Bowling update

Real short bowling update: My bowling team won 5 out of 7 points last night, which means we won 2 games, and total pins for the night. This is quite a feat as we are in eigth place in our division and we were bowling against the 7th placed team! :-) Later Lou

Chat with me...

If you haven't noticed I added a new feature on my blog.. Over to the right in my "sidebar" you will see a little grey box titled "Chat with me". Until recently, I haven't used an instant messenger for quite some time, and I finally decided I wanted to get back into it again. I have used AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo!IM, ICQ, and MSN Messenger, and I have accounts and contacts on each of them, and in the past I used to keep all of them running at the same time... Then I found a software package called "Trillian" which is a single IM client that allows you to connect to all of the other services. It worked great at home, but I couldn't use it at work, because I am not allowed to install software at work. Since I spend a considerable amount of time at work, and most of my computer time at work, and very little time at home on the computer, I really didn't get to use the software much. When my computer needed to be reinstalled because I crashed the harddrive, I decided to not reinstall the chat software. A few weeks ago I heard about this software called "meeBo". I heard it was a IM client like Trillian, so out of curiosity led me to the site http://www.meebo.com/ to check it out. What I found was something better than Trillian. I found that it was indeed a single IM client that uses multiple services, but even better is that it is web based, and doesn't require software to be installed on my computer... WOW! That meant I could use the software ANYWHERE on any computer including at work (as long as they don't block the site). So I signed up for free, set everything up, and was very surpised to see works great! And to add the icing to the cake, it's not blocked at work! So now I am able to chat with all of my friends (I think I still have a few) on the various chat networks with my Internet Explorer window at work! I am very happy with meeBo, and I started poking around in the setup and I found something rather neat and unexpected. When I was going through the setup for the site there was this thing called "meebo me", and at first I didn't understand what that was. I spent a little time investigating, reading, and experimenting, and I found that "meebo me" allows me to embed a chat client on my website (blog) so people could chat with me right from my site! So being the techie geek, nerd that I am, I quickly added the client to my sidebar, and now you can see that when I am online, and can chat with me real time without needing to install a chat client or even sign up for any service! Cool huh? Later Lou

My new lawn mower

I went to the marital home tonight to do a little more yard work. I hadn't been there for two weeks ago Wednesday with "Sweetie", "Two" and "Other Two" when we did the first major clean up of the yard. It wasn't really bad, but after the last few days of rain, it started growing up again.

I got the lawn mower out, and pulled the starting cord, and it started in one pull... You just got to love new mowers! I had only used the lawn mower once before since I bought it a few weeks ago from Home Depot. I started mowing along the front of the property, where there is a small strip of grass between the street and sidewalk, and then I moved to the side of the house near the alley. I knew that "Ex" had thrown into that area broken cement blocks in an attempt to turn that section into a parking spot, and I thought I knew where all of the blocks were because I had cut the grass there before.

I used the lawn mower, which did a great job, around the edges of the area where the block is, and when I was done it looked a lot better than it had before when I used the weed whacker. I got a little ambitious since things were going well, and I decided to walk the area and pull out any blocks that were sticking up and mow that area with the mower. It was going really well right up until I hit a big stone that I didn't see during my walk through. It stalled the mower. Well I found the stone, removed it, restarted the mower and continued, only for the mower to hit another stone and stall. I decided I better take a look because I was pretty sure there was no stone there.

This is what I found:

Here's another view in case you can't make it out:

If you still can't make it out, let me "'splain it to you, Lucy..." The blade hit the rock or block, and bent down, so when the blade spins it digs a trench in the ground, which is why the second time I started I hit something that I couldn't see, because the "something" was IN the ground.

Well so much for being "ambitious", and thinking I could spot, remove, and otherwise avoid all the obstacles and cut the grass with my new mower. I now have to remove the blade, figure out where to get it fixed or get a replacement. Both of which cost money, that I don't have.

BTW: On a semi-related topic, I contacted "webuyuglyhouses.com" and they are going to meet with me and see if they are willing to buy my "ugly" house! So maybe I will get rid of this money pit, and possibly recoup some of my losses? Well, I may be training myself to be optimistic, but in this case I am not holding out much hope. Based on how things have been going with this property, I am sure I am going to be stuck with it.

Wanna buy a house? Cheap?

Later Lou

YMCA visit

Last night after work I picked up "Two" and "Four" from "Ex's" place, and we decided to go visit the YMCA. At the beginning of the year, one of my resolutions was to start working out more frequently so I could improve my health, and get in better shape. I haven't done a very good job at that resolution. I make it once or twice a month now instead of two or three times a week, like I did when I first started.

It's not because I don't want to, it's just with the fact that "Three" doesn't like to go to the Y and buying my home, getting another house dropped on you, and still working a 40+ hours a week at my job, it's not like I have had a lot of free time... OK you are right, that's an excuse. I could get up earlier in the morning and go before work, or make it a priority and do it in the evenings... BUT... (we will leave it there)

The reason I brought up the Y is because recently they remodeled and added on a few new sections to the building. There is a new gym, and a new pool, both of which I haven't used yet. As a matter of fact, I am not sure how to even get to the new gym and the new pool is only used for special programs (I think)... So for me a YMCA visit is exactly the same as it has been since I started... I walk on the elliptical machine for about 35 minutes, working up a good sweat, then I shower, and hit the pool for 15 - 20 minutes, and then I clean up and get out of there.

Before we went to the Y, I did a drive by to check out the yard at the marital home, and saw that I am going to need to run the lawn mower again. I am planning to do the yard work tonight after I drop of "Two" at his Boy Scout meeting. Speaking of the martial home, I went online to "webuyuglyhouses.com" to see if they would be willing to take that building off my hands. I got a response saying that they would have a representative give me a call. So I am going to cross my fingers and see if they want it, and then I can walk away from it. Of course, I would love to make money off of it, but to do that I need money to do a "refurb", and that I don't have, and I haven't found a lender to help me out. If you want to send me money, just let me know and I will Email you my address so you can send me a check! :-)

Later Lou

Dream

I know that one of the most boring things to listen to is someone telling you about a dream they just had... Well, since no one is reading this anyway, I won't be boring anyone when I tell you about an usual dream I had last night.

There are all kinds of dreams of course, but for me lately, I have been having very vivid dreams. Dreams that to me at the time feel like the real world. Of course when I wake, I wonder how I could have ever considered that real. Because of the vividness of the dream, it's memory lingers awhile, and I sit and contemplate the dream, and whether there is any meaning or significance of it. I have never read a dream interpretation book, or had anyone try to explain my dreams to me, and to be honest, I am not sure I would want to know what they might mean...

During this past weekend during my brief conversations with "Sweetie", she mentioned that she had a dream about her ex husband, that she hasn't seen or heard from in many years. Last night, I had a dream in which my ex was in. The dream wasn't about her, but she was in it.

The dream had a couple of different parts, and I won't bore you with the details, but I do want to share a few of the highlights. The dream started with myself and "Ex" riding bikes down a long stretch of road that I don't frequent very often, and I believe I was trying to get to work. This particular road doesn't go between my house and work in real life, but in my dream it did. It also seemed perfectly normal for me to be riding a bike with Ex along the road, like I do it every day. We stopped at a yard sale, or some kind of rummage sale, and I found a pair of slippers that had what looked like real toes at the end of the shoe (to be honest here, I believe that's from a picture I saw on the internet of shoes that looked like feet). In my dream, they didn't look like real feet, they were soft bottomed white slippers with just some plastic toes attached to the front.

Anyway, besides these slippers looking unusual with the toes, when I wore them, I didn't touch the ground. When I walked my feet never touched down instead they kept me a few inches off the ground, so the white bottoms of the slippers would never get dirty. If I concentrated, I could lift myself about 6 feet off the ground and hover there, and in my dream, I still felt it was normal!

The last part of my dream I was back on the bike again, this time without "Ex", and I was going home from work. A co-worker was also going home, but in a different type bike. His bike looked like a small child's "pedal car" made to look like a bike. He sat inside this toy like car and sped down the road faster than I could go on my bike. He pulled over at a service station and I caught up with him to compliment him on his speed and to check out his "cool" bike. I was amazed that it could go so fast when it looked like big plastic toy. The service station was near the river, and so after I was done looking at the toy I went to the back side of the service station and looked down into the river and could see a lot of fish swimming in the river. And even though the water was murky river water, I could still see the fish.

So there you have it. I dreamt about bike riding with my ex, and a coworker. I had a pair of magical floating slippers and I could see fish in the river... You thought I was going to tell you about a sexy babe or something cool like that huh? Well, maybe next time.

Later Lou

Weekend Work...

I had to go into to work this weekend, since I missed two days earlier this week (my mental health days) and I had a deadline for my project this past Friday. I mentioned earlier that I work for a software company, Retalix, but what I didn't mention is what I do there.

I am a software developer, in otherwords I write computer programs. I get to design, create, and modify the software. Unfortunately, the software I work on isn't as exciting as a game nor it is as well known as Windows, but I have been working on it for over a decade, and to me it's pretty cool. Recently, I have been starting to work on other software products that the company sells and getting some new experience, but my heart is still in the product I have worked on the last 10 years. The deadline I missed is for the product I have been working on.

Since I didn't have the kids this weekend, and "Sweetie" has decided to"move on", I had the time so I stayed at work until around 11PM on Saturday. I got most of the work done Saturday, but I had to go back today to finish it up and test it. Well I got the work done, and it will be ready first thing Monday morning. I will have to spend a little bit of time showing the rest of the team my work and testing it again to insure it works without any issues, and then I will move onto the next project.

Before I went to work this morning, I called "Sweetie" to talk. I was trying to figure out if she really wanted to "move on" without me, or was she just frustrated at the time about something else. Well we talked, and I still don't have the answer to that question. However, she did invite me to stop over after I was done working to visit for a little while. When I got there her father, her daughter "Other One", "Other one's" husband (gotta think of a nickname for him), and "Other Two" were all there. "Other One" even brought their cute dog. So we visited a little bit and then "Other One" had to leave to catch a plane, as she had to fly to Chicago for a business trip. "Sweetie" invited me to stay for dinner and have left overs, which was probably the best food I ate all week... (We won't go into my inability to cook in this post). After "Sweetie" took her father home, we sat and talked briefly before I had to head home because "Two" was coming home to get ready for school this week.

I am not sure exactly where we "are". We didn't really make up, but we didn't really say we would stay apart... We are somewhere in between. I will keep you updated when we determine which way the scales will tip. In the mean time I have to get to bed and go back to work, and try to focus on my life... I need to pay attention to my fianances, and insure that the bills are getting paid, but that's another story for another time.

Later Lou