I took a chance and upgraded WordPress to 2.8 (from 2.65) and my iPod from 2 to 3. The iPod went alright as far as I can tell but this WordPress thing didn’t. Well eventually it did. Now I have to get use to the new interface and then upgrade my photo blog.
Just got back from vacation and have to recap the week here. I will try and do that real soon.
Yes, quiet, shy little ole me. Since I am not outgoing enough to demand it I am passive about it through the web.
I finally out taking photos again. Getting that new camera didn’t hurt. I now have a lot of pictures I am putting up on my photoblog and Flickr. But I am wondering what is the point since I don’t think anyone really sees my photoblog and comments (read: attention) is down on Flickr.
I am taking these photos I want someone to see them damn it 
I don’t really know what I want or why. Or why I put the energy I do into it.
I waste a lot of time on Facebook (and Twitter to some extent). This is another attempt at trying to get attention.
Last week was Jim’s retirement party. There were two women there that are on my FB friend list. Both separately mentioned how I show up all over their feed. If you have lots of friend on FB then I am probably not that noticable but if you don’t have that many friends then your feed page gets cluttered with my nonsence. I told them both to hit ignore on me LOL.
Last week Rebecca roped me into talking about Hollace’s creativity at the first CN creativity showcase. It went pretty well even though I am not a public speaker. I am sure Vic made note that I am attempting to try to increase my visibility since he was going to help me figure out how to make myself known.
Really my attention/invisible thing needs some real soul searching and a deeper mention here but right now isn’t the time as it is time for bed.
On the lighter note, went to the Flight of the Conchords concert last weekend. It was so cool to see Bret and Jemaine live doing their thing. I kept thinking, I know what those guys are doing at this exact moment. I am so obsessed. Seriously, I think that is the Aspergers in me.
Speaking of which Hollace spent the evening at Deb’s while were are the concert. Deb mentioned that her daughter who is 3 years older could not relate at all with Hollace and made note that Hollace was a walking encyclopedia.
Hollace amazing me with the level of detail of one of her projects.
Creature club has been around for awhile but didn’t really take off like it has until recently. I suppose on one level this has been inspired by Pokemon but I think the “creatures” have been part of a made up game she has played with kids before she got into Pokemon.
To me it seemed to really take off when I bought some half size index cards from Office Depot that was going out of business. I gave them to Hollace and she promptly started making data cards of all the creatures–a picture on one side and data about that creature on the other. She loved making up new creatures and encouraged those in the club to make some up too.
[Ok, I just had a deja vu moment. A couple years ago when they started throwing around the term Aspergers, I read about some famous people who had this. One was the creator of Pokemon. I then looked up his story and the way he started Pokemon is eerily similar to how Hollace is approaching this CC]
Anyway, Hollace started the club and officially signed up a few kids in class. Before long she had about 30 kids all wanted to be in the club both in school and on the bus. She wrote out this quiz to test people’s knowledge of creatures. It had really well thought out questions, some multiple choice and two essay questions. She wanted me to make 30 copies. She also wanted some folders so she could make personal files of the members.
On the home front, she started teaching me classes of creatures. I had 4 long sessions where I took pages of notes. There were not only different types of creatures but their different environment. I wish I could find my notes of them to share here but I was amazed at the level of detail and how organized Hollace was in her teaching of these creatures.
We finally got a note home from the teacher telling us that Creature Club was starting to impact the class. Apparently everyone was into it.
For a couple of weeks Hollace shifted focus by then creating her spork kitties.
Every day at lunch Hollace would collect everyone’s unused sporks to create two gangs of spork kitties, the house cats and the alley cats.
I had this circle puncher and Hollace decided that that with yellow constuction paper, it looked like coins so off she was making creature coins. CC was back.
All of a sudden CC was a commerce thing with all the kids trading CC coins for stuff. Hollace started coming home with cool little trinkets that she bought from other kids in the CC store.
Right before Spring Break however Hollace caught a couple kids counterfitting CC coins and was ready to shut down operations, she was mad. They said they were just trying to help but she didn’t like it. She said, you can so tell they were fake coins cause they cut them out freehand.
When school came back after break, the kids were so excited the CC store was back. One girl apparently dropped to the floor and hugged Hollace’s feet in excitement!
Today Hollace is ready to quit the CC because of how the kids only care about the store part and not the actual creatures.
On Friday I found a list in her folder called “Hollace’s Hatelist”
While Hollace is a little heart broken over the commercialization of Creature Club, she hasn’t given up on the real gist of it. Today we went out and bought some fabric. She wants to learn how to sew so she can make a Creature plushie!
The kitchen is almost done. We just need to put the trim on and get a refrigerator.
I finally went to an ear doctor for my itchy, flaky ears. After 2+ years, I couldn’t take it anymore LOL.
While there the doctor though he felt my thyroid was enlarged so he ordered an ultrasound. He called the other day and told me yes I had a goiter on the left like he felt (I still see the old text book in school with a big bubble in some guy’s neck) but the other side I apparently have multi nodules and a possible parathyroid. I have been resisting the urge to google needlessly. I went to Mayo clinic’s site and got some information that has eased my mind a bit only because I don’t have any symptoms so more than likely they take a wait and see approach. I need to find an endocrinologist now, one who won’t rush to surgery. I am a bit freaked out about that and from what I read in my case (as I know it) it shouldn’t be necessary. Also I am a bit unsettled that I now have an official medical condition and a bit worried about what else might be lurking unbeknownst to me.
One thing I did read on one site I did google before I stepped away from the computer was that a lack of energy, lack of focus and memory problems are a symptom of hyperparathyroid. I am such a slug who doesn’t want to ever do anything and I am sure I have expressed here how I feel like I can’t focus, that I must have ADD. And lately I have been worrying about my memory. It is always exasperated after seeing my sisters and wondering why I don’t remember half of what they remember from childhood. Interesting if a medical condition is to blame.
Work has been good and busy. That said, the severe state of the economy still has me worried. I lose my job, we are screwed. It is a good thing I am in with a health care company, it is one of the industries that is thriving. Well it was until yesterday. Abbott’s stock is down $6 in two days. I am not sure what Obama has in his package that is influencing the sell off. I hope it is just knee jerk and it will come back up.
I have been contacted by a greeting card company. They want to use my picture of Pam’s cat drinking a beer. Because they only want to use the body (with a different head) they can only offer me a flat rate for 5 years of $800. SOLD!
The Flight of the Conchords are doing their thing and making me laugh during all the bad stuff going on in the world. Thank you guys! They came out with their 2nd season. While I don’t have HBO to watch their show, someone is posting their songs on Youtube every week and the songs are better then last season. I got tickets for the Baizes and us to go see them in May. Should be fun even if we can’t actually see them because all I could score was crappy seats.
I don’t think I have mentioned my new life saver when it comes getting to work during bad winter weather. The train! I don’t know why I never realized this before. Probably because I use to work in a building 3 miles off site but now that I am in the main building I take the train. I walk over to the train in the morning and a shuttle bus waits when I get off in Libertyville. It does get me to work 30 minutes late (and it leaves my normal quitting time) but it is pretty nice. I was feeling like the invisible girl in the red coat as the train conductor on the way home never took my ticket and the other Abbott-eers on the shuttle bus are cliquey. I have been getting to know a neighbor better. Hollace use to play with her daughter in the park and we would see them at the beach (they live across from the lake). Anyway, very nice woman. She has been taking the train every day for 3 years now. I doubt I will do that but it is nice on occassion.
I wonder why I took so long to write here. I had things to say but couldn’t bring myself to write anything.
Hollace turned 10. She is quite the character. For her birthday she was asking for a box of saltine crackers, a bag of limes, erasers and a kimono. She got all of that except a kimono. Hollace is into erasers as in making community of people out of them. She says she has over 100 of them now. She has kids in her class donating to her collection. Last weekend she drew an elaborate 2 page map of the land these eraser people live.
I bought some half sized index cards last week and Hollace has now seen the potential of those and started drawing what she calls creature cards. I guess they could be compared to Pokemon cards. She draws a picture on the front and some facts about them on the back. She is always asking how to spell words for them. She now has a few from other kids in school that she invited to make a card for. Apparently she has turned this creature thing into a club and has collected 15 names of kids from her class. I ask her what her club is going to do and she doesn’t know, nothing. She just likes collecting names.
Hollace is trying to be that quirky kid. So far it seems like it is going well for her and that kids like her. She wants to be known as weird. I don’t know about that though. Whenever we go to a store, Hollace feels compelled to go all Forest Gump on me by just blurting out to the sales clerk, “I like erasers” (or whatever she likes that day) in this out of touch voice. Like I said, it is Forest Gump like. She told me tonight after we left Target that she doesn’t care if that comes off as weird. She likes weird.
While Hollace seems to be liked (she likes all the girls in her class except one that is mean) and has several friends in class that are boys, she has yet to be invited to a birthday party.
We had her party 2 weeks ago. We only invited 4 kids and 5 of he cousins. We went to the ceramic place we went last year. Only one of the girls showed up. Two of them said they forgot and one forgot to tell her parents (we didn’t have her address to mail hers). The one that showed up lives in the neighborhood and her mom dropped her off at our house since they were expecting a party there for Daytona 500. I am so hung up trying to avoid Super Bowl Sunday for a party that I bumping into Dayton 500 instead.
Meghan, the girl that did show up, gave Hollace money for a gift and an invitation to go shopping with her to Black Market Minerals for gems which is Hollace’s other obsession.
The next day (Monday, no school because of Presidents Day) Meghan came over for a playdate. I was excited that she would have a friend who could come over regularily. Then that afternoon the did the shopping trip.
Not a good thing. They were gone for 5 hours. Meghan brought another friend and they spent most of the time at the mall hitting all the clothes store. Hollace hated that, so not her thing. When they brought her home, the mother said she didn’t think Hollace had a good time.
I just Hollace can hold her own in middle school where being different like that and wanting to be weird will make you a target.
for a post over here and have lots to say but can’t manage to do it. You can blame Facebook, my distraction de jour
Nice quiet day where Hollace made out like a fat rat. We got a Wii and Wii Fit, Hollace got a Nintendo DS or in her words, she got virtual kittens (one of the games she got with it). She got the gum and hand santatizer she wanted and some slipper socks that RAW got her that she loves. He also got her some (oh wait maybe I did since he hasn’t paid me for it yet) some night vision goggles. One of the things on her wish list that RAW really likes too. We also got a table top air hockey game that is cute. It apparently was a game themed Christmas.
The weather around here is driving me nuts. I finally found a nice window of non wintery weather to go to Indiana and see family and now we got to worry about major flooding. Not only from all the snow melting but from the 3″ of rain we are expecting and ice dams in the rivers.
Hopefully we won’t be affected.
Today is the first day of winter and I am already worn out with winter weather. Last week there were two bad driving days. The first caught me off guard. It was only 3″ but it was timed badly and I found out my Hyundai is not my Subaru. I was squirreling all over the road. The next bad snow was 3 days later and it was so forecasted that the boss was asking us if we were prepared. I planned to work from home so I didn’t get out. We got about 7″ of snow that day.
I took Friday off so we could go to Fort Wayne for our holiday visit. Sometime during the week I decided to change it to be Sat-Sun-Mon. One because Hollace was already off on Monday, two-the last day of 2008 billing was Friday and there was a lot of work trying to get billed by then and third-I knew weather might be coming in. Good call.
While we got the snow, Indiana got a major ice storm. One which knocked out the electricity to Dorothy’s. It was so bad that over half of the residents on Fort Wayne lost power. They were saying that it wouldn’t be restored until Wednesday.
What to do, what to do?
I got packed up and planned on going down there anyway. I looked into hotels and we would go down and rescue Dorothy from the dark and cold.
Then her phones went dead too. We called the neighbors and all of their phones were down.
We talked to Aunt Geri and she told Dorothy if she gets cold, she could open the back garage door (no electricity means the 4′11″ 85 year old woman couldn’t open her electric garage door opener) and start her car to keep warm. RAW nearly had a cow when he heard that advice.
Since we couldn’t reach Dorothy by phone, he called the sheriff’s office for them to do a wellness check.
She was ok (I would like to think she wouldn’t of taken Geri’s advice but sometimes I am not so sure) but told the cop she was going to hang out for the night and go somewhere tomorrow. They asked if she wanted them to move her car to the driveway so she could get out. She said no. She told me later it was becasue she didn’t want any branches to fall on her car. I don’t think she thought that also meant she was trapped there.
Shortly after the visit, RAW’s cousin Theresa came over and rescued her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think Geri (Theresa’s mom called her) For some reason we didn’t think of Theresa for help. Theresa is rich and lives in a big fancy house. We felt good that Dorothy was in good hands and then canceled our trip down especially in light that the power might not come back on until long after we left. She was in better hands at Theresa.
We kept trying the phones and eventually they came back on but it wasn’t until we heard the answering machine Saturday evening that we knew the power was back on. Today she went back home. Today was friggin cold!
Now we are glad we didn’t go this weekend. The temperatures didn’t go above zero all days with 35 below wind chills. I never left my robe today.
Because we didn’t go to Fort Wayne this weekend, I was able to catch up on my holiday stuff. Got the cards done and out; the calendars printed, cut up and packaged; gifts to the family wrapped; the photo pencil cans and photo ink pens done; and the rest of the house decorated.
I am still off tomorrow so it is off to the stores to finish up the shopping. It is still suppose to be cold but it will be better than Tuesday (when I go back to work) when we are expecting another freakin snow storm! Ug. I wish I was working tomorrow instead of Tuesday but I better just suck it up and go as planned before I piss someone off with all my changing. Actually I would rather take my Monday and put it on my Friday. It sucks that they gave us Wednesday Xmas eve as a holiday instead of the Friday after a holiday like they always have before. I didn’t take it off because I assumed everyone else in my department would want to take it off. H. will be in on that day but too but I have a sneaking feeling she will be sick on Tuesday because of the snow. She had a near miss accident last week driving in that snow. I think I will try the train and shuttle bus on Tuesday. I hope I don’t miss that bus back to the train station, that is my big fear.
First off my Facebook addiction is still raging. I am getting a kick on keeping up with Nikki and Linda after 25 years and seeing them online sending me (and everyone) goofy Facebook crap. I knew them way before the internet was around and it tickles me to see them like this.
I bought the iTouch last Friday and haven’t put it down yet. I knew it was a cool toy but I didn’t anticipate all the applications you can get for it (a lot of them free). I spend many a mindless moment in my zen Koi pond. You move your finger around and it sounds like you are touching water only your finger isn’t wet. And you scare the little koi. Shake the thing and you feed them. There is a Facebook app so I can sit on the couch and check it out (I know I have a laptop that I can do that with but this is hand held and in my pocket). Tonight I downloaded a game called Jelly Car and I couldn’t get my toy out of Hollace’s hands.
Yesterday was our teacher conference. Hollace sat outside the room with my iTouch to feed the little virtual animal (a panda I named Fred). When we came out Hollace was giving a tutorial to another parent LOL.
BTW, Hollace is doing great in school. She is finally over the curve of average, like 80%. She has come a long way. I like her teacher this year but she still doesn’t compare to last year’s Miss. Williams. Even Mrs. R gave a shout out to Miss W in our meeting.
Back to my new toy. I find it very annoying however that I need to buy new accessories. I knew I would need a new case (this thing is so slim) but my car charger, desk speakers and boom box won’t charge the thing. I can deal with the boom box, no biggie but I need the desk speakers or I drain my battery every day at work and what is the point of a car charger if you can’t charge. I now have been wasting a lot of time trying to find accessories that are quality, cheap and work for this particular model. Finding the right case actually took the longest time so far.
Yesterday I took my car in for what turned out to be a $100 oil change. I am so pissed! RAW is too but he only thinks it was a $25 oil change. God forbid I tell him about the stupid filter I was suckered into buying. I am more pissed at myself for saying ok but the service guy was so sleazy. First he bait and switched me on my $15 oil change by pretty much telling me that I have to get synthetic oil. He then made me feel foolish because I went to Jiffy Lube before and try to scare me about that choice. While I waited for the oil change he comes in with a dirty cabin filter. He said you can’t use this that I have replace it. 70 freaking dollars! What was worst was me going, “ok, whatever” when he TOLD me I had to change it. It was a cabin filter, nothing critical and it looked like it was made of cardboard. What a racket! Pissed, pissed, pissed! I did leave there with the shiniest clean car but yikes, my $15 oil change was now $100.
When I told RAW about the $25 oil change he was pissed and kept going on all night about it. There is no way in hell I will tell him about the bogus $70 filter LOL.
I can’t think about it anymore. When they call for my opinion of their service, I will give them an earful.
Another rip off I am pissed about is the eye place Sherry works at. I spent a lot of money on these glasses (even with the insurance, i was shocked how expensive they were). One reason was the anti reflective coating for $120 and the transition lens for $80. For the 2nd time now my lenses are all etched up. They make them over once and the same thing happened. Sherry says this hasn’t happened to any one else and wonders how I clean them. I clean them the same way I have for 40 freakin years. This time she ordered them with out the $120 anti-reflective coating. Will I get that $120 back? I doubt it. I found one occurance of my problem on the web. The guy had the same webbing and transition lenses. An optician said the anti-reflective coating sometimes does that. They said they didn’t have any on their lenses. Then they came back and said Lens Crafters said there was a bad injection of the lens stuff that affects 1 million people. I emailed Sherry the page and she comes back with so many typo that I couldn’t understand anything she wrote!
This should be the last post about what to spend my mad money on. Last I left you was trying to decide on which new DSLR to get, the 40D or 50D. If it was my first DSLR it would be more exciting but for $1000 I wasn’t getting the fun factor in it. So, no new camera at this time. Maybe the next mad money I come into I can get a full frame DSLR which might make a difference but I didn’t have enough money for that this go around.
I then remembered that I wanted to get a new old Rolleiflex since the one I got last year is no good. I go to Harry the Rollei guys site to see what he has for sale. Last January he had the perfect camera but I couldn’t but it then. I knew that one would be long gone but it didn’t look like he had much. I emailed him and he confirmed that and he may take my other Rollei for $100 for spare parts. Ok, so no Rolleiflex.
I guess I finally hit the point where I have all the toys I need. I never thought I would get to that point. Then I thought of something. Again, this is an upgrade to an exisiting toy so really I don’t need it but this thing has the cool fun factor I am looking for and after I decided what to do with my perfectly good model I am running out at lunch tomorrow to buy it……..an iPod Touch. What a fun gizzmo. Right now I have a 60 Gig Classic that has 32 Gig on it. The iTouch only goes up to 32 Gig so I can’t load it up like the other one. I am kind of bummed over that. I plan on repurposing the old iPod to the home stereo. I can just keep it plugged in to my JBL speakers or keep it in my boom box. I hope I can escape for lunch tommorrow to the Apple Store.
Oh and an off topic mention, I had a flat tire this morning. Really it was a flat tire last night but it wasn’t totally flat. I guess I have an idiot light that tells me when my tires are low. That came on. RAW put air in it last night but this morning it was low again. He put the donut on and got the tire fixed today (there was a screw in it). Right now he is out there putting it back on and rotating my tires.
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