Quite a productive day, almost

Today was pretty productive, for the most part, and by most part I do mean hardly at all. The day started out slow enough. Did a little work on this book that is in the office of old news clipping and back issues of the paper. That thing is tore up. Might get into that another time. About 11 I left for lunch. We had a going away luncheon for the guy going to Turkey. I went home put on civilian clothes and then went to the restaurant since the boss let us go for the day. After lunch I came home and started raking the back yard. Man, there is a shit ton of leaves back there. My first thought was to not worry about bags and to pile them up on one side and behing the broke-ass shed that is out there. I got a nice pile on the side and I was working on raking some of the leaves to the back side when I realized that I'm just making a huge compost pile and those things stink so I stopped. And I don't think that the rake is going to last too long after the yard is raked. It has quite the bend in it.

I came inside to clean the computer room of all of the boxes that where still in here, all half full. I pretty much have this room clean now, the problem is the stuff is strewn about the front room in organized, kinda, piles while I decide which pile should go in which box. I gave up on that and sat around for a couple of hours until I decided it was time to get my hair cut.

After the hair cut I went to Lowes to get a spike thing to keep my double gat from swinging open. Apparently they don't have those things at home improvement stores. I had to Homie engineer it. I grabbed a pipe and went to get a piece of round stock. They also don't cut or bend the metal rods that they sell, bastards!! The guy did show me an L-bracket that is normally used for gat latches. It's not as long as I wanted but it should work. While I was there I picked up trash bags.

Looks like I'll have to put off cleaning until Sunday since I still have the living room mess to deal with. I hope I can motivate myself tomorrow but I tend to have problems with motivation on the weekend. I am looking forward to being ouside making noise pounding that pipe into the ground though.

One more week until Lori and Pedro come down for sure so far.

Flash back guy update: He was out today, but he wasn't yelling at any thing.

Adapting

The albino has eaten a couple of times since he's been here so that's a good thing. I haven't seen the other one eat though. He seems to only come out when all of the lights except the night light are off. I have to walk up on the aquarium real slow so he won't run back into his hiding place. The albino doesn't seem to care what color light is on, he'll come out whenever he feels the need.

I will finally have something in the next paper. It is just a man on the street type of thing though. The topic this month was "Do you have a new year's resolution and are you sticking to it?" The editor seems to be Photoshop happy so we'll see how the pics come out. I also went out with the supervisor lady and took some pictures of the guy she interviewed for her story. I might just have those in the paper too, we'll see. I'll post the page so you all can see it next weekend. The paper won't be out until the second.

The link to AWAKER has been changed to Farva because he has changed where he posts his comics. They are flyer comics but anyone in the Air Force will be able to relate to them for the most part.

I'll try not to kill them

I went to the pet shop and picked up two geckos. So far they get along. I also went ahead and got the under tank heater. If it gets too hot I can turn off the light above since they don't need lights during the day. We'll see how long I can make these live.

Tip of the day: Lizards DO NOT drink PowerAide.

What's that noise?

Since I have been here there there has been this sound coming from outside, usually at night. It somtimes sounds like a dog and sometimes it sounds like a guy if you listen hard enough. Normaly there are no destinguishable sylables in this sound. I was sitting here Saturday during the day when I heard it. I went to the window and lifted a slat in the blinds to see what the sound was. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be some old guy. Imagine my surprise when he was yelling at nothing, repeating "Stop begging." He would point at his shed in the back yard there and yell that a couple of times. He would take a break to walk around the yard just to come back and yell it some more. I seen him go in so I figured it was over. Not so, he came out again to yell some more. He looks like he is old enough to have been in the war, if not the first one then the second one for sure. I just hope he keeps his flash-backs in his yard.



This weekend I decided to get my aquarium together for some kind of animal. Not wanting to get another veiled chamelion after the first one, and not wanting to get a snake because of the dog being so small, I had to choose between fish and some other reptile. It's going to be a leopard gecko or two. It's a good thing that's what I want because that is all Petsmart has. The tank has been cleaned, the stuff inside has been cleaned and I'm working on getting the temperature right. I'm trying not to have to use an under tank heating pad but if this light doesn't get the bottom of the tank up to between 80 and 85 I'll have to. I also have to find something else for them to lay under because they need something to lay under that is humid and a place that isn't as humid. The humidity helps with shedding.

Choices, choices

I went to the phone place the other day to see about a couple of things. I was told that I could change phones now if I wanted to. It's a good thing too because the speaker seemed to be going out on the one I had. I did have my eye on the Razr phone since it's on Verizon now. The guy showed me a phone with an MP3 player ability, but the buttons for that are on the outside and I'm not the best at not breaking phones. I've broken a screen while a phone was closed before. I went home to think about my choices over night. I did also look at the new VCast phone, the one with the QWERTY keyboard. I decided that since I have so many things that already play MP3s I don't need some phone, even if it work out to be free after all the rebates and things. The next day I went back and the guy told me the features of both phones. After being there for a while, I decided on the VCast. Sure, the Razr is cool and all, but the Vcast was cheaper and has a plug for hands free. The Razr is bluetooth hands free only. I know I don't need the mini SD memory card slot or the camera realy, but it was more phone for less money. I'll have to try real hard not to break it though since the whole face is buttons. I did get the insurance on it just in case this time. The keyboard will also come in handy since every one seems to think that texting is the latest and greatest thing.

Speaking of texting, I did add it to my plan just for that reason. I'm not a real big fan of sending messages because I'd rather make the call, not that I call too many people very often. There are a couple of things to remember before you send me some text message.

1. It better be funny, I mean hillarious
2. Don't text to say hey or see how I'm doing. Want to know? Make the call.
3. Don't expect me to reply, if I do don't be surprised if I call you instead.
4. You CAN text any time you want to tell me how great I am.

I'm reading this American Psycho book and I've noticed something those of you that have read it might be able to help me with. This Bret Easton Ellis guy doesn't seem to want to finish senctences or chapters. The first time I thought it might just be a typo but at the end of a chapter it seems that a complete thought was left out. Is it like that in other books or did I get one where the words fell off the page? Maybe I can call and ask.

I went to Pizza Hut the other day. If you evere wonder whether you are in the ghetto and aren't real sure just look for the sign at the counter that asks people to take off their hats, sunglasses and other things that could hide a person's face from the cameras. I wonder if that sign actually works.

The trip is over

The flight home wasn't too eventful.

I surprised my grandparents when I showed up at their house. My grandma doesn't think that I told her I'd be home for Christmas. I think I did.

Dan and I went to an Indiana University-Butler basketball game. Indiana won the game but they where nice enough to let Butler have the lead for a bit in the first half.

Went to shop with my mom on Christmas Eve and the only place that was open at seven in the evening was K Mart. Wasn't there a time when stores wher open later the night before Christmas? Guess I just don't wait that long to shop most of the time.

It was pretty wet and rainy the first few days I was home so all of the snow was gone by Christmas day. At around noon the rain gave way to snow.

On Christmas I woke up and went to breakfast with the grandparents and took a nap untill my mom and Dylan came over at 4:30. There was a good amount of snow on the ground by then. The two little kids went to their other grandma's for the day. Dylan liked the mask, it changes his voice when he wears it.

I hung out at the uncle's for a couple of days and did some work. We where going to tear doors off and shelves out of a couple of closets so that we could put in new shelves and a couple of
hide-a-doors. The doors came but the pockets didn't so we tore out the closet stuff and patched nail holes around the room. The second day was paint the ceiling day. That was terrible, not sure if it was because of the decorative spackling, or the ceiling being vaulted or that we used a roller to do it. It didn't seem that the paint was covering the whole thing and there where missed spots. I guess that after it all dried it looked good. If you are going to hang out with old people and need some thing to watch, I recomend the Dukes of Hazard. My uncle seemed to enjoy it quite a bit and he's fifty some odd.

There where a couple of times that I went out with Jen, her boyfriend and her little sister to play pool. The first night me and Cheryl beat Jen and her boyfriend ten games to two. The second time Jen and her boyfriend beat us I don't know how many times to two. I quit counting after losing five games straight, think they won ten though.
Dylan turned six while I was home. All of the kids where there. Dylan got a bike that Darian seemed to like quite a bit. That's ok though because Dylan liked Darian's Etch-A-Sketch. After spending time with all three kids a few times I have one question. People have these things on purpose?

Think that's about all that happened on the trip.