Vacation: post #1

Yes, I am on vacation. Fifteen days to be exact. No school, no work, and no stress. I like vacations, as they are few and far between.....Oh, the Christmas season. The girls had a wonderful Christmas, as the presents were to the point of excess, and the food was unlimited. The adults had a fine Christmas also, watching the children open gifts, and then being in charge of opening them. I don't know if anyone who reads this blog is familiar with the packaging they use these days or not, but let me describe the process of opening them. One must picture an unassuming Barbie doll in a seemingly plain cardboard box. Nothing to it. As one rips open the box in assumption of sliding the toy out, one encounters resistance. What could it be? Upon further investigation one comes to the realization that a labyrinth of plastic coated wire is weaved, as a fine tapestry is constructed, to ensure the safety of said doll. Upon even further inspection it is discovered that there are wires securing every accessory that accompanies that plastic toy. The ultimate truth is that after one has wrestled with twenty or so super-bread ties to free Barbie and her companion "pooping dog" (I am not exaggerating), one comes to the realization that the security that surrounds the doll is compromised by the mere cardboard that surrounds it. I can comprehend the reason for the lashings. To keep rowdy children from pilfering the contents of the retailers prized purchase, but I must ask myself: what is next titanium packaging? Will they soon install shock pads that must be deactivated after the purchase, and before one leaves the store? It is insanity. Hold on, The girls have a fresh round of toys that I must "open" for them..I will be back in an hour or so......Then there is the lead paint. It turns out the Barbie in question was recalled because the dogs poo (which is also his food), was painted with lead paint. Oh great, now we have to throw out the dogs poo and pooper-scooper that came with the toy and make the children cry. Damn Chinese. If anyone is wondering what the hell I am talking about check out the toy. Craping dog........Damn. I am quitting smoking. I have not smoked a pack of cigarettes in two days. I usually smoke a pack to a pack and a half a day. more on this later. I will post some pictures of the girls and the Christmas morning extravaganza. Later.

Reel Easy

It was a busy week. I finished the quarter at school, and i am glad that it is over. I think my GPA is still 4.0. We'll see. I haven't wrote a post in a while. I have been really busy, helping my father start a business. I have been doing the technical stuff. We have a website, and things are rolling along. I don't want to divulge to much info now, partly because that is all I have been doing lately. I will post a link to the new site, but I will through out a disclaimer: the site is under construction. reeleasycustom.com I have lots more to say, but I am tired. I will post again soon. I posted some stupid pictures bellow.....

Funny Pics

Four day weekend

I slept in. I woke up and ate. It was thanksgiving. I ate again. I slept in, and I did nothing the next day, and the next. It was great. I think we should have a four day weekend every week.....It was a good, calm, and enjoyable thanksgiving. Everyone to the best of my knowledge, had a good time....We purchased a Christmas tree, and decorated it this weekend. It turned out as planned.....It rained this week, and weekend. It is also supposed to rain all day Monday. This is a good thing...Short and sweet. I have a couple more hours of relaxation before the work week begins, so I am done...Here are some pictures. Oh yeah, the petunias are just a volunteer plant that sprouted in the greenhouse this spring. The power and water have been off since March, and they have thrived throughout the worst drought on record, not to mention temperatures in the greenhouse reach 130 or more in the summer without fans. I don't know how they have made it, but they have. One more thing, it has been below freezing three times this fall, and it hasn't hurt them. Are they a mutant strain? Whatever they are I wish all plants grew this well.....

Anna's birthday party

We had Anna's Birthday party today. It was a rowdy party, with lots of yelling and party horns, supplied by a group of sugar crazed children. It was a good party, everybody had a good time, and no one lost an eye. Six years old. Going on eighteen......Things are good around here, everyone is anticipating a three day work week, with Thanksgiving approaching; the start of the holiday season. Hooray. Seriously, hooray! I just finished an annotated bibliography paper for class, so I am going to cut it short. I am all typed out....................

Whole Lotta' Nothin'

It was a quiet weekend, and I am not complaining. I enjoy the quiet weekends. I really don't have much to say, I just had the time to kill. What to write about...I don't have anything, just the same old boring stuff...Work, school, sleep. I tried to change my website around a bit, but ended up just adding a weather link instead. I knew how to edit HTML for a minute, but I forgot, not to mention it is way to complicated for a Sunday afternoon. Maybe I will change It up in a couple of weeks....This is the time of year where time just seems to pass so slowly. I think it is the fact that I will have a couple of weeks of in the middle of December. Thinking of that just makes the time go by so slowly. Oh well...The weather is the same, just like Arizona around here. It is actually quite ridiculous. There is no outdoor watering allowed. The drought seems to have the attention of everyone around here, from the media to the average suburbanite. They keep talking about running out of water; eighty days and we will be rationing water. Then I hear that the Corp of engineers is releasing 4.1 Billion gallons a day from Lake Lanier, and the Governor is suing them for releasing too much water. The politicians are arguing. That will solve a lot. This is surely a drought that I will not soon forget. It will be disastrous soon if the rain does not come, and the water restrictions are still in place. 14,000 jobs lost already for the landscaping industry in the metro area this year alone.....I actually have thirty day permit for watering my backyard, for the aeration and seeding that Hybrid Landscapes did for me (at a deeply discounted rate). I have watered a total of fifteen whole minutes in fifteen days. I'm turning soft, soon I will be petitioning for the endangered mussels. Stop the watering!.....Actually, I just don't feel like hearing the neighbors' comments. I also don't want to pay a huge water bill for some lousy fescue.......I want it to rain..... Please?.......

A nice fall weekend

It was relatively calm around here this weekend. We had a chance to relax and do a couple of chores around the house. The weather has been nice, still no rain though. The temperatures are perfect, and the HVAC unit is getting to take a break. I love this time of year. If it would only rain....Halloween was Wednesday, and Cathrine and Anna had fun trick-or-treating. They both dressed up as princesses, and toured our neighborhood, and the surrounding subdivisions in search of candy. They made out well and I, I mean they, will have candy for a couple more weeks......There isn't much else going on. Work is the same, school is the same, and I'm not complaining. This quarter of school has been tough, but it is already half-way over. I have gotten used to my new computer, and although I don't like it as well as my previous one I enjoy the new programs. It has Windows Vista on it, and although it eats up a lot of memory and processing power it is reliably stable. I also upgraded to Office 2007, and It is a good bit different than 2003. I haven't used it much though, as my school work has to be in office 2003. The two versions are not compatible with each other which is really stupid......The leaves are turning. What leaves are left that is. This will not be a good year for fall color, which is a bummer but the weather is not cooperating this year. When is this drought going to end?......

Another dry week

We had a little rain this week. A little rain. I think that storms come here to die. Worst drought ever, we will run out of water in three months, and the locusts are coming soon, blah, blah, blah. I am tired of talking about the weather, or lack thereof. It will rain soon, the rainy season starts in November....Cathrine had the opportunity to be a flower girl in a wedding this weekend. Her cousin Jenna was married. She had fun and the wedding was nice. Her cousin Marley's Birthday was this weekend also. It was an eventful weekend for both the girls, who are doing well, by the way.....I have almost got back on track after the theft two weeks ago. That is another thing I am tired of talking about. I have replaced everything except for my laptop, which will be in soon. It will be nice to have my own computer, rather than using the community computer. There will be lots of things that I never replace, but what can I do? I had to do some catch-up at school which wasn't fun, but oh-well......That's about it. We had our water-heater replaced. That was exciting. I don't have to worry about the basement flooding anymore (knock on wood).

Yet another fine week,.....well not that fine.

I have never been much of a thief. I think I stole a pack of candy when I was twelve or thirteen. I always felt guilty about it. I also have been a relatively trusting person, I have applied myself to the theory that If I do not steal I will not be stolen from. I also trust enough to leave my car and house doors unlocked. I know that it was a relatively foolish approach. I was even more trusting at work, repeatedly leaving my key in the seat, and not locking the doors.

One of the crew is always around the truck. We are usually within one hundred feet of the truck at all times, as we were on Thursday. We have two houses we do on Riverside Drive in Atlanta. The houses are in a quiet area, not far from the interstate, but very secluded. We were all away from the truck, blowing off a yard. We had made it up to the top of the driveway, and around the house to complete the maintenance in roughly ten minutes. When we were done I proceeded to walk down the hill to the truck. The truck was gone. O.K., someone has played a joke on me, one of the other crews has moved my truck to get a laugh. We took off down the street to find the truck. It was not there.

It took about five minutes for it to sink in; the truck was stolen. It was time to call the police and the boss. I checked my pockets for my phone. It had been stolen with the truck, both of them. I knocked on the customers’ door, but no answer. I walked over to a neighbor’s house and asked to use the phone. I then called my boss to make sure it was not a big joke. It was not. I then called the police. I explained the situation, gave them the address, and they said an officer was on the way.

Twenty minutes later an officer showed up. He asked all of the basic questions, never getting out of the car, and actually leaving the car in gear, and continuously rolling while I was talking to him. He then asked for the tag number of the truck. I explained that if I did not have the tag number, He could not file a report. The officer left and I went back to the neighbors’ house to make a call for the tag number.

I called 911 again and gave them the tag number, and the dispatcher said the information would be relayed to Sandy Springs. One of the other crews showed up and we had a moment to breathe. I had nothing on me, both of my phones, my cigarettes, my keys, they were all gone. We started to discuss all that was lost with the truck. We had a trailer with two mower, two string-trimmers, an edger, pruners, and lots of other stuff. I had lost my book bag and my lunch box. In my book bag were my brand new school books, and my laptop computer (my new one). In my lunch box was my dinner, and my medicines.

I was, and still am very upset by the loss of my things, but the realization that I had lost all of the equipment was the bad part. It was a rough afternoon and the rest of the day was very subdued, as everyone was still shocked by what had happened. Friday was spent working with another crew and reassembling a truck for my route. Needless to say there was lots of tension. Finding extra things to use on the temporary truck only reminded us of what we had lost.

Saturday was spent realizing I had no phone, and no computer. My computer was used for school, for pictures, for music, and for my bill paying, and on-line purchasing. I have canceled my credit cards, and will be forced to change my e-mail address; an email that I use for school, for business, and for personal correspondences. I purchased the cheapest cell phone I could find, and it is a big step down from the Smartphone that was stolen. It is amazing how much of a part of my life my computer was. I lost two years of digital pictures; of which I had no backups. I lost my school projects, and some valuable software. My textbooks were stolen, which I just bought two weeks earlier.

I was told I might be able to claim my losses on my home insurance policy, so I called expecting a big fat "No". To my surprise, everything was covered. I was very pleased to say the least. My boss called me later in the day and told me that someone had called and asked if he knew his truck was parked at a church in Atlanta, nearby Turner field. The truck had been found. The truck was in tact (no trailer of course), and the radio had been stolen. The keys were in the ignition. My book bag, my cell phones, and my lunch box were missing.

My boss had met up with an officer at the church, and asked him if the truck could be dusted for prints. The Fulton county officer informed him that the truck had not been reported stolen. Forty-eight hours after I called 911 and reported the truck stolen, the paperwork had not been filled. My boss finally got in touch with a Sandy Springs detective, and asked him if the truck could be dusted. "I'm not coming down there" was the response he received. "And you can't bring it up here because there is no one on duty." Apparently the entire precinct is shut down for the weekend. If I were to guess, I would say Sandy Springs has a population of eighty to one hundred thousand people. So, Monday the truck will be taken to the precinct to be dusted for prints, and maybe, just maybe, we will have a police report filled for a stolen vehicle.

There are a million things I could say about the situation, but in the end it just doesn't matter. I am continually educated on the way our world is, and find out how slow, and bloated our systems are. I know that we have lost a lot as a company, and I have lost a lot of my things. In the end it is only "stuff", and I am glad that no one was hurt. I have learned yet another lesson I did not want to learn. My trust is slowly waning. I refuse to drop my school classes, but I will be playing catch-up, for the rest of the quarter.

.....I don't know why I wrote all of this, it could be the fact that I don't have any composition homework, or that I just wanted to get it off my chest. Having things stolen from me really pisses me off, and the dealing with the aftermath of having things stolen makes even more irate. I had to break into my own truck to get proof of ownership, so that I could have a new key made. I was also forced to buy a new book bag. I had a German backpack that was WWII era. I had it for over twelve years. It was made well. I broke one of the plastic brackets on my new pack the first night I had it. It's the little things that make life worth living.......

Can I write something dumb?

I started school last Wednesday. I haven't been in more than six months. Whew. I am taking composition and rhetoric, and an online intro to computers class. I lucked out, and have the opportunity to experience a new teacher(professor), who has a PhD in English. I say that sarcastically as the new teachers are known for being extremely overzealous with there course work, and homework, and they are synonymously known for keeping the students in class for the entire alloted time period. I have just completed my third essay this week. Huh. I am not complaining, as I am always, well almost always up for a challenge. It will be interesting to see how much this class will hone my writin' skills.:) The other class I am taking will be extremely easy, but I am taking it on-line, so I am sure it will be way more complicated than necessary.....I digress. I am glad to be back in school. One step closer to my goal..........Nothing much has been happening around here, and that is a good thing. It has been pretty relaxing.......And now it is time for the weather report. It will be hot and dry. Highs in the upper eighty's, to ninety in spots and no rain. No rain for the next three months, or more...It is really ridiculous around here. We are in a serious drought, bad enough for the climatologists to convince the local water commissions to issue a level 4 water ban. No outside watering of any kind, whatsoever. This sucks for me on many levels, not only at home, where the grass is slowly turning brown, and the freshly planted shrubs are approaching permanent wilt , but also at work. No one wants to plant shrubs or re- seed fescue lawns if they can not water them.......O.K., I am done with my whining. Every thing is fine around here. We went to the festival this weekend to watch the parade and munch down some carny food. The girls had a good time. The got their fill of candy from the parade. It was a good weekend. I didn't take any good pictures this week. Sorry.

Fun weekend

A couple things happened this week that have not happened in a long, long time. It rained (over an inch and a half), and then it got cold, well not cold but cooler. Good stuff. We had fun with the girls, we took them to the air show in Rome. I enjoyed it a lot as I have been wanting to see an air show for a couple of years. There were a lot of interesting planes and some pretty intense stunts. They even had a jet-powered porta-jon. You don't see that every day. The girls had a chance to sit, and climb on the planes and helicopters. It was good clean family fun.......With the cooler temperatures upon us it was time to add another piece of the landscape we're constructing. We put in another bed in front of the house. I put in another irrigation zone, and planted some 'shearable' shrubs in the bed, to achieve a formal look. Plants included loripetalum, compacta holly, and dwarf yaupon holly. It will take a couple years to take shape, and we still have to put down more mulch, but I am glad to have the hard part done........I start school soon..Oh boy, English and a basic computer class. Not exciting but necessary. I look forward to the challenge The English 191 class anyway.........

Can I get a job doing this all day?

There is not much to write about this week. I have decided to post some pictures of last weekend, when we went 'boatin' as Anna called it. It was a lot of fun, for the adults and the kids.

Through daddy's eyes............

yeah..... for green grass

The grass is greening up. Everything else is drying up and dying because it never friggin' rains here. Oh yeah its over 100 degrees every day. I'm sick of it. It hasn't rained since we put the sod down. Uhhh, is it fall?........Here's a couple 'before and after' pictures

Ever feel like this donkey?

Fall?......No it's still summer........

I have some amazing news. It's hot here. O.K., so thats no surprise. It is August. It is the south. It has definitely been hotter than average, with highs over 100 for four days or so. Brutal. Add to the equation that it has not rained in two weeks or so and you have the perfect formula for crappy days. It is very hard to keep up with the plants, especially the water loving ones, when it is hot. Then there is the sod, or should I call it grass now. Three or more inches of water a week, sometimes four waterings a day, and it is still not all that it wants. It is definitely an uphill battle, but it is greening up and rooting. I would take a picture of it, but that would require that I go outside.........I have been feeling good as of late, knock on wood. I have went on what I would call a health kick. It started off lowering my sodium intake, and has progressed into lowering saturated fats, getting more fiber, and all of the other boring nutritional junk. I have lost about twenty or twenty five pounds and I wouldn't mind to lose about fifteen or twenty more pounds. I have also given up on caffeine, and haven't had any going on two months. I still miss my morning cup of coffee, but over all it wasn't that hard. I am thinking about going for broke and giving up the cancer sticks. Whew, did I just say that? I am thinking about it.........Everybody is good . The girls started school last week and they both enjoyed their first week. Anna has a loose tooth and of course she is scared to pull it and won't let us close enough to pull it. Maybe next week, the 'tooth-fairy' is broke this week anyways.

Instant grass

Holy crap we have a lawn. We put in sod this weekend. Yup. It was a pain in the rear, almost lost Valerie to heat stroke, but she pulled through. It was only 98 degrees, come on. It looks bad, nice and yellow for the moment, but it will rebound nicely into a lush green lawn. That is what happens to sod in Georgia in August. It only sat on the pallet for about 10 hours and it cooked it. I am glad it is done. Having a lawn is a major landmark in this yards progress...I'll have pictures of a green version of the turf in a week or two........It has been hot. And it has been dry, again. We have officially entered the dog days of summer. Thats alright, only a month and a half to go until those cool fronts start moving in. I am ready to have a fire on a cool night. I love summer, but time for a season change......Cathrine and Anna are well, they both start school in a couple of days. Cat will start Pre-k and Anna will be starting kindergarten. Oh boy. It's hard to believe. They will have a blast......Speaking of school I am ready for some more furthered education, and I will definitely be enrolling in the fall quarter. Two quarters off, man what a slack-ass.:)

Still nothing

I don't have much to write about. There has been lots going on, but nothing I care to elaborate about. We have been taking it easy, Doing as little as possible. Work is the same, the summer grind. It is summer, I am waiting for fall. Valerie's B-day was Friday, damn she is old:> Wish I had something exciting, but I don't. Yeah, thats about it. yea-haw!

Pressure, pressure

I don't have anything this week. I just want this year over, maybe next year will be better. I do have some pretty funny pictures.

random pics

What's this wet stuff?

It has been doing something that it hasn't done in a while. It rained. In fact it rained again today. I never guessed I would be excited about it raining. After planting all of the plants however, it is much needed rain. I have almost completed the first four zones of my irrigation system, so that has helped out. I installed one zone of drip line that I like a lot. Little wasted water, and it puts it right at the roots of the plants. Other than that work has all but stopped on the yard.....We took Cathrine over to the pool today and let her swim. She is a natural. She swims like a fish. I am glad for that.......We have Wednesday off for the fourth, we are looking forward to that. It is kind of weird to have a day off in the middle of the week, but I'll take it. I think I hear thunder, I had better investigate. Finally, back to the Georgia we know.

If I'm lying I'm dying...

Some days. I had two "firsts" today. I got to go to court. I then was sentenced to jail. For no specific time. Until I could pay of my debt. I actually never made it past the holding cell, as my debt was payed for me by my parents. I don't know why or even if I should be writing this, but I have to get it off my chest. I was appalled many times today, and disgusted by how the whole human drama unfolds. I had very little respect for the court, or faith I should say. My concerns we not unfounded. I heard that all the convicted people say "I'm Innocent", and I will say it too. However, that is here nor there. The point of the matter is that I was taught my lesson.....Or someones lesson. I am not bitter at the way things turned out, I am however more than a wee bit upset about why I was in that courtroom. Anyone who knows me will probably already know the situation, so I will not go into the details. It just feels therapeutic to write something about it. I have seen some pretty awful thing done by some definitely awful people, but I believe what I saw today will take the cake. Lie after lie, after lie. All for that money. I saw evil in its purest form today. Power hungry, self-centered, foolish evil. The money is very important but it will be replaced somehow. I will work harder. The fact of the matter is that I was put in jail by someones willingness to lie. Eager willingness. Everything went pretty much as planed. I had expected the worst and was dealt an even worse hand. So is life round here. I am, however not looking for pity. I will be alright. I think. Thank God for family who are there to support. It is something I don't take for granted, and something I am very thankful for.

Damned if I do

That is it, I am giving up. I will stop the landscape project indefinitely until we get some rain. No more plants are going in the ground, and I am considering ripping some of them up. What a stink year here in Georgia. No rain, well a tiny bit, and ridiculously hot. The temperatures are in the 90's consistently. I am a trained professional, but even I know when to stop before I am in over my head. It is almost impossible to get a small shrub to establish itself in ideal situations in a Georgia summer. I don't want to fight it and I damn sure don't want to water every day. So the plan is to work on someone else's yard for the moment;). It is time to put in a couple of irrigation systems, ours included. I am ready for it. I should have already done it. After that I could ideally put my sod in, but I think I will wait until late August. I don't want to water it and pay the water bill for watering it. Besides if we don't get a substantial amount of rain there will be complete outdoor watering bans soon. It has already happened in two metro countys............Oh yeah I will be shutting the greenhouse down also...soon

Before and after.....no.......during.

There is a lot going on around here, as usual. I put up some pictures of the work we are doing. I opened a big can of worms with this yard. Next up the irrigation system, then the turf. I am having to do this on a minimal budget, and it will take some time. I think it will turn out pretty nice......It hasn't rained in about thirty days here. We were in a drought, now it is just ridiculous. I have never seen it this dry. Well except for those times I went to Arizona. Things don't look to be getting any better. This week will be in the nineties and dry, dry, dry. It is making me grumpy. I would love to have those plants I have put in watered at least once a month. Not to mention the water restrictions that are in place. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday between midnight and ten A.M.. What the hell........Oh well, I'm not bitchin'. Everything else is pretty normal. Lots of work going on. Anna had her tonsils removed on Thursday, and she is doing well. Hopefully it will make a huge difference in her appetite, and give her immune system a break. She had strep throat three times this winter. Hopefully that is over..........