Why Waste It?

When we lived in Pocatello for a year and a half, it seemed that all I worked on was the backyard. Before we moved in, the backyard, which was half the property, was full of tall weeds, sagebrush, yard trash, and trash. It also was just a hillside. I spend all kinds of hours tilling up the entire yard and leveling it out. In addition, I spend thousands of dollars to raise the level of the backyard about 10 feet so that it wasn't entirely a hill. We're talking hundreds of man hours and anguish. When everything was ready, we planted grass. We had just planted grass on the flat part and it had come right up nice and green and thick. We're talking night and day difference and it greatly increased the property value. Not only could you now use all of the property, the property was beautiful. When we decided to move, leaving the backyard was the hardest thing for me because of all the hard work I had put in and I hadn't full enjoyed it yet. The person we sold the house to said he would take care of the backyard.

Well, just last week I was curious to know how the backyard was doing. I had a couple of people go over and see how it was doing. What I was told broke my heart. The backyard is nearly dead. That's coming from the people that looked at it. Why? Why wast all that property and let it die? I'm really hoping that things just haven't come back to life yet. Since it's almost June, if it still appears dead, that may not happen. Pocatello has gotten a lot of rain lately. I'm hoping that will perk the yard back up and the owner will want to take care of it. Believe me, it is a lot easier to maintain a yard then to completely redo it.

Two Watches

You know what is really funny? I have two nice watches and I don't wear either one of them. When I say nice, I mean Walmart nice, not anything near Bedat watches or a Rolex. I used to always wear a watch, but since going off to college, I hate wearing them. Maybe it's because I haven't found the right one. What I do know is that whenever I wear one, I end up with a bald spot on my wrist because my arm hair gets caught in the watch and then yanked out. Maybe it's time to go back to plastic watches instead.

Pet Beds

Whenever we visit the pet store, we always walk by the pet beds. I never knew there were so many different kinds of beds for pets. I grew up with cats and dogs and they always slept where they could find a comfortable spot. In fact, whenever we had houses for them, they never slept in them, just on them. In our house now, every inch of our floor seems to be a possible bed. Funny how cats don't really seem to care how or where they are going to sleep.

Travelling

Whenever we take a vacation, we always stock up on the travel supplies. These are things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, hygiene products, spending money, etc. My wife really likes the miniature versions of all these things that you can buy in the store. I have to admit, some of them look pretty cool. They seem to have anything you need now in "travel form". Anything from small toothpaste to perhaps even small rolls of toilet paper. Amazing.

Weekend Recovery

Man, I always seem to forget that taking a long weekend off means coming back to work after a long weekend off. Yesterday was my first day back at work aftwer a 4 day weekend. I still haven't recovered. I haven't been able to get motivated to work since coming back from the weekend. In fact, I'm solely looking forward to the coming weekend. When you come back from a 4 day weekend, the following workweek is short, so I guess looking forward to the next weekend just goes along with the workweek being shorter. I hope my recovery from last weekend gets over quick. Otherwise, this short workweek is going to seem like it is dragging on forever.

Memorial Break

Finally, I get a break from the work routine. It's Memorial Day weekend. I took the Friday before the weekend off so I had a 4 day weekend. All in all, it's been a good weekend. We did a barbecue/birthday for my son, Jacob, who will be 2 next week. We then finished preparing the garden to plant, and I hung up the last wall item since the move. Now, I just need to clean out the garage and finish unpacking those boxes and we can say we are officially moved in. My family has been down all weekend and it's been very fun. The boys definitely love it when grandma comes down. It's great for us, too, because then we get a break of worrying what the boys are doing all the time. Happy Memorial Day everyone. I hope your weekend was as great as ours has been.

Time To Golf

It is golf day, and just in time, too. Today, it is supposed to be up in the 90's. Sounds like a great golf day except for the minor detail that we are also supposed to have 20 to 30 mph winds today as well. Now, that's according to what the weatherman says, and they don't always seem to know what the weather is going to do here. I'm hoping that the weather will cool down by the time we go golfing and that there won't be that much wind.

So Refreshing

Today, we took on the project of firing up the swamp cooler on top of the house. We have had it on a couple of times over the last couple of days, but the temperature of the house didn't seem to be changing. So I decided to check on the cooler, plus it was squeaking. No big deal right? Whatever, the cooler is on the roof. I did manage to get up there and spray it down with WD-40. Then, I decided to see why there was no water up there. We followed the water line down to the water heater. The water line had been unhooked, so we hooked it up and turned the water on. End of story, right? Wrong. When I went outside to check things out, there was water flowing down the roof. Apparently, needs to be a plug in the cooler to prevent that. Luckily, out of nowhere, my neighbor walked by and saw me looking at the roof. He happily jumped on the roof, found the drain plug, and got the pump to work. That pump actually needs to be replaced because occasionally it locks up and blows the fuses in the house. So far, the power has only gone off twice, but it makes me nervous to know there is a pump on top of my house that can short out. So tomorrow, my neighbor is coming back to replace the pump and the pads. Man, the house feels so much nicer now that the swamp cooler is actually working.

All is well

To all those who were worried about my mom and praying, you can now be at ease. My mom contacted me last night to tell me she was fine. She had to just get away and had been on the campus of BYU-Idaho doing her homework. She admitted that she should have told someone where she was, but she just wanted to be left alone for a while. She stated that the stress of her classes were taking it's toll and she just needed to get somewhere where she could focus. Thanks again for everyone's prayers. We're all glad that everything turned out okay.

Weight Loss Pills

I don't think I've ever seen a time where there are so many weight loss pills out there on the market. Is it just the American mentality that we can just take a pill and the pill will magically fix everything? I hope not. I don't even think I can name all the different pills that are out there. I've been thinking about losing weight myself. If I were to try a diet pill, I would do it in combination with an exercise program.

Have You Seen This Person

Anyone out there, have you seen this woman? Her name is Cindy Andrus and she has not been seen nor heard from in almost 30 hours. If you have seen her, please tell her to contact her family or contact me at nateandrus@gmail.com. Her family are all very, very worried about her. Her cell phone is either off or dead and we have no idea where she could be. Please contact me or tell her to contact her family if you see her.

Nathan

Get Out Of Debt

I've heard stories from people I know that debt consolidation hurt them in some way. I'm not really sure why it hurt them, perhaps they just hooked up with the wrong program. I know there are some great debt consolidation programs out there. Debt consolidation can be a great way for people to get out of debt. Instead on making many payments, you can just make one. With just one payment, you would be less likely to forget one of the payments. I know we've done it in the past and it has really helped us.

Wrinkles Someday

I don't have much need for it now, but some day I'm afraid that I'm gonna need the best wrinkle cream to help my face. With the combined toll of work, the family, and life, I'm sure I'm gonna to have a number of wrinkles showing up in a few years. Who knows, maybe by that time, they will have found, or invented the fountain of youth and wrinkles won't be a problem.

Orovo

I seem to hear at least one commercial each day about a new diet plan or strategy. They seem to be a dime a dozen anymore. There are some really great plans out there like Orovo, NutraSystem, and Weight Watchers. Weight Watchers seems to be the more popular one. Man, I remember that one from high school. I'm hoping people will combine these diet plans with exercise. That would definitely bring the medical costs down in this country.

Mom, Are You Out There?

Mom,

Everyone is worried. You have made no contact with anyone over the last 29 hours. We need to know that you are okay. Please, please contact us. Contact me, or contact your daughter. Please, please, please contact us. We are all beginning to get very, very worried. We've already filed a missing persons report and don't really know what to do next. Please contact us. We miss you and need you to talk to us. Please, please make contact with anyone.

Nathan

To Watch or Not To Watch

So today is Game 6 of the Jazz-Lakers series. The game is here in Salt Lake City. I'm not sure I want to watch it. I've watched the other games of the series and they have all been aggravating. The games in LA have been close with Utah always playing catchup. The games in Salt Lake have been equally close with one of them going into overtime. If the Jazz lose tonight, they will be out. If they win, they will be traveling to LA for Game 7 to try and pull off a huge win. So, I'm not so sure I want to see what happens tonight because there is too much on the line. Maybe I'll watch the 4th quarter. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, Carlos Boozer will actually play today instead of just running up and down the court.

The Off Season

So tonight was the last episode for The Office for another season. It was a pretty good episode. It wasn't drop-jaw funny like it usually is. It was actually more shocking than anything else. There were open-ends that have to wait until next season before they will be tied up. I really hate that part. I hate having to wait months before the "Part II" starts again because then I can't remember what part I was all about. I guess I will be watching my dvr'd copy of The Office for the next 4 months.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Work

With the steady increase in gas prices, things on the commute to work have begun to change. As I was noticing on the way to work this morning, more and more people are riding bikes, riding the bus, or walking to where they need to go. Good for them. As far as the cars on the road go, I'm seeing more and more small cars on the road. Again, that is a good thing. When I don't see many cars on the road, I see a lot of SUV's and trucks. With the price those things cost, those are the people who feel they can still afford to drive those things. Well, they may think that now, but if they continue to drive those gas guzzlers, the price of gas will continue to climb and at some point, they are going to have to find another mode of transportation. In addition, I'm seeing a lot of trucks, SUV's, and muscle cars for sale by owner. Not just for sale, but have been for sale for a long time. That means, a lot of people are trying to get rid of their gas guzzlers, but a lot people aren't buying them. If this trend continues and spreads across the country, gas prices will tank. It's not rocket science. If demand falls heavily, supply goes up, and prices fall. It's simply economics. America, to get the price of gas to fall like a stone, all you need to do is use less of it. Combine trips to the store, take out the heavy things in the trunk, and buy more fuel efficient vehicles, or buy a bike or scooter. Believe me, if everyone did that, gas stations would be begging you to buy more gas. They may even go as far as putting it on sale just so you will buy it and they can get rid of it.

Diet Pills

Every day I seem to hear a new story about diet pills. Either someone is suing a maker of one or there is some great announcement about the latest and greatest one. I honestly believe that the best way to lose weight is the "old-fashioned" way: exercising and eating right. That may not be the American way anymore, but it sure is nature's way of you being able to lose weight.

The Verdict

I finally got in contact with RC Willey, yesterday. If you'll remember, they were the company who sold us our new range and oven that was dented when we opened it's box. They also told us they couldn't give us a markdown because then they wouldn't be able to do service on it later. Well, I guess I complained hard enough. They called us yesterday and said they were going to mark the price of the oven/range down to $650. That's almost a $130 reduction or about 17 percent. We took it. They will be cutting us a check today or tomorrow. So in the end, we got a brand new, stainless steel on black, gas range for 650 dollars. That's pretty much what it would have cost to get an electric one and right at the bottom of the price range we were originally looking at. It helps to complain to a company and demand that they give you some sort of compensation for your trouble or their mistakes. On a business standpoint, it would be better to lose 200 dollars on a price reduction, than to lose thousands of dollars in lost business.

Waiting For The Phone To Ring

I hate it when I'm waiting for a phone call. At least now when I wait for a call, it is usually a phone call on my cell phone. With the cell phone, i can at least go away from home and still get the call. Right now, I am waiting for a call from RC Willey on the amount of the rebate they are going to give us on the damaged range they sold us. We were told on Saturday on the phone that they would call us today to talk about the amount of the rebate they were going to give us on the dented range. If they don't call by 3, I'm calling them. There is no way I am letting them sell me a range at full price that is damaged. If they don't give me a rebate, there is no way I am shopping there again. I'm not going to shop at a store that sells you damaged goods at full price and fails to give you any break on something that was their fault.

Buying an oven shouldn't be this hard

On Saturday we spent a good portion of the day shopping for a new range. The old one has been here since the house was built in 1993 and we really wanted a new one that matched our new fridge. Plus the old one had 2 burners that didn't work, and my wife was afraid of it. She has a fear of gas appliances blowing up. So because we got our tax stimulus money on Friday, we set out to get our new range. We also had to take both the car and the van in to get the brakes checked (the car needed new rotors and the van needed new front brakes and a rotor) so we took care of those between stops at appliance stores. It was exhausting. There weren't many options for stainless steel and black gas ranges, until we found out at the last store that we could ask for stainless steel and gas in the white and electric ones. By this time my wife was exhausted and the kids need to be changed and take naps so I dropped them off at home and went back out. I finally found one I wanted at RC Willey but they told me I had to drive to their warehouse to get it. I finally found the place and picked it up, and had to stop at a few more places for my wife's Mother's Day gift and some groceries. When I got it home I began unpacking it and we found that there was a huge dent in one side. I was so mad. I called RC Willey to see if we could get some kind of discount or exchange, because I do not want to pay full value for a damaged range. The lady told me that she could not give me any type of discount and if I wanted it exchanged I would have to bring it back and go pick up the new one. Of course this was not acceptable. I shouldn't have to go out of my way when it wasn't my fault they gave me a damaged product. I talked to my wife a while and during that time the call dropped. Luckily the lady called back and I told her we had decided to keep it but I was extremely disappointed and then she said that she was going to talk to her manager on Tuesday to see what kind of discount they could give us. It better be at least a few hundred bucks. When we bought a fridge from them a few months ago it was marked down from $1200 to $800 or something just for one tiny dent you can barely see, so for this massive dent there better be a good discount. Anyway, I did take a look inside to make sure nothing was broken and it all looks ok so we hooked it up and used it yesterday and it works great. My wife was shocked that it only took 5 minutes to preheat the oven, the old one took about 1/2 hour. And it looks so nice in our kitchen too. Now we just need to get a matching dishwasher and range hood, but those can wait for a while.

Kerr-Plunk

That was the sound I was hearing today as I was golfing with some guys from work. Last week when I went golfing, I didn't do that bad. I was actually hitting the ball well and not losing that many. Today, was a whole different story. I couldn't drive worth garbage and when I did, I ended up losing the ball. It would either go out of bounds into a black hole somewhere so I couldn't find it or it would go in the water. I don't know how many I lost. I even found two other balls and I lost those. I really need to get out on a driving range and practice. Maybe if I do that, it would be worth the driving range fee in the number of golf balls I wouldn't lose.

Quick Turnaround

Things are definitely going better today. I've been able to fix the bugs that got sent back to me and I've hopefully fixed a bug that I caused some two months ago. In addition, I am finally set up so I can fix the bugs in our new software so I can get into the new software as well. I'm hoping the rest of the day will continue to go well. I also got news that a good friend of mine is in town. Hopefully, if things get planned out correctly today, I'll be able to meet up with him.

High Has Become Low

Over the last week or so, things have come to a bit of a halt for me at work. Things haven't gone as well as they have for the last 4 months. For example, I'm getting bug fixes coming back to me from bugs that I have fixed. I'm getting bugs that are taking longer to fix, and I'm having trouble getting setup so I can move on to other kinds of bugs, bugs written in a language I actually understand. It has been extremely frustrating. No matter how much I try, things just don't seem to be going right at work right now. I really hope they pick up soon because I'm not sure how much more my mind can take with the stress happening at work.

You Want How Much For That?!?!?!?!?

When we were wondering around the pet store yesterday looking for a cat door, we walked down the aisle where they had a cat condo or two for sale. They wanted over a hundred dollars for these things that cats can climb on and sleep in. There were different levels and they were carpeted and everything. I guess I can't understand why you would pay so much for something that already exists in your house. I gotta tell you that our whole house feels like a cat condo everyday. Yes, the house was a very expensive cat condo, but at least we get to play in it, too.

Never Enough

About a year ago, we were selling things like crazy on Ebay. I guess that what you have to do when money runs short. We ended up selling quite a bit of stuff, but we eventually started running out of shipping boxes. It just seems like something you don't think about when you are selling something. We eventually got everything shipped, but I bet the person on the other end was wondering why they were getting things shipped to them in baby toys boxes and furniture boxes.

More Memory Needed

We need more ram in our desktop computer. When we bought it two years ago, it had all kinds of memory, at least for that day. As soon as we walked out of the store with it, it was out of date. Right now, sometimes it will just freeze up and the only way to fix it is to shut it down with the power button. One of these days, when we have about 400 or 500 extra dollars, I would like to go and create a great computer to allow us to have at least one powerful desktop computer in the house.

Pack It All In

I swear weekends always seem so long. We keep the Sabbath day holy so we don't do much on Sunday so that means if I got to do yardwork or we need to go shopping or whatever, we pack it all in on Saturday. For example, yesterday we started the day with trimming a vine in our backyard, then we went grocery shopping. While shopping, we had Walmart change the oil in our van. Once we were done shopping, we went to get the van back and they said they didn't do anything because the oil cap was missing. Apparently, the previous oil change at Walmart resulted in the employee not putting the oil cap back on. Turns out, the oil cap was still in the engine, it was right next to the battery. Don't know how long it has been there. If the current Walmart had looked around for about 5 seconds, they would have found it. But the oil change was long overdue so it needed to be done. So, after we got the van back, we drove home to drop off the groceries and then headed to Texas Roadhouse for lunch/dinner since we don't get to go out much. After dinner, I dropped the family back at home and then headed to Walmart to get the oil changed for real. While waiting, I wandered around Walmart for 45 minutes. They were nice about their mistake and knocked 10 dollars off the price of the oil change. Once that was done, I drove home to start my Saturday project. By the way, by the time the oil change was done, it was nearly 8 pm.

We had driven around after lunch to find a kitty door. Our kids get into the cat room occasionally and dump the cat food in the water and make a mess of the kitty litter. We figured enough money had been wasted so we went and found a kitty door so we can just shut and lock the door to the cat room and only the cats can get in there. Once we found a good cheap one, and the oil was changed, we started installing the door. It actually wasn't that bad. It was a little exhausting because I was using a manual cutting tool to cut the whole for the door. I haven't had much luck with power tools. Once the cat door was installed, the day was over. This was all done in one day.

Saturdays always seem so long. I have no idea how my wife survives during the week with each day being forever long. I do wish there were more Saturdays in the week and less things to do on those Saturdays.