Car repairs . . . . .

I’ve needed an alignment for awhile, so today I took it in to Firestone.  They can’t do the alignment as I have a broken front ball joint.  $270 to repair it.  I don’t have the money, so it’ll have to wait just a bit.  ■  I’ve got a drawing to work on tomorrow and maybe ship on Friday, or most likely on Monday.  ■ 

Smokin’ . . . !

Busy weekend this weekend.  Went out to eat on Friday night and listened to my boss’s acoustic act.  It was his birthday and his whole family flew in from out of town so surprise him.  And then Saturday night his wife threw him a large surprise party.  Both were a lot of fun.  ■  Today, Sunday, was a laid back type of day.  We lazed around and ended up watching a couple of movies on TV and finishing it off with ribs and onions on the grill.  You can see the grill slowly smoking the ribs in this picture.  By the way, the ribs were delicious.  Mmmmm.  Ate ‘em all.  Nothing left for tomorrow.  ■  I was supposed to clean up my office today, but it didn’t get done.  I’ll have to do it tomorrow.  Mañana.  ■ 

Rain–and we need it!

It’s raining right now.  Not hard, but I can hear the thunder.  We need rain.  Haven’t had a whole lot in April – and April showers bring May flowers . . . actually, if I remember correctly, we get the most amount of rain in June.  ■   Went to a seminar on social networking/marketing on the net yesterday.  Good seminar.  It didn’t answer all my questions, but I didn’t expect it to.  I came out of it with one quote -  "Marketing happens in real time.  Thus the rise of social media."  The first half of the quote from the instructor and the second half from my wife.  They seem to fit.  I did however open up a Twitter account and sent my first tweet.  Now I just need to 1) keep it up; 2) get some followers – @shrandahl – my Twitter name.  ■  Had our niece over for dinner tonight.  Good to see her.  Had steak and bang, bang shrimp.  Good meal.  ■  And I know you’re waiting for my weekly post that tells you I cut my grass.  Exciting stuff.  I did cut my grass today.  Enough said.  ■  I’ve got another drawing to start on.  Maybe tomorrow, or Friday.  ■  I’d like to write more, but it’s late.  ‘Night.

Busy is as busy does . . . . .

Life is busy for all of us these days.  Jobs, businesses, preparing taxes, commuting, work around the house . . . . it just keeps going.  ■  Did a 10lb ham on the grill tonight.  Yes, it’s delicious, but that’s too much for two people to eat.  We’ve got a lot of leftovers for the week.  ■  Talked with our son tonight.  He’s in a new apartment.  He says it’s not as large as his last one, but then the rent is lower also.  ■  I have a drawing to do tomorrow and get shipped to my daughter and son-in-law.  Got to get burning on that.  And then on Tuesday I’ve got a seminar in social networking – things like facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc.  ■  The picture in this post was taken through our family room window.  I thought I’d get our bushes blowing in the wind, but just got part of our neighbor’s house and the reflection of our TV.  ■  Much to do tomorrow and it is time for bed.  Adios and vaya con Dios. ■

. . . this is more later . . . . .

I found some pork chops at Jewel and smoked ‘em on the grill tonight.  They were pretty good.  ■  The dogs got 2 car rides today – one to UPS and the other to Jewel.  They’re thrilled to get car rides.  It’s one of their very favorite things.  ■  Tomorrow I work, then it’s back home to work on taxes.  Don’t we all love this time of the year!  ■  Ordered some new pickups for a Tele that I have.  The Telecaster (it’s a model of an electric guitar) has its stock pickups in and they’re not good.  It’s amazing what a change in pickups will do for a guitar.  And I’m thinking about relicing this Tele as I did with the last one.  Could be a fun project.  What I need is a quote, or saying that can be engraved on the bridge plate of the Tele.  The last one engraved in very small letters said, “Nosey little fucker, aren’t you?”  I’m not sure I can top that one.  I’ll have to start looking.  Any suggestions are appreciated.  The quote has to be short as there isn’t a lot of room on the bridge plate. ■  My mind is racing with all of the stuff that I have to get done quickly – taxes, web work for Kalo, a drawing for my daughter and son-in-law, etc.  ■   TFB.

As time marches on . . . . .

Still trying to find out costs for meds and still trying to get our flexible spending account unfrozen.  FSA – the insurer made a mistake in entering data – result of their error – they freeze our FSA.  Nice.  ■  Looks like the weekend may be rainy.  I’m glad I cut the lawn yesterday.  ■  And speaking of weekends, I think we’ve got a quiet one.  Lots to get done with a quiet weekend.  ■  Got to run.  More later.

It’s our flexible spending account. . . .

Not yours.  Now we’ve got some bullshit concerning our flexible spending account (medical – for those not in the know) with our dentist.  The overseer of the account says the dentist was paid twice – once by us and a 2nd time by the insurance company.  So now we can’t use our flexible spending acct credit card to pay for things medical.  Thus I can’t even reorder meds from the insurance company unit the $186 is paid.  No meds – fill in the blanks – no high blood pressure meds, no meds for gout prevention – . . . . .  

Doctors . . . . .

Visited a doctor this week – he prescribed a drug that I was charged $186.00 for.  Another one of my docs prescribed a med that costs me $2500 a year for.  Because I didn’t have the $186 payment, the insurance drug supplied, I couldn’t even access their system to see what I needed to order until the $186 was paid.  We have a $2000 insurance fund – that we can’t access, or use because one of our other doctors charged us twice and that has to be solved before we can use the card again.   I’m out of money.  Adios.

Busy weekend . . . . .

Worked Saturday, cut the grass for the first time (and the earliest time in the year that I’ve ever had to cut it!), then went out to a local watering establishment to hear our old bass player’s new band and to see old friends that we hadn’t seen in awhile.  It was a fun time.  We had to leave earlier than we wanted to as we were hosting our cribbage group the next day.  ■  Sunday didn’t turn out to be the nice, warm day they had originally forecasted.  Bummer.  It would have been nice to sit out on the patio.  ■  The picture to the left is of the lights on the trees next to our patio.  ■  A little guitar playing and then time for bed.  ‘Night.

Took this picture of Abby . . .

Pretty neat picture of Abby.  Just look at her.  ■  Off to work today at 3:30, but probably home early.  It’s spring break and a lot of the lessons are cancelled for this week.  Hurts the income.  ■  Going out to see our old bass player’s new band this Saturday.  Trying to get a few more people to come with us.  ■   This switching health insurance is more than a pain.  It’s hard to figure out what is what with medications.  ■  Appointment with doctor yesterday was fine – although a strange start to it.  When I arrived at the doctor’s office all the lights were out; there was no furniture in the waiting area – that was all stacked up outside the office in the hallway.  I called the doc’s main number and asked if they had moved, or closed their Fox River Grove office.  No, they hadn’t.  Apparently they had the entire office repainted; the painters had moved the furniture out, but no one had been there to move it back inside and set it up.  ■  Back to figuring out my meds situation.

Cool and then warm again . . .

The weather was cool yesterday (Monday), but it warmed up this afternoon. ■  The grass is growing already.  I’ll probably cut it tomorrow, or Thursday.  I don’t believe I’ve ever cut my grass this early in the year.  ■  The painting on the right was included in the email I send out to our chamber networking group.  We normally meet Wednesday mornings, but we’ve cancelled the meeting for this week – so all the members can sleep in a bit.  ■  Doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon.  We’ll see what he says about my health.  At least I feel good.  ■  We’re hosting our cribbage group this Sunday.  Good thing Holly told me ‘cause I was thinking of doing a blues, booze, and bbq on Sunday.  That’ll have to be postponed to another Sunday.  ■  I’ve been messing around, a little more seriously, with DADGAD tuning on guitar.  It’s a very Celtic sounding tuning and opens up many possibilities in playing and composing songs.  ■  I’ve also been practicing my square-neck dobro playing.  That’s an entirely different instrument.  More on that in the future.  ■

Record temperatures . . . . .

I took this screen capture off my iphone on Tuesday, 03/20/2012.  This is just for documentation purposes – we’ve been having record high temps in March.  Heck, we’ve hardly had a winter at all.  The weather is wacky!  ■  This weekend is our daughter’s baby shower.  It should be fun for all involved.  Not me ‘cause I get to stay home, which is good.  ■  Took my first square neck dobro lesson today.  What’s a dobro?  Easier for you to look it up.  There are square neck dobros and round neck dobros.  Check out this youtube video to hear how beautiful it sounds:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjGcIhxGP3c&feature=related

Time for bed.  Got a cardiologist appointment tomorrow morning.  ■  ‘Night.

Legs, doctors, work, . . .

Took Holly to the doctor today.  The kneeling she did on the floor making curtains for the new baby (not here yet) came back to bite her badly. Her right leg/knee is giving her severe pain.   After an office visit we headed off to the hospital for x-rays and then to Osco for meds.  It seems the meds started to help, but then something happened and she it put her back a couple of steps.  She’s got ice on it now and we’ll see how she does tomorrow.  I doubt she’ll be able to go to work.  She can hardly walk and she does a lot of walking at work.  The building complex she’s in is huge.  ■  Took the dogs to the bank with me today along with another Abby & Zoe thank you card.  It’s hard keeping up trying to give the tellers a new card each time I make a deposit.  ■  TFB.  ‘Night.

End of another weekend . . .

. . . and on to the start of another week.  ■  Quiet weekend this one.  Worked Saturday then did steak on the grill Saturday night.  Holly had gone to Green Bay to see her mother, so it was just the girls and I.  I had planned to do steak on the grill and bang, bang shrimp on Sunday, but we just weren’t hungry enough for both.  So we just had bang, bang shrimp.  Excellent.  ■  I’ve got two doctor’s appointments this week.  O’ joy.  ■  Our son is back in San Diego as of Saturday.  They ended up not needing him to deploy to the middle east.  ■  The pic is of an old guitar I have – a Goya (Korean Martin) and an old Laney AOR 30 amp.  The guitar is one of my favorites.  The way the bridge is set negates the guitar from ever intonating accurately.   The G and the B strings are always a little out.  Frustrating, but for noodling around and song writing it’s perfect.  The Laney amp was built in the 80s.  It’s a very warm tube amp – probably my favorite, but it’s really not gigable as the handle is not secure (not that that couldn’t be fixed), but it’s also heavy.  ■  Worked on a couple of new Abby & Zoe cards.  Those are the cards I give to our driveup bank tellers when we go to the bank – with the dogs, of course.  ■

Too tired . . . .

. . .  to do a longer post.  ■  Worked today. ■ Went to Sam’s Club for stuff.  ■  Steak on the grill again tonight.  ■  Sleep med is kicking my a$$;.  Night.