Not Tar

I know it's not just tar they smeared on the wall. Tell me it wasn't just tar. It sure stank like tar last night, though. The air in our home was rank with a combination of tar(?), gasoline, improperly vented water heater exhaust, and basement dust crud. We slept with all rooms' windows cracked a little, and a fan drawing air out through the kitchen window. Whew!

We thought it was just the water heater exhaust, but Howie came up from the basement this morning after talking to the guys first thing, thrust a black-tipped index finger at me, and said "is this what you smelled last night? Smell this." At least he didn't ask me to pull that finger. But it was the same smell (again, better than the aforementioned alternative). Somewhat, anyway. Evidently two buckets of the stuff were left not too far from the furnace, so the warm air carried the aroma clear through the house. Yuck!

He tried to wash the tar off with soap and only ended up with it all over his hands. Rubbing alcohol? Nope. Nail polish remover? Yep! He came back in the bedroom, and his hands smelled worse than they did before. They were better once he washed the nail polish remover off with soap. Always back to the soap. Soap is good.

They made a lot of headway today, and weren't nearly so noisy with power tools. They've got the front, left side, and back of our house all done outside and have a trench dug on the right side. They'll put more stinky tar on, and plastic, then put drainage tile and gravel back in the hole before putting the soil back on top. The resulting grade is quite impressive; I know it will settle, but it's still a lot better than it's ever been.

Having been up since 8:30am (early for me, c'mon!), I'm struggling to keep my mind occupied. I'm also avoiding comfortable seating like the plague, because I'll be out like a light the moment I nestle down into a chair or the couch. So, I'm installing software and getting my system backed up - that'll keep me awake. Yeah, right!

Not a Sump Pump

We were told that what they put in is a special system, not just a sump pump. Heh...This sure looks like a sump pump to me, unless they just cleverly disguise their equipment in sump pump boxes to reduce the chance of the competition seeing their top-secret designs!

PromoGuy's Monday Mission 3.2

Could there BE questions more suited to Howie and me?

1. Have you ever bought something you were so excited about and found out later that it didn't work? Were you able to return it? How did it go?
I was terribly excited to order a Butter Butler for Howie last year. We'd seen it on TV and thought it was such a neat invention, so I was happy to find a great price on it at gadgetuniverse.com. We got it, and the thing was so hard to crank it hurt my hand. And once the sliver of butter started, it didn't want to stop! I contacted the company by e-mail and they not only refunded my full purchase price, but didn't require me to send the original item back to us. It's still sitting in our kitchen cabinet, all clean and back in its original box. I could regift it, but I just don't hate anyone that much.

2. I have a Palm (Pilot) for my date book and such, but have been thinking of jumping to the PocketPC world at some point. Do you have a PDA (personal digital assistant)? What kind, and how did you decide? What do you like about it? If you don't own one, do you want one or do you do better without such gadgets?
Howie bought a Dell Axim X5 and is very pleased with it. It takes both CompactFlashII and Secure Digital cards, has a 300mHz processor, 32MB SDRAM and 32MB ROM. The display on this thing is awesome - really bright and crisp. There's an optional 802.11b wireless CF card available for it, should we decide to switch the house over to a wireless network. It's also very small and light, just schweeeeet. I'm hoping he might write something up about his new toy, and I can link to it. We read a lot of reviews and realized it was the best bet for the money, especially with the $50 rebate when you get it directly from Dell.

3. What illness do you wind up catching more than any other?
Usually your common cold, though I'm constantly beset with sinus problems. I haven't had an actual sinus infection in a year or two, but I have a lot of blockage from past ones. Colds are something I actually catch, though. Who doesn't?

4. Do you like going to see the Doctor (any type)?
We've become friends through the years, and she came to our wedding. I like my family doctor a lot, but I'm not particularly fond of having to go see her.

5. How about the Dentist? Do you like going? Do you go in every 6 months for a check-up?
When I was in third grade, I fell on a piece of playground equipment and chipped one of my front teeth. I was rushed to the dentist's office, where I proceeded to beome very afraid. The dentist slapped me. Yep, slapped me. It was years before I set foot in a dentist's office again. I was in college when a tooth finally got so bad I couldn't stand it any more. So, my first dental work was a root canal. After that it was all downhill! I don't mind going at all now, and rarely have anything wrong. Now that we have insurance, I go for my regular checkups, yes!

6. Are you a "Dog Person" or a "Cat Person?" Do you think a person's choice tells you something about their personality?
I'm both, but lean more toward dogs because of their range of expression and goofy personalities. I suppose the cliche answer is that a cat person is more secure and doesn't need a dog's constant attention and affections. Who knows...Our cats are both pretty dog-like, too.

7. I've mentioned before how me and a buddy of mine have just let our friendship lapse. There was no disagreement, but we've hit that point where we have nothing in common anymore. My life has progressed and he is still living in 1992. Have you ever had a friendship that just seems to have run its course? Where there is just nothing there anymore? What finally happened?
Yes, that's happened to me. There's a person who was a good friend to me when I was in high school. I practically lived with his family for a few summers. He was in his 30's, but very young and hippie like. He had a lot of odd ideas which, at the time, were endearing and refreshing coming from someone as "old" as him. The thing is, I grew up and moved on, but I he never did. He's over fifty and still lives at home. We just drifted apart. It happens, sometimes.

Today's Comment Question: Wanna get together after work and run around? Any ideas on what to do?
Dinner at Tumbleweed, and then let's check out the new Wal-Mart Super Center in town! They open January 22 - you free any time soon after that?

Jackhammer

I will try to get Monday Mission done today, for it is chock full of fun questions, but right now I am about ready to retreat to bed with a pillow over my head. The Everdry crew is here and they are jackhammering right beneath the office where I sit. This is the sound, as actually recorded by yours truly. Just magnify that sound by about 50-fold and you'll get an idea.

This jackhammer has a vacuum running with it, but the crew leader advised us to put damp cloths over the heater vents, for the other dust from the chipper. but as the cloths dried, they began flapping. Now there's a stinky dust in the house, dang it. I've turned the furnace off, despite it only being about 30 degrees out (with a windchill more like 18). I hate to think about what we're inhaling here...cement dust and mold spores. Yuck!!! Please pray.

The Everdry salesman, Kevin, told us they'd put in the EZ-Breathe system about a week before the basement work was begun, so it would be pulling the mold and such out as they worked. Well, somewhere there was miscommunication, because the EZ-Breathe guy isn't coming out until this afternoon. That isn't helping with this foul-smelling dust.

While we were still negotiating, I half-jokingly said "if you'll have Merry Maids come in to clean afterwards, I'll sign". Kevin said they'd be willing to do that. I don' think we have that particular sales-dance promise in writing (I'll have to check on that), but I am going to push for it, or at least a discount so we can have a maid service come in and clean. This is foul.

On the plus side, they're going to break apart and remove the big old cement sink from the basement. They also anticipate it being a 2-day job. At least we won't have jackhammers going for three or four days. That's a plus, right??

Puppetmaster

I just got back inside from taking the dogs out. It's cold today, 22(f) but with a strong wind making it feel more like a biting 7(f). Usually, when it's this cold, the last thing I want to do is let them play out there. But they'd been good and done their business in short order, my strategy of making them wait a little longer paying off, so I thought I'd let them play.

Unlike Sarah, Buddy and Emma are both runners, so they're on retractable leashes whenever they're outside. You've seen these leashes - the kind with the plastic handle and long, thin rope leash. Those leashes are kind on our backs, especially when walking a dog as big as Emma; even when she gets out to the end of the leash, there's a little elasticity to the rope.

Today, though, there was mayhem. Buddy and Emma tumbled and growled, sprinted and dodged, leaped and crashed. The whole time they're doing this, their leashes were winding around their limbs and bodies; I aided in the detangling process by constantly untwisting the leashes at my end. It occurred to me that I've become a puppetmaster to dogs.

Emma had a running frenzy, going "crazy dog" as we call it. Usually, she careens back and forth within the confines of the leash's length, her body low to the ground and her long legs splaying out beneath her. It reminds me of the sprints we used to do between orange safety cones in gradeschool, running erasers back and forth. (Do they do this in every gradeschool?)

Today, though, instead of tearing back and forth, she went went clear around me, three times. Buddy followed two of the turns. It happened so quickly I wasn't able to follow around with the leashes, and soon I was roped tight as a maypole and laughing my head off, all alone in the middle of my yard.

The dogs are the true puppetmasters after all, or should I say puppymasters.

Friday Five

Well, it's Friday once again, that beloved culmination of the week, and excuse to answer someone else's questions in our blogs.

1. Where are you right now?
Mmmm, if memory serves, I'm in my office at my computer. In Ohio, US, the World.

2. What time is it?
Does anybody really know what time it is? It's 2:50pm, Friday.

3. What are you wearing?
My comfy, oversized tan cotton shirt and a completely mismatched pair of blue cords with an elastic waist. Grungy day here.

4. Any people or animals around you? Describe them.
Nearly my entire domestic universe is present with me. Howie is sitting in his chair, surfing the web and watching TechTV. The dogs are all in the office with us, of course. Emma's on the floor, happily working away on her Kong toy (it has dog biscuits stuffed inside it). Buddy's already retrieved the goodies from his Kong, so he's alternating between climbing up behind Howie to look out the window and eyeing Emma's Kong. Sarah, ever the good dog, is nestled between Howie and the arm of the wingback chair. Hattie cat comes and goes, hopping over the homemade gate we have propped up against the office doorway. Elliott isn't a spry young jumper any more, so he's out in the livingroom, nestled by the heat vent. I think that's everyone!

5. What are your plans for the weekend?
The Everdry people are coming early Monday morning to start work on the basement, so I need to clear the stuff away from the northeast side of our house. It's the hidden side of the house and tends to accumulate things like empty seedling flats, buckets, pots, and assorted junk. Other than that, we'll probably stick around the house and go to church Sunday.

Ta-Da...The New Desk!

This is what I jokingly refer to as my cockpit. I love how everything is within easy reach without taking up one bit of extra desktop space. Kudos to whoever did the design work on this at O'Sullivan Furniture. It's just plain brilliant, and I love it.



Here's a before shot, showing our old desk. This picture was taken when we first moved the office into the front room...Back before it had a chance to get too cluttered, and before the keyboard tray broke...Before we added peripherals which took up yet more desk space...Sorry I couldn't find a more recent picture with that chronic "lived in" look!

I'll post more pictures once the whole room is done. Right now it's still full of boxes of stuff I vacated from the old desk and its drawers! We're scavenging the drawers from the left side of the old desk and installing them on the right side of the new one. I can't wait.

Motivation, Where Aaaare You?

I need to go buy chicken today. One store is having a meat blow-out (doesn't that sound appetizing?), including boneless/skinless chicken breast for $1.58/lb. Another store has stepped up to the plate and is selling them for $1.28/lb. I must stock up! I just feel slow on the draw today, like most days. But if I don't get going, they'll be sold out and I'll be paying $2.00+ for them tomorrow. *yawn*

I got my replacement Epson Printer via UPS today. I e-mailed tech support because of problems I've had with our Epson Stylus Photo 820 ever since getting it last year, and got a reply saying I needed to call a number and arrange for a whole unit replacement. Cool. I called, and recounted all the diagnostic steps I'd taken to troubleshoot and remedy the problems with the print heads on this printer, and the rep agreed to do a replacement.

He asked me where and when I bought it, and I told him Staples, January 25, 2002. I honestly thought that was the purchase date, and I didn't have any documentation on hand to look at. It's the date which stuck out in my mind. Well, I got the printer today and looked up an old post I'd done on another website, and found I'd actually gotten it December 31, 2001. Sheesh....So I contacted Epson five days past my 1-year guarantee. I hope they don't hassle me about this exchange, considering how close I was!

They sent me the silver model, and I notice it has a removeable power cord. My original printer is the standard putty color and the power cord is attached. I must say, the silver model blends nicely with the grey pebble finish on the desk...I need to put it through its paces and see if it remedies the problem I've had. And I need to find that doggoned receipt or see if Staples can pull it up somehow, like Target can, by credit card number. Oh, if I have my archives, I will have a scan of the receipt; I made one to send in with the printer's rebate form. Aha! Cross your fingers, everyone.

The dogs have finally accepted this office is, well, just an office again. They're curled up on various pieces of furniture, sleeping soundly. It's a good time to take a shower, but the sun coming through the window feels so nice, and my coffee tastes so good, and this chair feels so comfy...Well, I'd better get at it.

P.S. I found my receipt from Staples and wrote a note on the copy I made of it for Epson. I hope Epson will be decent about this, considering how close it was to my year's warranty when I wrote. I'm also sending a print screen with a post I made in September 2002 at a photo forum concerning my problems with the printer. I want them to see I've had a legitimate problem with the printer, and for a long time. Keep your fingers crossed that they'll be kind, especially since they've already sent me a refurbished printer as a replacement!

Sniffers

You'd think we'd just moved the family to a new country the way these dogs are investigating every square inch of the office today. Buddy, especially, has his nose plastered to every surface and is making a slow inventory of all the new smells. Beer spill...Check. Styrofoam bead...Check. Strange odor...Mental note, research later.

I know/hope there's nothing on the floor to hurt him or the other two dogs, but it's still disconcerting to see him shoving his nose into every crevice in the room. C'mon guys, same stuff, different places. Only the desk is new, and you're not smelling it at all! Weirdos.

Everdry called this morning at 8:45am. I heard the guy's voice coming over the answering machine, my mind still in a sleepy fog, and answered the phone. I was cognicent enough to hold a conversation with him and learn that the crews are running a couple of days behind and he wanted to know if Monday would be okay for them to start instead of tomorrow. AND HOW. I want to get the office and rest of the house clean before there's more dust to deal with. Monday's finer than frog hair, I reckon!

Assembly Might Just Be Worth that Twenty Five Extra Bucks

Howie and I spent about ten hours disassembling the old desk, assembling the new desk and hutch, and rearranging the office to accommodate the different furniture. We are so sore from sitting on the floor all those hours and moving furniture after that. Man, this stuff takes so long to assemble! But I sure do love the results. We figured out we can scavenge some of the drawers and drawer hardware from the old desk and put them on the new one. The old desk kinda disintegrated when we took it apart to get it out of the room...Heh.

The office is too torn up for any pictures just yet, but once it's cleaned up I'll post some. This desk is SO cool, every bit as neat as I'd hoped it would be. Rush on over to OfficeMax.com and check them out, y'all. The only peripherals on my desk now are my monitor, printer and scanner, and all the cords are neatly absent from view. Now my clutter...Well, that's another issue.

Bright and Early

It figures that because I stayed up until almost 5:00am, the OfficeMax delivery guys would come knocking at the door bright and early (early for me, anyway, at 9:45am). I am so glad I typed "knock loudly - my husband works nights and we may be asleep when you come" on the delivery instructions, for we were sound asleep when they began pounding with the doorknocker. I stumbled out of bed and pulled on yesterday's jeans and t-shirt. There was no doubt we were home, what with all three dogs barking in excitement and my calling "just a minute! be right there!"

I swear, this pre-fab furniture is denser than gold bricks. I can't even begin to lift two out of the three boxes those two men heaved into the livingroom. I'll have to carry the desk and cabinet into the office piece-by-piece for assembly. I still have to disassemble our old desk, a heavy old thing which is held Frankensteined together with L-brackets and glue at this point. I'd like to donate it to someone who could use it, but I doubt it will survive another disassembly; due to its large size, it's had to be taken apart each time we've moved.

And about this basement work we're having done...Don't know what brought that to mind, other than the fact that it's January 7 and they've supposedly got us scheduled for January 9. Like I said before, we're "on call" with Everdry, so our work could have been done with as little as a day's notice up to this point. Of course, no one called. We were told the company would be out to put in the Ez-Breathe system December 9, but I reminded the guy we'd be out of town still. He promised a December 16 installation date, but that came and went without so much as a call. When we called a few days ago, the guy told us they normally install the EZ-Breathe at the same time they do the waterproofing work. It would be so nice, so refreshing, to get a straight answer when dealing with companies.

This "on call" status can mean we're made to wait past our scheduled start date, however. I sure hope not, for we have to wait about three months after the sealing work is done before we can frame in and finish the basement rooms. However, if all goes as scheduled, I'll be complaining about early-morning work crews, jackhammers and dust within mere days. How fun!

Search Twiddles

Added a site search using Atomz. All in all, it's pretty neat and customizeable. I did it as much for myself as for any readers; sometimes my blog is the only record I have of both major and minor events, and it's handy to be able to find them when my memory poops out on me. My only beef with Atomz is, I'm not sure if there's a way to make it link to the blog entries' individual ID's instead of just the archived pages containing the entries. Hmmmmmm....

Mamma Mia

Isn't she pretty? That's my mamma, posing with some monsterously huge fake roses at Big Lots last Friday. While the menfolk were hunched before the TV watching OSU and Miami warring for college football supremacy, mom and I were out shopping. And shopping. And shopping.

From the Mouths of TV Babes

Woah...Good quote on a rerun just now.

"Sometimes you have to forgive someone just because you want them in your life."
-- character Maya Gallo on NBC's Just Shoot Me

Who says sitcoms can't drop an occasional pearl of wisdom? Of course, most of what JSM's Finch says isn't all that profound, but it's usually pretty funny. Oh, my, and did anyone catch Conan O'Brian on The Andy Richter Show Sunday night? That show cracks me up, and Conan's over-the-top performance was just what I needed last night. What a goober he is. :)

Great Minds

Something Vikki wrote ("On Writing") came to mind when I read this quote today:

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
-Author Unknown

There's no substitute for stimulating conversation, yes?

Today In History

I added this nifty bit of fun to my sidebar just now. At least now my blog will have something new every day, even if I don't post. Its creator's site is pretty darned amusing, too. ;)

I also discovered another surveys-for-cash place, GoZing.com. You can choose your form of payment: Amazon.com gift certificates or money deposited directly into your PayPal account. One survey I took went through the same company that Greenfield Online sends folks to occasionally. It's nice getting a little cash now and then, and even the small incentives add up.

Digital Dock Rocks!

I have got to start going to bed earlier. Over the last week or two, I've been staying up progressively later at night. I got to bed at 8:30am today, and slept until 2:00pm. Our hours are backwards to begin with since Howie doesn't get home until almost midnight from work, but I've been outlasting him and sleeping later than he does. I almost made it with no nap yesterday -- So close! -- but I was literally falling asleep sitting up at the desk and had to sleep a while. Renewed vigor come midnight - Not good! *sigh*

At least my wakefulness was productive last night. I continued my comparison shopping over the half eastern hemisphere for office furniture, in search for a desk or workstation. After looking at desks at stores and online, I was continually brought back to the O'Sullivan desks with Digital Docks. What a great concept! The desks have a bay built into them beneath the monitor shelf, and your computer's tower goes in it. Your computer's drives are right in front of you, and the connectors on the back of the computer are readily accessible. I love how the tower is up off the floor without taking up useable space on top of the desk.

OfficeMax.com has free shipping on orders over $50 (most items are delivered in one business day, too). They have a special right now with a free hutch when you buy the desk. There's ALSO a coupon code for $40 off a purchase of $200 or more available at Currentcodes.com (you have to click through from their site for it to be applied, and it's for new customers only). I feel I did my homework and came away with a great deal on this desk, especially considering the free delivery to my door. The L-desk has no drawers, so I got the matching 2-drawer rolling filecabinet to slip under one side (like they have it pictured). I should get the desk Tuesday and the file cabinet within a week...Yippee!

For Those Who Enjoy Language

Some fun links for those of you who enjoy words and giggle at the misuse of them, here are some of my favorite links:

Engrish.com - reduces me to tears sometimes

Gotchas - Found via one of the Lockergnome newsletters I receive

The Webreference Grammar Series - Found via the above site

Enjoy! :)

Stinkin' Dinners

Howie went to his mom's this afternoon for the annual sauerkraut and pork over mashed potatoes. I had a headache and opted to extend my nap. He's bringing a plate home from her house, but not soon enough. I'm HONGRY, people. I can almost smell that horrible/wonderful sauerkraut smell. Glad I'm not the one who cooked it in my house, LOL. Actually, we eat kraut quite a bit throughout the year. One of our favorite ways to make it is in Chicken Reuben (Note: unless you're a Dave's Garden subscriber, you won't be able to read the follow-up posts to the thread where I gave the recipe, but you can see the first one, containing the recipe).

Food smells are such a mixed lot, aren't they? Garlic, for instance. When we're out shopping and the scent of garlic-laden Chinese or Italian food wafts across the parking lot from a restaurant, it's enough to drive us insane. But old garlic smells permeating a house? Not-so-good. Back when we were living in an apartment in a big old Victorian house, Howie made a Cuban rice dish containing green olives, black beans, and garlic, among other things. The recipe called for three cloves of sauteed garlic. Howie mistook that and sauteed three heads of garlic. Imagine this, knowing how sauteeing garlic brings out more of its flavor to begin with. One small bite of this dish was all I could eat; you truly could not taste anything except garlic. The biting stench of that stuff lingered in our apartment -- and the hallway -- for weeks. Ugh!

When I worked for a big catalog company as a team leader and phone associate, there was one particular guy I just hated helping. It wasn't because he was a bad person; actually, he was terrific on the phones and a really nice guy. But he took garlic supplements and ate a lot of the stuff, too. I can't begin to describe the sinking feeling I'd get in my stomach when I'd see him raise his hand, his awaiting headset in his grasp, and say he needed me to take a supervisor call. His headset...Oh, my gosh. It reeked of THE most gut-churning, old-sour-garlic odor imagineable.

Fortunately, a brief and unfounded head-lice scare got many of the supervisors a little twitchy about hygiene and we took to carrying our own headsets with us around our necks, like some brigade of doctors with stethoscopes. That solved the Garlic Guy headset dilemma, as long as I kept my breaths shallow and through my mouth when I was within a three or four foot radius of him. Sometimes health benefits just don't outweight the social downfalls of a supplement.

So, you want extra garlic with that pizza bread?

Big Lots News Flash

We thought we'd try some of Big Lots' Oxyclean rip-off for $1.99, and guess what. It works! Howie got stains off a patch from his baseball cap and we're going to try it out on some stubbornly stained clothes we've given up on trying to get clean. Wooo!

I need a life.