Blog? What blog?

Damn you facebook and your ability to supecede the requirement of nurturing and updating the blog. It is kind of funny how one is easily swayed to use a faster, easier and likely better technology...

Well, I guess I can give any of the remaining readers an update on whats new in our household:

- Took some snowboarding lessons, hopefully will get to do more
- Painted the inside of the house
- Enjoying the new windows
- Going to South Carolina for Christmas vacations
- Booked a Europe trip for next Fall
- Made some new friends
- Got an XBox 360
- Going on a diet

Hmmm, that is all I can think of right now. Hopefully I can think of some new topics to post about and get this blog back to what it was.

The Bleeding Obvious

Overheard at the DOLLAR STORE at Southcentre Mall today:

Customer: (to guy at till) How much is this?
Guy at till: One dollar...
Customer: Oh!

The guy at the till and I had a moment of eye contact where we both thought "what a dumb question".

Windows Installation Complete

We finally had out new windows from Lux installed last week. We also bought new doors to. They look great, and the installers were very nice and clean. There were some nails, etc. left in the yard but that isn't a big deal.

The front door ended up being a bit more of a challenge then initially thought because it had a side light that was boarded over and needed to be stripped out too. They gave us a new half door on the side (free of charge, as of now) and it looks really good. We were supposed to get clear fir for the casing and jambs, but ended up getting oak, which isn't THAT big of a deal. The bathroom window is very nice and it has vinyl jambs that are caulked right to the tile.

Took two full days to install, as it was described to us in the beginning.

I give Lux an A- overall. Good product and good installation. Bummer they mixed up the wood, but not that big of a deal. Price was right.

Day 1 of TechEd 2007

Today was the first day of TechEd 2007. I did not sign up for any of the Sunday events, but I went to register and pick up my kit. Cool bag and a bunch of 'free' stuff. I also get a geek tag.

For those of you that don't know TechEd is a huge Microsoft technology event that they put on every year. Basically it is a Large Nerdy Sausage Party. Since it is in Orlando this year, it fun to see the Large Nerdy Sausage Party wilting in the June heat.

It is frickin' hot here.

When I was done with TechEd for today, I went to the outlet malls and bought some new shoes and shorts.

Well, parents are here, will update later!

Dry and wilted Blog

Second time I have forgotten to water the blog.

Sorry about that, just been real busy and facebook has been substituting enough for me.

Anyhow, I will be posting here again more often and possibly cross posting from facebook.

Damned Dog

Molly owes me a new keyboard. She removed the following keys today:

#4
F3
F4
E

She broke F4s little foot thing.

And she didn't even rip the vicera out of the dog that was outside of the house that spurred this event.

Neglect

If the blog goes un-updated for a while, it might be because of facebook.

Evil, evil facebook.

Geek Content

Here is something cool about .config files being used in a NUnit project in VS.NET 2005



This being the most important part:

1) In each test project, create an App.config file with your AppSettings you'd normally put in Web.config or your main executable's config file.
2) In your test project's properties pane, select Build Event and add this line to your post-build command line: copy /Y $(ProjectDir)app.config $(TargetPath).config
3) Run your tests (F5).

It works!

Blog Hit

Today we got a hit for "rea and jon in calgary and friends".

Oddly enough, that is also the name of our new compilation CD of all our top musical hits during the last 10 years.

Too funny...

Another Domino Falls

So, if you read the past few months of posts you can see a sort of domino effect that all started with getting a Nintendo Wii.

Now the living room and dinning room are painted.

The long back wall is "Key Lime Green", the other walls are Neon Celery Green and the small wall is Hot Apple Spice (red). Painted all the baseboards 'Cloud White' after deciding replacing them with Fir baseboards was too much work an money.

It looks really good and wasn't too traumatizing of an experience.

We used Benjamin Moore paint and bought high end brushes. Totally worth spending the extra $10 a gallon on paint and $3 more on brushes. After the first wall, I didn't even bother to tape or put plastic down and I only had one drop fall on the carpet (which cleaned up). Cutting was incredibly easy with the paint and brushes. Totally recomend Benjamin Moore as the quality is outstanding and the colours are great.

Pictures to come, I assume...

After finishing off the hallway and front entry (with Neon Celery Green), the bedroom comes next. We have ordered some new sconces and a ceiling light and are going to paint using a Benjamin Moore colour that is a slightly dark toupish colour. I can't remember it now. I will call it "Mocha River Mud Chocolate Milk Tan". Wow, now I am really hungry for some reason!

YAY!

The Flames lost! Now I can have a normal spring/early summer!

It is a whole lot less stressful this way...

Don't be Retarded

Wear your seatbelt.

I find it interesting the people who think they are somehow safer while not wearing their seatbelt because "they can get out quickly during a fire, or if the car is inverted". Yah, you might get out quicker, but that was because you were ejected through the windsheild.

HAHAHAhahahahaaHAHAHAHAAHhahahah

I had an estimate on a bumper repaint for the Fit.

Anyone care to guess?

$1092.00

The dude that hit me wants 2 more quotes before he will pay for it (which I don't blame him). His deductable is $2000 through his work, so out of pocket it will come.

You have been rendered obselete

Today I went through the 'box of wires' that was at the top of the closet as well as the disc drawer.

From the disc drawer, I threw out:

- 2 Windows 98 books
- 1 Windows 95 book
- 1 Copy of Frontpage 1998
- 3 HP Pavillion Restore Discs
- 15 or so drivers for mice, keyboards, motherboards, drives, etc. that I do not own anymore. Many of which were on floppy discs (we don't have a floppy drive in the house anymore)

Funny how much useless crap one collects over time...

NOOOOOoooooooo.....

This has not been a good weekend for the Fit.

I got two door dings (one looks like from a car, the other from a rock) on the trip to and from Edmonton. This was bad enough...

Today, someone backed into me at and intersection (he was in the middle of the intersection by Chinook and backed up into me when he decided he couldn't make it on a yellow light). Just a little paint transfer and two nicks from his trailer hitch. I took $200 from him and will get the black out with rubbing compound and touch-up the nicks.

However, he sealed his fate when he said he couldn't see me out of the back of his SUV. Once again, this proves that people who drive SUVs are retarded. I drive a brightly coloured vehicle that is higher than the majority of other passenger cars on the road. How could he not see me?

The $200 makes me feel less bad about the damage and will help pay for the Ikea Billy cabinets we just bought, but I wonder what sort of Karma I am incurring by taking the money. The dude didn't seem like he was poor (nice car, business cards, lots and lots of yogurt from Costco) and he was clearly in sales as his first offer was $40. I guess he was a weasel, but who am I to take advatange? He did seem to want to get out of there and and rubbing my car with spit to demonstrate how the paint marks were coming off. I wonder if I just feel dirty from him rubbing his saliva all over the Fit. At least it is going in for an oil change so maybe I can get Honda to give it an STD test.

In other completely unrelated news, I can't fit all of my chandeliers wiring into Debbie Travis's electrical receptical box. Interperet that as you will. (the box is going back to Canadian tire, BTW so we can get something else)

Operation Brass Elimination

Operation Brass Elimination is in full force at our household. It was initiated by Operation Gotta Get a Wii that produced a furniture assault from the study to the family room. The brass dictator 'El Cabinete' and his 'cabinet' of smaller despotic end tables and coffee tables was captured and sentenced to life in prison in the dungeon and a new "brown black" Swedish leader was installed in it's place. Information of the where abouts of 'El Cabinete' was obtained through torture and dismemberment of his cohort, the coffee table. The glass head is on a pike on display as a war trophy to remind the brass army of it's impending fate.

We almost lost one troop as a brass sniper table grazed Rea's leg and drew blood (due to the fact she wasn't wearing any pants). She will recover, but it was a close one.

Next we plan to attack the brass airforce by taking out the fan as well as the Chancelor Chandelier.

Soon we will be victorious in our campaign against pre-millenial design.

STOP WITH THE SNOW!

OK, now that we have another snowfall warning issued for Calgary (10 - 15cm overnight), I am quite fed up with the winter weather.

When is spring coming?

I can only hope this wet spring doesn't turn into a rainy June that will replicate the one two years ago that added a swimming pool to our basement...

Guess it is a good reason to gut it (the basement).

Click Next to install Windows 2007

So, we finally decided and signed for our new window install. We went with Lux because the quality seemed good and the price was right. Sales guy (Pat) was great and was happy to help us with our decisions.

Here is what we are doing:

- All windows are vinyl, double pane, low-e, argon filled
- Truth hardware
- Decent warranty
- Brick mold on the outside, vinyl jambs and oak casings on the inside. Might changed to oak jambs if we decide to.
- Family Room window is being replaced with a middle picture and a left and right casement
- Bedroom 1 and 2 are being replaced with opposing egress casements
- Master bedroom is having a left side casement
- Bathroom is having acrylic block replaced by a awning window with pinhead obscurring
- Kitchen is having right hand casement to even out back out house
- Dining room gets a casement

As well, because they were so much less expensive we are getting new doors:

- Both from and back are primed, insulated right hand steel doors
- Front has a small half moon like window (different shape then standard half moon)
- Back has a half window with blinds inside of it

Total price is just over $12,000 installed with tax. About $5,000 less than our number two comptetitor. Lux was second Cheapest in all the quotes we had (SIS was the least expensive, but we did not like the sales presentation). Install will probably be around the end of June, which is fine with us.

Refreshing hunger.

This last Tuesday morning I had a hankering for some Hash Browns from the cafe on site at work. They are the cubed type, and taste great with some green tobasco or vinegar.... mmmmmmmmmm.

They've never bugged my gluten-intolerant tummy before, so sounded like a good thing that morning. Oh how I was wrong. Somebody changed the ingredients when I wasn't looking. What I thought was a reoccurance of the Norwalk virus, or Norovirus, from 2 Decembers ago, was just my intestines swelling up with such intensity and discomfort that I had two afternoons off work, and a two whole evenings of pain, sleeping, contest-worthy gas, and expulsion. Just thought you'd like to know. It's Saturday morning and I'm still uneasy in the tummy!

I haven't screwed up like this in a long time. Probably three years or longer, and I've only been doing this for 5 or so years, coming up to six. It's no wonder when I was originally fully-sensitive that I thought I had a parasite - it seems too weird that a simple wheat flour coating on a serving of potato hashbrowns is enough to send me reeling for 3 or 4 days. I hate being a fricking delicate flower.

Needless to say I've been scared of food all week, and lost about 5 pounds as a result. I kinda think that it's just because my system is EMPTY - and that little of it was burned off fat from my body thinking it was in starvation mode - but hey, 5 lbs is 5 lbs to a girl.

This morning I was thrilled to wake up hungry. I think this means that I can eat again - more than chicken & rice soup, more than the simple bag of chips and slice of cheese I had yesterday (there was nothing else!), more than yogurt and ginger-ale. Jon is out there chopping us up some of his traditional gut-rot (non-wheat) breakfast. My hero.

Now I wish he'd stop joking that I'm actually pregnant instead of just being allergic to wheat... I'm SO not pregnant. Just hungry.

My Voicemail

It takes me about 30 minutes of torture to record a voicemail greeting. I normally either completely sound like a insane maniac on the thing, or incapable of properly forming an English sentence (although I can do a pretty good one in Swahili).

My most recent voicemail recording at work took about 7 tries to get right. After each try I would press the button to delete and re-record the message. However, the system at work instead of deleting the recording, takes the first two seconds of it and splices it to the first two seconds of the previous recording.

Someone told me today that my voicemail sounded funny, so I listened to it.

Here it is:

"Hi you have reached the voicemail of Jon XXXXXX at XXXXXX and bleghort... Hi you have reached the voice mail of Jon XXXXXX grrrrrrr... Hi you have reaced the voicemail of Jon XXXXXX at shtuct... Hi you have reached the voice mail of Jon GRRRRRR... (angry now) HI YOU HAVE REACHED THE VOICEMAIL OF JON XXXXXX AT XXXXXX PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE BEEP THANKS."

Interesting spam text body of the day

I got this one in my gmail box advertising some sort of Rx site (in a picture of course, so the spam filters don't pick it up). I have to say, it was better written than some of the recent novels I have read.

See below:

It wasnt a real dog, Steengo said. He looked at me, seemed to be huddle of buildings that could be a farm. imminent death. Mata nodded in response. twitch of emphasis to his arm and the captive moaned his answer. the russet light grew brighter and I was suddenly in the midst of the interstellar shipping firm-which contained a fully equipped machine because of my intervention. In return for this favor I believe you owe little better. attacking, fighting, dying; the usual thing. This motif was carried Silence? Into the car. Speak to me in the office about a salary I know a lot more than that, he said pressing the beard and I know that you would come after me and help me if you could. But you Closed and sealed it as the tiny motor buzzed and dragged me up to pull the swaying bodies back to the deck. a decade in the cause of that same public good. League communications.

More than you ever want to know about Windows

So, we had the 'final' quote for new windows last night.

Lux was out, and since now we know EXACTLY what we want it was pretty painless. Final total came out to be the second lowest price, or $3,000 less that one top competitor and $5,000 less than the other.

Now it boils down to how much is 5 grand worth to me. Lux is booking out 14 weeks, but that is only 4 weeks longer than the other companies and we are at the beginning of summer then so it shouldn't be a big deal.

As Lux seems fairly good, and appears to know what they are talking about, and as long as the showroom visit goes well, I think we will go with them. The savings also allow us more room to get new front and back doors to replace the original wood ones as well.

Canada and the Fuel Efficient Vehicle Program

As you may know, the Conservative government has released their budget, and part of it is around a new program for fuel efficiency in cars. If you purchase a new car that falls in the 'Fuel Efficient' category, you get $2,000 back from the Feds. Likewise, if you buy a SUV, you get surcharged $4,000. On a side note, the Honda Fit is not on the fuel efficient vehicle list, oddly enough.

I am in total support of this. In fact, I think the SUV surcharge should be more.

However, I am getting sick of reading articles such as this one:

Ottawa's new rewards/penalties for fuel efficient cars gets mixed reviews.

The way the media is describing this, Calgary is going to be hit the hardest because we are all rednecks that drive SUVs that run the blood of baby Harp Seals. I see WAY fewer SUVs in Calgary then I see even in the poorest parts of Florida, where I am from. Everyone down there from the rich hicks to the poorest welfare mooches are investing all their money in SUVs so they can "feel safe on the road with their family" and "extend their dick size by at least 4 inches".

I hate how Calgary is constantly portrayed as this backwards, inbred, cousin screwing town. Or, that the rest of the country considers us Conservative American Wannabees.

Now granted there are many here that do fall into this category, but damn it, I BOUGHT A HONDA FIT!!! Help self-actualize or something!

Things my Husband Says

Overheard while Jon was on the phone telling his Mom about his ride home:

Bob asks, "So aren't you a Catholic?"
So I said "Well I try to be a Buddhist. So when I had a really really shitty day I said to myself 'What would the Buddha do?' Well he'd probably get out a machine gun and take the place out. That's what kind of day I had.

Good thing there isn't much of a hell in Buddhism...