Office Hijinks

They built us a new building. In part because the old building has been condemned for years. At the beginning of the day, I thought I was moving Wednesday. Moving crew was here ready to take my table (desk) away, so I cleared everything off and put it out in the hall. The table is gone.

Just before lunchtime, I realized that any furniture that had green masking tape with an address got picked up an carted off. Everything else is being surplussed. I found some of the green masking tape, and started labeling things and putting them in the hall. I'm sending stuff to people I know around campus. Several rolling knee height file cabinets are headed out to various people. A bookcase is going back to the Talmage building where I got it 9 years ago. (Different department there now.) Some old chairs are headed back to the head of our department, he hasn't seen them in 8 years. The old blue couch isn't allowed in the new building, it's labeled to go to one of the high councilmen.

Now it looks like it will be Thursday or later that we will be let into the new building. Which makes my hijinks of the day a little unfortunate:

Random topics from the past week

Emma - Today at school Emma had a picnic to school, she was supposed to bring a sandwich. Last night I asked her what kind of sandwich she wanted. She wanted a pepperoni sandwich with butter. This morning, I made her a pepperoni sandwich with butter. I also made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just in case the other didn't work out. Both sandwiches were eaten. The report is that the pepperoni sandwich tasted like butter.

Housework - The Home Depot commercial tells me to turn up my "doing" dial up a notch. I think my "sit on the couch and do nothing" switch locks the "doing" dial firmly in place.

Home remodel - I'm about to buy some windows. And I am working on getting quotes for heating/AC. And soon we will start having the place torn up.

DVR - They updated our DVR over the weekend. It finally works the way I think it should. You can record something on a particular day/time, record extra time in the front or back of a recording, record every instance it finds of a particular show, etc. They wiped out all our pending recordings, not such a big loss, it was mostly kids shows, and the kids are headed out on a vacation soon. There is still something like 25 hours of kids shows on the thing now. They call it a "PVR" now. Supposed to stand for "Personal Digital Recorder". They think people are afraid of the word digital? Or were people thinking they couldn't record the non-digital channels? Now scheduled to record? PTI and MLB Baseball. Favorite PTI quote last week? - "Why would anyone let their child grow up to be a soccer referee?"

Ankle - I went to the orothopedic surgeon yesterday. He thinks he saw a chip at the top of the ankle. I have an MRI tomorrow. If the chip is a floating chip, he will scope the ankle to get it out. If not, we will talk about it more. In a walking boot for a while longer. And the ankle hurts.

Quiz - I did a "How well do you know John Payne quiz" on facebook the other day. It might be a little hard for any one person to ace, unless they figure out the trick to it. Drew and Adam both got 75%. Most everyone gives me too much credit for my Freshman year college grades. And some people think I played the tuba. (Maybe I am just Oompa band looking.)

Birthday - I had a birthday over the weekend. 34 now. We had a little BBQ. I tried 2 jokes for the day, which varying results. One was - "I have decided to defer the mid-life crisis another year" The other - "A couple of years ago I spent 3 months eating nothing but preservatives. I haven't aged a day since..." A check for $1200 came in the mail that day. Not a bad deal.

Garden - Some stuff is growing in the garden, other things are having a bit of a hard time. The quail got some of it. Peas are doing well. I have about a dozen tomato plants still back there, most of them are doing ok. Not sure exactly what varieties are there at this point from the grazing the quail did and replanting. Corn is growing, as well as some combination of squashes, watermelon, cantelope, and stuff. It's the mystery garden. And it needs some serious weeding.

The fast baby - Adam is fully crawling at this point. When motivated, he can really move. And he thinks he is hot stuff. He has no problems heading into and through the kitchen. He still refuses to roll over from his back to front. Easy way to keep him close? Roll him over. He's like a turtle.

iPod - I got my old iPod back from Tara the other day. It only cost me a new one for her. and I had to bring it back from the dead for a second time. We will have to see how long it lives this time.

19 days - Only 19 days until I eat myself sick with chicken wings.

More later.

13.6 hours of a Thursday (Give or take 23 minutes)

Morning. Morning came much too early. It had something to do with the fact that I started up watch a recording of the last city council meeting until 2am. Sometimes those people are just knuckleheads.

Adam screamed his head off this morning, normally he sleeps in, but this morning he was screaming at the top of his lungs. Tara couldn't get him to stop. I would have tried ignoring it, but I told the girls I would take them to school to get their lunch account balances straightened out. And Emma got to eat lunch at school today, the report was that she had to bring her money, and they couldn't charge to the account. I barely got out of bed in time to get them to school.

The lunch lady got me the balances for the three girls. Kate was almost out, only had 2 or 3 days worth left. (Only 5 more days to deal with it.) Emma had a bunch on her account still, but only eats breakfast. I asked them to reduce Emma's account down to what she needed, and level out the other 2 accounts. The lunch ladies agreed that they were perfectly able to charge Emma's lunch today to her account. I walked Emma down to her class and let her teacher know.

It took me another 45 minutes or so to get around to getting ready for work. I could have very easily just went back to sleep for another 5 or 6 hours, I only used my BiPap once this week. My ankle has been keeping up up a little the last couple of days too. Decided to go to work, had stuff to do, and there was a free lunch in it for me. Took a 12 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper cans to work with me, promised Tara that I wouldn't drink them all. Gave one to John Peterson when I got there so that I could keep my promise...

We have a guy at work in a wheelchair. He got there a the same time as me, the sidewalks were being watered by the sprinkler system. The grass between my truck and the doors was dry, I hobbled across the grass while he plowed through the wet in his chair. Later in the day he offered to loan me one of his handicap parking passes for a while, I declined.

Have a server to repurpose & reinstall. I needed to find fiber cards for it. (We had some spare, but I used the last two spare a couple of days ago.) I thought I had a machine somewhere that had cards in it, but were not being used. This ended up not being the case. Found a server that could be turned off for a few weeks to use the cards. The machine from a couple of days ago couldn't see the cards, spent some time working on it until I got it fixed. New machine to be reinstalled tomorrow.

Lunhc was good, they have these "Quality Improvement Lunches" where the director lure in a dozen engineers a month with food, then talk to them about something or the other. They rotate around who goes. Seems like the discussion was targeted at a few others today, the Smokehouse was good as always.

Watched the BYU baseball game on the streaming TV today at work. They won the first game, TCU smoked them in the second. Tourney over for them. I also worked on the one project that has been taking most of the time at work lately...

Came home at 4pm to meet the window guy from Pella. Turned the swamp cooler on. We won't be doing the blinds in the windows, they looked too fancy for the house. And the blinds are not sealed, so the girls could still get into them. (And once they saw how it was done, I guarentee they would have thought it was cool, we would have never kept them out after that.) I should get a quote back from Pella tomorrow on normal windows. Sent some measurements to try to get a quote from Amsco. Home Depot coming by on Saturday morning.

Tara took Ruth to go shopping with her Mom. (Ruth's birthday was yesterday.) Eventually I decided the kids needed something to eat, I gave them leftovers, followed by cheesesticks, followed by cereal. Highly nutritious. They seemed to like it ok, and the fridge got cleaned out a little. I had Salt & Vinegar potatoe chips and a Diet Dr. Pepper.

My grass is long, and needs to be watered. I asked a neighborhood kid to mow my lawn for the next 10 weeks or so. He agreed, I asked him how much he wanted to be paid. He told me I didn't have to pay him. I suggested $50, which made him pretty happy.

A bit later, I noticed that the dishwasher was leaking out the front. Might be the end of the dishwasher. Tara was thinking she was ready for a new one anyway, in part because I don't prerinse. The existing dishwasher had a good run. Need to look around, but Sears has a 15% off sale the next two days.

Towards dusk, it was getting kind of crazy in the house. I took Adam out front and sat him in the grass. He kept his right foot elevated for about 20 minutes so it would hit the grass. I kept waiting for him to drop the foot, he kept it up there. Strong kid. I sat on the porch and pulled weeds for a while until I realized that misquitos were sucking me dry. We went inside.

Lily wanted to go for a drive, so I took her out for a drive. I took a can of Dr. Pepper, but realized that I drank 4 or 5 already today, so the can it still sitting in the truck unopened. I need to remember to get it out in the morning so it doesn't heat up and burst in there tomorrow. We puttered around for a bit, then drive to the bank to get the $50 to pay the for the lawn mowing. Might as well pay him up front. We took the long way through campus on the way back. Lily just sat and enjoyed the ride.

When we got home, I noticed that the water for the garden was one. I'm not sure how long I had it on, I am sure the plants could use it. Tara was home, and bought me some birthday presents. Jeans, a "Marvin the Martian" shirt, and a Wii brain game. We played the game for a while.

Thanks Drew!

Drew came over this afternoon to hook up the swamp cooler. I thought I could get up a ladder to the roof to do it, but I wasn't sure about my ability to get back down the ladder. At least not in a manner that would be "Tara approved". The house is nice and cool now. Thanks.

As an added bonus, Drew brought me some wings for my birthday. They were mighty good.

Medical follies, and not so much

Last Monday, I went into see my doctor. He wasn't a whole lot of help, or hasn't been yet. He wasn't sure what to say about the flare up, but he at least wasn't ready to stick me on the restrictive diet. I suggested that it was time to test my thyroid, and asked about doing a full workup to see if something else was going on.

Then we talked about my ankle. He started talking about acupuncture, and it's ability to help energy flow. I gave him a look, and he settled down to talking about a "bio conductive sock". I took the sock, it was supposed to help energy flow in the ankle, maybe it did, but that didn't take the pain in the ankle away.

The nurse that took the blood started with my left arm. No blood came out. This usually means that someone missed the vein. She figured I was dehydrated. I drank a bunch of water for her, and she started in on the other arm. Again, no blood. I made a joke about knowing what the problem was with me, no blood, but she didn't take the bait. She poked the needle in more, and out came the blood. (finally.) For the second vial, she pulled the needle out a little, the blood stopped. I told her to push back in, she eventually got enough.

New sock on foot, I left. I was supposed to call Wednesday afternoon to get the results, but remembered 5 minutes too late. I called Thursday, a different nurse was there. She pulled my chart and called me back. She started giving me results from January, I told her to look at the date. No current lab results, and the doctor was out until Monday. (today)

I called today, the nurse said she would pull my chart and get back to me. I am still waiting for the call. I am sure I will call tomorrow, and will be assured that they will pull my chart and call me back. At that point, I will let them know that was what I was promised the last two times. In the meantime, my right arm started bruising yesterday at the vein that was poked. 8 days, a bruise, no results.

My ankle continues to bother me, and is really slowly getting worse. I have an appointment to go in and see an orthopedic surgeon, but there was a long wait. I called on Thursday or Friday, but there were no sooner openings than the day I already had scheduled. It hurt pretty good today, I finally decided to head over to the urgent care office. There were some sick looking people there. One kid came in, not sure what was wrong with him, but they quickly put a mask on him and took him around a back way. (I didn't see any Soylent Green signs, hopefully the kid will be ok...)

The Xray person was having trouble with the xrays, sort of. I guess the things get digitized there, she was having computer trouble more than anything else. When the doctor came in, the first thing he said was "You look very familiar..." (But not Osmond like, I guess.)

The doctor said that my ankle looked very ratty. He didn't really see evidence of new problems, and wanted to refer me to the surgeon that I have an appointment with next week. I guess that is a vote of confidence for the guy I will be meeting, but not much for what to do in the mean time. The doctor thought the surgeon might have a better idea on what to do, and suggested that he might be able to shave down the jagged parts.

In the meantime, I have been given a walking boot to help keep the ankle immobilized during the day. It's shorter than the old one I have, but I think it is actually a bit better. Short enough that I don't think I can justify shorts at church, but big enough to give some stability. 8 days until I get in to see the surgeon.

If I don't get the blood results back tomorrow, I plan to camp out at the doctor's office on Wednesday. At least until the time when I need to meet someone to talk about windows for the house....

Book Review

Enemies and Allies
Kevin J Anderson

This book is set in the 50's and deals with some firsts: The first time Superman and Batman meet, The first time Lex Luthor tries a 'big evil scheme', the first time Superman encounters kryptonite, etc.

The author also wrote "The Last Days of Krypton". I liked both books. In this one, he set the thing shortly after Superman and Batman started their 'Super Professions'. The book (in my opinion) properly avoids trying to tell origin stories. It is clearly a Superman story with Batman in it, not that there is anything wrong with that. (No crazy painted villians yet in the Batman world of this book...)

Definitely a good read. It is in the quick read category, maybe because it was well written, maybe because it was a well written Superman story. (I don't want to say more and ruin anything in the story for you, just go find a copy and read it. It only took me a little over one evening. Meaning about 5 hours.)

Elementary school track meet

Around here, the elementary schools do a track meet at the end of the year that for some reason is called the Hershey Track meet. (They do it over at one of the high schools, the school is not the Hershey school, and the mascot has nothing to do with chocolate.) We forgot our camera, as usual. Sorry, no pictures.

This year was Kate's first year to participate. She was in the 4x100 meter relay, and the 50 yard dash. She was the anchor leg of the 4x100.

Yesterday morning when she was getting ready for school, she put on a pair of sandals. We asked her why she was using those to run in, the answer was that she didn't have any sneakers to run in. I'm not sure why she waited until an hour before the track meet to mention this little fact. Tara ended up running to the store to get her some sneakers.

We got to the track, and gave Kate her new sneakers. The lady trying to organize the kids got upset when I went up there to give her her shoes. I ignored the lady. There was another Dad there who looked like he had just bought some new sneakers, but his daughter ended up not having socks, either. (At least Kate had some socks on.)

Kate's race started, but got stopped half way through. There was no explanation, they just had all the runners stand in the middle of the field. We didn't understand why they just didn't let them run. After a while, they got around to the 10-11 year old 4x100 relay, and for a few minutes, it looked like they might have the younger girls run with the older girls. I went down out fo the stands to the track to find out what the deal was, (and encourage them to not run the younger kids to run with the older kids.) the only response I got from those particular school people was "Parents should stay in the stands!" Sweet.

Kate eventually got to race again. They started the race, and the lady supervising the anchor leg was not paying attention and was walking away when the race started. She tried waving her flag to stop the race again, and pulled Kate and the other girls off the track. They kept running the race, so the lady ran back and had the girls run back to get ready to go.

Kate finally got the baton, and started running. Except she acted like her pants were going to fall down. And she was waving and talking to people as she ran by. At least she had a good time.

When we were ready to go, I got the van, and drove around to the other side of the track to pick up the girls, there was a small parking lot there. One of the older school people was there guarding the lot. I stopped the van and got out, and started walking (limping) to where Tara would have been, the lady made me go back and move the van. I circled the block, came back, and a truck with a trailer full of wood was trying to get in the lot, but nosed himself further in, and had to do some sort of 47-point turn to get himself out. More cirlcing the block. Tara was having trouble corralling Ruth and Lily. We eventually got out of there, but not without some stress.

We have at least 10 more years of dealing with the Hershey track meet...

It must have some sort of pychoanalytical term associated with it...

Sometimes I like to tear papers up.

Occasionally when there is a paper handed to me at work, if the reading material in it is offensive to me, I will tear the paper in half over and over and over, just to see how many pieces I can get it in.

A couple of years ago, a guy at work (Jeff) kept printing out copies of a diagram he made and giving it to me over and over. We had a different guy (Frank) that got home from Iraq after a tour, they both came in the office bringing in a copy of the paper. Jeff handed me the paper, I took it, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it out the window of the guy next to me. The look on Frank's face was priceless. He couldn't believe I had just done that, he still hadn't readjusted to work (or me at least) fully. Priceless.

Sometimes after tearing a piece of paper, if I need extra effect, I will take all the little papers, then toss them into the air. (All while remaining perfectly calm.) Good times.

Long story short, if I were somewhere that someone was trying to get me to sign something I didn't want to sign, or a paper with something I don't agree with really agree with, I would maintain a poker face, calmly pick the paper up, and tear it to shreds, in half each time. If added effect was needed, I would pick up the little squares of paper, and toss them in the air after. Just in case anyone needs to it.

10,000 United States visits

This blog is now at 10,000 visits from the United States. Thanks for stopping by.

Still no visits from Vermont...

Fried Chicken, Peas, Gravy Noodles

Dinner

Steak, garlic & horseradish mashed potatoes, and pan fried zucchini slices

So close to being mobile...

I think he might be there if we wasn't wearing his slick pants. Or if he hadn't gotten distracted by the crayon under the cupboard...

Art Show

There was an art show at the elementary school on Tuesday. I missed it, I was at the Stake center. Tara took a number of pictures, here they are for your enjoyment...

I need to read to those girls...

Last night Lily was out of her room later in the evening, she really wanted Tara to read her a story from a book. Tara was trying to get Adam ready for bed, and couldn't read her a book. No matter what we said, we could not convince Lily that I was qualified to read a book to her. Lily was tired, but it sounds like she might think I am illiterate. I'm a bad dad.

Shoes and Walking, or "walking wounded", anyway...

Several months ago we were asked to help out with our Stake's Youth handcart trek. This sounded like fun, but we needed new shoes. My sneakers were full of holes. I talked about Shoe Carnival here before. Trek or no Trek, I needed new footwear.

Tara got some shoes from Famous Footwear. She found some shoes she liked, but not the exact right size at the store she was in. She purchased the right size, they mailed the shoes to the house, no extra charge. She seems to like her shoes.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I started into a fibromyalgia flareup. Not a lot of fun, but things are starting to get somewhat better. All except my ankle. My ankle has been giving me all sorts of problems still. I tried walking Emma to a birthday party on Saturday, and the 3 block walk about did me in. The pain gets worse the more I walk on it, I have been trying for the most part to take it easy on it. On Monday, one of the guys at work mentioned that I might have a fracture in it, which still lets me walk on it and wouldn't be all that comfortable. He had a good point. I thought about it for a while, and decided that some of the pain while walking, and some of the pain that lingered could be a break. (Just not one of the spectacular breaks I have done, one of the of the 'hard to pin down' breaks...) On Monday I made an appointment with my doctor for next week to talk about the flare up. I figured I couldn't take him my ankle, he doesn't have an Xray machine, so I called the place where the surgeon that did the last 2 works.

Dr. Jackson doesn't do ankles anymore, they hired a new guy that is supposed to be one of the best. I knew this from a call a couple of years ago. During my call on Monday, the receptionist told me that the new doctor only took referrals, I would need to see someone else and get them to refer me. Not my favorite answer. I asked why they needed a referral, the big reason was so that they could get a medical history on me. I explained that Dr. Jackson had operated on my ankle twice, and no other work had been done on my ankle, but I was having problems with it. She said she would leave my information for the doctor and his nurse, and they would get back to me.

Great. I figured that might be the last I would hear from them. Yesterday afternoon, they called back, said they looked over my file, and the doctor would be happy to see me. His earliest appointment was 3 weeks away. I took it, I hope I am not still having problems then, but I might still go in to get looked at.

We got taken off the "for sure" list for Trek. President Palmer thinks we should be taken off the list completely at this point. Missy is still taking the time off, in case we go. Maybe they will decide to bring us up to help cook or something.

The Wellness program at work is currently doing their annual walking thing. 8000 steps a day, it started Monday. 8000 steps is not a lot of steps. (Go ahead and count for a day or two.) I am already falling behind. The thing goes through the end of June, I hope I can eventually get caught up. ($25 if I make it) We have a little group for the Wellness program at work, I named it "Walking Wounded". I think it is completely appropriate at this point...

Whining over.

Spaghetti Marinara with sausage, Eggplant Parmigiana, Green Beans

100% good.

Food blog merge

I merged in that blog with pictures of the food I eat into this one. I kind of got out of the habit of taking the pictures over the past couple of weeks, sorry about that, but now you don't have two places to look at from me. We have had some good things to eat the past couple of weeks...

The best laid plans...

Today I was going to rent a transit and do a survey of the yard for the building plans. I woke up to rain. I don't know where the rain came from, but it definitely was not on the forecast 3 days ago when I last looked. I think my parents brought it with them. The days I least liked framing houses was the slightly colder rainy days when we were working outside. I don't think I will be doing the survey today, it is pouring out there.

Today is free comic book day. Sounds like a good excuse to get the girls to clean their rooms again.

I might get a haircut this afternoon, if Sid is still up to it. From what I can tell, he is supervising the giant rummage sale over at the girls school. He might be too tired to deal with my head after.

There is always laundry to do...

Future bionic woman

For Christmas, I got Tara a desktop. The old one we had is about 9 years old. Tara was finally tired of it. She seems to like the new desktop, but the thing kind of hurts her legs when she sits in the recliner with it...

For Mother's Day, I have gotten her a new laptop. I am typing this on the laptop now. Dell had a deal on their Inspiron 15 machines. The thing shipped with Vista, and seems resistant to my efforts to install XP. I am sure I could get the thing reinstalled if I spent enough time on it, but it doesn't really matter all that much to me, and Tara is ok with it. (I offered to install Linux on it for her, but she passed.)

Tara keeps asking for technology. I've finally converted her. I'm not shure what she will want to top things for our anniversary or her birthday this year, maybe she will want a smart house or something. Or cyborg implants of some sort.

Any tips to make Vista run a little faster? I have already disabled the desktop appearance widgets...