Archives for 2006

The neighbor’s pool repair is almost finished – he’s actually putting water in it. He’s done a great job redoing everything.

It’s neat to look at where my readers are from. This week Spain & Australia have stopped by. Closer to home someone in the town I live in (who works at a bank) has also been by.

I’ve had the comments turned on for quite a while now – in moderated mode of course – but nothing.

Got the ceramic figure I painted today – thanks, you guys for sending it! Man, I’ve lost my touch when it comes to painting that stuff.

Oh well – need to get back to working – hundreds of images to edit. At least I got the PHP/MySQL database issue fixed. I knew it had to be related to the new server because I didn’t make any changes to the code. Thank goodness for user’s groups!

Things are starting to settle down after being out of town for almost two weeks. Megan has gotten herself registered for her college program and is having fun learning to use the PC we gave her for her birthday. Looks like I’m off the hook when it comes to co-signing for a student loan for Megan. Seems to be some confusion over the difference between student aid and student loans. But anyhow – I hope that part of her education is handled better than some of the other promises made to Megan.

We found a nice Volvo station wagon for $4000. Of course, I would love to be able to give her the car but…

Anyhow, Megan is also having a great time converting old videos to DVD. She called me to tell me she found one video where I was doing stuff with her sisters – she thought that was funny since they claim I never did anything with them. Megan gave her grandfather a DVD of his wedding video for his 70th birthday. A simple gift but from the heart. I “assume” her sisters at least sent him a card for his birthday. I know they didn’t want to help give him the ability to take the picture he wanted to take. I’m not surprised but I’m not the one being disappointed by their petty behavior. They knew what we were planning, my sister made sure they knew. I even mentioned to Rodney what the picture mention to my dad.

I tried, they didn’t.

As things start to settle down after my coast to coast adventure I find myself comparing to two locations – San Francisco, California and the Northern Virginia – DC area.

Years ago I found myself wanting to living in the Northern Virginia area after each visit to my dad’s or when spending time with my sister. My dad has lived in a couple of different houses in the area after retiring from the Air Force. Between the summer house sitting visits and spending time living with my sister – I still kept wanting to find a way to be able to afford to live in the area. But I really started noticing a change in the area when we spent Christmas 2004 with my dad. This last visit really showed how overcrowded the area had become – way too many people and most of them were rude (expect the nice lady in the cake decorating store). I think I may have found a way to measure the “livability” of an area – go to WalMart. I went to two different WalMarts in the area at different times and both of them had long lines at ALL the open registers. We walked in the first one, took one look, walked back out and went to Target. I just don’t think I could ever afford the cost of living there either – housing prices are outrageous. I would love to take my sister’s house and put it where ours is – it would probably be a third of the cost.

What a contrast San Francisco is – it’s got a lot of people there too plus the tourists. I had a great time there but probably could never afford to live there either. I don’t think I could stomach their politics for very long either. The public transportation is EXCELLENT there. Then dinner in the Castro District (yes, the gay area) where the service was so good that I tipped more than my bill.

I would love to live nearer to my sister but I just don’t see us in the DC area perhaps many years ago but not now. Maybe we could build our own multi/extended family type dwelling somewhere where the people are friendly, the jobs (and pay are good) and there is room to roam.

I mentioned dinner at The Melting Pot, the day at King’s Dominion and the party. I didn’t mention that we gave Megan a computer and Kelley gave her a printer to go with it. I think the neatest present that my dad got was the DVD of his wedding of the cruise ship in Minnesota. She had taken the original VHS tape (the mini one from the camcorder) and with the help of her uncle encoded it to DVD. That was a gift from the heart.

Dad got a lot booze from his friends and some really great t-shirts. Kelley and I are looking into getting him an airline ticket out to California so he can see his brother.