Long Time, No Post

Wow. It's been more than three weeks since I last posted. My sister gave me some advice about blogs, so I'm not going to apologize for not posting even though I made it a goal to post about once a week. My motherboard died on me, so I was without my computer for a couple of weeks. It was out of warranty, but the people at Newegg.com made an exception for me. They really take care of their customers.

So now that I am up and running I am not sure where to begin since so much has happened. Let's see what pictures I have taken in the last three weeks. That should be a good start.

The hawks hanging out at the neighbor's

With the new register in place, the smoke detector looks pretty yellow.

New smoke detector has two sensors for smoldering fires and fast fires.

In addition to this one my dad and I replaced two more. Two of the three were discovered to be nonoperational. Good thing we replaced them. The next day my mom turned on the wrong burner on the stove and burnt a hot pad while she was watching TV.

Desk project. I had an old metal desk in my room. This one needs work, but would be nicer.

Almost done sanding.

One coat of stain and three of semi-gloss sealant.

I am pleased with how it turned out. I did end up with some drips and runs of the sealant because it was so thin, but I was tired of working on it after two weeks, so I decided that it was fine especially since they are hard to see.

Mom and Dad finally got a new car.

The light in the hallway gives off a yellow light. The long shutter of this photo exaggerates the issue, but you get the idea. 

With a similar shutter speed: new light.

Old

New

Old fan

New

We went into the attic to do some work.

There were no supports flush above the hole. The old fan used a long hook, but the new one is not designed that way, so we added supports.

Random shot of me sticking out my camera near the vent in the attic and hoping for the best.

Went outside and took a few photos of the lightning. I've wanted to get shots like this for a while now. I just wish I would have gone outside sooner. I thought the storm was too far away before I realized I could get a few shots.

Fourth of July. This is the first time my family has gone to the Bossier City side to watch. I wanted to go to get downtown in the background. Two years ago I got just a casino hotel in the background when watching from Shreveport.

The church put out a bunch of flags this year.

Usual patriotic service.

We did our own fireworks, of course. This is a piece of steel wool attached to a wire. Then the user swings it around creating absolute chaos.

My sister gives it a try.

Dad even gets in on it.

Okay. I think I am out of the important pictures. Since I last posted I started my new job. I got three Dell certifications so I could start taking work orders. Those tests are pretty easy. They are open book multiple choice. The test may ask what do you have to remove before disassembling the system board. Then you look it up. The test seemed to only measure my ability to look it up, which is fine. That was my degree to some extent. Go and make a network with X, Y, and Z. How do you do that? The TA would respond "Google it." Turns out it is a good thing. It was a real change from what I was used to in high school chemistry class. Light Bunsen burner. Heat object. Add X mL to Y. You have created ___.  But with my degree I was taught to research and not just learn a particular technology that may be useless in five years. 

Anyways, the job. I am getting frustrated with some aspects of the job. I have had four of the last eight days with no new work orders. No work orders, no money, no new camera, hard drive, or whatever. We'll see how it pans out over the next few weeks. I finally got in touch with a recruiter from the Air Force. I have an appointment next Tuesday, but I didn't realize that he is in Arlington, TX. I need to ask off work, but that shouldn't be a problem since there is no work to do.

There is much more I can post and I feel this is a sloppy post, but I'll be sure to get some more thoughts posted later. 

Ecce! Romani!

My goal last week was to get a new Roman shade for my window.  That didn't happen.  After doing some pricing at Lowe's, I realized that I should be confident in which style I like.  My parents wouldn't like it if I decided to get another one for $300 after deciding I didn't like the first one.

Which do you like?

There are so many styles to choose from, so I'll hold off for now until I decide, but I do need to decide quickly because I took down the blinds and curtains, which will make it a lot hotter in my room.  I didn't reach that goal this week, but I got a lot of other things done:

• shelves built for my mom
• shopping at Lowe's
• six registers replaced
• curtains removed from my old room (sounds like a five minute job, but I am am proud of it because there were over 20 screws in awkward positions holding all the hardware to the wall)
• watched every episode of Pawn Stars

My mom is a teacher at the local middle school.  They have moved to a new school, which is about a mile from our house.  It is nice for her work to be so much closer (it was 15 miles away), but she has to move all of her stuff to her new room.  At this time she is almost finished getting it ready, but the last couple weeks have been busy.  My dad and I have been helping her around lunchtime for a couple hours.  The only problem with the new room is that there isn't nearly as much storage as the old school.  So, my dad and I built and painted shelves for my mom.

I went shopping with my sister at Lowe's on Saturday.  My parents aren't going to replace some of the things around the house, so decided to take the bull by the horns.  We spent over five hundred dollars. Worth every penny.  I (my mom) bought a ceiling fan for my new room, five registers, three smoke/CO detectors, two lamps, a kitchen chandelier, and two flush mount lights for the hall.  I also bought a new paper towel holder from Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

Before we went shopping I started to inspect the registers around my house.  They were disgusting. Just disgusting. Rust (and maybe mold?) were all over them.

When I was removing the register in the dining room, I saw two hair like fibers protruding from the vents.  I feared the worst -- a roach.   I carefully removed the register paying strict attention to those two little hairs.  I got it to eye level, and there it was! Ugh! 

I found another one on a different register only after I finished removing the others and going back to admire my pile of rusty aluminium.  Inside the ducting on the first one I took down, I saw something that looked like a string.  Naturally, I pulled it.  I discovered it to be the bones of a tail.

Meet Scully

I am happy to report that the kitchen register was pretty clean. It was just ugly, so it had to go.

Before

After

The paper towel holder has seen better days.

Before

After

My dad complains that these new ones are too low.  They shine in his eyes when he stands near them.  I think they are an improvement, but my parents might take them back to get the large version of these mediums.  We'll see.  Next, I need to convince them to get a new couch.  That'll take some work.

PT

I had my first physical therapy appointment today.  I arrived early and watched The Price is Right in the waiting area.  A lady was going to play the putting game.  It brought back a lot of memories when I watched the show when I was a kid.  I thought I was pretty good at guessing prices (not so any more). I remembered a guy who played the putting game years ago, and he missed the putt, but it bounced off the back rail and went right in the hole.  And wouldn't you know it? This lady did the same thing today.  Cool, but they haven't called my name yet.  Only others were to "Come on down!" I eventually get up from my seat and ask if I missed my name.  I guess I didn't because she sent me to a lady to sign some papers, and then I was on my way.  However, I now only had 15 minutes left for the therapist to perform an evaluation on me.  They had some really cool yet intimidating equipment to measure my neck strength (if I didn't know any better, I would have thought they were strapping me in for lethal injection).  Turns out that my range of motion is twelve degrees less turning to the right than to the left.  Good.  I am not crazy, and I really do have a problem.  The doctor who originally referred me to PT said I should have about three sessions.  I am now scheduled for two sessions a week for four weeks.  Hopefully, with the help of those folks, I can correct the range of motion and strength issues.

After PT I went to Best Buy, so they could check out my phone.  It wasn't user error.  The screen was dead, but they did get a shipment of six more Evo's as I arrived in the store.  I suppose I am the luckiest unlucky lucky guy.  That reads terribly.  Let me dissect that statement.  First, I was lucky to get the Evo at all.  Apparently, they sell like hotcakes.  Then, the device was useless in less than four hours.  My mom's never had a problem.  This afternoon the manager replaced it and even transferred my screen protector. Hooray!  

After seeing a blog post from my sister, I decided to stop by Sherwin Williams to pick up a fan deck.  Many rooms in my house need painting, but it may take years to get to them, but right now my old room is ready for it.  My parents need a little help in getting things like this rolling, so I went and got it:

The fan reminded me to post what I got my dad for Father's Day:

It is a digital level by Craftsman, and can measure angles with an accuracy of +- 0.1 degree. Not bad.  I think he'll like it. He is working on building a sundial on a non-level surface.  This should come in handy for those calculations involved in the project.

I finally got outside and road my bike for a little bit.  I really ought to ride more and get in shape considering I want to do some physically demanding careers.  This time of year it is still over 90 degrees at 10 PM; I really can't catch a break from the heat, which may be a good thing in the long run, but I definitely noticed the effects of the heat on top of the fact that I hadn't ridden in several months.

Yesterday, I spotted a couple hawks in my backyard. I went inside to get my camera only to discover that I left my memory card in my computer.  I ran back inside and was ready for action.  When I got back outside, there were more than two.  In total I spotted five.

I saw them again today and took some more photos.