good pen

The Uniball Jetstream Sport is a very smooth writing pen. I give it my stamp of approval.

personal problem

I have a problem. I have a problem with the "Lamb of God" being set to really festive, yahoo, hoe-down, rollicking good fun music. "Lamb of God" is where we acknowledge that Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation, and we beg for His mercy. I prefer this to be a moment of serious contemplation ... contemplation on the greatness and mercifulness of God, the significance of the sacrifice, our sinfulness, and our need for His mercy.

carpet is in

Yay. New carpet for that one room is in. So tired. Empty room. Guess what that means: best time to paint. I washed the walls last night. I have to find my spackling ... or go buy some. House is super topsy turvy now. We're getting some work done on the outside too. So tired. I have to go feed the critters now. And maybe tonight I'll not do any work. And just get some sleep.

what a guy

I just heard Bishop Kicanas speak this morning. Oh wow. This guy is awesome. If you ever get the chance to hear him, go for it!

laboring on Labor Day

I've been working on the room to be carpeted, trying to clear it out. I moved 4 large file cabinets, a small 2-drawer file cabinet, a small desk, a work table and some boxes. They got moved to the garage. I'm tired and I'm quitting for the day. I have to stop and feed myself and the critters.

There is still the "desk" - two planks of wood spread across two small file cabinets with a "hutch" I made myself. It's full of stuff. There's also still a small table, a pantry-like cabinet, and assorted odds and ends on the floor. The 11' x 12' room was packed to the gills; it's a lot of stuff to move. I had hoped to finish today, but I gotta quit now.

A contractor came today to look at the work to be done on the outside. The carpet store guy also stopped by on his way home this evening, to look at some other stuff Gumby had discussed.

It's been a full day for me.

Dominican discernment event

info on their website

event is Friday 9/18 - Saturday 9/19, 6pm to 6pm, for ages 20-40 yrs.

carpet shopping

We've been shopping for carpet this past week. For one room, for utility more than luxury.

The first place was a showroom. Great customer service, great atmosphere, prices more than I would be willing to spend.

The second place was more like a warehouse; it had cramped offices and a large unconditioned warehouse area. Prices more to my liking. But the product presentation and the attitude of the salesperson sucked. Gumby was infuriated by the attitude. No go there.

Third place was a very nice show room, the salesperson was fantastic, but they didn't sell retail. They deal with contractors. However, he did send us to their retail store.

So fourth place was a continuation of the third place. It was both a show room and a warehouse. It was great. Bigger showroom than the first store and the warehouse is huge AND air-conditioned. Very pleasant. The price quoted on the first go here was lower than even the hot warehouse! I upgraded on the carpet padding and that brought the price up a bit but it was still a figure I can live with. Not much choice on color, but again, the room is more for utility than luxury. It's not a bad color; it's one of those neutral hues and much lighter the the much-hated carpet we currently have. The carpet is slightly less luxurious than offered at the first store, but is a little plush (not the thin, hard office carpet type) and fits my purposes.

Whereas I am only looking short-term: just this room, Gumby was looking long-term. Gumby wanted a place that we could return to for flooring for the other rooms. This was the place. Customer service is paramount to Gumby, and this place has it along with reasonable prices. They also do tile and wood floors.

Next step: clear out the room, and await the call to schedule the installation.

Sunday Mass broadcast

Broadcast of the Sunday Mass
Heart of the Nation

They seem to offer a free missal. I like giving the missal to "new" Catholics. The ones my parish used to use was seasonal so it wasn't very thick and is discarded after the particular "season." It'd be the discarded ones that I give out. It had the order of the mass, the prayers and responses. It has the gloria, the profession of faith (the creed), the different Eucharistic Prayers and the four different responses to "Let us proclaim the mystery of faith", and the responses to a Bishop's concluding blessing.

It even has the Lord's Prayer, otherwise known as the "Our Father..."

It's just a great resource for learning the prayers and responses of the Mass.

hoping to do better

Not much done this weekend. I had been meaning to bathe the boy for several weeks now; I finally got around to giving doggie a bath today.

I added a pull handle to the second gate, and finished staining whatever wasn't stained. We've had sporadic rains over the past week so no chance of having the staining done any earlier. One day I would like to rework that second gate and get it to look better.

It's been crazy busy for me at work, mainly because I haven't been able to make my schedule due to lack of experience which then leads to false starts and re-work. So I do what I call thrashing about: a lot energy and effort, but nothing to show for it.
This coming up week, I will challenge myself to show up at work an hour earlier than my usual. (My usual is rather late.) I cannot begin to tell you how big a challenge this is for me. I am a very deep sleeper. In fact, I am often groggy at random times throughout the day. I can and have slept through my alarm clock. At one time I had two alarm clocks ... that was interrupted after hurricane Ike came through and resulted in the house being topsy turvy. My current alarm clock is an old cell phone. I have to vary the tones every so often so that my sleeping brain doesn't adapt to it. Anyhow, y'all wish me luck.

exorbitant

Dog food got really expensive.

I used to be able to get an actual 40 lb. bag of dog food for just under $40. Then they maintained the price and dropped the quantity (to maybe 34 lbs.--I can't recall) so that I'd pay the same amount of money for less food.

Last week I bought the biggest bag - now 28 lbs. for $48 (almost $52 after taxes).

That's 30% reduction in quantity plus 20% increase in price ... sounds like dog food went up 50%.

What if an emplyee goes to the boss and said, "May I have 20% salary raise and drop my productivity by 30%?" But then again, that might be happening to some employers already over the course of history.

I'd have to seriously rethink this food thing. It wasn't intended to be a luxury. It was an investment in the dog's health, to hopefully reduce the risk of a larger vet bill. Right now the cost of flea treatment and heartworm prevention - for a big dog - is already a lot of money, in the sense that you'd best save up for it.

group dance

http://www.thrilltheworld.com/
Sunday, October 25th 2009 at 12:30am UTC / GMT
Do the Thriller dance with others worldwide. Full instructions available at the link. C'mon, just do it.

useful things

looks like useful things shown at BookofJoe
stickies for your clothes hangers
zipper pull replacement
caps for your potato chip bags and the like
portable humidifier
nose inserts to help reduce snoring

second gate

Success proves elusive on the second gate. Right now it is functional; the gate opens and closes and latches. To clear the slope, I decided to leave a huge gap at the bottom of the gate. The gap is conveniently the rot board. I made the rot board removeable. Screw eyes on the posts support square bend hooks on the rot board. The gate has to be opened wide to allow the board to be lifted off the hooks on the hinge side.



Right now the gate is out of plane with the latch post. The gate sticks out at the top and sticks in at the bottom. I'm guessing that if I loosen the frame screws and reshape the frame, I might can get the gate to line up better. It's just a guess. I may have to loosen the screws on the pickets too. Maybe some weekend when I have the time, I will experiment. There is still some staining left to do. I'm also not too happy with the uneven gap at the bottom of the gate, but oh well. Other things require my attention.

Since this is a secondary gate, I made no provisions to be able to open it from the outside. This time I did not make the hinges plumb but opted to allow them to follow the post. By luck, the weight of the gate swings it open on its own when unlatched. This is a good thing, reducing the likelihood that the gate would accidentally swing closed when in use and thereby locking you out. I used three butt hinges (like you see on your doors in the house) instead of gate T-hinges so that they wouldn't be as obvious. They squeak a little, telling me that they aren't lined up perfectly. But it's probably okay; I can open and close the gate with little effort.

(square bend hook)
(screw eye)

random shots

bock-bock-bock-baaark

mooo

mooo

... all thanks to Schepps.

live broadcast of profession of vows

This Sunday morning, there will be a profession of vows of three Sisters which can be viewed live over the internet. More information here.

fence saga continues

I've seen whole fences go up in two days: first day all the posts are set, second day everything else. They look good too, all lined up and straight.

In my case, it's been more than a month and I still haven't finished the little section of fence I'm working on. I do stain all my wood before I put them up, and that takes time. Digging the new holes was definitely a challenge. Yesterday I finally took down the old section of fence that the new construction replaces.

Yes, there is a gap between the new fence side and the old corner post. That's because I wanted my fence span to be around 6 feet. I'll deal with that later.

Next up is the gate. I'm still mulling it over. The section of fence is on a slope. As the gate opens, it has to clear higher ground. I can either leave a large gap at the bottom, enough to clear the higher ground, or do something else.

CatholicTV.com

CatholicTV.com: Catholic video on the internet. I haven't watched any so I can't tell you anything about it. Have fun.

wedding

We were at a wedding this afternoon. Very nice folks. We certainly wish them the best. We knew the bride since she was just a little toddler. Or maybe I should say we knew the family since she was just a little toddler. I don't think I have my mind wrapped around this thing known as the "passing of time" yet. Kids growing up and getting married. hmm.

splash

Since I was rather late getting up and we had a function this afternoon, there wasn't much time this morning to do much. So I let doggie play. I put down the kiddie pool, which actually is a plastic sandbox shaped like a turtle. I put water in it and let doggie splash around. He loved it. Several times he was in there aggressively "digging," making lots of noise and fantastic splashes. I had to refill the pool several times since his splashes would almost empty the kiddie pool. He had such fun all by himself. Maybe next time I'll attempt photos.

celebrating moon landing

Friday evening we were at a celebration for the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon. We had two toddlers and two teenagers. The kids didn't enjoy the presentation, but they enjoyed all the fun afterwards. There were free moon pies for all (ha ha). It was late when we got back and everyone was whipped. I didn't wake up this morning until 9:30 a.m.