We Are Back

The last few weeks have been a bit challenging on the computer front.  We started having problems with an add on to Microsoft Word that I had installed quite a while back for real estate.  I haven't used it in quite a while but it over time had started to mess up the registry.  Not a big problem just uninstall it right.  Not so easy.  It didn't want to go without a fight.  After a week or so of running every registry cleaner I could find I finally was able to make it go away and restore at least some functionality to my Microsoft Office Suite which was trashed in the process.  However, that turned out to be quite a bit more than just reinstalling as I had upgraded Office 2003 to Office 2007 instead of buying a full copy.  Turns out that was a bad idea.  After much pouring through tech sites on the web I found an article on how to get my old Office 2003 limping along.

I then decided the better part of valor was to install a new email client, Office Suite and Internet Browser.  Open Office works quite well for what Pam and I need and the price is right, free.  It reads and write all of our old files.  My new email client is Thunderbird by Mozilla, it handles spam much better than outlook and has some neat features outlook does not.  And finally the new internet Browser is Firefox also by Mozilla.  All have given new life to my office PC.  I was actually out shopping for a new one on Saturday.  Now there is no need.

On another front I have been working a temp job for the last four weeks and probably have four more to go.  I don't know if I will make it the full four weeks.  I am sitting in front of a computer from 8:30 until 5:30 every day typing pretty much non stop.  Short lunch break and lots of typing.  Not exactly my cup of tea.  I have never in my career done anything remotely similar.  The closest I could come would be when I was scheduling the High School back in the 80s and that only lasted for about a week.  Foreclosure Listing Coordinator is what I am doing for this company.  However you would never guess that is non stop email.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Hope all of you are well.

Bruce and Pam

A Short Trip Down Memory Lane

When Pam and I first got married we were pretty creative.  We had to be to live on a starting teacher's salary.  We built or remodeled most of our furniture and apparently had a pretty good time doing it.  We have recently begun to revisit some of those types of projects now for hobby more than for necessity.  It seems we not only enjoyed building the funiture or crafts but also got exactly what we wanted rather than buying what was offered.  In the last year or so we both returned to sewing, Pam makes cards and I have returned to carpentry.  She has enrolled in a quilting class starting in October.  I fully intend to drag back out the lathe and the woodcarving tools (still in the planning stages) in the near future.

The jist of the story is that I finished a project that has been on the board for a while.  It has just been too hot to get out and build the frame for it.  However, a recent brief reprieve in the heat sent me scurring into the garage to get the frame put together and below is the result.

This ottoman was the first upholstered project in about 25 years.  For good measure I threw in a matching pillow for the chair.  Designed and built from scratch the neat thing is the fun we had finding the fabric and then also that we can redo it anytime we want.

Smokey had to put his two cents in after giving it a good sniff.  Blaze is small enough he can fit under it and I left a secret hiding place inside for him.

Blaze's favorite project is still the new cat beds I made for the bathroom window (kitty TV) that match the new curtins I made.

Blaze also likes to sit on the back of my chair.  That way he doesn't lose track of me and miss out on getting a cat treat.

Pam started making Baby Quilts for the teachers at here school that were expecting.  Little did we know there would be a baby boom.  This is just some of them.

For most of these we included recieving blankets, burp cloths and wipee and tissue holders that match.  For several I made matching gift sacks (diaper bags) from the same material.

Most were coordinated to a theme (at least color wise) that they had established for the baby's room.  Several were baseball themed.  Finding baseball material is not easy.  I ended up at several fabric outlets on Harry Hines (Dallas' Market District) to find something that would work.

Well this was a long post so until later.  Ciao

Bruce

Saturday September 4th

Well, the heat here in Dallas has finally broken and we have returned to more normal temperatures for this time of year. 

The last few weeks have been busy.  Pam has returned to work and the school year is underway.  I have managed to close out my Real Estate business.  Tying up loose ends took a little more effort  than I expected and reworking my phone back to a normal phone (or what I consider normal phone) turned out to be a lot harder than I expected.  After many hours on the phone and in the AT&T store though I did get it done.

I am also back down to one email.  I you have anything  beside the Verizon.net email it will no longer reach me.  It has been a real treat to stop receiving the 50-100 emails per day I was getting.  Not to mention dropping the email off my phone has been great.   I know I spent a lot of years teaching people and schools about technology.  However; I am not sure with what I seeing around me these days that it is necessarily a good thing.  So many people have a zombie like look on their face as they walk around with their smart phones, ipods, ipads, etc.  Seems like they are forgetting how to talk to an actual person.  Pam and I go out to eat and see families sit down and every member pulls out some electronic gadget and proceeds to entertain themselves.  I seems we are losing the ability to appreciate silence.  I still freak out the car salesman when they want to go on about the sound systems in the cars and I look at them and say I wouldn't even have a radio in the car if it didn't come with it.  I seldom turn it on.  They look at me like some sort of alien.  Pam usually has to assure them I am not pulling their leg.

I will step off my soap box now.  I was approached shortly before the end of August to do some temp work in September, October and November.  I start training on Sept 3.  This will be interesting as I have not been tied to a desk in quite a few years.  This is largely handling paperwork on foreclosed properties.  We will see is this is something I do more of in the future.  While I have retired I have always intended to have some thing to do at least part time.  One of the things Pam and I had discussed not only for me but for her when she retires is to temp 4-6 months out of the year to have play money to travel or pursue hobbies.  We will see how this works as to if the future will be part time jobs or short term full time temp work.

The nice thing is to have the luxury of figuring it out.  Pam and I hope all are doing well and until the next post, God Bless.

Bruce

New Additions

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try riding a bike for exercise again.  I had tried back in 2003 but found the mountain bike I had bought was just too uncomfortable for me to ride.  This time after a little more research I settled on a hybrid comfort bike and following a little shopping, ending up buying a Fuji Crosstown.

I had never realized before that bicycles came in frame sizes as well as wheel sizes.  Of course I never gave it a lot of thought either.  I had just basically bought an adult bike from a major retailer.  Though the mountain bike was from a bike shop.  I guess I just didn't ask enough questions. 

So this one is aluminum and has the front shocks as well as shock on seat and for lack of a better term, push button shifting.  After riding it for a few weeks it didn't give the problems the other bike had and Pam and I seemed to enjoy the ride.  We are putting in about 3 or 4 miles most evenings.  

So we decided to upgrade Pam's bicycle.  Actually I decided.  She was riding a Huffy cruiser with 7 speeds but it needed some attention.  I had bought hers at a local sporting goods store about 7 years ago and it had been ridden off and on during that time sporadically.  I probably could a puttered about and gotten it fixed but decided the better part of valor was just replacing it with a better bike.  Especially since a tune up at any of the shops would have cost me almost as much as I spent on the bike originally.  Since we could not get another bike like mine. (It seems the really good price I got was that it was a closeout)  We shopped around and found a Motobecane she liked in a correctly sized frame for her.

Shopping is not her favorite thing and the last bike my son and I picked out for her and just brought home (that's how she likes buying cars as well).  However,  I was able to convince her that I needed her along so they could fit the bike to her and adjust it at the shop.  Hopefully these will last for several years and they both came with lifetime adjustments so if the gears get out of whack I can take them back to the shop instead of me fiddling with them.

Doing the research and shopping the bikes was interesting and I am shocked at how many of these shops have bikes in them that cost as much as a small car.  These, while quite a bit more than the bikes you see in Target were low end bikes for these bike shops.  A simple bike computer to keep track of our rides is on order, there will however be no spandex for either of us.

And yes if you are real observant there are two of the same model of car in the garage.  Hers is ice blue and mine is blue green.  Would have bought her the same model bike if I could have found it.  Just makes it easier.

More later

Bruce

Travis' Wedding

Saturday August 14th

Pam and I traveled to Bryan College Station for our nephew Travis'  wedding.  The weather was hot as it has been for several weeks.  They were getting married at 2:00PM at the First Methodist Church in Bryan.  We would then spend the night at a hotel in old downtown Bryan.

We packed up and left Saturday morning and made it to Bryan a little after noon.  Bryan College Station is the home to Texas A&M University.  Both the bride and groom are graduates and that is where they met about 17 years ago.  Carol (Travis' new wife) currently teaches there.  So they had an Aggie-land wedding. 

The wedding went off with out a hitch and the reception was held there at the church. 

Grooms Cake

Brides Cake

Cake filling was Poteet Strawberries from Travis' Dad's Farm

There was also a Sundae Bar from Cold Stone Creamery.  Which was a great choice given the hot afternoon.  About 110 people were in attendance and the Church Gym turned out to be a cool and comfortable place for the reception.  There was a DJ and the video below is of Pam and her family dancing to "We Are family".  I had to stay behind and take the video. What can I say it was dirty job but someone had to do it.

This was taken on my Blackberry and you may or may not be able to hear the song. 

After the reception we went to the hotel for what would turn out to be an unforgettable night.  After a truly great dinner at a restaurant near the hotel and quick trip over to see Carol's house we returned to the hotel to find that they had live music on Saturday nights.  We did not think much more about it until we got to our room on the second floor and realized our room was right above the stage in the bar.  The music (I prefer to call it wailing) went on until two in the morning.  Apparently the couple above us could also hear it and could not sleep so they decided to add their own wailing to the mix.  Top that off with the fact the hotel was one block from the train tracks and a major train ran through every hour with horn blaring and it made for a less than restful night.  The hotel it self was nice but a little seedy around the edges (read old smelling) and was built in the twenties.  So I guess you are supposed to stay there for the ambiance not relaxation. 

The hotel has no parking you have to park on the city streets around the hotel.

Definitely a 1920s Hotel.  This is one of the bronzes that you see around Downtown.

So we were awake and up early.  Went downstairs for a breakfast with some of the family and then got in our car and headed back to Dallas.  The cats were glad to see us and Dallas was still just as hot.

Till next time.

Just Starting Out

Welcome:

Pam and I are a bit new to this but we will try to post with some regularity. While I am now retired she still has one more year of teaching.

Our plan is to post updates and pictures of our projects around the house and updates on our ramblings. Pam likes to ramble about a bit more than I do so most of the travels will probably be hers.

August 2010
Bruce and Pam