So last Tuesday evening our internet went out. We had this same problem about a month ago after a very heavy rainstorm so I thought maybe that was causing a problem. Last time the day before Comcast was to come out we had our connection back so I cancelled. Well this time we were able to get an appointment much sooner. Turns out it was our splitter. We had our internet on an analog splitter with everything going digital by Feb 2009 they've been switching some stuff over early. And when they did that the analog didn't understand the signal so we go none. Since it was nothing we would have know about we won't be charged for this visit, and are up and running once more.
It's been a weekend for lots of house stuff we had to get the damper for the fireplace replaced. Which was relatively quick and painless. I think the guy was in and out in 20 minutes, he finished up before the rain let loose once more. Then Saturday was comcast followed by a guy giving us a price estimate on new windows. We're really trying to cut down on energy leakage from this house. In a couple weeks we'll be putting a couple more layers of insulation up in the attic. I know in a couple years we'll need to replace the roof, I really wish going solar didn't cost 10-15 thousand dollars because I do that in a heart beat if it was only a few thousand dollars more than a new roof.
Anyway I got back from a crazy evening at work, though the last hour and a half was easy (usually is Sunday nights) before that it was help one customer come back to the Customer service desk to three more. So knowing that you'll understand why I loved this artical I found tonight.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1692453
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Bad Blogger
Heh so I've been everywhere but my own blog for the last month. I think my problem is I have stuff I want to say, or get down but the process of typing it out is such a PITA. Luckily I semi keep up with my journal, that way I can pack post stuff. So August pretty much blew by. We went to a wedding in NJ on the 23rd. The week before that I came down with something not sure what. I had super painful gas, hot flashes then chills, and lightheadedness. Silly me took the kids out on a picnic that day, they had fun I was miserable. I got home put Quin down for a nap, Alex settled in the family room, then promptly passed out on the couch in the front room. Woke when Ken got home with every single muscle in my body aching. By dinner time my insides liquified. Went to bed after a bowl of soup, then only thing I ate all day. Woke the next morning feeling fine.
The wedding was fun. Seeing Ken and his buddies from college joking and teasing each other was great. Ken went into wedding photographer mode and took my camera ( he brought a little point and shoot). The couple did have a hired pro but there seemed to be several pros who were guests as well. There was a two hour break between the ceremony and reception a couple of the guys needed to get cards for the bride and groom so we hung out at the B&N in Clinton and chatted in the cafe before going on to Il Tulipano. I didn't realize that when the resturant holds a reception they use the entire restuarnt not just one ballroom. The cocktail hour was in the bar/ garden area. Dancing in dinner was up stairs in the main ball room and the dessert bar was in the other. We got some decent photos even though the charge on my SB-800 started dying early in the reception. Ken said he should have brought his battery pack. Anyway before we knew it , it was almost 11pm. So we got on the road and were home by 2:30. I called our babysitter as we were leaving to let her know what happened. Luckily after 8pm she doesn't have much to do.
So last week I was at my mom's with the boys. Kids this age really are ready to go home after 3-4 days. Quin at least is starting to remember places so he wasn't up until all hours crying like he was the last couple times we visited.
I'm liking school starting back up Alex comes home plays for an hour then passes out on the couch. He was so excitd yesterday to see his friends again. Though he did have a small break down when he found out he wasn't in the monkey room any more. Luckily his teach from the monkey room moved to the tiger room so he has that consistancy. I picked him up and his buddy Cole asked if Alex could come over to his house and stay the night. Guess his friends missed him too.
Next week Quin starts with the infant and toddlers program. Speech and Occupational therapy,three days a week for 90 minutes. He is making progress on his own in terms of parallel play and communicating by either taking my hand to guide me or getting things (like snacks) and handing them to me to open. I know he understands what we say because a couple times I've asked him something and I get a very emphatic shake of the head no.
Aug 6 2008
Proud moment yesterday My monkey boy got his first pair of Coverse All Stars. We'd gone out for a birthday party at a resturant in the mall on the way out there was a shoe store and Alex wanted to go in. He desperately needed new sneakers but he won't wear the slip ons we bought at the beginning of the summer. He wore holes in he toes of his current pair. So I said okay and we went in he's at an in between size, top end of the toddler sizes bottom end of the boys, so we have to really try on shoe. Not a lot of selection in the smaller size in this particular store so I go looking in boys and find I'm not quiet ready to pay 30+ on shoes for Alex. But they had the All Stars on sale and I loved mine all through high school and college. So I showed them to him and he tried them on. Wanted to wear them home. He was bouncing all over the place showing them off to everyone walking by. Makes a mom proud.
Aug 3, 2008
I’m still feeling a bit turned around and I’ve been home almost a week now. My flight to San Jose was at 6am Friday morning. Which means I left my house around 4 am. Everything was pretty uneventful going out. I got in around 11am CA time. So I was really early to the hotel check in wasn’t supposed to be until 3pm. I figured I would see if anything was ready anyway. Lucky me they did have something ready. As I was checking in a woman walked up to me and said “DSP?” So even before I went up to my room I was meeting new friends and was invited to lunch. I have to say I met some really great people on this trip. There was supposed to be a photowalk for a group of 40 of us or so at 4pm. But the ladies I went to lunch with suggested doing one of our own as we looked for a place to eat. We ended up at E&O Trading Company. The food was very good, a mix of asian styles. We even wandered over to the farmers market, wonderful fresh fruit. Got back to the hotel around 2:30 crashed for an hour before heading downstairs to meet up for the photo walk. That was a trip, it was cool though to meet many of the designers at DSP. There are a few I buy from on a regular basis I love their styles so much.
The photowalk was really fun. About 6pm everyone started breaking off into groups to go have dinner. We walked around a bit more after dinner then went back to the hotel. Sad to say I was still on EDT so fell asleep around 10pm, my normal time at home 1am.
I woke 4 hours later with a raging headache. I can’t say it was a migraine because my usual migraine solutions didn’t work. I think it was brought on by several things dehydration, and bright sunlight being contributing factors. The biggie was my neck being out of alignment probably from the flight and using carry-ons only. The only way that seemed to work once I drank about a gallon of water, was to lay on my back and hang my head over the edge of the bed. I got a little more rest then took a shower and headed down to meet my new friends for coffee and a bit of a walk before breakfast. We were told not to get to Adobe before 9am because they wouldn’t let us in until then.
You know it’s really hard to get a cup of coffee before 8am on a Saturday in San Jose. None of the Starbucks were open, and even the hotel didn’t have their complimentary coffee set up. We asked the night before what time they set up in the morning and were told 7am, not true. We gave up went for our walk then got breakfast in a little diner called Peggy Sues. We found it on the walk back to the hotel the evening before. Breakfast was fun we talked about how digital scrappers are either looked at funny by traditional scrappers or looked down on by techie types. You say you use photoshop and the techies perk up until you say you scrapbook. Which is why I say I’m a graphic artist when I’m talking to people I don’t really know.
Adobe was great I was one of two smaller groups that got to talk with the production managers for photoshop. There was a third group that spoke to the manager for elements.
At this point CS4 is in preliminary beta testing. This means they are starting to gather input for CS5, we got to be part of that. A lot of what we’re asking for is already part of other programs in the suite like Illustrator, In design and Lightroom. The thing is most scrapbookers, heh most people, don’t have the money for the entire suite. We were talking about how In Design would really make the better program for scrapbookers because it is a layout program, and you can do many vector things in it. The only problem is you can’t really do photo manipulation in it and would need to switch back and forth between programs. It was a good meeting and gave the adobe people some ideas to work with including going back and reworking some of the filters that haven’t been touched or updated in a long time. The other cool thing that happened, we got to meet one of the designers of that wonderful tool…… the healing brush. He was talking about how it was a cheaper version of plastic surgery. Most of the rest of the day was spent scrapping, chatting, watching tutorials including one on a video from Scott Kelby and the photoshop tv Guys, made specifically for us. Adobe really is a cool company. The building itself had won awards for being a green building and they have recycling bins everywhere. On top of that all the employees we met really seemed interested in what we do as well as our input into their product. That impressed me. We had to leave at about 9pm and walked back to the hotel. I set my wake up call for 4:15 and arranged for a cab to pick me up at 5am for my 6:40 flight.
My flight home was not as good as my flight out. The leg from San Jose to Atlanta wasn’t bad though we did have to circle the airport a couple times. Once because of head winds the second because another plane was too slow moving off the runway, that eliminated our early arrival of almost an hour. The trip from Atlanta to Baltimore, that was a hassle. My flight landed at gate B3, I had an hour and a half to get to A29 so from one end of the B concourse to the opposite end of the A concourse. Not a big deal, I’d have time to grab some lunch on the way. Well I get to A29 and sit down to start on my lunch and we’re notified that the plane we’re suppose to leave on will now be arriving at gate B1. I’m a bit annoyed at this point since I just came from there. I get back to the center of the air port and am just about ready to go down to the tram to get to the B Concourse when I hear part of an announcement for a gate change. All I heard was A29, so I decided to check the flight listing. We were moved back to gate A29. I’m swearing under my breath at this point, my backpack and laptop are getting heavy at this point. I got back to A29 now there is a ten minute delay for the flight. With in minutes it turns into a half hour delay because of thunderstorms in the B-more area, then the flight is put on hold completely for those same storms. The hold is lifted a few minutes later and boarding starts. We then sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes because we now have to be put back in the que to leave, our original flight window lost because of the delays. So I didn’t arrive in Baltimore until 7:40pm. Good thing I didn’t have to wait for luggage. Ken let the boys stay up until I got home so they could see me before bed.
Monday I had to work, Tuesday I spent getting caught up on laundry, Wednesday was grocery shopping. Ken got back in town Wednesday night. Yes, that’s right back in town. He left first thing Monday morning for a meeting in Arkansas. Thursday I took the kids to the County Farm Fair. They had lots of fun and crashed when we got home. YAY for me. Friday we went to see Ken’s mom. She had another stroke the weekend before we got so busy. Ken had gone up to see her that Saturday by himself because the kids wouldn’t be allowed in and I would have had to stay and watch them anyway. She’s now at the rehab and it’s much easier to have visitors. Quin does not like institutional type buildings, we think it’s the lighting. He just starts screaming and crying and trying to get away. Ken took the kids with him to work the Friday I was gone, because he’d forgotten a few things he’d need on his trip. Quin did the same thing then. Luckily the rehab has a very nice garden area, so we brought my MIL out there to spend time with the kids. Afterwards we took my FIL to lunch. It’s so funny, he gets such a big kick out of Quin, especially watching him eat.
Yesterday we had a graduation party to go to. I hadn’t read the actual invitation so I thought it was an afternoon BBQ and hadn’t arranged for a babysitter. This meant Thursday I made a panicked call to Amanda to see if she could “Please,Please,Please watch the boys” She said she had to work but she could be there a little after 7pm to watch them. Since the party started at seven, we figured that would be good, we’d only be a bit late. We got very lucky she called around 2pm, they’d over scheduled people and let her leave early since she’d been doing 12 hour days all week. That meant she could get to our house by 6pm and we could leave earlier. She’s so sweet, I’m so glad we found her, the boys love her.
The party was fun, the place it was held was not quite what we expected, very college bar like. Just knowing Ken’s coworker, who this was for, she got her Masters, she likes thinks to be very nice on the dressy side when she goes our or has a party. I guess someone else made all the arrangements. So we played some pool, laughed and talked. It was a nice way to chill.
The wedding was fun. Seeing Ken and his buddies from college joking and teasing each other was great. Ken went into wedding photographer mode and took my camera ( he brought a little point and shoot). The couple did have a hired pro but there seemed to be several pros who were guests as well. There was a two hour break between the ceremony and reception a couple of the guys needed to get cards for the bride and groom so we hung out at the B&N in Clinton and chatted in the cafe before going on to Il Tulipano. I didn't realize that when the resturant holds a reception they use the entire restuarnt not just one ballroom. The cocktail hour was in the bar/ garden area. Dancing in dinner was up stairs in the main ball room and the dessert bar was in the other. We got some decent photos even though the charge on my SB-800 started dying early in the reception. Ken said he should have brought his battery pack. Anyway before we knew it , it was almost 11pm. So we got on the road and were home by 2:30. I called our babysitter as we were leaving to let her know what happened. Luckily after 8pm she doesn't have much to do.
So last week I was at my mom's with the boys. Kids this age really are ready to go home after 3-4 days. Quin at least is starting to remember places so he wasn't up until all hours crying like he was the last couple times we visited.
I'm liking school starting back up Alex comes home plays for an hour then passes out on the couch. He was so excitd yesterday to see his friends again. Though he did have a small break down when he found out he wasn't in the monkey room any more. Luckily his teach from the monkey room moved to the tiger room so he has that consistancy. I picked him up and his buddy Cole asked if Alex could come over to his house and stay the night. Guess his friends missed him too.
Next week Quin starts with the infant and toddlers program. Speech and Occupational therapy,three days a week for 90 minutes. He is making progress on his own in terms of parallel play and communicating by either taking my hand to guide me or getting things (like snacks) and handing them to me to open. I know he understands what we say because a couple times I've asked him something and I get a very emphatic shake of the head no.
Aug 6 2008
Proud moment yesterday My monkey boy got his first pair of Coverse All Stars. We'd gone out for a birthday party at a resturant in the mall on the way out there was a shoe store and Alex wanted to go in. He desperately needed new sneakers but he won't wear the slip ons we bought at the beginning of the summer. He wore holes in he toes of his current pair. So I said okay and we went in he's at an in between size, top end of the toddler sizes bottom end of the boys, so we have to really try on shoe. Not a lot of selection in the smaller size in this particular store so I go looking in boys and find I'm not quiet ready to pay 30+ on shoes for Alex. But they had the All Stars on sale and I loved mine all through high school and college. So I showed them to him and he tried them on. Wanted to wear them home. He was bouncing all over the place showing them off to everyone walking by. Makes a mom proud.
Aug 3, 2008
I’m still feeling a bit turned around and I’ve been home almost a week now. My flight to San Jose was at 6am Friday morning. Which means I left my house around 4 am. Everything was pretty uneventful going out. I got in around 11am CA time. So I was really early to the hotel check in wasn’t supposed to be until 3pm. I figured I would see if anything was ready anyway. Lucky me they did have something ready. As I was checking in a woman walked up to me and said “DSP?” So even before I went up to my room I was meeting new friends and was invited to lunch. I have to say I met some really great people on this trip. There was supposed to be a photowalk for a group of 40 of us or so at 4pm. But the ladies I went to lunch with suggested doing one of our own as we looked for a place to eat. We ended up at E&O Trading Company. The food was very good, a mix of asian styles. We even wandered over to the farmers market, wonderful fresh fruit. Got back to the hotel around 2:30 crashed for an hour before heading downstairs to meet up for the photo walk. That was a trip, it was cool though to meet many of the designers at DSP. There are a few I buy from on a regular basis I love their styles so much.
The photowalk was really fun. About 6pm everyone started breaking off into groups to go have dinner. We walked around a bit more after dinner then went back to the hotel. Sad to say I was still on EDT so fell asleep around 10pm, my normal time at home 1am.
I woke 4 hours later with a raging headache. I can’t say it was a migraine because my usual migraine solutions didn’t work. I think it was brought on by several things dehydration, and bright sunlight being contributing factors. The biggie was my neck being out of alignment probably from the flight and using carry-ons only. The only way that seemed to work once I drank about a gallon of water, was to lay on my back and hang my head over the edge of the bed. I got a little more rest then took a shower and headed down to meet my new friends for coffee and a bit of a walk before breakfast. We were told not to get to Adobe before 9am because they wouldn’t let us in until then.
You know it’s really hard to get a cup of coffee before 8am on a Saturday in San Jose. None of the Starbucks were open, and even the hotel didn’t have their complimentary coffee set up. We asked the night before what time they set up in the morning and were told 7am, not true. We gave up went for our walk then got breakfast in a little diner called Peggy Sues. We found it on the walk back to the hotel the evening before. Breakfast was fun we talked about how digital scrappers are either looked at funny by traditional scrappers or looked down on by techie types. You say you use photoshop and the techies perk up until you say you scrapbook. Which is why I say I’m a graphic artist when I’m talking to people I don’t really know.
Adobe was great I was one of two smaller groups that got to talk with the production managers for photoshop. There was a third group that spoke to the manager for elements.
At this point CS4 is in preliminary beta testing. This means they are starting to gather input for CS5, we got to be part of that. A lot of what we’re asking for is already part of other programs in the suite like Illustrator, In design and Lightroom. The thing is most scrapbookers, heh most people, don’t have the money for the entire suite. We were talking about how In Design would really make the better program for scrapbookers because it is a layout program, and you can do many vector things in it. The only problem is you can’t really do photo manipulation in it and would need to switch back and forth between programs. It was a good meeting and gave the adobe people some ideas to work with including going back and reworking some of the filters that haven’t been touched or updated in a long time. The other cool thing that happened, we got to meet one of the designers of that wonderful tool…… the healing brush. He was talking about how it was a cheaper version of plastic surgery. Most of the rest of the day was spent scrapping, chatting, watching tutorials including one on a video from Scott Kelby and the photoshop tv Guys, made specifically for us. Adobe really is a cool company. The building itself had won awards for being a green building and they have recycling bins everywhere. On top of that all the employees we met really seemed interested in what we do as well as our input into their product. That impressed me. We had to leave at about 9pm and walked back to the hotel. I set my wake up call for 4:15 and arranged for a cab to pick me up at 5am for my 6:40 flight.
My flight home was not as good as my flight out. The leg from San Jose to Atlanta wasn’t bad though we did have to circle the airport a couple times. Once because of head winds the second because another plane was too slow moving off the runway, that eliminated our early arrival of almost an hour. The trip from Atlanta to Baltimore, that was a hassle. My flight landed at gate B3, I had an hour and a half to get to A29 so from one end of the B concourse to the opposite end of the A concourse. Not a big deal, I’d have time to grab some lunch on the way. Well I get to A29 and sit down to start on my lunch and we’re notified that the plane we’re suppose to leave on will now be arriving at gate B1. I’m a bit annoyed at this point since I just came from there. I get back to the center of the air port and am just about ready to go down to the tram to get to the B Concourse when I hear part of an announcement for a gate change. All I heard was A29, so I decided to check the flight listing. We were moved back to gate A29. I’m swearing under my breath at this point, my backpack and laptop are getting heavy at this point. I got back to A29 now there is a ten minute delay for the flight. With in minutes it turns into a half hour delay because of thunderstorms in the B-more area, then the flight is put on hold completely for those same storms. The hold is lifted a few minutes later and boarding starts. We then sit on the tarmac for 45 minutes because we now have to be put back in the que to leave, our original flight window lost because of the delays. So I didn’t arrive in Baltimore until 7:40pm. Good thing I didn’t have to wait for luggage. Ken let the boys stay up until I got home so they could see me before bed.
Monday I had to work, Tuesday I spent getting caught up on laundry, Wednesday was grocery shopping. Ken got back in town Wednesday night. Yes, that’s right back in town. He left first thing Monday morning for a meeting in Arkansas. Thursday I took the kids to the County Farm Fair. They had lots of fun and crashed when we got home. YAY for me. Friday we went to see Ken’s mom. She had another stroke the weekend before we got so busy. Ken had gone up to see her that Saturday by himself because the kids wouldn’t be allowed in and I would have had to stay and watch them anyway. She’s now at the rehab and it’s much easier to have visitors. Quin does not like institutional type buildings, we think it’s the lighting. He just starts screaming and crying and trying to get away. Ken took the kids with him to work the Friday I was gone, because he’d forgotten a few things he’d need on his trip. Quin did the same thing then. Luckily the rehab has a very nice garden area, so we brought my MIL out there to spend time with the kids. Afterwards we took my FIL to lunch. It’s so funny, he gets such a big kick out of Quin, especially watching him eat.
Yesterday we had a graduation party to go to. I hadn’t read the actual invitation so I thought it was an afternoon BBQ and hadn’t arranged for a babysitter. This meant Thursday I made a panicked call to Amanda to see if she could “Please,Please,Please watch the boys” She said she had to work but she could be there a little after 7pm to watch them. Since the party started at seven, we figured that would be good, we’d only be a bit late. We got very lucky she called around 2pm, they’d over scheduled people and let her leave early since she’d been doing 12 hour days all week. That meant she could get to our house by 6pm and we could leave earlier. She’s so sweet, I’m so glad we found her, the boys love her.
The party was fun, the place it was held was not quite what we expected, very college bar like. Just knowing Ken’s coworker, who this was for, she got her Masters, she likes thinks to be very nice on the dressy side when she goes our or has a party. I guess someone else made all the arrangements. So we played some pool, laughed and talked. It was a nice way to chill.
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