Kevin's Ramblings…

A recap – Bingo this morning, went well.  Out by 12:30pm.  Coffee with Bill and Mike – Rob was a “no-answer”…  Drove Barb home – good trip to Toronto.  Setup my new Belkin N-Band Wireless Router – very easy…

Rather tired now – it is 12:33am.  I woke up around 4:45am.  Another few hours and it will be 24…  I will not make it, I will not try to make it.  I am going to bed shortly.

I hope to sleep in tomorrow.  LATE.  I will NOT get up before 8am.  Perhaps I will let Zeus out before then, but that’s it.

Going to the Kreamer’s tomorrow evening for their shindig.  Should be fun.

That’s it, I am hitting bed.  I am dead tired.

🙂

Well, I must have been a good boy this year, Santa got me everything that I asked for. 

1. iPod Touch 8GB
2. iPod Docking Station
3. H20 Mop
4. H20 Mop Refils
5. Dilbert Calendar
6. Various little things

The new iPod Touch was from Zeus, well, Zeus and Santa, well, I wrote that on the tag, I bought it for myself).  J&D got me the docking station and the H20 mop – going to love that for cleaning the kitchen and bathroom.  It will almost make cleaning pleasureable – ok, that is a stretch.  The Dilbert Calendar was from RS – thanks RS and again, you’ll be MISSED.  What a mistak that was – canning your ass I mean…

I drove to Toronto yesterday to pick up Barb and bring her down here for Christmas – what a good brother eh?  I am returning her to the insane city this afternoon.  Actually, the drive there yesterday was a pleasure.  There was very little traffic on the roads and Toronto was a ghost town.  Mind you, I arrived in Toronto around 8:30am on Christmas Day – not surprising that the roads were dead.  All I saw were police and TTC buses and streetcars.

This was the first year that Rob and I missed our Christmas Day coffee – he was too busy with his duties.  Too bad…  I am sure we’ll try again next year – see what happens when you get married?  🙂

This morning I picked Dave up at 5:45 so that we could head off to Best Buy.  MISTAKE…  The parking lot was jammed at 6am when we arrived and the line-up was HUGE – wrapped around the building by the looks of it.  So, instead, we head to Future Shop.  Not quite as busy, no line to get in, pretty crowded once inside.  I picked up a new N band wireless router that was 60% off.  My current router needs to be reset a few times a week which I find VERY annoying.  Does anything not annoy me?  Doubt it…

Now I am home, watching Canada’s Worst Driver 5 – the season finale.  I watched the entire season this year, great show.  Discovery Channel is awesome.  I think Angelina will be the WORST.  The other two are bad as well, but not as bad as she is…

SCMBA has a Bingo at 9:30 this morning – offered to volunteer at that one a while back – figured what would I be doing on Boxing Day morning anyway…

So, that is a wrap-up on the last day and a half or so.  Have a good Boxing Day – get out there for some deals and help the economy.  Later 🙂

I love this comic:

Merry Christmas All !!! (click for full image)

Getting close to Christmas – one more shopping day…  I was at the Pen today and am going back tomorrow.  It wasn’t really all that busy surprisingly.  I bet the stores really aren’t happy with it not being too busy though.

I have to get a few things tomorrow to finish up.  I also still want to get my Jeep cleaned – that is needed badly.  Perhaps I should wait until after though seeing as I have to drive to Toronto to pick Barb up…  Decisions, decisions…

I am going to T’s New Years Eve party – it is dinner before hand and then a party – should be a good time.  She is an excellent cook and throws good parties.  I am seeing if I can find someone to accompany me, if not I will go stag.  It is apparently a pajama party…  Hmmm, I don’t wear pajama’s…  I do have a pair of Homer Simpson pants, guess I’ll wear those.

Anyway, tomorrow is payday, it’ll come in handy.  Don’t have too many bills to pay though, that is good.

Not sure when I will post again, likely not until after Christmas so have a good one all.

I saw this on the Internet, liked it, figured I’d post it:

My One-Day Employment …

So after landing my new job as a Wal-Mart greeter, a good find for many retirees, I lasted less than a day……

About two hours into my first day on the job a very loud, unattractive, mean-acting woman walked into the store with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

As I had been instructed, I said pleasantly, ‘Good morning and welcome to Wal-Mart. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?’

The ugly woman stopped yelling long enough to say, ‘Heavens no, they ain’t twins. The oldest one’s 9, and the other one’s 7. Why in the world would you think they’re twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?’

So I replied, ‘I’m neither blind nor stupid, Ma’am, I just couldn’t believe someone slept with you twice.

Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart.’

My supervisor said I probably wasn’t cut out for this line of work.

Today was a nice relaxing day for the most part.  Did a bit of shopping, got a hair cut, had a nap…  Didn’t do anything overly productive, should have but didn’t.  Oh well…

I called Cogeco today.  Had to make some changes to the account.  Got the 7Mbps package, only $5 more per month.  Downgraded the phone, don’t need unlimited long distance and don’t need extra features – kept caller ID ’cause I need to know who I will be talking to and call forwarding to send my calls to my Blackberry.  As for TV, I added a few extra channels plus HD.  It’ll be nice for the Olympics.  Of course, as of 21:15 the TV changes haven’t taken effect.  Am I surprised?  No.

That is it for me – I am off…

Pictures from my trip to Washington – Once I can upload them to Facebook, I will post them all.  I can’t upload since I installed Windows 7…  Hmmm…

Visited the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum – Very cool indeed.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise – You don’t realize how big it is until you stand next to it – it is HUGE

The SR-71, aka Stealth Bomber.  This photo doesn’t do it justice, it is big…  I wasn’t able to get a good shot because there are all kinds of big planes hanging from the ceiling above it.  Oh well.

That is it for now – those were the coolest of the planes…

Another early start.  I must be getting old…  I am always getting up early and going to bed early as well.  I went to bed shortly after 9pm last night – mind you, the trip south tired me out.  Tired Zeus out as well, he has been doing a LOT of sleeping… 

He was happy to go for a walk in HIS neighbourhood this morning though, he ate some food last night and this morning as well so that is good.  I am going to take him to the “doggie dentist” in the New Year – I am sure he’ll love that…  Actually, they will knock him out when they do the work, I can imagine that a dog wouldn’t be very cooperative when having their teeth looked at.  Hopefully they won’t find any issues – he still is sensitive around his mouth.  Good thing for pet insurance, it is covered.  Take a look at http://www.petsecure.com/ if you are looking for insurance – highly recommend it.

So, I am on holidays until January 4 so that is two weeks.  I have tons of stuff that I intend on doing while I am off.  Here is a short list:

1. Clean the house, top to bottom INCLUDING the office
2. Move the furniture in the living room – I might put the black leather sofa in the basement and buy a new futon for the living room (after Christmas though)
3. Work on the SCMBA web site – I wanted to while away, the hotel in Washington had HORRIBLE Internet access, always dropped on me
4. Get the speaker wiring issues fixed – Brian will help with this – connect my three sets of speakers throughout
5. Move the bricks from Sister Joan’s here and build the bar in the basement
6. Dispose of assorted junk – trip to the dump (before I put the seat back into the Jeep)
7. Purchase and put up either new blinds or curtains for the living room and bed room windows
8. Get the fireplace working – HVAC guy from work will do this (I hope)

OK – that list isn’t too bad.  I’ll check back on January 3, 2010 and see what I did get done and what I still need to do.  Maybe a good New Years Resolution would be to stop being so DAMN LAZY with regards to working around the house.  Yeah, good idea.  Wonder how long I will be able to keep that one…  I also want to get back to the Y in the New Year AND I am thinking about taking drum lessons.  Can someone teach me to read music?  Maybe Robyn?

Well, more later – I am going to head to work soonly…  Got some stuff to take care of…

Well, I am back in Canada.  Although I was only gone for five days, it seemed much longer.  The trip down was fairly uneventful – left at 3:30am, arrived some 11 hours later…  That was a long ride…

Washington was a pretty cool place.  I won’t go into details, already have.  The drive home wasn’t too bad – the roads were snow covered but the people down there can’t drive on snow.  Most don’t have winter tires (not surprised) and they have little cars that hug the ground.  Once I got back into Pennsylvania, the roads were good.  I left Grove City this morning and the roads between there and St. Catharines were excellent.  The Erie-Buffalo route has very little snow – same as here.

I was disappointed not to go to Charleston, but, the forecast was for steady rain.  Why tour around in the rain.  I’ll re-visit, maybe in the early Fall…

I haven’t unpacked the Jeep as yet – gotta do that first thing tomorrow.  I am hoping that I can sleep in, I imagine that I’ll be able to – I was awake early every day while away.  Zeus ate when he got home, that’s a good thing, he hardly touched any food while we were down there.  I bet he lost a couple of pounds – not much but when you consider that he weighs in at 35 pounds, 2 is a LOT.

Normal routine starting tomorrow.  I am actually going to take the Jeep to a carwash.  The salt and grime from the trip are likely eating it alive.  I have a bit of shopping to do and some stuff around the house.  It’ll be a nice two weeks off though – really looking forward to it.

Good morning – Again, not sure why I am up so darn early, oh well…

Drove from Washington, DC to Grove City, PA yesterday.  It was a 300 mile trip.  A 300 mile trip should have taken approximately 5 hours.  I left at 10:30am (might have been a bit earlier) and didn’t arrive at Grove City until 7pm.  The problem?  Snow…

Mind you, the roads weren’t that bad really.  The DC area (and, as it appeared, the State of Maryland) have NO CLUE when it comes to snow removal.  As SOON as I entered Pennsylvania the roads were great.  Started picking up some time.

I was supposed to head south to Charleston, SC yesterday.  Kim didn’t want to risk the weather.  It was sorta funny, people in the DC area were truly panicking over the snow.  You could tell from the way they were talking.  I stopped in at a Wal-Mart on Friday evening, before the snow started and the grocery shelves were picked clean.  It was comical actually.  When I left, there was probably about 6″ of snow on the ground.

I could have gone to Charleston on my own.  Figured it would likely be raining and miserable and I would have probably had some freezing rain on the way – that wouldn’t have been fun.  So instead, I figured that I would head for home and save some $$$.  Grove City has an excellent Outlet Mall that I plan on visiting today, get some Christmas shopping done.  I might even stay tonight and head for home tomorrow.

Well, Zeus likely wants to go out.  I think he’s looking forward to going home.  He hasn’t eaten much on the trip but he is still active, etc…  He’s had more than his share of biscuits and denta-sticks though and lots of water.  He’ll be OK – he’s on vacation…  🙂