December 2002

I am writing this entry on my Palm m515. Earl and I went to Syracuse today to do some shopping and to meet my mom and sister for lunch, in celebration of my mom’s birthday yesterday. Anyways, we had a lovely lunch, and while we were out there, we decided to spend some Christmas gift certificates. We went to Shoppingtown Mall, where we each had a $25 gift certificate from my mom and her boyfriend. One of the stores there is a Media Play. What do you know, they had the Palm Portable Keyboard there for 1/2 price… marked down from $99.99 to $49.98. I was quite pleased, to say the least. So I used my gift certificate to offset the price of the keyboard even more, and here I am with one of these nifty keyboards now. I’m hoping by purchasing this keyboard I am going to be more inclined to write in my blog while we’re traveling about. I may even use it to write downstairs while watching television, rather than sitting up here in the computer room away from Earl. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be write in my blogs more. Hopefully, you’ll see the results.

Our lunch together was at Applebee’s, and was quite enjoyable. We took our time and just laughed and laughed and laughed. And I ate pretty healthy as well, which is always a good thing.

Afterwards we all went over to Bed, Bath and Beyond and to Target. Earl and I picked up some new exercise stuff at Target. Like most of middle America, we are looking forward to getting back to our exercise routine with the coming of the New Year. One of my co-workers has been raving about these “push up bars”, so we are going to give them a whirl. I initially hope to do one hour of exercising a day, 7 days a week. I want to work up to 2 hours (one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening), but we’ll have to see if I stick to the first goal before looking to expand upon that.

I had forgotten what a Star Trek fan I am. Tonight Earl and I watched “ST: The Wrath of Khan” and “ST: The Search for Spock” back to back and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. ‘Khan’ is my favorite Star Trek movie and I’ve seen that tons of times, but I hadn’t seen Search for Spock in years and it was wonderful to see that as well. I look forward to getting more movies.

I better get to bed – busy day tomorrow.

Well this is distressing. I just typed a huge entry in my blog and good old DirecPC decided to disconnect for a bit and good old M$ Internet Explorer decided to lose it. Gosh, I hate Microsoft. Gosh, I hate DirecPC. Isn’t that statement full of love and warmth for the holiday season. 🙂

We had a wonderful trip to Philly – it was great to get together with everyone. We had lunch at Chick-Fil-A (of course) and then went to Earl’s dad’s for the annual party. It was festive and LOUD (lots of little kids) but a great time was had by all. We got home around midnight on Christmas Eve and did the smart thing and put the plow on the truck because…

… we got 30 inches of snow on Christmas Day. That’s right – 2 1/2 feet. The roads were barely plowed and my folks barely made it here – but everyone made it safely and a good time was had by all. It took my Dad 3 1/2 hours to make a 45 minute trip but that’s was o.k. Everyone was in the festive spirit.

Today Earl and I are celebrating our six year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been six years! I look across the computer desk at him right now and I can’t believe how much in love I am with him. Words cannot express it. And they say these things don’t last. Well what do “they” know.

🙂

Here it is a couple of days before Christmas! The holiday season seems to be flying by so quickly this year. I think that’s in part because of the lateness of the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think that time is actually moving faster as well. It sure seems like it!

Last night we went to my Dad’s house for the annual family Christmas party. We had an absolutely wonderful time. Everyone was in very festive spirits and we saw a good number of my cousins and aunts and uncles – very nice. Earl and I and my sister Jennifer started a little bit of a tradition as well. We drink a bottle of wine before family gatherings. Probably not the best way to approach something but I guess it couldn’t hurt. 🙂

Earl and I did grocery shopping today for the Christmas day celebration. We are heading down to Philly tomorrow afternoon and coming back late Christmas Eve, and then my family is coming, in shifts, on Christmas Day. I’m looking forward to it. I have to pretty much work a regular schedule outside of the holidays, but that’s o.k. It’ll be slow and I’ll be able to catch up on a lot of things that I haven’t had the opportunity to do.

I’m still using Linux on the old computer – in fact it’s going strong right now. Though I am using the latest version of Mandrake (9.0) running KDE. I’m finding it a little bit easier to use that RedHat – though I did enjoy RedHat’s Bluecurve interface. Mandrake gives you many more desktop choices (as far as which GUI to use) and I appreciate that. I’d like to slowly convert many of the computers at work over to Linux, but honestly, I don’t know if I see that happening or not. Perhaps. To be honest, I really like Corel Linux that came with “WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux”, but I don’t know if it supports new hardware or not. I’d like to become very proficient in SQL so that I could do database administration. I think that’s my favorite aspect of computing.

My goatee has been bothering me. I’ve been growing it for two months now. I had initially started with a beard but then went down to the goatee when I decided I needed to keep shaving my head. It’s getting rather long but I feel like it’s very scraggly and I’m twiddling it constantly. That makes Earl crazy. So I may cut it off – I haven’t quite decided yet.

Earl’s been plugging along on his iMac and loving it. He’s becoming more proficient everyday with it. I’m glad that he’s enjoying it.

Well I smell supper cooking, I better go see if I can help out downstairs.

I am typing on Earl’s old Compaq Presario tonight. You’ll never believe it, but I decided that it needs to run RedHat Linux 8.0. It’s kind of nice, because I have an extra machine at the moment and I can experiment with Linux again without disrupting my work on my regular computer. Pretty cool circumstances.

Earl and I went to Buffalo over the weekend. Well actually, on Friday night we went and saw “Star Trek:Nemesis”. If you’re a Trekker go see. If you’re wanting to see what Star Trek is all about, skip it and go rent another Star Trek movie on DVD. I love Star Trek and while I’m not a wild and crazy Trekker type, I do look forward to the new movies and such. I found this one boring and predictable, and it had quite a few plot holes. It’s not one that I want to see again.

On Saturday we drove through a snow storm and headed out to Buffalo. Every year we do Christmas shopping all in one day, away from our home turf. This year we decided on Buffalo. We hit the Walden Galleria and got 90% of our shopping done in just a couple of hours. We then checked into the hotel, and then headed out to the older McKinley Mall. When I was going to college back in the late 1980s at SUNY Fredonia, McKinley Mall was *the* shopping spot. It’s holding it’s own pretty well against Walden Galleria.

We then went crazy with TGIFridays – appetizers AND dessert, but who cares it’s the holidays. At least I stuck to the no dairy/no chemicals/no sugar thing pretty well. Except maybe for the apple crisp at the end. I had a wonderful grilled vegetables dish that I look forward to having again!

We decided to go out for a drink Saturday night… actually two drinks. I like that bar “Buddies”. It’s a crowd that Earl and I fit in with well.

Sunday we drove home, stopping in Rochester on the way to tidy up the shopping. We bought a Sony DV mini cam for the house – that’s the “house present” this year. It’s kind of cool – we can edit videos on both the PC and the iMac. I’ll have to share our creations as they get, well, created.

And then it was back to work today. I was in a funk again, but snapped out of it in the late afternoon. I really don’t know why. There’s stuff irritating me at work, but I don’t know why because it’s really business as usual. I don’t think it’s work that’s putting me in a funk so much as time tells me that it’s the holidays but I don’t honestly feel it. I’m hoping that it kicks in this week for me when I go and do Earl’s Christmas shopping. At least I’m keeping calm at work while still in the funk. I know tomorrow will be a better day.

I am so excited. Tonight I found out the something that has had me wondering for years. Brett Somers is still alive. You remember Brett Somers. Once married to Jack Klugman, she’s probably remembered most from “Match Game”, upper row, center panelist. She, along with Charles Nelson Reilly, was on a “Game Show Reunion” version of Hollywood Squares this week. It was kind of cool, they had Peter Marshall hosting with Tom Bergeron in the center square. The Price is Right voice (Rob Roddy?) was doing the announcing, they had one of the lovely Price is Right models, and then your usual standards.. Wink Martindale, Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery… it was good fun. And it was great to see Brett Somers again. I had heard a couple of years ago that she lived in Upstate N.Y., and then I saw her on a rerun of Match Game ’90 on the Game Show Network where she looked very frail. Well tonight she still looks very frail but she still is chugging along. Good for you Brett!

Earl was in Buffalo last night getting acquainted with some of his new duties. Like this summer, he is working part time in Buffalo and part time in Utica again. It may become a permanent thing. I am very proud of him for his accomplishments. Ironically, we are going back to Buffalo this weekend for Christmas shopping and spending the night Saturday night. It should prove to be fun.

Tomorrow is the company Christmas party and retirement party for one of our employees. We have our Christmas party during the day… which is kind of convenient because then tomorrow night we can go see the new Star Trek movie.

I’ve been concentrating on my goals a little bit – let’s see how they pan out. I seem to be a little bit more calm at work.

I was frustrated last night because the clock system here at the house was going crazy. Come to find out, the underground wire between the house and the barn must be getting wet, because once I disconnected that circuit everything seemed fine. I am going to make some adjustments to it so that it doesn’t effect everything else when it shorts out. Let’s see if that helps it along!

I got antsy last night around 12:15 (mostly because Earl wasn’t home) and danced around the house like a maniac. It must have been good, because when I weighed myself this morning I was a very light 185 lbs. Very surprising! 🙂

I had a very strange dream last night where I was actually talking with Sylvia Browne. Sylvia, if you’re reading this, please let me know if we did talk last night. 🙂 It was an amazing conversation, but it had some ominous overtones to it and led into that recurring nightmare I had… but it didn’t feel as bad as it usually does. The nightmare I’m talking about is the one where Earl and I are approaching some sort of conscious decision to “cross over” because the world is coming to an end. Like we’re doing something for a “greater good” or to save others. I always get the sense that it is nuclear related somehow. Like we are giving up what we have to save others. I think the uneasiness in the world is spooking me a little bit. I’m trying to write down as many details as I can every morning to see if I can find a pattern.

I guess I could be thought of as weird because I really enjoy sleeping and dreaming. I feel so at ease in my dreams (most of the time) and feel like I can actually control what’s going on. I’ve read several books on dreaming and I’ve found every one of the fascinating. For example, when I dream of elementary school, I can usually wake up and find the clocks acting all screwy. It’s like my subconscious is saying “Hey – the clock system is messed up again” even though I’m asleep. It is so fascinating to me.

Well it’s getting late, I’m going to read a bit and call it a night.

Well Earl and I just got done watching Judging Amy. A pretty good episode, until the very end. It struck me as a bit hokey when she found out that her ex-husband has had a detective following her around for a year. Oh well. Now, I think Amy Brenneman is one of the hottest women on TV, ever, and I really like the character of Amy Gray, so this story line is striking me as a little weak. Let’s see how it pans out.

Earl and I decorated the inside of the house tonight for the holidays. The tree looks beautiful – I’ll be posting pictures in a day or two. Earl took a picture of me wearing the Christmas Tree Skirt. Now that’s lovely. I was smoothing it out over my lap and he said I should put it on, so I did and even posed. I looked like a fool.

I felt much better at work today. I don’t know why I was in such a funk yesterday. I think it helped that last night I took the time to write my goals down for 2003. Earl has his managers do that at work, and I decided to participate in the exercise. The list is a little lengthy, but it’s all stuff that I really want to achieve next year. Sort of an organized New Year’s resolutions I suppose. One of the things I have planned are two lengthy bike trips. One will be a three day trip in late April or early May. The other will be a seven day trip in late August. I am really hoping to accomplish both of those next year.

Earl is slowly adjusting to his iMac. It does amazing things, but we’re finding that OS X 10.2 is not as “compatibility friendly” as we would like it to be. There’s a bunch of stuff that he still can’t do, but he made his first iPhoto album the other night and now he’s playing around with pictures he took tonight. Let’s see how he does. Thanks to Thom for the insight on “Virtual PC”. OS X really reminds me of Linux, but then again, it’s written on Unix which Linux is a derivative of, so there you are.

The Caroline Rhea show has been very fun the last couple of days. I wish the New York affiliate would get on the ball and move her to a normal time slot so that Monday night Football didn’t interrupt it.

I’ve been finding myself staying up later at night and my body seems to be adjusting pretty well. I seem to function pretty well on 7 1/2 hours of sleep these days (I was sleeping 9 – which I think was too much!)

Tom has found himself to be quite comfortable on the new desks. Now he can sit right over the keyboard.

Here it is, Monday, I’m at work, writing in my blog. This will be a short entry, but I haven’t written in my blog in a while and I feel so inclined. I need to clear my head a little bit and this will give me the opportunity to do just that.

Earl and I spent the entire weekend at home. We decided to redecorate the “wreck room” that I often mention. We had good fun and did it like the team we are. We put in two new desks; I threw out a lot of junk (I accumulate so much crap it’s not even funny) and we started getting organized. There’s still a lot more work to do, but we are getting closer. Hope to have the project done by Wednesday or Thursday.

We also set up Earl’s computer even though it’s not Christmas yet. Those iMacs are pretty impressive. It can do a lot of nifty things. It’s a shame that there’s not more software for it though, because I’d like Earl to be able to do wonderful things with it, but there’s a couple of Windows programs he was using that are missing a Mac counterpart. Maybe we’ll stumble across them sooner or later. But he made a wonderful photo album last night that I found quite impressive.

On Saturday we picked out our Christmas tree, though we are going to decorate it tonight. We wanted to give it a couple of days to fall so it looked a little fuller. We also put up the new outside lights and they look great.

I’m in a little bit of funk today and I don’t know why. I hope that I snap out of it before heading home.

Well I better get back to work. I hope to write more tonight.

It’s December 1st already! 🙂 I can’t believe it. Right on cue, we got a couple of inches of snow today, which is a cool thing. Bad thing about it, the snowplow wiped out our mailbox. I can’t understand why. It’s well off the shoulder of the road, there was no snow hiding it and the roads were bare. Thank you NYSDOT.

Wednesday night we headed down to Philly to spend Thanksgiving with Earl’s family. It was a wonderful visit. Everyone seemed to be in chipper spirits and the the food was wonderful for Thanksgiving dinner. And I maintained my weight, which I was something I was worried about.

We went shopping Friday at Oxford Valley Mall, which included a stop at “Chick-Fil-A”. The food court was packed as it was black Friday, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Friday night we went to a Beatles revival concert, starring “The Mahoney Brothers” in Trenton, N.J. We went with Rick (Earl’s youngest brother) and Helen and Helen’s sister Nicole and her boyfriend Larry. It was a lot of fun. I’ve never been a big fan of the Beatles, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. They had ketchup chips there, which was sweet.

We headed home on Saturday and sort of vegged out when we got back (after a stop at Wegmans). The DirecPC connection has been flying along lately and we played on the computer until 2:30 a.m. or so. Oh, we did watch Godspell on DVD last night, which was nice. We haven’t seen that in a while.

Today we had my father and his girlfriend and my sister over for Thanksgiving dinner. What a nice time we had. Earl and my sister were watching the football game in the living room, and my dad zonked out in the rocking chair, so it gave my dad’s girlfriend Karen and I a chance to chat. We caught up on family gossip and such. It was a nice conversation, I enjoyed it very much. I’m happy that my father and her seem very happy together.

After they left we watched “American Dreams”. Can I tell you, I really enjoy that show. Sometimes it absolutely boggles my mind when I see the racism that was occuring back in the 1960s. (I shudder to think what it was like before that!) I can’t believe that people were segregated so – that people actually had to ride in the back of the bus simply because of their skin color. How whacked is that. Crazy.

I am reading the latest Sylvia Browne book about dreams. As with all of Sylvia’s stuff, I find it absolutely fascinating. She seems to be writing like a fiend though, she has a book coming out like every four months or something like that.

The gash in my head finally healed up enough that I could start shaving my head again. Thank goodness. I was getting sick of my hair. My clippers had died though, so I couldn’t buzz it down first. I just went for broke, lathered up the week and a half of hair I had and shaved it off every so slowly. Came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I kept the goatee. It’s getting on my nerves, but I think I’ll maintain the commitment to keep it for a while.

We are planning the big Christmas shopping extravaganza for Saturday, Dec. 14 this year. This year’s destination is Walden Galleria outside of Buffalo. As I’ve mentioned before, each year we pick a different shopping mall to do all of our shopping at. We like to do it all in one day, and in a place that we haven’t been to before or at least not recently. That way we see everything “fresh” and aren’t bogged down with the “same old same old”. I’m looking forward to the shopping trip.

I guess we are going to end up going to Lowe’s tomorrow night for a mailbox. I think I should send the bill to NYSDOT. I don’t think they’ll pay it though.