Masthead (39k image)
Monday, May 29th

just hello

Bernie
05.29.06 @ 12:15 PM CST

Sorry to hear about Mabel. I hope she is doing much better. Dad and I have had a very productive weekend. He had ordered 20 yards of mulch and then moved most of it around all by himself. The yard is looking awesome. He also borrowed one of those yard machines that is like a little bulldozer and was having a blast playing with it. Besides being fun to manipulate, it greatly reduced the number of wheelbarrow loads moved by hand & back.
I am off to a conference on Tuesday in OC. It looks like we might have a couple of days of decent weather this year. Usually it rains and is very windy during this week. I am hoping for good weather for next weekend because we have a picnic scheduled in our yard with friends from the office. In-door picnics just aren't as much fun.

Tuesday, May 23rd

disappointing ventures

Nicole
05.23.06 @ 12:37 PM CST
listening to: blues (at work)
feeling: my neck hurts

So I designed some presentation boards for a project that I did some 3d drawings for and today we had to have them reproduced in black and white and they came out terrible! I mean the color versions are awesome but the greys were all streaky. The ones we printed here (at work) were much cleaner. Anyway, the company that ran the prints is going to lower the fees, since they can't reprint them at a better quailty. But it is still dissapointing sad

Monday, May 22nd

Emergency Room

Jocelyn
05.22.06 @ 12:41 PM CST

We had to go to the animal emergency room last night. Saturday night Mabel got into some chocolate. Some Guerdelli chocolate squares. (spelled incorrectly, but I hope you get the point) About 5 wrappers were found. Sunday morning she was extremely wired and bounced off the walls. We kept her calm all day, and from her getting sick, I found at least 10 more wrappers. We all thought she was fine, alittle rambunxious but fine.

I let her out around 11:30 last night, she got sick and came in to take a nap. It was time for bed and Jon noticed that the white of her eye was swollen. It was gross and I will not go into detail.

We brought her in to the emergency room, which took forever, Mabel's eye is now better, and she was sent home with basically antacids and anti vomit medicine. She is on close watch today.

 

blogs

Nicole
05.22.06 @ 12:14 PM CST
feeling: not bad

So I know that we all have lacked in blog entries but now that I have time at lunch and internet I hope to blog more frequently. I started full time today and Kevin quit one job to take another today. I have also started my summer reading and I am taking strides into my summer weightloss goals, step one no lunches out. Talk to you all soon. LOL

Monday, May 15th

Everyone should buy MacBooks...

Jon
05.15.06 @ 12:22 PM CST
listening to: Loveline
feeling: I can't tell...

...but not right now.

Here's the deal. You'r computer is plenty fast, built well, and in good shape. Your software is all messed up because you've done a horrible job of maintaining it and it probably wasn't installed right in the first place...but it's not beyond fixing. We have not yet begun to fight.

You may need to back everything up, reinstall a fresh copy of Winblows, install your internet drivers (but not before ANTI-VIRUS), and spend the better part of a weekend installing service pack after service pack and update after update, downloading drivers for all the Sony-specific stuff, and getting everything to run correctly...but from what I've experienced of your laptop, you should have done this the moment you got it, because it's never run 100% correctly, ever.

At the end, when you are done, you will have a very shiny turd, because regardless of what you do to Windows, it will always suck, but it will be a turd that runs. Then you set everything to update automagically, and you PAY ATTENTION to error messages and firewall requests.

The bottom line is this: You can't afford a MacBook Pro yet, and you'll need to buy the top of the line. You'll need to save up about $4000 in order to set yourelf up right, and there is little reason to do it yet. The Mac-Running-Windows thing is still in Beta, and although it will be ROYALLY COOL to run Windows-Only Apps on your new MacBook, the Windows-Running part of it will still be vulnerable to Windows-Specific viruses, Spyware, and MalWare...because you'll be running, duh, Windows®.

The other part of it is that the PPC/Intel switch is only partly complete. Adobe hasn't released any universal binaries yet. They won't be out for another 6-9 months. I would really wait. Well, I am really waiting.

Jocie is waiting for the consumer-end MacBooks (not MacBook Pros) to come out. She won't need the power or screen real estate that you will. In fact, when you are ready, I recommend this one: 17" MacBook Pro.

 

Big Purchases

Nicole
05.15.06 @ 11:29 AM CST
feeling: good

Now we all know that I just purchased a car and that has pretty much used up all of my savings, don't worry I still have enough to pay rent and eat for atleast one month and once I start full time everything can start to rebuild. Anway, I have been having more and more problems with my computer, because it doesn't want to turn on. And before Jon can ask Yes I am running spybot No I have not yet downloaded the new version and I am running the system checks and so on and so forth. These problems have caused the discussion of buying a new computer come August, afterall it seems to be family tradition for each of us to get an upgrade at the end of our college careers. And I would like to buy an apple. So if there is any wisdom out there to be shared on what I should be looking for and when it would be greatly appreciated. wink wink

Friday, May 12th

Nature

Jocelyn
05.12.06 @ 11:29 AM CST

Our backyard is awesome. We now have 99% lush grass coverage. The flowers are growing and blooming. The fish in th pond are active and hungry. The veggie garden that I planted last week is already producing blooms AND some peppers!

Unfortunately while we were gone this weekend fire ants moved into the backyard. I have killed their nasty homes with my potion, but I still got attacked. It's been 3 days and my feet are starting to fit into shoes again. They were swollen like an old ladies.

Jon rescued a baby blue jay. It jumped into the pond to get away from Mabel. Jon fetched the bird, named Rudy, out of the pond with a dog toy. Rudy can't be found right now, which is a good sign. He was stuck in the backyard for two days. He wasn't alone though. His mom and two other family members were protecting him from Jon and a pesky cat. Both got dive bombed. Jon is much smarter than the cat and quickly came inside. The cat on the other hand almost got his eye poked out.

All these adventures of our backyard is just the start of what is to come this season. I'm awaiting our frogs to come over and sing to us and make tadpoles. Humming birds should be coming soon too. Hopefully the owls, opossums and turtles which have all hung out in our backyard will come back again.

Monday, May 1st

Paintball Tournaments...

Jon
05.01.06 @ 07:27 PM CST
feeling: Tired...as per usual.

The Agony of Defeat

So, I photographed a paintball tournament this weekend. It was kinda cool. I'll definately do it again next time. But, next time I am going to spend a lot more time ON the field. I was shooting through netting for a lot of the day, and although you can shoot through it straight on, it yielded some interestingly bad shots when I shot at an oblique angle. Toward the end of the day I got up the courage to venture onto the un-netted part of the sideline, wearing my mask of course, and I got some really good shots, and I didn't get shot up too much. In fact, the only ball I took all day was while I was behind the netting on the inside of the field. (This is an area that it netted to allow safe passage between fields, but it is still required that you have goggles on, because you are technically still in a playing area.)

So anyway. It was fun, and if you want to see more pictures, click on the photo above. It'll take you to the photo gallery.