OrtOrt

I'm afraid my website might go away for a little while

2010-03-02T11:15:00.003-06:00

Google recently made a change to the way that you can publish your website. I'm in the less than 1% of people who uses the ftp functionality which they are doing away with. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to go forward with the website, so I haven't gotten around to doing anything.

If the website does go away, it will be back, although I'm sure everyone has been excited about the one post per month rate that I've on.

I had a beard...then it left me.

2010-02-06T11:11:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned I decided to not cut my hair or shave for a full year. I think everyone knew that I would not stick to that, but even I surprised myself by going nearly a month without picking up the razor. Well, that's not completely true, I actually trimmed up my neck and cheeks a couple of times, but I'd be in the loony bin if I hadn't done that. It's amazing how itchy facial hair gets.

So here is a quick before and after picture of the shaving. I need to add the after shot of when I shaved my head. I'll be shaving my head again pretty soon, so I'll remember to take the after picture then.

For the record, I hate taking "Myspace" pictures, but I've recently noticed that the left side of my face droops significantly, so I can't stand how I look in pictures unless my head is slightly to the side.

Me and my wife had an awesome date.

2010-01-25T17:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the funny part about this: we went to Playtime Pizza. It's basically the same concept as places such as Chuck E. Cheese, and what use to be Showbiz (man, that place rocked).

Anyways, we decided it would be fun to have a date where we were kids again, and what better place that a big ol' arcade. Of course, there were other things such as go-karts, lazer tag, and rock climbing, but we were interested in the mini-golf and some of the arcade games. Plus, they had mini-bowling which we were looking for.

I had not intended on putting up a review of the joint, but that is probably how it is going to work out. First of all, they had a "100 foot pizza buffet". This is quite misleading, because although it probably is 100 feet long, they only use about 20 feet of it. leaving a gap of about 80 feet between the pizza and the rest of the food such as mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and a reasonable salad bar. The food is about what I would expect for a free all you can eat pizza buffet (free with the price of admission = $9). We ate when we first got there and had a wonderful conversation about bedroom furniture for our little girl.

After a quick walkthrough of the joint, we decided on mini-golf. They had an indoor 9-hole black light mini golf course. Completely flat, limited obstacles, horrible visibility and poor hole design. Otherwise, it was fun. The art in the rooms were very impressive, especially with the black light. Since we had a coupon for a free attraction, I guess the mini-golf was worth what we paid, but barely.

The lazer tag looked pretty cool, but I've been told by others that the area is too small for the amount of people they allow in each game. The walk climbing wall was very impressive although we didn't actually participate in that activity. They had a go-kart track which looked respectable, but it was just a simple oval track and some of the karts looked severly underpowered.

Once we got into the arcade games, we started with air hockey...which I won. 6-4 was the final I think, but I was afraid I was going to lose at several moments of the match. We were going to compete at the mini-bowling, but due to some confusion on how the thing worked, we decided to share the responsibility of the bowling so we traded frames. We bowled a 77 :(

I played a shooter simulator, but did pretty poorly. I think the sites were out of alignment. After seeing my subpar performance, Cristi decided she would pass. They had a couple other really cool games, but none that were priced where we thought it would be worth it. Either that, or we didn't want to look like a fool. Two almost thirty year olds dancing on the ground might look a bit strange.

That brings us to the ticket earning games. I remembered myself to be a pretty good skee-ball player (I'm friggin' awesome on the iPhone). So that's where we started. Cristi went first because she got really excited when she saw these. Apparently she was a big "gamer" in her younger years. This is somewhat hard to swallow, but I'll say it anyways: Cristi is better than me. and not just better, I mean a whole lot better. Good enough that after my first two rounds, I didn't want to play anymore. She got us a ton of tickets, and I'm pretty sure she had a lot of fun too. (As a side note, Playtime Pizza does not have actual skee-ball, they have Fire-Ball and Ice-Ball. I think that was their names. They were a little different, but the same idea and layout).

To break up our playtime, we alternated between Cristi playing skee-ball and me playing the basketball aracde. Let me say, I'm really good at the basketball arcade. I've got a pure shot and I've played enough aracde bball to know that you have to bank every shot to be good. I actually set the high score on one of the machines at 102, followed by an 88 with my free game. Here's where things went downhill. When I put up that score, the ticket dispenser jammed, so someone came over to fix it. Well, he fixed it and then handed me like 20 tickets. I was not happy because I was getting 25 tickets for putting up 140 point rounds, and I just set the high score with a total of 190. I should have gotten close to 35 tickets for my performance.

I'm not going to lie, I'm still a little bitter about it. I've gone back to 10 year old DJ, but I still want to be recognized for the score. I made sure one of the kids playing next to me knew that I put up the high score that was being displayed, but by golly, I want my tickets.

So, anyways, after we added up all our tickets, we bought a few rings and bracelets for our beautiful daughter and headed on home. Total tally, we spent $20 admission, and then added $13 for the arcade games and attractions for a total of $33. This resulted in two all you can eat pizza buffets, two rounds of mini-golf, some air hockey, bowling and probably way too many rounds of skee-ball and basketball. With our 250 tickets we got 3 rings and 3 bracelets that Makenna has loved, so I'd say that it was worth every single penny and then some (even though I got jipped out of about 20 tickets).

I wouldn't be surprised if we go back sometime, just for the skee-ball and basketball.

DISH, Dish, dish.....

2010-01-13T18:00:00.001-06:00

Yes, it's that time again. Although there is no set schedule, I can't seem to go too long without having an awesome story about Dish customer service. This time around, it started right after we had our roof replaced. In fact, I roughly documented the origination in a previous post.

Just a quick summary, the roof got replaced which required the roofers to remove the satellite and put it back. We lost signal to our Local HD Channels. Immediately my wife and I knew that the dish was slightly off and needed to be adjusted to point in the right direction.

We called and they walked us through a process that would supposedly fix the issue which resulted in us completely losing the HD channels. They wouldn't even show up on our channel guide. We didn't catch this for a day or two as we rarely watch those channels. During this first call, we specifically said that we would like a technician to come out and take a look, but they of course had to walk through a process over the phone first.

After a week or two, Cristi had enough and called Dish back. This time, we again insisted that a technician come out and check our signal. This time, the support person on the phone informed Cristi that our receiver was bad that it was blocking the channels. Of course, they said this even after running tests (just like the first call), and seeing that one of the satellites was not showing up correctly. At this point, you would think something would trigger in them that the dish is just out of line. Cristi was also told that we could hook up an external hard drive to copy off our DVRed programs so we wouldn't lose them when switching receivers.

Instead of fighting with them at that point, I decided to actually give it a shot so that I could then state with proof that they had no idea what they were doing. When the receiver came in, the first thing I did was hook up the hard drive to copy over our shows. At that point, a message popped up letting me know that this had to be activated. No big deal I thought, so I called the number.

This is where things really went downhill. I explained to the guy what I needed and he explained that there was a onetime service charge to unlock the USB transfer feature....$39.99. That's right, nearly 40 dollars, even though the first support person told my wife that all we had to do was hook up the hard drive. At that very moment, I flipped. Without using any profanity, I began insulting him and his coworkers simply because I had had enough of dealing with unintelligent individuals. During this process, I also explained to him the process I had gone through and what I was trying to get accomplished.

Once he experienced my frustration, he apologized profusely, and recognized what I had been saying since day one...THE SATELLITE WAS OUT OF LINE!!!! In fact, he stated this very thing and then told me that we could get this resolved over the phone. Although I didn't believe him for a second, in order to get the technician out to my house, I had to go through the steps one more time. While the steps were going on though, I brought up a few things including the process to return the receiver that Dish had incorrectly sent me and getting the shipping charge removed from my account. After this guy couldn't get it done, he sent me over to an "advanced" technician who promptly said, "Yup, looks like we'll have to send someone out to your house..."

*ANGELS BEGIN SINGING*

At that point, all was right in the world. The guy came out, and fixed in about 45 minutes. He said the dish was off by about 4 inches or so which is why we couldn't even pick up the satellite we needed to get the channels we wanted.

After three phone calls (the last of which took over an hour) and a 45 minute technician visit, the end result was the very thing that cristi and I both new needed to be done. The dish needed to be realigned. The technician visit was free, except that I had to add a 5.99 package to my plan to get that so all that was lost in this go around was high blood pressure, close to 2 hours of my time and about the same for my wife and a $5.99 charge. I guess it could have been worse, but we will see how my next few bills show up considering the issues I've had previously.

New Year's Resolution review

2010-01-04T17:00:00.000-06:00

So, I just remembered that I made some new year's resolutions last year. As documented in this post on January 2nd of last year. I followed up as recently as the end of February, but nothing after that.

Here is the final update of how I did last year.

1) Working out again. This did happen. Me and my brothers have been going for close to 3 months now I think. We are actually starting a new routine tonight, so there are no real signs of slowing down. In fact, I think we have missed 2 workouts and they were both due to the Christmas holiday.

2) Getting up better and going to bed earlier. This is a joke, if anything it has gotten worse. I noted that I was getting up at 7:30 last year. To end the year, my average wake up time was around 8:00 and getting to work just a little after 9:00. Going to bed earlier...hahaha...I usually crawl under the covers between midnight and 2:00 and midnight is very rare.

3) I can't see that I was really eating horribly, although eating could have been better. The holidays, especially with Cristi's mom in town for 2 weeks (and us still eating leftovers) was not a good thing for eating healthy. Considering in 2 weeks we went through 3 boxes of butter, I think I was on the Paula Dean diet. Almost all the leftovers are gone, so I'm going to give myself a passing grade on this resolution.

4) Grass Guys is in good shape. I could have ended the year with a bit more preparation, but a combination of laziness and being satisfied left me with a broken mower, blower and trimmer, still no uniforms that I'm happy with and a lack of marketing material. All these things will be purchased/fixed hopefully in the next two months so they can be written off for the 2010 tax year and before the season starts. I did decide on the insurance bit (with just a tad more research needed) which will help greatly in the commercial expansion. This didn't go so well in 2009.

There you have it. My resolutions last year were pretty vague, but I thought I did pretty well, some of them almost unintentional. The only resolutions I'm making this year is to not shave or cut my hair for a year (I actually plan on breaking this one next weekend) and to play a lot more Call of Duty. I'm pretty sure I can stick with that one.

So...I'm going to let this picture make the announcement

2009-12-26T14:29:00.000-06:00

For those that don't understand the picture and the t-shirt (Jessica and Greg), Cristi is pregnant with our second child. As of now, that is the only news we have. We don't know when we are due, the sex, or anything at all. We go on Wednesday for our first appointment, we might have more news then. If Cristi had to guess, we are looking at some time in August.

I ran out of blog posts...

2009-12-21T17:00:00.000-06:00

A couple of months ago, I had scheduled multiple blog posts to appear every Saturday. I thought I had them through December, but apparently I was incorrect.

Instead of Saturday, here is this week's update. This past weekend was my baby brother's wedding. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say about it. As a guy, it was a day where I got dressed up in tuxedo, posed for a few pictures, decorated the groom's car and then went home. A female on the other hand, might say that that day was beautiful, magnificent and all that stuff. As the brother, it was good day with only minimal conflict (that I was aware of) between families, which I think is common in ALL weddings.

Makenna came so close to actually walking down the aisle this time, but she took two or three steps and froze. For abot 2 seconds I thought she might keep going, but she turned around and started crying. As discussed, I once again walked down the aisle and escorted her, along with the other flower girl who also decided to just stay at the end of the aisle. I guess things could have gone worse, but they definitely could have gone better.

I've been playing a crap ton of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently and just yesterday leveled up to Prestige 1. Those that play the game, know what that means. Those that don't play, just know that I'm awesome.

We recently had our roof replaced, and with insurance and discounts, we got the whole thing for free, and actually made around 2 dollars or something due to a miscalculation on the part of the roofing company. The roof looks great (I guess, I couldn't tell you if a roof looked bad), but they did something with out satellite which has resulted in us losing our locals in HD and ESPN comes in and out. We've already called once, and they did fix it to where we could get our locals in standard, but that caused us to lose ESPN sometimes. I absolutely dread calling them back and am beginning to wonder if it is worth it to not have HD locals just so I don't have to deal with them. Along the same lines, I've been documenting my frustrations with Dish for quite some time and I thought I had it sorted out. They had agreed to 10 months of $10 credits after everything was sorted out. That worked great for about 5 months, then the credits disappeared. Sadly, their customer service is so bad, it would take more time to call them and get it straightened out than that $50 is worth.

Christmas is coming up, and I've got all my shopping done except for one very, very good friend of mine and my dog. We know we are getting my dog a new bed, but I have no idea what to get one of my favorite people in the world, how horrible is that?

My wife does her research, and it's interesting.

2009-12-12T17:00:00.000-06:00

Since getting pregnant with Makenna, my wife has really found her calling (at least I feel like she has). She typically spends a majority of her free time researching things regarding natural living, from natural child birth to home remedies. Since my wife (as any female) loves to talk, she shares most of this information with me whenever she gets a chance. I'm not going to say I'm not interested, but it's not on the top of my priority list. I'm pretty sure my wife knows this, and I'm hoping that by her reading this she isn't finding out for the first time.

In the process of her discussing these things with me, I've learned quite a bit. At first, when Cristi said she was going to have a natural child birth, I just shrugged it off and figured that she would be like everyone else where she "tried" to go natural then gave in after her first labor pains and got the medicine. I figured she had seen something that made it sound like a good idea and she went with.

Boy was I wrong, she researched all the medical, physical and emotional benefits and shared lots of good information with me. We went to a natural birthing class and I learned tons. Pretty soon, I was on board with her decision completely, and she went through with it. I could not be more pleased with the results.

After giving birth, breastfeeding became one of her favorite topics. I've read study after study (although I can't currently provide sources, Cristi can provide this at a moment's notice) explaining the medical benefits and she made a good argument for why breastfeeding is such a good idea. Although I was a bit reluctant to continue the breast feeding even after 6 months, the research showed that the ONLY negative to breastfeeding later in life is the rest of American society looking down on this. I was fine that Makenna nursed until she was almost 20 months old, I see nothing wrong with it at all and am very grateful that my wife spent the time to finding out how good it was for her. Notice I mentioned American society specifically; the entire world is light years ahead of where our culture is in regards to childbirth/newborns/infants.

Along the same lines, being in the medical field, she has started researching vaccines. H1N1 vaccine was recently all the rage, as well as just the common flu vaccine. Once again, I don't have sources for this information other than my wife (who I completely trust when it comes to medical information, she should have been a doctor). But apparently, of individuals who receive the flu shot, 7% of people still get the flu. Those who don't take the flu shot, 9% of those individuals get the flu. That's only a 2% reduction in your change of getting the flu. Factor in all the adverse side effects of the flu shot, and I don't see how a trained medical individual can recommend this process.

Here's what amazes me. The things I have mentioned are all things that go against the current thought process of the medical community. Natural childbirth is almost considered taboo in America, especially states such as Arkansas that does not recognize home birth or birth without the aid of a doctor present as coverable by insurance. Vaccines are being pushed by the medical community everywhere you go. Forumla use is pushed on new parents before they even leave the hospital after giving birth. Yet, in each of these situations, the commonly accepted procedure is not the best for those involved.

There are other things as well. Home birth in and of itself for example. Show me one piece of research that shows where a hospital birth, on average is safer for mother and child and I will eat my shorts. Yes, every once in a while there will be a complication with a birth, but without going into too much, the complication is usually a result of medical intervention when it was not even necessary. Even still, the odds of complications are much lower than you would imagine. Remember, people have been giving birth for thousands of years (millions depending on your creation/evolution beliefs) and it seems to me that the human race is still multiplying just fine.

Circumcision has been a hot topic for us as of late. Think about it, can you name one medical reason why a boy less than 12 hours old should have his penis basically mutilated? I think I'll save the rest of this for another post.

Wow, once I started typing this up, it started to get away from me. Apparently, subconciously, these things really mean more to me than I realized. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my wife has these views based on sound research; yet, even some of her peers in the medical field refuse to listen to the information that is available to them. My point is this, just because society says that something is right, doesn't make it so.

I'm just glad my wife has the desire to research these things, because without her, I'd be in the dark.

Car History...1997 Chevy Tahoe (green)

2009-12-05T17:00:00.001-06:00

The next entry in my Car History series is a 1997 green 2-door Chevy Tahoe. I don't think I have any pictures of this truck. I'm not sure if I never took any, or if I just don't know where they are. Here are a couple of pictures to give you an idea of what a 2-door tahoe looks like.

This truck was purchased not long after the red Sierra was totalled. I remember buying it at Car Wars which is held I think every year at War Memorial Stadium. The same guy that sold me the red truck (and my parent's explorer) was able to find the 2 door tahoe I had always dreamed of. I bought it on the spot, I don't think I even test drove it.

A few things that happened with this truck:

1) I installed the stereo system in this truck as well. I took this one a step further though as I tore out the interior and ran cable under the carpet so I could install my disc changer in the console between the front two seats. I also added a toggle switch that would allow me to turn my sub woofers on and off depending on what mood I was in. Sometimes, I just didn't feel like having a headache after driving. I also had straight pipes on this truck...you can imagine how loud it was.

2) After getting everything installed, my truck was broken into and they stole the deck and disc changer. The cool thing about this is that insurance paid for everything but my $100 deductible. Since my stuff was pretty old, I got upgraded equipment for a very small price tag. At the end of the day, I was happy. The downside is that the day my truck was broken into, I went to a friend's house that night to help him with his homework (if he reads this blog, he knows who I'm talking about). While I was there, it started raining. I thought nothing of it until I went to leave and realized that my seats were soaked. Since one window had been broken during the theft, I rolled the other down. That sucked pretty bad because my seats were cloth. Luckily, it never molded or stunk the truck up, I just had to drive on a wet, cold seat.

3) This truck nearly caused me to kill my middle brother. I had it in the garage working on something. I don't remember what it was, but I remember I was under the hood and I had my back doors opened. My brother was in the process of cleaning his truck (Pathfinder at the time, which my dad currently drives) in the driveway. He was using the vaccuum cleaner and instead of moving the vaccuum, he attempted to back his truck up closer to the garage. He hit the gas hard and wound up slamming into the back of my truck and jacked up the rear door. It still closed and was rainproof, but there was a serious dent. I was pissed beyond belief. Ask him about it sometime, he will explain the level of anger and complete violence in my eyes at that moment.

4) The ending of this truck was on a trip back from Branson, MO. It was a rainy weekend if I recall correctly. At the very least it had rained most of the day between Branson and Little Rock. I should have seen this all coming and pulled over, but I didn't. Here are the events on my way home.

- About 30 minutes out of Branson, I passed an overturned semi that had traffic at a crawl. It appeared that accident had happened probably 45 minutes before I got to that point.

- About half way home, I passed another accident where two vehicles had collided head on. As I was passing this accident, emergency vehicles were just pulling up, so I estimate that I missed this accident by about 10 to 15 minutes.

- About 10 minutes from Conway, I passed another accident, only this one happened in my rear view mirror as I was passing an intersection. You see how this progressed...I should have known.

- Sure enough, as I got to Conway, I came to a stop at a stop light, looked in my rear view and saw an old 60's or 70's model Ford in my rear view...moving fast...and not slowing down...and getting very close very quick.

Of all my accidents, this is the only one that I was ever injured in. On impact, I was looking in my rear view mirror with my head kind of tilted to the side. The hit resulted in my head going forward and hitting the steering wheel. I don't think I went unconscious at that point, but I got out of the truck and checked on the other vehicles. The Ford had pushed me into the car in front of me and them into the next car. Everyone was okay, and the next thing I remember is the cops pulling up and me doubled over. Regardless of whether or not I blacked out for a period of time, I had a pretty good mark on the side of my head.

Of all my wrecks, this was one of my favorites and here is why. As I mentioned, this was an older Ford. It was an older F-350 (I think), and it was built like a tank. I was moving at probably about 40-45 miles an hour when it hit me. The result of the collision left the Ford's drivetrain and other major parts lying in the middle of the road. It was not driveable and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't have put it back together again. On the other hand, I drove home. Granted, the frame was bent in the wreck, but it was still very driveable. This is one more reason I'm a chevy truck guy for life.

Although I had this truck for a while, it is the last vehicle that I would ever total (knock on wood). Also, although I do have memories of this truck, none of them really stick out other than the final days of owning it. I would also decide that the stereo system was no longer needed. I had the insurance include that in the final check I received from them.

My next truck would be very similar (it was the same truck, different color) but it would have a lot more personality.

Items up for sale

2009-12-02T19:04:00.003-06:00

First off, I've got an XBOX 360 with a 20GB hard drive, one wireless controller and headset. Of course, all the cables come with it including the power cable and brick plus component cables or composite if you prefer. It will actually come with one game Trials HD that was downloaded from the marketplace and is stored on the hard drive. It has a 90 day warranty from the manufacturer as this is a new system from Microsoft after I had to get my last console repaired. If you have any questions, you can call me at 501-412-7634. Would like to sell for $175 OBO. It is located in Sherwood, AR.

I also have a 1995 Kawasaki Bayou that I would like to sell. It's been very well used but runs amazing. There is some damage to the four wheeler during an accident several years ago, but other than appearing to lean slightly, I've noticed no problems. Recently had several hundred dollars of routine maintenance work just to make sure it's in peak condition. Would like to basically break even at $700. For more details or a test drive, give me a call at 501-412-7634. This item is also located in Sherwood, AR and can be delivered around the central Arkansas area at no extra charge.

You have to be able to laugh at yourself

2009-11-28T17:00:00.002-06:00

So, right now as I'm typing this, my weight is around 165 pounds. By no means would I be considered "fat" by the average American, but considering my family background, I'm "chunky" as my middle brother calls me. High school was a different story for me. I graduated at 118 pounds.

Please understand, my parents fed me and I ate. And I ate a lot. I averaged 3000 or 4000 calories a day, probably more. I also worked out quite a bit when it came to basketball and other sports. I tried protein shakes and powders and all sorts of special diets to put on weight, but it just didn't work. Instead, I looked like this below. Please don't confuse this with an ad for hungry children in Somalia, I'm not asking for money, I'm just making fun of myself.

Why is it so bad to be different?

2009-11-21T17:00:00.002-06:00

I have mentioned finances multiple times on this blog. I've mentioned the envelope budgeting method my wife and I use, how buying in bulk isn't all that great sometimes, and how some products/services are ripoffs. This last week has really upset me a bit about the whole frugal mindset.

My wife has a wonderful job, I just feel bad for her in regards to the people she has to work with (another post is upcoming on this). Multiple times, my wife during conversation has mentioned how some of her coworkers think she is weird for being so "cheap" and "tight". I'm not going to say they attempt to insult her, but she is almost frowned upon for the way she and I manage our money.

Likewise, my sister-in-law has ridiculed me on multiple occassions for simply price checking items at the grocery store. If I can save $.50 by looking at two price labels and using a little bit of elementary math, why not? Even on this very website, I had a self-proclaimed "super cheap" person say they would not do the things I do to save a little bit of money. Just like my wife, I know that these people (I think both of the people I mentioned read this blog) mean no harm in their comments, and honestly, I am not offended by them. These are just two examples, and I could provide more.

Here's my point, espeically for those people my wife works with. Many of her coworkers are in their 50s and 60s. They are still working with no sign of retirement in their future and still paying on debts that they still manage to accumulate. When my wife and I reach our 60s, we will be retired with absolutely no debt whatsoever (unless we decide to take a loan to purchase our Class A RV), and will have been retired hopefully for quite some time.

Yes, we save where we can. My wife doesn't feel like spending an extra $200 to get a new phone just because she "wants" one. We haven't bought a new car even though our current Accord has over 230,000 miles on it and needs a paint job. We don't eat at Sonny William's Steak House twice a week. For that matter, we don't even eat at Casa Mexicana but every other month or so. Our only major downfall is taking vacations where we tend to spend a lot more for nicer accommodations.

But, neither my wife or daughter have ever gone to bed hungry. We have a comfortable place to sleep at night and we can get to and from wherever we need to go because our cars run. We are always clothed, and typically with very nice clothing.

However, within the next year, more than likely we will be completely debt free with the exception of our house which we will then be able to pay off in about 10 years (on a 30 year mortgage which was a mistake and is a lesson for another time). That's assuming that neither of us ever receive another raise or bonus from our jobs. I should also mention that if we change nothing about about the way our retirement is setup, we'll retire with somewhere between 1 and 2 million dollars in sound investments. We'll be able to live off the interest of our retirement, and pass on the balance of our accounts to our children. As far as I'm concerned, that is some kind of a legacy to leave to your kids.

With that knowledge, someone explain to me why being so different is such a bad thing. We are sacrificing nothing of importance today, to gain everything later so we can continue to enjoy ourselves with no worries. Dave Ramsey has a motto that recently I have really begun to understand better: "Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else."

Car History...1996 GMC Sierra

2009-11-14T17:49:00.000-06:00

The next entry in my Car History series is a 1996 red GMC Sierra extended cab. This was the first vehicle that I ever purchased with my own money. The previous cars had been given to me by my parents, and I'm very grateful for that. In fact, after the Bonneville was totaled, they allowed me to use a portion of the insurance claim money as part of the down-payment for this truck. Here are a few pictures of my actual truck, including one of the speakers in the back.

This truck was definitely my baby. When I purchased it, it was completely stock with only the addition of a Tweety Bird air freshener. As you can see by the pictures below, I added quite a few items. I tinted the windows, added security/keyless entry, I added the bed rails, bed liner and tool chest. I also modified the exhaust to make it sound awesome, straight pipes coming straight out the back with what I believe was 3" chrome tips.

I eventually added the stereo system that was originally in the caravan. It definitely sounded the best in my truck above the other vehicles. The downside is that I no longer had the use of the back seat of the truck. On the other side, it's a pretty tight fit, so not many people ever sat back there anyways.

Over the course of owning the truck, I also fixed the truck several times. Although not a big deal to most, I fixed door handles, the tail gate multiple times, switched out the battery and alternator and I'm pretty sure there were other things that I can't think of right now.

I'm not positive of all the places this truck went, but I know it made several trips to South Arkansas, several to Central Oklahoma, it made it to Houston (to pick up a Soloflex, that's a pretty good story) and it might have been to Memphis a couple of times as well.

I can't describe how much I loved this truck. Needless to say, this truck also got totaled. I was on the way to south Arkansas to visit some friends from church camp, talking on the phone with my future wife, when the rush hour traffic came to a pretty quick stop. The reason for the quick stop? A police officer, who appeared to have an individual in the back of his car pulled attempted to pull into traffic traveling at about 65 miles an hour from a complete stop. The first car had to slam on their brakes, the car behind them stopped in time, but the next car, a silver SUV did not. I slammed on my brakes but slammed into that truck pretty hard. A split second later I was rear-ended and I think one more vehicle was involved after that. Luckily no one was injured, but my poor truck wound up looking like this.

Strangely enough, you will notice I'm wearing the same ACE hardware t-shirt in both pictures. I forgot how much I loved that t-shirt. Apparently, I wore it a lot more than I realized.

After the insurance wrote me a fairly sizable check for the loss of my truck, I began looking for my next truck. This time, I knew what I wanted and had the funds to buy it. My search for a 2-door Tahoe had begun. Oh, the police officer who started the accident, and then left the scene of the accident to my knowledge was never ticketed for his involvement.

AT&T and there stinking modem

2009-11-07T17:00:00.000-06:00

Recently, my XBox360 died. Although that is a story all in itself, short story is that I went ahead and bought a new Xbox 360 Elite. I got it home, hooked it up and realized I couldn't connect to XBox Live. I went and checked our modem and sure enough, we had red lights.

I went through the typical troubleshooting but couldn't get it work. At this point, I was forced to call tech support. Typically, this is a nightmare, but this time around they were very straight forward and told me that I would have to buy a new modem. There is a 1 year warranty and mine lasted 1 year and a few months. Apparently, after reading several reviews online and seeing if I could buy one outside of the AT&T network, this is quite common with this particular modem. So, if you have AT&T DSL service, started saving some extra cash, because it appears that after about 14 months, they just stop working.

After weighing my options, I decided to go up to the AT&T store to see if I could talk them down on price for a new modem ($100 for wireless, $75 hard-wired). Knowing that new customers get a rebate for free equipment, I was hoping to at least get the price reduced by half. I didn't think this was too far out of the question especially after walking in and seeing a large advertisement for the free equipment deal (after rebate of course).

Once I was able to speak to a salesman, I went straight to the point. I explained the situation and told him that basically, I wanted to get my internet back up and going, but I didn't feel that after being a loyal DSL customer for nearly a year and a half, I should have to pay for a crappy piece of equipment that they required you to have. He quickly explained that there was nothing he could do, and amazingly, there was no one he could talk to about it (this of course, seemed like a big fat lie, but we continued anyways).

Next, he suggested U-verse. I think I have written about this before, but the television service that u-verse offers, in my mind is priced higher than just about any other package I have compared. To get the same setup we have now with Dish, u-verse would be an extra $36 a month. This immediately rules out getting tv through u-verse and since we don't have or need a home phone, we don't need that service either.

The salesman explains that if you get internet and tv, there is no installation charge, but if you only get internet, they will charge you $150. I'll repeat that, $150 if you only get internet. I attempted to negotiate the price on the installation, but he again stated that he could do nothing and there was no one that could.

Timing on these also came into play. Basically, he explained that with u-verse, you had to shut off your DSL for 5 days before they could setup an appointment to come setup the u-verse service. This makes no sense to me, but I'm not familiar with this technology, so I can't comment on the validity of this statement. Of course, their scheduling was about 10 days out, so I would be without for over 2 weeks. With DSL, in order to maybe, try to get the rebate, he said I would have to shut off DSL service for 5 days, and then sign back up and hope that they don't notice I just canceled service. Basically, I could wait 2 weeks with no internet and get u-verse for $150, wait 5 days with no internet and hopefully get a free wireless modem, otherwise I could get it that day and pay the $100 and be good to go.

Being frugal, I still felt there was a better way. After not giving the guy an answer, he finally came back with a deal he "just found" that gave a $100 rebate for u-verse internet setup. Immediately, this was the best deal in regards to price. However, Cristi and Makenna were leaving in 3 days and considering my time alone would be spent playing video games online and surfing the web, I couldn't be without for 2 weeks. Finally, the guy said that I could just buy the modem that day, and bring it back within 30 days.

So, with that said, here is how it was supposed to play out. Mind you, this conversation with the guy took 20 minutes or so. I purchased the modem that day. I kept all the receipts and boxes ready to be repackaged and sent back to the store. When my family got back in town, I was going to be taking the modem and canceling my DSL service. As soon as possible, I would request the u-verse internet installation and wait for that to be turned on. I planned on making one last attempt at getting the entire installation fee waived, otherwise I would have just covered the $50 fee (after rebate) and moved on. The price for service is identical so I would have been gaining the option to upgrade speed and have AT&T take responsibility for the hardware. Sounded like a win-win to me.

On the 3rd of November, I decided to put my plan into action. But, before doing so, I thought I would just hook up the old modem, just to make sure it was really broken and it wasn't have a bad day when it "broke". Guess what, it worked just fine. However, I was using the new power cable, so I'm guessing that something was actually wrong with the power cable, and not the modem. I quickly packaged up the new modem, put it back in the box and took it back to get a full refund. That part of the plan went flawless.

I made the mistake however, of trying to get more information on U-verse. I asked how long it would take to get U-verse internet turned on. The lady quickly responded with, "You can't do that". So we had a nice discussion about how u-verse is a package deal and you have to get at least two of the services. I objected stating that the previous salesmen had tried to sell me on just the internet and I had a friend who was using only internet service under the u-verse label. She insisted that you had to get internet packaged with a home phone (which we don't need) or a tv package (which is grossly overpriced).

To summarize, I now have internet, it works fine and for the most part at no out of pocket cost to me. Had I needed to get U-verse, I would have been out of luck (according to the saleslady I talked to), I would not have been happy. For now though, all is good.
Now

Car History...Dodge Caravan followup

2009-10-31T17:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I was going through some old pictures and came across a picture of me in front of my beautiful shaggin' wagon. This was taken right after it rolled over 100,000 miles. I was on the way to pick up my future wife for a date, and wanted to commemorate the 100k mark with a picture.

Look at that picture, I mean even back then I had awesome style. Those socks...the shoes. It's amazing that I didn't have more women beating down the door to get dates with me. I mean, on top of the look I was going with, I was driving that sweet van.

My website makes a difference

2009-10-24T17:00:00.000-05:00

Quite some time ago, early January 09 actually, I posted about envelope budgeting. I had received a few questions from my readers and since it is something I believe in, I thought it would make for a good post. There were several more follow up questions, but all from my base of normal readers.

Then, about a month ago, I got an email from an address I was not familiar with. This is not the first time this has happened, but it is usually due to the p90x review. This time, it was in regards to the envelope budget.

After a few emails back and forth, I gave him a call and we had a nice longer conversation where I tried to get him started with some of the basics, and gave him several examples and reasons why this works and how helpful it is has been for my wife and I.

I think we spoke one other time on the phone and haven't really heard from him since. Based on his accent, I was pretty confident he was from New York, and after a quick look-up on his area code, sure enough, New York City area.

The last conversation we had, he had setup his different categories and was in the process of setting up a method of when and how to fill those categories each paycheck. He really sounded like he had everything under control, and I could tell he was excited about getting his finances in order.

He had mentioned wanting to buy a house soon, so I really hope that he is able to stick to this and save up the money he needs. I don't know if he ever reads this blog anymore, but if he does: "Good luck dude!"

September Amazon Sales

2009-10-20T17:00:00.001-05:00

To my loyal readers who have recently ordered items through Amazon, thanks.

Purchases last month included hairspray, an external hard drive and what appears to be a devotional book.

Going back to the beginning of this year, we've also had headphones (which my wife bought for me, so that doesn't really count), some computer software and some shoe dryers which were then returned. A DVD storage case and another external hard drive round out the purchases.

All those referrals have really added up and I have almost broken even on the purchase of my domain name for this year. I joke, but I really do appreciate any reader who even remembers to click on the Amazon link.

A quick driving lesson.

2009-10-16T17:00:00.000-05:00

Q: When is it appropriate to use the brake pedal?
A: (Simple version) NEVER!
A: (More extended version with an explanation):

Let me be more specific, during every day driving, there is never, and I repeat, NEVER an appropriate time to use the brake when driving on the interstate. (Debris or animal in the road can not be considered a typical driving experience, as this does not happen often).

Let me throw out a few scenarios. First, the way I see it, assuming a three lane interstate, the right lane will typical travel between 5 and 10 miles an hour below the speed limit, the middle lane will be right around the speed limit, and the far left lane will be for those traveling 5-10 above the speed limit. Although this is not always the case, in my world, this is the way it should work.

This means, that if you happen to be merging on to the interstate (speed limit of 65 assumed), you should get up to around 60 miles an hour in an attempt to merge with that lane of traffic. If you brake to get in between cars either traffic was going to slow, or you were moving to fast. Likewise, if the person behind you has to brake, odds are, you were moving too slow.

Now, let's say you are in a hurry and need to get to the far left lane. It is fairly simple to remove your foot from the gas to give you a small gap between you and the car in front of you that you can use to accelerate to a comparable speed as the center lane. There is no need to use the brake to slow down because your car will not maintain that high of speed without the use of the accelerator. Once you get into the middle lane, coast until you are maintaining a good speed and repeat the process to get to the left lane.

If you have to brake in any lane, including the far left lane, something has gone wrong. If you are going more than 10 miles an hour in the fast lane, you are the problem, Since this will not impact cars behind you as you are going to fast for them to be close to you, this can be considered a minor offense. The catch is that you should still give yourself plenty of time to be able to slow down your vehicle by simply not accelerating anymore, resulting in no brake usage. However, if you are going under the recommended speed above in any lane, you need to merge back to the right side until you are moving steadily with traffic. This also comes into play with exiting the interstate. Just remove your foot from the gas and merge at the same time. You should have plenty of room to decelerate and not impact any other drivers.

Exiting the interstate. There is a reason that the stretch of road connecting an interstate and the access road is called and exit ramp. It is used for exiting. This is where you should apply the brake to decelerate to the recommended safe speed for that exit. You should not begin applying your brakes on the interstate as this will impact all drivers behind you that are attempting to maintain proper speeds.

What happens when one driver applies their brakes? Bad things...bad things. The common response to seeing brake lights is to apply your own brakes. This begins a chain reaction that eventually will result in what most commuters know as a traffic jam.

Speed traps. I have written about this before and have on numerous occassions been guilty of this, but as long as you are going a reasonable speed, and are helping to maintain a constant flow of traffic, that speed trap is not going to have any impact on you whatsoever. What gets under my skin the most is when the constant flow of traffic is 5-10 under the speed limit (for reasons unknown to me) and every car in front me starts applying their brakes as they pass the police officer. News Flash people, they had the radar on you long before you got close to them, braking as you pass is not preventing a ticket.

The same is true for rubber neckers. I swear, people act like they've never seen a wreck. Why do people want to stare at a wreck anyways? Do they think they are going to see a dead body or a dismembered figure, how creepy is that? Do they just want to see crushed vehicles, then go to a salvage yard, you get better views and you aren't causing a traffic issue? Or my favorite, "I wanted to make sure it wasn't someone I knew". What were you going to do if you did know them? Stop and assist the EMTs? Try to fix the engine block sitting on the side of the road? Or were you going to fix the body damage right then and there? No, you wanted to know if you knew someone in a wreck so you could tell all your other friends that you saw it. Listen people, just drive...seriously, the people who need to look at the wreck are going to be there, you just need to make sure you don't cause another one. (this might have made a good post all on it's own, oh well).

I think that ends today's driving lesson. For those wondering, yes this impacted me just this morning as there were several times that with no other traffic but myself and another car or two, brakes would be applied. Cruising at or around the speed limit, no cops, no wrecks, no traffic, not even an attempt to exit and in front of me, I see brake lights.

I'm a vigilante

2009-09-11T17:00:00.001-05:00

I think I might have outrun a cop the other day. I was cruising down the interstate on the way to work and in an attempt to pass another vehicle, I got up to about 80 or so...in a 60, as I went by a cop setup on the side of the road. As I passed him, I looked in my rear view a couple of times and eventually so him pull on to the interstate. He never turned on his lights, but the next time I looked in my rear view, he was gaining pretty quick.

I decided I would go ahead and take that exit in the hopes that he might not see me take the exit and keep heading down the road. As I took the exit, another car or two took it behind me, and as I checked my rear view again...here came the cop.

Apparently, the cars behind me were in no hurry because by the time I hit the end of the exit, I couldn't see them at all. I came to the stop sign and took a quick left only to catch a glimpse of the cop car as I went down the road. I then pulled into a parking lot and drove around behind stuff as much as possible only to come to a dead end. I was forced to go back the way I had come, but I was relieve to see that there were no police cars in sight.

I can only assume one of two things happened that day. 1) He was not actually after me, it was only a strange coincidence that he went speeding down the interstate, taking the same exit as me only moments after I went flying past him setup in an obvious speed trap. 2) He actually was coming after me, and I was able to keep just enough space that he was not able to track each one of my turns, probably the turn into the parking lot.

During this time, I was also thinking of the worst case scenario. Assuming he did finally catch up to me, what was I going to say. I had no business being in that parking lot, or in that area alotgether as it was out of my way to get to work. Sadly, I had come up with a line about how my wife (who worked at the building adjacent to the parking lot) had seen a truck in that lot the previous day that was for sale. Since I've been looking for that truck, it seemed pretty believable to me.

So, that's my story for the day, and the moral of all this is...Kids, don't do drugs, and don't speed.

Drivnig is not a difficult task.

2009-08-31T17:00:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I've posted about this before, but how in the world do some people drive on a daily basis without killing themselves and/or someone else with them.

Just this morning, I had two run ins that just ticked me off. The first was a fairly large truck (Chevy 2500) pulling what I believe to be a toe behind cement mixer. We were crusing down a three lane interstate where the right lane is a designated exit to Memphis, the other two head to downtown little rock. Apparently, although this truck was in the far right lane, and passed multiple signs stating the purpose of the lane, he decided after the fact that he wanted to go to little rock. Instead of turning on his blinker and attempting to merge...this moron decided to continue to cruise down the shoulder until he could get over. This of cours forced the minivan in the lane next to him to slam on the brakes and I can only imagine force a chain reaction in traffic.

That would be bad enough in itself, but once we got on I-40 in front of the big church, there are four lanes. Our traffic takes up the right two lanes which continue on to Conway, and the left two lanes continue to little rock. There is about a stretch of 1 mile where you can switch lanes and get in the correct position. This truck decided to whip over into the right middle lane and stop....that's right STOP on the interstate until he could move over to the left lane headed to little rock. After I whipped past him, I was able to merge into the left lane with no problems and I had no impact on the flow of traffic. Seriously, this guy by himself started what I can only imagine was a traffic jam that could have been felt for at least a mile behind him.

Later in the same drive, maybe 5 minutes later, we got to a section of interstate that always speeds up after crawling for quite some distance. At this point, the right lane typically exits the interstate, the middle lane moves at roughly 40-50 miles an hour, and the left lane jumps to 60-65. This morning, the lady in front of me felt that it was necessary to move from the fast moving left lane to the middle lane. There were no vehicles present in front of her or beside her. However, she felt it necessary to reduce her speed by roughly ten miles an hour before switching lanes...sans turning signal as well. Why she thought it necessary to use her brakes to change lanes, I have no idea, but this isn't the first time I've seen this happen. In fact, it happens far too often. If she had used her turn signal, I might have cut her some slack as I would have assumed she was driving very cautiously. The fact that she did not properly change lanes leads me to believe she is just a bad driver.

Last on this rant, I was driving to church sunday morning, going down a two lane stretch of interstate. I was in the fast lane, going fast and a car was in front of me, not going as fast. They began moving over to the right lane which I was very pleased to see. The problem is they stopped halfway and came back into the left lane. Not long after, a lane opened up to the left so I honked, sped up and past on the left. I quickly noticed it was an old lady (I can't wait for the comments I get on this) and I said to my wife, "I don't care if it's an old lady, that is inexcusable". And I stand by that statement. If you can't maintain a steady speed, you should at least be able to drive straight. Later on that same drive, I was attempting to check something on my phone and I crossed one of the lane markings. My wife looked at me and said "That's inexcusable...what are you going to do?". I responded that I recognized that I was driving poorly and that I deserved to be honked at if anyone had been around.

See, I recognize these things, I take things that I deserve. If I'm driving slow in the fast lane for some reason and someone honks at me, I'll move and acknowledge in a graceful way. I make mistakes while driving, I know this. But, I also don't mind being reminded that I screwed up. This is the same reason that I let others know when they are driving like morons. If no one tells them, how are they going to learn?

I think this post got a little confusing, but that's ok. People have been asking for posts, so I have provided. Since most of my "posting material" has been going through twitter, I think I'll start tweeting, and then expounding here on my website. We'll see how that works out. And if you don't understand most of the above post, just know that I'm a better driver than 99% of the people out there, and I like to let people know that.

I have no excuses

2009-08-17T17:29:00.003-05:00

I haven't been motivated. Nothing exciting has been going on in my life. I had a trip to Nashville, we played softball, we lost, we came home. Other than that, I work, come home, mow some nights, play with Makenna, put her to bed, then play video games before going to bed. Weekends haven't even been that exciting. Sleep in on Saturday, wake up, maybe run an errand or two, mow if I need to, watch tv, then play video games before going to bed. Sundays have been wake up, go to church, come home and lay around watching TV, then play video games before going to bed. Oh, and mow if I need to.

If anything happens, you guys will be the first to know, but until then, I've got nothing. In fact, I can't really think of any bad customer service stories that are worth sharing, or any other random rants that cross my mind for that matter.

Getting old is apparently pretty boring.

Best Day Ever

2009-07-20T18:00:00.000-05:00

Saturday was easily in the top 5 list of the best days of my life. I couldn't tell you what the other 4 are, but that is beside the point.

First of all, before my wife switched jobs and shifts, I was respnosible for Makenna every weekend. Cristi worked nights, so during the day, she would sleep and Makenna and I would do what we wanted. Of course, this was several months ago, so Makenna really only wanted to roll around, cry and poop.

This past weekend, my wife had to work her weekend and I had managed to schedule all my yards so that I would not be mowing at all. I was really looking forward to what the day would bring, but I had no idea how good things would actually turn out.

It all started when my wonderful daughter woke up at 7:00 in the morning. Normally, this wouldn't be too bad, but considering I was up until 3:00 in the morning, I was not very happy. But, she came through and wound up sleeping in bed with me for another 2 hours. At that point, we got out of bed and I fixed her some eggs for breakfast.

After breakfast, we put on our swimsuits and headed out to the pool. Unfortunately, Arkansas was hit with what I believe to be record lows so the pool was not nearly as warm as I would have liked so we only stayed out there for about 30 minutes. That was plenty of time though because we then came in, I gave her a quick bath and she took a nap for about 2 hours. During that time period, I was able to get a few things done around the house and still lay out by the pool and get a quick nap myself.

When she woke up, we had lunch and then I got her all dressed up and we headed out to run some errands. This is always fun for me because she is so well behaved for me. She very rarely ever fusses and always acts like a perfect angel. We had three stops: Kohl's, Home Depot and Wal-mart. She was the star attraction at all three places. Everyone we passed commented on how cute she was, how well she was behaving and so on and so forth. Needless to say, I was a very, very proud dad.

After our last errand, I thought it would be fun to stop by and get some ice cream. So we stopped by Sonic (happy hour RULES!!!) and got a cup of ice cream and something to drink. She was SUCH a big girl and normally she would want to run around, but while we were waiting for our order and then when it got there, all she wanted to do was sit in the seat right next to me. She LOVED the ice cream and I can only assume she really enjoyed that little trip.

When we got home, the day continued being good as we played in the floor for a little while until it was time to start fixing dinner. While I was getting food together, she just walked around carrying stuff (her favorite game in the world). Every once in a while as I would finish a phase of the meal, she would come by and help me sample to make sure it tasted okay. By the time it was in the oven, she kept running up to the oven wanting to look in and see how it looked.

I had timed it perfect so when Cristi walked in the front door, the timer went off and pulled out dinner. We ate the enchiladas as a family, gave Makenna a bath and put her to bed. Usually when I carry her to bed, she is just about out cold so she is like a wet noodle. However, that night, the entire way to her bed, she just rubbed the back of my neck. I can't express that feeling in words. I read it as her way of saying, "Thanks dad, I had so much fun today."

Nothing special happened, I recognize that. There were no earth changing events, we didn't cure cancer and we didn't bring about world peace. But I got to spend all day with my daughter, and we had a ton of fun. As much as I love having weekends with our whole family, I look forward to more days of just Makenna and me, especially if they can work out half as good as Saturday.

People amaze me.

2009-07-02T18:01:00.002-05:00

As I've mentioned before, I play a great deal of Gears of War 2. Primarily, I play online with people all over the world. I am amazed at several things when playing. Primarily, the language that people use when the assume they are anonymous, would make sailors blush and you better believe it would never be considered "politically correct". I typically take my headphones off so I don't have to hear the mess, but last night seemed pretty mellow, so I stayed in. It was during about a 5 minute span that I received these following gems.

Let me begin by saying that the people that I was "talking" with were 11 and 12 years old. First, who lets their children play an "NC-17" rated video game. Second, who let's them play at 2:00 in the morning. Third, how in the world would you let your child use that type of language.

So, the first conversation started by finding out that the 11 year old lives in Canada. The 12 year old then asks if they celebrate July 4th on July 1st since he had heard fireworks going off through the mic. They then began to argue when Canada celebrated the fourth of July. That's right...the holiday of July 4th...the one that celebrates the independence of the United States. I had to step in after a about a minute of arguing to inform them that Canada had no reason to celebrate July 4th. Besides that, I would think that the 4th of July would be celebrated on....oh, I don't know...July 4th....morons...

Later on, the 11 year old once again quoted a movie line, he said "Get to the Choppa...". The 12 year old started repeating it as well and eventually asked why he was saying it. The 11 year old said that he just thought it was cool, and that it was a quote from Family Guy. Once again, I had to step in and correct and explain that it was from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. I wasn't sure at the time, but now know that it was from Predator. They were silent after that...for a while...

A few moments later, the 11 year old stated that he remembered that it was from a movie but he had more recently seen it on Family Guy, he said the line must have been from Rambo or something like that...yea...Rambo...remember when Arnold was in Rambo? Great movie...EXCEPT IT NEVER HAPPENED. I had to explain that Arnold was not in Rambo, and I'm pretty sure that Sylvester Stallone never said "Get to the Choppa" in any of the Rambo movies.

Granted, as I'm writing this, I can attribute the movie quote fiasco to me being quite a bit older than these kids, but the Independence Day issue is inexcusable. I'm pretty sure you start learning history as early as 3rd grade or so. Even earlier I would think considering that it is a primary subject in school. Whatever the case, you've got to know this type of stuff.

One thing after another

2009-06-30T13:42:00.003-05:00

Last week, I was at church camp, had a great time, no real great stories to share, although we had a great time turning an old hotel (close to 100 years old) into a haunted house in about 15 minutes. The results were great. I did get a great tan, good times with friends, and helped mold the lives of 200 children...that is a scary thought.

Got back on Saturday...I was too tired to do anything, but it was really nice to see my wife and daughter again.

Sunday I had 6 yards to mow since I took Saturday off. The first yard was fine, the 2nd yard was horrible. I nearly knocked myself out when a tree limb got caught on my mower and flipped back into my skull. No more than 2 minutes later, I pinned my foot between my stand-on and the mower. This left me screaming in anger more than anything, but also put a pretty good gash in my ankle that bled all over my sock and shoe. Cristi later said it looked like I might have gone into some of the muscle with the cut. After mowing, on the way back to the trailer, I got a flat tire.

This flat was not going to be fixed by me as I didn't have the parts or equipment. I figured Monday afternoon I could get it fixed no problem. I could not have been more wrong. Since I was without the big mower, I had to push mow three of my lawns Sunday afternoon.

Monday afternoon I started calling around to make sure they would fix a lawn mower tire. I talked to 3 shops and they all said that they did not work with small tires. One of the shops was actually my favorite outdoor equipment shop. The other call I made was to a company that has apparently now closed. At that point, I figured I would change it myself so I bought the replacement tube at TSC. Got home, tried to change it and realized that the tire was on the rim pretty tight.

Monday night I push mowed my two largest yards with a push mower. This morning, I asked my dad to call around until he could find someone who could do it. The only place he could find was a little joint called Discount Tire where a friend of mine works. In fact, I think the only reason that that shop did the work is because my friend worked there.

I couldn't believe that you can't find a tire shop that will change a friggin mower tire. I've still got 7 yards to go in the next three days, so I'm very thankful that my dad was able to get it taken care of. I don't know what I would have done if I had to push mow all my yards this week.

Museum of Discovery

2009-06-15T13:05:00.003-05:00

On Sunday, Cristi did not have to work, and I had no yards to mow. Since this rarely happens, we have agreed that on weekend days that neither of us work, we will start doing some sort of outing with Makenna. It just so happens that the 2nd Sunday of every month, the Museum of Discovery provides free admission. From 1-5 you can come and go as you please and do whatever you want at no cost to you. This of course, has it benefits and some downsides.

The plan was to let Makenna take a nap right after church so she would be well rested for fun times at the museum. Although she is only 15 months old, I assumed there would be lots of hands of stuff that she could interact with. I wanted to make sure she was awake enough to take some of it in. She, of course, had other plans. Instead of taking a nap, she just talked to herself in her crib, so Cristi and I decided to get her up and head on out.

It is located right next door to the River Market in downtown Little Rock, in the same building as Boscoe's and Sonny William's Steak House. We were able to park in the River Market parking for free and walk a block to the actual museum. Upon entering, I immediately noticed a fairly large number of unsupervised hoodlums. Although, I was expecting a much larger number of people to be there.

The first area we came to was an area that was for children ages 6 and under. Although there were plenty of kids that did not quite meet this age requirement, it wasn't that big of a deal as Makenna had plenty of room to play around without getting knocked over constantly (of course, at her size it does not take much for her to topple). She immediately found a few toys laying around which she picked up and carried around. I think that might be her favorite thing to do in the world...just carry something around. She really liked (monkey-)crawling through a caterpillar and although the first few times down the slide were surprising...she quickly got the hang of it and really enjoyed it.

I believe Cristi will be posting a video of this later, but there is an area full of large building blocks. Being the kid that I am, while Makenna was walking around elsewhere (under my wife's supervision) I started stacking the blocks. As soon as Makenna saw this, she came over and her first thought was to knock it over. She thought this was so funny and squealed every time she did it. Normally, I would have been very frustrated, but since it was my own daughter...I couldn't believe I could have so much fun watching someone destroy my towers.

Outside of those few things, I was pretty disappointed. The only thing I really "discovered" was that unsupervised kids will destroy almost anything. I'd say that a good 25% of the exhibits needed some sort of repair or were just downright broken. Watching how some of the kids played with the areas that were working...I'd give them about a week before they were no longer functioning properly. This was a little upsetting for me, not because the things were broken, but because I saw many of the "parents" sitting over to the side not saying a word while their "kids" were obviously misusing items.

There were very few hands on type things which was pretty upsetting as I remember the museum of discovery that used to be in Hot Springs (I don't know if it is still there or not). I felt like the one here in Little Rock had lots of things that you could read, but not a whole lot that you could actually experience. I doubt we will be back for quite some time, both because Makenna is still too young to really enjoy a lot of the stuff, but simply because the price of admission to me really doesn't match the quality of the items there.

I will say they had a Robotics lab that looked pretty sweet...of course at 15 months, I don't know how long Makenna would have lasted, so I didn't get a chance to see exactly what they offered in that area of the museum.