Apparently I'm still here

Sorry I haven't updated lately. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the blog here. As of right now, its a journal of what I'm doing lately. A lot of the time, I don't do anything interesting so I'm trying to think of other things to write about.

The past couple days we've been working really hard on getting the walkway/patio done in the backyard. We are both worn out and very sore. It seems to be taking a long time for the relatively small size of it, but it is coming along very nicely. We gave ourselves a deadline of July 4th to have it done, and there will be pictures up once it is done.

Welcome home

I picked up my computer yesterday from getting repaired. They replaced the video card in it and it works perfectly again! I wouldn't have been able to do that repair on my own without spending a lot of money on the parts for it, so I'm very glad I purchased the 3 year warranty.

I did some tree trimming in the backyard a few days ago and we finished picking up all the twigs and branches today. We cut them up into smaller pieces to use in our firepit in the backyard.

Work still continues on the brick patio and walkway as well. I decided that I wanted to dig down a little deeper than I had so I can place more sand as a base. We picked up some very high quality landscaping fabric today to keep weeds from growing up into the patio. Before we went to the store, we figured out about how much sand we will need: about 16 cubic feet of sand. The store sells sand in 1/2 cubic foot bags for $3 each. this is going to be expensive, and a lot of damn bags of sand. Oh well, go big or go home. And do it right the first time.

Video time!

I found this video rediculously funny. Speakers are required for this.

I broke it!

I have a rather expensive, and very awesome Apple Mac computer. It decided to stop working on Thursday and I was troubleshooting it for the next couple days. After exhausting everything I could think of, I determined it must have a defective part in it which would need to be replaced.

Unfortunately the closest location where there is an Apple Store is in Edina which is an hour and a half away. However, the computer is still under 3 year warranty so it isn't going to cost me anything. it turns out they need to put a new motherboard and video card in it, which are the 2 most expensive parts for it. Without warranty it would not have been economical to fix it so I'm very glad I bought the AppleCare 3 year warranty.

The guy that helped me there used to work for my company: Geek Squad. So we got along very well while he troubleshooted the computer with me. I had to leave it there so they could replace the parts and it is supposed to be ready at the beginning of this week. I really hope it is done on Tuesday since I will actually be up in that area for work so it wont require a special trip to pick it up.

Oh, you're still here

The digging continues in the backyard in anticipation of the bricks. We've used the outdoor fireplace a couple times now but we haven't had much success. The wood we have is still rather damp so we will let it dry out for a week or so before another attempt at fire is made.

This country isn't so bad afterall

As I'm sure you already know, Barack Obama has enough delegates to be the presumptive Demcrat party nominee for president. This makes me absolutely ecstatic! I watched his victory speech on TV that he gave at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN and wow am I impressed. Was an amazing speech, very passionate and well delivered. Hopefully come November he will become our next president.

I took the week off from giving plasma, and I'm going back tomorrow. Easy money! On the 11th, it is our 3 year wedding anniversary. We don't have anything planned yet and probably won't be taking a trip to Minneapolis like we did the last two years. With gas prices the way they are it would pretty much cost $30 in fuel just to drive there and back. Right now, that is a lot of money to us, so we're going to just keep it low key.

We have started a project in our backyard and hopefully we can get it done soon. There is a pathway made up of some bricks and they really didn't do a good job with it, they are uneven and not placed well. We pulled them all up and we are going to lay new ones down. A good friend of the family donated about 30 of them to us, we just had to pull them up out of her yard but they were ours to keep. They are beautiful blocks, 18" by 18". We have been digging up the path we are going to place them in, and digging down deeper so we can place a layer of sand first to help stabilize the blocks. We are also going to make a 54" by 54" patio right off the end of our deck which I'm sure we'll find a nice use for.

It is pretty hard work since we don't have a wheelbarrow, I am shoveling the dirt into a large container and carrying it about 30-40 feet over to where I am dumping all of it. The digging is easy but carrying the dirt is hard hard work. I would say we are over halfway done with the digging which is going to probably be the hardest part.

Wow!

I had a great day at work yesterday. Business has been slow lately, but yesterday was quite busy for me. I had 3 appointments scheduled, but they were all very far apart. I ended up driving about 260 miles. I got to work early, about 7:15am and didn't punch out until 9:20pm. Half my day was just driving which was fine, I had plenty of podcasts on my iPod to keep me entertained.

I'm taking a break this week from giving plasma to give my arm a chance to rest and heal up. I've gone 4 times now and made $131. Its easy, very little discomfort. It would be great if I could give from my left arm too but it just didn't work very well, so it all has to come from my right arm's vein.

In other news, we're still eagerly awaiting our economic stimulus check. Since we had to pay in federal taxes this year, they don't have our direct deposit information so we have to wait for a check via snail mail.

We are also eagerly awaiting the results of the final Democratic primary elections to see if we may have a nominee today. Hopefully Hillary Clinton will do the right thing and admit defeat to Barack Obama so we can move forward towards winning the presidency.

You'll also notice links in this blog post. I'm going to start linking various terms that may not be widely used or common knowledge so people know what the heck I'm talking about. They will all link to Wikipeda which is a fantastic website.