Sunday, June 7, 2009

Aloe is our friend.


This is just a reminder that if you happen to get a sunburn, use some aloe vera gel. And keep it in your refridgerator. Ahhhhhh nothing feels nicer. So, I spent yesterday afternoon doing yardwork. I thought to myself "Self, I don't need any sunscreen...it's not that hot or sunny and I've already spent some time in the sun this year." Wrong! Oops. As I'm nursing my skin back to health, I'll take the opportunity to stay in my dark, cool house and do some blogging. You know, it's been almost 16 months since I moved (and exactly 12 months for Erin) so things are starting to settle in for us. The ants seem to be under control again (for a short time, at least). Erin's been doing great on her vegan diet and awesome gym attendance. (My diet and gym attendance are satisfactory, but not exceptional.....B-Minus for me.) The job situation is still unchanged: we have about 3.5 months left working at the city and will now start to focus on the transition to the next team. I've been feeling exhausted and sortof misguided lately. Like, am I supposed to take this opportunity to find something I really enjoy doing? Has it been so long since I've worked at an enjoyable, low stress site that I am now turned off to IT support in general? I know I still really enjoy working with computers and technology, so I don't think that's it. Maybe I just need to continue doing some soul searching and the right opportunities will present themselves. In this job climate, I count my lucky stars that I am currently employed in a good job!


Our biggest hard drive failed this weekend and it took all of our personal music and documents with it. Luckily, I had a backup in the safe, but it wasn't as new as I would have liked. By a stroke of luck, I had copied almost everything important to the new laptop as a second backup and the data was only a week or two old. I'm going to start doing the backups differently and more often so when this happens again, it will be even easier to restore everything. So I cloned the 160GB hard drive from our Fake Tivo PC to a 500GB drive and now we will be able to record more tv and keep more media directly on the HTPC itself instead of sharing it over the network. In case any of you are interested in a program to synchronize folders and files between computers, I recommend a program called Syncback. It's a free version and it even does straight backups if you want. So far, it's been a great way to keep out important stuff with us, no matter which computer we're using. I also had a good excuse to buy a SATA hard drive dock, which allows me to plug in desktop and laptop SATA hard drives without an external enclosure. I'll start using this for quick and easy backups


I've been out on my motorcycle a lot; I take it out whenever I'm going to the gym or just for a nice weekend ride. I've put about 2500 miles on it in three months, so I'm definitely getting my money's worth :) I stopped on the side of the road to snap a quick picture on a recent ride out in the country.

I was working on a PC from a fire station the other day and just HAD to snap a picture of it's condition. It was disgusting, however it was not the worst I've seen. In situations like this, I skip right over the cans of compressed air and just start scooping the crap into the garbage can. *cough*



If you've seen pics of our house, you know we have a mini forest running along the edge of our yard. Pinecones are everywhere. When I mow, I toss the pinecones from the yard. I realized that after a year, they sure did pile up...and it looked kinda bad, so I raked up a majority of the pinecones and excess pine needles that came with them and set them out on the street. A few days later, someone in the neighborhood decided that they wanted the needles. That didn't bother me at all.




We went to Chin Chin for dinner recently. Notice anything funny about their sign in the window? Don't these sign companies proofread for these poor folks? I mean, it's not like English is their first language!




Dennis's birthday was last weekend, so Erin and I threw him a mini birthday party. We picked up some Moe's, watched some TV, and enjoyed some birthday cupcakes. Oh, and we got party hats, too.



We finally put up a new valance in the livingroom. Erin put the fabric together and I hung the curtain rods. Not shabby! It definitely boosts the sophistication of the room a notch.



We also got a lamp, so that we don't have to turn on the ceiling fan lights or dining room lights whenever we want some light. Should save us some money and also make the room feel more cozy.


Erin and I went to a Greenville Drive game this weekend. It was sponsored by ATS, so some people from the SE Regional office were there. The weather was great....our team won by 10 points...we sat right behind the dugout....but the best part? I had $30 in leftover concession money cards that I got to use. Usually, I don't spend a lot of money on snacks, but since it was free, I just went up and got whatever I wanted, when I wanted it. It was sweeeeet.



My chorus's annual show is coming up on June 27th in Spartanburg. If there is anyone reading this that's in the area, I encourage you to call and get a ticket or two. It should be a great show!

 Well, that's it for now! On Wednesday, the iPhone OS 3.0 is release and I am so excited! The most important thing that is included is the capability to use my wireless headphones again. I am so sick of headphone wires and will not miss them. I hope you have a great week!

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