A Friday OFF

It has been an extreme week. Moving last Saturday into the new house, that is definitely not ready for us. There is still quite a bit of construction remaining to be done. But overall things are beginning to come together. It looks like we just might have all the flooring completed in the bedroom 'wing' of the house by evening. This will be a most welcomed relief. No sandy, sawdusty floors to walk around on before bed. The carpets went in yesterday and they are putting in the floating hardwoods in the hallway. So yes there is a light at the end of that tunnel.

Brian & I put in a late night at the office last night. We shot a live webcast at 7 p.m. and the grimlins got into the software. That caused us to have to reshoot the 'replay' webcast live at 10 p.m. for those on the west coast. The 2nd webcast recorded without a hitch and had us all set up for an archived copy. It was around 11:15 when I left last night. 7:30 -11:15 did make for the long day.

I had today off to work around the house and unpack a few more things, but the productivity hasn't been all that I had hoped for. But on the bright side the floating hardwoods are going in.

Mid-January?

Here we are at the end of another very busy week. Busy week, that's beginning to sound redundant, since just about every week is very busy. We're all prepared at work for our conference that begins this morning and runs through Saturday late afternoon. With all the preparation that has been it will be fantastic if things go as smoothly as planned. No glitches will be an awesome end of the week!

Catching up on the house, they found another place in the joist that had been cut incorrectly. It could have been a big issue later if it hadn't been found. Thank goodness we were already fixing the opposite side of the living room floor. The contractor was being very through in checking for problems. It is going to save us so much further down the line. We've begun taking picture of the interior as they have started working. The carpet was removed a couple of days ago. So Walt will see progress has been made when he heads over that way today.

Only 8 more days till the move, next Saturday is the big day. All the plans are in place. Movers scheduled, utilities turned on. Now just to finish up the final few boxes and we're off. I'll be getting the boxes finalized this weekend as much as possible after our conference.

The week begins.

The day went fairly well. Lots of productivity at work.

Walter met with our builder today and construction will commence tomorrow. YEAH! About time. He also spoke with an HVAC guy who will be getting started in the next week or so. That will get us in and warm. I've still got to find out who to get to come in and clean and inspect the chimney.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

"Horse Looking"
One day a man passed by a farm and saw a beautiful horse.

Hoping to buy the animal, he said to the farmer: "I think your horse looks pretty good, so I'll give you $500 for him."

"He doesn't look good, and he's not for sale," the farmer said.

The man insisted, "I think he looks good and I'll up the price to $1000!"

"He doesn't look so good," the farmer said, "but if you want him that much, he's yours."

The next day the man came back raging mad. He went up to the farmer and screamed, "You sold me a blind horse! You cheated me!"

The farmer calmly replied, "I told you he didn't look so good, didn't I?"

Sunday

Walt was able to sleep in some this morning. He seemed to have done well throughout the night. I spent the day catching up laundry for both Walter & myself. The last load is in the dryer. I did get a few more boxes packed.

It's coming along, I just hope I've got it all together by the 21st. That's my goal for having all but the bare basics ready to move.

Must buy packing tape tomorrow and bring home newspaper for packing.

Saturday

We've had a busy last couple of days. Early Friday morning (5:15) Walter gave me a call wanting me to bring him a couple of things to the hospital before I went to work. It made for a beginning of a very long day. After a very full day at the office I was back over at the hospital after stopping off for a few groceries, which turned out to be a problem.

Somewhere between swiping my debit card at the register and the car I lost it. How, I haven't a clue but needless to say it was gone. Not fretting too much, I figured it was in the bottom of my purse and I just couldn't put my hands on it. While I was visiting with Walter, I dug through the purse and came up empty. I left him sleeping soundly and head back home. I called and reported the card lost and found out that someone had used the card at a BP station shortly after I had been in the grocery store. Thank goodness I'm covered - I'll be reimbursed for any fradulent charges. Now just to wait for the new card to arrive so I can get back to normal shopping.

Today I did get to sleep in for a little while. I started out the day packing the bookcases and trying to get things cleaned up for Walter's return home. He had brought a bunch of boxes in on Thursday and they were beginning to take over everything. Mom jumped in and came over and help to begin packing up the kitchen. In the midst of all the packing, Walter called to tell us that he was being discharged.

I picked him up close to 2 p.m. He was so happy to get home. He couldn't stand the bed at the hospital. I do believe that it was about to drive him nuts. He was able to relax once he got here. I was glad to see him settling in. It does appear that he is doing better this time. Could be a good sign of a quick recovery....let's all hope and pray that is the case.

Dean & Sean came by to visit with him for an hour or so. They had their own good news as well. They are buying a house off Genito Road. So they will be getting out of the apartment in a few months as well. The visit wore Walt out so he's headed off to bed. I don't expect to see him till morning.

An Amazingly Hectic Day!!!

It has been one hectic day! A normal day is hectic enough with ever changing deadlines and new projects, but today really has taken the cake.

I left out this morning with the anticipation of only needing to deal with work and to go visit Walter in the hospital following his surgery. Well...that didn't last long. A quick phone call from Walter threw the afternoon into turmoil. They could schedule closing today! Of course, the sooner the better the only trouble was it was scheduled during his surgery.

So here I sit at the realtor's office awaiting our closing. Walter will only be here in spirit as he is currently in the OR (they took him into surgery at 3:05 p.m.). The title company representative isn't here yet! The pokey person. Punctuality would be great.

Well, I finally got into signing papers around 4:20 p.m. It took about 35 minutes to sign the quarter inch stack of papers in what seemed like triplicate. Sign for Walter, sign for myself, initial for Walter, inital for myself. Ahhhh.... No wonder people don't like to go through this mess too often. Well it was all worth it. Walter bought his first home while he was in surgery.

I made a run by the new house to pick up the key, have one made for Walter and dashed to the hospital. The doctor came in around 6 to let us know how he had done. Everything seemed to have gone fine. They got him in his room around 8:15 p.m.

Mom & I waited until after Walter got in his room before we left. He was in good spirits in general. He was very pleased about his purchase and was definitely ticked about having his own key. The only complaint that he had was lack of morphine. He's on a pump, but it doesn't work the way that the one that he had in Tennessee. We left him as he was finally settling in to sleep.

I drove Mom back home and finally got home myself after 10:15 p.m. It has been a long day and Walter wants me to come by on my way out to work in the morning, so I foresee another long one. Plus I've now got boxes out the ears in the dining room. It will make us look like alcoholics when we move, but they are good moving boxes.

Time to hit the hay. More updates tomorrow.

Closing Day????

Walt was up early this morning and out of the house with me. He went in with me to help finish up the computer from yesterday's virus episode. He took care of everything and was finished up just in time for us to head out to the attorney's office.

We were preparing for the house closing by getting together a few of those necessary legal documents that you need in life. What started out as two documents swelled to seven quickly, at least the services were reasonably priced. We went for two 'freebies' and were up-sold the others. I'm not gripping, they were needed.

We were suppose to close on the house late this afternoon, but things have gotten pushed back to either early tomorrow or Friday morning. The hang up was suppose to be the lack of the water being turned on in the house, but I had that rectified and the inspector was able to verify that was on. The absolute biggest hang up has been the seller's agent. They just don't seem to want to cooperate - not answering emails, phone calls, or even knowing what's going on half the time. It will all be worth it when we finally sit down and sign papers. I know Walter will be thrilled to finally have that part over. Then comes the next leg of the race to our move in date.

Viruses and Rogues

It has been a day full of viruses and rogue computer programs. The morning started off innocently enough, we had the normal beginning of the year 'Annual Planning' meeting. Then the other shoe dropped. The same computer that I dealt with all afternoon yesterday began exhibiting new virus symptoms. Several virus scans later and a phone call to Dell confirmed that the computer would have to be completely be erased and reinstalled. Many hours later we were down to one program remaining to install (the disk wasn't in the box - it must be hiding somewhere).

Back in the groove

Here it is a new year at the office and time to get back into the groove of things. There's video to edit, new magazine's to produce and a whole lot more.

On the whole the day started out fairly well, until the virus crisis struck in the back office. I had to mess around for about four hours getting four trojan virus' and a rogue program off of it. It wasn't just being there working it through it took several trips to research what I was dealing with along with a call to Dell tech support for a clue on what else to do. I was sure glad to see the virus scan come back without any infections.

After work Walt & I ran out to Lowes to pick up out carpet and vinyl for the house. It turned out to be pretty quick. Neutrals colors all around. We even think we found a remant for the utility room that is perfect. Let's just hope that it is still there when the builder goes out to pick it up.

Sunday

It's been a pretty uneventful day. Walt & Patrick came back in from their camping trip to Lynchburg during New Year's weekend. They both seemed to have had a good time and neither was frozen or worse off from the trip.

We made an excursion out this evening to the new house to check on a couple of things. It also gave me a chance to start playing with the furniture layout. Time to break out the graph paper and get things lined up. It will make it so much easier on moving day.

Masquerade Party

The party at Roz's house was as ambitious as ever. The party went quite well. There were loads of people from work, her volleyball team, and family too. I snapped a few photos. These are just a few.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2009 everyone. I've been having a blast chatting with a lot of old friends on Facebook. So glad to have signed up for that darn thing.

Since I was packing anyway, I've been going through all the old photos and scanning in a few.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

THE COUNTRY OF TEXAS
Please note that Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union . (Reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848.) We Texans love y'all, but we'll probably have to take action since B. Hussein Obama won the election. We'll miss you too.

Here is what can happen:

#1: Barack Hussein Obama becomes President of the United States, Texas immediately secedes from the Union.
#2: George W. Bush will become the President of the Republic of Texas . So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic?

1. NASA is just south of Houston , Texas . We will control the space industry.
2. We refine over 85% of the gasoline in the United States.
3. Defense Industry--we have over 65% of it. The term "Don't mess with Texas ," will take on a whole new meaning.
4. Oil - we can supply all the oil that the Republic of Texas will need for the next 300 years. Yankee states? Sorry about that.
5. Natural Gas - again we have all we need and it's too bad about those Northern States. John Kerry will have to figure out a way to keep them warm....
6. Computer Industry - we currently lead the nation in producing computer chips and communications--small companies like Texas Instruments, Dell Computer, EDS, Raytheon, National Semiconductor, Motorola, Intel, AMD, Atmel, Applied Materials, Ball Miconductor, Dallas Semiconductor, Delphi, Nortel, Alcatel, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.
7. Medical Care - We have the largest research centers for cancer research, the best burn centers and the top trauma units in the world, as well as other large health centers. Dallas has some of the best hospitals in the United States
8. We have enough colleges to keep us going: University of Texas , Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Rice, SMU, University of Houston , Baylor, UNT ( University of North Texas ), Texas Women's University, etc. Ivy grows better in the South anyway.
9. We have a ready supply of workers. We could just open the border when we need some more.
10. We have essential control of the paper industry, plastics, insurance, etc.
11. In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard. We don't have an Army, but since everybody down here has at least six rifles and a pile of ammo, we can raise an Army in 24 hours if we need one. If the situation really gets bad, we can always call the Department of Public Safety and ask them to send over Chuck Norris and a couple of Texas Rangers.
12. We are totally self-sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs, and several types of grain, fruit and vegetables, and let's not forget seafood from the Gulf. Also, everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste good. Don't need any food.

This just names a few of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in good shape. There isn't a thing out there that we need and don't have.

Now to the rest of the United States under President Obama:

Since you won't have the refineries to get gas for your cars, only President Obama will be able to drive around in his big 9 mpg SUV. The rest of the United States will have to walk or ride bikes.

You won't have any TV as the Space Center in Houston will cut off satellite communications.

You won't have any natural gas to heat your homes, but since Mr. Obama has predicted global warming, you will not need the gas as long as you survive the 2000 years it will take to get enough heat from Global Warming.

Signed, The People of Texas

P.S. This is not a threatening letter - just a note to give you something to think about!

SLEEP WELL TONIGHT THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU!!