New blog!

I’m moving my blog over to my own website…I have a lot more control over it.

Please go to http://outpostbbs.net/wordpress (for now).

I’ll be deleting this blog soon.

Catching up…

I know I should have been posting here more, but I’ve been quite busy with work. Seems we’re going to be expanding soon, so I’ve been in the NOC taking measurements of the rooms, taking pictures of equipment, et al. That and I’ve been working on the company’s website. I’m not doing the design, just the implementation using a web-based rapid-development website generator (not my choice to use it, but hey, the boss said to).

And yes, we did buy a new car yesterday. It’s a cherry red 2007 Saturn Vue. It’s got a V6, leather interior, power everything…and the best part, especially down here, ice cold air conditioning. It’s great. You have to be careful when you step on it as you might wind up going a lot faster than what you realized! We wouldn’t normally have gotten such a nice vehicle, but it’s got less than 8000 miles on it (it was a company car). After paying a substantial amount of cash down, we were able to carry the rest of the note very easily. We could have bought it in cash, but we’d like to build our credit to buy a home in a year or so.

Things are going fairly smooth here. I’m doing better with my diabetes and have my blood sugar under control. I’m working on losing weight, which will help tremendously and will lower my risk of a heart attack greatly. I’m turning 35 this month and am happy about it. I’m doing the best I have been for many years now, both financially and physically. My marriage is strong and I have family and friends I can count on, no matter what. Life is good, even if I’m tired all the time!

For my birthday, I’ll be going up to Johnson City and celebrating my birthday with my twin nieces (whose birthday is on September 11). We’re going to Chuck E. Cheese for some pizza and video games. Sounds like fun. I’m not expecting anything for my birthday, of course, as I’ve outgrown gifts for the most part. Then again, the VUE was a pretty nice present…even though I wasn’t expecting to ever get lucky enough to buy a new car!

Now it’s time for me to get going to work. Our new apartment is a tiny bit farther from my work than my old place was, but it’s really negligible in the grand scheme of things. I’ll take some pictures of the VUE tomorrow and put one up here for people to see.

A little catchup…

Been kinda busy the past few days. Either I just haven’t wanted to do anything or I’ve been doing something. I’m falling behind on packing, so I really need to get going on that. I switched over the phone and DSL tonight, so I should have it on the 26th (Thursday) up and running. Now I just need to get the power turned on and the cable switched over and all will be good. I really wish I had a pickup right now to move all of these boxes and things…but that’s what renting a U-Haul truck is for, right?

I’m exhausted. I woke up early to pay the electric and never did enough sleep. Had someone come over to look at the house and they said they’d be back in an hour. Maura and I busted butt to clean up the place to be presentable and the people never came back. Thanks a lot, whoever you are. We cannot wait to get out of this place.

Dad had his right pinky finger removed today. He’s doing quite well. He had a very bad car accident a few years ago and his pinky fingers on both hands became disfigured and never worked again. They caused him more pain than they were worth, so he is having them removed. They removed the right pinky first and after that heals, they’ll remove the left pinky. Also he doesn’t have a lymphatic system in his arms anymore, so the fingers swell a lot and stay very painful.

There’s more, but I’m so tired that I just can’t keep focused to write anymore…more later.

Progress

We went down to the new rental agency yesterday. After a little chat with one of the managers, we now have our new address and we peeked at the apartment. We don’t have keys or anything yet until we actually move in on the 25th of July. But it’s actually neat: it’s on a small hill, has a big tree in front of the building and has gentle steps going up to the patio. We’re on the first floor (although I specifically asked for a second-story apartment), however, due to the building’s elevation and spacing from other buildings, I can stick my ham radio antenna out the window and still have good exposure to the sky. We both really like the apartment. I’ll post a few pictures once we get moved in.

Other than that, nothing exciting going on. I’m going to nap a little today and then going to try to pack like mad. It shouldn’t take too long to get my stuff packed up. If we can afford it tomorrow, I’ll go rent a little 10′ box truck from U-Haul tomorrow and pack up everything that doesn’t need to be there and get all of it into the storage room. After I do that, there really isn’t that much to move.

At least I now have an address and can get the electric turned on (the apartment is within the city limits, unlike we are now, and has a different electric provider) as well as getting the phone/DSL and cable switched over. Then I have to go pay more money to switch over our driver’s licenses and the registration on both cars (which I still haven’t received the plates for the cars; since we’re both getting our ham radio callsigns on special license plates, they’re being custom-made for us)…always more money to spend.

But at least we’ll be out of the dump we’re in now.

Tomorrow night, Maura and I are going to brave the crowds and go see the new Harry Potter movie. I’ve seen every one from the beginning but haven’t read the books. Maura has all of the books and will be going to all the movies too. Speaking of movies-we saw “Ratatoullie” (sp?) last week. It’s a cute movie and worth the money to see.

Success!

Well, the laptop arrived…very nice even though it’s used. However, for some reason I can’t watch DVDs on it; I think the drive may be going. But I’m not going to send the entire system back. I’ll just get a drive myself and not worry about it too much. Sure, I’ve got a year’s worth of parts and labor, but it’s not worth it to wait six to nine weeks to get the laptop back.

I also destroyed the XP Pro install on here and put W2K on it. Much better and I’ve got more control over things. It took me an hour and a half to get it up to date and all the specialized IBM drivers and stuff on it, but it was worth it. I really like it and what’s nice is that I can actually type at a real speed on this laptop.

We got the storage room Monday and now we’re waiting to hear from the new apartment management on what apartment we’ll get. I really need the address to start moving things over by the end of the month. I think I’m going to do some packing today before I go to bed and some more after I get up. Although I probably won’t do much tomorrow morning. I’m off. 🙂

However, Thursday night, I’m going to bed early. My eyes have been burning for about three days now because lack of sleep. I know the lack of sleep can’t be very good for me (or my diabetes).

Just a short note before I head off. Going to pack up the laptop and let it rest…and then I’ll rest too.

Beware!

I can’t believe it, but I just experienced an instant messaging scam, but since I knew about it, I didn’t fall for it.  There is a user on Yahoo! Messenger named elina_norlan that is practicing the “ticket” scam…basically they’re people asking for money for a return ticket to the US (this person is in London, supposedly).  “She” said she was broke, et al, and thankfully, I already knew about this scam.  I immediately made myself invisible to her on YM and deleted her.

So much for my trying to be a nice guy and talk to people.  I’ll be locking down my IM list too now too, sadly.

You just gotta be careful online…and besides, I’m not shelling out $950 to someone I don’t know.  Heck, I won’t shell out that much to someone I do know. <G>

Junk science

Here’s a little something about how I think Al Gore likes to think to perpetuate the lie of “global warming” (even though studies show that the earth is getting -cooler-):

You can’t change the world
But you can change the facts
And when you change the facts
You change points of view
If you change points of view
You may change a vote
And when you change a vote
You may change the world

(From “New Dress” as performed by Depeche Mode – written by Martin L. Gore – ©1986 Grabbing Hands Music Ltd/EMI Music Publishing Ltd. – Lyrics are used as per the “fair use” clause in US copyright law and are not meant to be an infringement on rights.)

This certainly fits since ol’ Al’s point of view since he loves to change the facts.

Just a little random thought.

Duh!

I was reading an article about how Congress is trying to boost US tourism from international visitors. Well, duh-when you treat every visitor like a terrorist, what do you expect? How dense is Congress, really? (A rhetorical question, I’m sure.) Earlier this year, I had a good friend come to visit from Denmark. It took him nearly two hours to clear US Customs and then they treated him like he was some kind of thief. I’m just amazed at how stupid our government is and how stupid we are for putting our current government in power in the first place.

But onto nicer things…I bought “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” for my GBA. I’m hooked already. Really fun game, even if it is old. Sometimes the best stuff isn’t the newest!I’m anxiously awaiting my laptop to arrive tomorrow. If only UPS delivered on weekends!

But today, I think I’m going to take a day of rest. No computers, no packing, no video games. Just sleep.

Monday I will have to start packing like mad though…I’ve got about 17 days before we’re supposed to be in the new place. If they give us the keys Monday, we could be out of this house within a week.

A fleeting grasp (of sleep)

I can’t sleep.  I hate it when I can’t sleep.

Today’s my day off.  I should be asleep right now, but I’m not.  I overextended myself yesterday as the much-needed money arrived, so we immediately went and put down the deposits on our new place.  We should head sometime today or Monday what apartment we get.  We then came home and I ordered my laptop which should be here Monday.  After that, we went to Best Buy and Maura bought herself a Wii with some games, an extra controller (came with one of the games).  I decided to get a Game Boy Advanced-I don’t play games much, but I like how small the GBA is and I can take it with me.  After getting to the checkout and seeing what the total was, well-we’re not going to be doing THAT again. <G>  Let’s just say it was over $500 for everything…well over.  But it was worth it because now Maura has something she really likes and I’ve wanted a GBA for quite some time.

During this time, somehow my cell phone called my mom and I heard noises coming from it…seems it’d called her and put her on speakerphone!  We talked for about 30 minutes.  I told Mom I’d call her later, but I didn’t because I was asleep (sorry, Mom).

Then we had a small lunch at a new favorite Mexican place down the road from our current home.  Very good food and cheap prices.  We both had lunch, with sodas and dessert (fried ice cream) for under $20 (not including tip for the excellent service).  If you’re ever in Douglasville, stop by the Cinco De Mayo place down on the corner of Highway 5 (Bill Arp Road) and Wenona Street.  Excellent food, service and prices.  Now I know why that place is constantly busy!

We came home and played with our games.  I set up the Wii for Maura and she quickly got down to business.  She downloaded Mario Brothers (something I like about the Wii; you can download “classic” games for it right off of the ‘Net for $5 and they’re put into a ROM inside the Wii itself) and was off.  I was playing The Simpsons’ Road Rage on the GBA.  A lot different than the Playstation 2 version I first played, but what do you expect for a little handheld game?  It was fun nonetheless.  I also played Super Mario Brothers that Maura lent me too.

I went to bed, woke up a couple of times because I was snoring and the snoring severely aggravated my poor jaw that’s desperately trying to heal.  I was spitting out a little blood because of it, so I got a big glass of water and drank it.  Felt much better, so I went back to bed.  Woke up at around 0115, walked out into the living room and Maura’d fallen asleep on the couch with Tigger snuggled next to her.  She woke up and we went back to bed, but within ten minutes, I was back up, unable to sleep.

I was hungry, but I drank a glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast to quell the tummy (I hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours).  I should be eating a lot more with my diabetes, but with this weird schedule I’m on, it’s hard to keep things straight sometimes and I’m paying the price for it.

So, here I sit, unable to sleep, not really wanting to be up.  I was snuggling with Maura (something we don’t do much because of my schedule) and I’m really rather irritated at the whole situation.  I’m trying to better our marriage by giving Maura more attention-something I’m notorious for not doing-and what happens?  There was supposedly a new schedule that was going to be out July 1, but we all know how plans go.

I was told that my company is supposed to get a multi-million dollar reinvestment from new investors, but that’s yet to be seen.  I sincerely hope they do get it.  It would be nice to have updated equipment and some more people to work around there so if something happens and we wind up short-handed that someone doesn’t have to pull a double shift or something.

I’m going to try to go back to sleep.  I want to mow the lawn this morning (that hasn’t been done in at least a month) and start packing up my junk to put into a storage room.  It shouldn’t be hard to get all of this packed up and put in the storage room, leaving very little to have to move into our new place.  I’m not sure when we’ll be able to be moved completely in, but I’m hoping in the next few weeks.  I may call in a few favors and take an extra day or two off so I can do a blitzkrieg on all of this stuff I have in boxes.  Thankfully I never fully unpacked, so it’s just a matter of repacking and resealing all the boxes and getting them moved out into the storage room.

I think I’m finally starting to get sleepy…

Happy 4th!

To all of those who celebrate Independence Day: have a safe, fun and relaxing 4th.  While you’re enjoying yourself, please say a prayer for all of those who are serving in our Armed Forces at this time for their safety and their return home to their families.  As a veteran myself, I can tell you that it’s hard to be away from your family and friends at any time, but doubly so on holidays that you so want to spend with them.  No matter your view on the current situation in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, remember that these are human beings just doing their job to protect us.

I am going to call the VA Dental Clinic later this week and see if I can get in to see a dentist.  My jaw is still not healing and I am still bleeding.  Not to mention that I’m still in pain-not a hard sharp pain, but a constant throbbing from the sockets.  I don’t think I have a dry socket, but there’s something else going on.  (Warning: the next sentence may be a little gross for some people!)  I also seem to have a small skin tab that’s appeared next to one of the sockets that bleeds on contact with anything.  That’s worrying me.

I’m needing to get an electric shaver (I like this one: http://tinyurl.com/yrrno4).  With my schedule, most of the time when I wake up, I’m in no mood to try to wet shave my face.  I’m afraid I’ll take off a patch of skin or something if I do.  Thankfully, I’ll finally be able to afford a good one.  I prefer to be clean-shaven and you can blame the Army for that (and my short hair).

I actually got some sleep these past few days.  I cannot wait until I am on days again so I can function normally.  This is going to be fun packing in the evenings when I don’t see as well, but it has to be done.

Now I’m off to go work on some equipment.  Enjoy your holiday!