Updates And Thoughts For October

I did think about posting, especially Friday, but I guess I really didn't know what to write.  I still don't really know, but let me start typing and we'll find out together, shall we?

A week and a half ago I hired a guy to wash our house for a reasonable price.  He's the same handyman guy that my neighbor hires to clean up her yard in the fall and that I hired last year to do the same, since I was still just barely on crutches at the time.  Interesting guy.  I negotiated the price with him for less than what he originally wanted, but so far I have tipped him a bit and bought him lunch once, the check won't be made out until the job is completed, though.  The first day, a week ago Saturday, he got almost the whole house done but for a bit in the front.  A couple days later he came back after work and got the front of the garage.  So there is 3/4 of the garage and a bit in the front of the house yet to be done.  I'm hoping it will be done by the weekend, and he expressed the same last I talked to him.  I've told him that I'm in no rush, but I know he has other things coming up.  It was surprising to my wife and I just how dirty the house had become, who knew you had to wash your house?  We didn't.  You can bet we will spend a little more time on it in the future so it doesn't get this bad again.

Our friends Z&B had their housewarming party on Saturday afternoon and evening.  We went late in the day, it was planned ahead with other friends and my wife made a cake for another"s birthday.  There were still many people, and it was nice to see and meet their parents, as well!  There was plenty of food, drink, and much to my dismay a whole room of desserts.  Guess where I hung out!  I did eat terribly all of this past weekend.  I have to change my mindset if I want to stop maintaining and start losing pounds again.

I managed to update my garden blog, listed on the right (I'm too lazy to link right now).  I only try to do that at least twice a month and I managed to miss the beginning of this month, sorry.  The weather is fall-like again.  After that first wave of leaves I mowed to mulch a week ago today and now the yard looks like the pic on the right in the last post again.  There are still many trees that are holding on to their green for now, including our own.  Eventually gravity will win.  I have to stop worrying about it until it gets here, though.  Maybe it's because I had to sit last fall out, or maybe it's because I am not as mobile and agile as I was 2 years ago, but I tend to worry about things on my list to get done before winter.  Most things it just isn't time for yet, others any time or plenty of time, but it's all on my mind.  Maybe that's another reason I haven't been sleeping well the last few weeks..... G'Nite.

What Difference Does A Week Make?

In some ways, not a lot.  In other ways, quite a bit - weatherwise here, anyway.

One week ago, a few leaves.

Now more leaf litter, and not ours.

I could point the camera up, but you've all seen trees turn in fall.  All these leaves so far have blown in from the surrounding area, which was mostly green one week ago.  Now the neighborhood trees look more yellow, yet our own Silver Maple tree is still hanging on to its green - for now.  I do have a new toy, an electric blower/vac-mulcher, to use this fall.  When I tested it out though, it was pretty loud.  It's not something I want to have to use often and I think I should still buy some hearing protection for when I do have to use it.  For the most part I will still use the old fashioned rake, I just liked the vac-mulcher part for using the leaf mulch in the flowerbeds and garden.  Probably with the leaves from the front and side of the house.  We get a lot of the leaves in the back from the Black Walnut trees next door and I'm not so sure I want to use those leaves as any kind of mulch.

On a different note, I have been thinking a lot lately of why I haven't been posting much recently as much as the few times a week I usually have in the past.  Well, far as I can figure, my rehab really was uneventful and since I've been back to work, well, my last post says how I have been feeling about that, and I think that has a lot to do with it.  I just haven't been quite as happy lately.  I could argue about how right now is a great time to be a sports fan in Wisconsin.  The Packers are 4-0 and looked upon as almost unstoppable, the Badgers are 5-0 and looked upon much the same, and the Brewers just won their opening playoff series about an hour ago and will start play in the National League Championship Series on Sunday (Opponent TBD).  While I can - and do - enjoy the hell out of all that, I still have to get comfortable with my position in life again (read: get used to drone mode again) after sitting out half of it over the last year.  I gotta remember to get a lottery ticket now and again.  I can't win if I don't play, right?

A Month Back And Looking Forward

Well, where the hell have I been lately?  I had to post something today or else I would have had even fewer posts this month than last!  Sorry for the lack of blogging lately.  Really there has not been a whole lot going on around here other than the weather growing cooler.  Next week is supposed to get back up into the 70's (F), maybe for the last time this year, we'll see.

It has been a month since I have been back to work.  When I returned I made a conscious effort to keep my head down and keep to myself.  Now, I have pulled even farther into my cocoon.  I show up, put my headphones on and work, I don't talk to anyone unless I have to, then fly out of there as soon as I can at quitting time.  I've come to realize that most of the people in my department are either just content to be there or else they couldn't cut it in another department and got busted down to my level.  The loudest ones aren't happy unless they are unhappy.  I spent my first three years there trying to make things better, but they don't want better.  They want to bitch and moan, use the better part of a half hour for a 15 minute break, and socialize instead of work.  It makes them happy.  I want to move up.  I had a promotion a year ago that I had to pass up because I broke my leg.  Now I keep checking the job board but nothing has opened up yet.  Sigh.  All in due time, I guess.  Until then, I can manage to avoid confronting all the illogical procedures (or lack thereof) and ignoring the poisonous co-workers but it does make me sad.  I can recall a time and place when I counted my co-workers among my best friends.  Those days are long gone.

My comments here are general in nature, not everybody sucks.  And I'm not the best me I can be all the time, either.

Pic Dump 34 XL

Even though the last Pic Dump was only 10 posts ago, it has been over a month since the last one.  And now - for some reason - I have tons of pics to dump, so let's get started!  Same as usual - click the pic for original size, some may be NSFW and more after the break.  Enjoy!

Many thanks to the fine sites on 'My Favorite Sites' list on the right!

Separation Anxiety

It has been a quiet couple of days.  Monday morning my wife left to go to Michigan for a conference for work.  I will be leaving in a little bit to go pick her up at the airport.  For some reason I thought I would have extra time with her gone, but it hasn't been that way.  I come home from work and get on the computer to check all my favorite sites and watch The Mike O'meara Show, then by the time I have dinner it is almost time for bed.  Same thing different day.  Weekdays are always difficult that way for me, just trying to get everything in that I want to before bedtime so I can get up the next day to do it all over again.  The biggest difference the last few weeks is that I have been spending a lot of time reading articles about football and, more specifically, the Green Bay Packers.  I'm going to have to limit myself if I'm to keep my sanity.

Speaking of sanity, it will be nice to have my wife home again.  Even though it was a conference for work, I think in some ways my wife may have enjoyed being away for a bit.  More specifically, away from me.  She has spent the last year looking after me while I recovered from one surgery or another so any trip away is probably good.  But again, it will be nice to have her home again.

Google+ Is Now Open To All

I made it about 3 minutes into this video before I just gave up. Who has this kind of time and can afford to put so much attention and effort into it? Not this guy, not at all. I may be old fashioned and even a bit antisocial, but if falling slave to hand-held devices and social networks is the alternative then for now I can live with being a modern day hermit.


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RIP Puddy Revisited

I know I've been absent from here for some time.  Truth is, my recovery time in August was pretty uneventful and since Puddy left us we have felt pretty, well, unsettled here.  All that aside, tonight I was looking through our old photo folders for something and came upon probably the best pictures of Puddy ever taken.  All were taken by my wife just before Christmas last year. So, at the risk of bringing up that sadness some more, here is one more look at my wife's beloved Puddy...

Football Is Here!!!

Finally.  After a lockout summer and finally a new collective bargaining agreement, preseason is over and the action starts tonight with the Saints visiting the Packers at Lambeau Field in the opening matchup of the NFL season.  I've been looking forward to this night as I do every year. I'm not too fond of scheduling games when I have to be up for work 6 or 7 hours later but, hell, I always stay up and suffer the next day.  It's worth it.  Also, I know I haven't been posting much the last month or so, that may change soon as there are things I have been thinking of and pic dumps to post!  Now, got to go, I have much to do before the game starts!  Go Pack Go!

RIP Puddy

We had to have our cat, Puddy, put to sleep yesterday afternoon.  We guess she was about 17 years old or so.  She had been going downhill for the past few weeks and, well, it became time.  My wife got her a few years before we got together, Kate was the only one she ever even half trusted.  She may not have been the best cat, but she was ours and she will be missed.  Bye, Puddy.

First Kiss Poster*

The first Kiss poster ever made, from 1975.

I've been a Kiss fan almost as long as I can remember.  It was way back in the late 70's when I somehow acquired a secondhand Kiss poster that I have hung on to and taken with me everywhere all these years.  In the early 90's  I had the fortune of attending a Kiss Convention in Chicago.  It was there I saw the same poster, advertised as the very first Kiss poster, on sale for $50.00.  It was in better shape than mine, but it gave me my first idea of what I actually had.  When we moved into this house, it is the only poster my wife would let me put up, in the back room, and behind the door.  Well, this poster still meant a lot to me so recently I had it put into a frame.  It didn't come cheap, it cost almost a hundred bucks to have it done, but I am very happy with the results.  The matting covers the yellowed, taped and pin holed border and the frame and non-glare glass flatten it nicely for display.  The lower left corner dates it:  1975 Boutwell Enterprises/Rock Steady Management, All Rights Reserved.  The lower right corner says:  Exclusively Distributed by One Stop Posters, Los Angeles Ca, 90006.  And going up along the side from the lower right corner it states:  Lithographed in USA Eureka Lithograph Co.

I include the details just in case someone else searching on the web may come across this and be able to tell me about what it may be worth these days.  I have searched numerous times online and can find no mention of ANY Kiss poster before 1976.  No pictures, no copies, no nothing.  It doesn't really matter, I certainly don't want to sell it.  I am curious, however, and even more now that I cannot find anything on it.  It is located to my left as I sit at our computer and I must shut the door to see it (see pic below), but it still makes me very happy knowing it is there and now looking better than ever.

*Update:  Since posting this earlier it has been on my mind again so I spent the last half hour trying different search terms in google yet again - and I finally found it online!!  The site is not english, but it does price it at $150.00, about what I expected.  The link I found is here.