• No Raise For Me

    October 26, 2009 / No Comments

    So it’s that time of the year at work where we review our benefits and get everything setup for next year. I have been at my job for 12 years, and this will be the first time we don’t get a cost of living raise on the first of the year. Maybe the recession is finally hitting us a bit. The good thing is our health insurance isn’t going up for the first time in 12 years also. Usually our heath insurance goes up enough that you don’t even notice the cost of living raise. All of our deductibles our going up though, so the insurance companies are still getting more money. I have never used enough insurance to even get close to my deductible, so the increase doesn’t really affect me much. The shocking thing was that our life insurance actually went down a few dollars a month. I have never had any kind of insurance actually go down in price.

    I shouldn’t complain though. I am lucky, and thankful that I have a good paying job, with no chance of losing it.

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  • Ben Folds

    October 24, 2009 / No Comments

    So last night we went as saw Ben Folds. It was a pretty awesome concert. Like most concerts at The Venue we got right up from. Sadly we were on the wrong side of the stage and none of our pictures turned out very good because of the lighting. I am subscribed to an RSS feed for a Fargo search on Flickr and found Flickr user erintheredmc. She we more in the center and has a nice set of pictures.

    Opening for Ben Folds was Kate Miller-Heidke. She is apparently pretty big in Australia, and an amazing singer. It was just her and her guitar player. It was pretty intimate and awesome. At one point my wife’s phone rang and she actually answered it. I was elbowing her to try and let her know she was talking too loud. Kate heard her entire conversation on stage and even repeated some of it. It was pretty hilarious. Kate was selling her CDs after they were done. I so wanted to go talk to her and pick up a cd, but we didn’t want to lose our awesome spot in the crowd.

    Ben Folds stared a little slow, but then got much better. He changed up his setlist to play a few song that people were yelling out. Some of them he hadn’t played in a while and actually forgot some of the lines. It was still pretty cool that he would change up his setlist like that. He even made up a song on the spot about Fargo. It was pretty funny. Kate came back on stage for “You Don’t know Me”. It was awesome, she is such an amazing singer. Then they goofed around doing a little photoshoot. It was pretty funny.

    For the encore he played the cover of Dr. Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit”, because a lot of people were shouting for it. He said he retired the song, but since he has never played it in Fargo he would. He invited a couple people up on stage to sing some of the verses, and they did a pretty damn good job.

    I was kinda surprised that he didn’t play probably his biggest hit “Brick”, but it was still a great memorable concert.

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  • The End

    October 23, 2009 / No Comments

    I’m not sure if I blogged about my Wife’s Grandpa’s Wife on here or not. She isn’t technically my Wife’s Grandma, but she has been married to her Grandpa for more of my Wife’s life then her real Grandma was. Her Grandma died of cancer in the 80s. Now her second Grandma is dieing of cancer.

    Early this year they were staying with us while she was going through treatment in town. They thought they got the cancer in her throat, but then found some in her hip. She has been in a nursing home for the past month because the treatment had made her bones so brittle a simple bump could break something. Two weeks ago they found cancer in her liver. She is so weak now treatment isn’t really an option. It’s only a matter of time now.

    When my Wife visited her last night she wasn’t doing so well. She thanked my Wife for all the help we have given them, and she gave her the afghan that she made while in the nursing home.

    This weekend her daughter from Arizona is coming up here and will be staying with us for who knows how long. So I guess we will have another house guest for a while. It will be a little bit inconvenient, but you got to do what you got to do to help your family out.

    It will be sad when she goes, but it will also be the end of her suffering. She is 83 and lived the long and productive life we all hope for. The end is always sad, but we all have to face it.

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  • Time to Get Trippy

    October 5, 2009 / No Comments

    I love Richard Wiseman’s Blog. Every week he posts puzzles and optical illusions. Some weeks I can solve the puzzles in seconds, other weeks have me thinking about them all weekend. It’s all good stuff that messes with your brain, and makes you think. I while back he twittered a really cool site. I ment to blog about it last week, but kinda forgot. Go check it out, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

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