The Qwest technician finally arrived at 4:30pm Tuesday. Some great timing, huh? This was after promising to be here between 8am-5pm Monday, and then at 5:30pm Monday promising between 8am-5pm Tuesday. Anyway, after checking at the network interface on the side of the house, he found there were more errors in the line than there should be (thank goodness. We were worried, because our connection had been working steadily for 3 days by the time he was there.). After checking further at the distribution box across the street, he determined that the pair of wires we had been connected to on the line under the street had a partial ground on one side. An unused pair in the same line was clear, so he hooked our house up on that pair, and then promised to put in an order for a contract crew to come out and replace the line under the street. That won't happen until the second half of February at the soonest, but hopefully our connection will be more stable until then.

Qwest currently provides our internet service via a DSL phone line, but without phone service. Almost since it was installed there have been intermittent unexplained outages. When the installer was here in September, he found that there were some bad connections for not only our house, but also our neighbor's house in the green connection box across the street. The outages seem to be weather-related, so I think the connections in that box are to blame again. A technician was supposed to come Monday between 8am and 5pm, but didn't make it. Scheduled again for Tuesday. I hope he can find something. Intermittent outages are notoriously hard to track down.

This is Daisy. I killed her last week. Not on purpose, of course. Our bed is a queen-size futon on a wooden frame. With all the animals around, the only way to keep any of them from peeing or pooping on the bed is to roll up the futon in the morning after we get up. December 11, Daisy was curled up in the sheet and I did not see her when I rolled the futon. Finding her when I unrolled the futon that night was the worst moment I have had in a very long time. We're having her cremated, and we'll find a way to display her goggles with the urn.

Wow, six months since I posted here. We did find a house -- moved on September 11 to Oregon City, Oregon. That cost about $300 for a U-Haul truck for a few days and about 100 miles of back-and-forth. Not a bad house, no central A/C, but we brought window A/Cs with us and it was fine. Here are some pictures of the snow that fell Monday here. There was a tiny bit more snow today, and temperatures above freezing, and rain mixed with snow. And then it's supposed to get extremely cold Thursday and Friday nights.

House troubles

Because we do foster care for many dogs and cats for a pet rescue organization, when it became clear the house was going away and I, shortly after, lost my job, the rescue president told us that instead of moving to a low-cost-of-living area like we had decided to do, the rescue would help us get a new place. We have bad credit, so we can't qualify for a loan, and no-one wants to rent to someone who will be keeping up to 40 cats and anywhere from 7 to 15 dogs at a time. So we agreed to hang on, and find a place. Well, we've been trying for a month now, and supposedly so have the rescue folks, but June 12 is to be the first organization board meeting to take place since last November (they are supposed to be monthly). So now, we're stuck in the same house, which now belongs to a bank that wants to sell it, and we have been given until June 25 to answer whether we wish to defend the eviction, and so far no noticeable help has been forthcoming and we're nearly out of money to move. I did have an initial job interview at one place, which I guess will help. arrgh

Bad news part 2

Well, it seems the house went to auction May 9 and no-one picked it up, so the bank is stuck with it. Now the bank says if we leave the house clean on or before May 30, they'll pay us. Our other option is to hold out until the bank can process through bankruptcy proceedings and have us kicked out, probably by the end of June.

This really sucks, because we aren't good at cleaning up and moving out of anywhere, so pretty doubtful we could collect the money they're offering.

On top of everything else, I lost my job at the end of April. Pretty good paying job, at that. I'm looking for other work, not sure what will turn up.

I've applied for an electrical apprenticeship training program that is pretty much a sure thing. I applied for the same program last year and was in the top 20 applicants. I couldn't participate because I would have to accept full-time employment as an electrician's apprentice, and would have had to take about a 40% pay cut to do it. Since the full-time job is gone now anyway, no pay cut involved, plus I'll be back up to near my previous full-time pay in about 2 years.

But the list of accepted apprentices doesn't get released until the first week of June, after the bank wants us out of the house, so trying to move into anywhere is an iffy proposition. argh.

:-) fixed Terri's computer!! !

We got new computers almost a year ago when they were on sale cheap. At some point after that, Terri's computer quit recognizing her DVD drive. We went through a big hassle with the supposed tech support folks, and got it fixed, but then the computer stopped recognizing it again. Funny thing, a bootable CD or DVD would still work fine, the problem came after the Windows Vista operating system booted up from the hard drive. After finally trying a registry fixing program (which didn't work) I searched for solutions online and found a fix for the problem in XP which also apparently works for Vista, anyway it's working and Terri's much happier today :) ;) :) :)

Wireless Message

In 2003 while on WestPac on the USS Nimitz, I read the first book in Robert Jordans 'The Wheel of Time' series. Not long after it came out, I read the 'prequel' (book 0?) 'New Spring'. In the past few weeks I've been listening to the 2nd book 'The Great Hunt' on CDs in the car commuting to work. I will have to see if my local library can get additional ones in the series on CDs, because that seems to be the only way I get time to myself for books.

re-learning trombone

I quit playing trombone about 8 years ago, after a huge fight with Terri over schedules. Just last week we visited a music store together, and I have now rented a student model trombone, and after two 1/2 hour practice sessions (just me and some scales) it is starting to sound a bit like an instrument instead of a noisemaker.

Terri really surprised me when she rented a flute and signed up for lessons! First lesson this afternoon while I sleep between night shifts. I really hope she gets along well with the instructor! Terri is very tuned in to personalities, and I'm afraid if she doesn't get a good vibe with the flute instructor, the whole project will go by the wayside. I hope she'll stick with the lessons and then consider joining the volunteer band that I'm planning to join once I get my playing back into shape.

Bad news of the year so far

Last December 11, a notice was posted on the door of the house we're renting which said the mortgage payments were 3 months behind. I immediately called the landlady, and she told me she was working on a problem wherein she had made payments to the bank but with an incorrect account number, and was trying to resolve the issue.

On February 8 (a Friday), a new notice was posted on the door, saying the house is going to auction May 9, 2008. Again, I immediately called the landlady (this time it was around 10pm) and she sleepily said she thought she had it fixed and she would check into it the following week. Then she stopped answering the phone when I called.

So last week I sent her a certified letter asking her to explain what's going on. Yesterday the Post Office signature receipt came in the mail, so at least she didn't refuse the letter.

The whole thing really sucks, because based on everything I can find about bank sales of foreclosed homes, a new owner can ignore our lease and start eviction proceedings once they take possession of the house. I don't want to move, but I have to plan as if that's coming.

Migraines suck

...and I don't even get them myself! Terri had a migraine today, it hit her about noon, and she came to join me in bed. When she woke me up crawling into the bed, she asked me to get her an Imitrex tablet, which apparently helped, because when the dogs woke her up around 5:45, she seemed to be getting somewhat better. Most likely, she'll be really tired tomorrow, and really hungry tomorrow evening and Thursday...that's the typical follow-on recovery when she has migraines.

Having a house full of dogs and cats doesn't really help much with the tiredness; they make it a bit hard to sleep! As far as the hungry part, we have plenty of healthy food in the house, so hopefully we can stay on plan and she won't have too much problem with her Weight Watchers weigh-in. Although, as she points out in her blog, our eating since last week's weigh-in hasn't been so good.

Walking like crazy

I've been working full-time for one company for 25 months now, a record for me outside of military service. From Feb 2006 - June 2007, I was in one area where the pedometer I sometimes wore typically showed I walked 8000-9000 steps per day. Since July I've had farther to walk from parking to work, and more walking at work as well, but I haven't been wearing a pedometer lately. Yesterday I wore a pedometer that used to belong to Terri, because she bought a new one for herself (the clip on my old one broke). It showed 10,535 steps (that includes a short time in the house and between house and car as well as work) so I guess that's pretty good. Today I've been at work for 3 hours so far and already have 3382 steps.

Wow, I guess it's been awhile since I was here. Since July 2007, we have been host to a whole series of foster dogs and cats, and life has been crazy. Now Terri has opened a new blog, http://terrilosinghalf.blogspot.com/, and invited me to add my thoughts there as well. :-)