Gearing up for a working road trip. Wish I could bring the camaro, but need to haul stuff. Wish I could use the motorhome, but my first 2 clients are picking up the hotel rooms. Oh well, it's not quite camaro or motorhome season in north freeking dakota anyway.
So I leave tomorrow morning for a 12 hours drive to jamestown north dakota.
Monday morning working at the daily newspaper there recalibrating systems to use my film, then on to Dickinson, where I'll do the same routine Tuesday morning.
"Business" in Fargo Tuesday evening if time permits, and then heading back east. "On the way home" I have a stop in Onalaska, WI and Plateville, WI both to buy some surpluss equipment I need, and then a real stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to set up my film at the Adidas Tee Shirt factory.
And then finally home. I'm thinking I'll run out of time, and will end up spending the night somewhere near cedar rapids, and not get home till late thursday.
The changes in my business due to this economy are weird. Where I used to do a lot of service, including highly profitable service contracts, along with a lot of reconditioned equipment sales, nobody is buying anything, and a lot of maintenance is being "deferred" and of course practically nobody is buying service contracts!
So, I'm selling service contracts to newspapers, who pretty much have to have them, and going further and wider to do this. Heck, I'm currently quoting service to newspapers in south carolina, new orleans, and washingtom state!!!
And the other growth area is consumables. Lots of growth there, but the margins are only 10-15%. you gotta sell a LOT of consumables to make any money...
Oh well, lucky to still have a decent gig these days.
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Saturday, February 27, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Hacked by Dr Bl@ckdeath!!!!
What a day from hell!
I loggged into firstgens.com this morning to be greeted by a black screen, a skull and crossbones, and the message "you've been hacked by Dr. bl@ckdeath!!"
Damn... So I spent an hour this morning fixing rogue index.html files and figured, ok, that wasn't so bad...
Then my BIL Ron called from the office. "Jim, all our websites are down, hacked by Dr Bl@ckjack"
Oh shit, this isn't good.
About the time I got to work, our service providers site was down too.
So Ron get's to work sorting out all our business sites the same way I fixed firstgens, and I go on about my workday. Get back in the office about 2, and find all the sites are going to hell again, and I got an email response from the service provider saying "the server is toast, we gotta reformat and reload it." All of the sites on that server were down, not just us.
So, about the time it's taken me to type this ago, our site finally came back from the death.
Thanks to Marty and anyone else at TLC Web Enterpises for your hard work recovering from this catastrophe.
BOOO to the same guys for lackluster security and not having redundant servers.
I'll be looking for a new hosting situation, 16 hours of downtime in not acceptable.
But we're back up.
All we've lost is anything posted between maybe 2 am and 7 am, central us time.
And of course all of February 26, 2010.
Welcome back, i'm goin to bed.
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I loggged into firstgens.com this morning to be greeted by a black screen, a skull and crossbones, and the message "you've been hacked by Dr. bl@ckdeath!!"
Damn... So I spent an hour this morning fixing rogue index.html files and figured, ok, that wasn't so bad...
Then my BIL Ron called from the office. "Jim, all our websites are down, hacked by Dr Bl@ckjack"
Oh shit, this isn't good.
About the time I got to work, our service providers site was down too.
So Ron get's to work sorting out all our business sites the same way I fixed firstgens, and I go on about my workday. Get back in the office about 2, and find all the sites are going to hell again, and I got an email response from the service provider saying "the server is toast, we gotta reformat and reload it." All of the sites on that server were down, not just us.
So, about the time it's taken me to type this ago, our site finally came back from the death.
Thanks to Marty and anyone else at TLC Web Enterpises for your hard work recovering from this catastrophe.
BOOO to the same guys for lackluster security and not having redundant servers.
I'll be looking for a new hosting situation, 16 hours of downtime in not acceptable.
But we're back up.
All we've lost is anything posted between maybe 2 am and 7 am, central us time.
And of course all of February 26, 2010.
Welcome back, i'm goin to bed.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
last few days?
Saturday night pizza night with the firstgens.com south side gang was big fun. Good pizza, good margaritas, good company. Carol had a good time too.
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Sunday I was in computer hell with forum stuff. I installed the jsubsilver template that we must use with joomla, and then got to putting our current mods into it. That all worked, then I started working on a mod to resize image attachments. This one was a biggie, but I finally got it working on our standard theme. Jsubsiler though, was and still is "blown up."
And then I find my new mod resizes pics when they are viewed, not when they are uploaded! What on earth is the point of that?
So sometime this week, I need to fix jsubsiler, and try a different picture resize mod that I found.
Yesterday was just your basic Monday. Went into the city trying to close a deal with these guys I been talking to since November, and the best I could get was "we'll have a decision for you in 2 weeks. Shit. Third time I've driven down there, almost no longer worth doing. I did visit a couple regulars, so that's always good.
So now it's Tuesday, and about time to go up and exercise.
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Saturday, February 20, 2010
so I forgot to take any breaks...
Twas a good day in the ole garage tho.
nuttin like the smell of gearlube on a saturday afternoon.
Looks like it's junk 2, Jim 1.
The trailblazer has a trashed front diff, due to all the oil leaking out cause the drain plug wasn't tight. This is not Jiffy Lube's fault, I asked them.
I was gonna fire up the Camaro just because, but no. Battery is kinda flat. Damned computer draws enough to take it down in 6 weeks or so, and she's been sleeping longer than that.
I did however get the lawn tractor fired up, and managed to get the lil trailer over to the woodpile in the backyard and bring a half load up to the rack on the deck, so we got fires for the rest of this season.
Mid forties in Chicagoland today. First day I've spent in the garage getting dirty in a long time, enjoyed it muchly.
Don't forget the firstgens south siders family pizza night in woodridge tonight, 7pm, be there or be square!!
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nuttin like the smell of gearlube on a saturday afternoon.
Looks like it's junk 2, Jim 1.
The trailblazer has a trashed front diff, due to all the oil leaking out cause the drain plug wasn't tight. This is not Jiffy Lube's fault, I asked them.
I was gonna fire up the Camaro just because, but no. Battery is kinda flat. Damned computer draws enough to take it down in 6 weeks or so, and she's been sleeping longer than that.
I did however get the lawn tractor fired up, and managed to get the lil trailer over to the woodpile in the backyard and bring a half load up to the rack on the deck, so we got fires for the rest of this season.
Mid forties in Chicagoland today. First day I've spent in the garage getting dirty in a long time, enjoyed it muchly.
Don't forget the firstgens south siders family pizza night in woodridge tonight, 7pm, be there or be square!!
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Rockin Hard today!!!
G'mornin everyone, and how the heck are ya?
I'm GreaaaaT! to quote Tony the Tiger.
As I said yesterday on facebook, I had a really good (read profitable) week at work, kinda nice for a change
Got up at six to bring Brian to a scout ski trip at 7, so it was an early start to get the ole blood moving.
Did my excercise bike thing, 1.81 miles in 30 minutes today, without hardly breaking a sweat or feeling tired. Situps of course. Scale was not nice, but it's temporary I'm sure, was that red robin burger and onion rings last night, it will pass.
So today it's into the garage. I'll bring the webcam with, check in on me if you like, it's http://www.jimragtop.com:12000/ the user id is team, password is camaro On tap for today is Carol's Trailblazer. The front brakes are down to metal, so I got new rotors and ceramic pads to put on. While in there, I need to check out the front diff. About a month ago, she kicked into automatic four wheel drive, made an awful noise, and since has preferred to remain stationary if the 4wd was engaged. This is accompanied by odd noises and some "jumping up and down." Abnormal stuff. So I'm gonna take a look and see what I see and hear.
On breaks, I'm gonna be putting in a new content management system for firstgens.com. I'm real excited about this, as well as the challenge of doing something I never done before.
So I got 2 "something I never done before's" lined up today. One with wrenches, one with a keyboard. Samo samo to me, that's the shit that gives me a real rush. No wonder I feel good.
For those of my friends and family that haven't figured this out yet, my comfort zone is OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE! That's where I thrive. That's where cool stuff happens.
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I'm GreaaaaT! to quote Tony the Tiger.
As I said yesterday on facebook, I had a really good (read profitable) week at work, kinda nice for a change
Got up at six to bring Brian to a scout ski trip at 7, so it was an early start to get the ole blood moving.
Did my excercise bike thing, 1.81 miles in 30 minutes today, without hardly breaking a sweat or feeling tired. Situps of course. Scale was not nice, but it's temporary I'm sure, was that red robin burger and onion rings last night, it will pass.
So today it's into the garage. I'll bring the webcam with, check in on me if you like, it's http://www.jimragtop.com:12000/ the user id is team, password is camaro On tap for today is Carol's Trailblazer. The front brakes are down to metal, so I got new rotors and ceramic pads to put on. While in there, I need to check out the front diff. About a month ago, she kicked into automatic four wheel drive, made an awful noise, and since has preferred to remain stationary if the 4wd was engaged. This is accompanied by odd noises and some "jumping up and down." Abnormal stuff. So I'm gonna take a look and see what I see and hear.
On breaks, I'm gonna be putting in a new content management system for firstgens.com. I'm real excited about this, as well as the challenge of doing something I never done before.
So I got 2 "something I never done before's" lined up today. One with wrenches, one with a keyboard. Samo samo to me, that's the shit that gives me a real rush. No wonder I feel good.
For those of my friends and family that haven't figured this out yet, my comfort zone is OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE! That's where I thrive. That's where cool stuff happens.
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
gonna be another short blog post
cause it's 10:20 and I'm tired. Today was "smiley day" on http://www.firstgens.com/
I added a bunch of new smileys and the guys are having fun with em.
Work was good today, the mailman was nice, and we were able to get some bills paid.
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I added a bunch of new smileys and the guys are having fun with em.
Work was good today, the mailman was nice, and we were able to get some bills paid.
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Monday, February 15, 2010
happy monday!
I guess. Still having some add moments. busy busy at work. Found Carol the new dishes she wanted. Did some reading on how to fix the 4 wheel drive on the trailblazer. going to bed now.
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Sunday, February 14, 2010
having an ADD kinda day.
I think it's the exercise. I did my now usual 30 minutes on the eliptical, a full 3/4 mile today, continuing to get faster, followed by 25 situps. Scale rewarded me with a 197 this morning.
It's only 6 pounds, but I'm seeing and feeling the difference. Maybe it's moving around? The tummy don't stick out as far. My jeans are looser. Not so much at the waist, but the thighs are like I'm wearing a gunny sack, just all flopping around.
When I look down, I can see my zipper!
Anyway, I've been just going like the energizer bunny all day long. Working on this, cleaning that, boing boing boing, bouncing from one lil project to another. Fixed the blown breaker in the top oven, while I was in there I scrubbed down the inside of the door. Cleaned out an old dresser. Carol is cleaning all of Jake's clothes, he expects to "move" this week, and will need clothes that are not orange. She'd layed all the stuff folded neetly on my sitting room floor, I put em in that dresser.
I got out the 409 and windex refills and refilled all the windex and 409 sprayers!
Now that's ADD if I ever saw it. Now nobody does that.
I need to make a list, gotta go shopping, need to buy stuff. New dishes that all match, old ones are 2 styles, and keep getting lost, probably under Dann's bed. Need new ones. Needem now. Need a kitchen sized garbage can for the laundry room, with the new canned cat food, it's just getting too damned messy up there for the little waitcan to handle it. Need to get Carol's car cleaned, it's a pigsty. Off to the carwash, cleaner up inside and out, gotta do it now, gotta run run run run, see ya all later!
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It's only 6 pounds, but I'm seeing and feeling the difference. Maybe it's moving around? The tummy don't stick out as far. My jeans are looser. Not so much at the waist, but the thighs are like I'm wearing a gunny sack, just all flopping around.
When I look down, I can see my zipper!
Anyway, I've been just going like the energizer bunny all day long. Working on this, cleaning that, boing boing boing, bouncing from one lil project to another. Fixed the blown breaker in the top oven, while I was in there I scrubbed down the inside of the door. Cleaned out an old dresser. Carol is cleaning all of Jake's clothes, he expects to "move" this week, and will need clothes that are not orange. She'd layed all the stuff folded neetly on my sitting room floor, I put em in that dresser.
I got out the 409 and windex refills and refilled all the windex and 409 sprayers!
Now that's ADD if I ever saw it. Now nobody does that.
I need to make a list, gotta go shopping, need to buy stuff. New dishes that all match, old ones are 2 styles, and keep getting lost, probably under Dann's bed. Need new ones. Needem now. Need a kitchen sized garbage can for the laundry room, with the new canned cat food, it's just getting too damned messy up there for the little waitcan to handle it. Need to get Carol's car cleaned, it's a pigsty. Off to the carwash, cleaner up inside and out, gotta do it now, gotta run run run run, see ya all later!
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Saturday, February 13, 2010
phpbb mods?
What a bunch of crap. 5 hours total, and it still doesn't show any text when you hover your mouse over a thread name...
but Carol and I got our house all nice and clean today.
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but Carol and I got our house all nice and clean today.
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It's especially hard this Saturday
Not that, get your mind out of the gutter!
Excercising is especially hard to do on Saturday. I've been good all week, 30 minutes on the elyptical (1.7 miles today, getting faster) followed by situps (now up to 25 yesterday and today) every day.
The scale is being good to me. 198 yeserday AM, 199 last night, 198 again this morning. So that's down from 203, in a week on the bike.
I tried and failed at putting a mod on http://www.firstgens.com/. It was supposed to show the first couple lines of a post when you put your cursor over it. Showed an error message instead...lol. Back to the drawing board. Later. It's Saturday, and I have things to do that don't involve sitting on my ass with a laptop on my lap.
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Excercising is especially hard to do on Saturday. I've been good all week, 30 minutes on the elyptical (1.7 miles today, getting faster) followed by situps (now up to 25 yesterday and today) every day.
The scale is being good to me. 198 yeserday AM, 199 last night, 198 again this morning. So that's down from 203, in a week on the bike.
I tried and failed at putting a mod on http://www.firstgens.com/. It was supposed to show the first couple lines of a post when you put your cursor over it. Showed an error message instead...lol. Back to the drawing board. Later. It's Saturday, and I have things to do that don't involve sitting on my ass with a laptop on my lap.
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Wednesday, February 10, 2010
feels like half the day is gone
all read and it's only 9:15am!
Day start when an earthquake woke me up at 4:30 AM. Kinda an unusual occurance here in the Chicago Area.... Whole house went bump bada bump. I looked out the window to make sure the house hadn't been clipped by an errant snowplow, then went back to sleep.
6 am, up and into the coffee. Checked my forums, then headed to the exercise machine. Did 1.64 miles in 30 minutes today, and then my 20 situps. Watched another episode os Northern Exposure. Weighed in at 199 again. That's good, 2 days in a row is very unusual.
And then it was outside to move six inches of yesterdays snow from 2 driveways and 550 feet of sidewalk. And finally off to work. So you see what I mean about it feeling like half the day is gone.
Tonight is open house at Route 66 Motorsports, details at http://www.firstgens.com/
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Day start when an earthquake woke me up at 4:30 AM. Kinda an unusual occurance here in the Chicago Area.... Whole house went bump bada bump. I looked out the window to make sure the house hadn't been clipped by an errant snowplow, then went back to sleep.
6 am, up and into the coffee. Checked my forums, then headed to the exercise machine. Did 1.64 miles in 30 minutes today, and then my 20 situps. Watched another episode os Northern Exposure. Weighed in at 199 again. That's good, 2 days in a row is very unusual.
And then it was outside to move six inches of yesterdays snow from 2 driveways and 550 feet of sidewalk. And finally off to work. So you see what I mean about it feeling like half the day is gone.
Tonight is open house at Route 66 Motorsports, details at http://www.firstgens.com/
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010
and more exercise, and lotsa stuff
This morning I did good. 20 minutes on the machine followed by a solid 20 situps. I worked up a pretty good lather...lol. Morning scale said 199. I generally vary a lot from day to day, as well as morning to night, but 199 is good, lowest I've seen if not by much.
I figured out a breakthrough with the new site software tonight. If it survives "Jan the volunteer programmer's" scrutiny, maybe we can get the new joomla CMS online, and get some SEO happening and generate some hits. (CMS=content management system, and SEO is search engine optimization) The cms will let us add some cool content, a better look, and generate some keywords and meta descriptions that will get us the attention of google and yahoo.
It snowed today. It might still be snowing. I needed to fix the chute on the snowblower, more snow was coming out the back than the front. Got that done too. Also hung up a new electric can opener in the kitchen. Rrock on, another busy day.
I don't remember if I blogged about gatting dates set for our vacation this summer, I think I did. I found 3 campgrounds around Jackson, WY. All full hookups, similar amenties, varied pricing and location.
#1 is cheapest at $37 per night. Looks like a very nice place, but it's over the mountain in Idaho.
#2 is in central Jackson. Basically an rv resort in the back of a hotel parking lot. $70 bucks a night, but location location location.
#3 is culter bay, up north in Grand Teton national park. $55 a night, right up next to the mountains. no pool, but a lake with really cold water. a nice place but I wouldn't stay there all week., maybe split with Idaho?
And finally, a lil bad news. Last week, I got dumped. Ya, really. The last few times I called, she was kinda brief with me, passing the phone off to someone else like it was a hot potato. One day last week, I asked her why she never wants to talk to me anymore... and she tells me "well, I'm a middle schooler now." Yup, dumped.
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I figured out a breakthrough with the new site software tonight. If it survives "Jan the volunteer programmer's" scrutiny, maybe we can get the new joomla CMS online, and get some SEO happening and generate some hits. (CMS=content management system, and SEO is search engine optimization) The cms will let us add some cool content, a better look, and generate some keywords and meta descriptions that will get us the attention of google and yahoo.
It snowed today. It might still be snowing. I needed to fix the chute on the snowblower, more snow was coming out the back than the front. Got that done too. Also hung up a new electric can opener in the kitchen. Rrock on, another busy day.
I don't remember if I blogged about gatting dates set for our vacation this summer, I think I did. I found 3 campgrounds around Jackson, WY. All full hookups, similar amenties, varied pricing and location.
#1 is cheapest at $37 per night. Looks like a very nice place, but it's over the mountain in Idaho.
#2 is in central Jackson. Basically an rv resort in the back of a hotel parking lot. $70 bucks a night, but location location location.
#3 is culter bay, up north in Grand Teton national park. $55 a night, right up next to the mountains. no pool, but a lake with really cold water. a nice place but I wouldn't stay there all week., maybe split with Idaho?
And finally, a lil bad news. Last week, I got dumped. Ya, really. The last few times I called, she was kinda brief with me, passing the phone off to someone else like it was a hot potato. One day last week, I asked her why she never wants to talk to me anymore... and she tells me "well, I'm a middle schooler now." Yup, dumped.
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Monday, February 8, 2010
exercise?
So, I'm sitting here watching a dvd of the fifth season of Northern Exposure, while looking at the exercise machine.
Northern Exposure is a very quirky hourlong comedy that was pretty popular 15 or so years ago. It's set in an imaginary small town somewhere in the backwoods of Alaska. I love Alaska, someday I'll go there!
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Northern Exposure is a very quirky hourlong comedy that was pretty popular 15 or so years ago. It's set in an imaginary small town somewhere in the backwoods of Alaska. I love Alaska, someday I'll go there!
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Sunday, February 7, 2010
I want my body back!
And this eating like a rabbit isn't doing it by itself.
Today I did 30 hard minutes on the elyptical, followed by 10 minutes in the hot tub, followed by lousy 18 situps. I'm gonna do thisz twice a day until I look like this again
and I really need to use a different editor, cause this basic blogger one is less than worthless. I also need to work up some keywords and metadescriptions and stuff. Heck, the blog I started and abandoned on wordpress gets more hits than this one does!
I talked to Mark last night, and we have dates for our summer vacation!! Yeah!!!! We'll be meeting up in Jackson, Wyoming for 6 days of fun beginning July 17. and before we meet with them, I'll actually be taking my family to see Denver!
Well, time to go finish painting the kitchen in the lower level apartment.
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Today I did 30 hard minutes on the elyptical, followed by 10 minutes in the hot tub, followed by lousy 18 situps. I'm gonna do thisz twice a day until I look like this again
I talked to Mark last night, and we have dates for our summer vacation!! Yeah!!!! We'll be meeting up in Jackson, Wyoming for 6 days of fun beginning July 17. and before we meet with them, I'll actually be taking my family to see Denver!
Well, time to go finish painting the kitchen in the lower level apartment.
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Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Traveling
Travel week for me. Went to partay with the south siders at Hooters, then rolling down the highway.
Found a nest for the night at the motel 6 in Lafayette (we'll leave the light on for ya!)
Tomorrow I see a customer in Maysville Kentucky, Friday it's Erlanger Kentucky then Cincinatti Ohio, then back home.
G'night all. It's late and I'm tired.
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Found a nest for the night at the motel 6 in Lafayette (we'll leave the light on for ya!)
Tomorrow I see a customer in Maysville Kentucky, Friday it's Erlanger Kentucky then Cincinatti Ohio, then back home.
G'night all. It's late and I'm tired.
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
a hole week?
ya, I guess... Who's gonna read this if I don't write it?
Need to find time. I got 3 minutes, then brush my teeth and get in bed and watch two and a half men.
A day...
up at 6.
no time to read the paper. coffee and computer. check the forums, type a few posts, answer some pm's. Today I downloaded some software Jan needs for the new site and ftp'd it onto the server.
6:30 15 minutes on theexcercise thingy.
6:45 SSS and dreww for success...lol.
7:30 off to work.
work work work. 3 hours answering emails, doing quotes, wading thru my todo list.
11:00 filing. Been trying to stow away all the old personal stuff, and move the live personal files into my office rather than out in the public main office.
"counted my beans" part of this is putting data into my spreadsheet on our investments, so I can stow all the old statements away.
1:30 lunch... finally, also stopped by Carol's studio to pick up her rent check.
Rest of the afternoon, more emails, more quotes, more phone calls. I swore I was gonna get out from behind this desk and work in the shop, never happened.
3:00 paid some personel bills, then off to the bank
4:00 started on a new pc for our office manager, didn't get far, need a dvd drive...
5:30 went home
5:45 did the dishes
6:00 ate
6:30 did the dishes again
6:45 went out and voted in the primary, went by the old folks home and visited with my mom for a hlaf hour.
7:45 watched the last 15 minutes of american idol
8:00 on the computer. Check and post on firstgens. post a couple times on TC just to keep my name out there. Search out some cool addons for the new site. Go thru all the forums on firstgens and make sure quick reply is enabled.
10:15 typed this blog.
10:35 off to bed, g'night.
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Need to find time. I got 3 minutes, then brush my teeth and get in bed and watch two and a half men.
A day...
up at 6.
no time to read the paper. coffee and computer. check the forums, type a few posts, answer some pm's. Today I downloaded some software Jan needs for the new site and ftp'd it onto the server.
6:30 15 minutes on theexcercise thingy.
6:45 SSS and dreww for success...lol.
7:30 off to work.
work work work. 3 hours answering emails, doing quotes, wading thru my todo list.
11:00 filing. Been trying to stow away all the old personal stuff, and move the live personal files into my office rather than out in the public main office.
"counted my beans" part of this is putting data into my spreadsheet on our investments, so I can stow all the old statements away.
1:30 lunch... finally, also stopped by Carol's studio to pick up her rent check.
Rest of the afternoon, more emails, more quotes, more phone calls. I swore I was gonna get out from behind this desk and work in the shop, never happened.
3:00 paid some personel bills, then off to the bank
4:00 started on a new pc for our office manager, didn't get far, need a dvd drive...
5:30 went home
5:45 did the dishes
6:00 ate
6:30 did the dishes again
6:45 went out and voted in the primary, went by the old folks home and visited with my mom for a hlaf hour.
7:45 watched the last 15 minutes of american idol
8:00 on the computer. Check and post on firstgens. post a couple times on TC just to keep my name out there. Search out some cool addons for the new site. Go thru all the forums on firstgens and make sure quick reply is enabled.
10:15 typed this blog.
10:35 off to bed, g'night.
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