Pics, yes, PICS!

05.21.2010

I haven't posted any non-Warcraft pictures since February. What a boring blog this must be... I'll have to cram different families of pictures into this post to make up for it.

Pictures Part I: Orange Beach
2 weeks ago I took Gina down to the beach. Here's proof!

Pictures Part II: Kitchen
The big thing waiting for me upon my arrival back home from the above beach was this year's home renovations. Last year was redoing the master bedroom and turning what was then "the junk room" into the spare closet that all the chicks envy. Once again I called Handyman Mike to come do all the work, and since I had the above vacation planned out he decided that would be the best time to do the renovating. I like work being done to the house when I'm gone - it minimizes the mess I have to live through.

In years past I've had some little thing for Mike to fix (last year I think it was something to do with the kitchen ceiling) and then we throw in something for fun. This year nothing was broken, but I made up for it with what all I ended up getting done. The first part, the "must do" item, was to replace the kitchen counter top. The counter top was green, which matched back when there was white and green linoleum in the kitchen and dining area, but that left years ago. It was time to complete my grown-up-ness and update the kitchen. After talking with Mike we added in that this would be the time to replace the appliances if I was going to do it, so that got added in. Mike also likes to play with lighting, so of course we had to redo the lighting!

Pictures Part III: Patio/Landscaping
The patio from 2 years ago also needed some landscaping. I wasn't using it because there was just nothing out there. I had gone by Lowes and picked up some furniture, plus I put together the hammock & stand Gina got me for Christmas last year. I had suggested to Mike that we put in a rock border around the fence - mainly to keep me from tearing up the PVC fence posts with the weed eater.

Obviously we got a little carried away from "rock border". It's a nice spot to go lay in the hammock and read a book though.

Permalink renovation/remodelling road trip

Pics, but not just yet

05.20.2010

I've been trying for a week to post some pics of both the trip to the beach and the renovations of the house, but I can never find the free time when I'm close to the computer.

Maybe this will force me to do it tomorrow....?

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Belated Mothers Day

05.11.2010

This year was the second in a row I managed to have Gina away from home on Mothers Day as we were at scenic Orange Beach/Gulf Shores on Sunday. Last year I had her on a plan as we made our way to Jamaica. I think those 2 would qualify as extremes of the beach.

Somewhere along the way on the trip down to the Gulf, Gina and I started talking about Old Time Pottery, which I always call Old Time Pottery Barn. I know it's wrong, but after the first one showed up in Madison I called it that for a month and it's just sort of stuck ever since. I've been in Old Time Pottery Barn once, with Mom a few years ago. We went after Mom had been diagnoses with breast cancer but before she had started any chemo - it was at the time when they had told her "We're going to do what we can to fight it, but we're going to do everything we can to make you comfortable." When the doctors tell you that you're pretty much screwed it's hard to be upbeat about anything from that point on.

Luckily, mine and Mom's relationship didn't steer toward focusing on the bad parts of life. I've been told for years that I'm a happy, upbeat guy, and I'll admit that started with Mom. Looking back over the years a lot of things never really went right, but at the time I didn't know it. With that said, let's go back to the Old Time Pottery Barn.

Mom's final wishes were to be cremated. Since we were in a store full of pottery, I grabbed Mom's hand and told her we needed to find her a good pot for her ashes. After all, if she's going to be spending eternity someplace she should enjoy it. I would go around the store and pick up a vase of some type and hold it up to show her and ask "How's this?" Mom would look at it, the I would lower it to look in the top and then say into it, in a loud, deep voice, "Mommmmmmmmmm".

The first time Mom looked at me as if to say "What the hell are you doing?", so I had to explain to her that if she was going to be sitting on a shelf I would have to talk to her every once in a while, so how does my voice sound in this one? Mommmmmmmmm.

It was one of those times I was just being myself that looking back means so many more things. We both knew she was going to die, not how soon or far away but that it was sooner rather than later. We weren't dwelling on how bad it was, but rather accepting it and moving on (well, sort of moving on. Maybe just accepting it is ok). I think she also saw that I wasn't going to forget about her. All of this also meant I wasn't afraid to act a fool inside Old Time Pottery Barn with Mom watching.

This was the story I told Gina while we were driving to the beach, about me going around to pots and saying "Mommmmmm". Somehow that's all it took and both Gina and I were crying, because it hit me again that I still miss Mom. Maybe it was the closeness of Mother's Day. Maybe it was because it's been a year since her funeral. Maybe it was just a little bit of it all put together.

"Mommmmmmmmmm" :)

Permalink mom

Beach Oil Slick Bound!

05.05.2010

There may be a giant oil slick about to engulf the Gulf, but I'm still going on vacation!

Today I pack up Gina and head to Orange Beach to take advantage of JJ's condo. I enjoying taking advantage of his condo and telling him it's one of the perks of working for him. I've been running errands since yesterday, making those last minute trips to get everything ready. Orange Beach, or at least Foley, has a Wal Mart so I'm not worried about forgetting anything too important. Now that I'm older there are a couple of things I have to really remember to take with me, like my blood pressure medicine.

The first thing to do this morning is to take the car to the stereo shop in Madison and get the nav system I bought back in November replaced with the original factory stereo. I ordered the nav system through a dealer on Amazon and have had a couple of problems with it (like the stupid thing powering off after anywhere from a minute to 10 minutes). I'm fed up with the stupid thing so I'm going to get the original system put back in so I can box up the nav system and ship it back to the manufacturer if needed. Plus, it would be nice to have some background music for the 6½ hour trip Google Maps says it's going to take.

I've also had to make a couple of lists, which would make Gerry unbelievably happy. My first list was of errands to run on Tuesday. This was handy because of the 8 places I was to go, I had forgotten 2 at any given time. By the time it was dark Tuesday night, all of the errands had been checked off. The second list was of things to do Tuesday night. This list was relatively short, but had some annoying biggies such as "mow grass" and "pack". Except for the "pack", all got done Tuesday night. 11:30 is still night, right?

Wednesday will be a day of driving. Wrapping up of errands (picking up the key, getting the radio put in), driving way the hell down to the ocean. The drive takes a lot out of me as I don't really enjoy being cooped up for that long. 4 hours is my normal comfort level in a car. Going down isn't too bad since at the 4 hour mark you get off I-65 and the scenery changes and makes you think you're closer than you really are. It'll be nice to get there and just take a long break for a few days.

Permalink road trip

I Live!

04.28.2010

After last weekend's motorcycle class I have survived the learning-to-ride experience. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The class had us riding around on 500CC Buell sport bikes, and I don't think we ever got above 20mph. Not bad for somebody that had never been on one before last Friday! Now I feel confident that I can tool around in large, empty parking lots and perhaps the lesser used back roads of Limestone County. Of course, there's also the dilemma of what to toll around on. That's a whole 'nother blog for a week or two later.

My annual handyman refurbishing started this week with landscaping around the patio area. There is also some remodeling in the kitchen that should start in the next day or two. I've done a lot to the house over the past couple of years, and the green counter top in the kitchen matches absolutely nothing now.

Next week Gina and I are heading down to Gulf Shores for a few days. We're going to pack up the bicycles and get some extra exercise while we're down at the boss' condo.

I think I may have gotten hit with a computer virus last week. I was downloading video codecs and one of them had some type of browser add-on which automatically installed that redirected any failed URLs to mybrowserbar.com. After the computer was active for about 10 minutes the internet connection would intermittently fail. Given Charter's service, that's nothing new, but I would try to connect to either the modem or the router by IP address and they couldn't be found. Luckily I learned a long time ago not to put anything important on the main system drive, so I was able to restore an old backup with minimal trouble. Now I've just got to go back and add the little things I've started to use since that backup. Minus evil video codecs, of course.

After a lull of late things are starting to pick back up. I kind of miss the lull.

Permalink conveyances random