Mom's Moving Day

There is something bittersweet in moving my Mom out of her house that she shared with my Dad for his final years. A house she had lived in, alone, for near on a decade. It's not my childhood home, far from it, but it was my parent's home.

Taking things apart, backing out screws, that I knew my Father had assembled years ago, I could almost feel my Dad with me. I could hear his voice echoing in my head as he explained where they should be placed, which were important and which we're not. So many things that he taught me over the years, that are just part of me, came back to me.

An Adult Decision

My daughter has loved horses since a very early age and has been fortunate to have had a horse since she was in elementary school.  She’s actually had three horses, Hope, Paddy and Aiden.  The first two were technically her mother’s critters, but Shannon was always the priority rider.

When it came time for her to move up from her pony, Hope, we started shopping for a larger horse that would be able to carry her into competitions and had Paddy in the barn before Hope left.  When Paddy reached his limits at the preliminary level of equestrian eventing and age was limiting him, we went looking for a new horse again.

Aiden, an off the track thoroughbred, looked to be Shannon’s ideal horse.  He was very green, having just left his career of racing but was large, athletic, with good ground manners, and a willingness to learn.  He looked like exactly the horse Shannon could train and take forward into competitions as her horse.

My Daughter the Swordswoman

Shannon went swording this past weekend at another renaissance festival. She's performed at other ren-fests previously, but always mounted, showing off her equine skills and knowledge.  This time she went as a participant with the sword circle, a group led by teacher Alex Foster, of young people who are learning and demonstrating historical sword techniques from the late middle ages and renaissance periods.

What Is That Car?

Today is my birthday, it's something that happens every year. At this point I'm pretty used to them. This one will be way better than last year's though.  Which I spent in the hospital uncertain if I would every have another birthday.  All in all, the day has prospects of being a very good day.

Since it is my birthday, I treated myself to a (to me) yummy breakfast from McDonald's (with way to many calories).  That's a tasty treat, but better yet was a question I heard on the drive home....

Home Owner Warrenty Follies

One of the perks added to the house that we recently purchased in Leesburg was a home buyer's warranty from 2-10.  This type of warranty protection is often added by the seller to entice buyers, hopefully engendering confidence and a higher transaction price.

In our case, we asked for a warranty to be added to the deal as the price was being negotiated.  It seemed like a good idea costing us essentially nothing and offering a promise to fix major components of the house that could go belly up shortly after we moved in.

1983: Graduation -- Where Are The Jobs?

This is the second of my career posts, it focuses on my attempt to start my working career with a Bachelor of Science degree, double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Engineering and Public Policy (I think they were having a two-fer on the word "and").

Setting the Stage

The job market back in 1983 was rough across the country, even worse in Western Pennsylvania with the coal and steel industries in collapse and layoffs everywhere.  I wanted to work near where I grew up, I liked the area, the people, and I wasn't a huge fan of change.

Fortunately, I thought, I had chosen a top-notch school, Carnegie-Mellon University, an in demand major, engineering. I had grades to be proud of, graduating with University Honors (meaning my GPA qualified me to complete an undergraduate research project with a mini and I mean mini thesis), and I had plenty of resume stuffers in the form of President of Fraternity, Buggy designer, sports (intramural though they were).  I even had some work experience.  I thought I had ticked all the boxes and my search should be productive.

1996: Taking America Off Line

This is the first, of what I expect will be many trips in the way back machine to some of my significant career experiences, things I did that worked out and likely some that didn't.  I'll try to address both what happened and what I was able to learn as a result.

This is based on my recollection of events.  I have almost certainly, unintentionally, edited events in my memory, I'm trying to be accurate, but memories can be shifty at time.  Ultimately, its my blog and my story, so I'll apologize ahead of time for any errors, but I'm not going to worry about it (much).

2014: July Health Crisis

This past Friday (7/25) my coughing jags and mild fever got to annoying for my very patient wife, she told me I needed to go the doctor.  While it didn't seem too serious to me, I certainly didn't feel well and if Linda wants someone to go the doctor, they certainly should.

First Doctor Visit, 7/25

Dr. Harding had picked this Friday to get an early start on his vacation, so I got a same day appointment with another doctor in the Town Center Family Medicine practice. As I ran down my symptoms, fatigue, no endurance, persistent headache (the kind where it seems someone is driving a nail ever deeper), fever (100-101.5°F), general aches, and joint pain in my hip, I realized I was describing the flu minus nausea, which according to WebMD is a good summary of the symptoms of walking pneumonia.

New House - Network, What Could Go Wrong?

What could possible be wrong with a network installed and dare I say "operated" by a lawyer?  Of course, the answer is just about anything.  When we saw the house, I was stunned to see the "wiring closet," a section of unfinished space where a spaghetti mess of UTP and COAX were tied, sometimes literally in knots with some terminated into female connectors, some with male connectors, some stripped back several inches, untrimmed ends pocking into other cables, and some undecipherable labels on a few cables.

My first step was to try to segregate the UTP (network and phone) cables from the multitude of COAX and trace them.  As each was traced it was labeled with a neat color coded tape label so I could skip the tracing next time.  When that was said and done, I was down to only about a dozen mystery cables.  The network cables were plugged into a switch that I literally zip tied on top of the box.  The coax cables went into a couple of bundles.

The result, definitely not pretty was an organized mess, something I could work to improve and I thought something that might help performance of the network.

Network Performance Failure

It was not long till my son tried to use his computer to play WoW and immediately discovered that the network was horrible, with disconnects and latency galore.  He fixed it by going to a wireless connection, bypassing some of the mess that is our wired network and let me know about it.  I thought I was retired, but I seem to have inherited another broken network.

New House - Kitchen, First Impressions

We just moved into our new house in Leesburg.  It has plenty of issues and I mean plenty.  The number of things needing attention are just overwhelming.  Perhaps the most important to us is the Kitchen, which we knew going in was a write off and rebuild proposition and nothing we have experienced so far has changed this impression.

Overall

The kitchen is dominated by black and white with some stainless thrown in all built on the omnipresent cherry hardwood floor which covers most horizontal surfaces in the house. It's also a mess, but that's a transient problem and a lot better than a day ago.

The cabinets are white, I would assume they’d be sleek, modern looking, but the doors are edged with a fancy curve and crowned with a compound arch, touches I would expect on a traditional wooden cabinet.  The doors have a cheap plastic feel and sound accordingly when closed. 

The countertop appears to be a high quality marble, nicely finished.  It’s black with some flecks of color, giving it a harsh contrast to the cabinets.

Appliance are mostly stainless steel following the current trend.  The exception is the built in oven, which is white.  I’d guess the oven is older, perhaps the only original component of the kitchen.

My overall impression on the kitchen is simply, yuck.

Parent/Child Debts and Major Crimes (TNT TV Show)

[Reposted from Facebook]

A few evenings ago, I watched an episode of "Major Crimes" (Personal Day)  that contained a scene that I found quite moving and worth commenting on.  The scene was at the end of the episode, a portion often devoted to the main character's (Sharon, played by Mary McDonald) personal life.   This episode followed the pattern. Her acquired charge, a mid-teen boy (Rusty), who witnessed a murder and came from a very troubled situation, including prostitution to survive, opened a serious conversation with Sharon, the only effective parent figure he has ever known.

Why Write This Blog & Why Is It Called That?

Why Write This Blog?

About a week ago a Facebook friend commented on one of my posts "thanks for the blog" that was quickly followed by my daughter telling me she thought I should write a blog.  Initially that seemed a silly idea, it still seems an odd one, after all, I am not all that "interesting" a person.  I don't see lots of  folks clamoring to know about me or to discuss issues with me.

Stone Tower Glenn Renaissance Faire

Daughters of Epona Perform at 11th Annual Faire, June 28-29, 2014

The "Daughters" my daughter, Shannon, her friend Marissa riding their horses, Aiden and Dolly, respectively.  Joined by one of Marissa's equine students as their squire for the performance.

The performing company, Medieval Fantasies Company, has been doing this for eleven years.  This was Daughters of Epona's second appeiarance with the company, having done well enough at their initial performance to be invited back to join the Company, and even having their expenses paid, or partially paid to be more accurate.

Dead Dryer with Troubleshooting Guide INSIDE

We're getting set to move in a couple of weeks and our Dryer decides it's a good time to quit.  After all, we only have tons of things wanting washed as we prepare.  Never fear, I place a call to my fav appliance repair man and leave him a message.  He calls back, from Wyoming, where he's on vacation.  That's not going to work, so I opt to try some DIY, hoping I'm physically up for the challenge (still working on recovery to pre-crisis level).