Google Plus

I got an invite today for Google Plus. So far, it's interesting. There are things about it I really like. The biggest drawback I see at the moment is there aren't that many people using it yet.

How will it do in the long term? Who knows, but I hope more people start using it. I think it has some great potential.

Good Day

Today is turning out to be a good day, even though it started a bit rough.

I went to be a bit early last night, and was sleeping relatively well. That was until 5:00 this morning when the cat started meowing. So, I get up so he doesn't wake up my wife, to figure out what he needs. He took me to the living room and went to the front door!

He's not an indoor/outdoor cat. He's only indoor unless he escapes, and hasn't escaped since we moved to the new house. Anway, I almost threw him out the door anyway for waking me up! I went ahead and checked his food bowl and made sure that the door was open so he could get to his litter box and went back to bed.

I went back to bed, laid down, and was wide awake! So, after about 5 minutes, I decided to get up. I had my quiet time, surfed the web, fixed breakfast, and packed a lunch. My wife woke up about 7:00 and I got the bed made, laundry going, and dishes done before I left the house at 7:15!

Work has even been going pretty well today.

The downside is knowing my dishwasher broke yesterday, and we've no money to fix it.

Oh well, guess we'll do dishes the old fashioned way for a while.

More busy-ness

Wow! Has it been a long time since I've blogged. I've thought about it a lot, but just haven't managed to get in here and do it. I've had a lot to say, but now that I've got the time, I can't think of most of it.

So, what's been going on?

• Well, We got moved in, unpacked and the like. We are finishing the painting up of the last room (master bath) today or tomorrow (Saturday at the latest). Once we have the paint done and finish the last bit of decorating, I'll post a bunch of new pictures.
  
• Kids. I'd say what's to say, but there's been a lot, I'll post more below (or later depending on how long this post is.)
• Saturday is my and my beautiful wife's wedding anniversary. We wanted to go do something, but doesn't look like that's going to happen. 11 years!
• I got my parents moved from Bartlesville, OK to Hodgen, OK. I hurt my back in the process, and it's just now getting back to normal.
• I've been pricing fencing for the new place, man is it expensive.
• E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) has been this week, and I've enjoyed it. Wish I could have gone to it! Lots of video game goodness!
• I'm sure there is more, but can't think of it.

So, my kids, first my boy.

• We were asked to have him tested for the Gifted and Talented. I thought it was strange, but I told them they could test him. Anyway, he scored in the 99 percentile (meaning better than 99 out of 100 of people that took the test. So, next year, he'll spend 40 minutes, twice a week for enrichment activities (whatever that means).
• He also was given an application for a Lego Robotics team that will meet one to two times a week before school next year and a competition in Stillwater in December. (I think that link is right) He was completely stoked about it till he found out he had to fill out part of the application himself, so he said "nah". Well, being the good dad I am, I made him fill it out. He was stoked until that point. We've not heard back, but are hoping he gets to be a part. they are only choosing 10 kids out of the 4th -5th grade class.
• He finished 3rd grade with straight A's!!! We are so proud of him.

My daughter though is another matter. We just had to spend $500 so she'd not go blind! She's had the same pair of contacts in her eyes (without removing them nightly like she's suppose to) for the last 8 months+. Luckily she was able to get some glasses (the dr said no contacts for at least 1 year if ever). But she can see, so that's whats important.

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. Hopefully, it wont be month before my next post.

Busy, busy, busy

Those 3 words pretty much sum up what's going on for me.

Today and tomorrow we are having garage sale. This will help get rid of stuff we no longer want and make a bit of money in the process. Anything we don't sale, we'll take elsewhere after the sale.

Tonight is my boy's Karate class. This weekend, he tests for his Camo belt!!! We are so excited. Once getting his camo belt, he'll get to move to the advanced class where he'll finally get to start sparing. We're all excited about that.

Saturday evening, we take a final walk-through on the new house to make sure all the repairs were done.

Tuesday we close on our current house and have my boys first advance Karate class!

1 week from today, we close on the new house and start painting and cleaning and have Karate (he may have to miss this day, we'll see).

Friday May 1st, is more cleaning and painting and maybe some moving. The telephone/DSL and Dish Network gets turned on.

Saturday morning May 2nd, we move.

Saturday evening May 2nd, we'll have a birthday party for my grandmother.

Well, that's it for now. More later!

Tulsa #1

Wow, I can't believe it.

In this years RelocateAmerica.com's annual list of the top 100 places to live in the US, Tulsa, OK came in at number 1!

You can see more at this article at MarketWatch, or take a look at the full list at RelocateAmerica.com.

As a brief recap though, Tulsa came in at #1, Dallas/Ft Worth #2, Little Rock at #9, and OKC at #10.

Getting closer

3 weeks from today, we close on the new house! We are so excited. We've been doing what I consider a good job packing. We've packed a lot, designated a lot for a garage sale, and thrown away a lot. I'm not sure were all this stuff has come from, but it's nice to get rid of a lot of it.

It's Sold!!!

Tonight we sold our house! We are very happy about it. Now we just have to find a house to buy before we are homeless! :)

We have 2 that we are very interested in. Hopefully we'll get to take a second look at both houses this weekend.

Update

Wow, it's really been a long time since I've posted. I knew it had been, but I didn't realize it had been almost a month!

For the most part, things have been really quiet (and I'm NOT complaining). We have decided to start looking into buying a new house. I've let the church next door to us know because they had shown some interest in buying the place if we ever sold. So, we've had about 8 people from their church come by and look at the place. I was always under the impression that they wanted to bulldoze it, but they've been asking a lot of questions about the house, so sounds like they may want to keep it. I really don't care as long as we get out of it what we need for a down payment on the next place.

We've not done a lot as far as hunting goes. We've looked online a bit, and drove by a couple houses we've seen, but we've not gone into any of them yet.

Last week, we've also filled out loan papers and are still waiting to hear back on that.

I guess that is basically it. Hopefully it wont be another month before I post again.

Friday Night Storms

With me not feeling well yesterday, I forgot to talk about the storms that came through Friday night. I'm not sure how, but they managed to knock out my Satellite. Two of my receivers aren't receiving, and 1 (in the bedroom) is only picking up 1 of the 3 satellites it should be.

Wait it gets better. They can't get anyone out her till Wednesday between noon and 5:00.

Wait, it gets even better. The OSU bowl game is Tuesday night and is on ESPN.

I think I get ESPN on the upstairs TV. I think, but I'm not sure.

Bah!

You know, there are days that I really don't like AT&T

A while back, AT&T Yahoo stopped their photo storage and went to Flickr. Anyone that paid for their AT&T Yahoo account would get Flickr for free! I had used the Yahoo one, but several of my friends used Flickr and I used it some. So when they made that offer, I was all over it! I was impressed.

Then today, I bought a new camera, and uploaded several of my photos to Flickr, and I see this message:

Due to changes in your AT&T Internet Service, your Flickr Pro account will expire on 1st February, 2009.

I wondered what was up with that, so they had a link asking why my Pro Account is expiring, so I clicked it:

AT&T and Verizon Internet Services have reworked their broadband packages and will no longer be offering Flickr pro to subscribers after January 31, 2009.

Now, I can upgrade my Flickr account to Pro for $24.95, but still, AT&T is the one that offered it for Free to begin with. They didn't need to do that to begin with, now that I'm used to using Flickr, I either have to switch to something else, pay for the pro account, or go back to their free account.

*sigh*

Air 1 Pledge Drive

I love listening to Air 1. It is such a great radio station.

Last Thursday, they started their pledge drive and it will go till this coming Thursday. If any of you listen to Air 1 and don't give, let me encourage you to give. Several years ago, we started giving to them. We listened to them all the time, and decided to give.

The surprising thing? We never missed the money.

Every time we get in the car, my boy asks if it's on Air1. The other day he told me that he always hoped the radio on the school bus would be on Air 1, but it never way. And it made him sad.

He listens to Air 1 every night as he goes to bed, and he listens in the car everywhere we go.

There is so much that goes into our heads through the music we listen to. I know the music I listen to affects the way I feel. So knowing that my boy loves listening to music that uplifts and points to Christ!

Failure

I know I've had days I've felt like this...

Busy Weekend

I had a good, but busy weekend. Friday, I managed to get the yard mowed, the fence line sprayed (to kill the grass growing in it), around the pool sprayed (Same reason), and the sandbox sprayed (yep, you guessed it, same reason). And I got the garden weeded, and got the grass trimmed back around the tomato plants (since I couldn't weed in there.

And that was just Friday evening.

Saturday, I managed to get the back porch cleaned off. I probably should have taken a picture to show you, but I was really just too embarrassed to show anyone how hideously messy it really was, so no pictures for you.

It wasn't all work though, I did have some nice time playing games, and doing some reading. Church was good, except for getting drenched helping people get from the education building to the sanctuary dry.

And I made it to the grocery store. I forgot that I don't go to the store on Sundays, and at the first of the month. Sunday it was both!

12 days till our trip, and I can't wait!

Better gas mileage

As everyone knows, gas now costs an arm and a leg. Last week it cost me over $100 to fill up both vehicles. This is just pretty crazy, and I know it's not going to get better. Also with all the ethenol the gas companies are putting into the gas, my miles per gallon has dropped.

The gas mileage usually runs between 22.3 and 27.7 mpg. I think once I've had the car to over 30 mpg.

I watched a news story a couple weeks ago about slowing down would help with fuel efficiency, so I decided to give it a try. I decided that I'd not drive faster than around 62 mph.

After the first tank of gas, I got 29.5 mpg. Yesterday, I just filled up from my second tank, and I got 30.2 mpg. It really does help. At least for the first 2 weeks I've tried it, I've raise my fuel efficiency by around 10%. That's about a 1 way trip to Tulsa I'm saving each week. Over a months time that will save me enough for 2 round trips to Tulsa! Which is close to half a tank.

And the truth is, you don't lose that much time going somewhere. At 65 mph you can go 65 miles in 1 hour (hence the catchy name). But at least on a daily basis, I'm not going 65 miles. I'm going about 25 miles or so. So it takes me about 1-2 minutes longer to get to work than if i drove 65.

For the moment, I plan on continuing to drive at around 62.

Overwhelmed

Do you ever have so much to do, you just completely and utterly overwhelmed?

On the bright side, with this busy weekend coming up, hopefully I'll have some good blog fodder.

Spelling Words

Now that school is about over, I wanted to share with everyone this WONDERFUL piece of software I found a little over a month ago. It's called My Spelling Words.

My boy had been having some problems with his spelling words in school. In fact, it was getting worse. Before I found this program, the last 3 tests were F, F, D. The conventional ways of writing your spelling words out over and over just wasn't working, at least for him.

So, I did what any good geek dad would do, I hit Google and that's when I found this program.

The reviews of it were great, but I don't put much faith in reviews that are listed on the software's own web page... who knows i they were really written or not.

But it had a 30 day free trial, so I figured what did we have to lose?

First week using this program to help him study his words, he made a 100%!!!

WOW!!! But was it just a fluke?

Week 2, 100%, Week 3, 100%!


At this point, I figured it was worth the $20. But it continues.


Week 4, 95%, Week 5 100%

Needless to say, I can't say enough good things about this program.

you do need a sound card and a microphone if you are going to use it.

Debt

Well, on October 15th, 2002, we had around $31,000 in debt, most of that credit cards. We actually had more, cause we had the house and the car, but we had 31K of stupid debt.

Today, 5 years and 5 months since we started, we made the last payment on our stupid debt. And let me tell you how good it feels! It's incredible!

We still have a car loan, and our house payment, but everything else is paid off!!!

Well, I'm going to get off here and go see about buying that boat I saw for sale.

Just joking. Actually, going to finally start up my 401K again at work, and adding to the car payment to get it paid off faster, and also trying to get some money saved up.

Hair-less

Or maybe less hair would be a better title.

I got all crazy this weekend and shaved.

About 2 weeks ago, I shaved my beard back into a goatee, but today, I shaved almost everything else off.

Back in September, I started growing out my goatee into a beard, and didn't mess with it until the day after Thanksgiving. I trimmed it down, and kept the beard trimmed until Saturday when I shaved. I took pictures then, so you can see the before here.

And here is the after.....





wait for it.....





ok, you ready?




Here you go

(Click for larger view)

I realized that I have had either a goatee or a beard for over 11 years!!! My wife had never seen my upper lip. Every time she looks at me, she laughs. She hasn't decided yet if she likes it or not. I had a lady at church tell me today, I look about 10 years younger. I don't know about 10 years, but I will agree I look younger.

Spring fever

I guess you'd say I have a full case of Spring Fever. After the fishing trip this morning, my boy and I washed the car and the truck... Planning on charcoaling some trout on the grill later.

It's a beautiful warm, sunny, windy day. It's 3:21 and 73 degrees.

I'm really hoping all this activity will help me get my strength back from being sick all week.

Self Disclosure

I was tagged by Bowden McElroy from Counseling Notes to participate in the following exercise in self-disclosure.

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

Seven Facts About Me:

1. I am an Oklahoma State Alumni. I graduated with a BS in Com-Sci more almost 13 years ago.
   
2. The summer after graduating from High School, I went on a 3 week student exchange program to the USSR. It was a great, but at the same time, was the longest 3 weeks of my life.
   
3. I am a Junior. And I believe people should not add Jr's or numbers behind their son's names. It become confusing later in life.
4. This year will be married to my wife for 10 years! It's been a great marriage!
   
5. I enjoy gardening even though I don't eat many vegetables.
6. I really enjoy Sci-fi and Fantasy in all its forms. (Video games, books, and Movie/TV)
   
7. I've had a computer in my home since I was in 7th grade (around 11/12 years old). So though I've not have one all my life, I consider myself one of those that have grown up with computers.
   

I know this says to tag 7 others, but I'll save you all the worry and I wont. But I would love to have some of you do it. Comment if you do so I can stop by and read.