Author: jerry
Homecoming
The three most important people in my life came home from their trip to Florida, and I am so happy to see them. It was getting pretty lonely around here. Trips to the beach, trips to Gatorland — it sounds like they had a great time. I’ll share some photos soon. But for now I’m just happy to have my...
First Day Of Summer
Today’s the first day of summer, and it felt like it too. Hotter’n Hades. I spent the day (and most of yesterday) doing yardwork — what was I thinking? This was a fairly productive weekend, but I didn’t get everything done that I wanted (as usual). I can’t believe the year is almost half over. The weeks and months just...
Early Father’s Day
We celebrated Father’s Day a week early this year, and spent the day with the grandparents. Dixie got me the yard cart that I’ve had my eye on for a while, and the kids benefited from this purchase as they got a mini-hayride (minus the hay) around the yard before having fun in our mini water park. It’s not Oceans...
Kansas City
We just got back from our family vacation to Kansas City. It was a crazy busy week. We stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel on the Plaza. We hit a number of the sights, including Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. We also visited the Steamboat Arabia museum, which I found fascinating. A couple...
Green vs Green
If you want to “go green” for environmental reasons, that’s great. If you want to do it for financial reasons, that’s great too, but what I’ve discovered is that it might be difficult to quantify exactly how much you are saving. I’ve been waiting since last year to calculate the savings from our solar water heater. I put together a...
Back to Normal
He we are at the end of another 30 days. I won’t talk about how difficult it was — I think I covered that last year. And I won’t make any vague promises about how I will try to increase the frequency of my posting, because I did that last year too, and we all know how that turned out....
Our New Patio
It’s been a month of fits and starts, but our new patio is finally coming together, and yesterday offered a break in the ridiculous St. Louis heat, so we were able to enjoy it a bit. We bought the furniture set at Sam’s, but we almost didn’t get it. We saw it there on a Friday evening, and we liked...
Michael
Last year at this time, almost to the day, I was remembering George Carlin after his passing. Yesterday, the universe reminded me once again that I’m old with the passing of two icons from my youth. Although I did watch Charlie’s Angels, like all other pre-pubescent males did back then, I never had Farrah’s iconic poster on my wall (I...
Time Wasters
Here are links to a couple of web sites I stumbled upon recently and thought I’d share. One is called Fantastic Contraption, and it is completely addictive once you figure out how it works. This will definitely appeal to any engineering types out there, and probably to a lot of others as well. In each level of the game, you...
Hulu on the Wii
Last year we bought a Wii. Shortly after we downloaded the Internet Channel for it, one of its biggest limitations became apparent. The Wii ships with an ancient version (well, ancient by computer standards) of Adobe’s Flash player. This version works with some web sites, but most, like Hulu, require a more recent version. So it’s impossible to watch flash...
The Electric Car Cometh, Maybe
I’ve written about electric cars before, but for a while now I’ve been following what I consider to be the most promising entry into this market. The current offering from Zenn Motors is little more than a glorified golf cart. Classified as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), with limited range, and a top speed of 30mph, it is intended to...
Internet Children
A couple of months ago, I posted this photo of Noah. We took an old laptop (and I mean *old* — the screen is hanging on by one hinge, and it won’t close anymore) and installed the latest edubuntu load on it. For those not familiar with it, edubuntu is an educational version of the ubuntu Linux operating system. It...
Branson
So I was probably ten years old the last time I was in Branson, Missouri. Everyone that I’ve talked to has told me that I wouldn’t recognize it, that it had become like Las Vegas. I guess maybe my expectations were too high because I can’t say that I was overly impressed. I can see the comparisons to Las Vegas,...
30 Days of Blog – The Sequel
I’m probably going to regret this, but I signed up for another 30 days of punishment. Last year was a lot more difficult than I anticipated, but this year, I have taken the precaution of jotting down ideas in the weeks leading up to today, so I am hopeful that I won’t be struggling for topics towards the end of...
Cambridge Swingset
We bought this Cambridge model swingset from Sam’s last season on clearance and finally got around to assembling the beast this past weekend. If you buy one, you can plan on it taking a good 20 hours to assemble if you have only two people. I would recommend that you follow the instructions and take the time to sort and...
