Pavlov's Cat

We got our two cats from the humane society when they were 9 months old. In our house we feed, them dry cat food. However, I do believe that at one time in their lives they were fed food out of a can. For lunch today, I had a bowl of soup. Campbell’s now has the easy open tab cans. It must sound exactly like a can of cat food opening up. I was in the kitchen all by myself. In a flash two cats come running in and being very vocal on what was for lunch. I find it amazing what they remember.

Neighbors Yard 1, Bald Man Tom 0

Now, we're not the best yard keepers in the world, but our neighbor hasn't done anything with his in at least the amount of time since we've lived here. The big issue is that there's lots of wild stuff growing along and through our fence, and there's one near the front of the fence that we have to keep trimmed back or we can't get out of our back yard.

Today, among other yard tasks, was "Hack Back the Neighbor's Jungle" day. We were going along pretty well, mostly just whacking at stuff that had grown through the chain link, with the occasional "preemptive strike" when it happened. I reached across to pull up a big chunk of stuff, and something in the chunk refused to budge. Deciding that I needed to exert my dominance over said stuff, I pulled with all of my might. My back took a holiday. It was at that point that I realized that the particular "chunk of stuff" included a sapling tree. It wasn't going anywhere.

So, here I sit, taking a dose of pain reliever every few hours. Time to break out the corn bag again, methinks...

Coming This Summer...

Tune in, yo!

Questions, Questions...

I need to learn how to ask questions.

I've come to this conclusion over the last several days, having conversations with various co-workers. I'll ask questions, such as, "what is the default value for this flag supposed to be?" and get a response like, "well, if it looks like a bug, file it." Thanks, how can I do that? I don't know what's supposed to happen, so I can't tell when something is wrong. Or, there was a situation where an intern asked me about what a particular menu item does. Now, the menu item in question appears to me to be from a custom package, but since I'm still learning my way around, I asked the local expert whether or not the package was custom or default. And got a dissertation that had nothing to do with the default-ness of the package.

These aren't isolated instances, either. I'm wondering if it has to do with the training levels of the people with whom I'm interacting. Many of the folk around here have doctorates, and those are the people that most often fail to answer the questions I ask. Devs give me a black-and-white answer to a black-and-white question, or explain to me why a question really isn't black-and-white (I love my Devs). Everyone else assumes that I'm asking a multispectral question and never gets around to actually giving me the info I need. Heaven knows I'm not a black-and-white kind of guy, but this is ridiculous!

Signs of Summer

Tom and I were out working in the garden this evening. We have blossoms on our zucchini, tomatoes and peppers. I am very excited over the zucchini. We tried to grow one two years ago and it died.. this year is looking promising.

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today, on a Thursday no less, I worked for a day out of an office 120 miles from home, just so I could go on a date with My Sweetie. We had met a few weeks earlier, and had e-mailed each other nearly daily in the days leading up to that Thursday, but we were still a little nervous. Four hours, a dinner, ice cream from Graeter's and a loooooong walk later, the nerves were gone, and I knew that I had found the right woman for me.

Thank you for four fun-filled, wonderful years, Sweetie. I love you :)

Parade of Homes 2006

Around these parts, there's an annual event put on by the local Building Industry Association called the Parade of Homes. Amelia and I have gone the last several years, partly to gawk, partly to get ideas for a house that we may never build. This year's event featured 12 houses. Some were nice, some made us wonder, "Who the hell would buy this piece of junk?" Here are a few pictures of homes that piqued our interest.

This was the first home on the route. From the outside, my first thought was, "Hot damn! It's got a turret!" Inside, the "turret" was a two story solarium. It was very, very nice, and appeals to my desire to not just live in a box. However, the rest of the house made me say, "Meh. So what? Nice turret! Any more around here?" Sadly, there were no more turrets, on that house or any other. The rest of the house just had what you'd expect from any other over-priced, oversized house.

This was the interior of the second home on the tour. The home itself is a largish ranch (though not nearly the largest home in the area) that we thought was fairly nice. The master suite was uninspired, and the three other bedrooms were very cramped compared to the other houses (with a very, very narrow hallway connecting them). This picture shows what we both think is the strength of the house. The living room, informal dining, and kitchen are all one large room. It's ideal for entertaining, IMHO. There's also a nice sun room off to the right (in the picture).

The house this little room was in doesn't even bear mentioning. However, we both thought this was a great little room, and would like to figure out how to incorporate this into our own design (when/if the time comes). I think it's called a "butler's closet," sitting between the kitchen and formal dining room. This particular one was set up as a "wine closet," which suits my world just nicely :)

The other really nice feature of this house is the "outdoor kitchen." It's essentially a split-level deck with a grill and fridge on the upper level, and a nice six person table on the lower level. Now, the kitchen part needs some additional thought (possibly a sink, a freezer, a charcoal grill to supplement the gas grill, and a larger gas grill), but it's a great idea, one that I need to keep in mind and convince The Boss that we absolutely must have.

This is the exterior of the house that we both agreed we really liked. It has a really great layout, a lot of garage space, lots of living space, it's a ranch, and the basement (read space for this Bald Guy) is friggin' HUGE!!! The master suite was the best one that we saw, which led out to a balcony that crossed over into the sun room, and had entrances into the main living space. The main living space had a fireplace separating (but not obtrusively so) the living room from the formal dining room/kitchen. The kitchen itself was pretty sweet, but in all it's sweetness, they forgot to design in a friggin' pantry! Of all the things to forget...

Now, this didn't honestly have anything to do with how much I personally liked the house, but the basement had really been tricked out. Coming down the steps into the basement, this is the first thing you see. Yep, that's right. A wall-to-ceiling (about 8' high by 12' wide) wine cellar. SWEET! We have a couple of friends (Piglet and Xabu) with whom we could put this puppy to good use! Additionally, they had created a section which they set up as a pub, complete with bar tables, bar stools, mood lighting and the whole nine yards. Again, lots of ideas...

I suppose that's enough for one post. The rest of the houses didn't really light our fires anyway. But, we had a lot of fun, and got a lot of ideas, which I suppose is what the Parade of Homes is all about.

Pretty Darned Funny!

According to our friend, Piglet, if you Google "thoughts from our couch" (without the quotes), our blog is the first non-paid hit. Pretty funny, no?

I guess it shouldn't be all that surpising, since Blogger is owned/partnered (can't remember which at 2AM) with Google...

Trip to the Library

Review of my last selections:

I FINALLY finished the autobiography by Madeline Albright. 700+ pages long. It was an interesting and educational (gasp) book. I would recommend this one however it is not a "beach read".

I enjoyed "Camel Club" by David Baldacci. It is a very timely fiction book with a post 9/11 terrorist plot. A quick read.

The final book was "The Woman who Waited". I was disappointed with this book. However I have a hard time understanding a book when one phrase is supposed to have 17 layers. I read fiction to enjoy not to analyze. This would be a book that you can find in an English Lit class. Too much symbolism for me.

I checked out two books today:
Fiction: Jeffrey Archer's "False Impression". I am a long time fan of author and picked up the book in the "new release" section for that reason alone.

Biography: Representing the "B's" is "Tony Blair" by Philip Stephens. It is MUCH shorter than the Albright store (500 pages less!). Blair is mentioned frequently in Albright's book so it will be interesting to read about the same timeframe but from a different view.

Cavities...

For the first time in my life, I've got cavities. Four of them, to be exact. This afternoon, I had the first two addressed, both on the teeth on my bottom set in the back of my mouth. Three hours later, my mouth is mostly un-numb, all except my lower lip, which is nowhere near the dental work. Actually, I'm kinda dreading the un-numbing, as I've bit my lip several times during dinner, a couple of times hard enough to draw blood. It's going to be very, very sore in a little while.

Oh yeah, my teeth hurt a bit, too...

Play Ball!

In addition to celebrating our younger nephew’s birthday over weekend, we went and saw his older brother play T-Ball. The game was three “innings” long and what a joy to watch. The enthusiasm of 5 year olds makes you smile. This week our nephew played second base. He did a great job. He has excellent hand and eye coordination and could easily throw the ball from second to first with no problem.

Before we left on Sunday, Uncle Tom was out playing ball with the nephew and a few neighborhood kids. It was so fun to watch Tom out playing with “the boys”. I hope that Tom’s love of the game carries on.

Natural Birth Control

(The will probably earn us a lot of blog-spam, but oh, well...)

Amy and I are in northern Kentucky today, visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and two monst... errr... nephews. The younger one's birthday was last Monday, and we're here to have a party. Nephew #2 turned three. His two's were pretty turbulent, and lived up to the "terrible twos." Well, it looks like things aren't going to be any easier now that he's left his two's behind. My sister has dubbed this phase "the horrible three's" and he's off to an incredible start. I'm sure that he'll turn out fine, just like his big brother is, but honestly, I don't think I could have asked for better birth control than a weekend visit.

Berry Goodness

Aside from baseball, nothing quite says "summer" like strawberries. The really good ones are only around for a few weeks (if that), and you have to get them locally. If they're shipped from too far away, they tend to be underripe or watery, IMHO.

Well, today Amy brought home some strawberries from the local farmers market. Oh, my. I mean, wow! Seriously. Wow! They are SOOOOOOOOO good! They're sweet, juicy, gushing with flavor, they just kind of melt in your mouth. A pure taste of unadulterated bliss.

I love my sweetie :)

sigh..

Today is a cool rainy day. Great day to feel blue. Not much else going on... sorry my life is boring.

Tech Support

From time to time, when Amy and I head back to NE OH, I'm asked to provide tech support for varying family and friends. Being the pseudo-tech-weenie-wannabe-in-training that I am, I'm happy to help. This past weekend involved two separate support calls, both of which were simultaneously edifying and frustrating.

The first call was for my in-laws, and requires a bit of background. When Amy and I first met, she was a dial-up girl using an old Compaq all-in-one computer. It did what she needed: e-mail checker, minor word processing, a game of solitaire here and there. However, when we decided to get hitched, and we found out that I would be moving down with her, the first thing that had to be changed was the computer and her connection. I spruced up one of my computers for her, we got a cable modem, and we've been a high-speed family ever since. At that point, rather than sacrificing the Compaq to the scrap heap, we wiped it out and introduced her mom to the internet and e-mail. Again, it was perfect for her: e-mail checker, mah jongg, a little surfing over a dial up connection. And all was bliss and peace for two and a half years.

A few weeks ago, the sturdy little Compaq started giving indications that it would not be much longer for the world. I happened to luck into a deal for a spanking new Dell that was a definite upgrade from the Compaq, but wasn't needlessly powerful, and didn't break anyones wallet. I purchased it, got it last week, and spent the week loading AV, anti-spyware, OpenOffice, and a few utilities on it in preparation for the swap. Friday night, we made the trip, and my adventure began.

You'd think that MS would make moving from one Windoze computer to another an easy thing. It, in fact, is, so long as you don't want any of your old data. The Compaq didn't have any ethernet connection, nor did it have even a serial port, so a direct connection with the new computer was out of the question. There wasn't a lot of data, so I could send it through e-mail over the 28.8 connection, but I saw that as a last resort. Ah, it has several unused USB ports! I have a thumb drive! I'll use tha... hmmm... Drat. I forgot, Windoze98 doesn't natively support USB thumb drives. Well, OK, I'll download a driver. Crap. Doesn't look like there's a universal driver. At least not according to MS. Well, lets download one and see what happens. Hmmm... it's a zip file. Crap. The Compaq doesn't have an unzip utility. OK, download one of those. 'K, install the unzip utility, open the driver, install, reboot and.... nothing. USB thumb drive is dead as a door knob. Figures. I wrack my brains, but aside from physically removing the hard drive and installing in the Dell, I'm stuck with sending data through e-mail. Sigh...

So, it turns out that I only need to transfer e-mail address book and folders. Mother-in-law uses Outlook Express 5, so I find the export utility in the application and export the address book... WHAT?! What's this mean, the address book is corrupt?! It works fine within OE5, how can it be corrupt? I try a couple more times, I can't even export as a freaking CSV file. 'K, fine. I poke around the file system and find the actual WAB file and copy to the desktop. Now for the mail folders... figures, OE5 doesn't want to export those, either. I can't figure out where they are on the file system, but after a bit of internet searching (all on the blazing 28.8 connection, mind you), I learn where to look, and copy all that data to the desktop as well. Zip, zip zip, and e-mail to myself. Finally, I'm ready to fire up the Dell. Disassemble the Compaq, assemble the Dell, connect to the internet, wait for the file I mailed to myself to download, unzip and try to get things working. First the address book. Try the "right way" first, using Outlook Express 6's import utility. Yep, you guessed it, it claims it's corrupt. I try a few permutations, no dice. Fine. I know where the local WAB is located, copy the old address book into place... Yep, corrupt. The old address book is shot. Fortunately, we found a hard copy of the addresses that someone had mysteriously printed, so Amy offers to re-enter all the old addresses by hand. Now for the old e-mails.... yep, those are corrupt as well. No matter how many permutations and kludges I try, the old e-mails are lost. Fortunately, mother-in-law says she doesn't need the old e-mail anyway, and gives me a beer as a consolation prize.

Next morning, mother-in-law asks, "Did you save my favorites?" Well, no, noone mentioned those. Re-assemble the Compaq, find the bookmarks file, send to self, fire up the Dell, download, install, and... hey, it worked! Woo-hoo! I'm one for three, batting .333. I'd be a star in the major leagues. Too bad this isn't baseball...

Now that you've stopped reading my rambling, we get to my second support call. I provide infrequent support for my friends, Xabu and Piglet. I've helped throughout the years assemble computers, reformat hard drives, I set up their original ethernet network, as well as their current wireless network. This weekend, the task was to finally lock down the wireless. Without going into details, MS and Belkin should both be taken out and shot. Each does rather stupid things that the other isn't expecting, turning a 10 minute job into a 2.5 hour ordeal. Lemme just say that I've boned up on my ASCII to hex conversion, and leave it at that.

But, at the end of the weekend, with both jobs done and all my customers satisfied, I feel pretty good. I'm glad that my meager technical skills are sometimes useful. So tonight, as I sip my port and solve my Sudou puzzles, I'll toast myself to a job reasonably well done. And hope that the next tech support call is easier to handle.

The World's Best Cat Toy

It's not Squeaky Mouse (a mouse with a microchip that chirps whenever the mouse is hit), it's not Feather On a Stick (just what it sounds like). Those are wonderful toys, and they have their place. Nope, there is a better toy out there.

It's a plastic milk ring.

Yep, that's right. The little ring that seals the cap on a gallon (or half gallon) jug o' milk. The things you normally just throw away. Yep, that's the world's best cat toy. It makes noise on a hard surface, it bounces irregularly when whacked, it catches in the carpet. Kona and Sid go absolutely nuts with the darned things. The best thing is that it's free, so long as you like to drink your moo juice.

My Hero

So we finally caved and put the AC on today. All day long I could hear the fan but it sure wasn't getting "cool". Tom came home and found the problem - the outside circuit needed "flipped". Glad he figured it out otherwise we would be calling the repairman.