Update...It's been almost a yeat!

So it's been a while since I've posted anything here.  Most of my posts have been on Facebook, but I shouldn't abandon my good ole Blog.  I'll give you the highlights since my last post, which was around the time of Mickey's birth.

Things sure are a lot busier with two kids.  It's not just twice the work, it's expodential or more.  But we are surviving... Teri was out of work from July 22 until right after Columbus day. 

I was working on a contract for a company called IAI until the first week in August, 2010.  That was the end of the contract.  I wouldn't have taken this contract if I knew it was so short.  That happens, I joined a company at the end of August called SMS Data Products I thought I was going to be at this company for the long term.  But the contract was cut and we all lost our jobs.  This was really bad.  Something good did come out of it, I meet a great friend Toni.  I hope we are friends for a long time.

 Presently I am working a contract for a small company by the name of Alta IT Solutions.  I think the contract is going to end in a couple of weeks, so I have a lot of feelers out to find something else.  I really would like to find a job where I could stay a LONG time.

With the two kids, I have cut back on the concert goings.  But also, not many bands have come around that I am interested in seeing.  I did see Tom Petty last August and Rush in September.  Some pictures are below.

I thought I had pictures of Rush, but I guess I misplaced them.  Both shows were very good. 

We didn't have alot of snow over the winter, which I'm not complaining about.  This spring was pretty typical and I am working on the latest planting of the garden. 

It's nice to have help with the endeavor.

Other then that, I continue to play poker, exclusively at casinos since Full Tilt poker was shut down.  But I do hope to have more involvement with Ante Up magazine as I now thier Delaware/Maryland Ambassador.  It probably means more work for me, but it's something to do.  I'll be publishing 500 words each month in the magazine.

Now that we are up to date, I'll try to post regularly.

Happenings this month...

Not much...

It's been a little while since I've posted, but there really isn't a heck of a lot to blog about. I'll break it out a little.

Garden

The garden is coming along fine. I've been meaning to take some pictures, but it basically looks like last year. I have had some kind of bug infestation that is really wiping out my squash this year. I have tried pesticide, but no luck. Cucumbers have been coming on pretty well (as usual) and I've been bringing them in for the folks at work. They seem to enjoy them!

Work

Speaking of work, all is going well here. It seems to be a pretty tight knit bunch and that's a good thing. The only problem is that it's God awful boring. I can pretty much come and go as I please, but while I am here, there really is NOTHING to do. So here I am blogging.

On June 30, Teri and I did bring Rebecca in to see all the folks. That was a big hit. This kind of set me up in a situation where I can stay here a long time. The 3 of us also came down on Sunday 7/13. I needed to do some work, and Teri and the baby went to the Portrait Museum. It was right around the corner from Legal Seafood (where we had dinner). All in all, it's going as swimmingly as it possibly can.

Friends (relationships)

It seems like I am the Rock when it comes to my friends. A couple of them are having problems, but they lean on me to keep them going. I don't know how I ended up in this position, but I try to lend as much support as possible. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail and break their trust, but I do try to remain supportive and give the best advice I can.

Concerts and up coming stuff

Well July is a boring month, just like I thought it would be. That's okay, because August looks like a total blow out! I'm now going to do 3 Springsteen shows, and work a vacation into the works too.

On the evening of August 14, Teri, Rebecca, Sister Cindy, Niece Candice, Great Niece Tabitha, and maybe Nephew Kurt, are traveling to Roanoke Rapids, NC to stay with Teri's kin. Then on August 15, we continue down the highway to Myrtle Beach, SC. The night of August 15, Cindy and I are going out on the gambling boat for a poker tournament. The next day, August 16, my birthday, Teri and I go to Charleston, SC for the Springsteen concert.
We have a 'free day' on the 17th, then it's time to head north on Monday, 8/18. When we will see Bruce again in Richmond, VA. Cindy will take Rebecca for the remainder of the trip back to MD, and watch her the next day when we see Bruce the final time in Hershey.
Not 100% sure if all of this will happen, but at least that's the plan at this point.

So that's the news here. I will try to update a little more often, or as near as I can make it.

How does your garden grow...

Speaking of growing…
And we are preparing for the garden. I planted the root vegetables (onions, beets, radishes, carrots, and potatoes) in the garden. I have started the tomatoes and other veggies indoors. These are all coming along well. I think I’m on track for planting in the garden around the first of May. In preparing for things, we got two loads of manure in March. It was a pin to unload, but this is the best way to grow stuff.
I got some help planting the carrots.

This weekend the weather was great and I made more progress on getting things planted. I sprayed to get rid of some of the grass and weeds, and re tilled the whole garden. This week I will make the rows and probably start planting some things next weekend.

A bountiful harvest!

It is peek time for the garden, and from the pictures below, you can see all of the various veggies that are coming in.








Easy Gram! We'll be eating soon....






Here we all are posing with the vegetables and showing off Teri's pregnancy. We had enough tomatoes that Teri took off the following Monday and canned the first batch.




Of course, we need to bring the first child into the frame.

Latest Garden stuff

Nothing major with these pictures, just more of the garden.
The first one is the latest harvest of cucumbers and some squash.




This will be some of the first, large tomatoes that will be ready. I am guessing that they will start coming on around the 20th.





Squash, peppers, and okra.






A cantalope getting ready! My estimate is around 7/20 for the lopes too.

Slow day...

Kind of a slow day today. Nothing really going on.
Friday was a little interesting. First off, Gram was pissed because Heather came over Thursday night. I hate to break it to her (and anyone else), but this is MY house! I will have anyone over for as long as I want. If you don't like it, leave! That all being said I made dinner for the two of us and that perked her up. Today she was fine.
Jobs...Chuck
I picked a bunch of cucumbers (again) from the garden Friday evening. I'll take a picture when I pick more on Sunday. I can't get rid of them quick enough, and I don't even eat them! Friday after work I took my brother to pick up his van that was in the shop. He lost his job a couple weeks ago, and I am sure he's been in the dumps about it. And next week his live-in is making him go to North Carolina to visit her mothers grave. She didn't like her mother much when she was living! For his sanity, I hope he gets a job soon.
Speaking of jobs, my old company (TranTech) lost the contract at Census. I'm sorry for the people on the contract, but there seems to be too much of a middle management layer, that wastes a lot of money. I don't know who won the contract, but I wouldn't be surprised if I get a call from a head-hunter looking to fill a slot.
Live Earth (Happy 7/7/07)
I watched some of the Live Earth concert today. Basically, it wasn't very good. And the hypocrites were all over the place. Use less fuel, but most of the people at Giants Stadium in NY came to the show in an SUV. And the celebrities were all in limos. Yeah, they care about the Earth.
I don't mean to get on my soapbox, but the things that they say you should do, I am! I take public transportation to work everyday, drive a smallish car, grow my own garden, recycle, and avoid wasting energy. The steps that these people recommend, I'm already there and it doesn't seem to make a difference.
Then the whole thing about Global Warming. If you do a quick Google search for solar system warming, you will see several articles going back 10 years discussing how all of the planets in the solar system are warming. Maybe the sun is in an active stage and that's the culprit, not a million SUVs. Personally I look to use less gas to save money. Or should I say, spend money in other places. I'm sick of being made to feel guilty about the whole thing.

...this week

How can you tell nothing is going on with me?
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The blog isn't updated in a couple of weeks... But there is always a little something...

GAO
I continue to settle into a routine at work. I am the only one in our group with a security clearance and thus have my own little kingdom to manage. It can be a lot of pressure, but over all its not too bad, and it seems to be some job security. I am also meeting different people that are outside of work. Legal Seafood is a couple of blocks away from the office and I go there for lunch 2-3 times a week. I'm starting to be one of the regulars. I usually sit at the bar simply to expedite the order process. Most of the bar staff know what I want. so I don't need to wait too long. The one bar-maid (Natansi or Natasha, something like that) and I get along pretty well. She's attractive,(even if she does have the 'over tanned' look, I'll get a picture) but I think she's a lesbian. She makes references to her female friends, as in really good friends, frequently. I noticed that some other regulars are gay. It doesn't bother me, it's just an observation.
And there are various people on the train too. Last week I sat next to a woman who just moved here from Dallas. It was around 5:00pm, she was going to meet her Aunt in Baltimore, and was drunk off her ass. And kind of chatty too! It takes all kind I guess.

Baby stuff
Last weekend Teri and I got up and went Yard Saleing for baby stuff. Those yard sale people are NUTS! They drive like maniacs trying to get to every yard sale, and they can't drive to start with. We did get a stroller-car seat combo, baby swing, and a bunch of clothes. Neither one of us have a clue about this stuff. We stood in these folks driveway for a minute just standing there, not sure what to do, they finally asked, "Can I help you?" We got home with this stuff and the dog is smelling everything we bring into the door like, "What the hell is this shit?" (my dog has a foul mouth) Gram was real excited about the baby stuff. She found the ad for the yardsale in the Penny-saver the week before.

Garden...continues
Yes the garden continues to grow well. I am picking cucumbers, and some squash now. I'll get some pictures up soon. Sunday we'll have enough for a family meal of veggies.

Comcast
Last weekend we switch from Millennium Digital Media (MDM) to Comcast. I've been holding out for a long time, thinking one is the same as the other. I was WRONG! MDM has about 10 HD channels. Comcast has about 30! The Internet access with MDM is technically broadband, but it was just terrible (lots of reloaded pages, taking forever waiting for e-mail, etc). With Comcast, everything just pops up and e-mail flies down! This probably sounds geeky, but this is what Broadband is suppose to be! It made my weekend.

Since our last episode...

Everything is going pretty good. Since my last update I’ve attended another baseball game, Teri went to North Carolina, we decided to get a shed, the garden continues to grow, Heather’s nephew died in a car crash, I wrapped up the users group season, have made progress on going to the concerts mentioned below, the Sopranos series ended, and that’s the highlights. If this doesn’t very interesting, you can stop reading now.

Teri went to NC

Every year Teri attends an annual conference of software that she works with. It is held in Cary, NC. This is where the company has its headquarters. She always enjoys going there. And I noticed that it is the 3^rd safest city in the country. I’ll let her comment if she wants to. With her gone, I had to hold the fort down. It worked out fine. No incidents and Gram and I made out fine.

Shed

The day before Teri left for NC, her father, Teri and I went to Westminster to look at outdoor sheds. This basically took up all of Saturday, June 2. In the end the place we went to look at the sheds was stuck on their price and wouldn’t budge. I can’t deal with people like that. I found another place on-line, (free plug) http://www.shawneestructures.com/ . The delivered price saves me about $1000. I’m glad I didn’t go with the other place. Below is basically what it will look like. I can’t wait to get it! It will take a little while and won’t be here until August.

Garden

The garden continues to grow very well. Below are a couple of pictures that you can really see the growth over just a couple of weeks.

Sopranos

For about the past month I have been very disappointed in the ending of various movies and TV shows. Spiderman 3 had a horrible ending. The put all of this effort in the Venom character to have all of 5 minutes of screen time. Venom is killed off and he was the most interesting character of the movie. Kind of like Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I. Then came the Heroes finale. What a lame ending! Finally, The Sopranos was just stupid. “We’ll leave it up to the audience to figure it out…” It’s a show! You tell us what happen!

Users Group

The Chesapeake PC Users Group is on our summer break. And I’m glad we are. I can use the break from the meetings and everything for a couple of months. The meeting ended on a high note. We showed some of the computers that were built last month and talked about that technology. We also discussed more freeware programs and anti-virus software. All in all, a pretty good meeting.

More Baseball

With Teri out of town, I had to find someone else to go to the baseball game. My neighbor Jay was the lucky duck. The game was going along and between one of the innings they have this thing called a Kiss Cam. Basically a camera goes around the stadium and shows couples kissing. You always see the sweet old couple, the nervous kids on a first date, etc. Well tonight we saw a guy sitting next to two girls. The camera was on them, the girl sitting next to the guy noticed, jumped up...and laid a big smooch on the GIRL sitting beside her. This got all of the guys at the game to cheer for more! I don't think we'll see that promotion again.

Heather’s nephew passed…

I always hate to hear about these things, and when it happens to someone I know, I really don’t like it. But Heather’s nephew died last week in a car crash. He was only 20. R.I.P.

Garden details

So you don’t have to squint, the vegetables are, from left to right, bottom to top:

Cabbage, Broccoli, Kale, Onions, Carrots, Radishes, Beets, Watermelons, Cantaloupes, several varieties of Cucumbers, Tiny Tim Tomatoes, Okra, Bell Peppers, Yellow Squash, Zucchini Squash, White Squash, Giant Belgium Tomatoes, Better Boy Tomatoes, more Tiny Tim Tomatoes, and a bunch of Roma Tomatoes. There is another bed that is past the top of the garden that I’ve planted 8 Better Boy Tomatoes. These will actually be the first tomatoes that will be harvested.

An interesting point about the White Squash; the first garden that was planted in 2005 I planted White Squash. Some had grown too large or were bad and were discarded in the garden. Last Spring, these squash seeds sprouted and we grew our squash from them. This year, same thing happen. The squash have been in the garden since 2005.

The reason for all of the tomatoes: First off, I don’t actually like raw tomatoes. But tomatoes do grow great in this area and I’ve been growing tomatoes since I was a kid, so I know how to do it. Last summer Teri and I canned a bunch of tomatoes and used them throughout the winter to make noodle soup. We really enjoyed the process of canning and it’s nice to have something from the garden when it’s long gone. So this year we went a little crazy. We will probably have more tomatoes then we can ever use. We will can the whole tomatoes again, but maybe try to make sauces or something. I think we should try to make our own baby food. I know the baby won’t be eating until it is over 6 months old, but the veggies that we can may help to make a healthier child.

The reason for the Tiny Tim Tomatoes (these are cherry type tomatoes by the way) at the end of the okra row is because a few weeks ago when I bought the okra (mine didn’t come up for some reason); they gave me 4 cherry tomato plants. I planted them at the end of the row. We’ll see how they do.

Garden Layout..

This week and this weekend I continue to work in the garden. It's coming along great and have started harvesting the early greens (kale and broccoli). It occurred to me that if you are reading this blog, you may not know the layout of this garden. This picture is the general layout of things. This is not to scale, but you will get an idea of how things are setup. You may have to zoom in on the picture to make out the labels (just click on it).

First week at GAO...

Things wrapped up very well this week at GAO. I would say things turned out very well! Today I finally did some 'real' work. Nothing super technical, just loaded up about a dozen servers with the GAO Windows image. I didn't think too much of it but the guys at the GAO seemed very impressed that I was able to take the bull by the horns and get the job done. The day ended on a good note and everything looks good for next week.
With being home, I am able to do more stuff like a normal person. When I get home, I get out to the garden. Here are a couple of pictures of the garden to this point. These are pictures of the raised bed with tomatoes and the full garden (with Teri walking away from the camera). I know it's kind of boring, but the therapy is great! We are starting to pick a couple of early fruit. Radishes and strawberries are coming on. In the next week or so I will probably cut some kale.

More baby pix (it looks human!)

So Monday Teri had a major doctors appointment. Unfortunately, that is the same day that I started at GAO. The baby is progressing very well as you can see from the picture, the head and body are visible now and she tells me that you can see the hands and feet when it flips in the right position. I added some labels so you can tell what you are looking at. We are now through the first trimester and now things are kind of out of the woods.
And speaking of things growing, the garden is starting to come along well. Everything except the melons are in the ground and doing pretty decent. The melons will go in this weekend, there is suppose the be a little cool snap over the next couple days, so we'll hold off. I'll take some pictures on a clear day to show progress.