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Archives : Jan’04 Feb’04 Mar’04 Apr’04 May’04

Thu Jun 24 16:49:40 2004

Saudi Arabia Says Foreigners Can Carry Guns

This, I like. Infact, I think it should be a precedent for the rest of the world. We Americans should be allowed to take our 2nd Amendment rights with us where ever we go. Especially now that there's a world-wide religious cult out there trying to kill us.

Kudos to Saudi Arabia.

Mon Jun 21 11:04:58 2004

Yesterday was a good Father's Day. Michelle bought me a mountain of clothes (which I dearly needed), and her friend Deb even got me a cool shirt with a beer motif. But the best part was at her sister's house. Previous Fathers Days for me were, at best, chicken so dry that the only moisture came from the BBQ sauce that it needed to be smothered in to be edible, and some other low-fat, uninspired crap (the ex-es family couldn't cook worth a damn). So, you can imagine my joy when I saw no less than a dozen 3/4 inch New York strip steaks, all seasoned to perfection and cooked perfectly to my request! Now that's how Fathers Day should be done. There was lots of other food, beer and wine and everyone had a great time, including the kids. I just might have to keep this Michelle girl around.

Wed Jun 2 11:11:28 2004

I cleaned out the fridge yesterday. Actually, cleaning it wasn't my primary goal, I was just trying to downgrade its status as a Level 2 Biohazard to something more suitable for a domicile. After the power was out for four days, several items began their accent up the evolutionary ladder. There were also a number of more sinister agents in there that had been lurking from the fridge’s early days, before I took charge of it (i.e. prior to my divorce). In order to keep the fridge more manageable in the future, I removed both rotters. Some people call them "crispers" but I don't know why. I've never seen anything come out of those drawers "crisp". Generally if I put something in there, I don't think about it again until I smell something.

Tue Jun 1 14:06:42 2004

This update is actually three updates in one. I've had 'issues' and I haven't been able to update in a timely manner. They are in reverse chronological order just to maintain consistency.

(6-1-2004) First day back from Memorial Day weekend. My son and I spent Saturday through Monday at a beach house in Marblehead owned by my GF's sister and some others. We had a great time. The highlight of my son's weekend was the 2 lb catfish he caught while sitting on the docks. The kids were bored and to kill time we set them up on the docks with fishing poles and worms. Nobody thought they would catch anything there (except the kids), and when he first said he got something, I assumed he had caught his hook on some junk at the bottom. But I soon noticed that he was actually reeling in something that was fighting hard against him. The match was a little too even for my nerves so I helped him pull it up – a big ugly catfish! We had nothing to put it in, so one of the other parents ran up and got a bucket. The bucket was much too small. So a large cooler was fetched and the catfish hauled in. We later took it up the street to a place that cleans fish, got it cleaned, and cooked it up for dinner. He didn't like it, but I wasn't about it let it go to waste, so I ate it. First time my son fed me for a change!

(5-28-2004) Adelphia sucks more monkey nuts than a simian pornstar. The cablemodem stopped doing its job after the lightning strike (see next update) and rather than bother with it, I wanted to just cancel my account. I'm sick of the outages, messed up bills and lack of customer support, and it just wasn't worth it to me to get it re-established. I called and made what I thought was a simple request: Turn off my service. The said 'No, we have to keep charging you until you return the cablemodem.' I was flabbergasted. I'm out of service, I want to cancel my account, but I can't because I still have their equipment. Dealing with them has taught me to expect bullshit like this, so I just said 'whatever' and took down the address where I had to return it (they charge extra to have a guy come out and get their own equipment). I'm not paying the final bill until it reflects the correct charges.

(5-24-2004) Thursday night (a.k.a. early morning, 5-21-2004) there was a wicked violent electrical/thunder storm that knocked out my power. I figured a lot of people would be out, so I went off to work Friday morning without doing anything about it. I had stuff to do, so I never returned home until Saturday. Still out, still much to do, so I called and reported my outage from my mom's house (all my phones require power, so they weren't working). Sunday me, my son, my GF and her daughter all went to Cedar Point for the day, and on the way home we called my number to see if the answering machine would pick up. It didn't so we assumed (correctly) that the power was still out. So we shacked up with her for the evening, and I got my son off to school Monday morning and checked on the house again. No power, no signs of work done. All my neighbors had power, so I must have been overlooked. I called it in again from work, and check the house again after I picked him up from school. The wires were disconnected now from the transformer that feeds my house. A big black mark was evident on the side of it. Well, now they know about me, they should have it fixed soon. Spent the night again with Michelle, and the next morning I had power! Woohoo! Didn't have time to check everything out until Tuesday night. The water wasn't running, I traced that back to some fuses in a box dedicated to the well. One of the 25 amp fuses was blown clear out of the socket, leaving only the threads. Replaced that, and the well came alive. The phone still wasn’t working, and the computer wasn't either. Casual inspection reveled why the computer wasn't working – the external modem's cover was blown off and blackened, along with the phone line feeding it. The surge probably channeled into the motherboard and blew it, too. This sucked because I don't use the damn modem, and every time I saw it sitting there I would think to myself, "I don't use that, I should unplug it". So this surge that came through the phone line probably blew up my nice expensive cordless phone (plugging in a cheep corded phone works) and testing showed that my DirectTV box (which has a phone line plugged into it) didn't work either. So I canceled that account, too (it was in the ex-wives name anyway). I'll just be a hermit, screw all this frail technology.

Much thanks to Michelle for her hospitality towards me and my son during these times.