First Swim

	If the movie doesn't play, you can try this link or right click it and save to the desktop.

Happy Weekend

This weekend is the start of summer. I'm really looking forward to it this year. My friend Rick, who rebuilt my pool when I was in the hospital the first time in Sept 04 sent one of his workers over yesterday and he opened the pool for me. It's crystal clear. I had also ordered a solar heater like the one in the picture. Rick's sending someone over to install it for me next week. It is supposed to raise the water temp by 10 degrees. I also have a solar cover that works well too so with any luck, I'll be able to get Dana in the pool a lot this summer. She likes the water very warm. I went last year on October 5th and the temp was 55 degrees. A little too cold even for me. Rick is amazing, he has done so much for me as far as the pool goes since I starting having all of the medical crap I've been dealing with for the past 2+ years. He has done all of this work for free. In return, I am building him a web site and I will be his web whore for life. It's the least I can do for all he's done. So right now the water is a little too cold but I hope to get in the pool by weekend's end.

Al Gore was Right

Thanks Nina

I'm Addicted to Memory (I think?)

Who ever would imagine that this kid to the left would have grown up to become a computer geek. Here's is your average 12 year old with his freocious pet hamster, and now I've become this memory seeking geek. A year or so ago I bought my first cashe-stash, a 128mg PNY Flash Stick. Then, about 6 months later, I bought a 512mg Flash Stick. Two weeks ago PNY had 1 gig Flash Sticks on sale for $24.99 so of course, I had to buy one. They have come in very handy for transferring files to and from work or to a friends house. I can bring music home on it then transfer it to my PC or iPod. Well, today I bought an 80 gig External Hard Drive from Seagate for $89.


When I first got into computers over 10 years ago (holy shit) I remember hard drives going for $500 for 500k (a gig was unheard of) and 4 mg of ram was a steal at $120. It's like anything I guess, prices come down for everything because they become cheaper to manufacture. I'm not sure where I'm going with this post other than I'm happy I got the 80 gig of storage. I have been making more home movies lately and that eats up the space as does music. So I should be set now for a while. I also like the fact that it is external. I could transfer large amounts of data in a single bound...

My Garden (so far)

So here is the garden for the 2006 season. I have the usual stuff that tends to grow pretty well here in NY state. The dirt here is really horrible, there are so many rocks in it you can't even imagine. There is on place in the yard where you can put a shovel in the ground and not hit a big rock, plus there are small rocks everwhere. No matter how many rocks I take out of the garden, they reappear. So I'm doing the usual stuff like I said. I have 3 different varieties of tomatoes. some big juicy ones, some medium sized meaty ones, and the good old cherry tomatoes that are great for popping in one's mouth. I always have sugar snap peas too. They are in the front of the picture but I put a bunch of then there, plus I have some growing on a trelis this year. I am trying bush string beans and bell peppers from seed. I also have some radishes (Gris...) and carrots too. The garden always starts out very nicely, but then I sort of slack off a little with the weeding. I am going to do better this year.

A Visit to the Celery Farm

	If the movie doesn't play, you can try this link or right click it and save to the desktop. I stopped by work the other day and went to the Celery Farm with my bird watching buddy.

Don't Call DYFS on Me

	If the movie doesn't play, you can try this link or right click it and save to the desktop. Here is Grif riding his bike on our neighbors driveway (and then some) I know he should have his helmet on. He just learned how to ride without his training wheels.

Surprise, surprise, surprise

LONDON - Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills are planning to separate, media reports said Wednesday.

Representatives of the couple declined to comment but said a statement was expected later in the day.

The former Beatle married Mills in June 2002, four years after his former wife Linda McCartney died of breast cancer. McCartney and Mills had a daughter in October 2003.

The Daily Mirror and BBC both reported the planned split.

PS: She won't get any money, she doesn't have a leg to stand on.

LAGQ

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, the Grammy-winning ensemble that has spent the past quarter century extracting brilliant music from a rich and organic stew of stylistic and cultural perspectives, takes an eclectic ride with the release of LAGQ Spin. The album marks the third Telarc recording for guitarists John Dearman, Bill Kanengiser, Scott Tennant and Andrew York, the innovative foursome collectively known as LAGQ.

Dana and I had the pleasure of seeing these guys Saturday night. One great thing about them is that they play all sorts of types of music. Of sourse the focus is more classical, but they also had done some David Bromberg, some Jimi Hendrix, some Sting and some Chet Atkins. You must listen to this piece, Blue Echo/Country Gentleman. The echo effect is done just by all of them playing to make it sound that way. Plus Chet Atkins is a great guitarist. The only thing I'm not crazy about with him is that he remind me of George Bush a little. We had a great time out in the city, we found a nice place to eat at that was close to the show plus I got a great parking spot about 2 blocks away for free. All in all it was a much needed night out for us both.

Watch as Alfred E. Nueman grows up (sort of)

Panoramic Picture

This is my first attempt of making a panoramic picture

Fuck Me Friday

Things really run in cycles, don't they. Yesterday things were great! I got new glasses, I also got a new memory card for my digital camera (256 meg) and another Flash drive (1 gig). This morning I go to move my car so Dana can get to hers and I hear a strange noise, sort of a grinding sound. I get out to look under the car to make sure there are no toys or bikes or anything there...nothing. I get back in and go to put it on the other side of the driveway and KABLOOM! The tire explodes.

So I figure that I ran over a nail or something although it should have gone SSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssssssssss until it ran out of air. So, I get the spare out and the jack and all of the fixens, jack the car up (not off, the car is jacking me off) take the tire off and notice that the car won't let go of my tire. I'm no mechanic, but I know enough to realize that the strut (like a shock absorber) has broken and the spring shattered and went right into the sidewall of the tire. So the tire is like hooked onto the car. I finally free that but now I can't get the spare on because the spring is preventing that from happening. Right now I'm waiting on AAA so they can tow it to my mechanic. I don't know how we will do this since I can't get a tire on the friggin thing. More to come....
On the bright side, at least I wasn't driving it. It could have been deadly.

Mr Mike getting the car ready






Look at the front door on our neighbors house. There is no doorknob, If you knew them it would make sense

I Got New Glasses

I finally got me a pair of new glasses. This shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is for me. I've needed them for about 5 years, I had my eyes checked a year and a half ago but my vision was so blurry I thought I had better not invest in glasses because the prescription would change. So I decided to go with a slightly different frame too. These are also progressive lenses (bi-focals without the lines) I had some prescription sunglass lenses put in my old frames. It is obviously a slow day in blogville when I make a post like this one

Desktop Toys Game

There is this game that I had sent to me about 7 years ago or so. It's called Desktop Toys. It's a program that you install on your computer that gives you all sorts of toys that you can use to take out frustration on your computer screen. They have machine guns, buzz saws, an eraser guy, things you can bounce on a spring and much more. I find it to be both fun and theraputic (when the computer isn't doing what you want it to do). I added a link where you can download it along with these two screen shots. The file is safe and has no viruses. Those of you who know me, know me. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your computers. Here's the link, have fun

Concert on Monday

Grif has a concert Monday night. He wanted me to take his picture with the hair gel in his hair. I guess this is a promo shot.

Fun With Dick and Jane

See Spot,
See Spot Run,
See Spot Run off with Jane's Dick

Wee-Wee Follow up

Back in January on this year, I posted an email from a friend that an actual Senior Vice President of a MAJOR (I mean MAJOR) communications company sent out to his team (previous story).
Here is an update :

From: Smith, Jim
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2006 8:47 AM
To: *IT Infrastructure Jims Group
Subject: Guess What

Last week, I thought perhaps we had children on the floor—meaning under 10 years old—that the toilet seats could have been their fault. I did a DISSERVICE to them. To those under 10 years old, I apologize. Yesterday between 8am-12pm, an adult(s) at least by age with NO RESPECT for the rest of us, could not lift up the toilet seat.

Now I’m getting angry. Not just at the offender(s) but at all of you that are remaining silent!!!!

Do not complain to me if you are unwilling to stand up for yourselves.
Jim

Followed by:

From: Smith, Jim
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2006 3:11 PM
To: *IT Infrastructure Jims Group
Subject: Guess What

The following people were not in our offices yesterday during time in question:
Will K., Danny L, Chanh, Dmitry, Andrew G, John C, Chris L, Kelvin, Tony L, Vincent, Greg R., Charlie A., Bob R., Wilton H., Dave C., Enzo.

I’m excluding myself and some others that I know stand in public view.

My list is narrowing.
Jim

...as Rome burns...

Busting Boards

	If the movie doesn't play, you can try this link or right click it and save to the desktop.