I've been without DSL at my house for about 2 weeks. I took a week to get the AT&T guy out and sort out several issues. Bad Modem (replaced,) bad connection at the "box" at the end of the neighborhood, shorted out cable that runs under the house. It turns out it is just a standard phone cable for indors, that was laying on the ground. No wonder it failed. It is a pretty tight fit under my house. I was just going to pull the new cable I purchased with the old cable. But the person that ran that cable snaked it in and out of the cinder block supports, so it snagged and would not pull.
I thought that I would use a trick that I had used in the past for short cable runs. I took 50 foot of string, cut a tennis ball, tied a large knot into the end of the string and inserted it into the ball. Needless to say I could not throw the ball accurately enough to hit a 2 foot square hole from 40 feet away. I was really frustrated, thinking how was I going to get the tennis ball out from under the house... tennis ball... wait a minute I have a retriever in the house!
So I go in the house and grab another tennis ball and the dog. I take Ralph around to the side of the house where the two foot opening is, he walked up to it, took a sniff, and ran away frightened. I called him back. He came up gingerly. I let him sniff the new ball. Then I rolled it under the house. After stalling a couple of times he went under the house and got the new ball.
Then I let him sniff the ball again and told him there was another ball under the house. The other ball was a good 10 feet further away. Without any hesitation he ran back under the house and a couple of seconds later he came back out with the ball and string.
I am just so proud of him that he faced a scary situation, and with only a little prodding he came through for me and preformed a new trick.
I felt a little sacrilegious when I started singing,
"MY DOG IS AN AWESOME DOG!"
I thought that I would use a trick that I had used in the past for short cable runs. I took 50 foot of string, cut a tennis ball, tied a large knot into the end of the string and inserted it into the ball. Needless to say I could not throw the ball accurately enough to hit a 2 foot square hole from 40 feet away. I was really frustrated, thinking how was I going to get the tennis ball out from under the house... tennis ball... wait a minute I have a retriever in the house!
So I go in the house and grab another tennis ball and the dog. I take Ralph around to the side of the house where the two foot opening is, he walked up to it, took a sniff, and ran away frightened. I called him back. He came up gingerly. I let him sniff the new ball. Then I rolled it under the house. After stalling a couple of times he went under the house and got the new ball.
Then I let him sniff the ball again and told him there was another ball under the house. The other ball was a good 10 feet further away. Without any hesitation he ran back under the house and a couple of seconds later he came back out with the ball and string.
I am just so proud of him that he faced a scary situation, and with only a little prodding he came through for me and preformed a new trick.
I felt a little sacrilegious when I started singing,
"MY DOG IS AN AWESOME DOG!"
You would be useless against a Death Star.
But if it were a Womp Rat I would have hit it...
figmentPez
Staff member
Halforums Houston meet-up?For my birthday, Jake is taking me to Houston during Fall break to buy a new ukulele! Also, he snuck some new music onto my phone last night.
I passed all my tests and am officially bilingual!!
Just got back from St. Croix. Got to SCUBA dive and see a whole bunch of REALLY cool stuff: trunkfish, stingrays, barracuda and even a shark. We went lionfish hunting, and--after unsuccessfully stabbing several with the spears (that didn't have barbs for some reason)--I killed a couple and we got to make fresh grilled lionfish in our little guesthouse.
Also, I got married.
The only downside is that we only got one slice out of the cake you see (one layer red velvet, one layer chocolate, one layer lemon) because of how crazy busy we were since there were 150 people at the wedding. Wonderful day, though, but good to be back.
Also, I got married.
The only downside is that we only got one slice out of the cake you see (one layer red velvet, one layer chocolate, one layer lemon) because of how crazy busy we were since there were 150 people at the wedding. Wonderful day, though, but good to be back.
Cajungal
Staff member
If we stay overnight, most definitely!
Holy crap.
I can't say I'm too surprised that half of the top 6 Magic and Fantasy books have "Magic" in the title.
A
Anonymous
Anonymous
25% raise!
Of course, I'm working 25% more hours as a consequence, but this will make my wife (who manages our finances very well) much happier and relieve a bunch of financial stress for us. Coincidentally it gives me my first 6 figure salary of my career, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, these days that doesn't go very far with a large family.
I'm going to have to take on some management responsibilities as well, though. Bleah. I've been avoiding that step for many, many years. Engineering >>> management. But it shouldn't be too bad, and I probably need to stop acting so spoiled/prima donna anyway. Or at least not as much. Maybe...
Of course, I'm working 25% more hours as a consequence, but this will make my wife (who manages our finances very well) much happier and relieve a bunch of financial stress for us. Coincidentally it gives me my first 6 figure salary of my career, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, these days that doesn't go very far with a large family.
I'm going to have to take on some management responsibilities as well, though. Bleah. I've been avoiding that step for many, many years. Engineering >>> management. But it shouldn't be too bad, and I probably need to stop acting so spoiled/prima donna anyway. Or at least not as much. Maybe...
Wow, I just came here to post almost exactly the same thing, except I'm in physics rather than engineering, and my extra hours come in the form of overnight travel. I don't have seven kids, though (only 3 and 2x0.5).
The extra money is nice, but it remains to be seen whether it's worth the extra travel...
Either way, congrats
So I just got an email from my now-former landlady. She was never anything but awesome, I was extremely lucky given the number of difficult landlady/landlord stories I've heard.
I spent Sunday night deep-cleaning the old apartment, top to bottom, dusting, vacuuming, washing. I forgot to wipe down the interior of the fridge, and the real estate agent who is working on selling the condo for my landlady came by the following morning for the inspection, and felt I also could have done a better job cleaning the base of toilet (which I disagree with! I spent an hour and half on the bathroom alone. It was shining and divine.) At any rate, though I'd only interacted with him on occasion, he's always seemed nice and fair, so I didn't protest that criticism. He said that hiring a cleaner for those two jobs would be $75, from my damage deposit, or I could take an extra day with the keys and do the work (which really would've been quite short, I'm sure).
Since I was still unpacking stuff at my place and working on getting settled, etc, I just chose to take the $75 hit. Whatever.
Well, my landlady, who has the damage deposit, emailed me to inform me she is returning the cheque in its entirety, that I have been an excellent tenant, and she's grateful to me for that. She will pay for the cleaning, and would love to be my reference for future rentals.
Awesome. What a great person.
I spent Sunday night deep-cleaning the old apartment, top to bottom, dusting, vacuuming, washing. I forgot to wipe down the interior of the fridge, and the real estate agent who is working on selling the condo for my landlady came by the following morning for the inspection, and felt I also could have done a better job cleaning the base of toilet (which I disagree with! I spent an hour and half on the bathroom alone. It was shining and divine.) At any rate, though I'd only interacted with him on occasion, he's always seemed nice and fair, so I didn't protest that criticism. He said that hiring a cleaner for those two jobs would be $75, from my damage deposit, or I could take an extra day with the keys and do the work (which really would've been quite short, I'm sure).
Since I was still unpacking stuff at my place and working on getting settled, etc, I just chose to take the $75 hit. Whatever.
Well, my landlady, who has the damage deposit, emailed me to inform me she is returning the cheque in its entirety, that I have been an excellent tenant, and she's grateful to me for that. She will pay for the cleaning, and would love to be my reference for future rentals.
Awesome. What a great person.
I would love to, but the kind of travel I'm doing will have me working at hospitals 12 hours a day until I'm done - no time to take the kids or enjoy the sights. My new responsibilities include quarterly trips to such exotic locales as Fort Dodge, Iowa; Paducah (and surrounding area), Kentucky; Columbia, South Carolina; Mankato, Minnesota; and an annual trip to Fairbanks, Alaska. The only one that really excites me is Fairbanks - I've been there once before for this employer - but the annual schedule is currently set for November, and I understand it gets a bit cold up there right about then.
Anyway, it's still more money, and it gets me out of Ohio for a while - double win, in my book
Today I became SSG Severin....parachutist extraordinaire!
Long drive, but the son of close friends is such a train lover. He's autistic, and trains are his thing. Going to ride the Texas State Railroad with him in about a month.
One in a million there.
My wife had her 20-week appointment yesterday. Not only is the wee one doing well, kicking up a storm, but now we know what we're having.
Gavin Thomas will be joining the group in January!
Gavin Thomas will be joining the group in January!
Just a month after mine! Good luck, sir!
On October 4th, the Carolina Theatre in Durham is holding a classic horror-comedy double feature: Young Frankenstein and Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.