Winter?

Well sorts of... it's not really winter, it's the tail end of the holidays, New Years Eve. On a Thursday this year, so I got 3 full days before "winter" sets in.

And I ain't gonna think about that. It's a beautiful day, sunny, cold, stiff breeze out of the northwest. A typical Chicago winter day. I just finished clearing an inch of fresh snow off the driveways and sidewalk, and I'm sitting in the garage  typing and listening to the Monkees.

I'm liking my sound system and my new Camaro stools out in the "mancave" and I'm liking the heck out of keeping my truck warm inside. I just don't know why I've never done that before? There's really plabty of room, heck, People can get in and out both sides of the truck, no danger of whacking the Camaro with a door, even room to walk in front and behind it!

I think I need to go outside and take a few pics with my new camera. I'm gonna take it with tonight too, take lots of pics. Carol darling, thank you so much for getting me this new camera, I just love it. The old one was cool, but this one is soo light and sooo fast. It will focus in the dark, and rarely underexposes a shot. And the flash doesn't make redeye, ever.

Tonight we're going to Phil and Lorries. This has been a family tradition for a long long long time. It's probably the only real family tradition we have these days. We show up there early, and have what they call a "tempura party" I'm not sure what that means exaclty, but it involves a WOK, and a bunch of peanut oil, and various things that get dipped in batter and fried in the WOK.
Basically, it's a 4 hour or more "graze-fest." We just eat. Fried rice, egg rolls, chicken pork and shrimp, more than a half dozen doifferent veggies. There's over 20 of us, so we take turns around the WOK, grabbing a few of this and some more of that, munching a while, then moving off so someone else can have a turn, and then back again 15 or 30 minutes later to graze some more.

An adult man can eat an amazing amount of food when he spreads it over several hours of chewing.

OK, I'm mgonna go take some "winter pics" to post, finish this up, and then call Canada and see what's happening there... hmmm, Mark and Sandra are going to DanB's... they woulda left all ready, gonna hafta call a cel phone and say Hi. Then I'll find Danielle, haven't talked to "my girl" since she called on Christmas. Well damn, neither Mark nor Sandra has their cel's on. Well, you guys have fun with Dan and Valery, Dan, I'm sorry you're not talking to me anymore....

Here's some pics. It was 4:45, very much twilight. That 18-55 image stablized lens just gathered up what light there was and gave me some good pictures. They say you can't handhold slower than 1/30th, well these are from 1/20th to 1/12. solid as a rock, perfect focus, and perfect exposure.

It's a winter wonderland indeed.

Next week, it will get into real winter. 3 months of dark and cold. But for now, it's still the holidays, and I'm good with that. We're off shortly to spend a fun evening with the family, we don't do near enough of those anymore.

G'night all. Happy New Year!!

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twas the day after Christmas

and the whole world was vegging out, except me, who couldn't sit still on a bet.


I cleaned out the closet behind the laundry room.
I thought about cleaning the basement.
I snowblowed twice
I went out in the blizzard and paid for the new carpet we ordered, and bought Brian a new sled.

how bout some pictures?

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Margarita Jello Shots

Recipe:

1 3oz package lime jello
8 oz boiling water
3 oz tequila
1 oz triple sec
1/2 oz lime juice
2 ice cubes

Mix well, add booze, mix, add ice cubes, mix till melted, pour into shot glasses, refrigerate, put the toothpicks in after a couple hours in the fridge!

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Hey Cool!!!

I shoulda known...

The bottom disk in the Camaro's changer is...


The monkees Greatest Hits!!!

Cheer up sleepy Jean,
O what can it mean\
to a daydream believer
and a homecoming queen
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Seventeen... where else...

On A Place in the Sun, which was ,of course, in the Camaro's CD Magazine, where it had been since that summer of 2008 in Yellowstone.

Playing it now...

And then back to cleaning. Scubbing the mudroom floor, on my hands and knees, with a scrub brush and pine sol. Long overdue...

Seventeen, Don't it just fly by wild and free...
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is it Wednesday, or is it Friday?

Weird day...  Very Friday like, last workday of the week. I sold a system, those are few and far between this year. 28k if it makes it thru a 60 days trial with a money back gaurantee from the manufacturer, I'm just along for the ride.

We got the rest of our Christmas food shopping done, we're having beef tenderloin, ham, and JELLO SHOTS!!!  I even made the margarita ones. Tomorrow I'll do red ones with vodka.

Worked out in the shop for awhile. I set up my sound system, it's a logitech 3 way (2 speakers and a small subwoofer) which I can connect to my laptop. It sounds decent, not great but better than anything I've ever had in the shop before. So I'm busy ripping all my CD's onto the computer.

I wanna listen to the Monkeys, but I can't find it.

So I'm listening to Heart instead.  I like heart a lot. One of my favorite bands. Way way back, before kids, Carol and I saw Heart live at Alpine Valley, an outdoor concert, laying on a blanket under the stars while ann and Nancy flat rocked the entire state of Wisconsin.

I might have to send Danielle some Heart for her birthday. I think she'd like.

I'm trying to find Seventeen by Tim McGraw. 3 of his albums on this pc, and no seventeen. Last summer, Mark's girls got me onstage on Kareoke night, and we sang Seventeen together. First time in my life I've done Kareoke! It was fun, I wish someone had had a camera or video recorder, I woulda loved to keep that. Danielle picked the song, it was one of her favorites, we played it over and over when we went to Yellowstone a couple years ago. Hey cool, found the video. and the lyrics.

Backseat of her daddy's car
I was trying not to go too far
Kept thinking about the words the preacherman said
Lightnin' flashed across the sky
I saw love in a young girl's eyes
And that's a look you never forget

Seventeen only comes once in a lifetime
Don't it just fly by wild and free
Goin any way the wind blew, baby

Seventeen, livin on crazy dreams
Rock and roll and faded blue jeans
And standing on the edge of everything
Seventeen

Legs hangin' off the Bayou Bridge
Feedin' fish potato chips
And talkin' about the mysteries of the universe
Yeah, the world was somewhere else

We had the Summer all to ourselves
And the stars went off like fireworks

Seventeen only comes once in a lifetime
Don't it just fly by wild and free
Goin any way the wind blew, baby

Seventeen, livin on crazy dreams
Rock and roll and faded blue jeans
And standing on the edge of everything
Seventeen

Seventeen only comes once in a lifetime
Don't it just fly by wild and free
Goin any way the wind blew, baby

Seventeen, livin on crazy dreams
Rock and roll and faded blue jeans
And standing on the edge of everything
Seventeen

Damn, I  miss being Seventeen.
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Happy Tuesday!

Tough day, heck even tough couple days. Work is way busy, that would be a good thing. Lots of year end stuff coming to a head, lots of deals to get closed and on the books in 2009.
Maybe there is some "pentup demand"?

Between the websites, I am completely out of time. Team Camaro is being slowing driven down the highway to hell by autoforums, the mod team is on an uproar, the members are grumbling.
I'm trying to keep it together while most of the other mods are just stepping back and saying "the hell with it."

And all the while I just started a competing forum, and I'm need to work much harder than I have been over there.

And if I ever see another blue fade flash ad trying to pitch caddies, buicks, chevy equinox's and whatever... autoforum has stuck one on team camaro, and it takes forever to load and it's giving script errors and locking things up.

sorry. It's frustrating. Spent 2 hours on Team Camaro tonight. I'da rather been over on my new site, http://www.firstgens.com/ doing a lil posting then trying to learn how to customize phpBB to get the forum looking the way I want.
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My brain is all a buzz...

Been working on and around the new website almost all weekend, and my head is spinning and my brain cells are sore. I managed a successful database backup, followed immediately by a software upgrade.
I got the homepage looking pretty good.
I did a lot of searching and reading about a bunch of stuff related to working with phpBB3.

and my head is spinning round and round and round.

http://www.firstgens.com/
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Blogging...

every day is tough. Not cause I don't have much to say, I have lots to say, heck, that's part of the problem.
And certainly not cause I don't do much, I'm always doing something.
There just isn't any time, particularly during the week.

To any that actually read this, I'll try harder.

I just finished the "outside stuff." Wow, it's a gorgeous day. Mid thirty's, 2 inches of fresh snow. The snow came down wet, so it's on top of everything, all over the pine trees, the pool fence, well you was the pic I posted this morning, the yard looks nice.

So I relocated all that snow off the driveways and sidewalk. The big craftsman snowblower made quick work of it. Shovelled the deck and up around the hot tub, and even did the old test the water and add chemicals to the hot tub thing.
Just might try getting some live humans into the hot tub on Christmas. I really don't get it. At the old house, we had this tiny hot tub down under the deck, outside the basement doors. We were in it ALL THE TIME. 2 or 3 nights a week all winter long, put the kids to bed and duck out and have a relaxing dip in the hot tub. Even used to do crazy stuff like run out in the yard and make snow angels, then run quick back into the hot tub before freezing off various "parts unmentionable."

This hit tub is MUCH nicer. Bigger, better, not off the basement or under the deck, but off the back porch and open to the sky. Still plenty private. But we never use it anymore. :(

How about a "final thumb checkup"?

Yup, we'll call this a final. It's still kinda miss shapen, needs to grow back a few layers of skin here and there. But it's healed. I can use it again with no or little pain. Buttoning my jeans is no longer nearly impossible, and it will work my zipper again. While I'm left handed, there are certain things that just take a right hand to do. Like Pants.

Just so you remember where this started 2 months ago, here's the first public picture of "The THUMB!" taken October 10.

and of course, the culprit in all her ugly guilt

So, be careful with those things.

Adjust the blade height so it JUST pentrates the work.

Use a pushstick

Don't throw away the blade guard

Replace the blade every once in a while

The blade that cut me was nearly 20 years old, it took real work to push a piece of wood thru it. Ya, it still cut smooth, carbide tip blades always will, but it was old and badly needed replacement. The new blade cuts like a hot knife thru butter. The new blade would not have cut me.

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Happy Birthday...

... to ME!!!         Yes indeed, rolled another year under the drag radials yesterday, I am now 52 years young. For our birthday celebration, I came home from work to find the entire block bathed in total darkness! Yup, no power. Piled the family into my pickup as Carol's family truckster was trapped in the garage by the non-functional electric garage door opener and went out for a good steak.

When we moved to Yorkville, 8 years ago or so, it was a sleepy lil river town on the very edge of suburbia. We had a jewel foodstore, a couple gas stations, an ancient 50's style open air inside out outdoor shopping center that was 3/4 empty, and a couple biker bars.

We said "just wait" growth will come. Well, thanks to the recession a lot of that growth has been cancelled, delayed, or simply put on hold, but just prior, all the stores got here! Both a menards and a home depot, several walgreens drugstores (like starbucks, they build on every corner!) and SEVERAL really good resturants.

So we went to Stonebridge, our favorite local steakhouse, and I had a birthday fillt that was very worthy of a lil steakhouse in a tiny town 55 miles from lake michigan.

And went home to find the power still out.

So I brought in some wood and got a fire going, Carol lit some candles, and we settled back for an old fashioned evening. No TV, no computers, no videogames. Well sorta. Brian played nintendo DS. And I surfed Team Camaro on my phone.

I'd like that phone much better if I could see it. Worked fine last night with my walmart reading glasses on, makes that tiny screen read like a ten incher! But without the glasses, I see nothing but a blob. Oh well, I AM NOT OLD. I REFUSE TO BE OLD. At least I only have to wear the damned glasses to read. Still, it's annoying to not be able to see ANYTHING closer than 4 feet in front on my face.

So what was I talking about? Oh yea, birthday celebrations and power outages.

So after an hour waiting for electricity, we decided to go ahead with presents. I read the cards by candlelight with my walmart reading glasses, and found my main gift on the front porch, brought by the ups man while we were out to dinner!!! so, the birthday fairy brought me 2 seasons of "two and a half men" on DVD, 2 oairs of new jeans (Always need those!!) and.... drumrolls please... 2 nice GARAGE STOOLS!!

I'll finally have someplace to site when out in my "mancave." They are "some assembly required" but they are bar hieght, they swivel, they have short backs, and the seats say "Camaro by chevrolet"

Now I just need to setup some decent sound is the garage. It's time to experiment with a PC based sound system. I really like my bose upstairs in the sitting room, it has a hard drive and I can load all my music on it permanently and never touch a CD again. At $1300 though, kinda out of the question for the garage. So, something I can plug into my computer.

To close for now, here's a pic out my sitting room window this morning. We got 2" of snow overnight, and it's not real cold, so they stuff stuck to everything, looks very cool.

Later on, I'll do what will be the last "thumb update" but I don't feel like it right now.

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busy weekend time 4 bed...

Got to spend most of the day at Heritage Woods helping move my Mom to a different room. Big thanks to Carol for coming back with me and helpin g her get all her "stuff" put away and organized.

The new website http://www.firstgens.com/ is rolling along. Wish I could find it in me to make a nice banner page, but haven't yet.
Started photoshopping pictures for an event review on our trip to vegas for the street machine nationals.
Here, have a pic of the southsiders at Hooters, I'm going to bed.

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Happy Saturday!

Finally that 2000 mile back and forth week to Kentucky is over. Guess it serves me right for not doin it right the first time?
Though I saw nuttin wrong with the system the second visit... Warrantee board swap and I'm out and gone.

This is gonna be one busy busy weekend tho...
Clean the house
Trim the Christmas tree
Get the rock hard snow / ice off the driveways and sidewalk.
Make Christmas cookies.
and
Make a proper banner page for the new buliten board!

For those who haven't been there yet, come on out to http://www.firstgens.com/ and say hello. Join up, put up an  avatar (yes, they are allowed!) and post a picture of your Camaro or what ever (yes, direct attachments are allowed too, no more photobucket.)
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Back to my (cold!!!!) world.

Good morning all. I made it home from Kentucky last night, after a good 2 1/2 day roadtrip.

Colder than a wtiches you know what out there today, single digits and windy.
Trying hard to figure out what if anything I missed at the office, people are talking to me like I should know this stuff by osmosis or something, lol.
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Kentucky?

Well actually southern Ohio right now, found a place to bed down a lil east of Cincinatti.
So tomorrow I go to the local newspapers in Maysville KY to stupidvise an upgrade being done be another company, to some equipment that feeds into the stuff I take care of.

On this trip, I also get to do a maintenance call in elizebethtown, KY, and hopefully sign a maintenance contract with the Enquirer in Cincinati!

And I get to miss a promised good sized snowfall. It should be a productive trip.

The new website http://www.firstgens.com/ is up to a dozen members now, and over 50 posts.
I "think" that's pretty good for 4 days? Hopefully they keep coming back. I need a real homepage, and a bunch more content. Should be working on that now, but don't feel like it.
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Snow?

Good morning world, and welcome to another busy Monday!

It looks like I need to saddle up and head to Kentucky earlier than I planned, getting ready to go now.

We got a dusting, maybe an inch of snow overnight. More in store later today, but I'm ditching out and heading south.

More later.
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Happy Sunday all!!

And I gotta say I'm sad to see another weekend draw to a close...

We got our house clean, that's always nice to say it's done. Not a "full clean" job, but pretty good. I cleaned my garage too, Ron, my BIL, came over Saturday to do brakes on his company car, so I needed to clean and get rid of all the sawdust from all the woodworking.

Saturday afternoon I laid around and watched a couple Harry Potter movies on abc family channel. Had a hard time getting motivated, Carol was working, while I know she has to work some Saturday's, that doesn't mean I have to like it.

We got some Christmas shopping done! Quite a bit actually. Dan and Brian are about handled. And we shopped for Daneille and Shelby. I can't say too much, as they read this, but I think they'll be happy. It was really fun shopping for "my girls." Carol enjoyed it too. We must have gone into a dozen "girl clothes stores" and looked at hundred of cute lil "girl outfits." We went to many other stores too, and I ain't saying what we bought. But we had fun. If they lived closer, I'd spoil em rotten. If we were invited, I'd fly my family out there after christmas, and just have fun. Cause I love em. I was blessed with 3 wonderful sons, and I love them dearly and wouldn't trade any of them for anything, but I'da made a good father for a daughter or two. Instead, I have these 2. Shelby is tiny and cute as a button. She's outgoing, and has the cutest lil giggle you ever heard. Daneille is my best friend. She's sweet, and pretty, and caring. Harder to get to know than her sister, but oh so worth the effort. It's been 5 months since our last summer holiday. I've seen Mark twice and Sandra once since then, but I miss "my girls" bad.

I think I need to go shopping again. Mark and Sandra, you don't mind if I spoil em rotten, do you?
Danielle, call me sometime when you feel like talking...
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It's Friday!!!

And my new website is functional.
http://www.firstgens.com/ is on the air.
I'm not sure why, I suppose we can just say "why not"?
I need to work on the appearance, not at all happy with that, get some content going, and do something with the splash page, maybe I'll feel a lil creative this weekend.
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That's life...

I didn't think I had a lot to say tonight, but it turns out it's been a busy couple of days.

I missed yesterday because it was Hooters night. During the colder months, the Team Camaro South Side Gang get's together at Hooters in Orland Park, IL for Food & Fellowship. We also enjoy the Beer, Margaritas, and "girls in orange shorts" We had a good turnout, maybe 8? It was a fairly late night for a bunch of old guys during the week, and a good time was had by all!

On the way, I stopped to visit my Motorhome. She's sitting at Terry's RV in Frankfort after I backed into a very large front end loader while manuvering to a dump site to dump and flush my holding tanks. Front End Loaders are made of steel and iron, and are very strong and heavy. The rear cap on a motorhome is made of fiberglass, not reinforced at all. I tapped that thing at like 2 mph, stopped as soon as I head/felt it, and did this:

I got the estimate sheet from State Farm a few days ago, you're looking at ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! worth of damage!!! Yikes, thank goodness for insurance.

Today was great. for the past few years, I've been the "Field Trip Dad" for Brians class at Parkview Christian Academy. I always volunteer to chaperone, and to drive unless they rent a bus. Today we went to a local charity called "Feed the Hungry Children" and spent a couple hours packaging meels for hungry kids. Here's some of Brian's classmates in action.

So, I took Brian home and stayed home after school, and got bust with my projects. I'd been working on the wood trim in the basememnt apartment where my Mom used to live, and I got that all done today. All that's left to do is hang the byfolds over the laundry closet. I got the last coasts of poly on those, so I'll just throw em up tomorrow.

And out the window, we got this

Sorry itsa lil blurry, I was hand holding it, in the dark, shutter speed was a 3 and a half seconds, so I think I didn't do too bad keeping her still.

That my friends, is our first snow. :(

I guess it's winter.

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