Nov. 22nd, 2005|09:40 am: I was bored all day so I ended up picking up the kids from their after-school thing about 30 minutes earlier than normal. Speaking of that place, it’s pure madness there. A thousand wild kids running all over the place with only a handful of high school aged kids keeping an eye on them all and a few random adults scattered around. They were doing some kind of Thanksgiving feast and the kids really wanted to stay for that, but we had to wait for it to start so we sat down at a table and played dominoes for 30 minutes. Then went to the gym for the feast – turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, milk, pumpkin pie and a few other random things I couldn’t identify. So even if I’m going to be completely bored this Thanksgiving, at least I got a small thanksgiving feast!
Came home, did homework, ate, played video games/Legos. I think the thing I’ve missed most about having my kids for the past year and a half is not being able to do homework with them. Even though I had them on all the holidays, I never got to do any homework with them during all that time. It’s even more fun now than it used to be since Emily’s homework is getting more advanced. I’m going to be screwed once they get into high school and start surpassing my own knowledge.
I built a really cool Lego windmill. It towers about 4 times as high as the rest of the buildings in their Lego town and it spins on it’s own, powered by battery. I built an identical tower next to it with a shaft between the two which spins a bunch of random gears on the front of the 2nd tower while the windmill is running. I asked Payton if it was an okay Windmill. He responded, “Are you KIDDING?? This is the best windmill I’ve ever SEEN!”
Nov. 22nd, 2005|01:59 pm: I’m in a parade picture! I was scrolling through all of these pics, looking for the kids and I end up finding myself, walking alongside the float as I talk to Payton…
Hopefully zoomshare allows hotlinking, but probably not.
I got DSL yesterday and it rocks. 7mbps – my cable in Illinois was a mere 3mbps. Not that it really matters. I think once I hit 256kbps or so, I stop noticing much difference. But at least now I’m more likely to be able to talk on my Vonage line and download stuff from Bittorrent at the same time. It sure beats the approximate 20kbps I’ve been getting through my cell phone connection for the past 3 weeks.
I also moved everything from my laptop to the desktop computer, which is much faster. All this speed is crazy! It’s so nice to have my Launchcast back, especially since I don’t have a radio in the house, except for my clock radio.
Nov. 24th, 2005|09:31 am:
Convenience store girl: Looks like you’re getting a little pre-Thanksgiving snack!
Me: Actually this is the entire Thanksgiving feast here!
Convenience store girl: ….. Oh.
So far the appetizer (Nutter Butters and milk) is delicious!
Nov. 26th, 2005|08:29 pm: Went to see Harry Potter 4 this morning. The kids had already seen it but I hadn’t. Definitely the best one so far. Before the movie we went to Goodwill and got some kitchen stuff – a toaster, bowls, a lamp, some glasses, etc. I still need pots but they didn’t have any that I wanted. This afternoon we went to downtown Albany for a Christmas parade but since the Albany Visitors Association doesn’t bother updating the times in the brochures that you get from the visitors center, we missed it by 2 hours. But we got there in time for the Christmas tree lighting.
Lit candles, sang Christmas carols, lit the tree, walked around the mall for awhile, visited an art show, stopped by the Book Bin to pet the cats, went to a magic store, came home and played tons of Ratchet & Clank. We’ve all become addicted to that game again.
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| Before the Christmas tree lighting |
And it’s lit |
Weird electrical box sculptures |
Cat & kids |
In other news, my new camera phone sure seems to take really great pictures. Oh yeah, I finally finished that Mark Twain bio that I started over a month ago. And I started on War of the Worlds. Pretty amazing book, considering it was written in the late 1800’s.
Nov. 26th, 2005|09:02 pm:
Two things I seem to see a lot of in Albany so far, aside from rain and fog – dogs in the back of trucks and rampant CB use. There’s actually a place called “CB World” here. And so far I’ve seen two different trucks that have stickers in their back windows, displaying which CB channel they hang out on. To still be a CB enthusiast just seems…weird to me. Not that I have any room to talk about being weird. But the last time I saw a truck or car advertising the driver’s CB channel was in 1996 – when I lived in Albany.
And I think having your dog in the back of your truck is usually illegal, isn’t it? It must not be around here because I see a lot of it. In the picture above, it was freezing out and the dog was pacing the truck, it’d lay down for a second, then get up again and pace some more. I think it was just too cold to lay down. Poor guy.
