Wow

It has been over a month and a half since last blogging.

Life has been busy with just plain normal life. There have been numerous business trips to places like Boston, Columbus, Atlanta and Toledo.

Likewise, due to health issues, we have spent many days in Toledo with Dad and my M-I-L. Dad seems back to nearly normal health wise.

M-I-L has a way to go after having a transverse fracture of her sacrum. She fell backward, landing on her bottom while putting on her slippers. She is in a rehab facility for PT right now. Once the pain of the break is manageable and she can move farther than 15 or so steps, should be back home. It is the pain management that is most pressing. She still has a great sense of humor about things though.

A moves home Sunday for a 6 week clinical rotation at a county health department. Then back to C-H for summer work.

C on the other hand, will be home later today until Sunday. Monday she goes back to C-H to take Organic Chemistry as a summer school class to lighten her load in the fall. C will live in A's apartment. At the end of the class, she and A will swap places.

As for K and I, currently life is happening in routine fashion.

A Thank you to the FCC and Federal Government

To whom it may concern,

I want to take a moment of my time to thank you for changing the television signals from analog to digital. It has given me such a clearer picture that it has actually improved my family life.

I am one of the few Americans left that watches television from over-the-air signal, meaning antenna. Our household has a reasonable income but I do not wish to pay for cable or satellite as more expenses are not needed and I we do not watch many of the stations that accompany the various packages. The content does not warrant the expense.

Living just outside the Greensboro, NC city limits, population about 205,000, I was able to watch (2) CBS, (2) NBC, (1) ABC, (2) Fox and (1) PBS affiliated stations from my town and another major city about 60 miles distant. Since going digital, the reception has become much clearer for (1) Fox and (1) ABC affiliated stations.

No longer am I able to receive continuous viewing of CBS or PBS. In good weather and in bad, these stations frequently seem to operate in stop-motion that you call "pixelation". This frequently occurs during the most desired part of the program. Some programs are completely unwatchable due to the stop-motion, even in good, clear weather.

To view the NBC affiliate is not possible, there is no signal for either station. It could be that the towers are located beyond reach for over-the-air transmission in my area. Prior to the switch, the "local" NBC affiliate was marginal at best, occasionally like watching a polar bear in a snow storm, but the affiliate from Raleigh was viewable. Now I can view neither.

The Fox affiliate reception is wonderful 95% of the time. The ABC affiliate is also good about 90% of the time.

I have tried orienting my antenna for best signal reception based on tower location, but it has shown no improvement. I even raised my antenna to no avail.

Because of the aforementioned issues, my family and I have taken to reading more books or working on projects around the home while listening to the radio. The television advertising money being spent are not reaching us, too bad for them. This has improved the look of my house and increased my breadth of knowledge.

Since I am unwilling to pay to watch television, that places me in the 5% category (I am guessing on that number) of people that do not have cable or satellite. I have a digital television that is great for watching movies on my DVD player, when I rent 6-8 times per year. It is more a paperweight than anything, needing dusted more than watched.

Yes, I cannot keep up with what is happening on Survivor, Lost, American Idol and the like, but there are other things to do in life and they can go on without me.

Not all technical improvements are for the better, so thanks for the time back.

Sincerely,
Unconnected Television Viewer in Suburban Greensboro, NC

PS: Because it provides content I desire and control, I am willing to pay for a connection to high speed internet service.

Super Bowl Commercial

Given most of you know my political stance, I found this commercial very funny. Especially the ending.

The latest Snow

It didn't happen here. We got rain and lots of it. 3 inches of rain, on relatively frozen ground. There is a small lake in my back yard, but, not the 2 feet so snow TGND is scheduled to receive.

I will find out as I must go to North-Central PA on Monday evening for a Tuesday appointment at a Paper mill. I will get to see a lot of the snow.

The snow

I know you have seen plenty of pictures of snow on the ground, so I will not post more. We got between 5-7 inches of it on Friday and Saturday of last week.

We live on a dead-end street, off a dead-end street, out in the county and they have plowed our street.The amazing thing about this snow is that the children of Guilford County are still not back in school. 3 Days for snow, and their spring break is about gone, used as make-up days for the no school.


They are calling for an ice storm to begin on Thursday evening lasting through Friday, but all the weather forecasters are hedging their bets, so it may bypass us.

Economics

I am more a Hayek guy than a Keynesian, but this video puts some economics in perspective:

Earlier Today

Some of you know that I had my first, "over 50" colonoscopy today. Because I was a bit dehydrated, even after drinking water until no more could be consumed up until the 4 hours before the procedure, I became a human pin cushion when they were trying to put in the IV. They tried 5 different places on both arms until they could find a vein that would work. At one point, there were 4 different nurses around me, attempting to get the IV started. I told them I knew I was a babe magnet!

The worst part about the whole procedure was drinking their Kool-Aid. Those college beer chugging days certainly helped there. The stuff worked very quickly. My intestines sounded like there was a thunder storm just over the horizon, with all the gurgling and noises.

According to K, the doctor said everything was just fine, no polyps or other unusual things. I of course, was a bit loopy until about 6PM and remember very little other than flirting with the two nurses in revcovery. I only rememeber the good parts anyway.

Glad the next one will be 10 years from now.

My Picture Dump

The backgrounds may not be holiday and festive, here are some of the pictures that were taken during the recent holiday get togethers.

BL, C, AJF, HO RL, and SL:


Dad and D:


HO, AJ, SL, KR, TR and SF:


HO, SL and AJF


JO, DO and A


A and C:


LO:


SL, RL and AJF:


My M-I-L:


Thanks to all who did the best thing, just show up. At both get-togthers, it was loud, kids were playing and everyone was having a great time.

Merry Christmas

To all, travel safe, enjoy the family, Merry Christmas.

Christmas Cookies

Sunday evening, C, A and I made the dough for some of our Christmas Cookies. We made honey cut-out cookie and chocolate crinkle doughs. Of the Honey dough, there is apparently some local thief that likes the dough so much that we need to make a double batch just to get enough cookies. Same should happen with the chocolate crinkle dough as well but that did not happen.

On Monday, while A went to visit a friend in town for the holidays, C and I baked the chocolate crinkles. After finishing this portion of the baking, C posted this to help her sister:



Note there is no reference to me as I pose no threat. I am not a chocoholic.

Christmas Picture

Many of you will be receiving a picture in the mail of A and C, so I thought I would post a different one.



A made a 3.64GPA for this past semester, her best semester yet, even with harder classes. C's grades are not all in yet, but we will find out soon, but it will be better than a 3.0

Merry Christmas

Snow and Ice

Well, it did snow last evening. We got about 4 inches, but the ground was way too warm for it to stay around too long, so it is melting from the bottom up. Right now, there are about 2 inches of snow on the ground, covered in ice as it is drizzling then freezing.

Here is a picture of a figurine in the front yard.



It will be more of an inconvenience than anything for the rest of the day, but only a minor hindrance.

They are predicting Snow

and significant ammounts, 8-10 inches overnight tonight. If it happens, it will shut down the world here for 2-3 days. We shall see.

First Update: It has begun snowing her, but just flurries. A bit west of here in Winston Salem, it is snowing ans sleeting. It should be interesting. If it gets pretty outside, I will post pictures.

Update 2: The snow is about to end and we have about3-4 inches on the ground. It is about 10:15PM and the warm weather is pushing north, changing things to sleet, but all precip should stop in the next hour or so. I will take pictures in the AM when there is light.

Thanksgiving

The whole family traveled to T-town over the Thanksgiving weekend. By the whole family, this included A's boyfriend Au. Unfortunately, I was too busy to take many pictures, but I should have used the time more wisely to do so.

Everyone in attendance appeared well. The Ozlanders minus H seemed in great form, L was really funny.

The RF family from southern OH appeared healthy. KFR is showing nicely as she is due in early April. SF seems happy with her counseling role in Cincy. AJ is growing into a pretty young lady, counting down the days until she gets her learners permit (61 as of Friday)

Dad and D both looked very good.

I wish I had taken pictures, maybe the Oz's did and will post them.

It has been Quiet

here in my part of the south. The kids are off at University and I have been traveling a bunch.

K and I are also remodeling our bedroom end of the house. This entails moving all of our stuff, splitting it between the girls bedrooms, tearing down all the drywall, the closet, moving/changing a door to a pocket door, relocating a bathroom, relocating a closet.

We are about 3/4 of the way done with our bedroom, it being re-wired, new drywall installed. There is the drywall mudding, painting and trim to do before we get new carpet. Before and after pictures will be posted when we are done.

This is why we have not blogged much.

In my travels

I get to go many places where there are friends and family. This week found me fortunate enough to stop by Lebanon, OH to see Niece B, her husband S, young T and their newest addition R!

It was great to see their whole family, even for a short visit. It is really cute how their T just loves his new brother, to the point of smothering him at times. But he is a good looking young man that at 2 is now stringing some words together to get certain desires known. You know when he wants a video, or something to eat or drink.

For proof, here is a picture of R and moi.



So, for you JO, I am the most awesome 'cuz I got to see and hold him and you didn't, HA! Oh yeah, who is the best now!

Hope your day is great too.

Milky Way

I found this neat site to view the Milky Way galaxy.

http://www.gigagalaxyzoom.org/

Be sure to zoom in on some of the various features. There is also a tour to some of the popular destinations.

Things

are getting back to a more normal chaos. All the cars have been fixed, the lawn mowed, at least until this weekend again, and we are now working on the bathroom/bedroom again.

It is a good thing that C and A are away at school as we have taken over their bedrooms. We have moved everything out of ours and disbursed it as best we can to keep the house neat.

As it has been said, "It's hammer time!"

Been a few weird weeks

on the mechanical side.

My car threw a lifter needing a cylinder head replacement, the Van blew a heater hose that was nearly impossible to reach, A's car had problems staying running and with a catalytic converter, C's car had a window problem where the driver side window would not go down, then immediately followed by the passenger side front having the same problem, both lawn mowers had semi major problems, one requiring a new engine and the other a new cam, the weed eater decided not to like to run. After it was all fixed, then the grass needed mowed and the house needed trimming. It seemed to be every week there was something preventing us from getting work done on our bathroom. That does not include my travel for work.

In the middle of some of this, A moved into a new apartment and C moved into a Dorm.

Life is never boring.

For those of you who knew

A is now back in the country from Panama. She had a blast and talked non-stop for about 4 hours about her trip. She said she would do it again, but for a shorter time next time. Two weeks is too long.

One minor hitch occurred last night, when she was to return. Her flight into Miami was over an hour late, causing her to miss her flight to Raleigh. She got a night in Miami at the airport Hyatt, dinner and breakfast, all courtesy of American Airlines. Her and about 150 of her closest friends on that flight missed their connections. It was a systemic thing because there were many flights delayed for one reason or another and many got stranded by missing their connections. With those being the last flights of the day, you might think AA would have held the flights, saving a bunch in hotels and meals.

Glad she is home, safe and sound with another world experience under her belt.