April 21, 2002

Just a quick update today. We are about to head out to brunch. I am heading out of town tomorrow afternoon to fly to New Orleans with Eric. We are working in Hattiesburg, MS on Tuesday morning so we only get a little time in the Big Easy. One day in Mississippi. Then on to Anderson, SC for Eric and Atlanta, GA for me. Then we will be working in Anderson and Washington for the rest of the week. We have a lot of work to do down there. We will be very busy. It should be fun, though. We are looking forward to the trip. We each have laptops that we are taking (PIII 1GHz and Athlon4 1.3 GHz.) and I am bringing my GameBoy Advance with me as well. So we should be able to entertain ourselves.

I will be doing a much larger update tomorrow. I am not going to be able to update during the week, I would imagine, so if I am not updating for a few days – just hold on. I will attempt to write on the laptop while we are in the south and post all of the updates when I get back. Then you can hear about all of my adventures.

This month may be the busiest ever for the site. Both in people reading it and in overall postings. Normally we have three months or so on the first page but April alone is a bit long! And our loyal readers have been active this month as well. Joe told me that he was really reading the site even when he was in Tenessee.

Dominica is busy playing the Sims today. She is so happy to have her computer back. Now, Loopy, Josh and I are getting anxious to get our up and running. Too bad that it costs so much to do. I have almost everything that I need for mine. Josh and Loopy each have just a little bit. I hope to do mine as soon as I am back from the south.

April 20, 2002

Dominica’s computer is up and running and it is awesome. John was the first one to get his machine all together and mostly working. Dominica’s is the first one to be completely working – sound and all. The ASUS A7V333 main board really rocks. We loaded up all kinds of video games for her and she has been playing the Sims since she has been in withdrawal for the last week while her computer has been apart.

Josh and Joanna managed to come down to Ithaca today. Josh is looking at house options with us as we consider buying or building somewhere in the area. We met at the Bistro Q for dinner and drinks. Everything was wonderful, we had a great time. That is one of the best restaurants to take people to to just hang out. We were lucky that we got seated in the private dining room because they were so busy because it is a lot quieter in there.

Tomorrow, we are planning on going wine tasting on the west side of Cayuga Lake and having brunch at either Rogue’s Harbor or Banfi’s at the Statler Hotel. They both have incredible brunches.

April 16, 2002

What a day it has been. This has to be short as I am about to run out the door to head down to Owego to work at Lockheed – Martin. I am there all week. This is my second day. It isn’t very exciting but it is okay. Nothing stressful, at least. All I am doing is backing up computer and installing new ones, really. Monkey work. But, whatever. It is all good.

Today is Josh’s 26th so everyone be sure to wish him a happy birthday!!

It was hot here today. Almost 90 degrees (or, very hot, to you Canadians.) Last night Loopy and I decided that we had to have the air conditioner on because even with all of the windows open, it was just unbearable being in the house. So, we turned that on and put fans sucking air up from the upstairs vents to help pull cold air to the upper floor. The house did not cool down, however, and in fact was over 81 degrees by the time that I returned home from work. So, Loopy and I set off to find the air conditioner and see if we could clean it out or something since no cold air seemed to be coming from the vents. We were unable to locate the air conditioner. A little later, Nate and Bob got home. We told Bob that the a/c unit must be located in the closet in his room but he said that he only had the furnace. So then the question was, where is the a/c? The answer? They forgot to install it. Originally, they had forgotten the furnace. They also forgot the front walkway which has been just a frame since we moved in six months ago. So, this is going to be interesting.

Well, kids, I am out of time and have to hit the road. Have a good one.

April 19, 2002

Well, it has been a long week but it is finally over, TGIF!! Nate and Bob have been gone all week. Bob informs me, however, that when he and Nate were out of town that they checked the web site to see what was happening back here at home. So, this site is useful. Loopy has Dominica’s car today as his is in the shop.

So here is a funny story to come out of working at Lockheed – Martin / DoD this week… One of the guys that I worked with was Mike. Mike was staying in Ithaca with his girlfriend and driving down to Owego the same as me. Today he mentioned that he actually was from Norwich. (Yes, Norwich!) So, I asked him if he knew Kate Stillman (since Mike is about two years younger than me, I thought that there was a chance.) “Kate” he said, “Of course I know her, she was my next door neighbor.” For those of you who don’t know who Kate is, she is now Kate Ayers, Phil’s wife. So, I thought that that was a pretty big coincidence. Anyway, Phil and Kate never actually read this page so I will see how long it takes for them to get back to me about this.

Other than that, not much good came out of working all this week. The new parts for Dominica’s computer are in and I am trying them out right now. She has been without a computer for at least a week now and my second machine is gone as well. So we don’t know what to do with outselves. At least my laptop is here and working now. Loopy is thinking about getting the parts to put his computer together later on tonight.

Somehow we managed to get Eric reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Philosopher’s Stone for our Canadians.) I never imagined Eric reading that but he is doing it right now and is over half way through the book. I haven’t had a chance to read the Chamber of Secrets yet so I bought it on CD last night and have been listening to it in the car. Last night I had to drive out to Eric’s and my parent’s houses to pick up some things that were waiting for me out there. So, I had quite a bit of time to kill while I was in the car.

April 15, 2002

I have been neglecting my duties and am five days behind on updates. I know that Joe (our Llama of the month) has been out of town for the last week so he won’t notice until he gets back. Dominica and I traveled to DC on Friday and returned on Saturday morning in time to visit with some of her relatives in Elmira on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, Josh came down from Rochester and looked at a house in Groton with Min, Loopy and I. It had a lot of potential but we decided against it. It was just too small and run down.

My bright yellow Mazda PR5 is back on the road, finally. I can barely remember how to drive standard after all this time! My Buick is at my parents place and will be gone in a week or so. If no one decides to buy it by then, it will be donated to the VOA or something for the tax write off. If anyone is interested, $700 and it is yours.

Last week, new parts for my computer came in and I have been working hard to get everything to work but it just isn’t going to. I have already burned up one processor playing with it and have to send all kinds of parts back that are bad. It is all very frustrating. I have some new parts on order already. We will see if that helps anything.

Nate, Zach and Bob are out in Boston today. I guess that the school has Spring Break or something now. I thought that that was just two weeks ago. But what do I know. I don’t understand this school calendar at all.

I am finally doing something about my degree. I am going to my first mentoring session at Empire State College on Monday. Hopefully I can start some classes right away. I want to finish up as soon as possible. No point in waiting. It has been way too long already.

Eric is off to Anderson, SC today. He flew out of Rochester at 4:55 and will arrive late this evening in Atlanta and drive to Anderson. He is just working there for one day. He is supervising the programming of a scale. Very exciting stuff. He is travel man the next two weeks. Next week he and I are traveling all over the south.

This week I am working a super exciting job in Owego where I am installing Windows 2000 on desktops or something for Compaq. It is really easy stuff that is supposed to last all week but I am expecting will only last for two days or so. If they don’t cancel it before I even get there. That is the way that it normally works. If I get to actually do the work, this will be my third time working for a fortune 500 company. Good for the old resume. Not very exciting, however.

Well, it has been busy as I said so I will keep it short. Talk to you all soon.