Tonight marks my last graveyard shift (fingers crossed).

After 21 months, we finally hired someone to do the night time monitoring and I’m here training her. So far, all is good.

Other news:
On Sunday, we went to my sisters house to celebrate her son’s 10th birthday. David, her husband, made some kick ass New York strips on the grill. We ate until we could eat no more, drank good beer, and then ate cake. We got Joey (my nephew) a copy of the Lego Star Wars game for the PC and a Logitec Dual Action game pad to make paying the game easier.

He was most pleased.

Monday, the 4th of July was good. I had to work graveyard, so I couldn’t stay up too late (I need to take a nap before work), so we blew off some fireworks early. Of course, we had to be sneaky about it because they’re illegal in the city. I showed the kids how to take a soda can, cut the top off, poke a small hole in the bottom just big enough for a firecracker, and then put it upside-down in a container of water. Light the fuse and BAM!!, the can flies about 25 – 30 feet straight up into the air.

Good times!

I made some bacon wrapped fillets with shrimp scampi for dinner. Mmmmmm…. tasty!

Last weekend, Kayla (my son’s girlfriend) asked if she could remove the mats from our cat, Bondi.

Bondi is a special case. He’s pure white with blue eyes and completely deaf. He’s also about the most un-hygenic cat I’ve ever seen. Dirt in his fur, mats, and more likely than not, a big turd stuck to his butt.

But we love him.

So… Kayla and my son took him into the bathroom with the electric clippers (he can’t hear the clippers so they didn’t freak him out too bad). What followed was pure comedy genious:

Looks normal enough from this angle… but wait…

OMG!! Removing a couple of mats does NOT mean shave his whole back!

Bondi is less than happy with his new “do”.

And that’s the last time I let the kids take care of the cat.

Sure… they got the mats out… but bejesus… the cat’s gonna have a complex for sure! 🙂

On the way back from lunch, we passed the usual bunch of beggars on the I-90 / Sullivan Road interchange.

I’m not insensitive to the homeless or to the plight they have, but the crew who work this chunk of road are scammers. They work shifts as a team. One will be on each corner of where the interstate dumps out to the Valley mall. They rotate every so often so that it appears that someone new is there.

When they’re done with a hard day of work, they get into nice cars (parked a few blocks off) and drive home. I’ve yet to follow one home, but I have seen the cars. Way nicer than I have, to be sure.

Usually, they just stand there with a sign. “Disabled Vet”, “Need money to get to Seattle for job”, etc. Sometimes they have props. A dog is a favorite “Need food for my dog” (why the fuck do you have a dog if you cant feed it? That’s crule!). BDU’s are a standard (fatigues… to give the illusion that they are vets).

Who falls for that? I was in the Army… you don’t see me walking around in my old uniform. I don’t even have it any more (I sold it at a garage sale). One of these fuckers is probobly walking around in MY uniform (and making more money, per month, begging than I ever did when I was in the army).

Anyway, today… one of them was doing something new. He was juggling… and doing a damn good job at it.

I almost expected the next guy down the road to have this sign:

My life is normally pretty boring. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.

But today… that’s all changed…. because…

I’M A WINNER!!!

I twisted the cap on my Vanilla Coke, and sure enough, I won a 1 liter bottle! It said so inside my cap!

My life is going to change now… I can feel it! Things are going to come my way because I’M A WINNER!!!

My glorious week of vacation is over.

We applied paint vigorously to the upper back side of the house last week. I had to replace all the facia on the south side because water had gotten into the boards and ruined them (T1-11 made in the early 90’s wasn’t exactly good). We did, however, install rain gutters this time… so that should take care of the problem in the future.

a photo taken fairly early in the project – I only fell off this thing once

Now to paint the lower section of the back, inside the deck area, the floor of the deck itself, the sides (replacing fascia on the west side), installing gutters on both the east and west sides, painting the east, west, and north sides, and gutters on the front.

I expect to be done sometime in 2006.

We did have a massive thunderstorm on Tuesday. I had to stop everything and run inside, as we experienced 77 mph (124 kph) winds. Unfortunately, they ripped the shingles lose on the top 4′ (1.2 meters) of the south side of the roof. After things calmed down, I collected my shingles from the street and neighbor’s yards, climbed up there, and put them back on (I’m missing one). I’ll be calling today to find a roofer to re-do the entire roof (there goes the hot tub fund!).