Blog Mega Post

Obviously I haven't posted in a while - sorry all. I've been extremely busy with work over the last month and my internet connection hasn't been all in all that reliable. Good times. This post will go in no particular order for topics, so hang on.

I started this blog shortly after being stung by bees back in last August I think. Based on my current research - it was actually yellow jackets (a member of the wasp family - not W.A.S.P. even though I live in the Bible Belt). Anyhow, we've got more wasps that we had last year but weren't giving us much of a problem. The wasps are paper wasps - and are not especially dangerous or aggressive, but still a huge pain.


Our wasps have the long, creepy legs but are more burgandy in color. Anyhow, these buggers either find a way to pry open a panel of our awning - or it just cracked out the other day on its own and they wanted to start nesting these. I went outside yesterday and wanted to just enjoy a day off in 85 degree weather - and was surrounded by these guys.


They just aren't in the picture since it was later in the day. So today - I went out, bought a ladder and hammered the opening shut. I knew they could come out at any time and the ground wasn't level so I didn't do a spectaular job closing it up, but it should hold for a little while. I'll drive some more nails in later.

So, I haven't seen the nest yet (it is early in the season, it may not even be well formed yet) but i'm assuming I've now got wasps trapped in my attic. I got 3 bug bombs and put them up there about 3 hours ago and hopefully any suckers up there are dead. I'm going to have to check later in the evening when they'd be sleeping if anything (or really angry).

I forgot why, but I was checking out Back to the Future at Wikipedia (I think I was looking up something about the flux capacitor) I skimmed the article - and I discovered something that was brand new to me - maybe everyone else already knew this - when the producers of Back to the Future couldn't get Michael J. Fox to play the part of Marty - they cast Eric Stoltz instead and filmed about 1/3 of the movie. Then, when they figured out that they cast the wrong person - MJF's scheduled opened up enough to put him into the movie.






I'm sure that it is mildly embarrassing that he got cut out of such a big movie - but I think he's a great actor and i'm just curious to see the video sometime.

And this part of the blog should only reach one person really (Jason - my brother) - but Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime II has recently been release. Who knew that all these years later they'd finish the story (i'm assuming). We all knew Mary had committed suicide and was not actually murdered because of the end credits of Operation: Livecrime - I wonder if they'll reveal it on this album. Those guys from Queensryche are some weird guys. :)

Oh, and now that it is getting warm here, i'm releasing I once again don't have money to buy air conditioning for my car. I spend a good chunk of the tax return on other car repairs for both of our cars. Great.....

Thats all I got for now. My internet connection has died a number of times while I'm writing this so I better get this out there before it goes down again. Ignore any extra proofing errors in this one. :)

Vista

I'm testing out the February CTP of Vista (5309) and it seems okay, but I just don't see much of an advantage of these new features. When XP first came out I simply turned off many of the enhancements.

Yes, like always I see the advantage for those who don't know how to navigate around in Windows- but other than the 5 year olds who haven't used Windows in the past - who doesn't know how already? Plus those 5 year olds will catch on just fine to anything you show them.

The funniest part so far for me -

It looks as if they actually broke Solitare. Yes, Solitare that for the most part which has gone unchanged for over ten year other than card backings does not work on my build. I can't even open it up. :)

I give it 10 stars. Excellent job Microsoft.

Walk on the Ocean, Step on the stones

Today for work I had to go to One Tree Hill (Wilmington), North Carolina. The job wasn't especially hard, but it just takes 3 hours to get there ultimately. So, in an 8 hour work day, 6 hours would be spent driving. Well, the way I drive maybe 5 hours.

We've lived in NC for 7 months now - and I still haven't been back to the ocean. Since I was literally 3 miles or so from the ocean, I figured I'd just go home later and stop by.

I know it is no big deal, but when you can just take 30 minutes out of your day to take a walk on the beach as a change of pace, it is actually pretty awesome and clears you head, at least for a minute. It's even better when it is a nice late winter day in the 70s. :)

As far as One Tree Hill goes I'll totally admit I watch a variety of teen shows on the WB - including Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, and Smallville. If you aren't watching those, you are missing out. One Tree Hill I know is supposed to be set in North Carolina, and is filmed in Wilmington. I can only sort of tell by being in the city, but then again it isn't like I was visiting the locations where filming takes place. http://onetreehillfans.com/maps/ (link doesn't work right now but I bet the site will come back up.)

I know I'm a dork. Shut it. :)