Notival

Our Nation's birthday is again upon us. Fireworks, hamburgers, and horse racing. That's the plan for the weekend. In the meantime, I believe that we are daily losing more of our freedoms and independence.

I try to remain non-political here, but I do believe that both of the major parties are slowly taking away our liberties. The Democrats are creating large government with too much oversight and the Republicans want everyone to fit into the same cookie cutter mold.

After the Squid graduates from college, Ninsi and I may consider a move to overseas. Though, honestly, I dont believe anywhere is any better than here. It's just stupid all over.

It's also incredibly freaking hot this Summer. We've already topped 105 and that was before July. Im not ready for that kind of heat for the next 2 months. I may have to take a 2nd job to just pay the electric bill for the Summer.

Stupid heat.

Tonight is Shakespeare in the Park night. An annual tradition for Ninsi and I. It is the unofficial anniversary of our first date, the second time around. Tonight we are seeing The Merry Wives of Windsor, one of the bard's 'weaker' plays. But, there's about a dozen of us all going together, so we'll enjoy it anyway.

Since we have a large group, we were able to give them a group name. We are, apparently, the "Friends of Frogmore." I was an advocate of Special Patrol Group, myself, but I didnt make the reservations.

The weather today was forecast to reach 107 degrees. There's no way that isn't hot. If this continues, August will be completely unbearable, and we're going to have electric bills that could bankrupt us. We could probably have some work done in the attic to make the system more efficient, but that would cost us more than the electric bill. But would pay for itself over time. So I'll have to look into that soon.

Making a brief trip to OK this weekend to pick up the Squid's cousin. She'll be coming down for a couple weeks and they can keep each other company. Having two teenage girls in the house should be no end of fun. joy joy.

I had lunch the other day at Taco Bueno, as I do every now and then. As soon as I sat down and started eating, I noticed a rank smell. It took no time to identify the odor as coming from the old woman in a wheel chair at the next table. She just smelled 'old.' Like that nasty smell you get in nursing homes sometimes. Not antiseptic, exactly, but old. Death, even.

Im sure I wasnt the only one that noticed it, but there wasn't exactly anything I could do about it. Most of the tables in the restaurant were taken, and it would have been really obvious had I just got up and moved to what empty tables there were. The woman, and the people with her, left maybe a minute after I sat down. So I hoped that the smell would dissipate quickly.

The nose normally adapts to new aromas very quickly, and I expected that with her gone, the scent would go too. But it lingered. I think it clung to my clothes. The only time I could not smell the stench was when I was taking a drink of Dr Pepper and my nose was buried in my cup.

It wasn't the old woman's fault, by any means. But I hope, that should I ever get so old and feeble that the Squid has to push me around, that she will at least douse me with cologne or body spray so that I dont cause near retching everywhere we go.

I had thought that while I was not blogging that I might take the time to redesign the whole site. Obviously I did not do that. I still will, someday. But it is pretty low on the priority pole.

I'm also not going to worry about trying to write multiple times per week. Once a week will be the goal. Maybe more if it happens, but no point to forcing it. My friends that blog barely do it on a monthly basis, so there isn't exactly a lot of pressure to do it often.

Not even sure how long it has been since I last wrote. But I do know that not much has happened/changed since then. A few quick hits:

- The Squid has moved in. At least for the Summer. Maybe longer.
- Cat number Four was terminated, with extreme prejudice, by the dogs.
- Back fence has been rebuilt and looks spiffy.
- Work is status quo
- Ninsi's work stinks. Literally.
- Got a PS3 and it is purty.
- Have begun cleaning the office out.

I think I need to build a media server for pictures and music. Possibly video. And also to serve as a backup system for any other computers we have. But I will need to go buy the bits and start from scratch. I got out the old PCs that were in the closet last night to see what they had on them and if they would be viable, and the answer is mostly 'no.' One of them could *maybe* be made to work, but the old PII processor really isn't beefy enough.

I really wanted to get them out just to make sure there was nothing on them that I wanted to keep before I dispose of them properly. Im not sure exactly when or how I will trash them, but I will. Probably the next time that GP has a day for such items.

Last night we took the kidling to her first professional baseball game. It was a GP Air Hogs game, but they are a professional team. Just not major league. I think she rather enjoyed it. In about a week and a half, we are going to a Texas Ranger's game, so she will be able to contrast and compare the differences.

I reckon I have been gone from here for a few weeks, but I am still awesome. So there.

It is Mother's Day weekend. Ninsi and I are each going to Oklahoma this weekend to visit with our respective families. She is flying to Tulsa this evening, and I am leaving work early to make the drive to McAlester. It works out a lot better for us this way. I'll meet her Sunday, and she'll do the drive back down with me.

Last weekend we went to the Ren Faire. Looks like we will be doing it again in two weeks. That's more faireing that I would normally have hoped to accomplish in 3 years. I might try to find a belt this time. I reckon I could use a new one.

Going to a fish fry tomorrow. Haven't been to one of those in eons. Should be fun. I've always been a fan of (eating) fish. Not sure what the Squid will be eating tomorrow since she is vegetarian now. Im not sure there'll be a whole lot outside of the fish to eat.

It should be a relatively relaxing weekend for Luna and Barley as well. Toby is staying with Zero, so the big dogs wont have to worry about the puppy all weekend. We'll just have to pick him back up late Sunday when we return. Hopefully, if he decides to make a mess in their house, he will do it on the carpet they are about to replace...

I got a message from Ninsi today who had gone home at lunch to check on the dogs. Basically, Toby, the new dog, is in an awkward part of his growth. He's doubled in size since we got him, and most of that appears to be in his ears and snout.

His head needs to grow a bit to catch up. Ninsi is afraid he will not grow into himself and ultimately be an awkward, ugly dog. Will she love him less if he's an ugly dog? He won't be a Satchmo, so it's hard to say.

We attended the Ren Faire over the weekend. Was down there for about six hours, which I think is the longest I have ever spent there in one day. And it appears we may be going back in three weeks. Because I guess that is what we do.

Somehow every weekend of this month except the last one has something planned for us. I dont know how I feel about that. I need to figure a way to plan more things that involve me getting free drinks. Then at least I would know how to feel about the event.

I'll start working on that...

Got a call from the Squid last night. She is coming down for pretty much the whole Summer this year, and wants to get a job. Totally all for that, am I. The problem is her age. At only 15, not very many places will be willing to hire her. And of course, there are not a great lot of jobs to be had since the economy is in the crapper.

But I am going to see what I can do. I have about a month. It would serve a two-fold purpose.
1) She would get some extra spending money
2) She wouldn't be stuck at the house all day all Summer.

Got some free tickets tot he Rangers game on Sunday. We'll be in foul ball territory and ESPN will be showing the game. Will I be on TV? doubtful. Unless I get beaned by a ball because Im not watching the game. Do I want to be on TV? Definitely not.

Over the past couple weeks, Ninsi and I noticed a small puddle of water at the base of the refrigerator. And the bottom of the freezer side was completely iced. I initially thought that something was leaking where it shouldn't be. And Im still not sure that isn't the case. But yesterday, I realized that the drain in the bottom of the freezer side was actually full of water.

It is designed to drain into the bottom of the icebox and presumably evaporate from there because of it's proximity to a hot motor. But something was preventing proper drainage and so it was running out the front slowly. Mostly, it was icing up the bottom. Yesterday evening I pulled the fridge out and managed to pull out the PVC that served as a drain. All it does it redirect the water to the bottom of the fridge, as I said.

Somehow, it had become clogged. Im not sure what was in it. But it took me about 10 minutes to fully unclog it. Dog hair? Dust? It was grey, whatever it was. It now drains properly. What I dont know though, is how much is supposed to actually drain?

Im afraid I had two separate issues. Once being a clogged drain, the other being excess moisture. But I couldn't find any actual leaks, so I will get to spend the next couple weeks being vigilant towards the refrigerator to make sure that it doesn't start leaking from the bottom.

I think it has been three weeks now. I was at Zero's house when I received a call from Ninsi. Three of the neighborhood children had just knocked on the door and basically handed her a puppy. There was some discussion between them and her about it, but in the end, they just gave Ninsi the dog, and left.

It is my suspicion that they found the dog, took it home, were told 'no', by their mother, and then proceeded to knock on doors until they found a sucker to take it. They didnt have to look very long.

Turns out though, he was a good dog. At least seems to be well-mannered for a puppy. We have decided to keep him, and named him Toby. He's going to be a little smaller than I generally like my dogs, but that's fine. He is probably a mutt. I think that he has border collie or australian shepherd in him, but the tail is not right for either of those.

Since we were planning to get a new dog this Summer anyway, the addition of Toby isn't a real problem for us. And he and Barley play together a lot, which entertains both of them. We were afraid that the bigger dogs might try to eat him, but I since Toby is a puppy, they are more tolerant.

Im still hoping he's mixed with a bigger dog and can get above 50 lbs, but I expect him to top out at abotu 40.

I haven't posted anything in a week because I was in training all last week. WAS training, specifically. It was local, so I didn't have to actually travel, just had a bit longer of a commute for the week. Since class started at 9 every day, the drive wasn't very bad. I enjoyed the class, too. It was good. And not working for the week made it like a mini-vacation.

Now I am back at work and have a metric crap-ton of work to do. The Summer is looking like it is going to be very busy for me at work.

We had a fairly busy weekend. Went out to the club Friday night. On Saturday there was a party with old college friends that were in town, and after that Ninsi wanted to go watch the band of a guy she works with. He plays in a traditional Irish group. We went up to Trinity Hall and watched them for a bit.

We don't have a lot coming up over the next couple weeks. I think there are ephemeral plans to go to Scarborough Faire at some point, but that's about it. Should be a fairly relaxing couple of weekends for us until we head up to OK over mom's day weekend.