Semi Occasional Grease

Doing our part for the economy

2010-02-22T11:47:00.001-05:00

In many respects, Sue and I have been as lucky and fortunate as two people can be during these recessionary times. We've bought a house, had a kid, bought the things we've needed and generally have plugged along like normal pre-Wall Street/Housing/Bank meltdowns. Which is good for us. :)

Yesterday we needed to get out of the house though and the weather was pretty nice for a February day and off we headed to Jackson Outlets with ZW and met my sister there. Sue and her braved the crazy hordes standing on line at the Coach outlet. I had gotten Sue a Coach gift certificate through AMEX membership rewards she wanted to spend but unfortunately they can only be used at a full price store. So after all that waiting, that sucked but she still got herself something nice for a good price and she can use her GC another time.

After that we hit the Disney outlet and we had about $10 on a GC for there as well which we spent on a t-shirt for me (Donald Duck!), a coffee mug, a new sleeper for ZW and also some Disney kids plastic bowl and dish. So we got a lot and maybe spent $17 of our own $. Good deal!

Then it was down to Gymboree where Sue and my sis bought Z some more clothes, no idea what they spent but it was good deals to them so I guess that's all that matters.

Making our way around the Outlets, we stopped at both Harry and David and le Gourmet Chef where we did some snack samples grazing, had a nasty cup of berry flavored coffee from H&D, but did buy a jar of Buffalo Ranch dip @ Le Chef to try later. Like another $5. Mmmm, Buffalo and Ranch! Can't wait to try it!

He also hit the Corningware place and got a tremendous deal on Pyrex casserole dishes. Sue likes to make a mess of Shepherd's pies all at once and we needed these so for 3 dishes it was buy 2 get 1 free and we spend like another $14.

We finished the day at Target buying, on sale and with some Capital One rewards card points, a tableand end table for our downstairs TV room. Like a $180 expense we spend roughly $100 of our own cash on. NICE!

So materialism is alive and well in this economy. No one can blame us for not doing our Patriotic duty! :)

Solar Sonic Super Chlorinated Out of Control

2009-05-26T13:35:00.002-04:00

This Memorial Day weekend was a homeowners project weekend bonanza. After I painted our bedroom on Saturday, and it came out great, on Sunday I tackled another project of mine which was to hook up this solar heater I bought so that the pool that I spend so much time, money and effort maintaining actually gets some use. So here's what it all looks like.

The device is called a SunHeater solar heater. I got this puppy from Walmart for around $185 with free shipping to store and then I also bought the mounting kit for another $25 from another website, whose name I forget, but they were cheaper by like $15 vs any other place I saw it online.

Anyway, I have this privacy fence on our lower pool deck and decided, since its 22 feet long and this sucker is 20 feet long, that this was the perfect spot to put this thing because otherwise its laying on the deck or one the grass killing it.

After drilling pilot holes and driving in all the screws that hold the brackets, I was about to begin manhandling this thing into place when luckily my Mom and Dad showed up and my dad helped me immeasurably in getting this thing on the wall. The brackets, in some cases had to be moved and he helped me lay the whole thing out. It was an unfortunate thing in that we had to figure out the whole thing from the pictures they sent because the directions enclosed were mostly in French.

Long story short we finally got this thing mounted and now it just needs sunny days with the pump running to drive the water through it to heat it. We'll see how that goes.

The other item I added to the pool this weekend was a chlorinator which I got at BranchBrook in brick. It was $25 and maybe another $10 for hose clamps and a couple threaded pool hose fittings. The floating Chlorinator was getting it done so hopefully this does as I don't like all the zeroes showing up when I test the water.

This Pool is Clear

2009-05-22T07:35:00.002-04:00

Clear, shining water. Cool, refreshing, sun dappled surface. Our pool is all these things now as the green is gone, the blue is there and the pleasant smell of a chlorinated pool fills the back yard.

The big breakthrough came on wednesday as the filter cleared the water enough to really see the bottom well. At that point, I broke out the vacuum and spent 2-3 hours simply vacuuming, emptying the leaf trap, backflushing, priming, vacuuming, repeat. By about 8:00 that pool was clear of the debris of fall and winter. Once the fileter was giving one final good back flush, i loaded it up with fresh DE and set it to filter all night into Thursday afternoon. By last night it was clear as a bell like the picture above shows and I dropped Wanda in to do a little automatic vacuuming although Wanda is having its issues as she isn't moving all that well so now I have to figure out what her issue is but that's ok as I can just do the vacuuming the old fashioned way for now.

This weekend, I'll give the pool sides a good brushing, power wash the ladder and drop that in, and if it really is doable, the solar heater will get set up. That might be tough because I also plan on painting the bedroom although that should just take Saturday to do. I love long weekends!

Happy Memorial day all!

A Bottom in Sight!

2009-05-18T10:52:00.003-04:00

This moring I woke up and in the early morning light, stepped on to my deck and looked down on the pool after it had been filter the entire night. Much to my delight, I could make out the faint traces of the pile of leaves on the bottom that had slipped into the pool when I removed the cover.

It may not be apparent in the picture but if you look close, you can see areas that are dark smudges. Avast! Those be leaves, matey! Yaar, indeed, those be leaves!

My hope is that since the filter will run until about 2 pm and the sun is out a little more today than it was yesterday, the combination, with all the chlorine I loaded up the water with, will result in even more clearness. Either way, I be takin the vacuum to it tonight, me hearties!

The Battle of the Green Pool

2009-05-17T12:22:00.002-04:00

When last we left this saga, it was October and I was converting the pool from baquacil to chlorine. With maybe just a day or two to spare, I got the conversion done and got the cover on the pool before every leaf on every tree anywhere near my yard fell all at once with amazing speed.

Fast forward to yesterday and I decided with the nice weather and plenty of unexplainable motivation, it was time to see what I had under the pool cover awaiting me. Now I would have hoped, under normal circumstances, to have expected to see a nice fairly workable pool but I knew that probably wasn't going to be the case due to the branch, the diameter of a quarter, that had pierced my brand new cover less than a month after it had been put on after this crazy wind storm back in November. The hole was right where the water for the cold months collected so I figured all sorts of decaying trees and stuff and that nasty water had infiltrated.

It had. It was green.

Hurrying off to my shed, I returned armed with chemicals. Chlorine Tablets. Trichlor Shock. The blue stuff that you poor in to make your filter more efficient. I also broke out my cool new water tester. And trust me, its cool. 2 AA batteries and the power of water analysis without having to determine shades of color on some silly scale. Low alcalinity so added some soda ash. Top notch Danny! Top notch!

Two bags of shock and all the blue stuff I had left and today, the pool is pleasantly... beginning to turn blue.

Off to Leslie Pool for more shock, more blue stuff (clarifier I think its called), more soda ash just because I'm low and dropped the wanda pool vac in. Go wanda!

What's old is new again

2009-02-02T13:58:00.001-05:00

So I'm blogging about nothing and since I haven't blogged in a long time, for anyone who cares to notice, it will much like business as usual. All about nothing.

Since my blog is linked on greasetruck.org and ostensibly any traffic I get probably originated from there, its probably pretty obvious that the old homappage is back and the Joomla experiment is over. Now I liked Joomla but it wasn't what one would call mature software, it was like most open-source stuff, always in a certain state of broken and me not being a developer in the programming language sense, I couldn't fix it half the time because it was PHP. So I worked around its limitations. Well, what I noticed over time was that Joomla was also subject to SQL injections so it wasn't very secure and I'd have random ad code inserted into the HTML template for the site and who know what that really did. It was damned uncomfortable to deal with so that was really the last straw as I was sick of dealing with its natural slowness and having to get on Live Chat with my host because CGI was erroring or whatever. So it was fun but now what's old is new again and me thinks when I finally find some time, I'll completely throw out the current site and put something up a little newer and more modern looking as the current page looks dated to me. It's mainly my start page anyway and a gateway to the messageboard and DKB is probably the only other person to notice anyway. ;)

Of course finding time is the key thing. i have no time anymore but not because of bad things. I love being a homeowner and I work on our home constantly now trying to pare down our expenses and modernize and find efficiencies. Its very cool but takes energy and time which isn't always in great abundance. Because time is tough to find certain things have lost their place with me. Rutgers Basketball for one. It doesn't help that the team just simply sucks so badly but its also a long ass ride from Brick by yourself, Jay is in Dallas now, Abhi isn't a regular and maybe i'm just moving on. Most games are viewable in some fashion so I stay up with the team like that but I think this year was it for me as a season tix holder. Going to games just isn't that much fun anymore. Oh, and they suck as I mentioned before. I guess I'd rather keep that Grand in my pocket now.

Life is also too busy with a baby on the way. Sue has been doing great with her pregnancy and we find out boy/girl in less than 2 weeks so that's really exciting! But time/money... I'll need more and more. Sorry RU Hoops, something has to give. Other things will give too so don't feel too singled out and maybe I'll be back someday. And to be honst... I've also really rediscovered hockey which I've always loved but am so much more into this year, especially with the Devils kicking so much ass.

Ok, that's all the nothing for now. Maybe I'll try to get this blog more regular. Don't count on it.

Gatorade Pool

2008-09-22T10:13:00.001-04:00

Today is the start of day 10 of converting my pool from Baquacil to Chlorine. Its coming along slowly but certainly but it isn't without its moments.

Initially I did what I read should be done with the pool to begin the process, namely add 2 pounds of dichlor for every 10,000 gallons of pool water. Well, mt 24' Round above ground pool is like 11,000 - 12,000 gallons and so I added 4 pounds of dichlor because I had read how much baquacil eats up the chlorine. Well, the pool did what they said it would initially do and it turned cloudy and green and scummed up. I guess the chemistry is such that baquacil and chlorine combine to form this crap.

Anyway, I did this and from that time what has begun has been a constant adding of dichlor and now hypochloride as that is supposedly a super chlorinator and just saturday the pool is finally holding chlorine. Its been a battle between the two and meanwhile I've been filtering like mad and changing the DE sand to improve filtration. The gunk and DE that have spewed out of the filter waste into the lot next door is a nasty sight.

So yesterday I super super chlorinated and now after balancing the PH, it seems like I have clear water, that is gunk free, but that it is still green and it looks like I have a pool filled with 12,000 gallons of lemon-lime gatorade. So seemingly if I keep the Chlorine levels high for the next few days, the green will go and it'll begin looking its normal clear self.

I sure hope so. What a PITA but Baquacil was worse.

Welcome Piper!

2008-08-06T08:24:00.002-04:00

Here is our new puppy, Piper!

Imminent Lazy and the last of the BIG expenditures

2008-08-01T09:24:00.001-04:00

A very eventful and expensive next few days for me. In order:

Today we make our first mortgage payment. OUCH!

Also today we pick up our Scotty puppy from a woman in Freehold who advertised a litter of 3 males and 2 females. We snagged one of the females for $700. $700 for a dog! OUCH!

Tomorrow our Lay-Z-Boy couch and love seat gets delivered. Rockin awesome baby. Yeah, big price tag too. OUCH!

Sunday, BBQ with Sue's fam. Good stuff. Food is good. YUM! Maybe I'll swim too. That would be a novel thing since I have a pool I've been in once.

Tuesday, couch we bought for upstairs from JC Penny shows up. That is the last of the major expenses we planned on. Thank God but overall, OUCH!

Adrenaline Crash

2008-07-01T14:53:00.001-04:00

Its Tuesday and I'm just dead emotionally with zero energy and zero motivation to do anything. I can only suspect that my body is now telling me that, after days of running on basically Adrenaline, I have expended enough physical, emotional and nervous energy and it now wants me to take a break. Silly body... there are no breaks, there are only more and more things you must do.

On the To Do list:

1. Get the lawn mower we got as a gift out of the box and put together. The grass needs a cutting.

2. Figure out what needs to be done with the pool to keep it all nice and clear and clean. Bacquacil!

3. Get the garage organized

4. Get the lock changed. No reason other than you just don't know so you do it. Needs to be done. Dammit.

5. Continue buying Compact Flourescent bulbs and making replacements. Since we moved in two incandescents have already burned out. Weird.

6. Tackle the TV room and get those boxes unpacked nad the shit organized.

7. Figure out furniture needs, prioritize and go get some stuff

8. Get some big item things from my parents house.

9. Figure out what to do with Sue's 5 winter clothes storage tubs (the girl likes her clothes.)

10. Figure out more storage for the kitchen

I should have stopped at 8 because usually that's enough (yuk, yuk, yuk) but the list is 10 big things. And growing.

Moved In

2008-06-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

Inevitably, whenever I move, which since college has been maybe every 3-4 years, I somehow always end up landing on what is arguably one of the hottest most humid days of the year, and for this move that trend carried through. Since Wednesday night when I began packing up and loading out the van for what would be the first move after the closing, all the way until yesterday as i was huffing mattresses around the house, I would estimate I sweated out 10 gallons of fluid to be replaced by water and Gatorade in as nearly close matching quantities as I could.

Oddly, my appetite diminished greatly over the time period too and I was skipping (and not missing) meals. Maybe it was adrenaline... I dunno.

So here I sit on Monday, at my desk, somehow alive not having suffered a heat stroke, but mentally dead, and beat overall. I have to get some multivitamins in me, and get back on my regular schedule in that I also blew off a lot of sleep because I just had so much I wanted to get done.

House is great tho and we were moved in enough to be sleeping there on Friday night. Now, I look forward to finishing unpacking and getting life back to a comfortable level of settled normalcy.

Homeowner

2008-06-26T21:43:00.001-04:00

It's official, we're homeowners.

Closing Day

2008-06-26T07:10:00.001-04:00

Woke up this morning and feel great, its finally the day and this arduous process of finding a home and buying a home comes to an end. For reference, Sue and I began this trek in January of 2007, almost offered on a place in the Summer of 07 but decided to stop, wait and watch instead and now in the Spring of 08 if finally draws to an end. A crazy long process for us representing all of the needs to save, be smart, watch the market, visit easily 200+ houses, and finally land the one we offered on. To be sure, we almost offered on 2 others but did not for various reasons.

Anyway, Closing Day eve was the hardest day of the process. Racked with anxiety yesterday waiting for the lawyers to call with the final number we have to bring to closing which was at 3:00. Rushed straightaway over to the bank to discover that lobby hours ended at 3:00. Had to get a bank check at the drive through and that was entirely strange but successful. So we're ready. Walk through at 10:30, closing at Noon, house for years.

Last night loaded up my FIL's van with perhaps 30+ boxes representing about 85% of our belongings here in Wall. Over the next 3 days we'll get it all over there and hopefully be fully up and in by Saturday night.

DKB said:
I totally agree and I hated that.

Good luck with your closing. This weekend marked one year as homeowners for us. It's been a good year in the house.

Thanks man. You and I sort of shared this odyssey so we did it. Here's to us! Car Bomb toast on Labor Day :)

Frank said:
Well, I would not say that all Realtors are solely after the commission, but they are hired to protect their client's interest. I am glad that you had a good experience with your inspector, which is my profession. Good luck with your closing.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that I wasn't well represented my Realtor. We very much were and he worked incredibly hard on our behalf earned his commission and then some. That is a profession that has to be one of the worst having observed if for a year and half and one I could never do. Mostly my sentiment was aimed at the fear they all have of the deal falling through thus they bring that fear to us and that is the sucky part. Thanks for the well wishes. Are you a regular reader of the GT? I see from your website you are in Houston.

The Home Stretch

2008-06-23T10:36:00.001-04:00

Its Monday and we're now in the home stretch for closing on the house which takes place on Thursday. And thank God for that! Buying a home is perhaps the single strangest and most oddly conceived process invented by man. (Yes, its worse than planning a wedding although as rackets for different folks to dip their hand in the till, they are comparable). Our first offer on this house took place at the end of April and now, after many weeks of phone calls, negotiations, agita, research, budgeting, more agita, spending, arranging, scheduling and so on and so forth it finally draws to a conclusion. Exhausting is the only word to describe this nebulous process.

I know when its done and life has settled back to its normalcy that, at least I, strive for, it'll have been 100% worth it but it still mentally abrades me, like sandpaper across my elbow would, that this is the process and that people actively participate in it and that in fact some people actually like it. Here is my breakdown of folks who particiapte in this process and what the shifting feelings are towards them:

Me and Sue - We're the heroes of this equation, fighting for our future and all that is good and wholesome

Our Realtor - Helps us find the house, handles the initial negotiation, is full of drama, tries to make what should be an unemotional process as emotional as possible.

Our Lawyers - They rock. they take care of everything, they are unemotional, they represent us and overall have made the process smooth

Our Mortgage Banker - On the one hand our mortgage banker was great, on the other hand, they work hard to just get a mortgage written for their benefit. Overall, they almost fall into the Others category below.

Them

The Sellers - Its hard to peg the sellers but overall they invested a lot of love in the house, have fought to protect their interests as much as we fought to protect ours, have been nice and accomodating in many respects, and on the inspection the wife was super nice. Hard to not respect them.

Their Realtor - I know my Realtor had a tough time dealing with her, but I almost think its the name of the game. Honestly I don't know. The one time I met her she was nice enough but obviously Realtors don't have our interests at heart, they say they do but really they want their commission. Hey, she was good to look at tho.

Their lawyers - Seemingly much like our lawyers, dependable, no nonsense. Getting it to the lawyers and getting it out of the Realtors hands is job #1.

Others

Home Inspector - Thanks to Matty, the home inspection was top notch. My sisters used my Realtors guy and they regretted it because that guy was the Realtors animal and not theirs and his interest was in making sure nothing killed the deal. Our guy, Dave Matthews, went and did a super thorough job. Go Dave Matthews! He mostly confirmed it was a good house and we had few repair issues to deal with.

Termite Inspector - Recommended by the inspector, Matt's Pest Control was also top notch. Being named matt made it an omen I think.

The Swinging Pendulum

2008-05-15T11:01:00.000-04:00

Life has been hard. Buying a house is hard, work has been hard, dealing with friends and family health issues has been hard, living with in-laws is hard, etc. etc. etc.

Well, this week, it feels like the pendulum has now begun to swing in the other direction. We completed our inspection yesterday and there is a lot of hard work left on the house but for the most part it seems as if the really really hard stuff is over, at work I got promoted and I'm now Director of Web Design and Development and that couldn't have come at a better time. Matty's health seems good after talking with him about what he's going through and his current prognosis. Sue's dad we're still worrying about because he is still slated for surgery ina few weeks so not great but not (hopefully) terrible. The living with in-laws is almost at an end with us nearing, everyday, our closing date. :) So all is really good right now and I press forward, stronger, happier and hopefully remain healthy

Waiting is the hardest part

2008-05-09T14:31:00.001-04:00

There is that old song with the line that croons out... "Waaaaaaiting is the haaaaaardest part...." I think its Tom Petty and I really hate Tom Petty and I hate waiting and after 5 days of Attorney Review, that's all I continue to do: wait.

I don't know how long it will ultimately go and I feel like I'm in a bit of a blackout in regards to all the status of whether I'm going to end up shelling out a shitload of money or not but on it trudges with a life of its own. Eevryone seems to be making plans but me. The lawyers do their thing. The realtors theirs. The mortgage people have their forms they need signed. The sellers seemingly are making plans based on the daisy chain of info that reaches me through the realtors so it looks like an actually home purchase transaction will, in fact, occur but I'll be damned if I can understand what the actual hold up with the attorneys is.

So anyway, its Friday and I would heavily doubt any more movement will occur this week regarding the contract. Its only 2:30 so maybe I shouldn't be so pessimistic but what the heck. I guess I could call my lawyer and pester him but it will really serve no purpose. The guy's been our family lawyer now for at least 2 decades, maybe more, and if he had anything to tell me, he's call so i think I'll just leave him be. Me getting on the phone and looking for a status won't get this done faster.

Man, I'm tired. Waiting is hard and draining.

Life Update

2008-05-03T07:12:00.000-04:00

Its been a long time since I blogged but I have my excuses, life has been crazy busy and I just haven't been in a writing mood. Mainly its all about houses as Sue and I had put pedal to the metal and have been house hunting like mad. We've probably been in over 100 houses and probably evaluated 3x that many overall. What a draing trip lasting a little over a year.

Last Monday, she and I put out an offer on a bi-level in Brick and now, after a surreal week of negotiations, we have a verbal deal in place, the owners were supposedly to sign the contract last evening, my realtor should get it today and off it goes to the lawyers for attorney review on Monday. A lot can seemingly happen between now and clearing Attorney review, like I don't even know yet if the contract is signed, but we're guardedly happy and excited at this point but also know this can still fall apart. You'd have to understand the negotiation to really appreciate why we're so reserved in our enthusiasm but I do have positive feelings that all of this will come to pass. If it does I'll be overjoyed because its a really great house and one we couldn't have even taken a sniff of a year ago, the market has changed that much.

Obtaining a mortgage has been an adventure as well. Financially Sue and I are solid with solid savings and credit history but like Tree mentioned, the downpayment requirements for a conventional have gone up. Ocean County was recently designated a "depressed county" by the PMI companies so getting a mortgage with 5% down is out. 10% is now the minimum and while we could handle it, I didn't want to put down that much. Sue and I switched from a conventional to a FHA since its our first home and are still putting the 5% down even tho we could have gone as low as 3%. FHA can be troublesome to get approval on and putting down the 5% makes it that much more of a no-brainer on the approval so we opted to do that. I have other reasons for putting down the 5% too, like simple saving that little bit more on the monthly payment.

Anyway, today we should know about the contract so I'm hopeful.

I also hope we hear something about Matty who is also very much on our minds. Hang in there buddy.

Cancer has reared its head within our family too. Sue's dad has prostate cancer, diagnosed this week, and now he and my MIL have decisions to make regarding his treatment. My father had a scare back in December with his prostate but the biopsy came up benign but my mom, who is a retired RN, did a massive amount of research so our 2 families are now getting together to pass on this information so hopefully it will benefit my FIL. Its been caught very early so his prognosis is good, its just a question of what treatment to pursue.

Professionally, life is good. CFO magazine is coming out with an evaluation of 401(k) providers and did a special review of the web interfaces of my company, ExpertPlan, plus a few dozen of our competition. Well, in the 2 areas they evaluated, Participant and Plan Sponsor access, we scored #2 overall in this review and its a major thing for me since this is basically an evaluation of our front-end interfaces which my group develops. Go us! Hopefully it means a promotion for me at some point. ;)

Terminator

2008-03-05T11:27:00.001-05:00

Ask anyone who knows me well and they'll all agree that I'm not a TV watcher. I like movies, I like sports, I like educational crap like what's on History or Discovery but not "Television" by which I mean recycled network garbage.

But because I'm not totally closed minded, there are some things I watch: Mad Men, 24, Entourage and Prison Break (although I'm not as interested in PB now) but the show that really has me hooked and is one of the truly coolest things on TV is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Last night was the season finale and it rocked and the imagery at the end of the 2nd hour was so powerful as to litterally make my stomach feel a bit upset as the FBI raid against the Terminator Cromartie failed. The entire sequence was shot to the music of Johnny Cash and all you see of the carnage of the failed FBI raid is FBI agent after agent being tossed dead into a pool where the perspective is from looking up from the bottom. All you hear in addition to the music was muffled blasts, yells and gun shots. Really really powerful stuff. Scary too.

Anyway, the season was great although too short but it ended perfectly. I'm looking forward to season 2, hoping there is one.

Of Joomla and Message Boards

2008-03-03T10:35:00.000-05:00

Some time ago i did an installation of the Joomla Portal on my server and put a larky little site up called True Outlets New Jersey. I wrote like 3 articles but then basically forgot about it. Not terribly long ago I started getting a response here and there to some of the stuff I put up and I was like... wow, this thing is actually being visited.

So I checked the stats and with almost no work put in whatsoever, it has a few thousand visits. So I'm like: Cool!

But being emailed by strangers... I don't like that and in my world that equates to Bad. So I decided hey, time for a message board. After a quick little tutorial on installing components, plug-ins, and mambots in Joomla, I serached out on google a joomla messageboard component and found this one called Fireboard.

Sooooooo easy to install and set-up and the tech is very cool and I like the integration with the portal, blah, blah, blah. I like it so much in fact that I'm beginning to question what I may need Yuku for in the future for the GreaseTruck. Why not just put a Joomla installation up with a fireboard, and then run the Greasetruck in a completely self sufficient, self-contained manner. Yuku restricts certain crap and that bugs me so i guess the True Outlets site is now going to be my beta to see if it's easy and workable and worth the effort to make a third change to the GT message board.

I know if Norm is reading he may be interested in the Fireboard component since his own MB got trashed by virus and spam but for anyone else interested, if can be checked out here:

http://trueoutletsnj.greasetruck.org/

Damn, what a week

2008-02-28T09:02:00.001-05:00

So tomorrow is the viewing and funeral for Uncle Tom and that will be a hard day and a sad day especially for Sue and my MIL but also for Sue's cousins and Aunt. Death just sucks.

As if this week wasn't depressing and downtrodden enough, I find out within the past 24 hours that 2 friends are divorcing/seperating from their spouses and that's just depressing too. Oddly enough, I can't think of anyone I know closely that has divorced or seperated so to find out about 2 in such a short period of time... well, it's shocking with everything else going on.

I would just like to turn the calendar on February but of course it's a leap year so I have to put up with this miserable cold month one day longer. Damn you Gregorian Calendar!

Sleep Well

2008-02-26T10:15:00.001-05:00

Rest in Peace Uncle Tom. We're all going to miss you and your deviled eggs and your great sense of humor immeasurably.

Dealing with the Stomach

2008-02-20T10:47:00.001-05:00

No one on the planet can say "stomach" to me without me automatically thinking of that line from Meatballs where Bill Murray is whispering "Mmmmm. Look at all those steaming wieners. Do you know what they're saying? They're saying, "This is the year that Fink beats 'The Stomach'."

Well, for my part, this is the week the stomach beat me. Last Thursday night I came down with a very acute episode of Stomach flu, and while I'll spare anyone who even bothers to read my blog any of the sordid details, let me just say it was an incredibly draining experience in all ways.

What was so crazy about this illness was the suddenness with which it came on. One moment I was perfectly well, with what I thought was just a bit of abdominal discomfiture, the next moment I'm passed out cold from my blood pressure suddenly dropping followed shortly there after by coming-to to an hysterical wife who thought... well... maybe I was dying. Well, I wasn't, but the tile on the floor felt so good and cold. I almost felt like I was back in college after a night with Mr. Len Tuquila. I digress. This of course was followed, for the rest of the night, with trip after trip to the bathroom and a night of eating ice chips with my wife who also fell victim to this plague as did all my in-laws.

Why am I writing all this? I dunno really. Maybe I'm a little wigged out by the passing out episode. To put more of that in perspective, Sue and I had only just gotten out of the car 1/2 hour - 45 minutes before it happened to me... I dread what might have been had it happened while I was behind the wheel.

Maybe the reason is that since Thursday my internals have been in turmoil by the shock of the whole thing and I'm still having stomach sensitivity (and other things) and that drinking a cup of coffee may as well be drinking a cup of glass shards.

I find the thought of ham steaks to be upsetting and repulsive. I crave Campbells Beef Surloin Burger Chunky soup and white rice.

Oh, yeah, stomach, you're winning. But maybe I've quit coffee too since I'm way past the headache stage. That wouldn't be a terrible shackle to cast off.

How I Feel About Housing

2008-01-10T09:03:00.001-05:00

What a difference a year makes. It was at about this time last year where Sue and I began our first serious housing foray, looking at houses, going to a lot of Open Houses, talking with banks, brokers, mortgage agents, lawyers, etc. We were that close to finding a house and making the jump.

But in the range we are looking and the areas we want to live the choices were pretty slim so it dragged on and on and then a funny thing happned. The whole world began to change and I looked at my wife, sometime in April or May, and said to her that we need to stop and sit out the summer. And as summer winded down, I said to her, we should sit out the rest of 2007 too. And we did and we completely cleared our books of any and all debt and meanwhile socked money away like crazy.

So here we are in the beginning of 2008, debt free with a decent down payment amount saved and now, looking at the listings of homes... it's almost shocking to see the difference in homes. Last year, it was all these crappy run down 2 and 3 BR 1 Bath ranch homes and now, the amount of Bi-levels, Splits and Colonials with 3 and 4 and sometimes 5 bedrooms with 1.5 or 2 bathrooms in decent areas on decent lot sizes is amazing. And the amount of homes that are simply vacant is noticable although I guess not surprising.

So anyway, these are the types of homes we want and watching the market the way we have and the almost obsessive interest I've had in reading about the economy, sub-prime mortgage crisis, recession fears, rising credit card debt and personal bankruptcy increase, the rising price of oil, resulting in the rising price of gas, which in turn causes an increasing rise in milk and foodstuffs costs, leads me to believe that there is a trememndous amount of more pain to be experienced in housing property values.

Now, considering that in December there was an uptick in unemployment (which may not be a cause for alarm but we'll see), and all of the factors above... well, the downward movement in the value of homes simply has to continue and maybe continue big because people can't change how much they pay for gas, they have to buy food, Realtors have to eat too and so they need to sell homes and that means that the people who can buy, the people who are like my wife and I, who are sitting on the sidelines because we refuse to pay for a home at the prices in the market currently because all things remaining the same and living costs rising the way they are and salary only increasing slightly for inflation... well... the housing cost has to give simply because there is a ton of inventory on the market, few buyers and people will only pay what they can afford to pay and that is shrinking.

So what does it mean? Well, what it means is that I'll be a tough negotiator in March April because there is the other reality: We need to have a place to live and you can't sit on the sidelines indefinitely and time the market for the best deal because timing is bad too.

Techie Nerd IE Object Fix Crap

2008-01-02T11:41:00.001-05:00

For the past year and half, Microsoft Internet Explorer, both versions 6 and 7, have had this very annoying issue with controls embedded in <object> tags. Apparently at some point in the past, Microsoft got sued for using someone else's code (shocker!) for Object handling, and whether they lost or settled, the result was the same for end users. Microsoft issued a patch which one day and stuck in this "Click to activate control" nonsense, and as a web designer and power Internet user, I've found few things as annoying.

Before I get a shitload of responses about using Firefox or Opera instead (or Safari if the Mac gaylords respond), let me be clear that I don't use IE as my browser of choice at home. I'm firmly in the Firefox camp. But that said, for the purposes of my job, of which greater than 90% of users of our corporate website use IE, I have to use IE to make sure the site renders correctly and the other web designer here uses Firefox so we cover all of the browser inconsistencies easily during our testing. One of us has to so it's me because he's too dead set against IE whereas I don't care as deeply even tho I find it preferable.

Anyway, this morning I was pretty much on my last straw with regards to this browser issue, not for a work related reason, but rather because of something I've done with greasetruck.org.

Well a little Google work turned up the following blog entry which is heavensent news for an IE user:

Download Internet Explorer Automatic Component Activation (IE ACA) Update

Microsift has issued a prerelease fix for IE which can be downloaded now assuming IE has been updated with some currently released security fixes. I've gone through it this morning, making all the necessary updated and then downloading and installing the patch and it works like a champ.

So if you've suffered like I have with this silly thing for the 1.5 years then rejoice as it's now fixable in the browser instead of some javascript fix in the code. If you don't care then realize that come April 2008, Microsoft will begin pushing it out automatically to end users.

I wear my Yellow glasses at night

2007-12-20T11:04:00.001-05:00

Back in 2000 I had LASIK to correct my incredibly bad near sightedness. For those familiar wit hthe lingo, to give you an idea of where I was at, in one eye I was a -.875 and in the other I was -.85 with an astigmatism. Well, after dry eyes did in my ability to wear contact lenses and after my glasses almost flew off my head on a rollercoaster at Islands of Adventure in Orlando, I made the decision and to this day it is still the best $5000 I ever spent on anything.

For the first year I had the halos every one talks about as my eyes healed and the damaged tissue was reabsorbed but I could see great and it's only gotten better ever since overall. The two things that LASIK compunded however were my dry eyes and my night vision and for years I've been struggling with that and eye drops only help so much with the dry eyes and hardly at all with the night vision.

So for the past month I was on a mission of discovery to find another solution. I asked myself, what do I know about my problems and what I realized was that during the Fall and Winter months the problems always seemed much much worse since overall the air is drier (less humid) during these seasons. The dry eyes also compounded my night vision issue making that worse. So I started thinking that maybe, while driving, I should try to shield my eyes so that when i have the heater on, especially the defroster, it won't continually blow in my eyes and dry them out.

Well, some google searching later, I came across the notion of amber driving glasses which I have to be honest, I found to be a bit hokie of an idea. I just figured it would make my world darker. Plus they are incredibly nerdy looking.

The idea intrigued me tho, so I decided to read some more about them. I found almost nothing good out there but I did find this from an eye doctor:
Laramy-K Optical Lab - The Dangers of Night Driving Glasses

So I bought into what that link said and set the entire idea aside for a few weeks because the notion that it made certain things much harder to see due to the tint is something I bought in to.

Well, since the problem didn't go away, and I was getting desperate some weeks later, I again started looking into it because I thought ot myself you can't always believe everything on the Internet someone puts out there, especially since the potential exists for there to be an agenda when an eye lab says don't buy off the shelf glasses. So again, I searched.

On ebay, I found a guy who sells particularly cool, yellow tinted, not amber, driving glasses and since the price was right, I said, what the heck, it's only like $11 I might be wasting so I bought a pair from his ebay store The Place for Yellow Glasses

Well, I've been wearing the glasses almost a week now and I'm just a seriously HUGE fan. They really do make night driving easier as they pop contrast by blocking blue wavelengths and my dry eye is much much more managable since they almost fully shield my eyes from the car's heater blowing hot air throughout the compartment.

Overall, I can only speak for myself for these but I'll never stop wearing night driving glasses now. If you have the problems with your eyes like I have, maybe you'll want to try it too.

State of Fear

2007-12-11T13:54:00.001-05:00

Other than the afterword, I just finished Michael Chricton's State of Fear at lunch today. Talk about an eye opener of a book, it really blew away so many things that I just sort of took for granted, it helped me to feel good about some things that I had been truly skeptical of and all at the same time it was a rousing work of Fiction based on lots of solid science.

Much of the premise of the book is centered upon debunking the notion of Global Warming and in its turn it does that and also takes on many establishment and institutional issues of crime, media, corporations, private charities and does a fair job of giving the reader some interesting things to consider about what information we get exposed to in our daily lives, why we get exposed to it, where it comes from and perhaps who benefits from the State of Fear that these forces can combine to create in a nation's population.

Now certainly this is dramticized since it's in a work of fiction but the book comes loaded down with citation after citation of the arguments, pro and con and its just a real facination, gripping action-filled Chricton novel.

I really enjoyed it.

Question Askers, Question Answerers

2007-11-27T09:17:00.001-05:00

Question Askers, Question Answerers. That is one of the simplistic ways in which the world can be broken down. Maybe another way of expressing it would be: Active Thinkers, Lazy Thinkers or being smart vs. being dumb.

Anyway, I find that I'm one of these people who simple exists to figure out and provide the answers to other people's questions. I also find that when I have questions I will generally do my damndest to seek my answers on my own before asking my question of someone else since inevitably I find that others don't answer my questions well and I just end up again seeking my own answers. Maybe that person I asked provided a small clue or piece of the puzzle but I hardly ever experience someone who provides me with the clarity I seek.

What i find in this, however, is there is a certain tyranny to the process. Once a question answerer, always a question answerer to the point where the question asker becomes a lazier and lazier thinker. The question I have had trouble answering for myself is, short of being a total dick, how do I steer the askers back to thinking for themselves and answering their own questions. It's something I continue to ponder as I seek clarity and enlightenment.

1701 - Master and and Commander

2007-10-23T07:36:00.001-04:00

Ug, I'm so addicted to my new game 1701. It's a SIM/Strategery game and it's soaking up like 70-80% of my free time lately. Every free moment on working setting up trade routes, building cities and preparing for war against other cultures. I've probably logged somewhere near 50-60 hours on the game now and I've finally raised my civilization up to it's final level and begun a blockade of the island of the last culture I have left to defeat. Blockade is where it's at, as it's easy to take down an opponent by starving them out and then landing a few powerful units on their land to tip em all the way gone. However the hardest part of the game is keeping your trade routes optimized so your civilization doesn't run out of needed goods. You're only allowed 20 routes but your towns need dozens of different types of goods. Now that I'm almost the only player left, it's just left to me to build my civilization up so much that I can declare my independence from the Queen and defeat her armada and army. It'll take a lot of supplies and such but I think I know what I need to do.

Ok, beyond that level of geekdown, I'm also addicted to the Aubrey-Maturin series of books and I'm now starting Book 4. The movie Master and Commander was based on this series and it's great reading and storytelling and just enjoyable. There are something like 21 books too so I'll be in books for awhile which is something I like.

Walking Out the Pain

2007-09-12T07:37:00.001-04:00

Well, after two weeks of sciatica, poor sleeping, general uncomfortableness, pain while driving, etc. etc. i hit on something a few nights ago and it's the most basic of things but it has provided more relief than all the Advil and Tylenol and rest combined: Walking on the treadmill for 1/2 hour every night.

Now, in truth, I should have been doing this anyway but there is nothing like pain as a motivator and while the stiffness and ache isn't gone yet from the leg, the walking warms up the entire area and really gets things feeling good and it really feels like it's healing now. Thank god as I wouldn't wish this kind of thing on anyone.

Meanwhile back in life world, it's time to start figuring out the house situation and getting that just done. It's dragged on too long now and housing market slump or not, we have to get going on it. Prices have dropped and that's good but now I have to find out what may have changed in a few months in regards to obtaining a mortgage. It's been some time since I talked with my banker so I should probably find out and feel out how the climate has changed. Mainly on not worried as we fall into the "Excellent" credit designation although I do wish we had some more savings to draw upon but we're debt free too so it's all basically good.

Rutgers

The Navy game and tailgate were a great time and I have pictures I pulled off my phone which I have to put... someplace. But overall an excellent day with beautiful weather and good times with great friends. Hopefully Norfolk State this weekend is more of the same.

Yankees

Go Yanks! Go A-Rod! Boston must be crapping their pants. Yes, time is drawing short and this series this weekend looms huge. 5 games back because the Devil Rays couldn't hold onto a gazillion run lead last night.

Devils

OMG, it's almost hockey season. I was sad to read Jimmy Dowd wouldn't be back this year and that he might land with (gasp!) the Flyers. No Rasmussen either. What a different team it will be with Gomez gone to the Rangers and Rafalski playing for the Red Wings now. I'm not at all up to speed with who might be playing where with the Devils anymore.

Books

Started reading a book called Pride of Carthage about Hannibal marching over the Alps to attack Rome. It's a novel, not a history and so far it's only eh but it was a $5 hardcover on the cheap stacks at B&N so I can't complain that much. It has potential at least.

Sciatica and other lint

2007-09-04T16:06:00.001-04:00

Sciatica sucks, there is no doubt about it. It makes living miserable but at least the pain is lessening a little bit every day and actually being at work is probably the best thing for me as I've been reading that bed rest is the very worst thing you can do for it. Oh, well... yes, it's a tough trade-off, not working and being in pain or working and having much much less pain.

That said, the one thing I've noticed through all this is that where pain killers like Advil and Tylenol fail, Coffee steps up. Yes, it's the weirdest thing but I kid you not. I have a cup of Joe, sit at the computer in the morning and all my pain just vaporizes away. Just crazy talk but true. My theory, since I have a theory about most things, is that coffee slightly raises my BP and heartrate leading to an increased level of circulation through the afflicted area (even though it's also constricting blood vessels, I know, it's a theory after all, not fact and I'm just trying to find hope here, people).

Anyway, my biggest concern is that it subsides by Friday since sitting on those bleacher benches for Navy my be extrodinarily painful otherwise. I think it will. I'm hopeful. ;) Plus there is the booze factor to consider on friday night. Me thinks it will all be A-OK.

Reminder!

September 19th is "Talk like a Pirate Day!" YAAARRRRRRR!

Oh, and my wife will be making a special guest star cameo appearance Friday night, which is exciting. I didn't think she'd ever come to another game unless somehow RU got the Giants on the schedule or Bon Jovi was singing the National Anthem. See what winning football can do? That's PROOF POSITIVE! And on top of that, Friday is our 4th wedding anniversary. Ain't she the best letting me do football on our wedding anniversary? And she got me a new RU flag to display as well! SHE RULES!! SHE RULES!!

Ok, final thought: Hey NYY, WTF? You only win when I'm in media blackout? Ug.

Reverting back and other random thoughts

2007-09-02T08:52:00.001-04:00

Well, playing around with wordpress on my own server was fun for awhile but the one feature i really missed was being able to post remotely via email in a simple straight forward way which Blogger provides nicely. I know worpress has a facility to do it, i just found it to be a PITA and more trouble than it's worth.

Other random thoughts:
- I just completed a cruise over the past 8 days. My wife and I, with my family sailed out of NYC on August 23rd and returned on Friday and it was 8 days of pure relaxation. We loved the time we had but we're both in agreement that we've had better vacations and that cruising was not really for us. The food was great, but overwhelming, it ended up being very expensive even though we didn't actually pay for the cruise itself (my folks picked that up), the time in port was way too short to enjoy and explore fully, we're not gamblers, Sue doesn't drink and I'm not much of a drinker these days and after drinking all that is left is sun bathing and we're both not really sun bathers. That said, the time with familiy and the experience of seeing even a little of another place and all the beutiful clear warm water and snorkeling, etc. were a lot of fun. It was a good trip, not our favorite tho, as I've said.

- Rutgers. My cable box switched off on me sometime during the cruise so my Tivo recorded like 3-4 hours of nothing but black screen. Nice. Anyway, it's tough to complain about not seeing a game against the likes of a Buffalo which is like College Football's version of a pre-season NFL-esque exhibition (although don't tell that to anyone in Ann Arbor right now and, yes, I've thouroughly purged my mind of our own UNH debacle at this point).

- Yankees. I couldn't be happier to see that they swept the Red Sox while we were away but then the first game i get to see when we get back, they lose to the Devil Rays. Sheesh. But at least they are now 2 games ahead in the Wild Card. I'd love to catch Boston for the division, it would be fitting right?, and it's definitely possible but the Yanks are now a pretty dangerous team so just making the playoffs now is enough.

- Sciatica. I have it and it's the friggin worst. Ok, rewind to a little over a month ago, I was down in the basement and move a chest of drawers to another spot and I pulled my back. Now I have a chronically bad back and it spasms like normal, except unlike normal, this time it doesn't fully go away. After the spasm subsides, i feel like the whole month of August something just isn't right, and I have a small ache in my lower back. Over time I feel like I've dislocated something but it's only mildly annoying so i live with it figuring it will correct itself at some point. Ok, fast forward to the cruise and our walk through Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. For those who've never been, Puerto Rico is hilly and we walked up to San Cristobal fort and then around town. Well, after all that my back was killing me so that night in the cabin, I stretched it in every way I could think and finally I felt my back finally realign. Oh, it was totally wonderful at that point. Well, the persistent pain is gone now but just over the past 2-3 days I've had a terrible pain shooting down my right leg and and my big toe on my right foot was very numb. It is starting to slowly subside but damn sleeping is tough. Advil and Tylenol have almost zero effect, so i figure I just have to grin and bear it. My theory is that when I realigned my back, which does feel perfect still BTW, I caused another kind of spasm which is making something swell and irritiating my sciatic nerve. So that's what I'm hoping and starts to dissipate now. It does suck major tho.

- Books, books, books. The cruise was a perfect opportunity to do my favorite pasttime which is read. I finished a book called "Never Call Retreat" which was the last in a series of books which were like "what-if" history and in this case it was "what if the South had one at Gettysburg". Well, it was an enjoyable read but what if history doesn't really do it for me. Meh. No great shakes. The other books I've been reading are the Aubrey-Maturin series, which are the books the movie "Master and Commander: The far side of the world" were based on. I love these books, the characters, the style, the sense of historical accuracey, the manners and actiaons of the Napoleonic era. Great reading. All told there are 21 books and I'm about to finish book 3. Great great stuff. Not the easiest reading as much of it is heavily laced with terminology that takes some getting used to but it's still worth it.

Ok, enough for my fist blog entry on my return to Blogger. Hopefully more now that I've moved back to my old platform.