Great baseball seats

Last night Em and I took in the Cards game with some of the best seats I have ever had for a professional sports match. A relative of Em's owns his own small company and occasionally gets box seats for people at work and clients. Somehow, I never got the exact story, he won through a raffle luxury box seats for last nights game on short notice and invited Em and I along with a couple other family members and coworkers to the game.

Despite them losing in extra-innings and us leaving just before the end b/c Jolie was home alone and we wanted to let her out .... they were great seats.

Private box behind home plate, air conditioned with a small bar (stocked fridge of beer, some liqueur, soda, etc), private bathroom, couches, flat panel TV, hot dog/chicken/snack/nacho buffet, dessert cart including 10+ types of cakes and pie, plus two rows of cushioned outdoor seats w/ another tv outside and tables. Not too shabby. :-)

** Jolie is doing well. No problems to report, just a happy dog that is loving chasing the squirrels around the yard and who somehow (according to Em) managed to launch herself up onto the retaining wall which is about 2.5 times her height cleanly. :-)

Removed pests, painted room, and A DOG!

First the "less" exciting stuff ....

This past week Em took it upon herself to paint our office "Harvest Gold" and it looks great. The racing flags (it was a nursery before) and offwhite color just weren't doing it for us. Now the place looks great in a golden color that complements the furniture and looks very nice (great job babe).

original paint job


primed


new color making the windows and the molding stand out

Two great finds while getting supplies were the roller that had an extend-able handle that was only 1 dollar more than the one that didn't and the paint tray with the teflon coating ($1-$2 more) was great b/c there was no cleanup. Just let it dry until the next day and peal the paint right off in one big chunk.

Yesterday, with Em doing most of the work, we managed to remove all of the poison ivy we could find in our back yard. After wo days of spraying it with Roundup Heavy Brush Remover, I soaked down the area heavily to loosen the soil and then Em, fully clothed despite the heat and wearing double layers of gloves pulled it up along with the other ivy we don't like and cleaned the place up. So far no itching and now we can more easily manage the problem if it comes back (anything coming over the fence gets sprayed).

.....

Now for the big news ... we got a DOG! :-) Her name is Jolie (her original name, think Angelina) and she is an almost 3 year-old fawn shar-pei and labrador mix. Em had seen her online and this morning we went to the MO Humane Society and picked her up. She has a great temperment (hasn't barked, niped or groweled yet) and while the other dogs were bouncing all around she was fairly calm and is affectionate to anyone who is willing to pet her. I have been trying to do all of the tips that I have read online and seen on The Dog Wisperer and things are going well. She is still getting adjusted to the house but no problems yet. Only semi-problem so far is that she isn't seeming too hungry, but that will change in time.

The previous owners had adopted her but didn't have any time to spend with her. On their form they put that she wasn't totally house trained b/c she had a few accidents ... but it also said that she was in a crate for most of most days .. :-(. The guy who was taking care of her at the shelter said that she was his favorite and had never had an accident. [crossing our fingers]

I will post more pics when I get some better ones but these will have to do for now. :-)

A fixed doorbell and an unwanted guest

First the good news ... I fixed our doorbell. When we moved in we noticed that the doorbell button was cracked and so one of our first weekend in the new place I went out and bought a new button. Simple thing with two mounting screws and two screws to tighten the wires around. Not even two minutes of work and the things were switched. Great!

Or so I thought.

Our doorbell (the actual "bell" part) is a two tone thing (e.g. diiiiiing doooooong) but after I switched the buttons it was more of a dingg do.......zzzzgnzazx. To the untrained ears, I assumed that the problem was that the power wasn't being supplied long enough for it to complete the "bell" and that there must be some reason for the new button only applying the juice for a second when the old one did it longer.

A few weeks past and I finally got around to googling the problem and after a bit of searching found out that it was my fault. On the back of the original button was a small electrical "thingy" attached to the two poles without any obvious use and which didn't seem to have come with the button. When the new button didn't work I had tried putting it on the new button, but nothing changed so I pitched it with the old button figuring it didn't matter. Well I was wrong.

Evidently it was a diode thats is somehow important to having the power supplied correctly to the "bell" and which I needed to fix my button. After a bit more reading I found this site and several more like it which confirmed this so tonight I was off to Radio Shack. Thanks to the sites helpful hints I found it (part numbers were right on) and installed it. Viola! Now it works like a champ.

One place I read about diodes said they were polar (ie aren't symectrical and have a "flow" to them) so its possible that I had just tried it the wrong way and it would have worked the other way. But either way, its fixed now, I know I need one, I don't know any more about diodes other than that you can pick up a pack of 2 at Radio Shack for 99 cents. :-)

Now the bad news....

My uncle noticed when he was touring the house during the party that in one corner of our backyard on our retaining wall near the fence is several poison ivy plants. GRRRRRR. This is quite a problem in a multitude of ways first and foremost being that I (and my dad) are VERY alergic to poison ivy (e.g. when I was a young lad and in the boy scouts I got it a couple times, the last resulting in bad blisters, horrible bumps all over and my face swelling to the point where I couldn't really open my eyes). Secondly, we really want to get a dog this weekend and we can't have that around if its going to be sniffing around the backyard and coming inside.....

So this week we are going to try and get rid of it. And by we I mean me for moral support and Em doing the work very carefully b/c so far she has never had a reaction to it and we are hoping won't start now.

What I have read so far (aprox 15 minutes of googling) is that we will talkt our neighbor about it and given her consent, proceed to purchase and use a "large" amount of a good herbicide to kill the any and all plants we can find while trying to kill as little of the plants around them. Several people have suggested using Roundup (or other with gyphosate?) which gets absorbed and kills down to the root and then a day or two later soaking the whole area with tons of water to loosen the soil and then wearing protective gear which can be thrown away, pulling out all of the plants, putting them in plastic bags to be thrown away and washing every one and thing after.

So, that should be interesting. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. :-(

Good Party and thinking about a dog

The party was a success with 35+ family and friends stopping by and enjoying a burger/hotdog and a drink while getting to see the new house. More people than we expected were able to make it and we appreciated everyone stopping by. It was a nice time being able to throw a party like that in our own home with a good amount of space. When it wasn't raining we even got in a few games of cornhole in the backyard.

Sometime between now and next weekend Em and I may be getting a dog. We have pretty much decided that we want to get one now and just need to do a few things and find one. We will probably be getting one from the Missouri Humane Society since they have a ton right now. We are planning on getting a "smaller" medium sized dog that ideally would have hair on the shorter side ... but we might just end up getting whatever wags its tail at us first :-) Em found these two great looking dogs on their website (Sadie and Chance). :-D

Oh, and I found this link today ... chess and boxing? I was picturing something closer to "wizard chess" but with real people but this seems just as strange.

Checking in, happy belated 4th!

Not too much is going on.

Big party this weekend at our house (anyone who reads this and wants to come is invited). Should be a nice time with friends and family and food. BYOB but we will have some, plus hot dogs, burgers, snacks, soda, cornhole, music, etc

Brined and stuff pork chops tonight .... mmm mmm good.

Been doing a lot of yard work this past week(end). Weed-B-Gone works wonders but the bottle you need to be careful with the bottle with the hose attachment. There isn't a good way to tell how much your applying or how fast you should be working across the lawn. FYI if you put ~50% more than what is suggested on your lawn ... the tips of your grass will turn yellow too. But damned if it doesn't kill the weeds.

We had a tree service come today (actually they came out of the blue today, we had asked them to come out but they couldn't tell us when they would be available). They too two limbs off the tree closer to the house. The tree has some other problems which are stressing it out, but at least this way it will be a little more symmetrical and less prone to fall on the house ... and fill the gutters with leaves..

Em and I went to see WALL-E this past weekend and it was pretty great. Not quite as good as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles but a very good movie none the less (highly recommend). The plot is a bit more "kid-ish" but there are plenty of more adult jokes that the kids miss and plenty of just plain good fun. Oh, and Disney is evidently coming out with some HORRIBLE looking movie about chihauhuas in Hollywood. I will NEVER get that 2 minutes back.

Other than that, just work and softball. This week I am working on an internal Rails project and spent several hours this weekend getting some stuff setup on my home machine to try and learn about it before this week ... well the setup took longer than expected but I learned a ton. Hopefully I will post about it soon.

Em and I joined the local municipal recreation/fitness/aquatic center. Its actually a very nice facility and very cheap compared to other gym memberships. Em got the fitness + pool b/c she will use it and I just got the fitness center and will pay the local resident rate when I go with her. I don't like sitting out like she does, but the aquatic center has a full lap pool, water slide, kids area and lazy river. I do the lazy river.

On the topic of working out I am once again trying to get back(for the first time) into the swing of things. To that end I am trying out several online tools to track your workouts, progress, etc. I am hoping to post a review shortly after I have tried them out for a couple of sessions.

That is all.