Coldest I’ve seen it around here in some time. I mean get-your-fingers-numb cold. Keeping me indoors. Using more wood in the wood stove. That kind of cold. Tried making a time-lapse of some pebbles melting through the ice that formed on the top of the bucket I use to collect rain water; but it never did melt completely. Oh well.

Speaking of which: Phillip (my 70 year old neighbor) showed up around 2030 last night and asked me if I would please show him Venus on my telescope. Wasn’t doing much so I did. He was suitably awed. We saw Venus in Crescent pretty good. Had him come back at 2200 to look at the moon and even though it was really the wrong time to look at the moon, you don’t see as much detail during a full moon, it was still pretty impressive. I’m getting the hang of aiming the damned thing better! It was fun and I was grateful to Phillip for "dragging" me out in the cold. Even if my fingers did sting for awhile after coming back in.

Other than that, not much happening around here. We had a LOT more snow on the 9th; but it didn’t stick. Was coming down pretty thick too! (I’ll upload some video later.) Guess it was a good thing it didn’t stick. Went up to the property expecting to see at least 4 inches; but it was mostly bare.

Good thing too! I got the crawl space hole done except for straightening up the sides and digging that bit of dirt out along the edges. I have got some serious piles of dirt around the outside of the hole though! I need my bulldozer back to move it someplace. And where am I going to move it? I have absolutely no idea.

SWMBO’s off to the office tonight; as usual for Wednesday. I "wasted" a couple of hours upgrading or updating my ICF House Blog to the latest version of WordPress and trying to get the widgets I want to use to work. Couldn’t get all of them to work but will try again when I’m not feeling so frustrated about it. I think they ought to be called "Widgits" for all us "Idjits" trying to make them work!

Took my telescope out again for a bit this evening. I just cannot find the Andromeda Galaxy! Even with the help of Stellarium. I need to find a local Astronomy Club!

Me aboard the USS Dixie (AD-14) 1973?

Semper Fi!

It figures! Snowed last night just long enough to dust the grassy areas (and the windshields on our vehicles). Had a couple of minutes of light snow today. WILL SUMMER NEVER GET HERE? Damn, I’m tired of cold weather.

Speaking of cold. Went to the property yesterday to "move some dirt around". (Oops, snowing now.) It was breezy and cold enough that I had to put the hood of my coat on. Was there for an hour or so and, I mean, all of a sudden, it got cold enough to see your breath. And it stayed that way! After a couple of hours I was shivering so much I couldn’t get any more work done so I gave up and came on home. I love being out at the property though.

Got a lot done also. Damned near finished with the crawl space hole. My problem is that I have no way to move the dirt out of the way after pulling it out of the hole I’m making. So I have to stop digging every so often and move the piles of dirt further from the hole. Takes time. I need my bulldozer back! Love my digger and she does a fantastic job of digging; but she doesn’t Push dirt like I need to push dirt.

I know; it’s been awhile since I posted last. Well, things are pretty much SSDD around here. I do things around the house or play on the computer or go to the property and that pretty much defines my life. Still ripping our movies to .avi files. I’m into the "R’s" now. Filled up my drives and am using one of my old 250 GB drives to store files now. That’s over a terabyte of movie files. Damn! Good thing I don’t have many more movies to go!

SWMBO and I have gone on a ’cost cutting’ lifestyle as much as we can to try to save some money for the new house. Last Friday we went to Wendy’s for our usual Friday date. Both of us ate for less than $11. Cool! But then we spent $80 at Albertson’s! Bought some Corned Beef & Cabbage which I am cooking up today. Yummy stuff! Maybe I’ll invite Phillip down for dinner…

Just not much going on. Haven’t heard anything new about the loan for the house. Haven’t heard anything from Mason County. Weather mostly sucks. Keeping the fire going in the woodstove is a pain in the ass. Poop Dog is "in the dog house" now for going over his fence and is tied up in the back room where he can get outside to do his business but can’t came into the rest of the house. No cookie for him tonight. (Bummer!)

My cold has gotten better but is still hanging on enough to make life miserable sometimes. At least I’m not coughing so much anymore!

Boot Camp Pic Sent To My Ma. 1971

Damned computer anyway! This thing was taking 10 minutes to shut down and almost as long to boot up. Downloaded the new AVG 8 Free and did a scan and had a couple of viri and a couple of trojans. Cleaned them all up, deleted all the references to the brother printer I haven’t had on this system for awhile (for which the drivers kept loading even though I uninstalled the damned thing!), and did a couple of other tweeks; and now my system comes up clean. Shuts down and reboots in under a minute! Cool! Gotta watch those drive by installs! I went to a new (to me) torrent site the other day and tried downloading a torrent for Fringe and, all of a sudden, Spybot is asking me if it’s okay to make a registry change. Damn! If it was up to me, and you were caught releasing a virus or trojan, you’d spend 100 years in jail with no chance of parole for at least 75 of those years. Assholes!

No, I really mean it this time. Just not much happening around here.

Finally felt like I was getting over this cold last Saturday so I went out to the property for a couple of hours and moved some dirt out of the way so I could move more dirt. What fun! Was almost nice weatherwise out there.

Sunday I skipped out on church (first Sunday). Talked to Bob The Dirt Guy about doing some finishing up for me on the crawl space. Then I went out there and moved some more dirt. After about half an hour of work it started to sprinkle. I figure; what the heck. It’s just a sprinkle. Then it started to rain. Okay. Then it started to rain harder. Okay. Then after about an hour of this I gave up and came on home. Soaked from the thighs down. Brrr. Jumped right into a nice hot shower almost immediately upon arriving home. Felt Good!

Been trying to get back on learning PHP & MySql. Sometimes I’m sitting around watching a movie or something or “just goofing off” on the computer and I suddenly feel so damned stupid. Like “Why in the Hell am I just sitting here vegetating instead of doing something constructive?” Know what I mean? So I pull out a book I’ve been meaning to start and get on it for a few chapters. Then, something else comes up and I go do that for awhile.

Like tonight. Venus was shining really bright and I thought to myself; “Self. Why don’t you get out that nice Telescope SWMBO got you and take a look?” So I got off my lazy fat old white ass (pimply too!), dragged the telescope out and spent an hour looking around. Saw Venus in Crescent really good. Put that lens extender thingie (Barlow Lens 3X) in and it made Venus seem almost twice as big. Or maybe three times; I don’t know. Was pretty cool looking though. Now if I can figure out how to aim the telescope without searching back and forth up and down all over the place before finding what the heck I want to look at! When we get out place built (and we’re moved in) I’m definitely going to make a place for the telescope to stay outside and readily accessible. No more carrying it out and in for me.

Managed to pop the fuse thingie (Damn! I Hate these senior moments!) running the washer, dryer, dishwasher and the fan behind the woodstove all at the same time today. I’ll be so glad to move out of this house! Circuit Breaker! That’s what I’m thinking of. Usually it pops when we forget and run the microwave & toaster at the same time. Once it popped when I plugged in an external drive without turning something else off. Damn, I’ll be glad to get out of this house!

Did I mention that there is just not much happening around here?