The Blog With No Name

A coyote? A large dog? Whatever it was, I saw it trotting across the street about a block and a half away from me this morning at about 5:00. I stopped, pondered for a moment, and kept walking. The thought of turning back without completing my normal morning walk was horrifying enough to overwhelm fear of being made into some wild animal’s breakfast.

I saw the lunar eclipse, I’m happy to say. I even took some dreadful photographs with my new camera, experimenting with ISO settings and so on.

I can now push a button to open our garage door, and park my vehicle inside. There is room for me to pull forward enough to open the back hatch to remove items, even if it’s pouring down rain just outside (I tried backing in a few days ago, but it’s a bit tricky and I don’t think I’ll make a habit of that). The walls are partially insulated, and there is pegboard everywhere. Items such as shovels are hanging neatly on the pegboard. A workbench is in the corner, and what appears to be the first big ManCave project, the rolltop desk from my grandmother’s house, is in the other corner by the people-door. There are lights. There will soon be more lights, as I am told that roughly the same amount of power is available to the garage as is available to our entire house (yes, Charles sells electrical equipment, why do you ask?). The yard is still a disaster – we will need at least one truckload of dirt to even begin to make it look presentable.

I’m just waiting for the LaZBoy truck to pull up out back.

We are all newly phoned as of last night. I have my Samsung SCH-u740 and Charles has his Treo 700p. As an extra added bonus, Verizon was running a “buy one get one free” deal on the Samsung, so our daughter got one a year earlier than she expected. She doesn’t get to take it to school or anything radical like that, but if she’s going to be out and about and I want to be able to get in touch/be alerted if there is a problem, she can take it with her. She is over the moon about this; has already figured out all the phone features, sent a video message, and set up various voice dialing features. I guess I’ll be asking her for help in setting up the voicemail later today…

(Extra extra added bonus – we are now on Verizon, so free calls to most of the people we call regularly!)

This cartoon reminds of the time that I discovered, to my great and unspeakable horror, that there exists on the internet The Dark is Rising slash fan fiction. I am not including a link, because that means I’d have to go looking for it. (Shudder)

Yesterday: I am in the basement straightening up, pointing out to my goof of a son that if the basement were neater, he and his pals could play Legos down there at the ginormous train table built by his grandfather. (This after he spent Friday afternoon playing Legos in a most concentrated fashion at a friend’s house). His response? “I don’t like playing in the basement, who would ever want to do that?!?!” in tones of outrage.

This afternoon: he and two of his friends are in the basement, gathered around the train table, with the huge Lego trunk open beside it, building things.

Little boys are space aliens.

My work church showed Akeelah and the Bee in the parking lot this evening. It was great fun; I hadn’t seen the movie before and enjoyed it a great deal (even though it was technically TTFM). Not, unfortunately, a huge turnout, despite posters and flyers all over the place. Oh well, maybe next year. We brought along a neighbor child as well, and all three kids lasted through the entire movie, helped by quantities of colored sugar water and popcorn, yum. All the children sat raaaather too close to the projection setup for my comfort, but fortunately only one child had to be warned (and it wasn’t one of mine, wheeeeee!), and no harm befell any of the (breathtakingly expensive) equipment.

I got minutes from a recent committee meeting today via e-mail. So there I was, doing what I normally do with such things – making sure copies are where they need to be, making sure a copy is posted online, checking the report for calendar items blah blah blah. Then I get to item 3, Web Site – the web site is too much work for me, design is boring blah blah blah. I do not disagree with any of the sentiments expressed. I am offended that I found out about my boss’ view this way, rather than being told directly. No, that’s not even it. I know she thinks that, and she knows I agree. It would have been nice to let me know that they were going to discuss it, I guess is what annoys me so much.  Now I know how one of my former colleagues felt when he found out he was getting a 20% pay cut by reading the minutes of the annual meeting as he typed them. (He quit two weeks later.)

(This is the part where I whine about the web site being a “work in progress,” how very few people give me material for the web site, how it’s a WordPress blog template that I’ve been playing with and I don’t know PHP enough/at all to be able to do modifications etc etc)

So much for staff communication. (It’s such a little thing; I should be more mature and not let this annoy me, but really – it does.)

Our current plan expires at the end of the month. We are going to move from US Cellular to Verizon. Charles knows that he wants a Treo, so that’s no problem. I of course am now wallowing in the depths of gadget indecision hell. My brother has a Samsung SCH-u740 and loves it. It is quite the sexy little gadget, but would some LG phone be better? Oh I hate this. Don’t care about a camera, don’t care about music, just want a phone and maybe good (easy) texting. Thoughts?

He is the last piece of the puzzle. The cement is now driveable. The rain has somewhere to go, although the landscaping still leaves something to be desired. We just need to be able to use the garage door remotes, and life will be GOOD. I was reduced to incoherent fury yesterday when I realized that I had locked my garage key in my car, in the garage. Poor Charles had to turn around on the highway and come home to rescue me, so that I could go to work and get kids from school. Lessons learned – don’t park in there until I have a remote, and get spare keys made!!! Arg!