8 posts tagged “weekend”
We cram so much into our weeks that it’s a little crazy.
Now that Michelle has moved out, Sherry and I are saving for our second honeymoon, so every chance that we have to make a little money on the side we’re taking.
This weekend was a job for an old customer from Sherry’s work. He doesn’t want to hire the company, but he’s really impressed with Sherry’s work so he hired her on the side (with permission from her immediate boss).
We made just over $500 for the weekend and when you add that to the $550 that I made on 8mm transfers that puts us about half way to our goal. Whohoo. We’re hoping to go in September or October so we still have the rest of the summer to make the rest.
Michelle came over to complain about her phone bill. She thinks that we should pay the $100/month bill for her cell phone. I’m not exactly sure why that is (other than she didn’t have a credit card when she signed up for the phone and Sherry used hers… we’ll have to fix that as soon as there’s no penalty for switching). She’s making my life more complicated that it needs to be.
Speaking of complicated – today is the day that John needs the next version of our flagship product ready to ship and I don’t have my internet up yet. That means that I can’t get the install finished. That’s going to push the whole thing right on top of our Festival – which has a hard launch date of July 6th. Yuck.
I’ll need to get Bryon trained shortly since we have Canada Day tomorrow and no one is working. I need a better internet connection!
I’ve decided to just give away my code and not tell Bernie that I’m teaching Colours. Let the chips land where they may. I’ll keep Dad posted on what’s up with the payment for the code – he’s really pissed that I haven’t been paid for it yet too. I’ll just let Bernie know that I feel like his millionaire friend has screwed me over by not paying for the code that he relies on to keep the Festival gates running smoothly. Whatever happens after that is fine. I’ve already emotionally checked out of this whole Festival thing now. Poor Bryon.
I’m thankful that we get to have a second Honeymoon – I can’t wait!
I’m thankful that Sherry’s client was so easy to work for and so generous
I’m thankful that Sherry is on board with this trip in September.
I know that God wants our marriage to be strong.
This is becoming a recurring theme – I had a great weekend, but not quite enough sleep!
Friday was supposed to be a trip to the movie theatre to watch Iron Man, but a friend of ours got sick and she and her husband had tickets to a fancy-smancy dinner that they couldn’t use anymore. The table was with another friend of ours and the dinner sounded amazing, so I said I’d take the tickets.
Turns out that was a really stupid idea. Sherry yelled at me for trading our movie plans for a free $100/plate dinner. Ooops. I’ll never do that again.
The dinner was incredible. They served the best tasting escargot that I’ve ever tasted and the salmon that I had was amazing. Sherry’s prime rib was even better than my salmon. The conversation was fun and the evening was really pleasant. But I’ll never do that again – getting yelled at was pretty traumatic.
Saturday was errands and getting ready for the Poker Party that we were hosting that night. We also started putting the skirt on our deck. Poker was a lot of fun, but a little late. We all lost $10, except Eric who won $50 – which is actually not a surprise – he was there to teach us how to play Texas Holdem.
Sunday was church and we finished the skirt – it looks amazing for two amateurs. We went over to my Mom and Dad’s place to return his table saw and to have tea. Then we called it a night (and made the mistake of watching the second episode of Lost – which made it another late night in a string of late nights…)
I’m thankful that the skirt is done – all that’s left now is the plexiglass – once it’s all done I’ll post pictures
I’m thankful that dinner was so good or I’d be in a lot more trouble than I am
I’m thankful that my friends thought of us to give the tickets to.
I know that God wants us to enjoy food.
Friday night was really nice – there were about 120 people at Georges birthday party – it was a nice turn out for a really nice guy. We only stayed for the meal (from 6 to 8) we skipped the dance afterward – we’re really not dancers and Sherry was exhausted.
The move at Shelly’s was a little different. Most of the big stuff has been moved the day before, so we were more or less moving boxes around the house and unpack some of the kitchen stuff. Sherry stayed and did a full eight hour day, but I got about an hours worth of work done and then just hung out with the guys.
It was nice, but I had a tonne of projects waiting at home for me – if we had known, I would have sent Sherry and I would have stayed and worked on my own stuff.
Sunday was a nice easy day. We worked on the wine project for a bit before church and then headed to the States as soon as the service was over. That was a nice trip.
Then we picked up some chairs at Canadian Tire and came back to work on some projects around the house.
Today I’ll be working on a major, major bug in my flagship product. That can’t stay there very long, but unfortunately it’s a nasty bug that’s going to be brutal to track down. *sigh*.
Michelle is painting her apartment – we don’t get to see it until the painting is done – appartenlty it’s a little run down and she wants to freshen it up before she shows anyone.
I’m looking forward to seeing it.
I transfer old vinyl records to CD (and 8-tracks and reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes). I also transfer VHS to DVD (and 8mm reels and super8 and digital8) as a hobby. The hobby is actually paying fairly well recently and I have two $500 jobs coming up in May. That should be a good time. Anyway, I’ve made about $800 since January and I’ve been spending it over the last couple of weeks.
I have a new hard drive (to hold all that video) and then I splurged on an iPod Touch (8G) and a couple of other things. It’s been really fun.
I’m thankful that I can use my talents to generate income
I’m thankful that Sherry lets me use my hobby money completely frivolously.
I’m thankful that there are so many cool gadgets out there.
I know that God gifted me in the area of Technology and that He wants to bless me through that talent.
The first round of Christmas parties was a huge success. We had a great time with Sherry’s side Saturday afternoon and then a really fun time with my work party after that.
I brought my lights to the party and did employee mug shots as well as couple shots just to be nice. They turned out really nicely (aside from the lack of a good background…. Bummer).
I’m really hoping to have a productive week at work this week – I’m looking forward to very few interruptions and knocking a bunch of stuff off my list.
I really can’t get over how different a photo feels with the extra attention to lighting. Take a look at the two photos and you can see the ‘snapshot’ feel to the one and the ‘portrait’ feel to the other. Whohoo!
Have you ever noticed that people leave things until the last possible moment? Does it make you want to poke them with a sharp stick? If so, there is help available.
The reason that I ask is that I operate a very small (local only, please) service to transfer old 8mm home movies to DVD. Now that Christmas is just around the corner I have three jobs to do (I typically do about 10 a year). Yikes.
To make matters worse I was almost done my last job when my projector’s bulb blew. Aarrrgh. So I ordered one from
replacementbulbs.com (great guys! Great prices!) and had them over night the bulb to me – I should get it shortly. Yikes.
I have a small confession to make – we were at Sherry’s Sister’s Christmas party and before we left I told Sherry what time I needed to be home to get ready for the staff party (to set up the lights). Then, in front of everyone, she asked how long we could stay (to make me look like the bad guy?) I snapped at her and told her that she already knew. Bummer.
I’m thankful that Sherry is very quick to forgive
I’m thankful that I don’t mess up like that very often
I’m thankful that we had a great time at both parties in spite of my sharp tongue
I’m not sure if it’s selfish (ok, it really is) but Michelle and I are really glad that Sherry is done for the season.
She’s only been off for about 60 minutes but already she’s taken away the worst parts of Michelle’s chore, reduced my stress level and made Michelle’s lunch for school.
Ahhh. And it seems all is right with the world.
The weekend was a lot of fun. Other than running a few errands on Friday we just enjoyed a movie on our big screen. Good times.
Saturday after my 6am meeting I fixed my brother’s work computer (and rescued his automated billing for the week) and then went to rake leaves at our church. I spent an hour and half working with a friend’s 10-year-old daughter. It was a lot of fun.
My leaf raking partner is Orange (which is a trait that I’m trying to cultivate in my life), so (contrary to everything Gold inside me) we jumped in each pile of leaves before we bagged them. It was sorta fun. Good times.
My buddy Don offered us tickets to the International Symphony’s performance of Handle’s Messiah for that night. It was one of the best date nights that we’ve had in a long time. Good times.
Sunday we slept in and then lounged in bed until my buddy Rick called and invited us out for breakfast – his treat! The breakfast was tasty and the conversation was fun. Then, after church our friends Allan and Nancy invited us over for lunch. Good times.
I spent a couple of hours re-working my arcade (we own five full size arcade games). I fixed the damage I did to the Playstation game and started rebuilding the Ex-Box machine. We’re planning on doing a lot of entertaining in the next while and the arcade is huge hit with the kids. Good times.
We were in bed early last night and had a great night’s sleep – and it seems all is right with the world.
I’m so thankful that Sherry is able to bring so much joy to so many people.
I’m thankful that our off-season will be filled with relationship building.
I’m thankful that Sherry doesn’t have to work in the nasty weather. She comes home so exhausted on days like today (snowy and cold). And we have three weeks to get ready for Christmas – that’s plenty of time without being too long to wait.
Ahhh. Mmmm… happy.
Ok, technically I love working with computers as long as the hardware does what it’s supposed to do.
I had run out of hard drive space on my data drive (I have a drive that is dedicated to nothing but my data – photos, spreadsheets, email, source code, etc). That drive is backed up on a very regular basis to an external hard drive and then occasionally that data is taken off site in case a meteor hits my house. If the meteor is big enough to take out my house and my offsite data location, then I have bigger problems than some lost data.
But I digress.
The data drive was 99.4% full when I finally ordered a new drive. Since the drive was a lot bigger than I needed I decided to make it a new video drive, so I copied the video drive’s projects to the new hard drive, the data drive to the video drive and then removed the data drive.
BOOM!
That’s exactly when the whole thing went south.
Four hours later I figure out that the plugs for the new SATA drives suck rocks through bent straws. Once I pushed it firmly back in everything started working.
I hate computers.
I love computers.
It’s complicated.
In other news, we had our yearly portraits done. I took all the ones that don’t have me in them, Paul did the ones with the three of us and my daughter Michelle took the ones of me.
Fun, fun. Now I want a set of studio lights for my own basement. I have a massive Home Theatre room (17x24) that would double nicely as a studio. The floor in the middle-right of the room has to be empty most of the time since that’s where the 144” TV screen lives. (that’s not a typo, by the way – my screen is 12 feet across).
We were hoping to light the 30’ Blue Spruce in my front yard this weekend. We have to bring in a boom truck to do the top part and the truck wasn’t available. It may have to wait until this summer now :-( Oh well. At least we own all the lights now… we have 1200 LED lights that stretch 500’ to wrap around the tree. I’m hoping it lights up the yard!
My car’s battery died this weekend. Really inconvenient considering the PC fiasco too.
I hope you’re not looking for anything deep today.
Michelle is pleased with where she is in school now. Her final projects are due in about three weeks and she’s on top of all of them. She’s finally realizing that when you put effort in you get results out. Yaaaa!
Sherry has just over 2500 minutes left in her season. It’s sad that we know that. The weather is supposed to turn miserable next week. She’s really happy that she’s done this week.
I’m thankful that I have a computer to break. I love working with technology, not only is it my job, it’s also my hobby and brings me a lot of joy.
I’m thankful that I have a car to break down. Life is so much easier with a car. I have a buddy that’s between cars now and it’s just a pain in the butt to get anything done.
I’m thankful that the weather is turning nasty *after* Sherry is done for the season. Whew.
Ok, gotta run.
My birthday weekend was really, really nice. Friday night was nice and easy – Sherry and I did a little bit of cleaning up and then watched a movie with popcorn, a little TV and then called it an early night. Very easy, very nice.
Saturday after my 6am meeting I hung out with a buddy of mine and we tried to get his databases to talk to each other. We got so close and couldn’t figure out one little setting to make it all work. We could see everything but the tables. Bummer.
Lunch, puttering with LPs and then Laser Tag at 5:00 – that was a great time with some really good friends and then back here for pizza. And cake. And a little fun reminding me that I’m 40 (over-the-hill gag gifts and a little ribbing). That was a really good time and pretty much ended the day.
Sunday was church, lunch at my Mom’s, a video session with the Senior Youth and then the rest of the evening with Sherry. We did a really nice mushroom (my favourite!) dinner and then a very relaxing date night. I really love Sherry.
Turning 40 was actually pretty easy. I have a fabulous family (I know that Michelle will get it and she’ll be a happy, healthy adult in just a couple of years). I love my job, I work for a great company. My debts are all paid off (except a five year mortgage locked in at 4.95%). My retirement plan is mostly on track. We’re saving for a trip to Europe and I have a rewarding life. What’s not to like about 40?
I’m thankful that I’m thankful. It’s healthy, rewarding and reminds me of how much I have going for me.
I’m thankful that my financial plans are working out the way they’re supposed to. It would be nice to get a pay raise big enough that Sherry didn’t have to work, but everything else is more or less on track.
I’m thankful that my friends and family love me enough to rib me about turning 40. It’s nice that people care.
This weekend was one of the better ones that we've had in a long time. We did have a little bad news - Michelle's brakes failed while she was coming up to a red light - nobody was hurt, she didn't hit anything and other than a nearly near-death experience she's fine. The car is in the shop now and I'll call the mechanic when it's a little later in the morning to tell him why it's there.
Friday night was a party at Greg and Audrey's place. WHAT A LOT OF FUN. I forgot my camera, so I borrowed Audrey's and took a couple hundred photos (it was digital, don't worry, it didn't cost her anything). It was a gorgeous Canon Elph and it took amazing emo photos. About half the pictures I took were of me and someone else. What fun!
We had to cut out early because of a 6am meeting that I had the next morning, but that's ok.
The meeting was good and then we went to Grand Bend for the Annual Craft Festival that's hosted there. We tagged along with Don and Beth who make this trek every year. We toured through the vendors and then headed for a late lunch at Aunt Bessie's. (They had a 10 year old helping bus the tables! Well, she actually only looked 10, she was really 13 - I asked. She was probably the hardest working person out there! That was good to see).
After we got back I spent an hour working on my vader costume and I got the pants done! (Well, almost done - I need to put a velcro closure in the pants) I later did a bunch of work on the chest computer and belt computers. I'm really close to being done! Whohoo! (Photos soon).
That night was a game at the SSEC to watch the Sting beat the Ottawa 67's 5 to 2. Sherry and I invited Don and Nathan (his 10 year old son) to join us - it was a lot of fun!
We managed to sleep in the next morning (to make up for the 5:40 alarm the previous morning). We puttered around with chores and headed to church. Greg (from the house party) gave the sermon in leiu of George who was away and did an AMAZING job. His points were dead on and his stories were entertaining. It was cool.
Sunday was spent trying to catch up on the stuff that was put on hold so we could have Saturday off. I did manage to get in a round of golf - Pebble Beach is beautiful, but its too close to the water. I kept losing my ball over the cliff. Bummer.
Today's topic of thought is Worry. Does it do any good at all? How to prevent it? What to replace it with (nature abhors a vacuum)?
My take is that other than a certain amount of productive preperation (if you call that worry) is healthy, beyond that it's a waste of effort. If you worry about things you can't change, then you're wasting effort that could be used elsewhere.
For me the easiest thing to replace it with is the unwaivering trust that God is completely in control, He's good all the time and He wants the best for me.
Thoughts?
