1 June 2005 / Wednesday:

May is gone...June is HERE!! Lotsa stuff happens in June (in no particular order, of course):

• Nook's birthday
• Kevin's birthday
• Moving Day
• School lets out
• Nook gets her driver's license
• Roof gets done!! (OK, *tomorrow* the roof should be done)
• Dogz get to spend mucho hours outdoors
• Gettin' ready for THE CABIN!

2 June 2005 / Thursday:

Dawg Blawg: "It's a Dog's Life", Volume 2

Alfie the lion hunter curled up on his "perch" on top of the back of the couch, so he can view his kingdom from on high....Sammer camping out under the chairs in the kitchen, knowing that he'll ALWAYS get a cookie delivered to him when the Other Guyz get theirs....The Guyz (all 3) getting their heartworm preventative - and *hoping* that someone will accidentally drop a bit, 'cuz they taste so nummy!!....Valdemort getting the peanut butter out this morning, only to be surrounded by The Guyz who *have* to have peanut butter crackers (and their pictures taken while enjoying!)....Alfie tied out in the backyard & Sam & Ernie also outside while Mom & Dad scout for the teeny bits of stuff the roofers missed during their cleanup (wasn't much to find!) and chat with Rita & Henning - and Ernie teasing Alfie by tripping him up & running with a tennis ball just outside Alfie's reach!....taking The Guyz out for a blocker....The Guyz getting *more* cookies (Mom IS a soft touch)....Finally, while Mom works on her laptop, The Guyz in various horizontal positions strategically placed around her (Sam on the floor to the front, Alfie snuggled in on Mom's right and Ernie tucked in on Mom's left...and partially on Dad's lap)....

3 June 2005 / Friday:

A "commentary" blog today from the alternative blogger....

• Why would Michael Jackson allow a picture to be taken of himself holding hands with some kid?? What a nut.
• Has there been an explosion of weirdos out there shooting people and kidnapping kids, or is the media hyping this up?
• I sure am getting tired of seeing flags at half staff because we keep losing folks in Iraq...need I say more?
• As much as I've bashed GM about their poor quality, idiotic product offerings and other issues in the last few years, they do provide my income indirectly and yes, we are all a bit worried about it.
• After all these years in the "Flint-town" area, I still get stared at driving around in my Honda and Mazda Miata 'cause they ain't a GM vehicle....gee doesn't that indicate something?
• Since we're on the subject of money, can't someone with integrity step up in Washington and ask some simple questions like: why are we spending billions (billions !!) overseas and on national security when school funding continues to drop; or is it time for a national health care plan or is that just another grand opportunity for the rip-off artists to steal taxpayer money? I always get the creepy feeling that a bunch of immoral bastards are taking us to the cleaners, and I'm not necessarily excluding members of Congress.
• And please, we need to go back to our history and understand that the founding fathers had strong religious beliefs (one of the reasons for the existence of this union, right?) but they were very careful to put in checks and balances....called separation of church and state. There seems to be a bit of confusion about this concept from the right wing these days. We are supposed to learn from history.
• And this business of underfunded pension plans....didn't anyone ever think of taking care of themselves....like a 401k?? I think I'm missing something with these large corporations in gawd awful financial problems...or are they just badly managed (like GM has been for years).
• Sounds like the Banana could end up getting used to the new Houghton Lake digs after all...hee, hee. I didn't get a tour, they had changed the locks so we just looked in the windows.
• Can the cabin crew handle three dogs? I hope so. The two bigger ones are mellow but the lion hunter needs to learn the ropes. He is wired completely differently than any other dog we've had. We don't want to irritate Jack, he's more fun when he's mellow.
• We are all more than ready for summer. The Banana and I both have been having cabin dreams. MIne are weird, but I can never really remember what it was all about. The next day I just think: what was that all about???
• Teenagers need jobs.........
• For some reason, I actually miss the NHL finals about this time of year....greed strikes again.
• Time to clam up until the next episode

4 June 2005 / Saturday:

FYI - anyone trying to email my parents: they will not get your emails until next weekend....so, call them instead!! I'm upgrading their PC, so it's temporarily out of commission....

Vince, the real estate agent working with Mom & Dad, came while Jim & I were there to take pictures of the house for the listing to come out June 14. Really nice guy, knows his stuff. It's really weird to know there's gonna be a "For Sale" sign in front of the house I grew up in, and my parents have lived in for almost a half century....

The upside to the move is that Mom & Dad will be close (really close!) to family - only about 10 minutes away, instead of 1.25 hours. And that Mom doesn't have to worry about keeping up with a big house (maintenance, lawn, etc.) and all those stairs!!!! It's going to be really nice to be able to literally "pop in" to visit them at any time, without worrying about traffic & weather!!

Nook's been practicing her parking skills for her upcoming driver's road test. Her parallel parking is looking GREAT! and she's working on perfecting backing into parking slots. Road skills are pretty good, speed-distance coordination is also good. We'll have a newly-licensed driver before next weekend, I predict!

Valdemort (AKA "The Green Lump") got a job at Kroger's as cashier. Completes the paperwork Tuesday and starts training right away. Good show! Place'll probably be busy, taking up some of the customers of the soon-to-close Farmer Jack across the street (Colony Market'll get the rest).

Our niece, Mouse, just got her nose pierced. She's 18, need I say more? [Actually, I'd been fascinated by discrete nose-studs because the kids' first pediatrician - from India - always wore one, and she's very elegant.]

5 June 2005 / Sunday:

So, it's Sunday, already. Hmpf. Why are work-weeks so long and week-ends so short? Eh? Never enough contiguous time away from work to recuperate from work in time to return to it!!

Hot, humid. Muggy. Sweltering. Tornado WATCH here, Tornado WARNING for the counties to our north. Got hazy, saw an interesting cloud formation (our Meteorologist didn't have an explanation for it, but was the one who discovered it...), then inexplicably brightened up. So, we didn't even get a good thunderboomer-type storm out of the deal, *sigh*. "Sleepless in Seattle" on TCM, much to the disgust of the Resident Male (altho all us females and The Dogz enjoyed it). TV in the Solar has volume turned WAY up on The History Channel (or some such male-friendly cable channel) to counter the "chick flick" soundtrack (hey, it's actually a pretty good movie, y'know!). Gazpacho and salad for supper (too hot for anything else), sherbet for dessert (when we get around to it). Had to actually break down & turn on the A/C [sheesh!].

8 June 2005 / Wednesday:

Happy Birthday, Nook! 16 years old, hopefully getting her license tomorrow....(if the Secretary of State is still open after the Road Test!)

Bummer. The Sec'y of State was open 'til 7PM TODAY, only 'til 5PM the other weekdays....Guess it's Friday for the Driver's Licensing final step...*sigh*

Discovered the other day that Alfie must've been leash-trained in his "previous life"; I'd taken him out on a "normal" leash (instead of the Flexi-Leash extendable), and after only a couple of reminder tugs, he was "heeling" like a pro. Then, with Valdemort this evening (and *on* the Flexi-Leash), he continued "heeling"!! Now to get The Nern to get the idea - it's more fun to *walk* the dogs, than to be the sled following the dog team....

Transferring *stuff* from Mom's old PC to the upgraded one isn't going as quickly as I'd like it to - turns out her PC does NOT have an Ethernet port!! Otherwise, I'd just use a good ol' cross-over cable and have the two PCs "talk" to each other and get it completed in almost no time. Instead, it's gonna be "fill the USB key on one, dump it on the other", at a max 128Mb at a time...we'll get there eventually....and, of course, since we no longer have a land-line, I cannot completely set up their AOL *stuff* until they are moved in and we know their phone works.... :-P

Kev made it to E-ville this evening, just before 6PM. He's already moved a buncha stuff out to the garage in readiness for the movers. They come to pack their stuff tomorrow (Thursday), then back on Saturday to load-n-go to the new apartment! Wow....can't believe it's actually happening; it seemed *so far off* when this process got started, and now, The Packing Day has arrived. O_O

9 June 2005 / Thursday:

Reports have it the packers were in, did their job efficiently & politely and were gone by about 1PM. And didn't break anything!

Nook passed her Road Test. Next stop, Secretary of State (Friday?)

Valdemort is on the 5-10 shift today - more training. The uniform top she was given is an "XL" (they were all out of the smaller sizes) - could probably fit 2 or 3 of her in it...

Good to see Kevin this afternoon, even if it was for only a few minutes. He's been busy, moving stuff to the garage & trimming the big spruce in front of our parents' house so the moving truck can get in!

10 June 2005 / Friday:

Hot, hot, hot! Worse yet, muggy-muggy-muggy.... :-P

Nook got her official Driver's License!! Now, I wonder when I get to see MY car again??

Valdemort's enjoying her job at Kroger. Tonight, things are really busy (she's there till 10:30)! We'll see how lively she is at 6:30AM tomorrow, when we have to get up and hit the road....

Hard to believe that tomorrow is THE DAY. Mom & Dad will be living in the same city as me for the first time since early-1981....it'll be really nice to be able to see them more often!!

Been doing some "prep" for tomorrow, although with the van at Kroger, I can't get the seats out of it...but at least got deli stuff & breads & cookies so we can do "picnic lunch" tomorrow, regardless of where we are at that time...(gotta remember WATER!)

12 June 2005 / Sunday:

Whew! The move is completed. There's still the final bits of tidying up, re-arranging, and putting away that is still going on. Moved a bunch of stuff into the storage room.

Kevin, Valdemort, Nook, Jim, Mom & Dad, and I all had the noon meal together - the First Noon Meal at Abbey Park - and it was a roaring success! Kevin declared it "5-Star", and it did rate extremely high on the "taste - appearance - presentation - balance - portions" scale!!!! The Head Nutritionist came around afterwards to meet us and make sure we found everything OK - and she received great accolades from all of us! Everyone there is so sweet, cheery, and genuinely interested. This is a fabulous move for all of us!

Lessee, Nook is getting out "on her own" with a car at least once each day. She's enjoying this next step of independence! This afternoon, my car went bye-bye with her to Margee's for an Honors US History study session (finals tomorrow! hooo boy!). Valdemort got the minivan to go to work from Abbey Park; we'll see her around 9.

We've nicknamed *so* many THINGS around our house! The vacuums are known as "Herbie" (the Hoover cannister) and "Big Red" (the red upright); my car is "Dogsled"; the truck is "Twuk"; the Concorde is still working on a nickname. So far, "The Grape" (it IS a "Concorde" and it IS a purplish color....) and "Barney" (again, purplish) have been roundly dispatched to the waste heap (as has "Sheniqua"). So, we're looking for entries to the "Name the Concorde" contest. Prize? What? You want a PRIZE? Uh....how about a "thanks" and the knowledge that the name submitted is used & appreciated??

Ummmm, how about "Maggie" (short for "magenta")??

16 June 2005 / Thursday:

B-double-E-double-R-U-N! "Hi, Mom! I'm at the grocery store....need anything?" "Hu? Karen's at the grocery store, you want anything?" "Beer!".....not unlike *someone else* we know & love, who, when asked if *he* wants anything from the store, answers: "Bring Booze!"

15 June 2005 / Wednesday:

Last Day of School for Nook! Guess she's now a "Junior" :-O ....

Girls' Track Banquet tonight....good food, good words, lots of bright smiling faces! Hard to believe that all these good-looking, skinny girls can get out on the track & the field and kick the butts off a lot of the other teams!!!! And that one of them is a two-time National Champion for the 800-m race, and others are All-State; to boot, most of the Juniors and both Seniors are Academic All-State (they only qualify the Juniors & Seniors....).

Sorry we missed our first Family Pot Luck at Abbey Park tonight, it was an unfortunate scheduling conflict with the Track Banquet....I expect we should make it to the next one!

"Barney" got to go to school with Nook today....then ran some errands with The Girlz....and is now patiently waiting in the Kroger parking lot for Valdemort to finish her shift. Barney seems to be adjusting OK, but is eager to visit Joyce & Hu, too!

Saturday is Mouse's Open House in Ann Arbor - looking forward to going to that!!

14 June 2005 / Tuesday:

There's always lots of stuff to go along with any move. Today was "Take Care of Transferring the Concorde" Day. Got the loan, which became a cashier's check to purchase the car; ran across the street to Secretary of State to transfer the title & registration; Nook delivered the check plus a couple of groceries to Mom. Now, to find a National City branch (which do not exist in this area, for some bizarre reason - we've got *every other* bank & credit union that exists!!)...closest one is in Mt. Morris.

Received several votes for the (we thought) canned Concorde nickname "Barney"; others considered: "de Plane" (a la the recently retired Concorde supersonic aircraft), and "Carmine" (for the deep red color). Much to Nook's grave dismay, the car seems to be answering to "Barney".... No pleasing the new "independent" driver.

Slowly getting the newer PC cleared in preparation for turnover to Mom & Dad (it takes a while to move picture files, I'm finding....)

I'm absolutely tickled to have Mom & Dad so close! Really nice to be able to pop in for a few minutes to take care of something, without it being a full day's round trip! And, it's really great to see Dad looking happier and Mom more relaxed (when she's not worrying about unpacking!). And Valdemort & Nook are great helpers & couriers, too!

17 June 2005 / Friday:

TGIF! The weekend's here! Open House to go to on Saturday....formally initiate Niece Mouse as a High School Graduate!!

One of THOSE days...started out chilly, ended up still not so warm. Made a "comfort-food" type of supper: pasta mixed with sauteed fresh veggies and Alfredo sauce (no, we did *not* turn Alfie into sauce....) and grilled chicken. Dogz have been trading off with each other either curled up next to Mom or on Mom's lap. In fact, got home from work, barely sat down, and had BOTH Ernie & Alfie in my lap at the same time! O_O

Nook got picked up for her job at 8AM; "Branching Out" had a job in Highland this time (south of Fenton somewhere....). Lots of tearing out old bushes, stripping out grass, and filling ruts. 4 hours' worth of work. Came home, crawled into bed, didn't wake up until supper time!!

Speaking of "bring booze!", still looking for his picture to show up on a Jones Soda bottle...no, Nook's not gotten any notification that her picture made it, but from what we've seen put on *some* of the labels, it shoulda been a contender!!

21 June 2005 / Tuesday:

Happy Birthday, Kevin!! Number 44!!

Busy day. Surprise conference call (me & 2 honchos from GMNA containerization) to discuss heavy-duty stuff that - for the first time - had me grateful for my Logistics experience in a previous life. Never thought that coulda happened....

Big walkies for Ernie & Alfie. Too far for Sammer these days - he's restricted to "blockers". Some of the sidewalks that had been torn up for DPW work have been repaired!! Woo hoo!

Hopefully, the big "Stop School Cuts" protest at the Capitol have made an impression. Several of Nook's friends went to that. We're all getting tired of schools losing out (including the universities) to wasteful pork-barrel spending.

20 June 2005 / Monday:

Big Boy waitress to Big Boy fry-cook: "I wrote "FRIES" on that order, not "FIRES"!!!

Yep, the *big news* in Grand Blanc is that the Big Boy restaurant at the corner of Grand Blanc Road & S. Saginaw Street had a fire this evening...first reported to us by Nook on her way to a friend's house...we heard the sirens about a minute after Nook left the house....turns out they were headed EXACTLY to the intersection she needed to use to *get* to that friend's house (detour time!). Intrepid (er, Concorde?) Reporter Nook then called all her "Big Boy Friends" to let them know about the disaster; now where to meet for fries (not fires) and milkshakes??? *gasp*

[Ed. Note: I think it was a "grease fire"...building still stands, but looks like soot on the insides of some of the windows, so there's a lot of cleanup ahead of 'em]

Yeah, yeah, I know I didn't blog over the weekend....been a busy one. Saturday to Ann Arbor for Niece Mouse's Graduation Open House...Alex from Marching Band & Spartan Brass drove over to that from Grosse Pointe to hook up with Valdemort (!)....and after all the usual Ann Arbor shenanigans, Valdemort reports that he thinks we're "cool" (yeeks! we didn't scare him off?? good!)...

Sunday....did anything happen Sunday? Um, the 24 Hours of LeMans finished up....NASCAR in the afternoon....errands throughout the day....oh, yeah, Nook & I took The Nern and "Big Al" to Genesys Health Park to walk the nature paths, then stopped in to see Gramma & Grampa at their apartment for a while....then rented a Rug Doctor & spent the entire afternoon cleaning carpets (aha! THAT's why I didn't want to remember Sunday! Carpet cleaning...ick!)...then Alfie made sure that I will have to rent that machine again (yep, puddle at the top of the stairs after the machine was returned....bleah).

22 June 2005 / Wednesday:

Feet...dogz...5# weights...Squirrel Park...sqwinking...Delphi Hobby Show...grocery shopping....

Dogz got to go Squirrel Park today! The younger guyz had the run of the park, Valdemort stayed with Sammer and made sure he did OK. Happy Sammer at the end of the walk, albeit slow.

Intrepid Reporter Valdemort announces that Alfie had a BIG SQWINK today....shot out the door by way of the space *under* Sam, was happily avoiding "home" for about 15 minutes.

Busiest "Delphi Hobby Show" in memory today. Great weather, the "Rock & Roll Engineers" played their sets, the Miata got dusted off and put on display. Cars; motorcycles; RC airplanes, boats, cars; probably even the dogsled (a real one) came again.

23 June 2005 / Thursday:

Pistons-Spurs Game 7. Big talk, lotsa commercials. Oversized-overpaid humanoids as tall as the basket pushing each other around to put an orange ball thru the net...and lotsa other humanoids paying big $$$ to make noise in the arena, purportedly watching the game.

Happiness is Dogz stretched out in various locations, contentedly asleep: The Nern at Dad's feet, Sam near the back door, and Alfie under Mom's elbow on the couch (he *can* occasionally be found curled up - asleep - on top of the couch back...his favorite perch).

Valdemort & Stephanie are consuming pints of ice cream in front of some movie (she's already said the name a couple of times, and all I remember is the "goofy version" that had "blub-blub" in it...).

Nook worked in Ortonville today, moving dirt, among other landscaping tasks. Valdemort got called in to work (was to have had a day off) as the store was super busy (lotsa folks were preparing for the Big Game 7, I guess).

Barney continues to get "The Jim Treatment": today, radiator flush-n-fill; tomorrow, the automotive equivalent of a "spa treatment".

24 June 2005 / Freitag:

Barney sparkles!! Really!!

Hot afternoon. Noone wants to eat supper. (Well...I did. Egg-ham-cream cheese-bagel sandwich. Everyone else is on their own.)

Milk & "3-in-1 Oil" run tonight. Got *everything else* in the store last night, but forgot the primary item I went out for in the first place....that's right....the milk. Hopefully, Ace Hardware has the oil....

25 June 2005 / Saturday:

Took Alfred & Ernie to Beverly Hills...to the Premier Pet Supply store to visit Kristy-Mom (Alfie's foster mom thru Almost Home Animal Rescue League. Great reunion! Kristy made sure everyone who knew Alfie while she'd been fostering him got to see *a success story*!! Definitely worth the drive (even with the time driving south doubled due to stinkin' road construction!)!!

Nook worked today, landscaping in Waterford. Came home, thinking she had gained a really nice tan...only to take a shower and discover it was dirt/dust/mulch, and it all went down the drain...

"Doctor" Alfie is attempting to dissect an old baseball....

Ernie got carsick on the way home from Beverly Hills. Guess it takes more than one cleaning to get rid of the "reminder of the incident"....

Nice drive - once off the highway. Birmingham has a booming downtown!! People (smiling, yet!) walking in droves along the shopping district. Whoa.