-
Scary Hiking
This looks like it would be a fun little hike, but I think it would freak the fuck out of me!
-
Funeral on Friday
We just got a phone call and one of our friend’s Dad died. It’s kinda weird having a friend’s Dad die. I guess it’s just another sign that I am getting old. He was rather young, only 61, but he didn’t take very good care of himself. He drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. He was a Vietnam vet and the stories really came out when he got drunk. He had throat cancer and had his voicebox removed eight years ago. He wasn’t supposed to drink or smoke after that, but he kept on going. It’s people like him, and my Grandpa that encourage me to try and stay healthy. It’s not fun getting old, but I am sure it’s worse when you are struggling with health problems too.
The funeral is on Friday, so we will be heading out of town on Friday and won’t be back until Wednesday. It’s going to be a long time away from home. We have the funeral on Friday, my Cousin’s high school graduation on Saturday, our usual Memorial Day spent with our family on Monday, and then the Motion City Soundtrack concert on Tuesday. All out of town events. It will be a busy extra long weekend away from home.
-
Sign Number 42 that I’m Getting Old
So last year I noticed my vision was starting to get bad and I needed glasses. This year I noticed caffeine is starting to affect me. I use to be able to drink a pot of coffee and go to bed. Now if I have any caffeine I am up all night. I also now have a problem making in through the day without caffeine. Yesterday I didn’t have any coffee during the day or that evening and I was shot. I went to be at 8:30. Now that I am cutting out caffeine in the evenings, I sleep a lot better at night. And a better nights sleep means It’s easier for me to get up early. I have been getting up at 4:00 AM pretty much every morning the past two weeks. I love staying up late and getting up early. I hate sleeping. There’s so much stuff that I want to do. I hate wasting time sleeping. Now it time for me to get some coffee so I can make it through the day. -
Credit Cards
Since my Brother-in-law was actually going to college for a few weeks anyway, now he is getting tons of credit card applications in the mail. I swear the credit card companies get their mailing lists from colleges. My Brother-in-law is about as irresponsible as they come, so we haven’t given him any of the applications. They get shredded along with all the applications we get. I bet we get at least five a week.
I, like a lot of people, got into a little credit card trouble when I was in college. It’s tough to avoid when you have bills, books, and lots of wants when you move out and have a crappy job. I didn’t get too far in debt, but I was farther in debt then I felt comfortable with. You know, I needed my own computer, and those schnazy new Pentiums just broke 100 MHz and you could get hard drives that were over 1 GB, so that set me back $2500. Back then the internet was costing me quite a bit too. AOL was about the only ISP available, and I think it was $20 for 20 hours. I would blow through the 20 hours in a week, and was paying a ton for my extra time online. I was so happy when ISP started offering unlimited time.
So anyway, It took me quite a few years to get my credit cards under control. I have always heard the best way to pay then off is to get a second part time job and send all that money towards it, but I had a feeling I would spend that money on other things, so I went with a loan from the bank. That way I was forced to make the payments, and at a lower interest rate also. After two years my credit cards we paid off. It felt so good.
Some people cut up their cards and never use them after getting out of debt, I use mine more then ever now. I just make sure I pay the balance in full every month, unless I get an interest free deal. I haven’t paid any credit card interest in years. I am not giving those fuckers any more money. Having a balance on my Best Buy card is driving me crazy. I just want to pay it off, but I got 18 months no interest when I bought my TV, so I will probably milk that card out until November.
-
Rhubarb Patch
One of my biggest memories from my Grandma’s old house is the rhubarb patch she had in her backyard. As a kid I remember running back there with a cup of sugar and just picking and eating as much as I could. One of the pluses about our new house is that we have our very own rhubarb patch in our backyard. I ate quite a bit of it last summer, and I can’t wait until it’s big enough to eat this year. I like eating it raw, but I am sure we will pick some to make some rhubarb crunch or something with it too. The people who lived here last planted flowers around the rhubarb. We are going to plant some strawberries in the ring around the rhubarb patch next weekend. We aren’t going to have time to put in a garden this summer, so it will just be rhubarb and berries, but next summer we plan to get back to our gardening. It’s been three years since we have had a garden. I miss the fresh salsa. -
Short Marriage
It still seems weird when people that have gotten married after us get divorced. To me I still feel like a newlywed, but I guess after eight years that title no longer really applies. Where have the last eight years went?
Yesterday we heard that the Wife’s cousin is getting divorced. They just got married last summer. They wanted to save money on pictures, so they had me take their wedding pictures. Everybody thought they turned out great, I thought they were only so-so, but then I am probably my biggest critic. Maybe it was a good thing that they didn’t want to spend much money on wedding pictures now.
I didn’t care much for the guy she married, so I am not really surprised that they are getting divorced. He was lazy and irresponsible. He was always going from shitty job to shitty job not making much money, but still making sure he went on all his hunting and fishing trips and spent all his money on his toys. My Wife’s cousin is going to school and working two jobs to try and cover the bills.
There is no way I would make my Wife work two jobs and go to school. Paying bills and providing for my Wife is number one, even if I have to get three jobs. My toys come last. Maybe that’s why I am still married.
-
Brother-in-law Rant
So my Brother-in-law is still living with us. I am pretty sick of him living here. The wife told him he has to move out by August 1st. We will see what happens. My guess is he will quit his job and not be able to move out because he has no money. He actually got a full time job about a week ago. It’s a little nicer around here with him gone all day, and now he goes to bed at night instead of making a bunch of noise and keeping everybody up watching movies and playing XBox.
One thing I have really noticed with him living here is I have really bad OCD. I can’t stand it when things aren’t put away when done with. He leaves dishes all over, never puts XBox game and gamepads away, and the phones… they are never put back on the charger, or even kept on the same level of the house. It drives me crazy! We have a phone in the kitchen, a phone upstairs, and a phone downstairs for a reason. Half the time he leave all three of them sitting on the same end table. How hard is it to put the phone away when you are done. he also talks on the phone all the time. He pretty must uses up all are Vonage minutes every month. It’s a good thing that it’s only 4 cents a minute to go over, so he hasn’t racked up much of a bill.
We told him he could live here for a while as long as he did a few things, paid us rent, and keep his bathroom clean. Well, he hasn’t paid us rent since January, and he has never cleaned his bathroom. The wife has cleaned it a few time, but I refuse to clean it. It is pretty nasty.
Another thing that bugs me is his smoking. He doesn’t smoke in the house, which is a good thing, but his room still reeks of smoke just by having his clothes it, and our yard is full of cigarette butts. The wife told him to clean them up last week, but talking to him is like talking to a wall. I am sure I will end up cleaning them up one of these days.
The thing that drives me crazy the most is his bill paying. He pretty much has one bill. His truck payment. That bill comes directly out of his parents bank account, so he has to send a check to his parents every month. So every month he hands a bunch of cash to my wife and tells her to write a check and mail it and it has to get there today. WTF? He has a checking account. I don’t know why he can’t write a check and mail it a few days before it’s due. One of my biggest pet peeves has to be people being irresponsible.
-
Twitter Updates off Main Page
So I was getting a little sick of all the “Twitter Update” posts clogging up my blog. They are still coming in, but they will no longer be on the front page. Thanks to Becky for pointing me in the right direction. It was simple. I just had to put this code into my home.php file:
You just have to change the number to whatever category you want skipping the main page. Now if you care about my Twitter updates you can check them out over there —->, and if you don’t care you won’t see them.
-
Tom Hanks Endorses Obama
I am not one that ever cares about celebrity endorsements, but Tom Hanks says it like it is.
Beware: Celebrity Endorsement -
New Theme
So you can see I have a new blog theme. I haven’t used FriendFeed much yet, but I thought I would add the FriendFeed widget to show all the stuff I am up to. In creating my links I thought it was crazy all the online networks that I have signed up for. Most of them I try out and then never go back, but some I use all the time. One reason I sign up for things it is reserve my name. Mace always seems to get taken if I don’t hope on it. I also love playing with new stuff. I play with way more stuff than I could possible use, but I have fun with it. Now I gotta go play with BrightKite to see if I am going to ever use it.