I’ll go to work like usual and after work Shannon and I plan on using a coupon to eat at a restaurant in Lee’s Summit. Basically two dine for one with the coupon. I get to pick out my birthday cake and haven’t decided which to get. I’m deciding between a small “wedding/birthday” cake at the grocery store (with real icing) or the huge 14 pound triple layer chocolate cake at Cost Co. I’ll stop and get the cake after work, we’ll go to dinner, then back home we’ll eat cake!

Happy Birthday Dad, I hope you have many more!

Getting A Hair Cut (804 kb, 33 seconds)
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There ya go!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I spent some quality time with my folks in Omaha and ate WAY too much food!

Christmas In The Park 126.9 MB (16:46)
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Christmas in the Park is one of Jackson County Parks and Recreation’s most celebrated events of the year. Three hundred thousand lights and 175 animated figures and splashes of Christmas color transform Longview Lake Park into an enchanting winter wonderland. The entire family will delight in the warmth of this fun-filled, holiday display gift from your Jackson County Parks.

• Times: Night Before Thanksgiving thru December
  Sunday - Thursday: 5:30 PM - 10:00 PM
  Friday - Saturday: 5:30 PM - 11:00 PM
• Address: Longview Lake Campground, Longview Lake Park
• Phone: (816) 503-4830 (Always call and confirm events.)
• Admission Fee: No Charge. Donations, benefiting local charities, are accepted.
• Additional Notes: Directions to Christmas In The Park: Take 470 East to the View High Drive Exit, Exit South on View High Drive and follow to 3rd street. Directional signs will be posted off of View High Drive for Christmas In The Park.

I also got our big lit wreath hung up on the side of the house in the middle of our peak. It’s on a timer so it will come on at 4:00 PM and go off in 8 hours - battery operated. We got two small wreaths hung in the back of the house and they are light sensitive so they are on dusk to dawn like the blue lights on the roof.

I had to replace 27 burned out lights on the blue strands. We used 7 strands of lights to go around the house roof line. I scavenged the “new lights” from an unused strand of lights we had in the basement. When I left the roof and walked around the house to make sure I got all the burned out bulbs replaced; all the lights were working. Wait for it….. About an hour later Shannon and I went out to eat and a whole strand was out! I think it’s a fuse on the actual plug for the strand so I’ll try that tonight and if that doesn’t fix it then I will have to replace the strand. It’s not because of a burned out bulb because these strands will work even if a bulb is missing from a socket. What a bummer! This morning I saw two more lights had burned out so I’ll need to pick up some extra bulbs too.

Shannon worked on the front and back yard and got all the leaves blown/mowed/picked up. Our yard is very pristine looking (for now).

Jaki spent her time in the house barking at me making all the strange noised on the roof. It was way too cold outside for her to spend any amount of time out there. It was in the 50’s but that is way too cold for her thin little frame and coat.

I was suddenly filled with feelings of disrespect, unwanted, unsafe, and anger. I am not completely out at work but I think everyone “knows” but just chooses to “over look it.” Now I don’t know what to do or say. I remembered seeing some videos on this exact topic and I can’t remember what they said in response. So I become 10 years old and pretend I didn’t hear it and say nothing… letting the homophobic remarks appear acceptable.

Here are the 30 second TV Ads:

Here is the Ad campaign web site: ThinkB4YouSpeak. Here is the New York Times article A Push to Curb the Casual Use of Ugly Phrases. Finally, here is the GLSEN and Ad Council Launch First Campaign to Address Anti-Gay Language Among Teens.

So, my Friday ended early with me taking a half day of vacation so I could escape what I had experienced at work because I couldn’t come up with the words to address the situation properly. Hopefully next time (sad to say there will be a next time), I will handle the problem better.

I took a long nap with Jaki when I got home and she put me in my happy place but not quite. I’m non-confrontational by nature so I hope I will be able to stand up for myself (and others in the department - I’m not the only Gay in the village at work) when this all rolls around again.

The song has voice samples taken from the movie Dark City (1998). I love the movie! I’ve watched it a bunch of times and it never gets old.

One of the reasons I think it was difficult to find the darn song is “Quivver” is an alias of the musician. Apparently John Graham uses a bunch of different “names” based on the project he is working on. Quivver was one of them. Also the name of the song is misspelled (apparently on purpose) making it a challenge too.

Work was a little scary today. They began laying people off work. I have escaped the wrath so far but I have a feeling they will have another go at it later. It was really sad to see someone “walked” out of the building at the drop of a hat.

On Tuesday this past week, a sales woman from AT&T U-verse came to the door. Since we don’t get many people coming to the house and ringing the door bell - it makes me jump out of my skin when the door bell goes off unexpectedly. Geesh! I told the sales woman that I would have to get with my room mate before doing anything and she agreed to come back on Wednesday night to see my answer. We went for it! We only have Comcast as an option for TV & Internet. They have no competitors in our area offering internet access. We could get a dish but it doesn’t have internet. We have been paying $137.00 a month for basic digital channels (no sports channels or movies), internet access at 6 Mbps and only 1 DVR box. With U-verse we will have 3 DVR boxes that can record up to 4 channels at one time and exact same channel listings and internet for $104.00! We will be saving $30 a month which may not be much for some folks but will greatly help me out! We have until November 17th to get all the shows that are stored on the current DVR box off onto DVDs. That will be a fun time! Shannon records everything!

Shannon wrapped the garden “cross” with red Christmas lights so it’s ready for winter to hit. I still have to clean out the gutters and then put the blue “old time” Christmas lights up onto the gutters around the house. I’m kind of procrastinating on that job!

It was great to do stuff around the yard instead of running around town like I usually do on Shannon’s day off.

Enjoy the pictures! They are located under Photos (across the top of the web site) click on Fall Garden.

First our washer died - in mid wash of course. Shannon was doing his laundry (I know - shocking that he got around to it - he has a tendency to wait well past when he should be doing it) and the washer was full of water and went into the spin/drain cycle when it decided not to drain out the washer and just plain died. So Shannon left the items in the full of water washer and there they sat till we got a new washer which arrived yesterday (Saturday). Yep that is right - they stuff in the washer sat for two weeks! Ugh, boy did it stink. Shannon should have taken them out of the washer when it broke and “finished” them up in the bath tub then put them in the dryer. Oh well, that’s ADD for ya. I ended up doing them in a laundry load for him.

He was just going to leave the clothes in the washer untill the repair guy came (one week after it broke) but the washer was un-repairable. Actually it could have been repaired but it would have cost $700. A new washer is far less! Shannon went shopping for a new washer that same day the repair guy was at the house (Monday). He bought a new washer for around $500 (a Whirlpool) but it would not be delivered until the next Saturday (yesterday).

Our floor drain next to the washer has been flooding and creating a nice pool of black gunk about 4 to 6 foot in diameter each time the washer would go into the drain cycle. So since we got a new washer and had cleaned the floor under the old one and around the drain - I called Roto-rooter and had them fix the floor drain so it would stop flooding. We apparently need to do some preventative maintenance so it will not happen again. So I bought their jug of stuff to pour down the kitchen drain once a month to help eat all the black gunk out of the pipes and keep the water flowing. Roto-rooter cost $200. Ouch!

I was so happy to get my laundry done yesterday and not have the floor puddle up with nasty water. And while I was doing the laundry I put together the heavy duty plastic shelving I purchased on Friday for the basement. We seriously need to get stuff up off the floor and onto shelving to save some space and clean up the basement. I bought 5 shelving units that consists of five shelves each. I put them all together but made them into “four” shelf units which made an extra shelving unit out of the unused shelves. So I bought 5 and ended up with 6 shelving units!

Today I want to start going through the mess in the basement and getting them organized up onto the shelving units. I’m going to take before and after pictures of the basement. It is really scary looking right now. Everything is piled up on the floor to waist height and there is a ton of junk that could just be thrown away!

He looked like this picture I found on the web except our little guy was ALL black - no brown. Shannon said that the colorings on him indicate a very wet, cold, bad winter. Oh goody!

This little guy was perched on the side of the house next to the garage entrance. He is pretty good sized - about 8 inches long and well, pretty creepy looking.

I took the pictures and was a little freaked out because Shannon said the walking stick could sting me with it’s tail. I didn’t think they could hurt humans and don’t remember them hurting me when I was a little kid and found one - but then again I don’t have a great memory.

So Shannon freaked me out and made the picture taking a bit of a challenge to overcome a fear of getting stung by the little guy if I got too close. I used the micro mode on my little camera and the pictures came out great! It was overcast so I was afraid they would not look good.