Happy Belated Independence Day
I hope that everyone had a safe Fourth of July. I spent the afternoon and most of the night at my parents-in-law’s house. Since we were going to be away from the house for more than a couple of hours, we decided to take the entire family. We took a picture of Kara, Kelly and Emily in their crate ready to go. It’s hard to tell in the picture, but each of them is wearing an American flag bandana. Also, each one of them is wearing an item that lights up. Emily has a dog bone, Kara has a picture of fireworks and Kelly has an American flag.
As usual, I think I ate a bit too much food. But, also as usual I enjoyed eating it. After the sun had set, we lit off a bunch of fireworks. We had some water sprinkles for a minute or a two, but the rest of the time the weather was nice. I tried talking pictures of the fireworks. I know that fireworks are hard to take pictures of (especially using a digital camera with a slow shutter speed). However, I got a few nice and very interesting pictures.
Well, since it’s been just over half a year since I stated my New Year’s Resolutions for 2004, I thought that I should revisit them. My first Resolution is to get my Associate’s Degree. I don’t have it yet, but I’m fairly close. I spent most of yesterday morning and the past week finishing off my final project. I only need to mail it out and wait for it to be graded. I will probably take the rest of the summer off and start in on my Bachelor’s Degree in the fall (assuming I pass of course).
My second Resolution is to lose weight. Specifically, I wanted to drop down to 225 (the weight I was at in high school). At a starting weight of 295 and a current weight of 250, I’m definitely making good progress. However, with my workout plan website going down, I’m currently trying to get a new workout plan. I’ve been reading a couple of fitness books to set me on my way again.
My third and final Resolution is to get a better handle on my debt. The equity line that we got on the house has certainly helped a lot. We were able to pay off most of our major debts (excluding the house). I’m a bit annoyed though that I had to get a couple of credit cards again (just in case we have another emergency). Of course, I’d rather be prepared for an emergency than to not be prepared.
I spent most of today rerunning cables to my work computer. To prevent data loss I purchased a couple of battery back-up units for my office. The units I got will automatically shut down my computer if the battery runs down too much. So, if I’m away from my computer during a power failure, everything should be okay. Doing some testing, I found that the units could support the equipment plugged into it (computer, monitor, speakers, cable modem, router and laptop) for at least a half hour. That’s more than enough time to finish whatever I’m working on at the time and close down gracefully.
As a final note, Kelly is still doing okay. The only noticeable difference in her after her operation is a shaved leg. She’s eating solid food again (along with various plants she finds in the backyard). She also did well at her first day of training. She was able to SIT on command (for the most part). We’re now working on SIT/STAY. Our homework is to get the dogs to SIT/STAY for 20 seconds. At the current rate, they should be at the point by their next training class.
Tagline for today: “Have you ever noticed that they put advertisements in with your bills now? Like bills aren’t distasteful enough, they have to stuff junk mail in there with them. I get back at them. I put garbage in with my check when I mail it in. Coffee grinds, banana peels… I write, ‘Could you throw this away for me? Thank You.’” - Andy Rooney