Thursday, May 20, 2010

Vacation was *quick*

Another one of those blog posts without any rhyme or reason............

Took a very relaxing week off last week.....moved our daughter into her new apartment with 2 of her friends for the next 15 months.

Nice place and the owner has a awesome pizza place right around the corner.

She doesn't have a scholarship for the last 15 months....grad school is expensive, so if any of you folks out there that live in York need your computer fixed....give me a call:-)

Not sure what the racket is with college textbooks, but I just bought her 4 books out of my computer money that cost over 200 bucks and that was cheap.

Not a problem for me.....I'll just keep pumping all my computer profits in my kids education because it's gonna be so totally worth it to see them with college degrees. I'm guessing that in 10 years you're gonna need at least a four year degree to just get an interview at most decent companies.

I gots me an appointment next week with the knee surgeon......I'm looking forward to getting my knee done and also not looking forward to getting it done. If the guy does the same great job he did on my other knee he did last year-it'll be worth the black blue and purple color most of my leg is gonna be for a month.

I have my temporary replacement just about trained, one of the guys that stocks the freezer department thought it would be cool to learn another trade and as it turns out-he's pretty damn awesome at making donuts.....and he's a cool guy to work with as well so that's a double bonus.

Looking for a decent used car with air conditioning is a major pain in the ass. I've got 3500 bucks to play with, I considered fixing up my van but to fix the air conditioning and the leaking transaxle-I'm looking at over 4 grand which doesn't make sense as the thing is only worth 3 grand at best. been looking on Craigslist-but all the good cars last less then a day-whatever, I have some time yet...I hope:-)

One nice thing about having a motor on my bike is that I can ride it pretty damn far away from our house....last week I did get one good trip in, rode up to Goldsboro PA and checked out Three Mile Island. I forgot my camera and also forgot that my Blackberry takes pictures...sometimes I'm so forgetful-it scares the crap out of me. Heck, as I sit here and type this- I just remembered I have to fix one of our toilets...it's been broken for 3 weeks. Whoops.

I always make sure one of my buddies or relatives knows where I'm at and has access to a truck or minivan in case I break down on my bike because there ain't no way in hell I'm gonna be able to pedal a 55 pound bicycle 30 miles back to my house if I have major problem. Flat tires, broken chain, broken spokes aren't biggies but if my motor shits the bed while I'm that far out- I'm screwed.

Till later.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Damn knees......

I went for a little ridey ride today......Holy crap-I thought being off my feet this week I would have helped a little bit.

Nope.

Both knees hurt like a MF'er.

First time this week I had to hit the pain meds.

Pisses me off....can't even ride a bike with a motor that does 75% of the work.

Damn 90 year old knees.

till later.

Best joke you'll hear today......

On their way to getting married, a young couple is involved in a fatal car accident. They find themselves sitting outside the Pearly Gates, waiting for St. Peter to process them into Heaven. While waiting, they begin to wonder: Could they possibly get married in Heaven? When St. Peter shows up, they ask him. St. Peter says, 'I don't know. This is the first time anyone has asked that. Let me go and find out,' and he leaves.

The couple sit and wait, and wait. Two months pass and the couple is still waiting. As they wait, they discuss that if they were allowed to get married in Heaven, what was the eternal aspect of it all. 'What if it doesn't work?' they wondered. 'Are we stuck together forever?'

After yet another month, St. Peter finally returns, looking somewhat bedraggled. 'Yes,' he informs the couple, 'you can get married in Heaven.'

'Great!' says the couple, 'But we were just wondering, what if things don't work out? Can we also get a divorce in Heaven?'

St. Peter, red-faced with anger, slams his clipboard onto the ground.

'What's wrong?' ask the frightened couple.

'OH, COME ON!' St. Peter shouts, 'It took me three months to find a priest up here! Do you have any idea how long it'll take me to find a lawyer?'


...yeah, I'm sure my sister-in-law (she's a lawyer) and the rest of the Catholic side of my family (all my in laws) just fing love jokes like this...


till later.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I love me some Kindle........

It's been awhile since I've updated my blog...so here goes.

Ever since I started to read when I was a young pup.......it's one of my favorite activities. My wife and I have passed this on to both our kids.

When I was a kid and I didn't know something-my pop would say "Look it up" and I'd hit the library and borrow a bazillion books to read.

When the Kindle came out I immediately wanted one but held off, because let's face it- 300 bucks is a big spend for an electronic doo-dad.

Since I sold my Cross-Check for a nice chunk of change..I figured it was time to pull the trigger and spend a few bucks on a Kindle.

When I was a kid, if you woulda told me that I could have a device that would put a book in my hot little hands in less then two minutes...I probably would have thought you were crazy.

I can buy stuff on the Kindle or download PDF's and it's readin' time! I mean...how damn cool izzat?

In other news....the air conditioning on my van has finally shit the bed.

Ain't nothing like driving around in a heated beer can in the middle of summer with only one operating window...needless to say- we'll be putting a ton a miles of my wife's car- I spend enough time at work sweating like a pig-it's gonna be my "go to work" car and our son will get to use it to go back and forth to work this summer- what teenager needs air conditioning anyways?

The radio still works...what else does he need?

If anyone has a lead on a good used cheap car (with air conditioning).....lemme know. Nothing fancy-we ain't gots lots of money- it's expensive helping two kids get through college.

Been fixing lots of computers lately.....I think the rise of social media (places like Facebook) have made hackers jobs much easier. Send someone a link to a page that looks just like Facebook and ask them to confirm their info for some reason and you're in. From there, it's relatively easy to social engineer unsuspecting or less then sharp computer users.

For example, earlier this month I had a client bring me their computer because it was acting "funny" and was really slow. I found tons of malware on it but the one file I found that made me call them immediately was a banking trojan.

Not sure how that will resolve itself- they are going to keep a very close eye on all their financial stuff and I suggested they contact their bank as well....needless to say- at that point I didn't even screw around with trying to fix their install of XP- I wiped the drive and started from scratch. They weren't sure how they got the infection, but their anti-virus was expired so that might have been part of it. Sure, it was a little inconvenient having to reinstall all their stuff but it's better to be safe then sorry.

I'm taking a week of vacation...our daughter is moving from her college dorm to an apartment this week with some of her fellow students for the final 15 months of grad school. I'm really not sure how she does it....all we can do is slip her some money once and awhile and help her with rent.

She has worked her ass off ever since she's been a kid, I'm extremely proud of her and a little more then a year from now-she'll be the first person in our family with a Master's degree. Way cool as far as I'm concerned. Our son still hasn't quite figured out what he wants to do in college yet...he's got plenty of time (he's in 11th grade) but one thing's for sure-I'm just as proud of him as well...we have way cool kids.

I have a doctors appt in a couple of weeks...unfortunately the SynVisc injections didn't do diddly for my knee arthritis....looks like it's gonna be knee surgery time again-this time on my other knee-not looking forward to it whatsoever. Last time I was black, blue and purple from my shin to my hip. Whatever, it's gotta get done and that's that-lots of folks have way worse problems they deal with on a day to day basis.

Been riding my converted bicycle/moped as much as time permits...damn, that thing is fun! Yeah, it's a total luxury spending several hundred bucks on a kit to convert a bike to a moped- but it was that or not be able to ride a bike at all-it's great to b able to get out once and awhile and get some fresh air. It doesn't do much on the exercise front, I've lost 30 pounds but I still want to lose another 30 so I can say I weigh less then 200 pounds.....plus I'll get to live longer to spend our kid's inheritance :-)

till later.