Various Rants and Such

10/28/05 - If you would like to continue reading my rants, go here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/charger693/

10/22/05 - The other day at work my boss told me that I had 4 1/2 days of Personal/Vacation time that I had not yet scheduled. If I didn't take it soon I would have lost it cause we don't carry time off over the course of years. Each new year, we get a set amount of days off depending on the length of time we have been working there. So, anyway, I thought that I had figured my time right and that all my days were scheduled, but I was never much good at math I suppose, that's why we have calculators and computers. So, I decided to take this past Friday as a half day and then I scheduled the other days so that I have a 5 day weekend coming up! The best part of it all is that I can finally get to paint our kitchen! Something which I know I have talked about many times in the past 3 years since we tore down the wallpaper. Today we were able to bring in the remainder of our plants from this season. Since we have gotten better at keeping them alive and healthy, we have high hopes that they will last through the winter until we can put them back outside in the spring. Needless to say our living room is cramped again, but thats not really anything new I guess. I was thinking of getting some cheap shocks to put on the Charger this weekend, but that may wait until next weekend, we'll see. Our friend and her fiance broke up and got back together within the span of 24 hours. She wrote in her online journal that she had called off the wedding, but the next day it was back on. Now, keep in mind that the wedding isn't until June of next year...........all I want is for her to be happy. That's all I have ever said about any of my female friends, male friends can go f**k themselves if we stop talking, with the exception of Jim, but all my female friends, I just want them to be happy. The girl I lost my virginity to I still keep in contact with and she recently got engaged. I wish her all the best even if I never talk to her again, that's just how I am. I've always gotten along better with female friends rather than male friends. Jim has pretty much been the only exception but I don't feel like I ever have to compete with women.......where with men it's like I have to stand out or be nothing. I get the sense that it is the same with women and their girl friends, but everyone is different in that respect, so who knows. Yankee's and Red Sox were both eliminated from the playoffs this year, the two teams going to the World Series...........you guessed it, White Sox and Astro's! Just like I said......HA! It feels good to be right about a sport I could care less about! Now, if only I could carry that over to other things, like the lotto or something, but since we don't play, that kinda lowers our chances of winning, huh??

10/12/05 - Jess and I got back from our trip to Salem, MA yesterday and we had a great time. Even though the weather was rainy and overcast almost the whole time, we still did alot of things. We left here on Thursday night after work and it only took like 3 hours to get there, so that's always nice, a short drive. We stayed at a country type motel, not like country-western, and that was really nice. They have different types of rooms in different buildings, it was nice, http://www.countrygardenmotel.com/ The next day we decided to explore our surroundings and scope out places we would like to see. We ended up going through the Witch Museum which was cool. It also worked out well cause the rest of the weekend the lines for the place were quite long. Then we wandered and got some ideas of what we wanted to do and not do. The next two days we went back to Salem and shopped quite a bit for gifts and got to see lots of attractions. They have a trolley ride through the area that is quite good, points out the places and gives a nice history of the town itself. The time back at the motel was quite relaxing with a Jacuzzi type tub and a fireplace........nice. Also got to watch the Yankee's go down in flames HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I blame two guys in particular for blowing it all........ Randy Johnson who's starting pitching in Game 3 was horrendous, and Alex Rodriguez who couldn't hit a descent pitch if it was on a tee in front of him..........good pick-ups there George! I'm sure I'll get some feedback on that statement from all the Yankee lovers who read this post......(cough)VGC(cough) The playoff games are now the Angels vs. White Sox and the Cardinals vs. Astros. I'm hoping for the White Sox and Astros to go the World Series with the Sox taking it all, but we shall see. I missed the Nascar race this weekend but Mark Martin won and is still in the hunt for the Championship so that's good, although the next race is at the Lowe's track and Jimmie Johnson always does well there. Also I would like to mention again just how awesome TNA is compared to the crap the WWE is producing these days. Having Linda McMahon come to the ring and publicly fire Jim Ross so that he can continue to work behind the scene's and not on TV is a really stupid "wrestling" angle. I like to watch WRESTLING more than I like to watch Linda, Vince, Steph or Shane McMahon go on TV and stroke their already enormous ego's any more than they already are! I'm sure once Vince recognizes TNA as a threat he will try and kill them, but time will tell.

10/02/05 - What a weekend so far and it's only Sunday morning! Friday after work my brother called and told me that I was going with him to the movies to see Serenity. It's from the short lived TV series Firefly which he loved. I didn't know anything about the series but I had to go since he told me I should. The movie was pretty good, and I had a good time just chatting with my brother, which is always nice. Then on Saturday we went to my parents house and moved the Charger into the car cover/garage my Mom originally got for my Dad to keep his Crosley under cover, but since he sold the Crosley, the garage was empty. So I inflated the front tires, took out the jack stands that have been holding the front end up for many years and we pushed the car into the garage! I'm very excited because now it's protected until we buy a house with a garage of my own. After we came home and relaxed we watched Dodgeball, which was pretty funny. Then as I was getting ready for bed, TNA Impact came on TV and it was awesome. I almost forgot it was on this weekend, but I found it and man, it blew me away! It reminds me ALOT of ECW when they have their X Division matches. There fast paced, high flying and totally nuts. Some of the moves are so fast I can't even tell what happened! One thing that has always bugged me about the WWE is only a few people are even allowed to perform high risk spots, in fear of injury. But, if the wrestlers are trained right, as in ECW and in TNA, they can do what they do best and it looks awesome! RVD of ECW fame is a good example.......although Sabu is more insane.....he held the ECW TV title for almost 2 years but had to give it up because he broke his leg in a jet ski accident. He never got hurt in the ring doing all the high flying spots, jumping into the crowds or going through tables. Now, that's not to say people never got hurt, but the company was more open to the wrestlers taking the risks than WWE is.........stupid Vince! That's it for now, we're gonna go to a get together at Jess' work cause they just moved to a new building. Then a stop at the mall and home to watch Nascar live from Talladega!!!!

09/25/05 - I can't say there is much new here, but I'll update what I can. Hurricane Rita has done more damage down south, this time on the Texas-Louisiana border. I havn't watched the news as much so that's about all I know, some places are flooded and damage is pretty bad. But, it looks like gas prices will be staying where they are, maybe going down......yeah, right. We'll see what happens. I picked up a new game for the PS2, well, it's an old game, but new for me, Final Fantasy X. This was the first Final Fantasy game to come out for the PS2 and it got great reviews! So, since I have played a number of Final Fantasy games in the past, I decided to give this one a try. Now, I need to mention that prior to this I had played Star Ocean III and since the two games are done by the same company, there were a few things that were similar. Most notably, the main characters were dressed almost the same and the globe you touch to heal and save is almost identical.........kinda weird. Anyway, this game is quite a bit different from most RPG's because of the way it allows you to control how the character's are built up. Normally, when you fight creatures and win you gain Experience points. Once you have enough, your person is moved to the next level and their stat's go up a predetermined amount. In this game, you get AP points and those go toward Sphere's that you then use to activate spaces on an enormous grid. There are 8 character's in the game and each has his or her own area to start in. The magic user's have alot of Sphere's that teach them spells and raise their magic stats where the fighters have alot of Hit Point spaces and strength Sphere's. It seems a bit complicated but it's really simple once you start to use it. The nice thing is you can eventually move your person into another person's area on the grid and learn all kinda of new stuff. I need to spend some time doing that, but I'm still enjoying the game. Tomorrow looks to be a rough day at work, were expecting to ship out alot of items that are a pain to take out of their boxes and I expect I will be quite tired when I get home. Maybe I'll just have to nap then, we shall see. Guess that's all for now, bed time is a comin' soon.

09/13/05 - Shortly after being moved from sight, the director of FEMA, Michael Brown, resigned. I thought he would just be quietly removed, but he resigned so that the story would just go away and people could focus on the task of helping the hurricane stricken area's. It's about the only good thing he has done since this whole problem started. So, he's gone and now FEMA is trying to get organized so that everyone knows what is going on and who is supposed to be doing what. They have finally started the recovery of bodies and at one nursing home they found 33 bodies alone! The owners of the home, initially no where to be found, were found and promptly arrested. It looks to some like they were just abandoned while the water was rising, but the truth will come out in time I'm sure. President Bush today publicly took the blame for the governments mishandling of the relief efforts, or lack there of. Even though he just said it "matter of factly", it was a start. Through his entire Presidency he has never been one to admit to doing something wrong, just look at Iraq and the WMD debacle. He said they were there, we went to war because of it, and they didn't find anything. Granted the world is better without Saddam, but if that's all we did it for, why not attack every country with a leader we don't like.....and I'm sure there are quite a few! Oil rules the world......it's almost hard to love cars so much when you have to pay so much for gas just to get them to roll down the road, but that's life. Not much is new on the "condo front"......I say that just because we don't have a home so it's not a home front....hahahaha. Bet ya didn't see that coming did ya........did ya??? We may be going away for Thanksgiving, but the plans are still up in the air, so we'll see. Jess would like to spend time with her Grandad as much as she can since he is the only Grandparent she has left. I can totally understand that. My own history with my Grandparents is a good reason why I try and encourage any time she can get with them. On my Dad's side, his Mom died with he was just 17 or 18. His Father remarried some awful woman and she didn't want to have anything to do with kids from a previous marriage. So, my Dad and his brother and sister were basically disowned. I have no idea if my Dad's Father is still alive and frankly I don't care. He has never had anything to do with my life and I intend to keep it that way. I would like to know where he is buried if he is dead, but that's just curiosity. On my Mom's side, the story is slightly better. Her Mom died about 3 1/2 month's before I was born. My Great Grandmother was still alive and I do have a picture of her holding me, but she died about 6 months after I was born. Needless to say I was the only ray of sunshine for my Mom that year. Her Dad lived to the ripe age of 69 and died when I was 13. I did get to know him a bit and spent time with him, but I never really got to know him like I would have liked to, looking back on it now. However, he was a very closed and private person so I would have probably gotten no where. So, as you can see, out of 4 Grandparents I only got to know one of them and it was for a short period of time. If we can work out plans to do Thanksgiving with him this year, then we will do that. I guess I don't have anything else for now, y'all take care of yourselves.

09/09/05 - In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it has become apparent how unprepared we all were for this catastrophic event. A lot of people predicted how bad it would be, but anyone can predict anything, it's when it happens that the real hero's appear to assist in the recovery. Anyway, the current head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, Michael Brown, has been widely pointed to as the man who is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the recovery efforts. There doesn't seem to be ANY coordination between agencies and priorities are always changing. Many have called for him to be fired, but today he was replaced as the head of the relief efforts so he could return to Washington DC and continue with other assistance that FEMA is handling. Basically, he has been moved out of sight so that the rescue efforts could continue without the constant nagging issue of how worthy he is of the post. Frankly I have no clue how he even got the post other than being a friend of the President. Before he joined FEMA in 2000, I think it was, he was the head of some Arabian Horse Association, or something like that. The last Emergency Management type work he had was back in the late 70's early 80's. Now, with anything, job's change over time, some remain similar, like retail, but I have to imagine that this type of work changes quite a bit! I used to do Tech Support for banking software years ago but if I tried it now, it would be quite different! Bottom line, the guy had no idea how to handle the situation properly, screwed alot of things up and now he's being moved out of sight so as to avoid any further problems until things are better situated. I can almost guarantee that he will quietly leave FEMA for some "personal reason" and will be praised by the government for the great work in the nations time of need. Gotta love Democracy in action! Get into power, hire all your buddies on board to all the posts you can, then when they screw up big time, just sweep it all under the mat and let it be done with. No harm no foul, right? I bought a new lawn mower to replace the one that finally died at my parents. They initially wanted to wait and use my brothers for the remainder of the season until they could get one for next Spring. But lugging a mower back and forth over the Fall just wasn't practical so we took care of it and they were happy that they didn't have to worry about it anymore. Jess and I are planning a trip to Salem next month, which should be fun. We're hoping to see alot of witch stuff and get some relaxing in before the holiday season hits hard. Walking through JC Penny in the mall the other day, they were already putting up Christmas decorations in one corner! Almost made me sick to look at it, but then I remembered I'm not in retail anymore so it's alright! Actually saw a few gas stations today with gas at $2.99! I was surprised, which is sad cause I used to say I would stop driving if it hit $2.00 a gallon, but now $3.00 or more is almost normal. I hate it just as much as anyone and it's obvious the gas companies are inflating the price just because they can, but I need to drive and for that, I need to pay what ever they are going to charge me. Major problem is it inflates the price of everything else, Diesel fuel for trucks, airplane fuel, etc and then products get more expensive to cover the rising gas price......the trickle down effect. I just hope when we buy a house it will be close enough to my work that I can buy a Mountain bike and ride to work on occasion to save gas! It's too far now, so I'll just have to be patient.

08/30/05 - Well, these past few days have been a terrible time for just about anyone living in the lower Gulf states, like LA, MS, AL and FL. Hurricane Katrina blew a path of destruction through LA and MS the likes of which have not been seen! The storm, when first named, was thought to just be a relatively small hurricane and it sailed through the lower tip of FL causing some damage as a Category 1 hurricane. But then it hit the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and it started to build. Before long, it was a Category 5 with sustained winds of 165MPH and it was heading right for New Orleans. The major problem being New Orleans and a number of other cities on the Gulf are actually below sea level and protected by walls built up over the years. If the storm were to break these barriers or throw enough water over them, the towns and cities would be flooded. Well, that's basically what happened. After the brunt of the storm had passed, two of the barriers broke and the water flooded in to the town. Now, millions are without power, the sea ports are practically destroyed, food and water are in high demand and the water that is now in the town is becoming polluted with waste of just about every kind. It's just unbelievable to watch the news and realize what can happen..........we are so fragile and Mother Nature is so powerful. But at the same time, the human spirit endures and we will rebuild and learn from what has happened. Just like the WTC, it's been 4 years but they will rebuild and life move's on. Not that people forget but we must continue forward and learn from what has happened. Otherwise nothing else is new, our mortgage payments when down slightly which is nice since we can save more to buy a house! Woohoo! I suppose that's it for now, I'm having trouble multi-tasking and I've lost my train of thought. I used to be good at it, but now, in my old age, it's fading.......oh well, don't really need it anymore anyway........bye bye.

08/26/05 - Not much new has occurred in our lives since my last update so this will probably be short and sweet. Well, sweet only if ya like it short........hahahaha. Anyway, we are possibly getting a King size bed which will be nice. We currently have a Queen which we acquired from my brother and it has worked fine, but we need something bigger and better. We're gonna go look at some this weekend, either the kind with the memory foam or the one's you can adjust the firmness with the touch of a button. I never said I was good with grammar. Jess will probably also work on her plants this weekend. Some are getting a bit out of control and it's time to harvest the fruits of our labors. We are also going to move our treadmill into the back room so it's not in our way in the living room. I'm gonna take apart the spare bed and put the treadmill where the bed is now. Space is always a balancing act here, but we manage. My parents lawn mower has pretty much had it and it's time to get a new one. This mower has worked fine for almost 10 years now and even with me rebuilding it at least twice, it has run great. But it's finally had it and now we need something else. That may be something for this weekend too, not sure how that's gonna work out yet. I'm going to scale back this site and move my writing over to livejournal.com. I've come to realize that no one probably reads this site anyway and I have more people there who read my stuff. Also I don't need my life so exposed here as it is now. So, say goodbye to most of the info as you knew it. Eventually this will all be gone and you will be able to find me here http://www.livejournal.com/users/charger693/.

08/13/05 - Well, the last day and a half have proved to be quite interesting to say the least. Last night I was watching TV and Jess was on the computer when it started to lightning. It was a little at first but as it got worse we both turned our computers off. No sooner had Jess turned her's off than our power went out. Well, not totally out, there was a slight trickle, just enough for a few dim lights, but nothing good. So, with the heat I start thinking how long the refrigerator will hold out. We lit some candles and sat around, it was about 9:30 when the power went out. We also noticed that the buildings across the street from us in our complex had power while our side did not. So, I was thinking the power would come back on soon, since it usually doesn't take very long. We waited around until about 11:30 then we set the cell phone alarm and went to bed. I was hoping the power would come on in the night. Well, the phone alarm went off at like 5:45, which was odd since the alarm was set for 8:45, but I digress. The power was still out but the fridge still felt cold on the outside so I was hopeful. Got up with the phone alarm at the normal time and got a interesting phone call at 9:00. A lady with GMAC was calling me to ask for an overdue payment that I owed on a 2001 Dodge Ram! I was caught off guard since I don't own a Dodge Ram and never have. I was nice and she discovered that the SSN on their information was not the same as mine so at least that was a plus. But, it was under my name, our phone number and this address. We hung up and she was going to do some more research. She called back and said that all her checking said that it was me and she went on to list a few other address' that were not mine and I couldn't even tell you where they were. I guess this person listed my address on the form but filed a change of address form, I guess with GMAC, but left this phone number. So, I kept calm and she was nice as well, she said she would research it more and if I get any more calls to just say it's not mine and someone else's. I'm gonna try and get more information, like where it was purchased and when. I've never gotten any bills for this vehicle and this was the first I've heard about it. She did say that since the SSN was not correct that it will not effect my credit rating at all, which is actually pretty good. I digress again. After that stuff, we went to the bank and finalized some paperwork then went for bagels. After a stop at my bro's we went swimming which was nice. By the time we returned home around 2pm the power was finally restored........the fridge seemed to fair well but we'll see in due time.

08/11/05 - It's Thursday night and I'm tired. The past week I've had something to do after work every day! That may not seem like much to most of you, but since I'm on my feet all day and work a physically demanding job....it adds up! We got the paperwork for our loan and will be completing it this weekend since we need to get it notarized. All the curtains are now up and it definitely gives the rooms a completed feel they were missing before.....it only took us 2 years to get them purchased and up....but who's counting. I discovered a new rock band thanks to a game I purchased. The band is called No Connection and their from England. I saw some information for a game called Flatout, which is awesome, and I downloaded the demo. There were two songs on the demo, both from this band and I loved it. They have a very classic rock and roll sound that most bands here now a days don't have or have lost. I had been looking for a new band and this one caught my attention. I purchased their newest album and it's definitely some great music. I highly recommend you check them out. I was very saddened that Peter Jennings died on Sunday night. I was having trouble getting to sleep so I popped online to calm my headache and that's when I saw the news on CNN that he had passed away. For many many years now I have gone to CNN for the bulk of my news but I would always try and catch World News Tonight because I felt that he provided the kind of detailed reporting that I was looking for on certain stories. They ran a special episode of WNT the day after he passed and I almost cried at the end of the show. That's how much of an impact his reporting had upon my life. Work has been nuts....the shrink wrap machine we have has been acting up but we had a tech in to fix it so tomorrow I'm going in early to help us get caught up.

08/06/05 - I just have to tell you about a US Navy commercial that has been airing on TV for some time and it really bothers me. Basically it is touting the Aegis system which is something that can track lots of different items at once in all different locations.....or something like that. Anyway, towards the end of the commercial, it shows a military base and the camera closes in on a watch tower. The tracking system locks onto a fly that is sitting on the shoulder of a soldier in the tower. Once the system is locked onto the fly, the camera switches back to a control room where a female officer is sitting in front of a screen with the image of the fly locked on target in front of her. She then pushes a button at which point the camera switches to the deck of a Navy ship. Then a missle launches out of the ship and flies into the air, I suppose to hit it's target. This ends the commercial. Now, why in the HELL would the US Navy fire a missle from a warship to hit a FLY sitting on the shoulder of a military officer????? It even looks like it's a US officer too!!!! I don't get the point......does the Navy tout the fact that it can kill flies with missiles? Sure it's cool that it can lock on to a fly sitting on someone's shoulder.........but why do they then FIRE A MISSLE AT THE FLY!!!!!! God help us all.......whoever wrote that commercial should be thrown into the brig! Work has been CRAZY lately. We are still switching from diecast, which are now gone, over to plates, half of which have arrived. We have started shipping the plates, but our computer system, which needed some upgrades to handle the new plate line, has been acting up quite a bit. We have really only been shipping the plates for a few days and we need to work all the kinks out of the system so I'm not too worried yet. If this keeps up for a while though, I will be a little worried, but I'm not there yet. How about them Expo's huh???

07/31/05 - What a productive weekend so far and it's not even over yet! Yesterday we got to hang out with Alicat a bit for Indian food, which I did not partake of. Then we went to visit my parents and I got to stay for diner, which was nice since I was hungry anyway. Then today I got up and went over to my parents house again but this time to do more car work! Awesome! I discovered last week that my front motor mount was shot so it needed to be replaced. I didn't think it would be hard and it wasn't at all! I basically just had to support the weight of the engine/tranny where the mount is and then unbolt the old and bolt in the new one. Piece of cake! The old one was SHOT! It's basically a circle of rubber with 3 main points where it holds the weight. The lower portion was gone......literally gone, it had fallen out! One of the other pieces was torn in half so basically I only had one and a half of what I should have had holding up the engine! But with the new one on now, the motor doesn't shift like it used to and seems a bit quieter, but that's just my perspective. Then we did some plant work and then set about hanging up our curtains! We started with the living room and thats the only one we have done so far. There was some trouble with the power drill and I wasn't able to get all the screws in but I got 3 in hard enough to support the weight until I can get the other 3 in with the drill. Even without the 3 in there, the curtains look very nice, we have a sheer and a solid so we can just leave up the sheer in the day to hold back some of the hard light and the solid blocks it all at night. We will work on the others in good time of course.

07/27/05 - It's weird how sometimes you just don't have anything to discuss/write and then you get a lot. Well, I don't have a lot. Anyway, I got to work on my car last weekend and I will have to again this weekend. I was finally able to change my tranny fluid, which was overdue, and the shifting is now better than before. The 2-3 shift is pretty much back to how it should be. But, while lying under the car looking around, I noticed that my lower motor mount is shot. Basically on the Neon there are 3 mounts, one in front on the bottom near the engine/tranny connection and there is one on either side on the top. The one on the bottom has a bolt in the center of a mass of rubber so it flexes some but keep everything in place. Well, the bottom part of this rubber is basically gone so it's gotta be replaced. It's a pretty simple thing to replace thankfully, although it may be a story itself when I get it done. We purchased a treadmill from Sears and picked it up over the weekend as well. We were going to have it delivered but it's a popular model apparently and the store that would have delivered it was out of stock. So, we found it in stock at the Danbury Mall and picked it up there........freakin thing is heavy! Anyway, once my brother helped me carry it into the house, I set about putting it together, later in the day of course. It's been so hot and humid it's hard to do a lot all at once. So, I cut the box apart and assembled the treadmill, which was pretty easy. Once I acquired an extension cord from my parents to plug it in, I tried it out and it just wouldn't work. It would start then stop or not even start at all! The next day I checked it out and couldn't find any wiring problems with it. Called Sears and setup a repair person to come out and fix it. However, after getting off the phone I noticed the edge of the control panel sticking up, after I corrected it and it was seated properly again, it worked beautifully. Canceled the service call. Jess decided that it would be best for us to get a home equity loan to consolidate our bills. After some discussion I called and talked to a very nice lady and she is working on the loan as we speak. We basically want to put all our credit card bills into one payment and make things as easy as possible, that way we can save up more for a house. If things go as we would like, the house hunting will resume in the next year! Guess that's all for now kiddies..........have a nice tall glass of milk then it's straight off to bed.

07/23/05 - Last night Jess' company sponsored a trip to a Mets game at Shea Stadium in NY and it was alot of fun. We met up at her work and loaded on to a school bus for the ride into NY. Unfortunately it was rush hour on a Friday and the traffic was bad the whole way there. But the bus left early enough that we were able to get there for the game. Once we got in and settled in the Picnic area, which was pretty cool, I found my way toward the field. We had missed the 1st inning, but nothing happened then anyway so it was alright. Once Jess found me we went up to the bleachers which are located in Left field. Considering how far away we were from home plate, you could see everything that was going on. I haven't been to a game since Kindergarden and, ironically, that was a Mets game too. Weird stuff. Anyway, they were playing the Dodgers and hope were high for a Met win since they were on a 4 game winning streak, but it wasn't to be. The Dodgers were able to hold them to within 2 of winning with a final score of 6-5. Jess and I had a great time and she even expressed an interest in going to another game sometime........so who knows. This weekend we have a bunch of plans so I'm gonna get runnin.

07/19/05 - I was in the process of writing a rant a few days ago but decided it was just stupid and threw it out. Well, I just erased it, didn't really throw anything anywhere but into cyber-oblivion. The shuttle still hasn't launched but it may this week, who knows....who really cares at this point anyway. The girl missing in Aruba is still missing and no new information has come out about it..........don't care. Bush is going to name a nominee for the Supreme Court tonight and all sorts of activists and groups are watching with intensity because of what it will mean in the future.......don't care. A certain female friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is very excited about a certain baseball team reaching first place in their division..........really don't care........sorry hun. My wife has been bringing home the emergency phone for her work some weeks, and it makes life interesting because at anytime day or night, it can ring and she has to do her best to resolve the problem.......even at 4:30am! Yes, that's right, on a Monday morning........ouch. Good thing she gets paid a little extra to have it. She is also getting involved in role playing games on the computer, specifically free one's she can fine.....and there are quite a few to my surprise. It's great that she has something to relieve some stress when she gets home and with her playing all weekend, sometimes, I get to watch all the TV I want! I still pop in and bug her of course ;-) Luv ya baby. Work is still work, nothing new to report I suppose. My Dad has finally decided to sell his 1947 Crosley. I'm kinda saddened but at the same time, if someone else can restore it or use the parts to restore another one, then it wasn't wasted at all. It was just added to E*Bay today. Guess that's all for now. Later y'all!

07/10/05 - Went to my cousin's wedding last night and it was an adventure. She and her now husband live in MA and with his family up there and her family here, they decided on a midway point for the ceremony and reception. Normally it would take about an hour to drive from our place to there, maybe a little more, so we figured if we left at 3, with the event starting at 5, we should be OK. Well, for whatever reason, I95 ended up being a freakin parking lot almost the whole way......and for no reason! I almost wanted to see some big accident that was causing the slow down, something to explain it, but no....nothing! Man, I was not happy and because of if we ended up missing the wedding itself! But, it turned out we weren't the only one's who missed it so I felt a little better about that. The reception was fun, after we ate we changed into more comfortable clothes and played volleyball! It's turned into a common thing at any Peterson get together. It was interesting playing in the dark when it's hard to even see the ball let alone judge distance and trying not to run any kids or adults over in the process. We just banged the ball around and had a great time.

07/05/05 - Well, I'm now officially 30! My birthday has come and gone for another year and I don't feel any different. Jess' parents and granddad came up for the weekend which was very nice. They got to celebrate my birthday and also the 4th which was nice. We got to go swimming on the 3rd with Anna and Jen who we went to see in Chicago but she came in for the weekend to move some furniture out to her place. Kinda ironic, but that's alright. We also got to do some shopping and I bought a few video games with my birthday money :-) I got Mega Man Collection which is the first 10 games all on one CD, sweet! I also got Lego Star Wars which is just awesome. The game play is pretty basic but I love the way everything is Lego, even the characters! You just can't go wrong with a Lego Darth Maul! Overall the weekend was really great and the fireworks on the 4th were the best I have seen in a long time, possibly ever up to this point! They had some new stuff and they were so cool! I guess that's all for now, I'm not much for details often so you'll just have to live with it :-)

06/21/05 - Jess and I have returned from our Chicago adventure and it was great! Chicago is a much MUCH nicer town than NYC! The people are nicer, the streets are cleaner and the atmosphere overall is just more pleasant. We left on Thursday night after Jess got home from work and began our driving adventure. The drive was easy if not LONG! It took us about 14 hours or so to drive there, not figuring the stopping for gas and food along the way. I'm not figuring the time change either cause we here on EST are one hour ahead of them on CST. So we had to change our clocks there and back. So we got out to Chicago then we had to find Jen's place....this ended up being a bit of a challenge. We got all our driving directions online and printed them out, as we usually do. It just ended up that at a critical junction we turned the wrong way because the directions were not very clear. After driving into the wrong side of town, we decided that Jen can't possibly live over there, so we back tracked and found her place, in the opposite direction of course :-) Seeing as we had not slept much over the last 36 hours we crashed at Jen's, I fell asleep on the couch, sitting up and all sprawled out......when I'm tired, I can sleep anywhere! After that we got Jen and went out to locate our hotel, the Tremont. We had the car parked, they have a valet service cause parking in any major city is a chore. After checking in we ventured to our room on the 14th floor, no 13th floor in the hotel....sweet, and the room was a bit smaller than expected, especially for the money we paid. However, my ever wise and wonderful wife was not about to let that spoil our trip. Even though they didn't have room service or an extra cot to sleep on, we made the best of what we had. We ordered some food to be delivered through a service they offer and tried some Chicago style deep-dish pizza. We prefer our thin style! Then we ordered a movie on the TV service.....we choose Constantine. This was probably not the best choice as it's just weird to begin with and Jess and I were like walking zombies at this point! I was in and out of sleep trying to watch the movie, but I got to the end and was still dazed and confused. Jen slept on the floor that night and we awake the next morning around 11 or so....maybe later, I'm not sure. We had to figure out what to see and that was a tough choice, but we went to a Italian festival and did some all important shopping. There are store's all over the place and it was nice to just wander. We were going to go out that night and Jess wanted me to get some nice clothes. So we looked around and I got 3 nice shirts for nights out on the town and some new dress shoes. I'm not really one to buy new clothes on a regular basis so it was tough looking at shirts and shoes. I work in a dirty warehouse so jeans and t-shirts are my normal fare and those are easy to get cause I know what I like. That night I slept on the floor, which was fine, I'm an equal opportunity bed-sharer. The next morning we didn't all wake up until 1! I'm not kidding. But we ended up doing the most awesome thing that day, we saw the Body Worlds exhibit at the museum! Needless to say it was the most amazing and freaky thing I have ever seen! There have been numerous TV shows about the display and how the bodies were made up. Basically it's a display of the various parts of the human body, but the thing is these are real people! People who have donated their bodies to science and some many years ago people started to preserve parts of the whole body as reference material. I guess, I don't know the whole story and I'm too lazy to look it up and copy/paste it here, so just deal. Anyway, it starts out with the inner working of the body, various organs and such that have been dissected and put on display. Then they have the full bodies which are used to display the various parts of the body as they naturally are in the body. I mean every part of the body, right down to the veins and entire circulatory system, muscles, organs, etc etc etc. They had a display of embryo's at the various weeks of development, which was amazing to look at and realize how early on the sperm and egg end up looking human-like......fingers and face visible, stuff like that. It's totally different to see it as it really is than to see it on a sonagram, very emotional too. They had a man on a horse and that was cool to see the inside of a horse. Some of the displays you can get really up close to and look inside them and from all angles. It's almost easy to forget you looking at a dead body, a person who was once living and breathing like yourself. But here they are, back sliced open and entire spinal column, including brain, just laid out for all to see. There were 2 displays that freaked me out the most. The first was a display that was a frontal slice of the skull, like 2-3 inches back from the face. You could see the inside of the skull where the eye's sit and the nasal cavity. That was cool, but the slice of skull was on a rotating display and when it turned around, there was a face, a lifeless face, eye's closed and mouth slightly open! DAMN! Then the display I almost missed freaked me out the most. It was a 3-d type display of the human body, sliced front to back in about 6 pieces. Again the freaky part was looking at the face of a dead man and seeing the body displayed that way. If the face wasn't there, I wouldn't be so freaked out, but it was weird. I was blown away by the whole display though, I would do it all over again if I could. So we had to leave Jen at this point cause she had something to do early in the morning and we still wanted to do stuff. So after grabbing a bite we headed back to the hotel and crashed. The next morning we had to check out by 11 so we got up and packed. After getting our car and checking out, we headed out to Navy Pier to checked out the area. We ended up doing some Christmas shopping and just relaxed on our own. Jen was going to be available around 2:30 so we decided to go on a boat ride. We were gonna do a power boat trip but ended up doing an older masted ship, which was the better choice. After pulling out of harbor, I helped raise the sails and we just let the wind pull us along. Boy was that relaxing, although Jess and I ended up getting pretty well burned. Oh well, guess we'll never learn. After we were done we went and got caught up with Jen one last time and headed out for home. It was about 4:45 when we left Jen and it took about an hour to get out of Chicago with the traffic and some bad signs that pointed us the wrong way. But it worked out fine, we drove all night and got home about 9:30 this morning. Which was great cause we got laundry done and now we can relax before having to face work tomorrow. Ick. News has been mixed...........but the most interesting was the F1 fiasco at Indy for the American Grand Prix. Basically there was a issue with the tires and the teams that use that brand of tire were not comfortable running the race because one turn is very fast and if a tire were to blow, it could be a fatal crash. So, in a race that would normally have 20 cars running, 14 cars after the warm-up lap pulled into their pits and parked the cars......6 cars ran the race! The fans were understandably mad and showed their displeasure by throwing trash and such on the track and even leaving. The F1 governing body, FIA, may refund the ticket buyers, but the damage is done folks......F1 SUCKS! Unless they adopt a bunch of sweeping reforms in the next few years, which they are considering, the sport in America could be dead. But they love it in Europe so who cares. Damn, sorry that was so long, but if I didn't write it now, it would be alot shorter and less interesting.

06/13/05 - ECW ECW ECW! The ECW One Night Stand PPV was last night at it was figgin' awesome! Jess and I went to D & A's house to watch it on the big screen and had a great time. Thanks again guys :-) There were a couple so-so matches, but the last two totally stole the show. Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka has an amazing match, in and out of the ring! They beat the crap out of each other and you just wouldn't think Mike Awesome would fly over a top rope out onto a guy on the floor whose already been put through a table.....but he did! The last match pitted Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman against the Dudley Boys. This was a classic ECW match complete with some barb wire, tables, ladders, chairs and even a flaming table! Yes....flaming! I was very satisfied also that the promo's that RVD and Paul Heyman did were not scripted and truthful! I still don't quite understand why the PPV was bleeped when they swore.........it's a PPV, you pay for the swears too damnit! The weekend was very busy even before this. We went to my brothers on Saturday for my godson's 2nd birthday party. I can't believe he's 2 already! Then after that party we drove up to D & A's for another party and got home about 11. Then on Sunday Jess went out for Indian food and I went to my parents to help with some chores. Then we watched the race and napped a bit before going to watch the PPV. Heard on the news today that Michael Jackson was found Not Guilty on all the charges against him. Well, good for him, but I still think he's guilty, along with Robert Blake and OJ. Oh well, it's not my life and not my problem. Now that the whole circus is over with, hopefully he will just go away! He's bad enough to look at in pictures, never mind in video.........DAMN!

06/08/05 - I HATE baseball so I'm not one to rant about it. However, for a team with so many highly paid "athlete's" the Yankee's SUCK! Let me just repeat that in case you missed it.....Yankee's SUCK. One more time....Yankee's SUCK! Oooh, I like how that just flows off the tips of my fingers.... Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK...Yankee's SUCK. S-U-C-K SUCK SUCK SUCK! I said even before the season started to everyone.......that the Expo's would rock this year! Of course the Expo's are the Washington Nationals now, but there currently first in their division.......the Yankee's can't even beat the Brewer's! How sad is that???

06/05/05 - Man, work is gonna SUCK this month! We are going to start shipping out these large porcelain Christmas trees and the way they come packaged from the maker makes it a tough job for us to ship them out. It would take too long to explain the whole process, just trust me. My wonderful wife bought us both an iPod Shuffle. She has been loading her's up with all kinds of music while I'm slowly working on getting my music digitized from my CD's to put onto the iPod. It's so small! I was a little bummed that my old walkman finally broke last week but now all is better. She asked me if I wanted one when she was thinking of ordering one for her. I wasn't sure at first, but after I thought about it, I figured why not. Gotta move into the digital age sooner or later. I guess that's all for now, gotta do some things around the house and watch the end of the race. Now, where's my iPod.......

06/01/05 - The Memorial Day weekend has passed by and I again enjoyed my 1100 miles of racing action! Dan Wheldon won the Indy 500 and Jimmie Johnson won the Coca Cola 600 on a pass at the finish line! Both were great races and I'm glad I was able to waste my entire day to watch them! I feel bad for Dan Wheldon since his victory is being overshadowed by Danica Patrick's 4th place finish in the race, the highest place finish for a female driver at Indy, she even lead for almost 20 laps, a record as well. The most recent bit of news involving her is actually being stirred by Nascar driver Robby Gordon. He complained before the Indy 500, which he has run a number of times, that she has an unfair advantage due to her weight. I can kind of agree with his argument but he initially made it sound like his problem was that she was a woman driver. Nascar has a weight limit on it's cars, 3600lbs. I believe, while the Indy cars limit is about 1500lbs. Now, here is where the problem lies, Nascar figures this weight with the driver in the car, Indy cars are weighted without the driver.....so the lighter the driver, the better off. Less weight equals more speed. Until he races full time in Indy Car he should just be quiet and concentrate on getting his own team running well.......and not blowing up and/or crashing in almost every race. He's a good driver, just needs to work out some kinks, it's his first year as a owner/driver and I understand it's not easy. In the news, the legendary unknown man known only as "Deep Throat" has finally been identified. During the Watergate scandal a shadowy figure provided information to two Washington Post reporters that allowed them to break the story wide open and eventually led to Nixon resigning the Presidency. Mark Felt, the number 2 man in the FBI at the time, decided to blow the whistle and had to find some way of getting the word out without going to his upper-ups who were involved in the scandal anyway! A lot of people are upset that he came forward because it seems he wants to make money off his fame. Well don't we live in a money driven world??? Don't we go out to a job almost everyday just to make more and more of it??? Motives???? What about the people who broke the law in the first place???? G. Gordon Liddy, who was involved and did time for his part, has made more money now than if he wasn't involved! Who would even remember him if he wasn't involved and charged???? I think if it was discovered that "Deep Throat" was just some low level person who just happened to have the information then people wouldn't care, they may even praise the person! People are such hypocrites!

05/26/05 - It's Thursday night and Jess and I just got back from shopping. We have been getting our majority of food delivered via Peapod but occasionally we still need to go get things. This weekend, mainly Sunday, is a day which will require alot of snacks. It's the big day of racing I look forward to every year....the Indy 500 and Coca-Cola 600! 1100 miles of racing in one day and I don't have to leave the couch if I don't want to! Ya gotta love life! I'm finally going to have my car worked on, bring it into the shop as it were. The Service Engine Soon light has been on for over 2 years now......cool huh? The error code indicates the EGR valve is faulty, which I replaced some time back. However, when I replaced it I broke one of the bolts heads off so there is really only one bolt holding it down and I think it is now leaking and thus setting off the sensor. I need to go for my emission test in June so I'm kinda being forced to get it fixed, but it's over due.......especially since I need to keep the car running for some time longer. It's almost 10 years old and almost 100,000 miles, which isn't bad considering all the driving I have done, so I consider myself lucky that the car has been so good to me. Sure, it's had some trouble, but what car doesn't? It's a piece of machinery......it's gonna break! News is dull, CT may be getting a new area code because we're running out of phone numbers in our current 2 area codes.......so 473 may come into use.......yeah CT for growing!

05/19/05 - After 28 years, the "final" installment of Star Wars has been released. Revenge of the Sith was released at midnight and I went with my brother and Jess to see it. I've never been to an opening night Star Wars movie but since this was the last one, I had to go........my very first memory is watching the original Star Wars at a drive-in theater! It's a part of my life as I'm sure it is for many others. The theater was packed but everyone was in a great mood cause we were all there for the same reason, the love of the movie. The more I've thought about it since leaving the movie early this morning, I definitely think it's the best of the three new one's released, Episode's 1 thru 3. I have some complaints about it of course, like it didn't fully answer some things, but that's normal for the Star Wars series I believe. The opening battle sequence was a confusing mess and totally over done. You had no idea who was fighting who or what was going on.....they didn't even focus on the battle! After that it was like watching Return of the Jedi in reverse, if you watch both movies, the similarities are obvious! Also how Lucas reuses dialogue really pisses me off, does he actually write a new script or does he just pull out something like Jedi and re-write a few lines????? Who knows. The love story was horrible.........I can barely call it love, guess she just like's the bad/whiny guys. The sequence with the Wookies didn't make any sense to me........why did Yoda even go there? What was the point? I think I missed that in the story line somewhere. Gen. Grievous was a let down, 4 lightsabers is total overkill! Even when your clearly not good enough to kill someone using just one! I know it sounds like I hated the whole movie, but I really didn't, it's just little things here and there. In order of best to worse, here's how I would rank the six movies: A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, Revenge of the Sith, Phantom Menace, The Empire Strikes Back and Attack of the Clones. My brother believes Empire is the best, but it's all subjective. Each movie has redeeming qualities of course but this is just how I see it. A New Hope is the best just because it's the original! Now, remember that I'm also rating Episode's 4 thru 6 as the original releases, not the updated one's with the new scenes and cleaned up/changed special effects. GREEDO DOESN'T SHOOT FIRST and Hayden Christensen does NOT belong in the end of Jedi when the ghosts appear to Luke! DAMNIT LUCAS! Return of the Jedi has the best lightsaber battle at the end between Vader and Luke. Although the battle in Phantom Menace between Darth Maul and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon is awesome since Darth Maul has the 2 sided lightsaber and totally rocks it! So it's kind of a toss up between those two movies for lightsaber battles. The best space battle takes place in Return of the Jedi when the ships are on a course to attack the Death Star then have to turn around and end up attacked the Star Destroyers head on! The special effects are not over the top like they are in the movies released since then. You can actually follow whats going on and it's just awesome! Well, I guess that's it for now, I think I'm gonna go watch the end of Jedi now that I'm thinking about it!

05/12/05 - Jess and I have returned from VA and had a great time on our brief trip. On the way down we got off I-95 a little too early and ended up going straight through the center of Washington DC....and I mean straight, we ended up facing the White House! We then saw the Washington Monument, the Capitol, Holocaust Museum and the Pentagon to name a few. It was quite a detour but it all worked out in the end. The weather was gorgeous and we got to spend plenty of time with her family, which was the point after all. I thought I had more to say about the trip, but that pretty much sums it up for me. Sweet!

05/03/05 - I did car work today! I'm so excited, it felt great to be crawling around on the ground, getting dirty again......I missed it alot. It was just routine stuff, but it was fun. I left work and went to my parents house where my tools and stuff are to do the work and they have a driveway I can work in. I changed my spark plugs along with the oil and oil filter. It had clearly been some time since I changed the plugs because the gap between the electrode's was a bit bigger than when they first went in. Anyway it all went fine. Then Jess can by after work and took my car to an appointment so I could change the oil in her car since it's at almost 4,000 miles and were taking it to VA this weekend. I'll come back to that in a minute. The weird thing about working on her car, 2005 Saturn Vue, was the oil filter is not like a standard canister type filter. Instead of the filter screwing off, it's a paper filter INSIDE of a metal container. You screw off the top and pull out the filter. It's pretty cool and not very messy at all. I kinda like it, but I'm used to the old way. So, we're going to VA this weekend to be with Jess' Mom over this Mother's Day. It was going to be a surprise for her Mom but it was decided that it would be better to tell her now and put her in a good mood since she was so stressed out with work and missing Jess and I. More Jess than I of course, but that goes without saying. Guess that's all.

04/29/05 - Whats the big deal with the Social Security plan the president has proposed? Unless I'm totally deaf or not informed, it sounds to me like it's a good plan. Nothing is perfect and everyone wants something else, but it sounds like it's good. Now, one point is that any one born before 1950, I believe, will see no change in their Social Security benefits, what they are "entitled" to now they will receive when they retire, NOTHING will change for them! YET they are the group causing the biggest stink, the seniors who depend on their checks now WILL STILL GET THEIR CHECKS! Frankly I think they have no right to say what happens to a system that, when changed, won't effect them! Another point is the OPTION of taking some of the money I contribute to Social Security and placing into a "Savings" type account so it will gain interest. Again, this is OPTIONAL and NOT REQUIRED! I think it's a great idea because it would give me the opportunity to handle my own money if I so choose. Frankly I don't think Social Security will last long enough for me to benefit at all from it, I'm certainly not banking on it to be there when I retire even though I pay into it every paycheck! Apparently setting up this savings account on the government end will cost money, but what doesn't cost money in Washington anyway? The whole system is broken, but it's the best we have right now and that's that. I was listening to some news story about it and a woman was complaining about the changes because she hasn't put enough away and is depending on that check to help out. Now, why is it the governments problem when people can't properly manage their money and save some for retirement? I understand that life has a way of sucking money from you when you try and save, but it's a person's responsibility, I believe, to look out for themselves and their family. If I can't make a car payment I'm not going to yell at the government because they aren't helping me. Sure I want to have more money, who doesn't? But it's my responsibility to take care of myself and my family! I say F*CK Social Security! Let me have the money your taking for it and I'll put it away! I trust myself to manage it and if I don't then I'm to blame! Not some faceless bureaucratic committee that meets behind closed doors to decide how I should live my life! F*CK!

04/28/05 - You just gotta love Monty Python - "Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony." I have nothing more to say.

04/24/05 - Sunday evening, nothing on TV, tired of surfing........I shall RANT! Well anyway, the weekend is over but I can't say it was a total waste. This morning I woke up and my wonderful wife was in the process of making me breakfast which she was going to serve to me in bed! I was so surprised! Eggs, pancakes, sausage, biscuits and OJ. Ya can't go wrong with a combo like that. After we ate it was time to do some weekend food shopping, which I often dread but we do need to eat. Although most of our food is being delivered by Peapod we needed some essentials. We drove to Costco and fought the crowds to pick up some things then went to WalMart and ending up with more stuff, non-food though. I'm going to be doing some routine car work in the near future and needed some supplies. After spending 2 hours shopping in just 2 stores, it was time to come home. I cleaned up the kitchen from the mornings cooking and removed the covers that I put over the A/C's to block the cold winter air from coming in. We were going to also move our plants outside, but that can wait a little longer. I ended up watching the end of Star Wars then watched Empire Strikes Back. The laundry is almost done and Jess is involved in a new action/adventure game she found online. So, I'm here ranting to all those who will listen/read! Yeah for me and Yeah for the wonderful Internet! God knows I'm not one for pen and paper......my arm hurts so much when I write. On a side note I decided yesterday that I need to work more on showering my wife with love and attention. Not that I don't do things like that already, but I just enjoy making her happy and if a man can't love his wife, then what's the point? I'll do whatever I can to show her, granted just subtle things, I'm not going to start stalking her or anything like that, but more flowers maybe, little love notes, who knows what I may come up with. I can't give away any secrets since she reads my posts, Hi Hun :-) , but you get the point I'm sure.

04/20/05 - I realized something today that I need to share.....the church could be classified more as a Dictatorship than as a Democracy. This is a slow revelation for me as I'm sure lots of people already know this, but just work with me. I'm Roman Catholic and there are some policies in place in the church currently that I don't agree with. With the election of the new pope, I thought that maybe some things may change, but it doesn't look like that will happen. A co-worker mentioned that it's stupid for the Catholics in the US to think that just because we want something changed that the whole world wants the same thing! Most don't want things changed or updated and the church sure isn't going to just make a change on the fly. The church is setup in a way that allows for very few people to make any changes at all and the pope is the one at the top holding the power. He is supposedly the one closest to God and thus he knows best how to run things and what should be done.

04/19/05 - It only took 2 days and now we have a new pope! Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany has been proclaimed the 265th pope and taken the name Benedict XVI. My brother has been following all this closely and was very pleased with the choice. Since I value his religious opinion I agreed with him and am very excited about this new era. Being part German myself it's kinda cool that we have something in common.......kinda distant I know, but just let me have it. Ya know, I thought I had more to write and vent about, but I got nothing, I suppose all is well with me then. Sweet!

04/17/05 - Well, taxes are done for another year. We really waited until the very very last minutes to get them done, I e-filed them on the 15th! I never hope to do that again, cut it that close I mean. It was just a matter of getting all the money together to make the payments, but it all went well. Work this past week was a little crazy, I had to fill in for one person who was on vacation and do a job I'm somewhat familiar with, it was fun. The more I get to know, the more valuable I am, as I see it. I can do just about everything there in the Shipping area, except sorting the invoices, but I may get to learn that too, so who knows what the future may hold. The weekend has been fairly uneventful which is nice, the weather has been awesome and with the temps rising, it's only a matter of time before more car work will be planned :-)

04/12/05 - F**K IT ALL AND F**KING NO REGRETS! I sometimes wonder why I do the things I do, being human sucks! I HATE being responsible! I HATE paying bills to everyone and anyone! I work my ass off 40 hrs a week, more around Christmas, and it seems like no matter what I do, I still owe more and more money! I HATE MONEY! F**K! I also hate that I have no where to vent my frustration without someone knowing who I am or who I'm talking about! That's not true, I'm sure I could find some place, but it's more of a hassle than it's worth. With my luck someone would discover it's me and that's a stress I don't need! The truth is very painful! F**K!!!!!!!!

04/09/05 - So here I am on Saturday and it's gorgeous outside. Jess and I were roused out of bed around 10:30 when our Guinea Pigs decided we had slept enough and started to sing really loud. Which was fine cause we got up and proceeded to make breakfast, which we havn't done in some time. Then we ate at our dining room table which I cleaned off last week. It had been covered in junk for months, but now we have that and also a bunch of counter space back. With all this wonderful weather now I'm in a cleaning mood and it's great! I got to work on my car a little today when we stopped over my parents house. I had to clean my K&N air filter cause it was nasty dirty. I also discovered that the U-bolt holding my muffler on was broken, I don't know when that happened. But, it isn't leaking so I'm not concerned about it. I'm getting anxious about working on my car as I need to change the oil and tranny fluid badly. I just love getting dirty working on my car.

04/02/05 - My Pope has died. The only pope I have ever known is now enjoying his eternal rest in heaven. I'm saddened by it all, but it's all part of life. I'm curious who the next pope will be and what name he chooses.

04/01/05 - Two things I need to discuss tonight, people who have or are dying and Metallica.......not related to each other. In the last week, Johnnie Cochran, Terri Schiavo and Frank Perdue have all died and now, the pope is on his death bed, it's just a matter of time before he passes. It always seems like 3 or more important people die in the same short space of time. Always at least 3, this time it looks like it will be 4.......odd how these things work out. Metallica has been around the music business for about 25 years now, sold over 90 million albums and they are one of my favorite bands. All their older music was very angry music, not "satanic" angry, just normal angry and I could identify with alot of it. The newer music is less so, but that original aggression still comes through, for example in the song "All Within My Hands" on the newest album St. Anger. "Control is love, Love is control. I will only let you breathe my air that you receive, then we'll see if I let you love me." These few lines are very powerful, a statement about the power one can have over another. Just goes to show why they still rock!

03/26/05 - The news has been consumed with the Terri Schiavo case. For those living under a news rock, some 15 years ago she suffered a heart attack that deprived her brain of oxygen and she has been incapacitated ever since. Confined to bed, unable to verbally communicate other than moans and showing no signs of improvement. Her husband says that she would not want to continue to live like this but her parents argue that she would want to live. For years now the case has been in and out of court after court, judges both agreeing with and disagreeing with the husband and parents alike. He is her court appointed legal guardian since they were married when this all happened. Some 8-9 days ago the husband was allowed to have her feeding tube removed so that she could pass away in peace. The parents are fighting tooth and nail, filing petition after petition in every court they can. The Supreme Court has refused to hear the case at least 3 times, the Federal Court and Federal Appeals Court have both sided with the husband and refused to have her feeding tube re-inserted. I can understand from a family point of view that you don't ever want to see your Daughter/Sister die in a painful way when you think she can be saved. I can also understand it from the husbands standpoint that if she told him that she didn't want to live like that and he is upholding her wishes. I have more respect for the husband just in the way he has never just said "Fine, I'll just divorce her and her parents can do what they want". He is living with someone else and has 2 children with this other woman, but he never abandon his wife, he is going to carry out her wishes. He has nothing to gain from his wife's death other than the knowledge that she will be able to rest in peace finally after all these years. As bad as it sounds, I'll be glad when she does pass away so we can STOP HEARING ABOUT IT! DAMNIT!!!! I ran into a bit of a problem with my spyware program the other day that really annoyed me. There is a Live Update feature in it and one of the updates was for a "Cookie Guard" that watches out for bad cookies. The program is geared more for IE but the updated cookie thing had listing for the other browsers on my computer, Opera is the one I use cause it is far superior to IE. However, after I installed the updates Opera no longer worked, it kept crashing on opening. I was pissed but figured out the problem and got Opera working again, but now I can't update the cookie part of the program. I wrote to Tech Support and they didn't provide a good answer, it's a good thing the program has worked so well so far, otherwise I would start sending more e-mails to them. I've been playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas alot these last 2 days, which is nice. I don't get alot of time in the week to play since I have stuff around the house to do, but I need a break too. I'm maybe only half way through the missions, but I'm making good progress. It's so much bigger than the previous two games in every way that it's not a game you can beat in just a day or two. It keeps your interest for much longer and that's awesome.

03/18/05 - Jess and I got sick the other night and had to stay home from work yesterday and I stayed home today as well because of it. We ate some hot dogs from the fridge that, I guess, were in there too long cause soon after we both ate them, we were feeling it. The next day I attempted to go to work but I couldn't even last 30 minutes without almost passing out, so I came home. We ended up sleeping the whole day, I mean we went back to bed about 9:30AM and didn't get up again until 4PM.....so we slept alot. Damn bad food! Oh well, what can ya do. Congress has gotten involved in the case in FL of the brain damaged woman who's been in a "Vegetative" state from almost 15 years now. Her husband has been trying to remove her from life support since she wouldn't want to live like that, but her parents insist she can get better and she left no living will, so it's been in the courts forever it seems. The FL courts finally said that he could remove her feeding tube and that was the final decision. But now Congress is jumping on the band wagon and trying to block it. She's not going to get better, doctors have been saying it for years, let her die in peace! Her parents are only keeping her alive at this point for themselves, that's my opinion. I was watching Star Wars today, the original one, or "Episode 4" as most think of it now, and I had a thought. When Lucas released 4, 5, & 6 on DVD recently he made some updates to the movies to coincide with Episodes 1 & 2 that are currently out. One of those changes was to have the actor who played Jango Fett voice over the lines of Boba Fett, since we learned in Episode 2 that Boba is a clone of Jango and so he should have the same voice. HOWEVER, all of the Stormtroopers are also clones of Jango, so shouldn't Lucas have redone all of the Stormtroopers lines with Jango's voice??? Since he just loves to destroy the integrity of the classic originals so much, why not. I know they are his films and he can do whatever he wants to and doesn't care what anyone thinks, but it pisses me off! GREEDO DOESN'T SHOOT FIRST!

03/12/05 - I came to the realization the other day that no matter what happens as far as all this terrorist stuff goes, life goes on, time goes on, we will survive! If you look at all the events that have transpired during the course of man's short existance on this planet, people have always moved on afterwards. This makes no sense at all, sorry, my mind isn't quite on the right track since I thought of this days ago and never got to rant about it then, oh well. So, what else is going on....well, work has been interesting as of late, let me tell ya all about it! Well, I work for the Danbury Mint and at the warehouse where I am at we currently ship out the Diecast models, throws (blankets & pillows) and jewelry. We also use an outside company called API, they ship out plates, and our Torrington facility ships just about everything else, it's a huge building, I've talked about it before I think. Anyway, about 2 weeks ago we had a meeting and were told that API is closing at the end of the month. This is fine with me, I have never been there and could care less if they are there or not. The problem is who gets to do the work that they were doing? Well, management has decided to move all the Diecast, which I love by the way, up to Torrington so they can ship it out, and we will get the plates from API along with some of the larger pre-packed items from Torrington, like a trade of sorts I suppose. I was very upset that the Diecast was leaving and I could no longer check out the new models as they arrived, but in the end I'm just happy to still have a job and that Torrington isn't getting all the work. Logistically it would be a nightmare for all the stuff to ship out of one building unless it was alot bigger than the one's we have now. Jess and I still havn't done our taxes but we should be doing them soon. The last few years we have used a guy my parents know and that has worked out fine, but this year we just never got in touch with him, which is fine. We are going to try out Turbo Tax and see how that works, it will be cheaper then using the guy we used and if it works out, we will just do that every year. I'm nervous about doing it myself, but also excited because we should be getting money back this year. I bet everyone thinks that every year! We paid plenty last year so we need some of that back darn it! I have started using a new Anti-Spyware program called Spyware Doctor. So far I have been very impressed with it compared to the last program I was using that didn't seem to stop all that I wanted to stop. Of course I have only been using this program about a week now, but so far, no new threats so that's good news.

03/06/05 - Well, I'm glad that I no longer have to seriously think about web page design and programming anymore because it F**KING SUCKS A**! I only do this now for fun, just because I used to be involved with it and did it for work, I tried to keep up with it, but now it's useless. I tried looking into XML some more tonight and it's like freaking rocket science to me, I've lost all ability to understand it. I blame myself and don't fault anyone else who can understand it with ease, but to me it's archaic. XML is "supposedly" alot easier to use than HTML because instead of being bound by a certain number of tags that can only do certain things, you can make up your own tags. Now, this may sound great and all, but you also have to write up rules for what each tag means and how it's supposed to work. HTML has a set of these rules already built into it, that is how web browsers and such know how to read the code and display it. HTML also has many flaws in that you can write the code poorly and it will still work. Most people could care less about that, as long as it works, but there are groups of people out there who find this to be a problem and are setting out to fix it. I cleaned up my own code just because that's how I am, but I'm not going to join some group and decide that all pages must be a certain way and that code MUST be perfect.............wow, I'm totally going off here, sorry, ........ not sure who I'm apologizing to since I doubt anyone even reads this garbage! Wow, I just called my ramblings garbage....go me! We watched the movie Troy tonight and although I liked it, the first thought I had after watching it was they should have called it Achilles since it seemed to focus on him more than anything else! I can understand that he was a famous player in the episode, but my GOD! It was like Pearl Harbor or Titanic.......cut down the freaking love story and concentrate on the main issue!

02/26/05 - Jess and I bought new computer chairs the other day to replace the old one's we had been using. She had my old chair, which had recently broken, and I was using a chair from our old dining room table, which my sister now has. Anyway, the new chairs are very comfortable. All the web pages on this site are now XHTML! I went through the whole process and verified each one was compatible and fixed any problems that arose, it was kinda fun. I finally finished printing the wedding pictures my Mom asked for, now I can continue to scan the older photo albums like I was doing. Guess that's it for now, later.

02/20/05 - The Daytona 500 has come and gone for one more year, Jeff Gordon won and it was a good race, at least at the end. The middle of the race was pretty boring, I almost feel asleep a couple times. With NASCAR trying to spread out the cars and avoid a big crash, it has lead to a less exciting race, in my opinion. I understand the need for safety, especially after so many have died in race cars, but if people aren't interested in a product, then why watch or buy items related to it? Now, I'm not saying this just because Gordon won, he ran a great race and won fair and square, I respect that. I just don't like how the rule changes have made the race less of a high speed chess match and more of a "wait till the end then race" race. Oh well, it's still the best racing to watch on TV that's for sure!

02/19/05 - Did a little more cleaning up on the site in respect to my pictures. Removed the one of me at my old job and added some of our wedding day, finally, along with a recent Anna picture and one of Sam. I was originally hoping to have alot more of Anna, I had a good series going there, but life got the best of me and I couldn't take the time to keep it up, much like the site. I also added a nice pic of Sam from Halloween, it's only taken me over a year after he was born to get a picture of him up. It's about time, I know.

02/17/05 - Finally rearranged the old rants, it was getting out of hand. I just kept adding to it, for no good reason, so it's better consolidated. This year Jess and I will be doing a bit of traveling in her new car. We have a trip to Chicago set for June and will also be going down to VA for Christmas/New Years which will be good, since they have managed to get up here the last few. So, we owe them a few trips and now that we have a new car, we have no excuse. My brother got a new laptop and I have been helping him setup his network, which has been fun. It took some time to get everything right, we first had to get a network card working in his desktop. I had one in Jess' old computer but it didn't work in his, so he bought one from Staples for like $10 and it works great. Today I helped with the final bit of it, the firewall and sharing stuff. It's great when it works well but when it doesn't you just want to drag someone out and beat them senseless.........I won't name names, but his initials are W.G. and he is Microsoft. Whoops, did that slip out.......oh well, just watch the South Park movie, that's rocks!

01/11/05 - Our house is once again ours, all the holiday guests have passed through and we have cleaned up all that was left from the celebrations. I have begun, well, I'm halfway done actually, to scan our wedding albums and save the pictures onto CD. It's a bit time consuming to scan each picture, even two at a time, but it's worth it, for safe keeping. I have done 2 of our 4 albums so far and have just started the 3rd, I'm over 300 pictures so far and starting to fill up the 2nd CD. Now, this may seem weird that so few pictures would take up a whole CD, but keep in mind that the scanned image is very large in size and file size is anywhere between 1.5 - 3 Megs, that fills up a CD fast! After I am done with this project I plan to take on something my brother had hoped to work on. We have a bunch of photo albums from many years ago, back into the 30's, and we need to save these images before the pictures themselves degrade into nothing. I was able to accomplish that when I scanned all those slides last year, I have only to hand out another set of CD's with the images on it, and that we will probably do next month. I know I'm rambling, but that's nothing new huh???

01/01/05 - Happy New Year! Well, we spent our New Years much like last years, at the casino, except this time we stayed until after 12am and we had a good time. I got my new computer some weeks back and I just now got around to installing my HTML editor, boy am I lazy, or maybe just busy. Jess' parents came up for Christmas again this year and we had a very nice visit, next year we are planning to go down to VA. We bought a new car, 2005 Saturn Vue. Jess' car broke down and it was too expensive to repair it yet again so we decided it was time for a new one, it's really nice...plenty of room for a family. The tsunami that hit the many countries in the Indian Ocean was devastating, the death toll is now at 150,000 and rising everyday, it's unbelievable that a underwater earthquake could cause a tidal wave that would cause so much destruction. I HATE THE WORD BLOG! People have been posting journal type entries on the web for 10 years or more and just because it has a cool name, now it's become cool.....political correctness sux! "Do you think that your better than me, you'd better wake up cause you know it's a lie!" -Damageplan