As promised before, here are pictures of the new floor in the dining room. First up, we've got the floor as it used to look. I'm sure at one point the hardwood looked nice, but it was scarred, and shrunken and scratched, and there would really have been no way to restore it.
Here I am with my father-in-law on day two of the installation. Day two went a lot faster than the first night did. We moved the table out into the living room, and moved the smaller furniture around as needed. Once we got the feel for how the tongue and groove fit together, it wasn't too hard.
Of course, once we got started, Logan had to test it out and see how well his cars would roll across the new floor. He was quite satisfied.
At the half way point I suggested we might just leave it as is. It could have been like the dining room of the Batman villain Two Face. Brandi wasn't too keen on that idea. And finally on the day before Easter, two hours before we had to go to a birthday party and several hours before my family was due to arrive for dinner the floor was done. Ta Da!
I've been a bad blogger. It's been over a week since I've posted anything, and I haven't kept up with any of my friends online in the last week or so.
Most of this is due to my new job, which I started a week ago yesterday. The job is good, but oh man has it been a mind boggling whirlwind of information and stuff to learn. Every day last week I had a meeting of some kind, three of them lasting four hours, all while sharing my office with my predecessor so she can teach me everything she could. Just as I'm taking up the position, there are a couple of big issues that no one had really seen coming with that I have to deal with sooner or later.
To say the least, it's a challenging position that will keep me on my toes, which is a good thing. Alas, it has left me with no time to blog/read blogs during the day, and by the time I get home and spend time with Logan before he goes to bed, my brain is ready to shut down and I don't want to go online, write, read or do much of anything else. It doesn't help that we're down to one computer and I don't usually feel like using Brandi's. Although I did rent Resident Evil 4 for the Wii last week and the interactive experience of the game with the Wii controls makes it really creepy to play.
In other news, Brandi is usually pretty tired, but everything seems to be coming along okay with the baby. All of the tests have come back fine and the doctors aren't seeing any reason for concern like we had last time.
Logan is terribly two. Some days he can be an angel, some days he's a nightmare, usually he's somewhere in between. It's funny to see his personality develop and see what he picks up from us. He's started saying "bless you" after we sneeze. Tonight when I went out to check on dinner I found out that we had run out of gas in the grill, I said "poop" and of course he repeated it. He's also using his increased vocabulary to request his favorites for dinner and throughout the day, which usually includes pizza, suckers, milk, juice, and apples.
I finally finished the floor hours before my family came over for a day before Easter dinner and I'll get pictures of the finished product up eventually. It was a frustrating experience that I wanted to cut corners on to hurry up, but I didn't and it looks good now that I'm done.
The only other thing that comes to mind is that yesterday, on day six of my new job, I had to call in sick because someone had decided to deposit a spiky bowling ball in my stomach and leave it there all day. I thought I was ok when I went to work today, but after a couple hours I realized that wasn't the case. I stuck it out though because there's just so much that I have to do, and I'll do the same tomorrow I'm sure. My stomach quieted down enough while I was putting Logan to bed (it had to be me 'cause he didn't want mommy to put him to bed) that I was able to eat some toast. We'll see how that goes. Tomorrow calls for an all day training session, followed by the same on Thursday. I might be able to get out of part of tomorrow's but there's no way I'll be able to get out of any of Thursday's training. Whoo-hoo!
And with that I'm going to get ready for bed. I hope y'all are well and I'll get back into the swing of things on the blogosphere eventually.
What would you do if you came face to face with a wounded and enraged wildebeest?
“You certainly wouldn’t want to offer it a banana,” says wildebeest tamer and lead didgeridoo-player for the band Rhino Stomp, Dirk Wallababa. “A banana will only enrage it further.”
Instead, experts agree that one should immediately apply a liberal coating of turtle wax to the animals horns and bony protrusion. As the wildebeest is naturally a very vain animal, it will appreciate the new car shine that it gets from the wax. The rubbing motion will also help soothe the constant headache wildebeests are known to have due to their constant ramming and having to hold up those horns all the time.
After the animal has been calmed, one may look at the wound, but under no circumstances should it be touched. Also, one should not mention the unsightliness of the wound as this may cause the animal to go into another fit of rage. Instead, say “It doesn’t look that bad, honestly,” or something along those lines.
“If that doesn’t work, or you don’t have any turtle wax with you, point off behind the animal and shout something like ‘Oh my God!,’” explains animal expert and author of Is That a Kiwi Bird in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?, Michael Sofaking. “Everyone knows that the wildebeest is a stupid creature. All of that head bashing will kill a good portion of the brain cells on any animal.”
The New York Times has an interesting and alarming article about the increasing demand that is being put on libraries because of the struggling economy. Thankfully, I haven't seen theft, stabbings or sobbing at the library, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.
There does seem to be an uptick in the people coming in to use the computer for job searches. And without a doubt, circulation of materials has been up 30% over the last two years.
Via io9, researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver have created a tiny battery that could draw power from human blood. The batteries, designed for use in pacemakers and other implantable medical devices, contain a small colony of yeast. The living core of the fuel cell can draw energy from glucose in the blood flowing around it.
io9 goes on to talk about human cyborgs, but doesn't anyone else see the problem here? How long until we go from this:
To this:
I recently had a discussion with a couple of my brother's friends. One of them believes that the robot uprising is imminent, and that behind closed doors, Asimo is really an ass-kicking ninja master bot. Even if that weren't true, once true AI comes around, how long will it take for robots to realize that to enslave humans and turn them into powersources would kill two birds with one stone (nearly limitless source of energy, and freeing up the planet for themselves)?
Last night, it took more than two hours to get terribly two Logan to fall asleep.
He had gotten pretty tired out with two walks to the park and a skipped nap in the afternoon and ended up power napping on the couch while I made dinner. Thus when it was time for bed, he was up and ready to go. But I, foolishly, hoped that he would fall asleep quickly since he didn't sleep that long and he'd been pretty tired. I wanted to try and get him to bed in time to watch LOST (didn't happen, but thankfully Brandi taped it (Yes, I said taped. We don't have a Tivo or DVR or any of that fancy shamncy stuff)).
What did happen was I spent over an hour in his room, first reading to him, then laying next to him in bed, then sitting in the glider while he was in bed, then rocking and singing to him. At his point, I'd had about all I could take and I put him in bed, said goodnight and went downstairs. Begin pissed off crying.
Brandi went up to calm him down and that didn't work, so I went back up and as soon as I entered the room, Logan turned to Brandi and said "bye-bye". I sat in the chair for a few minutes more while he laid quietly in bed and then got up and left. Well he started crying again and pounding on the door and shouting for both of us, first one then the other. At some point he must have hit his little fist on the door too hard because when he hurts himself a little he'll say "okay" in a sad, pathetic voice. Well he hit the door and I heard him say okay a couple times and then he screamed it as loud as he could. It wasn't an "I'm hurt come make it better scream" it was more of a "You bastards locked me in here and now I had to hurt my hand on the door so you better get your ass back in here" kind of scream. It was hard not to laugh then and there.
At about that point we just left him to cry and scream and bang on the door. And eventually, he made his way back to be and fell asleep. My night was shot, cause there were things I wanted to do aside from watch LOST. Then, as I was taking a shower this morning at about 6:15, the door opened and I heard a tentative "Daddie?"
Hopefully he won't be too much of a pill for Brandi today.
Oh, and as a side note, today is my third to last double shift day ever!
I am a library professional, father, and husband. When I've got the time I like to read a little, write a little, or just float around in my own little delusions. You can contact me at mwarnock82 @ yahoo.com
Here I am with my father-in-law on day two of the installation. Day two went a lot faster than the first night did. We moved the table out into the living room, and moved the smaller furniture around as needed. Once we got the feel for how the tongue and groove fit together, it wasn't too hard. 
Of course, once we got started, Logan had to test it out and see how well his cars would roll across the new floor. He was quite satisfied. 
