Moved a Couch

Monday, I borrowed my dad's truck, picked up Steve, Drove out to Yvonne's house to pick up a couch Steve bought from Yvonne, dropped off Steve, drove back to my parents house to drop off the truck, and making it home around 9:00 and watched another Adventures of Sherlock Holmes episode.

I also ordered parts computer parts from TigerDirect for a system im building for my roommates parents.

Past Week

Monday- I don't remember what I did monday... I must be getting old :-)

Tuesday- Wanted to get out and clean out up some of the branches from the downed tree, but my roommate wanted to go biking on Grants Farm trail. So I told her I would do that with her but she ended up organizing her files instead.

Wednesday- Cleaned up a bunch of Ivy and small tress in my backyard that needed to be clipped at the base. I ran out of time so I didn't get all the refuse taken care of. It needs to be done by Monday morning when the collectors come to take it away.

Thursday- Ate dinner with roommate at "Sweet Tomatoes". Stopped off at Petsmart and picked up dog & cat food. Went grocery shopping at Shop-n-Save. They have a deal where you buy $50 worth of groceries and they take $10 off. I was looking foreword shopping for groceries but it turned into kind of a stressful event.

Today(Friday) I'm off to see the Batman movie on the IMAX at Ronnies theator, and it's Sci-Fi Friday tonight. My roommate also wants me and my friend Steve to help move some furniture. I have some of those sliding disk things you put under the legs so it shouldn't be vary hard.

Obama; Comander-in-Cheif Watch

Up till July 21 Obama, if elected Commander-in-Chief, would pull out all US troops withing 16 months

July 22 Obama quote from Associated Press "my goal is to no longer have U.S. Troops engaged in combat operations in Iraq" -This seems to me a change. Ill try to make note here if I see another one.

Hwy 44

Rain, Hwy 44 lanes narrowed because of work on hwy 40, double trailer diesel trucks, my ability to think at 6:30am in the morning. Makes for a scary ride into work.

Car Fuel Expense Year-to-Date

UPDATE: It takes me about 1.21 gallons round trip to work

UPDATE: Between 6/29/08 & 7/18/08 the Civic got 33.03mpg

ORIGINAL POST 6/29/08 - This is my monthly totals on fuel expense so far year to date. I drive a 98 Honda Civic that I'm hoping gets around 34mpg. Im going to track it for the next few weeks to find out.

In the past years my fuel bill has never exceeded $100 in a month and avg. around $60-$80.

I feel sorry for those driving a large vehicle.

January $94.57
February $64.30
March $103.26
April $87.17
May $110.19
June $127.37
YTD TOTAL $586.86

• scary thing is, in June I took a week vacation where someone else drove so I didn't have any fuel expenses for that week.
• 2007 Jan - Jun was $518.78
• 2006 Jan - Jun was $509.25
  

Muny

Nancy had free tickets to the Muny Friday night…dagnabbit, I wish I could have gone…. Stupid trees!

Performance Review

I have to do my performance review for my job this week. I hate doing those things. I open the form look at it, think to my self I'll start in a few minuets after i get somthing else done and the next thing you know it's the end of the day. I guess i should try to make it a goal to have it completed by Tuesday... wish me luck.

Hulu

I missed Burn Notice on Thursday night and my recording didn't come out vary well. Thank you Hulu. Hulu seems to have the USA Network shows available for viewing the next day(I wish the Sci-Fi network would do this). I watched the episode with short commercials from some tea beverages.

Wall-E

No, I didn't see Batman this weekend. All the showings on the Mega Screens and IMAX were sold out. I was going to see Hell Boy 2 but my roommate wanted to get out so we went to see Wall-E instead. She didn't like it, so she got up and went to another movie in the theater and guess what she went to go see… Batman! The funny thing is she has been complaining loudly, for the last month about how stupid that supper hero and any super hero move is and then she comes out and says she liked it!

Wall-E is a good kids movie and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had gone with my nephews and niece. It was kind of dark and preachy. Its not one I would be interested in seeing again unless I was with kids.

I must note that the cartoon they played Wall-E started was hilarious

Bad Tree

What a long and stressful week. The tree, for the most part, has been removed. I still have some branches in the neighbors yard that need to be haled away, but every time I try to get out and deal with it something comes up.

The majority of the tree was taken care of on Sunday morning, Bright and early at around 9:00. I think my neighbor next door might be unhappy with my. My roommate dad came over with his chainsaw and started cutting right away. I kinda think my neighbor might have gone to a weading the day before and probably was sleeping off the reception, but I am just guessing.

Another problem is now my roommate doesn't have faith in the back fence so she doesn't want the dogs to go in the back unless they are on a leash. I feel sorry for the pups but at this point I don't have the money (or skill set) to fix it. The problem is; one – the fence is on a slop and it appears the earth below it is moving, Two – she thinks the one of the posts might be rotted out at the base, I haven't seen any rotting at the base and I don't believe there is. And 3 – There are a lot big trees around the fence with large root systems that are pushing the fence back, so digging around them would be really hard if not impossible.

My four biggest home projects are now:

• Tuck point the chimney
  
• Fix the fence
  
• Replace garage door and opener
  
• Have several problemed trees taken out
  

Quote for the day

"Life's tough. It's tougher if you're stupid." -- John Wayne

Lost another tree

A tree in the back corner of my yard collapsed taking out a section of fence Saturday morning. I went to Home Depot and bought a 16in electric chain saw for $70. I cut the base of the trunk off so i could clear the area for the fence and hopefully replace that section which is a priority because of the dogs. Unfortunately it started raining and i wasn't able to get the fence back up so the plane is to get it back up today.

Friday Afternoon

Well, I went biking this morning form 10:15 to 11:30 on the Katy Trail and yes, I'm still out of shape. It was a nice ride other than it was really warm. At the end is a steep hill that i got lazy on and walked my bike up.

I'm now off to pick up my room mates car from the service department.

Friday Morning

Thanks to my every other Friday off work schedule I slept late and am in shorts and a t-shirt laying on my couch looking out the window at the rain coming down enjoying. aah... Life is good.

I was suppse to get my butt out this morning for a bike ride on the Katie trail but that now seems to be out of the picture. Im not sure what i want to get done or do today.

• Clean and reorganize the junk room
• Troubleshoot to see if i can get my old printer working
• Watch the series 4 final of Doctor Who
• Watch the Batman, Gotham Nights DVD i rented last nigh
• Read and work on my excesses in my Visual Basic book
• Visit parents and install USB card in their PC
  
• Call Shelly and Renae to see how their doing
• Play "Star Wars Lego's"
• Bake Lasagna mmm....
• Do more work cleaning and organizing the garage, but I'd rather wait till I get another shelf
• Check about returning my dead Western Digital hard drive
• Pay the $5 and spend most of the day at the lodge
  
• Sit around an write silly dribble in my blog

Since its storming I gave Katie an Acepromazine pill to help calm her down because of the storm. She's been a nevers wreck since the 4th of July weekend.

Playing in the river

Today I took a drive down south to St Francois State Park to let the dogs go swimming in the river. I think they had a good time. Above is Katie retrieving a stick.

I also have a copy of the series 4 final of Doctor Who... I cant wait to see how it ends!

4th of July

Boring Independence day

• Cleaned out and organized the garage
• Amy wanted BBQ so Steve came over and we grilled some hamburgers and corn on the cob
  
• Watched Doctor Who episodes "Left Turn" & "The Stolen Earth"
  
• Tried to copy data from dying WesternDigital hard drive (with out much luck)
  

PC Problems

My TV Computer is sick. A couple of days ago I cam home and sat down to do move some files and it locked up. No problem, just reboot… "problem", my PC stopped on the bios splash screen.

I rebooted over and over hoping for a different outcome (one definition of insanity) to no avail.

I opened the case and reseated the hard drive plugs and switched the ram slots, No luck.

Unplugged everything from the back of the pc except for the power and video cable and low and behold my pc booted up. I narrowed the problem down to my main usb hub and from there have narrowed it down further to the external hard drive I use to record TV shows using Beyond TV.

I will update this post as I do more troubleshooting.

UPDATE 7-5-2008 : Problem is the Western Digital external hard drive. It's less than a year old. Now I wonder if WD will do right by me.

Iron Barley

On Monday, June 30th, 2008 Tad, Chuck and I had Lunch at a little place called Iron Barley in south St Louis. I had the Strip Steak Sandwich W/Chili Mayo, Water and the Original Blender Blaster pie; Tad had the Reuben, Soda and the Original Blender Blaster pie; and Chuck had the Peppered Pork and Coffee.

mmm... smelt like beacon when I walked in. The decor had a interesting cabin like look and feel to it.

The problem, my Steak Sandwich seemed to be half vary chewy fat and the Blender Blaster pie tasted like a cheep fudge Popsicle stick to me. The real steak bits i got from the sandwich was good but I wouldn't chance ordering it again.

One other complaint was the price of soda and coffee. The soda was $2.00 and the coffee $2.50

I have heard and read wonderful things about this place so I will go back and give them a second chance.