March 30, 2014 -

Carrie, Jason and Beth came to stay this weekend, it was Beth's third birthday- we narrowly got the guest bedroom finished- it was still minus a bed thanks to a mix up and the wrong one was sent, but the room is presentable. It use to be light blue, and now it's a copper-orange.

February 26, 2013 -

Snow Day! ....but it wasn't. I thought I'd have a big five day weekend with another snow storm coming in, but after all the forecasts of a foot of snow with the epicenter being right here... it moved off - We got a little snow yesterday, and then it held off until today- the ground was warm as well, so a lot of it melted as it landed. We did get two hours off due to it so that was nice I guess. -I really wanted to play in the snow though.

February 21, 2013 -

Snow Day! It was forecast for a few days ago, and Governor Brownback closed state offices last night before it started to snow today- which was a good call as we got nine to ten inches. It was so nice to know ahead of time and be able to sleep in instead of having to get up to see if we had off or not. For most of the day we played in the snow, either diggng ourselves out, or building the fort wall in the front yard.

February 10, 2013 -

Mickey, Teresa and I went to Lecompton today to go to a presentation at Constitution Hall- on the way there we took a road along the Kansas River, and afterword went to Lake Perry and walked around on the lake... the water level is really down. We achieved the goal of the trip though, to see a bald eagle. Very nifty.

February 7, 2013 -

It has been a tough week. Nekochan had three visits to the vet with an infection and swelling under his eye, which was corrected, but after being sedated for that and the antibiotics he stopped eating, and could drink, but was unable to go to the litter box- he'd go, but would just strain- the most likely cause was a tumor and after being in pain from not being able to go, and going back to the vet to have a catheter to pee for a day- he was not able to go again on his own, and he was starting to have difficulty again, so Brad and I took him to Stone House last night to have him put to sleep- it was the toughest decision I've ever had to make. Brad buried him out by the pond this morning after the rain stopped- come spring I'll figure out a stone to mark the spot.

December 21, 2012 -

Christmas is almost here, and it has snowed! We put up lights for the first time this year

Brad installed a security camera system last month with six cameras, it was nice to be able to take pictures of the arctic wasteland without going out in it.

December 21, 2012 -

We had a pup show up nearly a month ago- Carrie came to visit, and he showed up at the door right after her and wanted in. We put up posters around town, called the humane society, ads on Craig's List and a couple other websites for lost pets- and only one person contacted me (and they turned out to be someone just fishing for a dog). Today he went to Holton to get some vet work done and then he'll be off to Carrie's house to stay.

October 24,2012 -

There was a bit of a discussion on finding a good home for Kahn, and that has sparked Brad into building a cat house- he's calling it a Kahndo (Condo) in the garage- so that will probably be a weekend project.  Earlier this month Brad tested the basement for radon again, I had it tested and it ranked average, but we've sealed things up better and now we rate as higher, so now we have a radon mitigation system.  Always some fun project.

October 14, 2012 -

It was pretty warm today and the leaves are starting to change so Bradley, Shug and I went on a walk of the nature trails at work. Shug is really starting to get over her fear of bridges, but the rope bridge across the creek she'll never be able to get up the courage for- no matter how many times I yell squirrel.

October 10, 2012 -

Crazy mixed up weather, we had one tiny cold snap, but it's been pretty warm, and after the dry hot summer, a number of flowers are messed up- I have a few iris that are starting to bloom.

September 21, 2012 -

It's been a couple fast months- at work we've been working on implementing TAM, new integrated retail software for the store, archives, sites and webstore, and probably the biggest and most time-consuming project we've undertaken.  I've gotten to visit a few sites, and have a couple more left next week, and then I'm sure we'll probably have bugs to take care of after that.  Overall it's been a very good experience and has gone mostly pretty smooth.

May 11, 2012 -

Brad and I went out to do KAP at the dig.

May 11, 2012 -

Dad came up today and took my cans!  I know.... exceptionally random huh?  It's not just a bag of cans- it's a bag containing 2.5 years of cans and aluminum foil to go to the recyclers.  I mashed them all down to tiny disks and it's like a trash bag x3.  He also took away the dead mower, two massive hanging baskets with pretty flowers for Mom, and three buckets-o-dirt for the former water garden at their house... and left me a giant rock.  It's like Christmas!

May 8, 2012 -

Bradley is now fully moved in, though we do have a bit more sorting of things to do, things are starting to settle. I dug some on the water garden hole last night, and struck a nifty find... a tiny white saucer about 4in across with a stamp on the underside that said Maddock & Co Royal Stonewear with a crown, I quickly went to the Google after washing it off, it was complete with no cracks, and found that they changed their stamp a number of times, and the one on it was used between 1906 and 1927- so nifty! Then I struck a strange stone structure.. it's about a foot and a half wide and goes three feet out of the pond area, and is about 5 inches below the surface.... Meh... perhaps an ancient sidewalk? The joys of digging a hole!

April 1, 2012 -

Big moving weekend! Brad and I worked on hauling the rest of his furniture to the house- there's still a table top and a few odds and ends left at the apartment, but otherwise he's moved in completely. The house is overflowing with stuff though, so we've started a "this can go to goodwill" and piles to go to the attic.

March 24, 2012 -

Today was Beth's first birthday, so Mom, Dad & I drove down to Joplin to re-enact last year's moring drive. She wasn't really sure what to think about her big day, she was a little cranky, and she hated her cake... she grabbed frosting and didn't like being gooey and then didn't want anything to do with it.

- February 12, 2012 -

The finished (mostly) upstairs bedroom! I've moved a few plants in and Bradley has been bringing a few items over to finish off the rest of the room. We still need to figure out a bed for it, and the DLP TV will probably come up here once we get it fixed.

- January 24, 2012 -

Week 2.5- Teresa and I came home from work, I sanded some of my mud spots, and dusted things off, and we primed the upper walls in record time. Shug gnawed on a her bone on a towel

- January 22, 2012 -

Week 2 of the upstairs renovation! We got all the painted wallpaper off, primed, then realized we needed to get down to the bare wall cause the prime was reacting with the wall in a way that wasn't going to be pretty.... Yikes. That added hours and hours to the project needlessly.

- January 16, 2012 -

We decided to start on the upstairs bedroom last weekend; we got paint and a couple smaller ceiling fans- the main room has a tiny white fan already, and then a second light that has just a pull string to turn it off and on, and lights with pull strings can be very lame, so I two nice fans, and having one set to the wall switch and the other so that you pull it off and on seemed like a much better solution without digging into the walls to rewire it..  I then discovered that the room had been wallpapered and painted over- it was very difficult to pick out the seams, but they put a 1" boarder around the top that was very easy to see, so I got out my multi-tool and was able to cut it off- it worked really well, and I probably should have stopped and mudded that area smooth and left it at that... but in a couple placed the painted wallpaper chipped away too, and it didn't seem like it'd be difficult to take it all off, so we took to scraping it off... and under that was a brown material that seemed to be on really good... so I tested a spot with primer, and it went on great, so we sanded that surface down and got it all ready, and primed, but half way through we realized that it was starting to bubble up, so we started to scrape that all off, along with $10 of wasted primer... so now we're down to bare wall on most of it.  We still have more to do, and to clean the walls a bit better, and then we'll be priming again.

- December 26, 2011 -

Christmas in Arkansas- I made origami for Sue on the way up, I'm not sure if it was me being so occupied or if I've gotten use to it after four trips now, but it seemed to fly by. This was my Christmas to buy people magic pans, I got one for Mom, Carrie and Sue; it's not teflon, nothing at all sticks to it, it's just magic. We had a good time, played games and watched movies, and played out in the backyard some collecting bamboo and rocks.

- December 17, 2011 -

Yesterday after work we went to see Bob in the hospital- he had had a tracheotomy done and a machine was breathing for him, they had hoped that after having the surgery he'd bounce back, but he hadn't, and now they seem more uncertain about how he'd do.  He was rejecting blood they were giving him about two days after they gave it to him, and had no explanation why it was happening.  We got a call this morning that he was now bleeding into his lungs, and that he would probably not have long.  We were all at the hospital when he passed- it's upsetting they couldn't do anything more for him, or understood why his body reacted the way it did.  I have Bob to thank for my job, he told me when the position in the library opened, that, and my subsequent job, and all the people I have met from that are so important to me, and were important to him too.

In the afternoon Brad and I went and picked up his last glass fusion piece along with our own that were done being fired.

- December 14, 2011 -

Today for work I took Rigel, a 30 terabyte storage server, I rebuilt down to the Wichita data center, and brought back Optimus, which I'll probably rebuild.  It was raining all morning, but luckily it paused while I was loading the car, and right when I got there to unload- so I can't complain too much about it.  They had powered down the data center yesterday to work on the electrical so it was a good time to wait to take the server out since I had to push a couple power buttons on other things too.

- December 11, 2011 -

I'm all ready for Christmas!  It was a big weekend of shopping.  We got our tree up last weekend and now it is flush with presents.  I got Bradley an assault shotgun and he got me a mountain bike that's way better than the one I got from Walmart that I rode a couple times and blew the brakes and gearing on.  Hopefully this one will last better- it's a lot lighter too.  Kitty and Teresa are the only last ones left I need to get something for.

Past blog posts...