To say that this part of the country has some weather variations is like saying ... I don’t know, it’s just a big understatement.

Hopefully the warm will break through soon, and I’ll be able to go outside.  The property needs a lot of cleaning up, and most of it can’t wait until summer when all of the foliage has hid the junk from view again.

DW took some pictures, but I forgot to get them from her so, I’ll get them posted as soon as I can.

I dearly love her, but shoe shopping?  bleh.

Anyway, here’s the ones for the upcoming nuptials. Now, if she could only decide between them!

and from the side

That might be because the top ingredient is sucrose.  MMM sugar.  sugar, calcium carbonate and corn starch.  Yeah, I’ll be flying high all afternoon, as soon as this heartburn stops.

We’ve been living in NY for just over a year now, and it’s been an adventure.  From new places to the same chain stores, everything is the same, and it’s all different.

Life continues to roll on, regardless of whatever I’m trying to do, or trying not to do.  The inevitable progression of time, me bobbing along in the stream.

Helped another implant move into the area on Saturday.  Their lack of material items makes me realize how much I have, and how much others have given to me, and even how much I’ve given away.  I think it’s time for that island nation.  I’ll start stockpiling for the voyage.

The movie itself is actually dumb funny, going for the poop and fart jokes.  You have to wonder about the mind that makes a movie that targets mankinds stupidity, and keeps the content level at the point where its entertaining to those being made fun of.

I recommend it. 

Such is life.

The end.

I don’t know.

I have a personality flaw.  I don’t like doing what other people tell me to do.  This problem presents itself in the most focused way when I’m at work.  Unless you’re self employed, or a politician, at work, you do what you’re told.  That’s the nature of the beast.  You’re doing work for someone else, and they get to tell you how and when to do it, because they pay you.

I’ve searched a long time for a job where my natural tendancies allow me to do whatever it is I’m going to be asked, before I get asked.  My flaw doesn’t truly present itself unless someone tells me to do something that I haven’t already thought of, or wasn’t even aware of.  I have no problem with someone giving me help, asked for or not, or even critiques of my work.  Only when someone says “You are going to do ...” do my hackles raise, and my stubborness sets in.

After being at this new job for a year, I know that most of the time, nobody is going to tell me what to do.  They’re going to ask for my opinions, and usually ask for me to do what I’ve already thought up.  This is a good thing.

Now if only I could conquer my low self esteem policy.

Thanks psionic!

It’s a vital part of life.  It’s a key ingredient to a modern lifestyle.  Without water, we’d die.  But worse than that, we’d die smelly and without indoor plumbing.

We had a housewarming party a while back.  Many friends arrived, food was consumed, and drinks quenched much thirst.  The aged plumbing in the new house took the abuse.  Everything went well.

Until the next morning.

We were out of water, incapable of toilet flushes, showers, or even a glass to drink.  We knew this was a possiblity, after all, our spring only was producing 15 gallons an hour, and the cistern is only 200 gallons big.

With regret, we cancelled everyone’s showers, asked them not to use the bathroom at all.  They oblidged, and we were resigned to letting the cistern refill at its slow rate.

later that evening (8 hours later) a load of laundry was attempted after the pump had been reprimed.  That load never finished.  Curious, I went to the spring to see what our current flow rate was, gallon jub and watch in hand.  Somehow, between inspection and move in, our spring had gone from 15 gallons an hour to about 6.

We resigned ourselves to showering at the apartment we were still paying for, and calling in a professional.  Before making that call, I spent the week discerning where the actual water source is.  I was fairly disgusted with what I found.  Over the years, the previous owners had “insulated” the hillside where the spring is.  Insulated with tar paper, piles of shingles, rotting wood, rusting tin.  The smell was bad, the ground was heavily saturated with water.  I uncovered the springbox, which was right over what turned out to be the actual spring.  There was a pool of water, with some rotted wooden walls and a metal pipe.  The metal pipe was completely plugged and rusted.

A few days of cleanup later, I had a clear water source running down the hill.  Wanting desperately to take a shower in my own house again, I rigged up a garden hose, using the clay soil, to gravity feed down to the cistern.  Amazingly, the hose was producing 15 gallons an hour (back to the original amount) AND we had water flowing over the top of my makeshift collector.  Heartened by the gain of water in the house again (after a day of filling and agonizing work of getting it reprimed from the bone dry state the pipes were in), I began to look online for water collection devices.

Hours and pages later, I decided I could build something worthwhile.  A trip to Home depot, and a few hours of gluing and we had the water collection unit built.  The next morning, we installed it, and trenched out a home for the new PVC pipe.  We’re now getting 25 or so gallons of water an hour, so life, and cleanliness can once again occur!

Camera Phone pictures link

Hello New old house!  I know you not at all First Look

Official move details:
Loading truck Tuesday the 30th at 8am
Unloading truck Friday morning

We’ll be driving inbetween those days, since our lease doesn’t start until that Friday.  We may be making one last trip to the hometown to say fare thee well.

Until next time…

Winter weather delayed our flight back to O’Hare a few hours, so we didn’t arrive there until 10:40pm.  The last bus leaves O’Hare at 11pm.  This made for a mad rush from the C terminal to the bus terminal, but we made it with 30 seconds to spare (almost enough time to actually sit down).  We got back in this morning at around 2am to the wonderful winter storm.

On the upside, we put our deposit down on a duplex.  That is, our deposit will be down when they get the mail (which won’t be tomorrow, no mail today).  It’s smallish, compared to a house, but I think all of our belongings will fit.  We saw some nice places, but I think this one will fit our budget the best.

Two weeks left here, and I don’t feel like doing a single bit of work.  They haven’t made any in-roads on finding my replacement, or finding a replacement for my co-worker so he can be promoted.  I feel bad for him on that aspect, but I’ve come to realize that’s the way things work here.  There probably won’t be someone to fill my position until after I’m gone.

As for moving, this cold snap has somewhat alleviated my fear of our freezer being filled with thawing meat on the trip, in the back of the moving truck.  If it stays this cold for the next couple weeks, there will be no problem with it at all.  I think we should come up with a good method of moving it, regardless of the weather though.  It’s a huge weight, that I’m not really willing to have to pay for.

That’s the theme for this whole thing… “A huge weight, that I’m not really willing to pay for.”

I have basically Saturday to find a place to live.  I have a few good prospects and a couple bad ones.  Hopefully one of them will be perfect, and I won’t mind spending a year paying rent again.

Rent.

Bleh.  I built so I wouldn’t have to give my money to some landlord with nothing to show for it.  I’m not really keen on going back to that way of life again.  3 years of living in my house, being able to make any changes that I want is going to be rough to overcome, but I guess it’s for the greater good.

Anyone want to buy a house today?

It’s messy, heavy and precision work.  My shaky hands, arms and legs don’t like that combination.  At least we’ve got it all up.  A little bit of gap fixing with drywall compound and it’ll look great.  The last of our visible insulation is covered!

I’m currently having a dilemma about the actual move.  We’ve gotten a couple quotes from movers that hover right around the $3000-3500 range.  My younger brother has a desire to own his own transit company.  He wants to rent a trailer for a weekend, buy a $600 22’ cube truck box, mount the box, and move me.  With me providing all of the cash, and paying him for his time, to the tune of $3000 total.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d really like to help my brother out.  But, I don’t want this kind of decision right now.  He’s asking me to front him money, so he can get the trailer setup and ready to haul, and then moving me in 4 days, only I have to provide all the labor.  I’m about ready to give him the $600, tell him “OK, there’s my part of your hauling company, good luck, call me when you need a cosigner”, and just hire the professional movers.  Would that make me a bad brother?

Anyway, enough about moving.