...The Countdown Continues...

The drywall is up in both bedrooms now.

Drew came over again today and helped get the walls mudded.

This is a drywall I put up on Saturday. (I did the bottom half of one of the bedrooms, too.) I think I will stick to my day job. After the work in the house is done, anyway.

We should be ready for paint by the end of the week, at the latest. If only I knew what colors to use...

Too quiet...

It turns out that it is actually harder to focus, pay attention and not close my eyes at church when I don't have kids climbing all over me. I stayed awake the entire time, but it was a struggle there for a bit...

T-minus 19 days

No pictures for a couple of days, I got a new laptop at work today. I took the converter for the MicroSD card out of my old laptop and left it on the desk at work. The building is locked up tight for the weekend, so no pictures until Monday. Maybe that will make the progress look more dramatic.

My new laptop is about half the weight of my old laptop, the screen is a bit smaller, but the image on it is a lot more vibrant than my old machine. I installed Fedora 11 on it, which was released 2 weeks or so ago. So far, so good, although they changed the wireless card on the order, so we have to start using the other stupid drivers again. (I'm plugged into a wire right now, not enough time to work on it.)

A couple of days ago I stuck all my dirty clothes, darks and whites in the washer together. I also stuck in a blue pen, although I didn't know at the time. When the clothed got out of the dryer, there were many blue marks... Not a total loss, but definitely a partial loss.

I went and got a tetanus shot this afternoon. They made me get a whooping cough vaccine as well. I guess everyone has to get a new one, eventually.

Drew came over again tonight to help, which was nice of him. A number of things moved along a bit:

• I went up in the attic and put in 3 ceiling boxes. It was kind of hot up there. I also wired up the boxes and all the outlets. Drew wired up the outlets, I got one of the ceiling fans back in.
• I finished putting insulation in the rest of the currently exposed walls. The insulation blocks quite a bit of sound, which will be nice.
• Drew started taping a muding the corner bedroom.
• Chad put in another door.

Lots more to do. Not lots of time to do it.

T-minus 20 days

I stayed home from work today, the window guys showed up at 8am. I worked for an hour or so, and decided to stop and start working on the house.

I am not sending you a message here. I did some patching where walls used to be and flooring was uneven.

Drew came over this evening, we almost got all the sheetrock up in one of the bedrooms. It is not inconceivable that this room could be ready for paint on Saturday or Monday. (Or Tuesday, or Wednesday.)

The window guys finished, things look pretty good. I need to start putting blinds back up so I can stop living in a glass house... I drew blood today cleaning up the mess, I need to go get a tetnus shot tomorrow, it's been 12 years.

Anyone else want to help get this thing finished?

T-minus 21 days

AKA Window day.

It's hard to tell, really, but most of the windows are in, there are only 3 small and 2 big ones left to install.

The horizontal windows look tons bigger than the vertical windows did, even though they are the same size...

The door is also in, with it's blinds in the window. Certainly better than a blanket and a sheet of plywood...

T-minus 22 days

Not a lot to say about today's effort, here is what I've got.

The back door is gone. You see here a wool blanket and a sheet of plywood serving as a door. The plywood is mailed up there, no going in and out tonight...

Interesting thing about the back room - The header for the door is really an I-beam. It looks like it might extend all the way across the wall. I know where I am going in an earthquake...

The windows and door were delivered this morning. Installation starts at 8am tomorrow morning. Hopefully they can take care of the door first...

That's all for now. I don't think that I will really get to anything else tonight, my ankle is kind of sore, and I need to get things done for work. If I do get to anything, it will be putting in more insulation in the new bedrooms.

Ankle update

Last Friday was the day that medically I was authorized to stop wearing the boot for my ankle, not that I wore it much in the week before that.

Things are going ok, I went over to the waterpark the last two days to walk back and forth in the wave pool. (While the waves were not there.) My left calf had gotten incredibly tight during the past ten days or so, walking in the pool lets me streach far enough that the calf is starting to get loosened up some. It's almost all the way calmed down at this point. Yesterday coming home from the place my foot had the worst cramp ever from walking I guess, today my ankle is pretty sore, so I might take tomorrow off andd not go over there.

The ankle still hurts a bit walking around, mostly on the outside of the thing. The doctor said if I could get the pain down to a point that it was localized, he would shoot it would cortizone to try to get the rest of it cleared up. If anywhere ends up being that spot, it would be the outside of the ankle.

All in all, it is a lot better than it was a month ago...

T-minus 23 days

Windows are framed up. Which is good because the windows are being delivered tomorrow and installed Wed/Thur. We need to get the door framed up for the installers still, but the windows are ready to go. I picked up an entire trash bag of junk from behind Mary and Kate's bed, and a bucket of toys, pencils, crayons, littlest pet shops, etc.

I started putting in insulation in the walls. I can get 30 cents a square foot back from the gas company for this stuff. I made about 30 dollars today based on turning the thing in...

You can't see much here, because Chad put up plywood over the new framing for the bedroom. This will hopefully cut down on the mosquitoes and snails in the house... One way or another, it comes down Wednesday to put windows in.

I had to cut some bushes back for the window installation. Here is a picture of a very hacked bush. It grows like a weed, I am sure it will recover.

The other new window. Which was just a wall yesterday.

I saw the biggest bee I have ever seen in my entire life in the laundry room today. I got it to leave the house without incident. The biggest bee I have ever seen. I don't think it was one of those Africanized honey bees, but it was big.

Book Review

The Bourne Sanction
Eric Van Lustbader

I read the three original Bourne books and Van Lustbader's first Bourne book all in the course of a week. I wasn't all that impressed with Mr. Van Lustbader's first book, mostly because I think of the change in writing style, more than anything else.

Three years later, I found myself sitting in an airport, with the two books I brought finished. I went to one of the bookstores, and saw this book. I couldn't really remember at the time if I liked the other book, but I got it because I had a lot of time on my hands...

This book was pretty good. I seem to have missed a book in there somewhere, the author alluded to stuff that happened before, but not in the books I read. It was fairly fast paced, had a couple of surprises in there that weren't too hard to figure out before the big reveal, and didn't feel all that labored to read.

Some things I didn't like all that much about the book: The author has seemed to abandoned the angst Jason Bourne had about his past. He sort of tried, but I didn't think it was there anymore like the origonal books. Maybe it was something I missed in the book I didn't read. There was a good deal of language in the book. The author didn't bother to tie up all the loose ends by the end of the book, he is writing another that picks up where this one ends. he even added a loose end or two at the end of the book. They had an excerpt at the end of the book for the next one, titled The Bourne Betrayal. (Released two weeks ago, according to Amazon.)

Anyway, it was an ok book, I finished it in less than 36 hours, not reading all that time. I was interested enough in what happened that I will likely pick up the next book and read it, just to see where it goes...

The current state of things

Camera phone pictures are not the greatest, but here you go - some pictures of the house.

A lost and lonely snail. must have come in through the boarded up window. I am also getting flys and mosquitoes...

The back bedroom has been divided in half.

Snail entry.

Poorly framed picture of the hallway.

Siding being removed for the framing of a new window. Turns out there are cedar shingles up there after all...

Book Review

The Art of Deception
Kevin Mitnick & William Simon

This book tries to be all about how social engineers get the information they want out of people, how they can talk their way into IT systems, and why you should be afraid of it all. OK, maybe not afraid of it all, but at least aware of it.

The author goes through all kinds of different 'case studies', at least some of which appear to be real life stuff, and talk about different ways Information Technology attackers get in where they want to go. His point basically is that most corporate security spends plenty of time talking about hardware and software security technology, but largely ignores the human interaction side of things. His basic point throughout is that you can have all the security in the world, but if someone with access can be talked into letting an outsider in, all your security is for nothing.

I thought a lot of what he said was stuff that was just obvious. ("Don't open email attachments from people you don't know." "Don't let people into your system unless you are sure you know and trust them." Stuff like that.) Maybe it's just that we are seven years removed from the printing of the book, or maybe I am just more sensitive to that kind of stuff in general.

The book would be a good read for someone who is just stepping out into the world of IT Security, or wants an overview of what kinds of social engineering tricks are out there. This book would also be good for someone looking to start a criminal career in the IT world. Gives some good ideas.

At the end of the book, he gives some ideas to improves IT security, most of which seemed pretty obvious to me. Maybe that is a good sign. I definitely know of some ways our organization can be socially engineered at work, and no, I will not be sharing them here. At least the book let me think about some of that...

T-minus 24 days

There are only 24 days left for us to get done with the house remodeling.

Suddenly I feel like I am on a very boring reality show with the lowest ratings ever. In yesterdays episode, I cleaned up the house. There was laundry to do, things to pick up, and the girls had a lot of stuff piled up in the front room that needed to be moved away from the windows. I wanted to go outside to trim the bushes down in advance of the windows being replaced, but it kept raining outside. I would go out, it would start raining, so I would go in. Then the sun would come out, and dry stuff up, so I would go out again, just to find it sprinkling again. Mid-afternoon we got a downpour. I had a pork chop, baked potato, and corn for dinner. Like I said, boring, at least for TV.

24 days, unless you exclude Sundays, which you should, making it 21 days. I only have about 8 unallocated vacation days from work, but I also have a few things that need to get done in the next month at work: HPUX patching (not hard or really time consuming, but will happen overnight, will lose a half day sleeping it off), Access Control upgrade (Big project - potential for a spectacular failure there), and I need to start writing a design paper for some of our High Availability stuff we want to do this year. I have 16 work days in the 24 remaining days, I don't think I can fit all 8 vacation days in that time period.

Drew told me today that he wants to help. This is a good thing. I think we can really jam through the two bedrooms once the windows are installed. But not really before they get in.

I still need to pick someone to do our heating and cooling. And we need to work on the electrical before they install an AC unit. And I don't know if I need the city to come replace the electrical meter or not yet.

24 days. Today I got a large carpet remnant from Drew. The people they got their carpet from sold them way more than they needed. I guess that means I did something.

Tomorrows main task? Make a list of things that can be done, some checkpoint or watermarks on progress, and what tasks have to wait for other things. Maybe I can do some half days at work, half days at home. That might help things a bit, if I can manage to juggle the important things at work properly...

I have a few pictures to post, including a snail that somehow got into the middle of one of the old bedrooms this morning. They are not posted here because Tara has the digital camera (she is working her way through a post a day. Don't forget to take a peek at her blog...), the convertor for the MicroSD card my camera uses is at my desk at work. Pictures need to wait for tomorrow...

Book report

Sway
The Irresistible pull of irrational behavior

Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman


The director of our department recommended this book in a meeting I was in about six months ago, I finally got around to checking it out of the library and reading it this past week.

The book was very interesting, the authors talk about the different ways, or 'sways' that influence our decisions, and make us do stupid things. (Or at least irrational.) They started by talking about the Tenerife airline crash, when the pilot took off in think fog, and ended up plowing into another airliner. The pilot had been the chief safety officer for the company he was in, and should have new better, but time pressures influenced his decision, and off they went.

Some of the things that the authors explain influence our irrational decisions:

• fear of failure
• committing to and idea and being unable to stop that commitment
• making a judgment on the value of something - either direction, good or bad.
• There are others, but you should read the book...
  

The authors talked about how the pleasure center of the brain appears to overcome the altruistic center of the brain when decisions are made. When monetary (or other) incentive is involved, people often serve less or less effectively. (I figure it's the 'Natural Man' they are really talking about.)

At the end of the book, they talk about group dynamics and how they work. They define the term 'blocker', in a group, the person with a different view, wither right or wrong, and how this blocker can help the group make better decisions in the long run.

This was a very interesting book. I recommend everyone gets a copy and reads it. In the meantime, eggs are half off at the store, I am off to buy 50 dozen.

Buffalo Bisons game

I took Kate and Mary to a Buffalo Bisons game this afternoon. It was "Office Professionals day", not sure what that means, except for the fact that it was an afternoon game in the middle of the week.

It poured down rain here last night, and was still sort of trying to rain by the time we left for the game. It was more of a mist downtown when we got our tickets, we went in to get ready for the game.

While waiting 20 minutes at concessions for the hot dogs for the girls ("It takes a long time for a good hot dog to be cooked properly" said the hot dog lady...), we saw on the monitor that they were pulling the tarp on the field. We got out to the stands, and it was definitely raining out there.

A friend from high school, Ron Flesher was at the game, we talked for a while. After about a half hour, there was a little conference between an ump, both coaches, and grounds crew. The grounds crew guys went out near the outfield and tried getting rid of what looked like some pretty swampy grass.

After almost 2 hours, they finally called the game. The announcer told everyone that the tickets could be exchanged for any other 2009 home game. I figured if I walked out of there with the tickets, there was a pretty good likelihood that they would go unused, so we went over to the ticket office. The guy there was mostly explaining to people that they could come any day back to the ballpark and exchange tickets, some people were exchanging then and there. When I got to him, I explained that I was from out of town, and asked if they would be willing to refund my tickets. He went back in the back to talk to someone else, then came back for the card I used to purchase the tickets, a few minutes later I had a refund for the tickets. Sweet deal.

That's all. No one got a hit. No one struck out. A bird came and took a piece of popcorn from Mary that she had dropped...

Obligatory Niagara Falls pictures.

We went to Niagara Falls yesterday. We also took Evan and Madilyn, which allowed us to just say no when people asked if those kids were all ours...

Evan and Mary are picking up rocks to throw in the water.

"Are those all yours???"
"No."

Vacation Food

In Buffalo, the wing is the King. I ate a bunch for dinner on Monday, have been sneaking a couple of Adam's this afternoon, and fully expect to have some more tomorrow. Wings sure are good. I would take some back for people at home if there were any way possible to get them there without eating them all...

For lunch today, Tara and I went out to a place called "Swiston's Beef and Keg". You can't tell from the picture here, but the sandwich had a lot of tasty meat on it. The place is really a bar that serves beef on weck. They have a little veggie station for you to get some veggies for your sandwich. Pretty tasty. If someone at the office could make these just like this, and come in at the Swiston's price of $5 per sandwich or better, I would seriously consider purchsing a subscription for lunches... The directions to the place was spot on - In Tonawanda, behind the Burger King, but before you drive into the creek. Good beef on weck.

I'm sure Buffalo has some other delicacies, but these are the ones I like.

Road Trip - Day 2

North Platte - I don't know if it is our impeccable timing or what, but every time we stop in North Platte, the place is packed. North Platte is a third of the way from our house to my parents house, so it is a good landing spot when we are taking the trip in three days.

One time we got there and none of the hotels had rooms. We ended up staying in a little run down motel way inside town. It was some sort of Hunting/Fishing weekend. Another time we saw all kinds of birds in the sky while we were coming, turns out cranes were migrating, people were headed towards Eastern Nebraska to see the migration. This time the place was packed, which was strange because no one was on the road going Eastbound. Turns out there was a rodeo in town this weekend or something. Good thing we made a reservation in advance...

Except for the big cities, there was less people on the road today than yesterday. Kinda strange for the summer time. Things were fairly uneventful for us, except for two exceptions.

In Iowa, at a rest stop, I was at the van changing Adam's diaper, a lady came up to me and asked if I knew anything about cars. I turned around, and told her that I thought the smoke coming out of the engine was not a good sign. I went over there, and she was leaking fluid, it was all over her engine , brakes, tires, etc. I told her that was also not a good sign. Big help, I know. I don't know if it was transmission fluid or antifreeze, she told me she was driving, and the van started doing funny things, she was afraid to take it over forty. I guess she was less than an hour from home, her son was in the van, and tried to start it, but it didn't. She asked me if I thought it was ok to drive it to the next exit to get some motor oil. I told her it wasn't motor oil, and if it was me, I would be driving it. When we left, they were sitting there waiting for her husband to come. Adam took a swan dive out of the car at this rest stop while this was happening, he had a bunp on his head, but seemed ok. He still seems ok long hours later.

All trip long, I have been 4 miles per hour over the speed limit. Shocking I know. Shortly after crossing into Illinois, I saw two cops running a little trap. The one pointed our way jumped out as I passed, the other positioned to cover both directions. My only thought was "He is not going to pull me over for four miles an hour, is he?" He hung out in the other lane for a few minutes, right in my earhole, then finally got behind us and pulled us over.

When he came up tothe van, he asked if everyone had seatbelts. Then he asked if I had anything on my record, which I don't. He had me hobble over to his car while he checked things out. We shot the breeze for a few minutes, then he wrote me a warning. Looks like we will be going exactly the speed limit, at least to the Indiana border.

About a mile down the road, another cop was sitting there, facing the other way. When he saw me, he started backing out like he was going after me, but then stopped. We figure they were on the lookout for a white van. We went over a hundred miles into Illinois, there were a ton of cops out on the road. Kind of disportionate to the actual number of people on the road. I half expected to get pulled over again for no particular reason whatsoever, but it didn't happen a second time. Good thing I got the headlight fixed before we left, otherwise I would have been pulled over about a dozen times, I bet...

Tomorrow - Toll Road day.

Road Trip day 1

Friday morning 5:15am - Alarm clock goes off, time to get moving.

We ended up leaving town at 7am, which is close to a record for us. I think Ruth asked us a hundred times if we were at Buffalo yet. (A variant of 'Are we there yet?')

The drive went well, not a lot of travelers on the road. The ones that were on the road going the same direction as us seemed to be from many different locations. I saw license plates on passenger vehicles from the following states:

• Hawaii
• Washington
• Oregon
• California
• Idaho
• Utah
• Arizona
• Wyoming
• Colorado
• Texas
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• Texas (a number of them)
• Arkansas (a bunch of them, not sure where all those people have been or where they are going)
• Georgia
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Conneticut
• Ohio
• Wisconsin
• Minnesota

20 different states, and I was asleep for an hour, but not while driving.

We got to North Platte, like we planned. We had a reservation for a "Kids suite" at the Holiday Inn, which is nice, if only the girls would go to sleep when we want them too. Adam had a hard time adjusting to the new environment, he wouldn't stop crying until 1am, when I laid him down in the crib, turn the TV on Disney Channel, and muted the channel...

Today we have a lot of driving to do it get to the next hotel. Hopefully we make it.

So much for the vacation...

Tara and I have been at a hotel in town the past couple of days, Missy has been watching the kids. Tara wanted some quiet time before she spends a month in Buffalo with them. Someone at church called it a "Stay-cation." We had Missy scheduled to watch the kids because we were supposed to go to Martin's Cove this week with the Stake Youth conference, but I can't walk properly right now, we figured it would be a shame to waste a perfectly good babysitter...

I still went to work, I am protecting what little vacation I have for the trip. Tara has been enjoying the freedom and the quiet.

Anyhow, yesterday Kate got sick, and threw up all over the back room. (Not all over, but it was a mess.) We got called, and came home to clean it up. Then we left again. Today Steve called, Missy had gotten really sick last night, he drove down. I came home from work, I will watch the kids, working from home. (If I don't get a lot of hours, I can at post sick time, watching kids. I have a little sick time accrued...)

Tara is going to continue to stay on her stay-cation. The hotel is already paid for, she might as well enjoy it...

Game Time

Last night, Tara and I played Phase 10. She pounded me. At the movies tonight, we played a racing game. I evened the score. Then we played an arcade Guitar Hero, which Tara won, part of the way through, I realized that I had the guitar on backwards, but thought I could play it that way. I was wrong...

Dinner and a Movie

Tara and I went to Iggy's Sports Grill for dinner. It was good.

Afterward, we went and saw the new Star Trek movie. It was also good.

Oh, you want more? Iggy's has chicken wings. Expensive for wings, but they were big. They were also breaded, which I thought was weird when I first got them, but they turned out to be pretty good. I had the fish and chips plate. I always seem to think fish and chips will be better than they end up being. Maybe people out here (the Mountain West) just don't understand that the fish should be one honking big fish, not breaded fish pieces. It tasted good, but someday someone out here will have a fish and chips platter with a decent sized piece of fish on it... Tara got a pulled pork sandwich. It was too big for her to tackle properly. Maybe tomorrow.

The movie was really good. Good casting, good acting, good story, good effects. And plenty of sound. Hopefully the same people make a second one. I thought they did a good job telling a prequel story without ruining the forward story, and still mixing things up a bit. (Sorry, no spoilers here, but it is definitely worth eight bucks to see the movie.) The one regret from the movie? The fate of that poor beagle... Go see it.

Team Retreat

We had a team retreat today at work. We went out to Camp Floyd, looked around, then had a BBQ. When the coals finally got going, I muscled my way into cooking duty, mostly because I was hungry.

Note the little plastic fork in the left hand, ready to strike when the iron (or steak, in this case.) was hot... My hat makes my head look a little freakishly big.

One more ankle update for the road...

I went to see the doctor today. He went over the MRI with me, and decided that the ankle looks solid. Up in the leg, you can clearly see one of the screw holes that is still there, but the ankle looks fine. Lots of swelling and irritation, but the bones, ligaments and tendons all looked pretty good. He said he didn't see a reason to cut me open. (Which is good to hear from a surgeon.)

He yanked, squeezed, and tugged on my ankle again. It didn't hurt as bad as it did when he did it 10 days ago, which I suppose is a good thing. The doctor wants me to stay in the boot for 2 more weeks, then switch back to a shoe. He wants me to take is easy for the next 2 weeks, and ease back into activities after that. He gave me a prescription for an anti-inflamitory, and approved a handicap hanger for the next month.

He figures that some improvement has been made in the last 10 days, and thinks things will go well by wearing the boot for another 2 weeks. That will be 5 weeks in the boot. He wants me to go see him in 2 months, sooner if things get really worse. He said if in 2 months I still have pain, but can localize it, he will shoot it with cortizone then.

He told me I could go to physical therapy starting in 2 weeks if I want, but I don't think I will. If anything, I have a season pass at Seven Peaks, I can always go over there after work, and walk around the wave pool or the lazy river to ease back into things...

Sweetness.

You people think I have too much time on my hands. Watch the first video, then watch the second video...

Looks good, right? Whoever did this had way too much time on their hands. Watch the second:

Sweet.

Why we will never move...

These boxes are about 15-20% of all books in the house. For this reason alone we may never move...

Over Memorial day weekend, we went out looking at dishwashers. Several stores had pretty good deals going. We ended up buying one, it was delivered today.

This morning, I got as far as hooking up the water, but when I realized where the electrical box for the thing was, I knew I had to do something different. The old washer was wired to a plug, and plugged into an outlet. I decided to hard wire the dishwasher, the work waited for this evening.

After much complaining, growling, and general noises of high irritation, I got t the thing wired into the existing outlet. A hole in the wall was required. This will be repaired later in the month. More complaining and growling was required as the input hose was dripping a little.

There is a load of dishes in the thing, and it is running through a cycle. So far, it's a lot quieter than our old dishwasher (expected), no dripping (hoped for), and no sparks or flames. (also hoped for)

The new dishwasher is about an inch shorter than the old one, I need to fix the frame I have around it sometime. I have not firmly attached it to the frame, I am waiting to make sure that it is working right. One other thing - I routed the hosed through the cabinets. It is no longer sitting on the floor.

Old washer

New Washer

Hole in the wall. To be fixed later.

A furniture spam update

I love it when a plan comes together...

Moving came at lunchtime and picked up all the stuff from the hall. I had a meeting as they were leaving, on coming back from the meeting, I had the following email waiting for me:

---

John,

A filing cabinet with the initials jjp in red tape on top, was delivered to 158 TMCB this morning. Is this yours? If so what would you like done with it. Either way, let us know, k?

Susan

From: Elaine Lauritzen
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 1:44 PM
To: ''
Subject: FW: Filing Cabinet

Anyone claiming this?

Elaine Lauritzen

Brigham Young University

Data Center Operations

From: ITSPTS
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 1:43 PM
To: Elaine Lauritzen
Cc: Dee Jimenez
Subject: Filing Cabinet

Hey Elaine,

We just got a filing cabinet delivered to us. It seems to be used, I don’t really know what it is for. Dee didn’t know anything about it either. The girl that delivered it said it was from B77 and there is note on it that says move to 158 TMCB. Do you know anything about this?

Tricia Burke & Brittany Brooks

Office of Information Technology

Monday

Short of turning this blog into a travelogue, here's some stuff that happened today:

• 7:20am - Knock at the door. It's Brigham, the kid in the neighborhood that I hired to mow the lawn for the next two months. Last weekend, he only got the front yard done. He didn't make it over this weekend. Either he felt really bad about it and wanted to come right away today, or his Dad gave him the gears about it, or his Mom was already tired of the kids. (Today was the first full day of summer vacation.) The grass was tall and wet, despite that, I think he did a good job. It was a little early for mowing, but he did a good job. Good think I went to bed early last night.
• I was ready for lunch at 11am. Something about missing breakfast... Got some people at work semi-riled up about lunch, but they didn't actually get out of their seats, so I called Tara. All the kids were crying, they had to clean their bedroom before going to Grandmas house today, Tara caught them stuffing everything under Emma's bed. Took Tara to Applebees for lunch. I had some sort of triple trio platter, we got the sampler platter appetizer. I had pop and potato chips for dinner. I think any day that you have nothing but snacks/appetizers for meals is not a bad day...
• I didn't wear my boot for my ankle today. I wanted to see what would happen. The ankle still hurts, maybe not as bad as before, but it hurts. Didn't feel like it would collapse on me tomorrow. Maybe I won't wear the thing again tomorrow to see what happens. My doctor's appointment is Thursday. I want to give a good report.
• I dropped my laptop at the end of work today. The screen now moves independently of the base. I have it propped up with a box, but will need to have parts ordered tomorrow for it. This is why they get Accidental Care of them, I drop the thing, and Dell ships the parts. The thing was breaking before the drop, both lid latches are now broken instead of one, I've got a few loose screws. (And one missing screw.) I had hoped I could wait to get the thing fixed until my new one arrived, the orders at work too forever to order. The new one is supposedly on it's way finally, but it looks like I will be out a laptop for a day or two this week. (I don't have a desk to sit at, why use a laptop?)