Keith's uncle visited us last week. We dropped him off at the airport last night. Nice guy, but I'm not all that sorry he's gone. Keith used to be fairly close to him, but hasn't seen him in at least 19 years, and I'd only met him once, and don't remember it. He's 66, kind of at a cross-roads in life, and I guess decided to try and re-connect with ( Read more... )

Since I'm now on normal working-stiff days, I have a morning office routine. It goes thusly: Come in, put my lunch in the fridge, drop my bag in it's place behind the door. Sit down at the computer, sign in, and sip my tea while reading my e-mail. Then, log onto the web, and check the progress of the latest tropical storm/hurricane. I wonder if I' ( Read more... )

We didn't get run over by Dennis, but we did get a fair quantity of wind and rain. I didn't mind this a bit, as it gave us an excuse to stay in and be productive on Saturday. Therefore, we now have a clean room. I know, it sounds like no big deal, but really, I couldn't be more thrilled about it. It got wayyy out of hand, and we no longer have to ( Read more... )

I have this mental picture of Tom McRae as this weedy little
pseudo-intellectual with a goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. What a
tool. On the other hand, Lt Col Scott Pleus is class embodied.

My foot hurts. Yesterday, while packing the car for our ill-fated beach trip, I managed to step on a small fire-ant mound located in the crack between the concrete slabs in our driveway. I got myself about 5 stings, and now my foot is mildly swollen, red, painful and itchy. Could be worse, but definitely an annoyance. Stooopit fire ants.

We have family in, and we thought we'd treat them to some of the reason why people from all over the world come to the Tampa Bay area for vacations, so we went to world-famous Clearwater Beach. And it sucked. There have been massive red tide blooms in the area, and the beach was covered with dead fish, and you couldn't go into the water without ( Read more... )

We got Austin his graduation present. It's the coolest little red pickup truck, a 2001 Dodge Dakota. He's thrilled with it, and we're looking forward to having use of a pickup for whatever stretch of time we have left here. On the downside, having a 18 year old male added to your insurance makes the rates become stupid high. He's paying for his ( Read more... )

So, I'm up. I tried to go to sleep about 1:30, lay there until a few minutes ago, then got up. I'd like to get some sleep so I can be up during the day tomorrow, but I'm so thoroughly on a night shift that that just isn't going to happen. I'm currently watching several video channels with Austin.

Like everyone else, sometimes I need a little Donna Summer in my life, so I was listening to the 70's channel on XM on the way home from work this morning, when on comes a song I somehow managed to miss during the actual 70's. It's called "Push push in the bush", and it was equal parts appalling and fascinating. According to Keith, who was much ( Read more... )

My wonderful friend Laura came and spent the weekend with me. She reads this journal, so, Hi Laura! We had a great time, like we always do. We romped around in sheets in Ybor Saturday night, and then went to stammtisch last night. We also played an extended game of 'Valley of the Mammoths' that left me the "winner" with exactly one camp with one ( Read more... )