May 2006 Archives

Took my cat to have her stitches removed this morning. She was pretty upset but mellowed by the time I got her home and seems fine now.

Just a day of working for me and running errands. I really do have a boring life.

Last night I was searching around for tattoo ideas and somehow ended up on Amazon's site. I found a SciFi fantasy book that looked real interesting. It's been a long time since I've sat down and just read a good book but I loved reading SciFi paperbacks when I was young.

Bought the book Chimera by Will Shetterly since Chimeras have always been a personal fascination of mine and other customers gave it good reviews.

It should be here in a few days so if no one hears from me you can probably find me at the beach relaxing reading a book.

Did the gym thing today and then a bunch of errands and finally came home and worked for most of the day.

Now an old friend stopped by who has too much to drink or something and is driving me crazy. I left her in my living room with a movie on. Hoping that maybe she will just pass out or at least stop rambling on and on. I would just send her on her way but she has had too much to drink so I guess I'm stuck with her.

What if this is as good as it gets?

Went to the gym yesterday and then worked my ass off getting all caught up in work. A few minor but a pain to take care of issues happened with the upgrade to Angel's board which took up a bunch of my time yesterday so I ended up spending way more time at the computer then I wanted to.

We had planned on doing a BBQ at my neighbor's place but he is really sick with the flu or some kind of cold. It seems like everyone down here has gotten sick far more then normal this year including me. Anyway not really knowing what to do with myself today and wanting to get some time away from the computer I ended up driving out west to the Broward mall.

The Broward mall is a decent distance from my home so I don't go there a lot but it is one of my favorite malls. I'm out there shopping and I run into someone else that I know from my side of town and then also run into someone else that I know. Just what are the odds of running into two different people that I know all the way on the other side of town.

Ended up seeing the movie X Men 3 with one of the people that I bumped into. Movie was ok but kind of disappointing with very little story line and mostly just special effects and action. I did like the last one but this one I found kind of boring.

It was nice seeing old friends and meeting up with someone to do stuff with but it's nice to be back home relaxing.

Got a crash course in upgrading and customizing vBulletin yesterday for Angel's board. I thought it was fine but then our host pointed out that there was security issues with running such an old version of vBulletin and then Angel wanted more color then the default install. It really needs to have a designer make a custom theme but for now Angel is happy with this slightly modified free theme.

Not really sure what I'm doing later today. I've gotten behind in work again so really need to work but if it stays nice today I may go out and enjoy us finally getting some nice weather. I am planning on doing the gym today.

Upgrade FoxyAngel's board this morning. Things went pretty smooth with only a few issues.

Other then that not much going on. Found out yesterday that I get to sit in 14 hours of ongoing education for a profession license that I have before I can renew it this year. Really not looking forward to that at all.

Feeling real lazy today. Yesterday I got one of my bad migraine headaches that I get way too much. It's for the most part gone today but I'm going to stay away from the computer screen for most of the day since it sometimes brings them back on. At least I seem to be over this cold that I had but my neighbor is still pretty sick with it as is many of my friends.

Sun seems to have come out so I guess I should get off my fat ass and go out and enjoy it...

Wow it is fucking raining like hell today.

At least I seem to be mostly over this cold that I've had for the last week.

Did the gym thing this morning. Other than that I'm meeting with screen enclosure people this afternoon and maybe the propane tank underground installer people.

It's a wet one today...

Wow did I get a lot of sleep last night. Went to bed around 10:30 last night and slept in to after 10 this morning. I really needed to get caught up on sleep and guess last night my body just gave in.

I've still got this mild cold and didn't want to do anything to make it worse. I just took it kind of easy today and did a little work and not much else. Ended up floating around in my neighbor's pool for most of the afternoon.

Feeling real rested, more so then I've felt in a long time, and hoping to return to the gym tomorrow. It's a beautiful evening and probably going to go get something to eat with my neighbor and call it early evening.

Slept like crap and then woken up with a phone call from the roofers at 7 am telling me they were on their way and then they didn't show up until 4 pm.

I'm still suffering with a mild cold so really didn't do much today other then work and wait around for roofers. I don't ever remember getting sick this much in one year. I would be worried but most of my friends seem to have been getting sick a lot this year too.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a much better day after a goon night's rest.

Made it to the gym despite still in allergy hell. Came home and got all caught up in work and then went grocery shopping. Wow I have a boring life.

Got all my insurance bills for this year's home insurance renewals. I actually have three. Homeowners, flood, and windstorm. I knew they were going way up so no big surprise but wow I'm paying a lot for insurance now to live on this sand bar. Can't wait to see what I'll have to pay next year if we have another bad storm season.

I'm planning for a few more years of bad storms. I've trimmed all my foliage way back and toped all of my trees really short. Stocked up with plenty of fuel and a generator. Storm shutters on everything. The only thing that I regret is going with clay S tile roof instead of a metal roof that I did two years ago after damage from the first storm. I see many of the newer houses going with metal roofs now and I've seen them in the Keys for many years. The clay roofs look real pretty but the tiles break when something flies into them and the tiles break into real sharp pieces.

Many houses down here still with blue tarps over their roofs and lots of storm damage from the last four that hit our area. Many people are still fighting with their insurance companies and haven't even started on any repairs yet. Much of our electric grid looks like something out of a third world country with makeshift repairs all over it. It's going to be really bad if we get hit again with so much still unfixed from the last ones.

Mostly I'm dreading being without utilities again for weeks and even higher insurance rates on top of storm related expenses.

Weather all over seems to have turned much more violent. My neighbor's daughter who lives in Oklahoma keeps on having to go down into her tornado shelter that is in her garage's floor under where she normally parks her cars. Kind of grim not knowing if your home is going to be destroyed a several times each year when you hear sirens going off. Almost makes our hurricanes not seem so bad.

Was going to go to the gym today but woke up again with s scratchy throat and felling like I'm coming down with something. It may be just allergies but decided to take it easy and skipped the gym not wanting to chance making myself sicker.

Spent yesterday hanging out with my neighbor and then ended up at Angel's place and watched two of her tranny friends bake a cake.

Went over and met some friends at Hamburger Mary's but being in the smoking section was killing me and anyway I wasn't drinking so didn't stay very long.

I did bump into the girl that owns the interesting artwork while there and found out where she got it from. It is by an artist named Chris Cooper

Ended up back over my neighbor's a floated around in his pool for awhile. The real pretty courtesan that he sees sometimes was over there and we listened to old rock and roll off of his iTunes.

Watched a not very good kind of strange religious movie late last night called The Visitor. Going to try to find something more entertaining to do today.

Not really much going on today. I woke up with a scratchy throat so am taking it easy fearful of coming down with something again but I don't feel sick or anything.

Finished rebuilding the final RAID for Angel today. Can't wait to see what gets screwed up next.

My cat is still actually kind of drunk but seems to be doing ok. She is following me all over the house this morning but kind of just falls over sometimes. The vet said that she is older then we thought and was in heat already when I took her in to be spayed.

Ran errands with my neighbor, had lunch at Hamburger Mary's, and spent the rest of the day in his spa. Not really sure what I'm doing tonight but probably not much.

Got up insanely early because I took my youngest cat in to be spayed and get all of her shots. She is fine now but not real happy and is acting like she is drunk.

Other than that just rebuilding all the RAIDs that Angel's cat unplugged part of the RAIDs and then Angel ran for a few weeks with half the RAID's slices turned off.

Getting some time away from the computer screen today since my eyeballs felt like hair had started growing on them.

Probably not going to go out or anything since I started my day so early but who knows.

Did some of the things that I was going to do yesterday today since all the things that I was going to do yesterday got changed, cancelled, or rescheduled and I did much of the things that I was going to do today yesterday but didn't do much of the things that I was going to do yesterday.

Went to the gym, then as I was leaving the gym Angel calls to tell me that four out of six RAIDs aren't showing up and she thinks her cat may have messed up some stuff. Turns out her cat or something pulled out a bunch of the firewire cables and all six of her RAIDs are degraded. Four of them seem to have lost one of their slices but the other two are rebuilding themselves. For some odd reason the four that lost their slices will not let me add a new disk to them so nothing to do but couple everything off the one remaining slice and set each RAID up from scratch which involves finding places to stash hundreds of gigs of data for each drive. Still doing the data shuffle and will still be still doing it into tomorrow before everything is backed up, reformatted, set back up into mirrored RAIDs, and then copied back. No data was lost but it is hours of hassle.

I did manage to get my car into the shop for the battery thing but didn't get anything else that I was going to do today down so now I'm another day behind. My cat Mystic is going the vet first thing in the morning to get fixed so I'll be starting my day real early. Probably a good thing since I seem to be so far behind in work.

Yesterday I got flood insurance on my house. The insurance broker that I use is where I adopted my black cat Katrina from. I brought Katrina with me so that all the girls in the office could see how she is doing. Katrina was only about five weeks old last time she was there last year but she seemed to recognize the office right away and went right to the room where she was kept and relaxed right away. Cats sure are kewl cute creatures. :)

I wasn't going to trim the last big tree that I had since it was street side and not close to my house but yesterday I had the tree trimmer trim it down to about half its size rather then risk having to remove huge broken limbs after the next storm so now I once again have a huge pile for Monday's bulk trash pickup.

Not a lot going on today other than my usual. I house sat my neighbor's place yesterday while electricians hooked up a really big generator and then I shot a tranny there. This morning I have to let the cleaning girls in and then back home to touchup my roots, go to the gym, then by the car place to have my old sneaker removed from the engine compartment.

Looks like another wet day. It rained so much yesterday that it even rained inside of my neighbor's place so hopefully the roofers will make it back today for repair attempt number two.

They say that if it rains a lot this month we will not have bad hurricanes. Not sure how true that is but all this rain these last few days does give some hope that we maybe will not have another hellacious storm season. Just because I found someone that does tree trimming cheaply I have decided to have my one remaining untrimmed tree that is out by the street in front of my house trimmed on Friday. I wasn't going to get it trimmed since it can't fall on my house but decided to anyway so that in case we do get a hurricane I don't have to worry about cleaning up broken limbs from it.

Wow are we having rain storms from hell. I was suppose to meet with the roofers over at my neighbor's place but for some odd reason they don't seem to be working today. The electricians that were suppose to be here yesterday but couldn't make it are coming to his place today so now I'm over at his place house sitting.

FoxyAngel and I are suppose to shoot a tranny over at my neighbor's place this afternoon. Guess it is going to be an indoor shoot but I was so looking forward to watching the roofers as we did a shoot in the pool. On the plus side the electricians should be working here still when we start shooting and the look on their faces should be a real Kodak moment.

Went over to my friend's place with all the interesting art in her place again yesterday. Took a pic of a few of her bookshelf pieces.

Still trying to find time to go check out some tattoos for the one that I want to get on my leg. This week has just been crazy with all the workers over at my neighbor's place and having no car for a few days last week. Hopefully by this weekend things will be back to normal, whatever that is, and I can do all the personal things that I've been putting off due to lack of time.

Up early again because of house watching duties. Besides being my neighbor's keymaster today I'm doing the gym and then home to work.

I really could use some sleep but this is not going to be the week to get it. Besides letting in workers at my neighbor's place most of this week I have to get up really early on Friday to take one of my cats over to be fixed. Also in the next week or so I want to get my fuel storage all filled up before this year's storms hit. I need to pickup a fuel filter and that is it. I did find these plastic pans over at Home Depot that are meant to go under a hot water heater that I'm using to cover the top of the drums so as to keep water from pooling on top of them and possibly leaking into the fuel.

Looking to be another beautiful warm day here.

I had to get up absolutely incredibly early because I had to meet with the guy installing the propane line to my neighbor's generator. Funny thing is after this huge 25 kwh generator is all working the tank he has, 250 gallons, will only provide just over two days of power. He is going to try to get a bigger tank but not sure if we can get it put in before this year's storm season starts. Anyway the generator started right up once the fuel line was connected and a battery put in. The electrician is coming this week to install the transfer panel so other then not enough fuel storage he will be all set by the end of next week.

The rest of today is mine. I've already done my web work and all my errands. It's too bad the malls close so early today as I would love to do a little clothes shopping or something just girly after a week of doing generators and storm preparations.

It's a real hot one today. Not the really nasty hot humid weather but it is real hot in the sun.

Went to the gym for a few hours and then spent most of today running around doing errands.

Had to go to Home Depot to pickup stuff for my generator and while I was there I finally got around to picking up a cordless phone that doesn't cause my music to stop playing every time someone calls. Got a good deal on a Uniden 5.8 GHz which doesn't interfere with my wifi and came with two headsets.

The only real reason I had to go there was to pickup some brass fittings for the generator so that I could add a place to connect the fuel line that runs to the 55 gallon drums of fuel. It was easy enough to do but I did manage to get my skin caught in the vice grips and took a piece of skin out of the part of my hand between my thumb and index finger on my left hand and then did the exact same thing but not as bad to my right hand. Nothing too bad but it does really hurt.

Wow do I hate doing stuff like this but it is better then not being prepared if we get hit with hurricanes again this year. Besides actually getting the drums filled with fuel I just need to pickup a fuel filter and then I'm good to go.

I need to get up early, early for me anyway, to meet with a worker at my neighbor's place tomorrow so I'm not going out tonight and plan on going to bed early.

The moon is beautiful tonight. It's full and low in the sky.

Seems like social events are just getting stranger lately. Maybe it's all the same and I'm just seeing things different. Maybe the world is really going to end on 6/6/06. It's probably just that I'm sober these days. Maybe a bit off all of them except maybe the world is ending part unless some deity thinks that we have such a fucking good calendar that it uses it to keep appointments.

Bumped into an old friend who I haven't seen in years tonight. We went back to her place to watch a bit of TV and catchup on everything. Interesting townhouse. Full of female devil statues, fetish artwork, the cleanest neatest place that I think I've ever seen in my life. A lot of stuff in a small townhouse all arranged with meticulous care. It was all very tasteful and very interesting. Seems my friend is living with someone who is very anal about neatness though.

Anyway her little dog begins shitting all over the place. I mean a lot of shit and its is just like going to every spot and laying a really dreadful smelling pile of shit. Then she starts stepping in it and getting it really spread around. She is freaking out because in addition to the ever spreading wasteland of stinky shit the woman who she lives with, the woman who has probably even has arranged the little bit of dust that might still remain, is soon to be home to her dog shit covered home. I decide that it's time for me to go home so I stand up and also manage to step into a pile of dog shit. I went into the kitchen to wash dog shit off of my shoe and make a quick exit before the home owner got home to find her townhouse covered in shit that has now spreading into the kitchen too. The smell was unbelievable. Never did get caught up in old times. I would like to meet the woman who owns the townhouse and has such an interesting taste in artwork.

Got my car fixed today sort of.
Car place calls me to tell me that I need a new batter tray/hold down, which I knew was broken actually, and that they can't get the part until Monday so I will not have a car this weekend. I ask why can't you just give me the car back without a battery holder and I'll stuff an old sneaker in there? The guy seems mystified that I would want an unfinished car back plus why would I want to pay an extra hour of service to have it put in next week.

I'm now driving a perfect running corvette with one of my old sneakers stuffed next to the battery and side of the battery compartment. I do need to take it in next week to have the battery thing put back in and get my painting sneaker back.

Storms woke me up around 6 and they were so loud that I had a hard time falling back to sleep. It figures that it would rain today since my car is in the shop and I had planned on using my bicycle to get around today. I should have my car back later today and it's costing much less then I expected so it isn't a big deal but this is like the only day in weeks that it has rained.

I also had planned on doing some yard work today but it's raining so now there is nothing to do but cover myself in Vaseline and roll around on the floor to pickup all the dust and cat hair.

Just another day in my uneventful boring life. I'm taking my car over to be serviced this evening to be serviced first thing in the morning. It will only go 22 mph when it malfunctions so I'm basically without a car today but they say it should be fixed by the end of tomorrow. It needs a new PCM unit, oh joy.

I remember when alligators were an endangered species. Woman killed by alligator after being dragged into Sunrise canal. I wonder if people taste like chicken?

In my continuing quest to be comfortable and go about life as normal after the city that I live in is devastated by this year's storms I went to Boater's World yesterday and bought forty five feet of outboard fuel line so as to be able to run my generator right off of a 55 gallon drum of fuel. Generator should run for a bit over five days on each drum of fuel that I have and should be a lot safer then filling a hot generator every twelve hours with fuel.

I like this picture that a friend took of me and my neighbor at last weekend's party.

Guess I should get some work done so as to pay for tomorrow's car repair.

Slept nice and late again today despite someone calling early asking to speak to the person in charge of printing supplies.

Not a lot going on today other then errands like grocery shopping and stuff. Neighbor left town for a week or so which means that I'm on cat duty. I'm thinking that his cats and I should throw a big party at his place.

Vette decided to do the "Reduced Engine Power" thing yesterday and I had to pull over and reset the computer a few times or the car would only go about 24 mph. Filling it with gas seems to have stopped the issues and it seems to only do this when the tank is less then half full and never when I bring it to the shop. I wrote down all the error codes before clearing them this time and am going to see if it does it when the tank gets half empty again. I'm now thinking that somehow it is sucking air when the tank falls below a half a tank and then fools the sensors into displaying false errors codes. I hate cars.

I'm really thinking of just taking the rest of the day off after I go tend to my neighbor's cats. I'm feeling very burnt out today.

Sunny and hot here.


Tree trimmer showed up early this morning and trimmed the last of my trees that I'm getting trimmed for this year's storm season. The only tree that I have left that is still somewhat big is the one in front of my house next to the street. I'm leaving that one alone since it is too far from my house to fall on it but all my other trees have been trimmed way back. It's kind of depressing losing all these trees to the storms and then trimming what was left of my trees down to nothing but it's better then having them fall over or fall onto my house.

I still want to put my whole house on a hydraulic lift.

Vette started giving me trouble on the way home from the gym so going to go see what is up with that either this afternoon or first thing in the morning. It seems to do this strange thing when it get down to a half a tank of gas. I hate cars...

Had a BBQ at my neighbor's place for the Air & Sea Show.

Food was good, company was good, soaking in the spa was good. It was a good day.

Not a lot going on today other then getting caught up in work and meting with the electricians over at my neighbor's place.

It's another beautiful sunny day here. I need to go over to the boating place to pickup some fuel line for my generator but other then that I'll just be home trying to get caught up in work since I didn't work all weekend.

Blue skies, loud jets, traffic barricades everywhere, must be Air and Sea Show weekend. Not a lot going on today other then cleaning my house and getting stuff for tomorrow's BBQ at my neighbor's place plus a trip to Home Depot to pickup some stuff to get ready for this year's storm season. The jets are flying in formation so low over my neighborhood that you can see the rivets on them which is kind of kewl but also very annoying and the traffic barricades all over my neighborhood along with A1A being closed is causing traffic nightmare.

The FOB for my Vette stopped staying in sync with it this week. I tried changing its battery but it would only stay synced for less then five minutes. My Vette came with two FOBs and then other one went bad a few years ago. So I bought a new FOB for it yesterday and problem solved but damn I can't believe they charge $145 for a FOB.

First the roofing estimator calls at 7:17 to tell me he is coming over to look at my neighbor's roof. Problem is another person from this company already came over a week ago and the job was started yesterday. Then there is the fighter jets practicing over my neighborhood for the weekend's Air and Sea show that makes it sound like world war three is in progress. I guess all this would be fine if I had gone to sleep before 4 am this morning.

Not much going on going my world today other than working and running errands. I dod need to start getting everything together for this Sunday's BBQ at my neighbor's place.

Just another day down here in oceans, pools, sand, tourists, traffic, party goods, naked bodies, and storms from hell.

The Air and Sea show is this weekend so navy fighter jets have been flying over my house all afternoon. They are pretty kewl to watch but very noisy and the traffic from hell this weekend isn't much fun for us locals.

Did just about nothing yesterday except working and recovering from Tuesday's heat stroke. Angel has a pinched sciatic nerve so came over and we all soaked in my neighbor's spa. Jim's neighbor's see me and him naked along with his girls in his backyard all the time but really did a double take when they spotted Angel naked with us.

Going to go have dinner this evening with a few friends and will probably call it an early evening. Another friend called me and asked if I would go with her to Trapeze this Saturday so I may do that this weekend.

Went out and cleared an area in my yard and then moved a bunch of cement blocks that were stacked in my yard to make a place to set the two 55 gallon drums that I bought last year that I'm going to use for fuel storage this year. Problem was I did this in the heat of afternoon and got heat stroke. Ended up with a headache from hell and puking everything that I tried to eat. I seem to feel ok after a good night's sleep but will be taking it real easy today and staying out of the sun.

Met with the vertical blinds installers at my neighbor's place this morning and now back home to work. I didn't get any work done yesterday so now I'm behind.

Other than that not much going on for me today. Will probably go out to dinner later with a few friends and that is about it.

I smell something dead but don't see anything dead under my desk. The little fur balls have been very busy hunting lizards so I'm guessing that they have a stash of lizard parts someplace.

Not sure what I'm doing yet today. Today is not a gym day but tomorrow I can't go because I'm meeting with the vertical blinds people over at my neighbor's place again tomorrow so I may go again today if I'm not too sore from yesterday once I'm awake. Hopefully the vertical blinds people measured things correctly this time since this will be attempt number two.

My neighbor came over and kidnaped me yesterday and we went to Radio Shack and somehow he talked me into climbing onto his roof and replacing the big HD antenna on the second floor roof of his house that was destroyed in last year's storms. I didn't realize that there was some decent programing on over the air TV that you couldn't get through satellite and that it comes in even higher quality then some of the satellite TV. The view from on top of his second story was pretty kewl too.

Apple did some new PC verses Mac ads that are kind of funny.

Guess I should go feed all my animals, make some more coffee, and find the little fur ball's stash of stinky dead things...

Happy Beltane to the Pagans and happy just another day to those that life is just a big blur.

Sunny and hot here today.

Went to the gym and bumped into someone again that I've been wanting to get to know better. It's not that I'm trying to date them or anything but I'm such an odd creature that when I meet someone that seems to be a bit like me I try to get to know them better.

Seems we are being overrun with lizards. I know that I'm sick of cleaning up lizard guts from the ones that my cats catch. Makes me real glad that I no longer have carpet and tiled my whole house. They are very cute to watch in my backyard.

Met with the roofers first thing this morning to get some damage repaired to my neighbor's roof that was a result of last year's storms. They are suppose to do the work this week.

Going to do today's web work and then find something relaxing to do this evening but not sure what yet.