new state to the map at the bottom of my blog to reflect the newest state I have visited. That state would be Maine. It was the last state in the new england area that I hadn't yet been in. As I see it, I only have 12 more states to visit in the continental US. Maybe next year I'll get to a few of them lol. Till next time BYE!!

New Trains

2007-07-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

I just thought I'd post a couple pics of the new trains I got with my fathers day money. If you haven't followed the story of our last vacation, I got them at a hobby shop in New Hampshire that is next to a model train museum. Till next time BYE!!

Birthday Meme

2007-07-13T16:49:00.000-05:00

I was tagged by Skittles over at Skittles' Place to do this meme.

Here are the rules: You go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day) Then you write down 3 events, 2 births, 1 holiday, and tag 5 friends.

Events
1620 - Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1937 - The film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles.

1970 - Elvis Presley meets with President Richard Nixon to discuss the war on drugs.

Births
1118 - Thomas Becket, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1170)

1922 - Paul Winchell, American ventriloquist (d. 2005)

Holiday
In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice, sometimes known as Yule, occurs on or very close to this date. In the Northern Hemisphere, it marks the first official day of Winter. In the Southern Hemisphere, the summer solstice occurs around this time. It is also an important festival in the Chinese calendar.

I won't tag anyone to do this meme as I don't get around the blogging world much anymore. So, if anyone who reads my blog wishes to do it, be my guest.

Our Trip To Maine

2007-07-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

Skittles and I decided last Saturday to go on a trip. We decided that we would go look and see if I could see a moose. So, Skittles googled best place to see moose and she got a location in New Hampshire that sounded good. So we packed the car and headed out. We got into Vermont early on Sunday and it looked as though we would have a perfect time. That is until that afternoon when it started raining lol. We still saw some neat things on our trip. No moose, but some neat things. We ended up traveling through the White Mountains National Park in New Hampshire. We also headed on into Maine. I hadn't been to Maine before so this just made our trip that much more special. We ended up in Portland Maine and saw the ocean and fishing boats that dock there. We did look around some more areas there for moose but were unsuccessful in that lol. On our way back we went through New Hampshire again and took a different route. We came upon a small town there called Conway. It is a very neat little town with some nice shops and also a tourist train that offers excursions. We were a bit late for the train that day so I settled for pictures of it. We then headed on down the road and stopped at a model train museum and hobby shop. The neat thing about the museum is that it isn't only a museum for model trains, but also for model cars, boats, planes and other items. It brought back some memories seeing some of the items on display. After we got done visiting the museum, we went to the hobby shop and I spent the rest of my fathers day gift money I had left. I bought a new engine and a 3 pack of center beam flat cars. I had been looking for this type of car for some time now and couldn't find any in stores near here. After that we headed on down the road again and happened upon a neat waterfall beside the road. As it happened, Skittles was in a hurry to get a picture of it and tripped and sprained her ankle pretty bad. At the time we weren't sure it was just sprained, so a trip to the hospital was in order. Luckily there was one not too far away and they took good care of her. After x-rays it was determined that it was a sprain, so Skittles got wrapped and got crutches. We pretty much figured it wouldn't work for us to go anywhere else that included much walking so we headed home. On the way home though, we got close to Niagara Falls and decided to go see if we could get a good look at them without having to walk too much. As it happened there was a good spot on one of the island's there that affords a good view without walking that far. After that, it was homeward bound for us. All in all, it was a good trip and we got to see some beautiful countryside and some neat little towns along the way. I've included some pictures from our trip for your viewing. Till next time BYE!!

Wordless Wednesday

2007-07-04T06:30:00.001-05:00

July Vacation

2007-07-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

I'm off work for 2 weeks now for our annual shutdown at the plant where I work. We hadn't planned all that much for this time off really. We did go pick up our grandson Jakob and his mom Beth and brought them over to spend time with us. We decided to take them to Greenfield Village, part of "The Henry Ford" group of attractions nearby. The Henry Ford encompasses Greenfield Village, Henry Ford Museum, The Automotive Hall of Fame and an Imax theater. We decided on the Village part as it was a nice cool sunny day. The neatest part was that Skittles, Beth or Jakob had never been to see the Village. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a collection of historic buildings that are either recreated or brought to this site and reassembled. The people that run this place go to great lengths to make everything appear as it was at the time of the buildings uses. Many homes and factory buildings have period actors portraying life as it was which makes it a very interesting and educational adventure. My grandson Jakob got to ride his first train there also. It was a steam train named Torch Lake and is the oldest continually running steam engine in the U.S. Jakob also got to ride a carousel that was built in the late 1800's and still works. Lots of walking was done to see all that we could before the Village closed. After that we went and got some neat fireworks and set them off in a nearby area so we wouldn't bother any neighbors. This was the first time I had gotten any "mortar" type fireworks. These are the kind that insert into a tube and shoot up into the air and burst into colors. I think everyone enjoyed the fireworks greatly. That's how my vacation has gone so far. I think we'll just stay home for a few days and enjoy the time off. Till next time BYE!!

inside Edison's first electric plant

Jakob standing on Grist Mill grinding stone

Torch Lake steam train

Jakob printing on antique printing press

Jakob and Beth riding antique carousel

Model T's giving rides and the Village

Weirdo?

2007-06-23T10:05:00.000-05:00

I saw this at Skittles' Place and Tiggrbobs and thought I'd see what it said for me.

You Are 20% Weirdo

Your thinking is so in line with the mainstream, it's pretty freaky.
Have you ever considered running for political office?
You're so normal, people can't help but feel comfortable with you!

Are You A Weirdo?

Thursday

2007-06-21T21:15:00.000-05:00

It's been a very nice week here. Skittles and I picked up our grandson Jakob and his mother on Sunday and had them stay with us till we took them home on Wednesday. Jakob was quite the little helper while I was at work. He helped his grandma with many chores around the apartment. It was hard to figure out who got the biggest kick out of his helping, Jakob or Grandma. We played some video games and I let him play my bass guitar a bit. I have to admit it was nice getting home and getting a hug from my grandson everyday. I'll be off for shutdown in another week and we'll probably pick him up again so he can stay with us some more. It's been awhile since we've had any small ones around for any length of time here. But I think it's nice that we get to see him now as we all know how fast they grow up. That's about all for now. Till next time BYE!!

Fathers Day

2007-06-17T05:39:00.000-05:00

Happy Fathers Day to all you dad's out there! We don't have much planned for today with the exception of grilling some ribs on the BBQ. I guess I'll just hang out at home and be lazy. But, Skittles was a really sweet lady and got me a very very neat Fathers Day gift. She went and got me a new bass amp so I can practice playing my bass guitar once again. I'm so rusty on it, it isn't pretty hearing me play at this time, but I'll keep at it. I've posted a picture of it along with my bass guitar. The amp is a small one but just the right size for me to practice with. The bass guitar is a Washburn Vulture that I bought when I was in my early twenties. I think I'll have lots of fun getting my fingers stretched out again with it lol. That's about all for now. Till next time BYE!!

Thursday

2007-06-14T17:03:00.000-05:00

It's almost the end of the week. I still haven't gotten my unemployment check from the 2 weeks that I was off though. Part of this is the fault of the company that I work for. Apparently they didn't bother to call into the unemployment office like they were supposed to to let them know we were being laid off till the last week we were off. Go figure. But today is a pretty good day here. Skittles is making one of my favorite dinners for us tonight, tater tot casserole. It's simple but delicious. My kind of dinner. That's about all for now. Till next time BYE!!

My Thought For The Day

2007-06-14T04:07:00.000-05:00

Too many people sweat the little things and lose sight of the important things in life!

Till next time BYE!!

Changes

2007-06-12T17:14:00.000-05:00

This is a bit of a rant here, if you don't like rants, don't read this.
I've made some changes to the link list on my sidebar. These changes reflect the feelings I have towards some fellow bloggers that have no compassion to understand those with a mental problems. If these bloggers have made the choice not to try to understand this I have no compassion for them. Plain and simple. If everyone in the world were without problems it would be ideal wouldn't it? But that isn't how the world is. Different people have different problems. Some folks just aren't equipped mentally to deal with all the normal worldly things that happen. Some folks also choose to reject those that don't "conform" to a normal way of dealing with things. Therefore, I choose to just "delete" these people just as easily as they "delete" others with mental difficulties. I guess in my mind it boils down to this, if these people choose (and that's exactly the right word for it) to delete these people, I choose to delete them from my blogging life. I would also note here that I am not as nice about this type of this as my wife is. She has asked me not to blog about what has happened and I did this out of respect for her. If it wasn't for her, I would be ripping a new asshole in a few people that blog. I would add that in my mind things were done by these other people that I consider childish. How can I put it....no backbone, without intestinal fortitude, and I just wonder how in the hell some of these folks ever get along in a normal relationship. So there, I've said what I want to say in the nicest way I know how without going against my wifes wishes.

Oh, if these other folks wish to talk about what happened with me, you can feel free to use my e-mail link to send me comments you don't want to put here.

Till next time BYE!!

Where I've Been

2007-06-10T11:04:00.000-05:00

I've updated my map at the bottom of my blog to reflect the new states I have visited. Including Washington D.C. I have been to 37 states. Not bad if I do say so myself. We don't have any definite plans as of yet, but in time, we'd like to see all the continental U.S. at some point. I'd also like to point out that by driving through all of these states we have been able to see some of the most beautiful scenery in the world in my opinion. Till next time BYE!!

Wordless Wednesday

2007-06-05T21:26:00.000-05:00

Road Trip Pt 2

2007-06-05T18:10:00.000-05:00

I know there are a lot of pictures in this post, but I wanted to convey the beauty of the area that we were in. It would be hard to do so with fewer pictures in my mind. These were taken at the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Enjoy!

Painted Canyon

Prairie Dogs

Wild Horses

White Tailed Deer

Monday Moanin'

2007-06-04T21:21:00.000-05:00

Yeah, that's about it. I went back to work today after being off for 2 weeks. I didn't do a whole lot of work during those 2 weeks so today was a bit much for my old bones. I know I'm not really that old, but it seems like it on days like this. I will be posting more pictures from our trip when I feel less tired. Today I just picked up some pizza for dinner and Skittles and I watched a movie. After that it was pretty much time for bed. As for the pictures, the ones from the second part of the Badlands were better than the first ones in that it was much more sunny for the first half of our visit there. It started raining pretty heavily about halfway through, so I didn't take many pictures after that. But there are some pretty nice ones I will post sometime in the future for you all to see. That's it for now. Till next time BYE!!

Road Trip pt 1

2007-06-03T10:29:00.000-05:00

OK, I won't bore you with the details of our trip yet lol. I'll start with showing you some of the pics from our trip. I've entitled this post part 1 as I will show more pics in another post to follow. This portion of the post I will show you a few pics from Fargo N.D.'s Celebrity Walk of Fame and some from the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The walk of fame has some 108 signatures and either hand print or foot prints and sometimes both. This little bit of memorabilia is now at the Fargo Tourism office but used to be at a local music store, but the music store ran out of space and needed to move them, so this is where they are. I've only included a couple of my favorites here.

Next are some pics from the north unit of the Badlands park.

Some of the pictures are a bit dark as it was pretty overcast in the park while we were there. I wasn't leaving without taking pictures though. I hope you enjoy this part of Skittles and I vacation. Oh, one thing I wanted to mention here is that one of the things I enjoyed so much was the quietness in the park. You could actually hear the Buffalo/Bison pulling up the grass as they were eating. Also, it wasn't crowded when we went there so other than our car, it was totally quiet. All you could hear when we got out of the car and shut it off was the sound of birds. Now that is peaceful. Till next time BYE!!

We're Baaaaack

2007-06-02T18:49:00.000-05:00

We got home from our road trip a few hours earlier today. We ended up going to see the Badlands of North Dakota. We saw the Badlands of South Dakota last year and this seemed like a good place to go. We ended up going through 2 other states that we hadn't been in also, Wisconsin and Minnesota. As you can imagine, we didn't spend all that much time in those, but we got to see some of them nonetheless. I'll be posting pics later on as will Skittles. I have to figure out which ones to put on my blog as I took 159 pictures during our trip. So for now, Skittles and I are pretty much resting up and will work on getting back in the swing of things in a bit. Till next time BYE!!

Goings On For Tuesday

2007-05-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

It's been an interesting day here. First, we put our Dodge Intrepid up for sale on Craigs list. It's a 1995 with quite a few miles on it but otherwise in good shape. It has been a few years since I've sold a car so I was pretty surprised to get 4 calls on it by noon. The first person to look at it decided it wasn't what they wanted. But the second fellow showed up and voila, it was sold. I don't know about any of you out there, but I hate being haggled over little nit picky things on a used car. I mean hey, it ain't new folks lol.

On another note, I got to talk to another fellow blogger today. This has become somewhat of a ritual with Skittles. Give her your phone number and you will, I promise, get called. When Skittles calls someone, she makes a point of me saying hello to them. This time it was Tisha from Crazy Working Mom blog. Wow, I talk to more folks through Skittles calls than I do any other time lol. It has been a nice experience talking to all the folks I have though. Always nice to put a voice with a name. I guess you could say it's a small world after all.

So, now that the car is sold, Skittles and I are planning one of our whirlwind vacations. It's pretty much like a whirlwind in that we don't actually plan on anything really. We just head in a direction and go till we get to where we think we want to be lol. This type of vacation has worked well for us in the past and I don't see us changing our way of doing things. It just beats having to be somewhere at a specific time in my opinion. Besides, if we change our mind we aren't stuck with a reservation anywhere. Plus I might add, it's a great way to see this big beautiful country we live in. 32 states and counting we have seen together this way.

Well, that's about it for now. Till next time BYE!!

Memorial Day

2007-05-28T21:11:00.000-05:00

It's been a lazy day here for us. We visited the pet supply store to see about the water in our aquarium first. I guess that needs a bit of explaining. We got an aquarium last week and also some fish for it. We let the thing run before we put the fish in so we thought it was ok. Well, we bought a couple little catfish to help keep the bottom of the tank clean. One of them died. So, I took it back to the pet store which has a guarantee on the fish you buy there. It turns out that there was too much ammonia in the water. So on the advice of the store help I bought some chemical to put in the tank to get rid of the ammonia. We went back today with another water sample so we could get another fish, but, the ammonia level was still too high. I'm not by any means a fish expert so I asked the fellow who was helping us what to do. He suggested a different chemical and a partial water change.

The water change was reserved for later in the day as we had planned on visiting the cemetery where my father is buried. He passed away in 1989. I will always remember that evening. I was the one who took him to the hospital. I had gone to visit he and my mother that afternoon with my kids and my sister was there also. My mom stayed at the hospital as we thought they would treat him and send him home later. Mom told me to go home and be with the rest of the family and she would call when they let him out. Well, the hospital called a bit later to tell me that my father had passed. So we went to the cemetery today and left some flowers there. Oh, my father was in the Navy also, so this is kind of a special day. I'm glad it was a nice day here so we go to enjoy a pleasant visit there.

After we got home from the cemetery, we got to work on the aquarium. We replaced about 5 of the 20 gallons of water and added the new chemical. We also added a nice piece of shale rock to help hide the aeration hose that was partially visible at the bottom of the tank. We kept a watchful eye on the tank and it seems to be much clearer than it has been. I'm hoping this new stuff takes care of any problems that we may have had as I don't want any more dead fish. In any case I still enjoy sitting and watching the fish swim around the tank.

This afternoon/evening we grilled some brats and watched a movie. I have the rest of this week to enjoy not getting up for work. Next week it will be back to normal for me.

That about caps the activity we had today. Till next time BYE!!

Flirtin' With Disaster

2007-05-27T21:41:00.000-05:00

The title of this post I thought was quite funny. I had read in Meloncutters blog that soy products produce shrinkage in certain male areas. What brought me to think about it again was that for dinner tonight we had tacos made with soy burger instead of real hamburger for the meat part of the meal. The reason we had this is simple, we are trying to cut down on calories and eat better. This has been evident by the weight we both have lost. But this meal got me to thinking lol. I have to admit it's the first time I've ever tried this stuff and also have to admit it tasted very good with the taco seasoning added in. Heck, it pretty much tasted like regular hamburger to me. But I guess the thought that crossed my mind was how much of this stuff does it take to create the shrinkage that Melon was talking about? If it's continually eating this stuff that does it, I might have to limit it to a once in awhile thing. But this was on my mind this evening lol. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. It isn't like I'm going to measure or anything. That's about all for now. Till next time BYE!!

What's Going On

2007-05-26T07:31:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd write a post here about what's been going on with me the last few weeks.

1 I forgot to mention that my mother has undergone hip replacement surgery. She had it done on May 7th and did very well. A problem did develop when she was placed in a convalescent home after though. She was sent there because she needed to be watched and learn how to walk again after the surgery. The problem there though was while she was having her bedding changed one evening, due to a bowel problem she was having was that one of the workers got angry or frustrated and didn't take very good care of her while changing the bedding. This person just, as my sister tells me, flipped her over to get at the sheets and dislocated her new hip about 2 inches. She was taken to the hospital and thankfully the surgeon that did the operation happened to be on call there. Her hip was put back in without a problem, but my mom won't be going back to that other place. My sister is talking to a lawyer about it. Meanwhile my sister has made arrangements with her friends and nursing folks so my mom can stay at her house where she lives. This is moms new home anyway and she is much more comfortable there than in any hospital.

2 I've been off for a week now from work due to a layoff. I have been very lazy and enjoying it lol. We did go see the grand babies last weekend and enjoyed seeing them very much. Other than that, I've been playing video games and such plus watching movies. Another week of this and I won't want to set the alarm clock to get up for work. I have to be honest here and say I don't miss getting up at 4:30 am one bit. Maybe next week I'll get around to doing some work on my hobby projects. I just haven't felt like tackling anything like that lately.

3 We were going to go on a little trip this week, but decided to put it off till later. Something just didn't feel right about it. It wasn't the destination, because that involved seeing a railroad museum and meeting a fellow blogger. And if any of you have payed attention to my blog, you know how much I love trains. It was just one of those weird feelings you get. I don't know. Some other time though.

Well, that about sums it up for what's been going on here. Till next time BYE!!

Saturday Photo Hunt

2007-05-26T07:20:00.000-05:00

This weeks theme for the Photo Hunters is colorful. I thought a picture of our new aquarium would fit nicely for this. So here it is. We have 12 fish in it. It's a 20 gallon tank and we have added a few things to make it interesting for not only us, but the fish. I can only remember the names of 2 kinds of fish we have it in though lol. 1 is Molly and the other is catfish. Oh, we got 2 of each kind so there are 6 different types of fish in it. We got the catfish to keep the bottom of the aquarium clean, the rest were just ones we picked out to make it colorful and fun.

Wordless Wednesday

2007-05-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

My Italian Name

2007-05-20T21:49:00.000-05:00

I saw this over at Rebecca's The Rants From Sunnybrook Farm and thought I'd give it a try.

Your Italian Name Is...

Enrico Costa

What's Your Italian Name?