Mar 20

If It’s Thursday It’s Smallville!

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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.

Mar 16

New Gum For Better Sex!

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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!

Mar 13

A New Smallville!

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Cool! And, except for Pete Ross’ continued whining, it was pretty good. At least we didn’t have to put up with a lot of Lana Angst stuff! The commercial for next weeks episode looked pretty good also! But, as much as I like Smallville I can’t stand “THE CW”. I think next week I’m going to actually time the show/commercial ratio. I honestly believe the CW has more commercial than show. I hate that damned channel. Smallville, and sometimes Supernatural, are the ONLY things I watch on that channel.
Been raining more than not all day so I haven’t gotten out much. Well, I haven’t gotten out at all today. Been busy on my computer and I actually got some studying done today. Yay! Deep Space Observing. Now I need a telescope that will allow me to look for those objects in deep space! When it’s not cloudy or raining, that is. About 2 weeks spread throughout the year.
Have an appointment with a new General Contractor at 1000 tomorrow. Here, thank goodness. That’ll save me a bit of gas anyway. Will let y’all know how that goes.
Nothing else happening. It’s too late anyway. Think I’ll watch Beowulf and go to bed…

Mar 13

Are We Having Fun Yet?

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Still not much going on. Not with it raining like it is…

Went out to Belfair yesterday and had a sit down with Earl @ Lincoln Construction so he could explain his pricing method. It almost sorta sounds okay except I’d be doing almost ALL the work. Really, the only ’problem’ that I can see is if something were to happen to me Kathy would have to drop everything she’s doing and finish building the dome or pay Lincoln a LOT of money. Probably more than it would be worth.

A man walked into a very high-tech bar. As he sat down on a stool he noticed that the bartender was a robot. The robot clicked to attention and asked, "Sir, what will you have?"
The man thought a moment then replied? "A martini please."The robot clicked a couple of times and mixed the best martini the man had ever had.
The robot then asked, "Sir, what is your IQ?"
The man answered"oh, about 164."
The robot then proceeded to discuss the ’theory of relativity’, ’inter-stellar space travel’, ’the latest medical breakthroughs,etc…….

The man was most impressed. He left the bar but thought he would try a different tact. He returned and took a seat. Again the robot clicked and asked what he would have? "
A Martini please." Again it was superb? The robot again asked "what is your IQ sir?"

This time the man answered, "Oh about100". So the robot started discussing NASCAR racing, the latest basketball scores, and what to expect the Dodgers to do that week end. The guy had to try it one more time. So he left, returned and took a stool.
Again a martini, and the question, "What is your IQ?"

This time the man drawled out " Uh…..’bout 50".
The robot clicked then leaned close and very slowly asked ,
"A-r-e . y-o-u-r . .. p-e-o-p-l-e . . r-e-a-l-l-y . . .g-o-i-n-g . ..t-o . . n-o-m-i-n-a-t-e H-i-l-l-a-r-y-???"

It’s raining pretty good today so once I get up and started I’ll be getting on the phone and calling a few more General Contractors. Gotta get off my ass and call Larry Byrnes @ monolithic also and I don’t want to. I really don’t like talking to him. Nothing gets accomplished! We paid him over $900 to finish off the plans for the dome; and got back crap. I don’t believe he even looked at the stuff I sent him with where I wanted electrical plug-ins or lights. And he added fans where we didn’t want them. His plumbing detail isn’t. And he will not put in the augments for the windows! No, I am not a happy camper when it comes to Monolithic’s architectural department.