Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday and it's Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of SUMMERTIME!!!!!!!!

Three day weekend on the agenda, Michelle's friend Shawn will be coming in tomorrow ton visit us. It's a friend of hers who lives in Nebraska that she hasn't seen in a few years, so he's coming in for a visit.

Tonight we'll be going to the WVU Coliseum to see Arron Hill Rosiak graduate from High School. University High's commencement is this evening at 6:00 and neither of us would miss it for the world.

I'm working today, but I'll be boot scooting early so

Hi ho hi ho

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to taken a little bit if time out and look through all of the pictures that I have stored on my computer. Little lost moments of time that I have stored in some kind of a digital format and safely protected on an exterior drive. I like to select one captured moment in time and write a little blog about it. Sometimes it's pretty easy finding that one special pic, and sometimes it's not so easy. It is however always a whole lot of fun.

This weeks picture I do not know the origin of, other than than it was on an old disposable camera in my Sister Terri's tub of pictures that we had developed last week. She has 13 disposable cameras with pictures from the past 15 or so years that were laying there undeveloped.

This weeks pic is one of those pics, it's a picture of a couple of my nieces that were developed from those pictures. I have no idea of a times frame but I would guess somewhere in the early 2000's but that is about as close as I can come to narrowing it down.

I just thought it was a very nice picture of them.

Hi ho hi I'm off today. =)

Happy Birthday George McClain

I would like to take this opportunity to wish my Brother from Another Mother and Brother in Law George McClain a very Happy Birthday today.

George is a hard guy to get a photograph of so I had to look through some of my Christmas Photos to find one.

George is a brother in law that I still owe a million and three favors to for all of the times through the years he has helped me with any car problems that I may have had.

My sister was lucky to find him and I was luckier that she did, because I gained a first class brother in law.

If you see George today, make sure you take a little bit of time out and wish him a Happy Birthday.

Hump Day

Well here we are once again, couple of days in the work week done and on cruise control. Now if you take a peek up over that noon time hump, just on the  other side of a photo flashback, you can see the dawn of not only a weekend but the Memorial Day Weekend.

If you like the little picture that I'm using in today's blog,  I have to confess I stole it from my mother's Facebook page. I thought it was cute and appropriate.

I know everyone knows about the story of the tornadoes in Oklahoma, there is always a nice human interest story that brings back hope in humanity every time something like this happens. It could be the WVU Baseball team who was arriving in Oklahoma while the F5 was hitting, they volunteered some relief effort to help assist all the residents who had lost everything.

My favorite human interest story was one I came across yesterday morning, it kind of leaves you a little speechless. LINK It was the story of a woman who lost all and was talking on live TV about her lost dog, and that lost dog appears from out of all the rubble during the interview.

I'm sure there are and will be others, but it's getting that time so it's...

Hi ho hi ho

Tuesday's Tidbit

* Well Monday is once again behind us and in our rear view mirrors, we are now staring straight down the barrel of a Tuesday and I still can't think of a better reason than that to a tidbits.

* 1,894 days ago a very special lady agreed to go out on a date with me. We did dinner and a movie and she is still brightening up my days.

* 1,117 days ago I got down on one knee and proposed marriage to this special lady.

* 654 days ago Michelle and I entered into a lifetime together of marital bliss. We had a non traditional ceremony in front of our closest friends and family at the Marilla Center.

* There are only 218 days left until Christmas, it's never too early to get a start shopping.

* We're 110 days away from our cruise to the Carribean.

* 58 days until we party down with Jimmy Buffet and the rest of the Pittsburgh area Parrot Heads.

* 32 days away from  seeing Kenny Chesney at Heinz Field.

* 31 more days until Summer.

* 25 more days until we go and see Peter Frampton for the first of our scheduled three concerts this season.

* My niece Amy found a baby turtle yesterday, I don;t have the heart to tell her that is a very dangerous Alligator Snapping Turtle. Chad has one much larger in his room and they need to be handled with extreme caution.

* Speaking of Amy, she won pick your park passes last Friday. My suggestion would be Idlewild Park.  They have Story Book Forest for kids, shows for the adults, attractions for all to see and they have the Soak Zone with the wave pool and the new Lazy River in 2013.

* Graduation is coming up this weekend for the local High Schools, We'll be attending University High's Graduation Friday night to watch Arron get his diploma.

* I've two blogs for today, this is number 3,228. =)

*  Hi ho hi ho

Happy Birthday Pam McClain

I would like to take this opportunity out to wish my beautiful Sister Pamela Sue McClain a very happy birthday today. If my Math serves me correct, she will be celebrating an anniversary of her 21st Birthday today, so we'll call her 21.

Pam is a hard one to get pictures of, at least ones where she is not giving me the Hall Salute with a select finger from  either one of her hands, but I've noticed she favors the right hand when saluting me.

I'm very fortunate to have a Sister like Pam, never any drama and would give you the shirt off of her back to help someone out. She is a rare bread of person.

My guess is she is working today but I could be wrong. If she's scheduled to work she will show up, I'm even convinced that she would not call off work to attend her own funeral.

If you see this special person today, make sure you take a little time out and wish them a very Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Pam.

Back to Work

Well my long event filled weekend is finally over with. It consisted of a lot of running especially Saturday and Sunday for the Steelers trivia show. I'm not allowed to tell everyone how we did, but I'll say we did tape the maximum number of shows we could have been in. We will be on in week 5 and then a couple weeks after that date.

We did have a good time on the set and it was nice to hook up with some old friends again, but that is now all behind us.

Now it's time to stick our noses back to the grindstone for another fun filled week of work. It's time to get back to doing what we do for a living and earn that living for another week. This coming weekend is a Holiday weekend, so that will make it nice.

We're having a house guest from Nebraska in this weekend as Michelle's friend Shawn is flying in to see everyone. She hasn't seen him in a few years, not since she last went to Myrtle Beach the first year we dated.

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Here I am once again up in the early AM, as I am the only one in the household who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman from last night. I don't even know what is playing on the TV as I have to get ready and get out of the house early this morning. We did our grocery shopping last night, because of what happened yesterday.

I'm not supposed to say what happened in our trivia round, it's to keep the suspense going and out there. We were not ready missed a whole lot of questions and were way off of our game. There was a lot of things we didn't know unlike last time when we knew anything and everything. I can't say how the first round went, but my name tag and the teams banner are at KDKA studios where I have to be early this morning. We'll see how today goes, but I didn't expect to be there this morning.

Michelle didn't make the trip yesterday due to how she was feeling, she is not going to be with me once again today. I'll be flying solo once again this morning.

Did you guys see that storm yesterday? I didn't, we were taping as it was going on but it was sunny in Pittsburgh. Michelle called me and told me to be safe on my way home and I had no idea what she was even talking about. She took a few pictures on Facebook, but these pictures are from the Monongalia County Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency and some of the pictures they had taken. The first one is Van Voorhis Road and the second one is West Run, both of these close to our home, just depending on which way you turn out of the driveway. I guess you could say that we were right in the middle of the storm damage. The creek in our back yard got higher, but not to our yard. Patty's backyard got hammered. I'm not sure if it got inside the basement or not.

I hope everyone has a great day today, I should be back home in Morgantown by early afternoon at the very latest. Now I get to drive to the heart of Pittsburgh again. There was some kind of a festival going on yesterday at the point, maybe today I can find out what kind of a festival that was.

Have a great day.

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit early in the AM, so far I'm the only one who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman and am up early collecting my thoughts for the day. I'm up watching some movie on HBO, I think it is Club Dread.

I got a real good nights sleep and Michelle needing some rest is still in there sleeping. I don't think she got up too many time through the night as her laptop is sitting right where I left it.

This afternoon we'll be at KDKA studios to tape the 2013 edition of Steelers trivia. We played in 2008 and never trailed once the entire series and won the whole thing. In 2007 my team mates set the single show record but didn't win the tournament.

This year was supposed to be 18 returning Champions going at it, but we were the only Champions to enter for this year and we are more or less a fill in so they can get their 18 teams that are needed. With that being said, we have not studied, reviewed old shows or built a database of questions that could be asked. In 2008, it was given that we were walking away with it, this year we really don't have any plans to make it back to the second day of taping but you never know. Randy Page is a walking ball of sports knowledge, and Chris is no slacker. It could very well two trips to KDKA studios this weekend with those guys. We are scheduled to tape at 4:00, so unlike last time when we were the first show taped, we'll be the last show taped today. Meaning this will appear in the sixth week.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

I'm off again today, going to be doing a little running around and shopping as well as a few other things.

Tomorrow we will be taping the Steelers Trivia in Pittsburgh, I hope the other guys are ready because I really haven't studied much of anything, but Randy Page was the man last time for our team. Hopefully he will be up to his normal self and ready. We won this competition the last time, but neither Chris nor I am that confident this time. We'll have to wait and see. We were "Poised to Strike" last time, but I guess we are the only returning Champions so they are changing our name and retiring the Championship name. I think we are the Fat Polamalu's this time around.

Have a great day.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out and look through the thousands of digital pictures that I have stored on my computer. Little lost moments of time captured in an image for eternity. Sometimes it is pretty easy to find that special pic, you know what you're going to use before you even start looking and sometimes it's not so easy. The one thing it always is however is a whole lot of fun for me.

This weeks picture is a picture that hangs in my home to this day. This is my Grandfather on the left, Bill Addis in behind and they made up the Green Mountain Boys. The man to the right of the picture is Steve Shoals, the Hall of Fame Member who signed Elvis Presley to the RCA label, but that is another story.

Today is May 16th. 36 years ago Ellis Hall a man known to me as pappaw passed away. He was a very influential figure in my life, as he took over the role as my Dad and raised me when my own parents were experiencing some tough times.

Nine years ago, 27 years to the day after Grandpa Hall died, I fulfilled his wish for me when I graduated from West Virginian University.

Have a great day.

Hump Day

If you look up over that noon time hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback you can see the dawn of another weekend off in the distance.

Michelle brought work home with her again last night, meaning she was occupied and I had control of the remote. What was I watching? A great movie? No, the food network.

Something I did run across yesterday was a TV shown that really looked like something I could get into. The Blacklist will be coming to NBC on Mondays this fall. It was an ad for another video that I was watching and it really captured my attention. Maybe I'll watch one or two this fall, it's kind of Silence of the Lambs meets 24.

Other than that, just another boring day in our life, no excitement today, which I guess is a good thing.

Hi ho hi ho

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Well Monday is once again in our rear view mirrors and we are staring straight down the barrel of a Tuesday, I still can't think of a better reason than that to do a tidbits.

* Day 1,887 since I first went out on a date with my wife, she hasn't killed me yet so I must be doing something right.

* 1,110 days ago I got down on one knee and proposed marriage, lucky for me she said yes rather than knock me upside the head,

* 647 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, we exchanged our wedding vows.

* There are only 225 more shopping days left until Christmas, get with it.

* 117 more days until the cruise, I'm ready for it and I think Michelle is as well. I'm ready to do some snorkeling.

* 65 more days until we see Jimmy Buffett in Pittsburgh.

* 40 days until we see Kenny Chesney, although we will no where near as close as my niece Amy was years ago when she saw it at Jamboree in the Hills.

* 39 days until SUMMERTIME!!!!

* 32 more days until we head north to see Peter Frampton.

* It was nice to look through old pictures this weekend, I'm suggesting a scanning party when we work as a team to get as many scanned as we can and organized for future generations.

* I have to start studying for Steelers Trivia, we tape our first round match this Saturday afternoon at KDKA studios. We won it the last time we did this, but not as confident this time. I have one team mate that is just a walking ball of knowledge.

* Michelle brought some work home last night and worked from home for a few hours. She's trying to get caught up on a few things.

* What is up with all of this cold weather in mid May? Come on, I want to plant my garden, hurry up and make this cold front pass. I looked at a heat map yesterday and it was in the 80's in North Dakota and in the low 30's in Minnesota. What's up with that?

* Hi ho hi ho

Happy Birthday George Hall Sr

It will be 14 years this summer since you left us, a time that was way too early because we did not get enough time to spend with you. You were only 54 years old, when you passed in 1999. Today we would have been celebrating your 68th birthday.

I'm sure that there would have been one of those infamous George Hall cookouts, all while you trying to ignore the fact that is was your birthday.

The cookouts of yesteryear, the ones that are still spoke about 25 years later that you hosted for not only the family but the extended family as well. You just liked being around your family, your kids and your grand kids whose souls you have touched even to this day. I was at Terri's yesterday looking over some old pictures as Amy was scanning them. I remembered your birthday was close to Mothers Day, but Val was the one who reminded us all that your birthday was today. Even more evidence of the people you have touched.

If I could have one with today, it would be to tell you Happy Birthday, Thank You for all you have done for us and we miss you.

Happy Birthday Dad.

Monday Morning

All good things must come to an end, and that includes the fun filled weekends that we have. So it is time to stick our noses back on the grindstone for another week of work.

I stopped over and spent the day with my Mother yesterday as Michelle went back home and spent time with hers. Mom and I drove down to Terri's who was going through a number of pictures with the kids and grandkids. Amy started to put an album up on Facebook  of the scans.

It was a lot of fun to spend some time with a lot of very special people in my life. We were all looking through a tub of pictures and reflecting upon a lot of them. It's memories like yesterday that I think I hold more dear than the actual pictures. It was a chance to relive lost moments in time with the people who were either involved or someone who could explain something about the picture.

That was yesterday, not it's time to get back to work.

Hi ho hi ho

Happy Mothers Day

Here I am up early again, as I am every morning and collecting my thoughts for the day. Michelle woke up about the same time I did, but has went back to once again lay down and go back to sleep. Sandman really got to her I suppose. I'm up watching Head Office  on HBO, a movie I used to love back in the 80's but haven;t seen since.

I would like to take this opportunity out and wish all of the Mothers in the World a very Happy Mother's Day today. Mother's Day  is a very special holiday in North Central West Virginia, since it's origins start here with Anna Jarvis in Grafton West Virginia.

Speaking of Anna Jarvis and her home or birthplace, here is a picture of my wife, a Mother of two, at the home where this entire holiday started. We took a trip to Philipi a few years ago and we stopped by the Anna Jarvis House just outside of Grafton. So we stopped and grabbed a few pictures, this one in particular of the porch and a few of the tools that were used at time when she lived there.

There is also a shrine in downtown Grafton to commemorate that this was the birthplace of this wonderful holiday.

I am fortunate to have a number of people in my life who are either my Mother or Mother figures. One of which was my grandmother who left us in 1980, but will always be remembered. There is my Mom who I will visit sometime today, there is Jean and Nana who we stopped by for a visit yesterday, there is Michelle's Mom and Grandmother who both walked her down the isle on our wedding day. Then I can't forget my wonderful wife as she is a Mother of two herself.

We're going to do our normal grocery shopping here this morning and then we may both go say hello to my Mother, then Michelle is heading up north to visit her family for the day. There will be bouquets of roses to go all around for six wonderful women in my life today.

I would also like to extend a very Happy Mother's Day to my Sisters, wonderful Mother's their own right and to my nieces who are wonderful  Mother's as well. 

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there, it's you that keep us in line.

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit once again in a quiet household, I'm the only one here who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman. I'm up early and watching Mallrats (love Kevin Smith movies) in the background as I surf the World Wide Web and collecting my thoughts to write this very blog.

Michelle went to Amy's Thirtyone party  yesterday and helped her out a bit. She ended up buying four things including this bag ton the left that we are going to use on the beach on our cruise, She's going to have our name embroidered on it and this is going to be our beach bag for days we arrive at ports.  If you didn't get time to order, I guess that show is now closed so you are SOL. Michelle said she got a good turnout and people were buying a lot of stuff, giving Amy quite a few things to choose as gifts. I'm glad it turned out pretty good for her.

I did hear from my sister Pam a couple of nights ago, she said she was in another fender bender on my voice-mail as she called after I was already in la-la land (I go to bed early). I'll try touching base with her this weekend and see how she feels.

We gave Chad his birthday Present a little early yesterday, he smashed his phone and AT&T was giving a $100 trade in on all working older smart phones. I had a 3GS that stayed in an otter box from the beginning and was in pristine condition so we traded that in on a new iPhone 5 for him. I got him another otter box for that phone so he is set and good to go again. I think he was amazed with the connection speed capabilities of the 5 since it is 4G LTE enabled where the iPhone 4 was not. He said he sent a picture to his cousin Jon and it was lightning quick. He has an iPad but he mostly uses that here or tethers a connection on his iPhone. We switched over to the family share plan earlier this year allowing all of us to create a personal hot spot. I can think of a few times in the past few years where I considered surrendering my unlimited data plan for a tethering plan, the shared plan allows us to do this and we have plenty of data to share.

I talked to my brother Gary briefly. I gave him my old computer because he quite frankly needed one since he is going out on his own for contracting and really needed something with a little bit of power and was reliable. He hasn't had much time to work on it as he has been busy.

Michelle said my sister Terri is looking real good. Terri said she was a little sore from her surgery still, but is able to get around and still be functional at work. She is a real trooper and like my sister Pam, I think they will both go to work even after they are dead. Hard workers to say the very least.

Not sure what we are getting into today if anything, I'm holding off planting until next week and it's supposed to rain all day.

Hope you have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

Well at 6:00 this evening at the Mountain View Jamboree, my niece Amy is having a thirty-one party . I'm a guy and I'll have to be honest I have little to no clue as to what they are, but I know it's a product that is starting to catch on and the reviews I hear are pretty good. If you can make it, head on out there today at 6:00 or if you can't just click the link. Make sure that you spend lots of money so Amy gets the rewards. I know Michelle is going to be going, so she'll probably buy something off of her and I know she is going to give my Sister Terri a ride up as well. Hopefully this goes well for Amy and she has some sales to help her get some rewards.

I'm off today, so I'll probably do our Sam's Club shopping and running around. We usually go out to dinner on Friday Nights, but I'll be on my own to find something. I'm anticipating a pizza in my future. =)

The weather appears to be less than cooperative this weekend, even calling for it to be below freezing on Monday Morning. I'll be waiting another week before we plant our backyard garden with this cold front coming. This should be the last one and it should be good planting weather after that.

Have a great day.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out and look through all of the pictures that I have stored on my computer. I like to find one lost moment in time and relive it briefly in my blog. Sometimes this is pretty easy, sometimes it's a little challenging to find one, however it is always a whole lot of fun.

This weeks picture is probably one of if not my absolute favorite picture of Erica Jean. It kind of captures that precious age if innocence that we all used to know some time ago. A  time where you were worry free and living for the moment.

This picture was taken at my Niece Amy's wedding reception. She and Ralph were actually married the day before, but had the wedding reception the next day at their home.

I guess every once in a while you capture a picture that has a life of its own, something that makes you stop and relate and for me I feel this one captures that. I get lucky every once in a while with my picture taking and capture that special moment, this was one of those times.

Have a great day.

Hi ho hi

Hump Day

That's two days down, now if you just look over that noon time hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback, you can see the dawn of another weekend off in the distance. It's the time that we are going up over the hump in the week filled full of work.

I just  wasn't getting used to my keyboard with my new computer, you could almost say that  I was getting a little bit frustrated with it to say the least. I bought the cheap one that came with the computer because I didn't really care for the ones that they had to offer as an alternative. So I decided to go back to an ergonomic keyboard and chose this one  from Office depot. I used to have an ergonomic keyboard when I worked at the NRAC and in college for my home computer, but have gotten away from them in the past six or seven years. I just figured it's time to get a new one since I switched computers, so I got what I wanted.

I also decided to clean up my blog a little bit, the twitter feed that I had hadn't been working in a while so I updated it with a new widget. I still can't seem to get my blog to syndicate to Facebook anymore, but my twitter feed feeds both Facebook and here. My Facebook also feeds my twitter account, so maybe it was time to connect the two again.

Michelle has been under the weather with a some stomach problems. I told her if she is not better by today to head on over to  WVU Urgent Care and see what they have to say about her condition.

Have a great day.

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Well, Monday is once again in our rear view mirrors and we are starring straight down the barrel of a Tuesday, I still can't think of a better reason than that to do a tidbits.

* 1,880 days since mine and Michelle's first date a few years ago.

* 1,103 days ago I proposed marriage to the love of my life.

* 640 days ago in front of our closest friends and family we exchanged our wedding vows.

* There are only a mere 232 more shopping days left until Christmas 2013. It's never too early to get a good start on the season.

* 124 more days left until we set sail once again on our cruise to the Carribean. I'm ready to do a little snorkeling in some crystal clear blue ocean water to see what I can find this year.

* 72 days from now we will be partying down with the rest of the Parrot Heads when Jimmy Buffet makes his way to Pittsburgh for his 2013 concert at the Post Gazette Pavilion.

* In 46 days we'll be at Heinz Field watching Kenny Chesney on his 2013 summer tour.

* It's only 45 more days until it's Summer in Morgantown!!!!

* In 39 days Michelle and I will be going to our first of three concerts this summer when we go and see Peter Frampton at stage AE in Pittsburgh.

* WVU will lose it's student population in 3 days as the students finish up their final examinations this week.

* We had a bit of a water leak when I got home from work yesterday. Nothing on the inside but an outside pipe had busted, so Michael worked on that early in the evening to repair that problem. I think he's coming back today to finish the job.

* We did have a little bit of a problem as the main shut off to the house is in Chad's closet, the glue did not sit long enough initially and started to lean all down on to his clothes. Needless to say Chad will be doing his laundry again.

* My new computer is up and running great still, I managed to get my old one fixed and reformatted before passing it along to someone who needed it. It's still a good system, and can be upgraded quite easily if they choose.

* Did I mention the students will be leaving after this week? Less traffic problems, but of course it will be the perfect time to tear up some more roads around town. I guess you can't win for losing sometimes.

* Hi ho hi ho

Back to Work

Well that fun filled weekend that we have just enjoyed is now behind us and it's time to stick our noses back on the grindstone for another week of work. I love the weekends, but it is what we do during the week of work that affords us our opportunities to do the things that we want to do.

I have to say that I am loving my new computer more and more with each passing day. This thing is very quick, and has 4x the resources that my old computer had, and I spec'd that one out a few years ago to be a pretty good computer to do GIS work on from home. This one is lightning quick and the graphics are much better. I use Window's 7 on one of my three computers at work and I have a laptop here that has it, so it was nothing new for me to get acclimated to. I'm still running XP on two of my work computers, but since the end of life for XP will be next year, we will probably be upgrading those machines to Windows 7 as well.

I've found an ap for my iPhone that I am absolutely loving, I have Office 2010 at home and really like the program one note, but my work computers do not have it installed and I wanted something that I could use universally and including my iPhone. I've installed Evernote on my work computers as well as my home computer. I have an ap on my iPhone for it and all my notes sync together using this ap. We had a powerpoint for Friday's meeting and I attached it to my notes and walla, I synced it and everything was available on my iPhone. Really impressed this this and highly recommend it for any professional or anyone with a smart phone.

To wind the weekend down yesterday, Michelle and I had a little cookout on the back patio of Hamburgers, Hot Dogs and you can;t have good times without noodle salad. =)

Hi ho hi ho

New Computer

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a new computer from Dell, I spec'd one out that I like and ordered it after I was having so much trouble with my other one. I've reformatted the old one numerous times and tried to install windows numerous times and keep getting the same hal.dll error over and over again, so rather than keep fighting with it I ordered a new system that was more up top date.

Yesterday my new computer arrived and I got everything up and running, you can see me actually writing this very blog in the picture that I have posted  with this blog. I like the new monitor, it's a HD wide screen monitor, so I decided it would have just been overbearing to put two monitors on my desk and have my lamp, so I'll stay with one monitor for now.

The little block box you see on top of my computer is my 1 Terrabyte External drive. That's where I store all of my pictures and store everything there, that way when something happens to a computer I still have everything.

I'm pretty happy with it, now I can fight with the other system without it affecting my daily life and try to get these errors fixed the  the system up and running.

Congratulations Trish and Joe Donaldson

Yesterday after work Michelle and I went to Jackie's home in Preston County to witness the marriage of a long time friend of ours and her Fiancee Joe.

It was a small and informal ceremony, but a very nice one hosted by her long time best friend Jackie Thompson. It was nice to see our extended family grow with the addition of Joe and it was nice to be there for the new Mrs. Donaldson.

It was very windy up there and a little colder than in Morgantown, I managed to capture it on video for everyone to enjoy, the only problem was my microphone was very sensitive and caught all of the wind, screwing up the audio part of it.

After the wedding a reception was held at the same location, where old friends and new friends sat around and reminisced about a number if things.

Congratulations to Joe and Trish,  may you have a long, happy, loving and fulfilling life together. Thank you for allowing Michelle and I to be a part of this special day.

Video below.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

Well tonight's plans I think are already in store. Trish will be getting married to her Fiancee Joe this evening in Preston County. They will be having the wedding at Jackie's house and Michelle and I will be heading up take a few pictures. It'll be nice to see Trish as we have not seen her much in the last year. We're both a little excited to see Layla whom we also haven't seen in some time. I've met Joe a couple of times, once at her Mom's 4th of July Picnic and once at one of Arron's football games. I know they have been doing a lot of running around, I've lost count on how many pirate games they've been to in the last year. It will be mine and Michelle's first chance to meet Willow, Jackie's little girl.

The weather is looking super nice for the weekend, might be a good time to do a little planting and running around having some fun. Whatever it is I get into, my wife and best friend will be with me right by my side. I'm very lucky to have her.

Have a great day.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out and look through all my pictures. I like to find just one lost moment in time to select and write a little blog about and reliving it briefly. Sometimes it's pretty easy to find that picture and sometimes it's not so easy. It is always however a lot of fun.

This weeks picture goes back a few years, back to a time when I went to Thanksgiving dinner at my niece Val's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. Most of the family migrated to her place and of course Gary went up early that day to give her a little assistance with the Turkey.

After dinner and the tryptophan kicked in, Gary decided to smoke an after dinner cigar. The only problem is the tryptophan got the better of him that day before he could finish his cigar. Me the loving brother that I am, snapped this picture of him while he was fighting his losing battle with the sandman.

As I recall, Moke was away at basic training and even called to speak to everyone and just hit the jackpot when he called Val's.

Have a great day.

Hump Day

If you look up over the noon time hump, just on the other side of a Photo Flashback, you can see the dawn of another weekend off in the distance. Hold strong, we're well on our way to that enjoyable time once again soon enough.

You have to love this weather that we have been having, nice and warm and doesn't appear to be any rain in the near future. It looks like we are going to be having favorable weather clear through the weekend, this means it's time to make some plans to do something.

There is always planting the backyard garden, but that won't take very much time at all. Plant the plants and go, the soil is already broken up and ready to go, now comes just sticking the starter plants in the ground and watering them. I've just got to come with an idea to keep the deer away from my peppers this year. They never touched the cucumbers, but my pride and joy was my peppers last year and they ate them. They didn't just eat the peppers, they ate the plant right down to the stem. I hope they choke on them if they try that again.

Maybe we'll just do a few geocaches, that's always a fun think to do that gets you outside and having some fun. There are a number of new ones around Morgantown this year, maybe it's time to seek a few of them out. Maybe do a multi cache or something.

Have a great day.

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Well Monday is once again behind us and in our rear view mirrors. We're looking straight down the barrel of a Tuesday and I have been scratching my head wondering if there is a better reason than that to don a tidbits.

* 1,873 days ago Michelle and I went on our first date. Pizza Hut and 10,000 BC were on our agenda for that magical evening.

* 1,096 days ago, or exactly three years ago today, about the time this posts I took her out in the back yard and proposed marriage.

* 633 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, we entered into the world of marital bliss.

* There are only 239 more shopping days left until Christmas.

* In 131 more days we set sail on the high seas once again on our cruise.

* Jimmy Buffet started his 2013 tour this past weekend, in 79 more days he'll be entertaining us.

* 53 days to go until the Kenny Chesney concert.

* 52 days left until it is officially Summertime.

* 46 days until we see Peter Frampton in the first of our three concerts we'll see this summer.

* I have about 11 days to go using Linux until my new computer arrives. My monitor has already shipped, now I just have to wait till next Monday when the CPU ships out.

* I learned some very shocking and sad news yesterday morning. Frank Slavensky, a kid who grew up in East Gate, someone who I later played against in Softball until I recruited him  to join us on Judies Lounge, a friendly guy who used to run the Morgantown Giant Eagle and always had a smile on his face had a severe cardiac arrest Sunday evening and passed away at the age of 46. I would always see Frank at Giant Eagle when I used to shop there and we would always say hi and talk a few minutes. He has worked the past few years at Shop N Save in the Glenmark Center, where he suffered his cardiac arrest. RIP Frank, you were a good friend, a great team mate and it was my pleasure to know you.

* Michelle said she hates dentists. She has a filling refilled yesterday and that's all she would say last night, that she hates dentists.

* I got word that our friend Trish Rosiak will be getting married this Friday afternoon at 5:00. Short notice, but Michelle and I will try to be there although we have not seen too much of Trish over the last year.

* If you are looking for a little bit of cheap fun tonight, go to Hawley Field and cheer on the Mountaineers to beat Pitt. Admission and select concessions only $1.00.

* Last I heard, Abe Vigoda was still alive.

* Hi ho hi ho

Monday

It's once again that day of the week that we all dread, the time to stick our noses back on the grindstone and start another week of work. We do this so our weekends are much more enjoyable and it gives us many more options for enjoyment on those days off. It's time to go back to work.

For all of you baseball fans out there, the Mountaineers play their last home game of the season  tomorrow against Pitt at Hawley Field. Since it is the last home game in Morgantown and it's on a Tuesday tickets are just $1.00 to get in. The WVU Baseball team just came off a weekend sweep of Kansas this weekend and need to keep the momentum going to beat that team from up north. Randy Mazey is a very good coach and this has turned into a very good team. Go out and support the team, it's inexpensive and a whole lot of fun to cheer on the Mountaineers.

I got a notification that my monitor shipped already, considering my computer is a week away from even shipping I guess that is a good thing. I'm still running Ubuntu  and getting more and more used to it every day. I have to say since the first time I used Linux some ten years ago while I was in college, it has improved by leaps and bounds and Ubuntu is very user friendly. It's always a nice option that has a very small learning curve, I recommend it to anyone who wants to try something new. It does have it's limitations however and that is why I purchased a new computer.

Hope everyone has a great day.

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit once again, early in the AM and being the first person here to recover from a losing battle with the sandman last night. I'm up watching the end of the movie the Change up and just sat down at the computer to collect my thoughts.

We stayed home yesterday and it was a very productive day around here. We have a couple of guests that are going to come and stay with us in the next couple of months, so we had to get Hayley's old bedroom cleaned up and organized and make it habitable once again. For the last year or son it has been nothing but a storage room for everyone and everything, Chad had probably a dozen fish tanks in there that he has moved to storage. After a few hours of busting her butt, Michelle got it cleaned, sanitized and organized while I burned cardboard boxes and a few other tasks around the house so I wouldn't get in her way.

One thing we did Friday night was took advantage of a 20% off promotion at Belk's and ended up buying  a new toaster oven. Our old one which I had since I lived in my old apartment just wasn't doing it anymore, so we bought a new one. We really like the Cuisinart brand and have been above satisfied with all of their products that we have purchased so we looked to Cuisinart for a taster oven.

The NFL Draft has now culminated and three West Virginia Mountaineers have heard their name called. Tavon Austin in the First Round and Stedman Bailey in the Third Round to the St. Louis Rams and Geno Smith slipped down to the Second Round to the New York Jets.

Should be a relaxing day today, all we have to do is our Sunday Morning shopping and I anticipate and afternoon nap today since it is calling for rain.

Have a great day.

New Computer

I like Linux, it is working in a pinch and allows me to do almost anything I want on a computer. Surf the net, set up and access a network from home, and just generally about anything I need to do. I've been using Linux for a number of years sporadically, and I have to say that it has gotten much better over the years. The latest version of Ubuntu really is almost like a modern version of Windows 8 minus the Metro.

That being said, I've also did a little bit of research the past few days looking for what I wanted in a new computer. I use Windows XP and Windows 7 at work (I run three computers on dual monitors with one heck of a KVM switch), I have a 7 Laptop here that I use when I'm not at my desktop and I have my PC that I bought in I think 2006 or so.

It was getting a little outdated and Microsoft is going to stop supporting XP on April 8, 2014, meaning no new patches or anything and you will not be able to get support for it. In my opinion it has been their longest running (since 2002) and most stable operating system, but its life cycle is coming to an end in less than a year.

So I had some choices to make, upgrade or get used to Linux as my day to day operating system or buy a new upgraded system with a newer operating system. I chose to buy a new system and went and ordered it yesterday from Dell.

I had to do a little research on whether I preferred Windows 7 or Windows 8. I'm familiar with Windows 7 and I have played around with Windows 8, but something tells me that Windows 8 will go the way of Vista and is not receiving a warm reception. I stopped by two computer stores in Morgantown to talk to a few salesmen and got pretty much the same response. One said they were selling 5 - 6 computers a day before Windows 8 came out, now they are lucky to sell 5 a week and he said some of those are even coming back. It's an OK operating system, but there is a bit of a learning curve, that's why people are hesitant with it. I think it will catch on eventually, but it's not for me right now and I chose a Windows 7 Operating System.

My new system should be here May 10 and I'm going to set it up to run dual monitors for here. It's what I run at work, and it's just a huge advantage to having two monitors running. It's a much better processor and 8 Gigs of Ram it's only a Terrabyte Hard drive, but I run everything off an external drive.

My old PC has already been promised to someone else who is really in need of it for business purposes, I discussed with them that there are probably bad sectors in the Hard Drive (hence why I can't load Windows) and a new Hard Drive for less than $100.00. It's still a solid system, but it was just time for me to upgrade my system.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

Well the first round of the NFL draft is now in the books, now it's time to look towards round two and I think round three which takes place this evening.

Well I never did fix my computer problem the way I wanted to do. I tried for a third time with three different restore discs to get my Windows XP up and running again. I had two options, but a new PC or try installing another operating system on my PC. So I ended up installing a linux operating system on my computer and strangely enough that worked, so I installed it on the hard drive and installed all the updates. This could almost actually be a bi-operating system blog..lol

Have a great Day.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out and look through of my pictures, this week I have to refer to my online pictures as I am reformatting my desktop computer and select one special picture to write about. A lost moment in time to relive in my blog and reflect upon. Some times it;s pretty easy, and sometimes it challenging since my PC is down, but it is always a lot of fun.

This weeks picture goes to the end of an era, unless I am mistaken, this is from my last at bat in my last game of my long softball career. A softball career that extended for 27 years, playing on some great teams, with some great team mates and also playing on teams that would do nothing but fight and argue with ourselves.

It was the one thing I always looked forward to every summer, meeting with my boys of summer and stepping foot on the playing field and battling an opponent to say we are better.

I met a lot of great people who turned out to be lifelong friends on the softball field. The worst injury I ever saw was in the next to last game I ever played and it was a team mate.

My career is over with today, my shoulders could not take throwing or hitting a ball, much less with the velocity I used to deliver it, I did have a very nice arm that was pretty accurate earlier in my career. It bothers me a little to no longer be playing, but I knew the last few years I played that my skills were diminishing and I wasn't who I used to be.

Hi ho hi ho

Hump Day

Well that's two days that we have in so far this week, now if you look just over the noontime hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback  you can see the dawn of another weekend just off in the distance.

Tomorrow night is the First Round of the NFL Draft. Two West Virginia University players are expected to go in the First Round Thursday, meaning I will either watch it or DVR it to watch it later. This will be the first time that two players were taken in the first round and this will be three players over a course of two seasons. I know the Mountaineer Nation will be watching closely. My Brother in Law Nick is a Big Carolina Panthers fan, the Panthers are talking about selecting Tavon Austin with their first round pick if he is still available at that time in the draft.

Michelle went to the Dentist yesterday, she went to a place of co-worker of mine recommended in Howell & Everett DDS PLLC on Burroughs Street. She said she was very happy with them and wants to make them her regular dentist. She has another appointment scheduled for this summer to have some other work done. Turns out she just had a popcorn kernel stuck under her gum and it was irritating it. That and they cleaned her teeth for her, she was pretty happy and they accept my insurance.

You have to hand it to my wife, when we purchased our cruise this February we got the early savers plan with the price protection. That means if the price drops, they give you the difference in on board credit (it's how you spend money on the boat) to use on the boat for whatever you want. Between drinks (alcoholic and soda), jewelry, gifts, pictures, snorkeling equipment and everything else, we spent about $350.00 out of pocket just for what we were doing on the boat. With the early savers, all you have to do is check back, if the price drops from what you paid you will be credited that amount on your onboard card. Thanks to my wonderful wife and her staying on top of it (we didn't know about this last year) we now have $488.00 to spend on our sign and sail card due to price reductions. She keeps chipping away at that total, gotta love her.

Hi ho hi ho

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Well that dreary Monday is once again behind us, it's in our trail of dust and we're looking straight forward at a Tuesday, the sun is still coming up today so I still can;t think of a better reason than that to do a tidbits.

* 1,866 days ago I was fortunate to go out on a date that changed my life forever. It was dinner and a movie and my life changed for the better from that day on.

* 1089 days ago I got down on one knee (it was our 777th day since our first date) and proposed marriage to a very special lady.

* We all partied down at our wedding 626 days ago at the Marilla Center in front of our closest friends and family.

* There are only 246 more shopping days left until Christmas.

* In 138 days we set sail once again out of Baltimore and head way down south the to Caribbean. One of my most favorite places I have ever been to in my life.

* In 86 days we'll be partying down with Jimmy. The parrot heads will reunite for our yearly Pittsburgh excursion.

* In 60 days we'll be spending a little bit of Summertime with Kenny Chesney and about 50,000 other Pittsburgh area fans.

* In 59 more days it will be SUMMERTIME!!!!!!

* I'm 53 days away from seeing live for the first time the artist I have probably listened to more in my lifetime than any other when Michelle and I go and see Peter Frampton.

* Josh Judy has pitched in a couple of games so far in York, it looks like he's back to his old form of blowing batters away. He's got 3 strikeouts in 2 innings of work so far this season. The team is so so it looks like, but those runs aren't coming from Josh.

* Michelle has a toothache and has a Dentists appointment this morning. It was so bad last night I'm eating her dinner for lunch today and she was sucking down some soup. Fish and Pierogis will not go to waste while I'm around. =)

* Did you hear about the news anchor who is a WVU grad whose first words on air got him into a heap of trouble? LINK Way to represent....moron.

* Terri finally made it back to her first day of work since her surgery last month. She said she would have liked to have had another week off, but she made it through the first day.

*  Speaking of work

* Hi ho hi ho

The "I Hate Monday's" Blog

It's time to stop all the fun and time to put our noses back on the grindstone. Cease all the fun and relaxation and let;s get back to doing what it is that allows us to have that peace and relaxation time. It's the one day of the week that no one likes and everybody hates, it's Monday and time to get back to work.

As we enter into another fun filled week of work ( I actually do have a great job that I like) I'm looking at the weather and noticing it's not quite as warm as it was the past couple of weeks. I'm wondering if this is going to be a reversal of the recent trend of nice weather during the week and the worst weather on the weekends.

The NFL Draft is coming up this week will be starting this Thursday and running through the weekend. West Virginia has two players, Geno Smith and Tavon Austin  whom many people have both going in the first round of the draft on Thursday. This would be the first time WVU has ever had two players selected in the first year. Stedman Bailey a First Team All-American is a player I would like to see end up with the Pittsburgh Steelers as I believe he is a very under-rated player and could help the Steelers significantly.

Weather permitting I'll be on the trail this morning. I have not lifted a while now, I'm afraid I'm probably going to have to have both of my shoulders operated on. I have a diagnosed torn labrum on my right shoulder but my left shoulder is now much worse than that. I've just been doing cardio and now the weather has been nice I've been getting out on the trails at work. Those trails are much more difficult, the hills are very steep and long.

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit once again in a quiet household, being the first one who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman from last night. I'm once again up early watching Here Comes the Book on Amazon and collecting my thoughts for the day.

Funny thing, Michelle and I have already done our weekly grocery shopping today, we were both wide awake at 2:00 AM and decided to go and get it done, that way she could sleep in this morning and we are in no way rushed today to do anything. So needless to say, it's going to be a relaxing day at home where we don't get into too much of anything.

Short one today, Have a good one.

Saturday Morning Ramblings

Here I sit once again early in the AM, so far I am the only one who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman from last night and am up watching Saturday Night Live on Netflix. I will have to be waking Michelle up here soon, she has to go in to her work today to help catch up on a few things. I'll grind her coffee beans here in a few minutes so she can have some fresh coffee before she heads out.

The good news from last night is that they captured the second bomber from the Boston Marathon. It was all over CNN and Fox last night as we sat and watched it unfold for a couple of hours.

The WVU Spring Football Scrimmage is this afternoon at Mylan Puskar Stadium at Mountaineer Field this afternoon. I was planning on going but with Michelle working and me having a call that I have to take at 1:00, plus less than favorable weather this weekend, I will most likely sit and watch it from home this year. It will be broadcast locally, but since the entire ticket prices is no longer donated to Children's Hospital and Oliver Luck continually whores out this program, I'll probably not go to the Dodge Blue Lot, walk up the (insert commercial business here) walkway, go through the gates sponsored by (who ever Oliver can whore it out to) and go to the Wal-Mart Football Practice and sit in my Preparation H seat. As you can tell,  I do not like what is happening at my Alma Mater. John Raese puts it best in Oliver Luck's Dossier and as you can tell, I'm really wanting this man out of here. I think he is corrupt, has an agenda and is detrimental to West Virginia University as a whole.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

I'm actually off today, which means I'll be doing our Sam's Club shopping so Michelle can relax this evening after dinner. Weather permitting it would be nice to just be able to sit out on the back deck on the swing and just relax a little bit, wind down from a week of working.

One thing I would like to do this weekend is attend the Annual Blue Gold Scrimmage game for the WVU Football team. The scrimmage will be broadcast on television once again this year,  so of the weather is less than favorable we can sit and watch it from home. I would like to go however, so we'll just have to wait and see how the weather is tomorrow.

Just looked at the weather, why is it it has been nicer during the workweek than it is or going to be on the weekend? Don't they know that they are getting this backwards? I'm ready to start doing some BBQing on the weekends (already started in reality) and enjoying the nice warm springtime weather.

Have a great day.

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week I like to take a little bit of time out and look through all my pictures. It gives me time to reflect on moments of time gone by and give me a chance to relive them briefly through my blog. Sometimes this is a pretty easy task, you just know the picture when you see it. Sometimes it's not so easy and you look and look and look. One thing that I will always say, it is always a whole lot of fun.

This weeks picture goes clear back to Christmas Day probably around 1970 or 1971 and yours truly front and center opening up some of my presents that I received. My Uncle Ralph is in the red shirt, that's my dad in the green, my cousins Lynn and Sharon and round out with my Grandpa Hall.

That was the year me and Lynn tried ton sneak downstairs and get a glimpse of Santa, but every time we poked our head around the corner we always came back disappointed as Santa hadn't showed up yet. You can't blame us for trying though, and we made sure that we left out some milk and cookies for him in case he got hungry.

It is one of my earliest Christmas memories, it was at a time when the scaryest thing in the whole wild world was that scary wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz. Funny thing though, she reminded me of Mrs Olsen, the Folgers lady. =)

Hi ho hi ho

Hump Day

Well that's two days down, now if you take a little bit of time out to look over that noontime hump, just on the other side of a photo flashback  you can see the dawn of yet another weekend off in the distance.

I have to say that this week is just moving right along, two days in and it seemed like nothing but a snap of the fingers and here we are.

I just realized yesterday that the WVU Spring Football game is this Saturday. Weather permitting we may be there, but nothing concrete on that because if it rains it's going to be hard to convince Michelle into sitting in that rain. We'll have to see I guess.

Josh Judy and the York Revolution kick off their 2013 season tomorrow, he's no longer playing in the Red's organization, which turned out to be purgatory for a young pitcher with a fastball like his. He went from winning four Consecutive Championships A, AA, AAA and AAA again when he was in the Majors to arguably the worst AAA team in all of baseball. What started out as promising did not turn out that way. Light em up Josh, you'll return to the Majors.

Hi ho hi ho

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Well Monday is once again in our rear view mirrors, I just can't think of a better reason than that to do a tidbits.

* 1,859 days ago Michelle and I went out on our first date, Dinner at Pizza Hut and a movie were on our agenda.

* 1,082 days ago I proposed marriage.

* 619 days ago she said I Do and we became man and wife.

* There are only a mere 253 more shopping days left until Christmas, never too early to start.

* 145 days until we set sail once again to the Carribean. I'm more than ready to get on the boat for a week.

* 93 days until we join together with the rest of the Pittsburgh area Parrot Heads when Jimmy comes to the Burgh.

*  In 67 days we'll be partying down with Kenny Chesney at Heinz Field.

* In 66 more days, Summer will officially start.

* In 60 days I'll get to see an artist I have always wanted to see but never have when we go and see peter Frampton in Concert.

* At the Boston Marathon yesterday two bombs exploded at the finish line around the 4 hour mark. Two people died and scores more lost limbs in the explosions.

* The West Virginia Attorney General ruled that West Virginia University must rebid their Tier III Media rights for WVU Sports. It's been a real issue especially for local Businessman John Raese who has fought the University over the Tier III rights.

*  Looks like Michelle and I will be dog sitting once again on Saturday Night, my little buddy Little Rock of Love and Lilly will be staying with us once again.

* If you have not filed your taxes yet this year, you're now officially late as you missed yesterdays deadline.

* Anyone notice that the Mayans were still wrong and the world not only did not end, but it's still going five months later.

* Off to the trails.

* Hi ho hi ho

Another Workweek

It's time to put all of the fun known as the weekend on hold for a while and start getting back to doing what it is that we do that allows us to have the fun that we do. Buckle in, it's Monday and time to go back to work.

Michelle and I didn't get into too much of anything yesterday other than slow cooking some ribs on the grill. I think we were both hoping it was going to be a little warmer than it turned out to be. We did get a good start on the day yesterday so we were able to get a few things done around the house that needed it. yeah fun.

Now it's back to the grindstone for another week of work. I'm not thinking I have anything big coming up this week, everything is a little slow at the moment and getting ready to pick up. We have another Atlas that we will be starting if we haven't already started, those are always a whole lot of fun to do especially when you have the right crew working together.

Time to hit the trails.

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday Morning Ramblings

Swing/Hammock

Here I sit once again in the early morning, I'm the only one in the household who has recovered from a losing battle with the sandman. I'm up early watching the movie the Candidate and collecting my thoughts.

Well yesterday went mostly as planned, we got our rings inspected, our propane tanks filled and the back patio cleaned up and set up, it was just that Lowes didn't have any starter plants so that was put on hold.

We did however buy another outdoor table that folds down so we can pack up and travel with it (three concerts this summer) and we broke down and bought something that we have both wanted for a few years. We bought a swing/hammock  that something tells me we will be getting a lot of use of this year. We've been wanting to get one the past few years, but most of what we saw wasn't really durable and pretty cheaply made. We saw this one and it was pretty well made, so we bought one and brought it home yesterday. Believe it or not, it fit in the Forester unassembled. We brought it home and put it together in no time.

We have a rack of ribs that we have had in the freezer since last year, it's time to break them out today and give our grill it's first good run of 2013, although Chad has used it all winter long it seems like.

Have a great day.

Weekend

Here I sit once again in a quiet household, I'm the first one to recover from a losing battle with the sandman last night. I'm up watching Fat Albert and surfing around the interwebs to get my daily dose of insignificant tidbits from yesterday (also known as sports scores).

Morgantown was given a real treat yesterday for AT&T iPhone 5 users. We now have 4G LTE internet service available to us. Phone internet speeds are very critical in allowing you to do things such as watch movies or video conference. There is EDGE Technology which is what you get in outlying areas. I equate it to the old dial up internet service with is only a few Kbs , slow and times out. Then a few years ago Morgantown got 3G which gave me speeds up to about 3Mbs. Then there is ATT's 4G network which is about the same as the 3G network for speed. Those on the data sharing network are on this network if they have the right phone. For comparisons sake there is my Hi Speed WiFi which gets me around 16 Mbs. I tested the 4G LTE this morning and I was getting  20 Mbs, faster than my High Speed Internet at home and I have the upgraded package. Usually we had to travel to Pittsburgh or DC like last weekend to get the 4G LTE, we now have it in Morgantown.

Got a few things were going to do today, mostly things around the house other a few simple things like having our jewelry inspected at JB Robinson's and getting the propane tank filled on the grill. The rest of the day will be cleaning up outside and setting up the patio for 2013.

Hey hey hey I'm going back to my movie.

Have a great day.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes it is once again that time of the week that we all look foreword to, when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is once again the dawn of another weekend, and a Big Ole Hairy Friday.

No running around for us this weekend, it's going to be a nice weather, but stay at home and get some things done outside kind of Friday. It's a good weekend to plant peppers, so we are going to try to take full advantage of the timing and weather. Now if I can just figure out a way to keep the deer away from my peppers I'll have it made. Last year they didn't cooperate with us and ate the pepper plants about the time they were starting to produce the peppers. This will be our third season for the raised back patio garden, the first two years worked out pretty well.

I came home from work a little early yesterday, I had an important phone call I was getting and I didn't want to be disturbed while I was on the phone. We'll see how it all went in a few weeks.

I've been considering taking some continuing education classes at WVU. They offer a number of courses and I may have one or two that I would like to take. Do I have have an ulterior motive, possibility but we'll do this one step at a time.

Speaking of, hi ho, oh no I'm off today/ =)

Have a great day.