Lunch on the island

After a nice - though cold - ride around the island, we're having lunch on the deck. Erik took a spill on a corner - gravel sucks. Other than some scrapes and scratches he's ok, thankfully. Oh and I got to take pictures of a lesbian wedding party on the beach. Except they left before giving me the beer they promised to me... A sprinkle or two here and there but no real rain yet...

Riding the ferry!

After a long wait for breakfast we're finally boarding the ferry for Madeleine Island! Not only did we get the "moped discount" but the captain herself checked our tickets! But then, can you blame her?

Mornin'

(yawn)

BAYFIELD!!!!

5:29: Bayfield,yay! And no rain!

hayward

... 2:52pm..

Cumberland, WI

12:20: Made it to Cumberland with no troubles! Lots of wonderful Wisconsin lettered roads, cows, and not too much roadkill.

Blister Run 2008

9:15: We're off to a great start.. Well.. Tom R is off to get gas and Erik is bodging his spark plug...

Gadget Guy - Episode 1

Eli and I made a movie. We've actually worked on a few now, but this is the first one we've actually made, edited, done post production on together, and completed. Hopefully it'll be the first of many. He's such a creative and imaginative thinker, and a wonderful production assistant. And I think he finally has the attention span to do some crazy good!

We're ignoring the fact that his idea and storyboarding for the sequel was the original idea but rehashed with unrealistic expectations for production ability which would then be pared down into a shoddy half-done copy of the original. Which actually, for a sequel, is about right, isn't it?

Blueberries for Lil

Picking blueberries in the wilds of northern Minnesota..

Eli is the coolest

I guess you'd have to know him, but this captures so many of the elements that make Eli the wonderful boy he is:

• His devotion to Frank and Big Red. 
• The lightsaber collection. 
• Messy hair. 
• Dinosaur shirt. 

And the fact that he's thrilled to be posing for this picture with all of his favorite things...  He just rules.

Scooting to work.

Adriano took the concept of scooter commuting to a whole new level. When he got in the elevator with the scoot (which was luckily not running) the other occupants assumed he was going to the fourth floor. Which is the floor which we think houses the mob, based on the sketchy characters who go to that floor.

Hama Mod

Lily was doing some Hama and the rally was going on so... I got creative and made the ultimate scootering logo!

Tink

When I saw this kit I knew I had to get it for Lily. It uses a fair bit of the shiny floss, which was not easy to work with at first but turned out really nicely.

Funny Shows

I think it was at the Rally that I found another Little Britain fan. I love so many British comedies and variety comedies, but it's so rare to have someone even know what you're talking about. And I mentioned some other shows that were just as funny. Sometimes.

"Oh and that's a bad miss.."

I really like Mitchell and Webb lately, even more so than Peep Show. Peep Show was their show previously but it was a bit like Seinfeld.. populated only by multiple Newmans. But the perspective gimmick is fun. It's currently on BBCA. Mitchell and Webb on the other hand has some really wonderful recurring sketches. They seem to have their timing and chemistry down. I don't think there are any I want to skip through. Which is quite a feat on these shows. (Even Little Britain has "Bubbles")

"I want that one!"

Little Britain. It's just lovely funny. Too many ways these guys are awesome.

"This is a LOCAL shop for Locals only!"

League of Gentlemen is one of the most disturbing shows I've ever seen. It's that crusty familiar smell in an old relatives home. You can't stand it, and it horrifies you. But since you're likely to inherit that smell you cherish it for what it is. That's how I feel about the show. If that makes sense. Which it shouldn't. There are whole sections of the show in which you don't laugh because it's either poigniant or sad or disgusting. Which is why it's so completely awesome. I think of all of the shows I identify with this one the most.

"... which was nice"

The Fast Show, or as it's known here - "Brilliant!" is a typical sketch comedy much like Little Britain, but a little more tame. That said, their recurring sketches are truly inspired. I could watch the Scorchio show for hours, even if it's in a fake language! The guy who plays Harry Potter's dad is in this, which has tainted the Harry Potter

"Boosh, Boosh / Stronger than a moose / Don't lock your door or we'll come through your rooftop / Stop, look around, take your mind off the flow / Cause the Boosh is loose / And we're a little bit raaaaw! /Ice flow, nowhere to go / Ice flow, nowhere to go / Lost in the blinding whiteness of the tundraaaa!"

The Mighty Boosh tries to follow a strange storyline, but usually digresses into something that makes no sense, and all the sense in the world. It is a conundrum, but so so very much fun getting there. Howard is the straight man and Vince is the joker. Oh and did I mention Vince is king of the Mods? Well, he is.

Just regular shows?

We all know about the British version of The Office. But there's also the Alan Partridge shows -- two of them -- one where he's a bad variety show host, and another where he's a washed up bad variety show host with a morning radio show. Oh and it stars Steve Coogan. And then there's Black Books with Dylan Moran, who's always drunk. Don't forget Green Wing, which has the most surreal film speeds and inappropriate behavior in a hospital.

And one from over here..

The Whitest Kids You Know is a great sketch comedy. At first I thought it was on a kids channel, so I was expecting it to be a goofy kids version of these British shows, but then it all went horribly wrong. By the time I got to Abe Lincoln taunting the audience at Ford's theater with "Ohhhhh, now you ****** up!" I knew this would be a great show.

Dreez on a stick

We were waiting for Aaron and these people stopped by and offered us rides. After seeing Dree wobble about a bit we were tempted but wise enough not to be seen in public on a segway...

Curses!

My first subversive kit. It taught me that even though you have the floss and needles, sometimes it's just really nice to have it all in one place. One of my favorites.

Rattle Them Bones!

Yay scooter rallys!

(this was posted from my phone on the halfway stop of the big ride during the rally)

My First Cross Stitch

We really can't remember why I started cross stitching. As wife says "how do *any* of these things you do start?" but this was the start of it all. Not too bad for a first effort..

A Rose Pillow

This pattern was from a DMC floss and pattern book combo. I had previously stitched up a chess pattern from a book of mini-pillow paterns for Eli (It's actually for one of his "guys" / read: dolls) and I owed Lily one as well. So rather than do the pattern she picked, we decided on this one for the time being. It was a nice, quick, fun little pattern and came out nicely. Although it was hard to pull off the "Cross stitching is the manliest of the needle arts" line when stitching a pink rose...

Change is Good

Do not be alarmed! I've simply redirected you from the "old" fnirt.com to this blog. I'm trying to update my content more, and since most of the stuff on the old page doesn't work, I've moved it over here. It's on the right hand side as a nice list of links. The photo albums? Yes, they're there.

Oh, you can also subscribe to this (since it's a blog) and get notifications when it's updated, etc. I'll even try and post when I finish captioning photo albums! Won't that be nice?

Enjoy!

Great. You've got corn

This is a custom creation of a phrase we use at work. I thought of cleaning up and presenting it nicely, but this cluttered shot seems more appropriate.

I based it on a pattern in Subversive Cross Stitch by Julie Jackson. Love the book, it's been a great source of inspiration.

Smile!

I'm experimenting with photo blogging and documenting my crafts.. This one came from a kit at Michael's some time ago. It's half stitches on plastic and I thought it would be easy. It was, but it was also more complicated than it looks. Lots of subtle color changes. It's one of the few crafts at my desk at work.

I'm back

Yes, another multi year lapse. Kids are growed up, I'm still at Nasca (spelled with a z) and stuff.

What's up with the huge space on the posts?

Sweet. Almost a year between posts. And Coachella is this weekend and I'm not going.

Hey another page I can blogify and get rid of on my site at home:

Coachella:

Who I saw: Autolux, Block Party, Bright Eyes, Buck 65, Chemical Brothers, Coldplay, Diplo, DJ Marky, Eisley, Four Tet, Gang of Four, Jem, Josh Wink, Kasabian, Keane, M.I.A., M83, Miss Kittin, New Order, Nine Inch Nails, Prodigy, Radio 4, Raveonettes, Roni Size, Secret Machines, The Bravery, Tiga, Wilco
Blisters: 2
Celebrities Sighted: 0 (What, was I blind?!)
Miles on Rental Car: 1000
Bottles of water consumed: 30 (close approximation)
Final cost: ~$1200 (Airplane, Rental Car, Hotel, Concert Tickets, Spending Money)

Worth every penny, drop of sweat, and square inch of blister!

Travelogue forthcoming.


Pictures here

This is Erik's Blog.

I like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

And Erik has a blog.

More lapses. Nice.

Last day at the dentist. One tiny little filling and now we're all done. Four years, $10k at least, and no more Marine Corps fillings!

I felt a great disturbance in my resume, as if my skillsets suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Went to dentist today after a year or so of avoidance. Not bad at all tho! No periodontal illness, no (new) cavities. Got lots of fun toys for being a good patient (a toothbrush with a pointy thing on it just like Grandma had!) and a referral for a root canal. Sweet!

I'm celebrating by eating chocolate and drinking iced tea.

It's years later and I think I'm going to update this more. I'd be surprised, but what the hey.

Latest fun:

Got an xbox. Playing Ghost Recon too much.

Lily's latest fun thing: She ends every statement with "Daddy" -- "I did it Daddy" "Zip up Lily jacket Daddy" etc.

Eli's latest fun thing: He's really smart. We were reading last night, and in an attempt to force him to learn to read too soon, I have him picking out a word on the page and identifying it. Dumb old me would read the pages and he'd pick a word. The first word. But he did it so slyly it didn't even look like he was cheating.

He had an assessment for public schools kindergarten and they had him do some logic tests, etc. One scenario: He is sitting at a table, opposite the tester. They put a box in the middle of the table and tell him to place a small block behind it. He places it in front of himself and they say "are you sure that's where you want to put it?" "Yes." "Ok... Is that behind the box?" and he replies "It is to you." Smart AND a smartass! That's my boy!

Dots

Everyone needs to go to this site, do some dots, lessen some stress, and pass the link on to their friends.

the static quo appears to have a new entry.

Just not keeping up with this enough. I really should do something about that. And once I start working again I probably will..

Need to start updating this more.

Things to remember about Eli:

I love it when I'm reading his book to him just before bed and he gets so close his little cheek is right up against mine.

You're not going to regret this.. You'll regret the bigger picture of "listening to Robert" but this one thing? Nah. Once it's in the box in the basement you'll never think of it again, just the lingering feeling of dissatsifaction and remorse.

A quote from the net:

The president of the University sent an email to all of the learners about something. Unfortunately his spelling checker didn't catch "univeristy" in the URL he embedded. And apparently he didn't click the only link in his document to see if it worked. Oh yeah, they emailed a word doc to everyone instead of text in an email for some reason. It makes me proud to be part of an organization of such.. caliber.

From PopBitch:

>> The Black Chin! <<
George, has it come to this?

Boy George appeared as David Bowie on a
recent celebrity Stars in Their Eyes.

In order to get a look somewhere near Bowie's
chiselled features, hard-pressed makeup staff
resorted to drawing a black shaded area on
George's pudgy round face.

Viewed from the right angle, the black chin
gave George the appearance of a sculptured
jawline.

George was so taken by this look that he's
been experimenting with the same scary
black-chinned look when he goes out.

Image:
http://www.popbitch.com/images/boy_george.jpg

I was thinking it'd be cool to write an app (console, etc.) that goes through your hard drive and sets the archive bit on every other file, and clears it on the rest.

People should commission me to make these things like they commission artists to make paintings.

I found a 1952-D Washington Quarter, 90% silver. Worth $1.44 -- got me thinking: What's the oldest thing you own?

I love dotnet.

Every dream of floating around in zero-g? Or maybe "frolicking" in a pool of slightly-less-dense-than-water water? Just being able to float around anywhere and everywhere, happy as can be?

That's what it feels like to code in dotnet sometimes.

Make a page that allows you to edit ANY document on your site using a web interface (content editable div, etc.)
Make a page/app that gives you the approximate time. "It's about three o'clock, It's a titch past four, It's somewhere between four thirty and quarter to"
Enter some text or numbers, get a barcode back
Given an image, type text in a bot and click on a section of the image and have the text appear on the image in that section. (A graffitti board)
Page for the National Sledgehammer and Broken Toe Society
Build a typical Internet conspiracy page, but the conspiracy is that the government is not out to get us, but to help us
Build a content management system to include text, graphics, and scripts
Build a headlines/breaking news system
Use the session object to track where people have gone -- lists of urls for sessions. give the session anonymous names like "mr. pink" or "humphrey humphreys" etc.
Email _from_ a friend link on web pages
Subscribe to any page on site (i.e. I give you a URL and a frequency and you email me that page at that frequency)
Enter a url and get a screenshot back.

Wonkavision:

System A has a page on which an image is displayed. The Querystring of the image contains a ?chunk= and the image is server off system B.

System B, upon receipt of a request to the "image" image, records the chunk and redirects to an innocuous image.

Once all of the sections of the image are located on System B...

System B displays an image from system A, passing the chunk back to system A

System A collects the chunks and reassembles the picture.

Just like the real Wonkavision, which chopped things and sent them to another machine, this will do just that. System A is the sending machine, system B is the "air" and system A (or system C if you had enough friends) is the receiving machine.

Come to think of it, this is like the "crazy machine" idea I had at Plural, where everyone built a page or tool which did a specific task, and they all chained together to make this endless loop of action.

I was thinking about cookies and image chunks and email..

Outlook doesn't really do cookies (tested it) but.. I could send out 1000 emails.... It all comes down to spamming a bunch of people with html emails and then reconstituting an image when they read their emails. The image in the mail would be a link like http://fnirt.com/imagename.aspx?chunk=chunkcodehere and voila, picture "in" in the internet until a certain percentage of the people reply.

Another idea was a Slashdot club. A group of nerds who do stuff to get traffic. That's it. Stunts, tricks, ideas, news, whatever. Ideally a "win" would be to get slashdotted, but the blogdex or memepool would probably be worth some points too..

I wrote a proxy server that makes your browsing experience grayscale. (sans images because I'm lazy and don't want to proxy all your images)
(but I could do images..)

Our toontown message board is ORANGE. BRIGHT ORANGE. I wanted to tone it down so I could read it at work.

So if someone directly links one of my images and I deem them "lame" they'll get a picture of a large half naked drunk brit instead of whatever they thought they were going to get.

Mirror.co.uk - SOCCER BOY DIES AT GAME -- just to clarify, it wasn't me!

I want to write an image display program that's really slow. But while you watch it draw the pixels from line to line you can be comforted by the knowledge that the computer is working really hard. On other stuff. Like, just before pixel 422 it read (parsed) the complete works of shakespeare. after Pixel 97677 was drawn it pinged the last twelve IP addresses that came to that server. And just before drawing pixel 77321 it Created a text file just a LITTLE smaller than the available size on the disk, filled it with the word "poop" and then deleted it.

If you sit in an office take a moment to listen to all of the typing around you. If you listen hard enough you can hear half a dozen folks hammering away. It's a little creepy. Bunch of people sitting around tapping on plastic for a living.

Temporary location of Pictures of my kid

Second time this week someone has called me "Craig" in an email. Was there a memo put out saying that bugged me and everyone should do it?

Pick the correct statement:

The Mitchell's bought a house in Eagan

Robert is learning a strange musical instrument

Joe Corbett bought a dog

All of the above.

Back in '93 or so a friend clued me into the fact that "Mr. Cranberry" was playing at 1st Ave and that is was really the Suburbs. We got there just in time, as word leaked.

I have never before or since seen First Avenue so crowded, or have such a great vibe. Fun music - everyone was into it, etc. great show(s).

And they had a big searchlight pointing at the Schubert theatre with the Suburbs logo about 40 feet high. Really cool!

The Suburbs are coming! The Suburbs are coming! Yay!!!

Good weekend. Painted the trailer frame and stained the wood sides -- it really looks nice now. Great weather - had hot cold, dry, rain, windy, calm. Sometimes it's nice to get some variety. Tent leaked a bit, but no damage.

Remember the distributed web based storage system I was working on? i.e. chop a picture up into 100 pieces and save each piece in someone's cookie. Once all the pieces are out, start watching for pieces to come back and reassemble the picture.

I've been watching my "test" for (months?) a while now and it's not doing well. I get about half of my "payload" back. But there is where my new idea comes in...

Run that test actively, watching unique users to see how likely they are to come back. When I get 100 users who are dependable enough to 'save' a portion of the data to, start the delivery then...

Our CEO is going to be on CNNfn tomorrow night. I mentioned this to our local website guru. He didn't know about it. It was like that IBM commercial "you didn't tell the web guys?" And now they're trying to figure out how to jimmy the site so it doesn't crash and burn. Heh.

The New Baby is a girl!

Woop! Woop! Woop! We have an image theft. I repeat, we have an image theft! Woop! Woop! Woop!

Like this one.

Look for the UPS truck.

I've gotten better at identifying image theft from my sites (linking to an image from another site) and I think it's time I write something to deal with it.

weather.com - Local Weather Page

(I'll often go from weather site to weather site looking at forecasts until I find one that suits my needs.)

osmehting -- Best. Misspelling. Ever.

I predict that within the next 5 years Target is going to get the crap sued out of it for their hiring practices. I'm generalizing, of course, but watching the flow of people into Target's HQ is like watching an episode of "Friends" except all the women are blonde. Seriously, it's scary.

The Nieman Marcus "Holiday" store recently opened in Gavidae Common. It's got Christmas stuff up. That's my first "Christmas Crap" sighting for the year, and I believe a personal best: August 21.

So that 20 minute "pop in the new crown, no novacaine needed" turned into over an hour, the old temporary was cracked so it took a lot of wheedling (aka pain) to get it out, MORE temporary fillings because the crown didn't fit, TWO rounds of novacaine because it was so sensitive to cold and pressure, and all that time I got to stare at an inspirational poster that said "Friendship is like a rainbow between hearts."

Web Server Statistics for [my organisation]

On all of my sites put together, the googlebot is a more popular browser than Netscape.

Time to rip into the Pretzel Flipz. If I can't be productive, I might as well be fat.

"Go ahead, scream. You know you want to."

A phrase that probably shouldn't be a common thought.

Ahhh, good weekend. Got well on my way to completing the renovation of the trailer, and had lots of fun at the Cabin at the same time.

Riding a scooter in the woods is indeed like being on a speeder-bike.

Skooter Du was a kick in the pants! Lots of fun!

I was listening to old Erasure, getting really wistful and thinking about "what if"s and where my life is and where it might have been and such. I do that a lot, but it's not about how my life could have been better - just different.

Anyway, I was thinking back to 87 when I really got in to Erasure, and got all "I wish it was back then" about it.

And then I threw in the latest Bis CD and it really made me appreciate today, too. Some day I'm going to wish it was now. I should remember to appreciate then, then, too. If that makes sense.

It's all about perspective, isn't it?

It's a sad, sad, sad day. The VW Cabrio is being discontinued.

A thousand dollars just disappeared into my mouth.

That's a computer. Darnit.

I would, of course, have to find a good sidekick. A dim witted but well meaning friend, or possibly a monkey. Or maybe a weasel. Something to set me apart.

And a good catchphrase.

I'd like a nomadic lifestyle. An RV or something (not white trashy though) and be completely wireless and mobile. And then I'd go from community to community encountering strange characters and having wacky adventures.

Occasionally I'd stay in a town twice as long as normal (the story could be summarized in two hours instead of one) and I'd solve a mystery.

When I said "Not that your mother isn't hot.." to Erik it made me giggle out loud at work. (I wasn't being serious.) (Not that she's ugly, but..) (There's no explaining this one, is there?)

Does the serving size and nutritional information on a pack/box of gum assume you're just going to chew it, or actually swallow it?

Ate at Peter's. The place is a time machine. Service with a grunt. Best. Reuben. Ever. Got chiclets.

Is there a word for the communication method in which you type comments via IM but hear one anothers laughter out loud?

Don't know if I'll be posting to this anymore. Had a bad experience. So watch for the generic and boring "this is my web page" in this space in the near future.

I'll continue to contribute to this for my own benefit, like a journal, but it won't be available to the whole world. Yeah, that sucks. Oh well.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

I've found a few of these Earwig things in our house. I'm creeped out.

I lost my Propellerheads CD. So today I bought a new one. I'm listening to it and being reminded of Ira's first few days at BigCharts, when I discovered that he had this CD in your collection too, and that he might be cool.

Minority Report: Tom and Max Von Sydow are sitting and the camera is over Tom's shoulder. Given that angle, Tom's head should appear bigger (because it's closer) than Max's. Nope. Tom's little tiny head looked tiny even with an advantage.

Latest Obsession: Flight Simulator 2002. Just learned how to use the Air Traffic Control part. Fun!

Dow fell a lot again today. We're just going into a big ole depression, aren't we? And then we'll have a big war to get out of it. And then the 50's will happen again. All that is crappy, but the worst part is that when the 60's backlash thing happens after the next "50's" thing, I'm going to be TOO OLD FOR THE FREE LOVE.

You can get to a Tom Thumb via the Minneapolis skyway system. Didn't have anyone to go to lunch with, so I went on a Skyway Safari. I know where Congressman Sabo's office is, too. The lettering on the door is a little crooked.

None of my co-workers had any idea what suck.com was. I was passing this link around and everyone was like "Oh no! Bad link!"

Eli woke up at 4:30 again last night, and I managed to go into Super Deep Sleep after going back to bed. As a result, I'm a walking zombie. Went to get coffee and on my way back I would swear I saw . Kinda funny.

Oh yeah, only two of my invitees showed up at Jill's party. One of whom I hadn't seen in almost three years, the other six months at least.

What's up with that?

Lovely weekend.

1. JoeCorbett's wedding was nice, beautiful, fun, great, etc.
2. Jill's Birthday BBQ was nice, beautiful, fun, great, etc.
3. Jill and Eli got the flu Sunday. I got to get up at 7:30 Sunday and follow Eli around cleaning up little (big) puddles of puke.

Got a donut today downstairs and it didn't taste fresh. Bummer.

We're expecting! (In case you hadn't heard. We're now entering the "tell people" phase) Due in January, and we're hoping for a Craig. Doesn't matter if it's a boy or girl. (I think Jill wants a girl, tho.)

Went to the doctor with Jill today to hear the heartbeat. Pretty cool. We brought Eli but he didn't quite understand, and he's sick with the flu so he wasn't very happy, either. :(

Basement almost complete. Jill's PC is now wireless, so she can put it wherever she wants and no cable. Very handy. The network card is a usb wireless thing the size of a deck of cards. Subtle, no power cord, either.

I've been doing digital photography for some time, and I've got my big expensive mega cameras, but I love my pencam!

I've got a Bell and Howell (aka Jazz) mini cam with 352x288 resolution. Got it at Target for $39.95. Image quality is.. pretty bad. But with DCEnhance and some tweaking they're okay. Fun.

I've thrown my collection online, and will probably be adding to it until the little thing dies.

You can find them at:
http://www.lightistic.com/pencam

(The interface is .net on an IIS server in vb.net -- in case anyone is wondering if they can get a copy of the software: only if you know how to code. :) It's powerful, but complicated)

Also, I'm anxiously awaiting the Logitech Pocket Digital -- but I'm not finding it in stores or online yet. What gives? They said June 30... I've never heard of a product launch being late. (Riiiiight.)

Wild weekend. Eight adults and three toddlers. Chaos and craziness, but somehow it was quite relaxing. It was a lot of fun. Paddled around in the water on some new water toys, did fireworks after the kids went to bed, and did a great flag puzzle. Lots of good family time, most excellent.

I love Office Space:
"Excuse me, Senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for a Mai Tai and they brought me a Pina Colada, and I said no salt, nooo salt for the margarita, but it had salt on it. I won't be leaving a tip, cuz I could I could shut this whole resort down. Sir? I could Take my travellers check to a competing hotel.. I could write a letter to your board of tourism and I could have this place condemned. I could put, I could put strichnine in the Guacamole. There was salt on the glass. Big grains of salt."

The carpet is in the basement, still have the stairs to do yet, and the vinyl is going in the bathroom thursday. Much like the upstairs bathroom, this project is going to be 99% completed within hours of Jill's birthday bash. We hope. :)

Set up the PC and everything -- it's nice to have a home again, stayed up too late doing pretty much nothing. Flew a bit, checked out filepile, made the network all happy, etc. Need to start a new project to obsess over.

Need to spend too much at BestBuy or something to finish off the electronic portion of my new office. And move the futon down. And move the TV in. And get the satellite working again. Lots to do!

Started a new puzzle yesterday -- 3000 pieces, and it's just a titch smaller than the puzzle mat I use to store puzzles. I have no idea how I'm going to finish it. And the New York 3d puzzle is about to rear it's wonderful head once the basement is done and the party is over.

All should be well from now on. Deleted the other (non-used) blog and now I'm smarter. About how this works.

Figured out where all of my "lost" posts were going: the wrong blog. Mine, but not the right one.

To catch you up, here are the "missing" entries, all confused and in the wrong order:

[7/1/2002 7:59:46 AM | robert craig]
Fun weekend, HOT HOT HOT. Spent some serious time in the inflatable (which uninflates rapidly) pool -- more importantly got the air conditioners installed. Nice.

The Kishel-Corbetts and my brother Jim came over for BBQ Saturday night, was quite fun. Jim was trying to escape the heat so he hung out and watch the Peacemaker (Clooney, Kidman) -- okay movie, even if we did have to watch GASP commercials.

Almost did a whole puzzle yesterday, will finish it tonight. Odd puzzle. Will explain once I'm done and take pictures.

Did I mention it was hot out? Oh yeah, sunburnt Saturday afternooon taking the scooter out -- didn't think I was going to be out that long, but I was. Went to the MOA, which is a long drive since there is no direct route. Fun tho.

[6/24/2002 8:08:37 AM | robert craig]
Long weekend of painting and sweating. Very hot. Got out on the scooter yesterday for a while, went down to the Lock and Dam at the Ford bridge and looked around. Need to carry camera around with me all the time, missing too many shots.

My latest "scheme" interesting: I'm trying to figure out how to get to Stillwater via roads of 35mph or less.

[6/18/2002 2:48:02 PM | robert craig]
Loooong weekend. Details? Quickly:

Wednesday:
Satellite doesn't work with new wiring, can't fix quick, Tivo useless for the weekend
Dashed off to cabin, Eli did quite well in the car, all slept quickly and well.

Thursday
Drove from 6:30am to about 6pm, with some kind of time change in there. Emma and Matthew and the rest of the Cheboygan Michigan crowd were very happy to see us, and we were very happy to see them, as well as get out of the car finally! Eli rode quite well, with much help from Grandma.

Friday
Fort Michillimackinac in the drizzly rain, but lots of fun anyway
Ate at zooey Burger King with LOTS of little kids running around.
Eli threw up everything in the van ("I threw up..")

Saturday
Rain. Stayed in all day. Went a little batty. Eli ended up in a dress playing the guitar while Emma spun around the room. Surreal to say the least

Sunday
Rain stopped, went to the Island. Saw horses, fort, arch rock, and parade. Eli loved riding on the boat

Monday
Up too early due to Emma's crying, hit the road early, drove lots.
Drove more.
Continued to drive.
Kept driving.
And then drove some more.
Got home with VERY little crying out of Eli, which was amazingly wonderful. He did throw up just after Hudson though. Wouldn't be a trip without that familiar smell..

Great weekend, but I need a vacation!

(Got the Satellite working, thank goodness! Basement coming along really nicely!)

[6/12/2002 9:23:35 AM | robert craig]
What kind of cough drops do you consider LEAST offensive? i.e. If you were locked in a 5 foot by 5 foot space with someone for 10 hours and they had cough drops, which of the following would you most prefer:

1. Fisherman's Friend, the most effective and least sweet of the cough drops
2. Blue menthol type "cool" cough drops
3. Honey, the boring cough drop
4. Cherry, the cough drop that makes you want to outlaw cough drops
5. Other (you fill in the blank)
[edit]

[6/11/2002 9:23:27 AM | robert craig]
Way too long since any entries...

Preparing for the trip this week to Mackinac Island (Cheboygan, actually), lots of packing and stuff. Eli's pretty excited about the trip, and we're doing a lot of plotting and planning to distract him throughout the journey.
[edit]

[6/5/2002 8:20:55 AM | robert craig]
Stress lately. We had to go to Home Depot last night for some "basement stuff" and had to wait for help. Eli got bored and frustrated, I got stressy. It wasn't until the end of our trip that I realized I had the ultimate "get service fast" tool. As Eli cried and cried while sitting on my shoulders (thus propogating the noises further) the clerks started doing anything to just get us out of the store.

Basement done soon enough, and all will be well.

32,707 pictures in my complete collection. Only 12,681 are available online.

Suck. This isn't working anymore. Most of my posts get lost. Dammit..

Argh!

All I needed was 30 postcard stamps, so Jill can mail the invitations to her birthday BBQ. Follow this pain:

1. Try and remember how much a postcard stamp is worth
2. Go to machine located conventiently in lobby of work building
3. "See "$.23, bag of 5 for $1.15" (might be right..)
3. Realize you never knew how much a postcard stamp was worth in the first place.
4. Trudge two blocks to post office.
5. Look at long line and decide to try your luck on the slot, er, vending machines
6. See familiar "Postcard $.21 for $1.15" and toss $5 bill in machine
7. Assume that $5 is going to get you multiple packs of stamps in one go
8. Be wrong.
9. Make selection
10. Head satisfying "plink" of packet inside machine
11. Hear loud rattle as machine starts dispensing obsolete $1 Susan B nthony coins. (Not the pretty new gold ones)
12. Put more change in machine
13. Make same selection
14. Hear noises
15. Put more change in machine
16. See "no more left" message
17. Hit "coin return" button
18. See "must make purchase to receieve change"
19. Buy next cheapest thing (pack of 50 $.03 stamps.)
20. Reach into machine to pick up booty
21. Find out familiar "Postcard $.21 for $1.15" really meant postcards with stamp built in.
22. Tear hair out
23. Trudge back to work -- wait
24. Decide on way back not to waste all of this time, try machine in lobby
25. Purchase 7 packets of $.23 cent postcard stamps correctly and easily from machine in lobby
26. Realize you just bought one pack too many, or it gave you an extra one because it felt bad for you
27. Realize those postcards you got don't even have correct postage on them
28. Realize you now have a way to waste some of your $.03 stamps.
29. Remember that the Post Office is a government entity

What trip? Wednesday night we're going to Mom's cabin, then driving all day thursday to Michigan to my sister Lisa's place. Coming back the following Monday.

[nice. looks like a bunch of wasted words got thrown out the window at some point. Oh well..]