I'm going crazy I think

I rarely remember my dreams but I had one last night that was really weird. I dreamt I was in the bedroom with Anna and we were hearing this sound or music. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from other than it was coming from our bedroom. I started to panic because the music was just coming from thin air and I screamed out loud "STOP!!". I instantly woke up from the dream and my eyes snapped open.

I'm not sure if I actually screamed it out loud or not, Anna said she didn't hear anything. But man it was crazy.

TOYS!

My new cell phone arrived a couple days ago and I'm really enjoying it. I have made quite a few calls in my house with it and it has worked flawlessly. The last phone was starting to die and I could not get reception in my house. The new phone also has many other non-phone features that are very handy to me, such as a full featured web browser for getting on the internet. I can also get all my email right on the phone and it has a nifty little slide out keyboard.

Its been a week since I had the crown put on the tooth that was cracked and it is still hurting when I chew on that side of my mouth. I'm going to give it another week before I call the dentist, hoping the pain goes away so I don't have to have more dental procedures done on me.

In other news, I've been struggling with getting a corporate-issued laptop at work for almost a month now. The first one they sent me had some glitch that made the computer completely unresponsive and impossible to use. The replacement showed up a week and a half later and it wouldn't even connect to the internet or let me log in to the computer whatsoever. They claim the replacement for that one should show up today. I'm really hoping everything works out quickly so I can get rolling with the new TV Calibration I'm able to do at work now.

Sunday

The dentist appointment resulted in a nice new crown on my cracked tooth. It was a partial crown, but it does cover the majority of the top of the tooth. Was pretty sore the first day. It still is sore today, its the same pain I had before they did anything where it hurts when I chew on that side of my mouth. Hopefully that pain goes away because so far its no improvement over how it was before the crown.

Of course, my dental insurance doesn't cover crowns, only cleanings, x-rays, and fillings. So I had to pay full price for the work, whatever that ends up being. This sure has been a horrible last few months for unexpected expenses and I really don't foresee it getting better for a long time. Maybe a giant bag of money will fall out of an airplane flying over my house and land in my backyard.

I suppose I could get into part-time diamond robbery. It sure looks like fun from the movies I've seen.

I'm a king now!

I just got back from the dentist where I had a crown put in on one of my molars. It had cracked in a couple places so he had to drill out the filling and prep it to be crowned. It was actually a pretty cool procedure once all of the barbaric drilling was done. He took some pictures of the tooth with this instrument that turned it into a 3D model of my tooth. From there he was able to sculpt out the crown which in turn got sent to an automated milling machine.

In about 20 minutes we had a perfect crown, he got it put in and glued down or whatever they do to secure the thing, and I was good to go. It was a 2 hour procedure and was pain free, just some discomfort at times. When I got home, it looks like a perfect tooth. Its kind of weird not seeing the silver filling there anymore that I've had for something like 15 years.

Cheers

Anna and I have inherited Grandma and Grandpa Harvey's bar glass collection. They are very nice glasses and quite the assortment. We spent a little while cleaning them all and figuring out the perfect way to display them. We like how they look and they add some sparkle to the room. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Spring?

Anna and I finally got to go out Geocaching on Sunday. It was an absolutely beautiful day to get out and go hunting. A quick recap for those that don't know what Geocaching is:

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value.


We set out with GPS, cell phones, and our Geocaching bag which currently contains a small first aid kit, baby wipes for cleanup, hand sanitizer, a towel, spare batteries, and trinkets to put into the geocaches that we find. The first one on the list was very close to our house and we got to the area that the GPS wanted us to go to. But then after lots and lots of searching, we did not find it.

We moved on to the next on our list which was supposed to be a multi-stage cache. The posted coordinates contain not the geocache itself, but a clue or the actual location of the end point. It led us to downtown Mankato but we came up empty handed again. It seemed to want us to go into an abandoned building, which we know isn't right because these things are always on public property. We were disappointed when we could not figure it out so again, we moved on.

We drove over the river to North Mankato to a nice park. We quickly found the area the cache was supposed to be and had some ideas of where it was. We were not finding it at first, then Anna had an "ah-ha!" moment and found it! Since readers of this may want to go find it, I will not give away any details other than it was an extremely clever find.

The final stop on our list brought us to Hiniker Pond in North Mankato. We headed off in the direction the GPS was pointing us, but after awhile I got confused that we'd walked a couple hundred feet and the GPS didn't appear to have realized this. I then realized that I had the wrong thing punched into the unit, I punched in the correct coordinates and realized that our destination was 60 feet straight ahead. As we were approaching, I got a low battery warning and hoped we would find it in time before the batteries died.

Once again, Anna quickly found it and we wrapped up our day. 2 found, 2 not found. Not too bad for the first outing of the season. We can't wait to do more!

Oh, you're still here? I'm not.

Lets see, whats new in my life?

Our basement flooded due to something horrible happening to our water heater. We were in the basement on Sunday, noticed nothing bad. Tuesday morning, right before I left for work, I went down there to scoop the cat's litter box and quickly realized that my socks had become wet. I looked around and saw that the carpet was completely soaked and in many places there was about an inch of standing water.

Needless to say, I got that horrible panicky sinking-feeling. I went back upstairs to the bedroom to remove my wet socks and change into some shorts so my pants cuffs wouldn't get soaked from the water. I let Anna know of my discovery and we both went back to the basement to inspect everything. The utility half of the basement which covers 2 rooms was all wet. It took us a little bit to figure out that it had come from the water heater. I noticed that the water on the carpet was warm near the water heater and we saw some drips coming off the bottom.

We also saw evidence of water that had come from the top of the unit as well. We tried towelling up some of the standing water near the washing machine and quickly realized that it was an act of futility. I got through to my insurance company for advice and they recommended a company they have worked with before that could help us. I got them on the line and they were out within a few hours to inspect the situation.

They brought their equipment in to suck up the standing water and a lot of it from the carpet. They then set up 2 giant industrial dehumidifiers and something like 9 giant fans to dry everything out. They said with the amount of amperage all the equipment requires, it is maxing out our house's electrical system. Ideally, they said they would have preferred to put in a couple more fans to help dry everything, but had to make due.

That was all on Tuesday. Today is Friday, and today they removed 4 of the fans and we should be good to go tomorrow for the rest of the equipment to be removed. We also had to have a new water heater installed on Tuesday which went great. I called my dad to get a recommendation on a plumber and he referred me to a guy he'd done business with several times in the past. Real nice guy and we were very pleased with his work.

The thing that frustrated me the most about the whole ordeal is about a month ago when we got our tax refund, we made a very large payment on a couple of our credit cards. Being how this event that happened in my basement was expensive, I didn't exactly have the necessary funds in my bank account so I had to charge it all to my credit card. It was almost exactly the amount we had paid off just a month ago.

Just my luck, Murphy's Law, that's how it goes, ain't that the shits, could be worse, at least you have your health, happens to all homeowners, and that's life. They are all true statements but damn if I wasn't quite upset at having our debt progress wiped out by a faulty water heater. At least I helped out the local economy in my own little way.

Im home

Yep, I'm home. Its so good to finally be back, felt like I was away for a long time. I'm worn out and looking forward to a couple days off. I learned quite a bit on my trip and it was some pretty cool stuff. I learned a lot about HDTVs and color theory. But right now my brain is kind of a mush ball, so I'm going to bed.

Training, Day 3

I forgot to mention that we did get the hotel snafu corrected. I sent an email to my contact at corporate who took care of it almost instantly.

We had day 2 of classroom training and hands on experience with the calibration equipment. Pretty intense stuff, we prepped for our exam which made me realize I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did. We got some good experience using the equipment so that helped quite a bit.

Tomorrow we attend a short meeting with other installers that are already certified, then we will go on ridealongs to see more work done out in the field. Will be nice getting out of the classroom, the day goes much faster.

I'm pretty worn out tonight. My roommate and I needed a change of scenery so we headed out to the Mall of America to bum around and have dinner. We discovered that we both love Famous Dave's so there we went. Ate way more food than any one person should consume in one sitting. And I couldn't even finish my plate it was so much food. Beef brisket, pork ribs, cole slaw, country fries, corn on the cob, and cornbread muffin. Delicious!

Training, day 2

Today was the first day of classroom training for our ISF Certification for HDTV calibrations. I have learned a ridiculous amount to information today and got to play with some very cool and VERY expensive calibration equipment, test pattern generators, and light meters. At the end of the training, I will be given a large equipment box similar to the ones you see in movies that transport a nuclear warhead. I'm pretty sure the cost is similar between the warhead and the calibration equipment.

I'm very please that they are providing lunch for us over the 2 days of classroom training so we don't have to leave and pay for lunch on our own, me being the cheap bastard that I am.

I'm still up here for 3 more days and I really can't wait to come back home. I already miss my wife, house, bed, comfy chair and couch.

Day 1

Today was my first day of the HDTV calibration training. They had me and my roommate go along with one of the guys that is already certified to do calibrations. we got to see him do calibrations for 4 different customers' TVs. We learned quite a bit and I was surprised at how much of a difference it made for their TVs. The detail and color was quite a bit better and the picture just looked better overall.

I had met my assigned roommate before at a prior training and we're getting along pretty well, so that's great. Our hotel reservations are a bit screwed up, my company told us we had reservations through Thursday, but the hotel has them only through Tuesday. We're going to have to figure this out or there's going to be some bad stuff going down.

End to the week

It has been a very long week for me.  Luckily, my only appointment today canceled on me.  It is snowing quite hard here and it would have been difficult to get to their house anyway.  I’m home for the day now, then early Sunday morning I head up to St Paul to begin my HDTV calibration certification training.  I will be coming back home Thursday night.

At least I can see across the street now, earlier today it was snowing so hard I could barely see the houses across the street.  We were planning on going grocery shopping today but I think it would be a bad idea to be out on the streets if it weren’t completely necessary.  I’ll have to get creative for dinner here.

I'm running out

It would appear that lately I have been running out of things to say here. Ah, I thought of a short story to tell about something that happened to Anna and I a few days ago.

We were doing a shopping spree in town of various items we needed. It is coming near the end of the year to spend my Healthcare Spending Account money or I lose it all. Unfortunately there is a lot of money still in there because they seem to deny every doctor visit I have submitted, but they have no problem if I buy 5 bottles of Tylenol.

We stopped by Target to stock up on more medical supplies and found some very nice disaster/first aid kits. Full of all sorts of bandages, ointments, thermal blankets, and other disaster-preparedness items. There were kind of expensive so we decided to get 3 to really use up some of the money. One for each of our cars and one for the house.

We then had to pick up some groceries so we headed over to Wal Mart (yes, I still feel dirty for shopping there) and as we were getting out of the car we heard someone's car alarm going off. No big deal, someone bumps into the car and it goes off, right? Well soon another alarm goes off, then another, and then a 4th!

Anna and I looked at each other as we were walking to the Wal Mart entrance and I asked Anna half-seriously if we should run. We were able to swiftly walk inside and avoid whatever gremlins were causing the car alarms to go off. The rest of the shopping inside the store went uneventful. On the way out, we almost got hit by a car which honestly I expect every time I'm in the Wal Mart parking lot.

We are headed for home less than 2 miles away and up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light. No, it was not the Hotel California but 5 emergency vehicles. It would appear that there was a collision between one of those large vans that can transport 15 people and some other vehicle that was already gone. The van was pretty smashed up, it is my theory that some idiot pulled out and tried to make a turn when the van was coming right for them.

Between the weird car alarm stuff and all the emergency vehicles at the accident site, I felt very relieved that we were ready for any disaster with our new kits from Target. Needless to say, once we got home, the front door was immediately locked and we stayed away from all windows. Safety first!

below freezing? Booooo.

Its a chilly morning today, thankfully I have the day off and don't need to leave the house unless I want to. We were thinking about a road trip in March, head out somewhere for a few days but we realized we really can't afford it right now. As much as we'd like to take some time off and get away, we would end up having to charge it to the credit card and thats just stupid.

We're loving the new grill, I think I've cooked dinner on it more times in two weeks than I used the last grill all summer. Did up some BBQ pork ribs last night, and although they didn't turn out as good as the ones I made last July 4th, they were still very tasty.

I found out yesterday that I was confirmed to get ISF Certified to do professional calibrations on high definition TVs. Its actually a very big deal and would be quite expensive if I had to pay for the courses on my own. My employer will be sending me to Minneapolis for 2 days for about 15 hours of training. Then I will be able to calibrate a client's TV set which would give them much better picture quality and decrease the electricity usage of the TV by up to 70%.

Kitty House!

We (I) decided to turn the box our grill came in into a kitty play house. I cut a couple doors, a window, and a skylight in for them.

Its the weekend!

…for me at least. I have Thursday and Friday off work and I greatly need it. The past few days at work have been pretty rough and trying on my sanity. Luckily, Anna and I went out for dinner and drinks at Applebees last night and I felt much better from the good food, drinks, and company.

I do have a couple errands I have to run today but that is no big deal, plenty of time to get things taken care of. In geeky news, I’m normally a Mac user in the computer world, but right now I’m using Windows Vista so I can test out some software. Let’s see if that also chips away at my sanity. I’m sure I’ll be just fine.

We’re going to have to go grocery shopping today so that means we can buy more stuff to cook on the new grill. yay!

Thank you, Taxman

Anna and I have been talking about getting a new grill for quite awhile. Our charcoal grill was falling apart, and I'm not even sure the food cooked on it was safe for human consumption. We really wanted to go with a gas grill for the convenience of it and the ability to slow-cook food on it.

We decided to use some of our income tax refund and pick one up. I found out that Sears was having a clearance sale on their Kenmore brand of grills and we decided on a beautiful red grill that normally would have been out of our price range if not for the huge sale they had.

When the Sears warehouse person wheeled out the big box it came in, we realized it was not going to fit in our car. Lucky for us, a very nice gentleman in a pickup was getting something and offered to bring it to our house for us. I took him up on the offer and we loaded it up in his truck and I hopped in the passenger seat. There really are nice people still in this world.

It took us about 2 hours or so to assemble it. I ran and got a full LP tank from Kwik Trip down the road for a killer price. Sears wanted to sell me an empty tank for $40. Kwik Trip sold me a full one for $49.99. I was very happy with that price.

I brought the tank back home and hooked it up. I had a bit of an "OH MY GOD ITS GOING TO BLOW UP" scare when I first attached the connector to the tank and it did a little burst of propane. But I tightened it up and there were no problems. I waited a few minutes then fired up the grill for the first time. All 3 burners inside lit with no trouble and there were no explosions.

We had some steaks to cook up and they turned out delicious. I didn't get any pictures of it because by that time it was pretty dark outside and we were too busy getting everything ready anyway. I'm pretty sure we're going to be doing a lot more grilling now that I don't have to mess with charcoal.

The grill in its new home

The old dying grill

Me reading the instructions carefully

What shall I write about tonight?

I don't have much on my mind that is very interesting or thought-provoking. Today is my Friday, as in I have the next two days off work. I had a tough day at work today so the time off is welcomed.

We made a very yummy stir fry for dinner tonight, everything made from scratch. A lot of the time it is much cheaper doing it that way and it always tastes better. Plus I feel good knowing exactly what went into the meal. Well, I can't exactly tell you where the meat came from but I do trust the store that the chicken and pork were actually chicken and pork.

Our sales on Half.com are going very well. Anna's textbooks from college have sold surprisingly well and of the 12 DVDs and video games I put up, only 3 remain unsold. This plus the tax refund is a very nice economic stimulus here at the Meyer household. Screw Congress, we're taking control of our own destiny.

Thoughts and reflections

I'd like to talk about 2 topics that really have nothing to do with each other. Our new president Barack Obama, and Wal Mart.

First, President Obama. Of course anything I can say has already been said five hundred times over, but I will say it anyway. I am excited and optimistic at having a president who has the country's best interests in mind when making decisions. I was very disappointed with George W. Bush and his stubborn stay-the-course way of thinking. He'd stay the course even when it was very obvious it was the wrong way to go.

I'm excited that President Obama understands the need for research and development in this country towards alternative, zero-emission energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal. Our country has so many brilliant people that are able to make serious advances in these fields if given a chance. There was such little funding given out by the last administration that its no wonder other countries are starting to leap us in technological advances. It is going to be a very interesting next 100 days to see what all he accomplishes.

Secondly, on to Wal Mart. I do not like supporting that company, I do not enjoy shopping the store, and entering their parking lot is taking your own life in your hands...or possibly some idiot's hands driving through there not paying attention.

We have started grocery shopping at the local Super Wal Mart in an attempt to save money. The adjective used, super, is quite ironic. My dictionary defines super as: very good or pleasant; excellent, which aren't exactly the words that come to mind when I think of Wal Mart. It is dirty, employees rarely seem to want to be there and are rarely friendly. The customers that shop there are different than what you would find at say Target or Hy-Vee grocery store. Different in that they also seem more crabby, rude, not paying attention.

Not to mention how Wal Mart's business practices are sketchy and unfair to the manufacturers. To get the low low prices they have, the manufacturers either have to accept a lower profit margin (i.e. razor-thin) on items sold to Wal Mart or lower the quality of the items they sell to Wal Mart.

Why after all these negative things I have mentioned do I continue to shop there then? It simply comes down to price and cost savings. Its a tough time right now financially for many people, us included. We have seen a price savings buying our groceries at Wal Mart vs. the local megamart grocery stores. I still feel dirty and a feeling of gloom and regret comes over me as I enter the building.

Is it as bad as I describe? Possibly. Am I exaggerating a bit? Probably. But that does not mean there is not an ounce of truth to my statements. Yes I know I just used a double-negative. I'm not a professional writer, so go screw yourself. ha ha ha :)

Its sunday!

Hooray the temperature is finally above 10 degrees so I was able to get my VW Geekmobile washed today. That poor car was so dirty and the windows were almost opaque.

Anna and I are eagerly awaiting all of our various tax documents so I can process our 2008 tax return. I'm really hoping for a big refund this year since I made some changes to my W4 and was putting in a lot more taxes. And I've had some various pre-tax deductions as well that were new, so here's hoping for a large refund.

When doing our laundry, I've always noticed something strange. When we're folding the clothes and putting them away, a large majority of the shirts that Anna has worn are inside-out. When she puts the in the hamper they are not inside out. And the majority of my shirts are not inside-out. She can even wear one of my shirts and it will come out inside-out. We are baffled at how this is possible.

What to do?

My weekend is here: I have Thursdays and Fridays off. I don't think its going to be possible, but I really do not want to leave the house whatsoever. Its going to be so cold on Thursday, I'm afraid of getting frostbite from just looking out the window for too long. Nope, I'm staying inside where its warm. Drink coffee or tea all day and snuggle up with blankets and my cats.

I say I probably will have to leave the house at some point because we are going to need to get groceries probably Friday. We're running out of things to have for dinner so I'll either have to get very creative or we go shopping.

My half.com sales of old video games and DVD movies are going great. I have sold 10 items already in less than a week. I need to pick up a few larger padded envelopes for some of the DVDs, but as I said, I really do not want to leave the house. Am I a baby? Yes.

Come to the Dark Side

We have been shopping at Wal Mart the past couple times for groceries. I really dislike Wal Mart for several reasons: Its kind of dirty, the employees are usually rude, the customers are rude. But we are definitely getting better prices on things and right now, we need it.

A good friend of mine turned me on to www.half.com . Its a site that specializes in selling used books, DVDs, music, and video games. I put a bunch of video games and movies up on there this morning that we don't use anymore and already 2 items have sold. Will be a nice little bit of extra money.

Been a couple weeks since the physical therapy ended for my wrist/thumb issues and there has really been an improvement. I don't have the constant pain all day and I'm not waking up at night in severe pain. I just have to keep doing the stretches and exercises they showed me and things will keep getting better.

It is now less than 20 days until our new president, Barack Obama takes office, and I am thrilled! It will take a couple years for him to undo a lot of the damage that has been done to our wonderful country, but I have faith that he can help facilitate the rebuilding.

Limbo!

Right now we're in that weird limbo period between paychecks when money is low and we don't have a lot of food in the house. I improvised dinner tonight and made a pasta dish that turned out to be absolutely delicious. I cooked up a box of penne pasta and made a sauce of out a couple pieces of bacon, minced onion and garlic (with my new garlic press), a little bit of cream and milk, red pepper flake, fresh thyme and grated parmesan cheese (with my new microplane grater!). Some salt and pepper to taste, and holy wow it was so good, and it was all from supplies I had around from other meals I made. We also made some tasty garlic bread from the rest of the bread we made last week.

I really like being able to improvise meals and have them turn out good. Following recipes is fine and all, I have no trouble with that. But coming up with stuff on my own is pretty cool.

I had an appointment today in Spirit Lake, Iowa which turned out to be about 220 miles round trip for me. It actually was a nice drive with nice weather, dry roads, and plenty of audio content on my iPod to keep me entertained. The clients were super nice too and were very happy with the work I did for them, which always makes any long drive well worth it. Yeah I know that sounds cheesy, but its nice making people happy while enjoying the work I do. I suppose if I pissed everyone off I wouldn't enjoy my work as much.

Cooking!

My sister in law Angela had my name for Christmas this year, and wow did she get me exactly the stuff I love. She got me an awesome cast-iron skillet and an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven. Both of which I have wanted for a long time. She also got me the world's best garlic press and the world's best hand held micro grater. I've been using all of them quite a bit since I opened them and they are awesome.

Included are a few photos of them in action. Thanks again Angela!

Melting some butter to cook up the French toast.

The French toast! With bread we made from scratch the day before.

Pork chops cook up real well on cast-iron.

I love the Dutch oven. Making some pasta salad here.

New Year

Anna and I celebrated January 1st by sleeping in.  I haven’t slept in in weeks, and it was fantastic!  Neither of us could stay awake for midnight to hit.  I kept dozing off in my comfy chair in the living room until Anna recommended that we just go to bed.

 

This morning we sat around for a bit, had some coffee, and planned out our day.  We decided to make some French bread from scratch to go with the homemade French onion soup we will be making for dinner.  Both are rather time-consuming but very enjoyable to prepare.  They are even more enjoyable to eat!

We are both very antsy for spring now that we have a nice GPS unit to go Geocaching.  I keep looking over at that little yellow unit, longing for the snow to melt and the daylight hours to be longer