Old memories of living in England

When I was in high school, my mother sent me to England to live with my aunt and grandmother. She wanted me to have a better education, she said. I’m not entirely sure if that was the true reason, but there it is.

I was on a website for D&D which had a map of people looking for players. It was set in England, so I tried zooming in to Cumbria, the place I used to live, and found it was thoroughly mapped by Google. So, I went on a little trip down memory lane of my year and a half in Cumbria.

View Cumbria in a larger map

Outrage of the Day: Presidents Shouldn’t Bow

It’s hard to imagine what President Obama was thinking when he decided to bow to a foreign monarch, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

Aside from being offensive generally — no American should bow to a foreign monarch, least of all, our Head of State — it really makes one wonder: If our President thought doing this was a good idea, what other things might he be contemplating?

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[From Outrage of the Day: Presidents Shouldn't Bow]

I think he was thinking we might get a break on the interest rate for the loans the Saudis are holding.

Lawn From Hell: A new beginning

Mowed the front and back lawns on Sunday. I’m trying to get the lawnmower to run out of gas so I can change the oil. I’ll probably get a new sparkplug and air filter and such as well. I think I need to get the blade sharpened as well. I bagged it to get all the crap from all winter, including leaves and such. Took three empties to get it done.

One thing I noticed while doing it was how dry everything was. It just rained too, so I get the feeling my lawn is going to die if I don’t do something drastic. Drastic meaning get my sprinkler system running again. I doubt it will be difficult, just have to get into the garage and get to it.

This coming Wednesday, I’ll be spraying the yard for weeds as well. There are a lot of them so I need to spray them all away, plus get the ant hills. If I get the sprinkler system working, that should be easier, since I’m supposed to spray the area lightly with water after I drop the ant poison.

Then I’ll also finish up with the weed whacker and also trim the other hedges around the front and side of the house, followed by getting the back, which will be a bitch and a half, I’m sure. I think once I get everything under control it should be easy, but getting it under control will be the kicker.

Anyway, after the lawn mowing I wasn’t a zombie, though I was dead tired and had to cool off for a while. I sat in front of my computer and played Civilization III with the fan on me for a couple of hours.

I think what I need is some sort of instruction that has a list of things I need to do and when I need to do them. Maybe there’s a book out there somewhere on managing a lawn in Texas. I know it’s pretty darned hot here so most grass will just die off unless it’s pampered.

We’ll see what I find in the way of books or whatnot. Maybe a pamphlet from a company in the lawn care business. Or I could just pay someone to take care of it. It’s like snowplow service in the Northeast. Every summer someone does lawn maintenance. I think it’s about 80 to 100 dollars a month for everything. Lawn, hedges, edging, etc.

Two Things That Are The Best

Best episodes ever are In a Mirror Darkly, parts 1 and 2, of course. The one where they show the dark alternate universe of Star Trek where everyone is a blue meanie.

Best Ice Cream ever is Oatmeal Cookie Chunk. Cinnamon flavored ice cream with Oatmeal cookies… <drool>.

I just found this flavor when I was getting some ice cream. It sounded ok so I bought it. Soooo glad I did.

Blackberry Slavery – Stepcase Lifehack

Blackberry Slavery – Stepcase Lifehack.

The quote below struck me, since I see it all the time at work.

By now, we probably have all been subject to “email attention,” which differs from the regular attention that one receives in a normal in-person, or phone conversation.

We start out talking with a colleague and the conversation goes well until we detect that they have made the switch to checking their device to see if they have received any urgent email.

Their responses become just a little delayed, and we can sense that something has shifted as they join the latest game of email ping-pong happening somewhere in cyber-space. Whether they are standing in front of us, or 3000 miles away, the effect is the same — the conversation slows down as they hit reply, start typing and hit send, even as they insist they are “still listening” when challenged.

Lawn From Hell: The Aftermath

Cant… move…. body…

Pain… too… great….

Lawn From Hell: The Awakening

So, my lawn sucks. Big time. I mean King Kong meets Godzilla sucks.

Taking care of a lawn isn’t something I’ve really ever had to do. When I was a kid, I mowed the lawn when I was told to, but really had no clue about lawns. Now, I have a lawn. Last year I nearly killed it. I have no clue how to take care of a lawn, so I thought I’d better learn this year.

First thing I learned about a lawn, it’s best to try and rescue it in the fall when it’s settling down to sleep. Great… now you tell me.

I’ve been looking at lawn care sites, and it turns out there are different types of lawn grass. Who knew? I think I have that kind called Bermuda, with a healthy dose of crabgrass all over the place. Also I have ants all over the place. I got some ant stuff for that so we’ll see how it goes.

What I’m doing today:

Downloading my lawnmower user manual. Turns out you have to change the oil on your lawnmower every year, as well as do something to the gas (or drain it). I need to stop off at the hardware store and get some oil, lubricant and an air filter for the lawnmower, apparently. I’ll probably get that done tomorrow.

Trimming/butchering the hedges. I hate hedges… I’ve been trimming the one’s in front of our house. They’re the prickly pokey kind that are supposed to keep out burglars. They don’t from what I’ve heard, but they do prick me quite easily. I call them vampire bushes, since they seem to feed off little drops of blood they get from me when I get close to them. Honestly I’d like to pull them up and burn them and just have lawn going up to the front of the house, or maybe a flower garden. Flowers are nice, aren’t they?

Depositing said hedge trimmings into paper bags for pickup by the city of Plano… the prickly, pokey hedge trimmings. I’m going to look like I got into a fight with a cat by the time I’m done.

Add to all that my horrible state of health (for various reasons) and I can’t do too much at once. Anne told me to just do the hedges in the front yard. I’m going to be lucky if I get one of the three done today. But… the secret is to keep plugging away at it.

I need to get more information on lawn care so I can figure out how to bring the yard back from the brink. It’s dying and needs some help. Oh… I have to get the sprinkler system working too. Nice thing about our house is the in ground sprinkler system. Just don’t have a manual or anything about it.

Anyway. New category going up on the blog dealing with the lawn from hell.

What’s the story about shampoo?

Last week I was going shopping and on the list is: shampoo.

A quick look in the bathroom once again confirms that we have no less than five shampoo bottles already. Being the diligent husband that I am, I ask what about all this shampoo we already have?

That’s when the yelling starts.

I got some shampoo at the store later that day.

They’re cute when they’re groggy

So, last week Morgan was sick and I had to go get him from school and take him home. Luckily, I didn’t lose any time at work. He had a fever and was coughing up a storm. Just so everyone knows, he didn’t have any symptoms that morning. He was up and at ‘em and ready for school.

We kept him out of school on Monday as well because of his coughing, and he’s been somewhat tired this week, lying down on the couch and just going out like a light around 5:00 p.m. or so. I get him up at 7:30 to take him to bed. He’s so cute when he’s groggy.

Elementary School Early Release — Why?

I have no idea. I only know that they’re releasing the elementary students early so I need to make sure I’m home at lunchtime to meet Morgan’s bus.

A lot of the time you can look at the school calendar and see why there’s no school, but this time there’s no reason given.

Also I need to really make sure I’m there. Once I didn’t know about it so nobody was home when the bus dropped him off, which they didn’t. They took him back to school and called me so I had to go meet him.

Ugh….