So, I keep a section on my gallery for people I’d like to get back in touch with for one reason or another. It worked! Last night I get a call from Ronald J. Johnston, whom I haven’t seen or talked to in about 19 years. Cool! We talked for hours! Cool! Sounds like he’s doing well. He’s even sent me an e-mail with corrections to some Java script I had that was keeping folks stuck using IE from seeing my page. Cool! Keep in touch, Ron!!!
Not much else going on. Nice day so I went out to the property. Duh! Moved dirt around for only an hour (or so) cause I still have that damned hydraulic leak. Gonna have to replace that damned hose. But I’m not doing it today.
SWMBO is interested in a Toyota 4-Runner for sale at our local mechanic’s shop. Had a complete new motor put in it. She’s going to need a 4-wheel or all-wheel vehicle when we move out to the property. It snows a bit more up there than it does here and the road can be dangerous. 4-Runner has a big ding on the upper back and the glass is missing. And they want $2500, which really isn’t too bad. We’ll see what happens.
She took me to Outback for our date last night. Had a really good fish dinner. Then we made our usual Albertson’s stop on the way home. Talked some last night about buying a new television. I was thinking of getting a projector tv BUT talking to the salesman at the store (way earlier) he mentioned that the bulb is good for only 100 hours or so. That means that I’d be replacing a bulb every couple of weeks the way the tv runs all the time around here. Then there’s that new laser projector that’s been invented that they’re going to be putting in our cell phones and things like that this next year. If that thing would give me good enough resolution for a 6ft screen I’d wait for those to come out. That would be a couple of years from now. Hmmm. So maybe we’ll go out looking at large flat panel tv’s and see what’s out there. Will have to replace the tv by next year anyway. Avoid the rush, I say!

The Media Center I put together is working pretty good. Can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner. It’s nice to be able to scroll through my movies or tv shows, see what I feel like watching, click on it and watch it on tv. Cool. You’re probably asking yourself “Why?” Well, shelf space in the new dome (IF we ever get it built) will be at a premium and I don’t want to take up a bunch of space storing DVD’s. We have too many books for that! Now I just have to re-rip 6 seasons of Smallville into 720p format so it’ll look good on our new tv (if we get one).

Went to the property today and moved mud awhile. Drainage is holding up pretty good. I didn’t mind it sprinkling on me. I didn’t even mind the few times it rained on me. But when it started to hail that was enough and I came on home!
Spent the afternoon finishing up and installing the Media Server I put together. Except for not being able to read much of the text onscreen it’s working pretty good. I kind of like scrolling through my movies and clicking on one and have it play! Cool! Had to put a shielded cable from the vcr to the tv because of interference from the computer but that was about it. Hooked the two external drives to the server until I can afford a couple of 1 TB drives to store all this. (And, YES, I only .avi stuff we own!)
Smallville was good (as usual). At last Chloe said out loud that she loves Clark! Cool! Damn, wish I could tell y’all why I like the show so much. I’m not sure myself…
Anywho, think I’ll go play with Terragen some more.

Last Friday the appointment with the latest General Contractor went well. Turns out I’d met Mark before on a job out in Sebeck when I worked on a job with Bob the Dirt Guy. Mark was the General Contractor on that job. Cool! Thought he looked familiar when he first came in the house. He built a house with a tower that has a great view of the sound. He says he usually gets 40% but is willing to work with us. I’d be doing a lot of the work; which is great as long as I can do it. Running wires and Nomex(? That hose-like stuff for the water) isn’t a problem. Getting everything in place before the shotcreet is going to be the hard part! I’m actually a pretty handy dude.

Then it was off to a late breakfast for me and SWMBO. Family Pancake House in Port Orchard makes a pretty good breakfast. And apparently they make a pretty good mushroom burger also. We didn’t make our usual Albertson’s stop cause I couldn’t think of anything we needed besides milk and bread; which SWMBO said she’d pick up on the way home from the Genealogy Library Saturday. Cool.
Saturday was a fairly normal day for me. SWMBO was off to the Genealogy Library so I took off for the property. Was pretty nice out there. Not too cold nor wet. There is a part of the road just below the ’canyon’ that I’ve been trying to build up to hold larger trucks (read cement trucks) that washed out. Again. I think I am going to have to cut down that really big tree and cut further into the actual hill for road stability. Damn! That tree has been around a lot longer that I have and I hate to do it. But I have to have a safe road.
Spent Saturday night mostly just goofing off converting our DVD’s to .AVI’s. Started putting together a ’server’ for all the video files. Have an old ATI Rage video card with tv tuner (and an ATI 9000 video card & tuner) with video/sound out that I’m going to try using. May have to install one of the versions of Linux so I can use that ’shareware’ version of Media Center that you can get for Linux cause I definitely can’t afford Microsoft’s program.
Pretty normal Sunday for me. Did the first session of church then took off for the property. Cut some more wood for us to burn at home cause we’re running low. Wood might be a bit wet but it will burn and that’s what I need. Got kind of COLD out there even though I was sweating. Or maybe it felt that way because I was sweating. Either way I’d had enough and headed on home.
Just been lounging around watching tv. Dogfights has gone off and now Mega Disaster (Methane Explosion) is on. These types of show just crack me up! As if we don’t have enough to worry about they want us to consider a gigantic methane explosion. Sorry folks, I’m too busy scanning the skies for that asteroid that’s going to slam into us to sniff for methane buildup. Oh, wait. That wasn’t methane, that was me. Sorry…
About the headline: Just Kidding!