It has been a long day today.
The funeral was really nice. They played "Taps" and had a flag folding ceremony and presented the flag to my Mom. More people showed up than I had expected. A few relatives drove a long way to get here.
There were a lot of my brothers friends that I hadn't met before at the funeral and most of them kept looking at me and then would come over and know who I was since we looked so much alike.
I got to meet two of his kids that I hadn't met before. If I had seen them on the street I would have recognized them.
A lot of the family went back to my parents house and we sat around visiting, eating, and reminiscing. Just about everyone in the family has always inadvertantly called me by my brothers name. We look so much alike and they would be looking right at me and go to call my name and say Lynn. Today it kept happening-even my Dad did it a few times.
Someone brought a past weakness of mine to the house-Dr. Pepper. I had to quit drinking them years ago, when everytime I drank one, I developed excruciating kidney pains. I decided I could sneak one. I am paying for it now. For about 8 hours now I have had a pain in my back like someone punched me in the kidneys.
I got a gallon of cranberry juice so hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Bad news at 3AM
I got a call from my Sister on Saturday morning-I could tell something was wrong when I answered. My first thought was my Mom, she has been doing well lately but my thoughts went there.
My Brother had died at 3AM the night before. I was shocked. I went over to my parents house and they were in shock-they still are. He was only 45. Heart attack they said.
My Sister got the call from my Dad and he just said your brother died, and she was freaking out not knowing which one of us he meant. My sister felt bad because earlier in the evening around 11PM he called her and she didn't answer and meant to call him back and forgot.
The funeral is Wednesday. My Dad is beside himself. My Mom is on stronger pills thanks to her doctor, he is worried about her going through all this now while she is going downhill herself.
I have a lot of great memories of my Brother-he always worried about me and told me he loved me no matter what. He was 9 years older than me and when I turned 16-17 I got drunk with him for the first time, got stoned with him for the first time, he helped to teach me to drive, worked on my cars for me so I could save money, and let me be me.
We sort of fell out for about 8-9 years when he moved to Maine, and he had just moved back a few months ago and I saw him a few times and spoke with him. So that was nice to have that. I just wished we could have had more time to get to know each other again.
I'm more sad right now more for my Parents-them having to bury their first born.
Everything else has sort of been put on the back burner.
My Brother had died at 3AM the night before. I was shocked. I went over to my parents house and they were in shock-they still are. He was only 45. Heart attack they said.
My Sister got the call from my Dad and he just said your brother died, and she was freaking out not knowing which one of us he meant. My sister felt bad because earlier in the evening around 11PM he called her and she didn't answer and meant to call him back and forgot.
The funeral is Wednesday. My Dad is beside himself. My Mom is on stronger pills thanks to her doctor, he is worried about her going through all this now while she is going downhill herself.
I have a lot of great memories of my Brother-he always worried about me and told me he loved me no matter what. He was 9 years older than me and when I turned 16-17 I got drunk with him for the first time, got stoned with him for the first time, he helped to teach me to drive, worked on my cars for me so I could save money, and let me be me.
We sort of fell out for about 8-9 years when he moved to Maine, and he had just moved back a few months ago and I saw him a few times and spoke with him. So that was nice to have that. I just wished we could have had more time to get to know each other again.
I'm more sad right now more for my Parents-them having to bury their first born.
Everything else has sort of been put on the back burner.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Mr. Clean
The scratch off lotto fest netted $29-not too shabby!
I went to clean the vacant rental today, it cleaned up pretty good-still have to clean the bathroom, but I had forgot my rubber gloves :O I learned my lesson the hard way on that.
A lady looked at it today while it was still grungy and liked it. She is going to (hopefully) put her deposit down tomorrow (crossing fingers). I was hoping not to have to spend the extra money to have to put it in the paper. Plus having to deal with all the wack jobs that call.
I'd say 2 out of 11 of the last calls for an ad I had were not escaping their last landlord or didn't have a felony for something or other. I'm serious! 6 had felonies for some type of bodily harm against someone (one was their current landlord) and 2 had a felony for robbery. The other person was a registered sex offender.
The squatters are still there, ugh-they are starting to piss me off. I don't want to mess with going to court but it looks like I'm going to have to. I have given them so many chances but I'm through now.
Some people are more trouble than they are worth. What I don't get is that the electric service was never transferred over into anyone's name since August and they haven't been shut off!
I went to the grocery store earlier to get some dinner. There is one checkout lady that is so much fun that I will stand in her line even when others are open. So Im standing there behind 2 other people after having let someone go ahead with only 1 item and the check out lady (girl) from the next lane over says "I'm open" with so little enthusiasm. I told her politely "no thanks".
She says "whatever" in that rude whatever tone. Usually I let things go like that. I know she probably had a bad day, etc. But so had I. So I told her that I her attitude was rude and I would rather put all the groceries in my cart back on the shelf than stand in your "whatever" line.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence (I suddenly realized I spoke aloud) there were a few chuckles around me and she stormed back to her register.
The lady that I always wait for said that she was glad I said that. She said she is always rude and treats people like that. I told this lady that is the reason why I stand in her line because she is always so friendly. She even jokes here and there and has caught prices being wrong, pulled out the circular for coupons, etc.
So after I got done checking out, I went to the customer service desk and asked for the manager. He came over and I told him about the level of service from her. I told him that I stand in her line when others are open and that I was glad she was here.
I decided to not tell him anything about the "whatever" gal-I'll give her the benefit of doubt-we have all had bad days, troubles, etc. I just sent positive energy both of their ways and went home and watched Lost.
Hope everyone had a great day :)
I went to clean the vacant rental today, it cleaned up pretty good-still have to clean the bathroom, but I had forgot my rubber gloves :O I learned my lesson the hard way on that.
A lady looked at it today while it was still grungy and liked it. She is going to (hopefully) put her deposit down tomorrow (crossing fingers). I was hoping not to have to spend the extra money to have to put it in the paper. Plus having to deal with all the wack jobs that call.
I'd say 2 out of 11 of the last calls for an ad I had were not escaping their last landlord or didn't have a felony for something or other. I'm serious! 6 had felonies for some type of bodily harm against someone (one was their current landlord) and 2 had a felony for robbery. The other person was a registered sex offender.
The squatters are still there, ugh-they are starting to piss me off. I don't want to mess with going to court but it looks like I'm going to have to. I have given them so many chances but I'm through now.
Some people are more trouble than they are worth. What I don't get is that the electric service was never transferred over into anyone's name since August and they haven't been shut off!
I went to the grocery store earlier to get some dinner. There is one checkout lady that is so much fun that I will stand in her line even when others are open. So Im standing there behind 2 other people after having let someone go ahead with only 1 item and the check out lady (girl) from the next lane over says "I'm open" with so little enthusiasm. I told her politely "no thanks".
She says "whatever" in that rude whatever tone. Usually I let things go like that. I know she probably had a bad day, etc. But so had I. So I told her that I her attitude was rude and I would rather put all the groceries in my cart back on the shelf than stand in your "whatever" line.
After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence (I suddenly realized I spoke aloud) there were a few chuckles around me and she stormed back to her register.
The lady that I always wait for said that she was glad I said that. She said she is always rude and treats people like that. I told this lady that is the reason why I stand in her line because she is always so friendly. She even jokes here and there and has caught prices being wrong, pulled out the circular for coupons, etc.
So after I got done checking out, I went to the customer service desk and asked for the manager. He came over and I told him about the level of service from her. I told him that I stand in her line when others are open and that I was glad she was here.
I decided to not tell him anything about the "whatever" gal-I'll give her the benefit of doubt-we have all had bad days, troubles, etc. I just sent positive energy both of their ways and went home and watched Lost.
Hope everyone had a great day :)
Monday, October 17, 2005
Vacancy
I had one renter move out too soon, and one that won't move out. She has decided that she wants to live for free! I will probably have to go to court to get her out, or spend the money to go to court and she will move out when she gets her subpoena.
I have been lucky with the rest of the renters, everyone paying on time-or at least contacting me if they are going to be late. I'm easy to work with if they let me know what is going on and don't take advantage of me.
Rick won a huge basket of lottery scratch off tickets at work-we are going to be scratching them later-keeping my fingers crossed! There have to be at least $400 worth in there!
I have been lucky with the rest of the renters, everyone paying on time-or at least contacting me if they are going to be late. I'm easy to work with if they let me know what is going on and don't take advantage of me.
Rick won a huge basket of lottery scratch off tickets at work-we are going to be scratching them later-keeping my fingers crossed! There have to be at least $400 worth in there!
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Semi Rant
It just amazes me the amount of work it takes to keep a computer virus, adware, and spyware free. The question remains, why is it so easy for all of that crap to get there in the first place?
Even with my 8+ programs to keep all of this stuff out of my computer, it still finds its way in there. I think that after spending a lot of money on a computer complete with the obiquitous operating environment I shouldn't have to worry about this stuff.
I have spent many hours reading help forums to combat all of the stuff that someone can pick up and consider myself moderately skilled at doing this, but what about those who aren't? They hook it all up and hop on the internet and a few weeks later the new computer is lagging and running like crap.
Like my Dad for instance, he goes to maybe 4 or 5 sites a day, thats it. Gets email from maybe 8 friends and family members. His computer is less than a year old. It was on its last leg when I went and fiddled with it and got it back to speed.
OK I'm done! I found this earlier and got a chuckle out of it:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
14. There would be an "Engine Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!
17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.
19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked.
20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.
Even with my 8+ programs to keep all of this stuff out of my computer, it still finds its way in there. I think that after spending a lot of money on a computer complete with the obiquitous operating environment I shouldn't have to worry about this stuff.
I have spent many hours reading help forums to combat all of the stuff that someone can pick up and consider myself moderately skilled at doing this, but what about those who aren't? They hook it all up and hop on the internet and a few weeks later the new computer is lagging and running like crap.
Like my Dad for instance, he goes to maybe 4 or 5 sites a day, thats it. Gets email from maybe 8 friends and family members. His computer is less than a year old. It was on its last leg when I went and fiddled with it and got it back to speed.
OK I'm done! I found this earlier and got a chuckle out of it:
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
14. There would be an "Engine Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!
17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.
19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked.
20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.
Monday, October 10, 2005
Older but not wiser!
I had a birthday a few days back-I didn't want to make a big deal about it and just laid around the house most of the day, watched a movie and read a bit.
Rick got me a neat gift that I had been wanting, it's the one in black:
It is nicer than I thought, even though it is new, it has the heft of an old fashioned phone as well as the ring of one.
Later on in the evening we went out for a bit and word got out that it was my birthday-it gets a little blurry after that. Everyone that knew me decided to buy me tequila, oy. I actually held up pretty well and didn't have a hangover.
A few rather unrelated incidences put a new idea in my head. Actually and old idea that never got off the ground. First I read a blog entry from my friend Ginger about the upcoming NoNoWriMo event. I felt a tingle of excitment, but then put it off. Then later I was reading a webpage and there was a link to it again. Still I put it off.
My dad had given me a book to read, called Level 7. It is written in first person, which I thought if I ever wrote something it would be in that format. Then I started thinking and the next thing I knew, I opened up Word and began writing. I have written twice now, but up to 18 pages and the story keeps telling itself. It is fun. I have no high ideas that I'll be a bestseller soon, but it's a start-a learning experience.
Anyone else having trouble with splog on your blog? I have been getting about 2 comments a day. I found this place to report it, not sure if it helps, but it's a start!
Rick got me a neat gift that I had been wanting, it's the one in black:
It is nicer than I thought, even though it is new, it has the heft of an old fashioned phone as well as the ring of one.
Later on in the evening we went out for a bit and word got out that it was my birthday-it gets a little blurry after that. Everyone that knew me decided to buy me tequila, oy. I actually held up pretty well and didn't have a hangover.
A few rather unrelated incidences put a new idea in my head. Actually and old idea that never got off the ground. First I read a blog entry from my friend Ginger about the upcoming NoNoWriMo event. I felt a tingle of excitment, but then put it off. Then later I was reading a webpage and there was a link to it again. Still I put it off.
My dad had given me a book to read, called Level 7. It is written in first person, which I thought if I ever wrote something it would be in that format. Then I started thinking and the next thing I knew, I opened up Word and began writing. I have written twice now, but up to 18 pages and the story keeps telling itself. It is fun. I have no high ideas that I'll be a bestseller soon, but it's a start-a learning experience.
Anyone else having trouble with splog on your blog? I have been getting about 2 comments a day. I found this place to report it, not sure if it helps, but it's a start!
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
From the mouth of babies...
I went to see my parents yesterday-my Mom was about the same-honked out on morphine. She is eating well, but sleeping a lot. My Dad was running around the house doing laundry, getting her food ready and making sure her pills were in order. I did some dishes for him and vacuumed so he could take a break. He said at one point "I'm tired of being a housewife."
About 20 minutes ago, I overheard something that had me chuckling. I live across the alley from a massive daycare center. This daycare center bought about 7 houses on that block and renovated them really nicely, put up big fences and the house directly behind me is the play yard complete with a fort.
I can hear the the kids playing from about 10am til about 5:30pm. Normally it is just the white noise type sounds of kids screaming, laughing etc.
Today I went in the backyard to check to see if any of the dogs were digging around the fence and overheard:
Girl screaming...
Day care lady: EDWARD! Leave her alone!
Edward: She was only screaming because I tried to kiss her.
Day care lady: She doesn't want you to kiss her, we have been over this before-now get inside for a time out.
Edward: She really likes me, she just wont admit it because Manuel is watchiiiiiing.
Little girl: Oh great, now Manual will want to kiss me too.
I got such a kick out of that-her secret was out now! I looked over and saw her on top of the fort with this look of resign on her face, Edward climbing down for his punishment.
Manuel was probably crossing the yard to climb up in the fort!
It is supposed to get cold here by Thursday with a high of 40 and rainy. I feel fall coming! No more mowing-YAY!
About 20 minutes ago, I overheard something that had me chuckling. I live across the alley from a massive daycare center. This daycare center bought about 7 houses on that block and renovated them really nicely, put up big fences and the house directly behind me is the play yard complete with a fort.
I can hear the the kids playing from about 10am til about 5:30pm. Normally it is just the white noise type sounds of kids screaming, laughing etc.
Today I went in the backyard to check to see if any of the dogs were digging around the fence and overheard:
Girl screaming...
Day care lady: EDWARD! Leave her alone!
Edward: She was only screaming because I tried to kiss her.
Day care lady: She doesn't want you to kiss her, we have been over this before-now get inside for a time out.
Edward: She really likes me, she just wont admit it because Manuel is watchiiiiiing.
Little girl: Oh great, now Manual will want to kiss me too.
I got such a kick out of that-her secret was out now! I looked over and saw her on top of the fort with this look of resign on her face, Edward climbing down for his punishment.
Manuel was probably crossing the yard to climb up in the fort!
It is supposed to get cold here by Thursday with a high of 40 and rainy. I feel fall coming! No more mowing-YAY!
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