Maureen Stapleton and Peter Tomarken (he was the host of "Press Your Luck") have died. Peter died in a plane crash. I liked both of them, my favorite Ms. Stapleton movie is "Airport". Both will be missed.

Wow, what a ride weather wise yesterday was. Four storm blew in and out, we got close to two inches. Over an inch was dumped in just one storm. The first storm came through in the morning, the next two in the afternoon and the last one hit in the evening. Street lights were knocked out, cars were damaged by winds, debris or by hail. Some areas had hail the size of eggs or larger. The largest hail we got was no bigger than a pea. The lighting was probably the best in the even, because it was dark and we could see it best. Not sure if anyone died or is any tornados touched down. I do know there were reports of funnel clouds in the afternoon.

Severe weather in the area the past couple days. Just had heavy thunderstorm roar through, it dumped an inch of rain and some hail, it was in and out within about ten minutes.

Went out this morning to wash the car and do a couple errands before another storm was coming in. We got to the car wash when the window picked up and knocked the power out it rained heavy for a couple minutes. As we headed to Kmart, the rain stopped. The clouds were very dark and the wind gusted strong for a bit. Managed to get the errands done and was back home before anything else happened. It looked like everything was going back to normal before this afternoon storm hit.

The sirens are blaring off and on, there's still some thunder out. Not sure we are out of danger yet.

Dana Reeve, Christopher Reeve's wife, has died from lung cancer. Kirby Puckett, has died after suffering a stroke on Sunday. Sad about both, they were in their forties which is too young to die.

We bought a dryer at Lowes. Looked at some of the other dryers, but bought the one we had picked online. It is supposed to be delivered today.

Saw the movie "Mrs. Henderson Presents" yesterday. It was very good, I had heard nothing about it prior to seeing it.

Finally got some rain yesterday and early this morning. The total was about half an inch. There is more rain in the forecast for the coming week and we need everything we can get. It has been rather dry this year so far.

Yesterday was sort of a bad day, glad it's over.

It is, at this moment, like twenty degrees cooler then it was on Wednesday. Rain has been forecast for the weekend, January was the warmest on record and February was the driest on record.

Have to go and buy a new dryer this weekend. Our old one decided it didn't want to live anymore. We are going to try Lowes first, as a last resort we will go to Sears. We usually go to Sears anyway, at least for appliances, but we wanted to do something different this time.

Last night the power went out, not once but twice. About twenty minutes into the first round, we decided to go out for dinner. I wanted to go somewhere where we could sit and chat, but Mom just wanted to get something to eat at home. But the joke was on her, because when we got back home the power had gone out again. So there we were in the family room, eating take out by candle light. When the power finally came back on again, I told Mom that I hoped it didn't go out again and it didn't.

Dennis Weaver has passed away. I cant say that I saw much of his work, but what I did catch I enjoyed.

Have a headache, its worse then yesterdays. Its a borderline migraine and hard to get rid of.

Random thought Monday.

Good bye and good riddance to the winter Olympics.

Hello early spring.

Die,die,die to all headaches.

Mondays suck.

It was a good day to go to Topeka yesterday. It was cool and windy, but it was also sunny. The only bad thing was that I had a headache, because of it I had Mom drive to and from Topeka. I did some general research, while Mom did census lookups.

Will do a couple errands today,including getting some groceries, and will do some cleaning.

Darren McGavin and Don Knotts have died. I like a lot of the things Mr. McGavin did, I just liked how his personality seemed to bleed through the perfomance and what you were seeing was really what he was like. I was never a Don Knotts fan, I found the Andy Griffith show a tad annoying, but I did like Mr. Knotts performance on Threes Company, which was a bad TV show in its own right.

Will be going to Topeka tomorrow. I don't like going there as much as I used to, simply because we have done it so much. It would be great if we didn't go for a couple years, but I don't think that will ever happen.

The weather has been nice, albeit warmer then it should be for this time of the year. But I will enjoy it while I can. The dreaded summer heat is lurking in the background somewhere and is snickering.

I have pretty much given up watching the Olympics, I doubt I will watch the winter Olympics again. Maybe watch an even here or there, but I am done with them. The coverage sucks, the stories about the athletes suck and the commentators are just awful.

Will probably go to Topeka Saturday. Mom wants to get back into a research groove again, which I don't mind. I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to go every month.

Baseball season will be starting soon. Other then the Cubs and Royals (yes I know the Royals haven't been good in years), not sure who else I will root for this year. It would be nice if the Cubs won the series this year.

The weather is supposed to improve later in the week. Need to get some laundry done, so it would be nice if it were a little warmer.

We are having a bit of a cold spell. The low tonight is supposed to be zero, the high for tomorrow is supposed to be nineteen. I think it was Tuesday we had a high of over sixty degrees and now this. Well that's winter for you, one day you're out and about without a jacket and a couple days later you're wondering if the pipes are going to freeze.

Will get some more straw out for the dogs tonight. The huskies love their straw.

Have a couple errands to do tomorrow. Take two on getting watch batteries and will get some groceries.

So far the Olympics suck. And it's not because the Americans aren't doing well. Most of it is the lousy coverage, also a factor is the repeated watchablity of some of the events. There are only so many times I can watch someone on the luge and so many times I can watch speed skating. Curling is just bloody awful to watch and who the heck decided it should be in the Olympics? Hockey, or any other team sport for that matter ( I do not include the two and four man bobsled in this), shouldn't be in the Olympics.

I also don't want to see boring, so called "touching" stories of some athlete who triumphed over some adversity to get to the Olympics. The commentators need to spend a little more time shutting their mouths when stuff is being shown. Their comments aren't that great and some of those people need a good smacking.

I had been somewhat excited to hear more than one channel was going to be covering the games, that was until I found that curling and hockey was going to shown and that some channels wouldn't have more than an hour or two of events. I say to NBC Sports is "Why flipping bother showing anything if the coverage is going to be so poor". And would it be so hard to stay with one event for like a block of time rather then a few minutes here and there. It makes it hard to want to continue watching when the programming jumps all over.

I feel cheated and I cant get a refund or my time back. But I would waste both on something else anyway.

Okay, I feel better now.

Let's see...I am feeling a little better then I did yesterday, the Olympics suck so far (particularly the coverage,it jumps around like a child with ADD on a sugar binge) and Vice President Cheney "accidentally" shoot a fellow hunter while on a trip in Texas. Also Missouri basketball head coach Quin Snyder left his job. The guy did a decent job, but he seemed to be unstable a few times this past season.

I have the flu, it isn't very bad but I feel awful. Slept most of yesterday afternoon. The streets were clear of snow by afternoon and so in the evening I went out for some orange juice. Just hope this junk doesn't linger around for a while.

We have some snow today. Don't know when it started and not sure if it rained as well or not. Went out to do some errands and wasn't able to do everything because of the slickness beneath the snow. One hill was a bit hard to get up, we did do the slip and slide trick in a couple areas when we tried to brake. We did manage to get to the back, the gas station and the grocery store before coming home. We needed to do a couple other things, but the streets are just to bad in spots, so we opted to scale things back a bit. Getting watch batteries and stamps can wait.

The Olympics started yesterday. Watched most of the opening ceremonies before going to bed. Not sure how much of the events I will watch though.

Chat room intellectuals, don't you just love 'em. They are the people who irk everyone with their thoughts on life and the world. Then they boot you or make fun of you when you ignore them or whatever. Those are the type that make life fun sometimes, especially when you can toy with them.

Just as I had hoped, the Steelers won the Super Bowl. But the game was boring. It was nice not to have the Patriots in the game yet again, though. Three commercials I liked, the rest sucked. The three I liked were: 1) The Aleve commercial starring Leonard Nimoy, 2) The Budweiser commercial with the young Clydesdale trying to pull the wagon and having the two older Clydesdales pushing and the last one was another Budweiser commercial with the horses playing football and the sheared sheep streaking. Over all I was bored by the game and the commercials.

Super Bowl Sunday Baby! I will be watching the game and the commercials tonight. Have the fun of watching the game is watching it for the commercials. Tomorrow I will report which ones I liked and which ones I didn't.

Al "Grampa Munster" Lewis has died. I got the Munsters second season set for Christmas. Will start watching the shows again this week, have been way behind on my DVD viewing. After I finish season one, I'll start on season two.

I want to comment on a rumor that's been going around the area for a few days. It concerns the football player known a T.O., otherwise known as Terrell Owens, and the chance he could become a Kansas City Chief. If the Chiefs are stupid enough to sign this guy, then that's the last time I ever care about the chiefs. I know I am not alone in this. He might be a good player, but he complains more then anything else. He gets a chance to play in a Super Bowl, plays like a baby and blames everyone but himself for the defeat. I just hope the team does NOT sign this moron. Let him go to the Bengals.

Coretta Scott King has died. I was born the year her husband was killed. I wonder what the world would have been like had he survived the shooting.

Went to Topeka yesterday to do some research. Managed to keep myself busy by looking up various dates, like the Shuttle explosion from 1986 and a few other things. Mom kept busy looking at old census files. She did find a few things but not as much as she would have liked.

It was a nice day to go with the rain. We got close to an inch, glad we got some rain since we really needed the moisture.

Have been having some strange dreams lately. Walking in fields, driving in strange towns, driving over odd bridges and going through some odd maze like route to get out of a hotel. The latter usually involves me trying to get away from someone.

My pick for Superbowl winner is Pittsburgh.

Will be going to Topeka again tomorrow so mom can do some genealogy research. It has been awhile since she wanted to go and who knows when we will get another shot.

Kiska has been doing well since her surgery last week. She will need to have her stitches out next week.

A cousin of my moms past away earlier this week. I think I might have met him once or twice at a family reunion, but I don't recall much about him. My mom's side of the family stopped having reunions, so far as I know, years ago. We speculated about his wife. He hadn't gotten married until late in life and was very into African Violets. Not to say that a straight man couldn't wait until late to get married or wouldn't express an interest in African Violets but he may have been pushed to get married. And that's all I'll say about that.

Chris Penn, Sean Penn's brother, died. He was a good actor and sort of lived in his brothers shadow. Sad he died so young.

Kiska had her surgery and is doing fine. Sergi got loose while we were trying to get both dogs in the car, we wanted to go ahead and get Sergei's shots for the year. He ran off but came back quickly. Once he was back, we got him in the car and off to the vet's office we went. It was a lot to have Kiska's surgery, shots, exams and heartguard for both dogs. But if we're lucky, we wont have to take them back again for a year. Although Kiska will need to go in next week to have her stitches removed.

Wilson Pickett, Tony Fransisca and Shelley Winters passed recently.

Will be taking Kiska in to the vet's office tomorrow to be spayed. We will take Sergei in so he cant get his yearly shots, when we pick up Kiska tomorrow evening or Thursday morning we will make sure she gets her yearly shots. Then we can go ahead and license them for the year.

The pictures are of Kiska at five months, the Christmas tree and one of Kiskas favorite hobbies-biting Sergei.

Had a winter weather advisory yesterday. South of us got more snow and a bit more rain then us. We got a little more than a dusting, others got as much as a couple inches. Accidents galore because idiots in SUVs and ugly big trucks think they can drive fast, while they can they just cant stop on a dime if they need to and then they crash. If mom hadn't needed a couple things we wouldn't have gone out after she got home.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Art Bell whos wife has died. May she rest in peace.

/rant on

Pat Robertson a so called man of God is giddy about Sharons' stroke. I don't know how this loser is able to go out and say crap like this without people coming down hard on him and doing protests and what not. I mean this jerk has also called for assassinations of people. Is he getting this message from God? This is why when people ask me about my beliefs in religion I say "I believe in God, I don't believe in religion", and that's the truth. Its bad enough idiots like Robertson have an audience who think he's the greatest thing since sliced cheese, but you have the people in the cult known as Scientology that spout crap like "Aids is a state of mind".

When religions can get there act together and say "Okay, we've worked everything out and we are all together on this. This is what we now are going with as a belief structure and so on" I might listen to them. You have one book called the bible, but you have like (this is an exaggeration) 2,000 religions based on that book.

/rant off.

First tragedy of the year. Several miners in West Virginia die after being trapped in the mines for some hours. One miner survived and the family's of those who died at first thought their loved ones survived only to be told that wasn't the case.

May the miners who died rest in peace. May peace come to their families.

Happy New Year. May this be a better year for us all.

I feel a bit drained after all the plumbing, stress and waiting of the past week. Don't want to talk about the estimator and the other plumbing deal because it will only piss me off again. Am happy the week is over and now looking forward to having a subdued New Years celebration.

Have a good feeling that this coming year will be better. Will be more successful selling on eBay then I was this year. Also feel that maybe some things will o our way more then a few times this year. Will put up my predictions of the coming year up tomorrow.

Have a safe and Happy New Year.

Well that was some Christmas. It started off nice and went down hill from there. Opened gifts and had breakfast before we started doing other things. Mom started some rolls and forgot to take a plastic bowl she had left in the oven when it had been turned off while the dough was rising. So when we opened the warm oven to place the rolls in to bake them, we found a half melted bowl. Good thing was it was easy to get out.

At some point mom went back in to go to the bathroom and noticed her toilet wouldn't flush she began using the plunger on it. As she did that, I went into my bathroom and noticed the sewage back up in the tub and in my toilet. We called a plumbing company we have used many times before and in the afternoon a guy came out. He said it was either the septic tank (which was just pumped this past spring) or it was a clog. If it was a clog he would need to auger and that meant water in the laundry room. So we told we would think about it and have the company come out today.

This morning we were doing some cleaning while we waited to hear from the plumber. Midmorning a guy with a septic pumper arrived and less then a half hour later he was finished. The septic tank was fine, just had some water and no other problems. So we then had to wait for another guy to come out and auger the drain. It wasn't a long wait for him and he got started quickly and was done quickly too. There was a clog where the water goes to the septic tank. The pipe was warped or cracked, because of this toilet paper couldn't go through properly if it was a big wad. And what we had was a large wad of paper. The plumber patched one leaky pipe with some tape and told mom that the pipe leading to the septic tank needed to be fixed. So tomorrow an estimator will come out and check things out. Not sure how much that will cost but to fix the clog and drain the septic tank again cost over three hundred dollars.

We did have a botched Christmas dinner and figured we should get out the house and do something. So while it may not have been the Christmas we had in mind, I guess things could have been worse.

I just need to vent a little about eBay. I do like eBay and have for the seven years I have selling there. While it does have a lot of ups it does have a few downs. What irks me is how somebody can try and make you out to be the bad guy in the situation when you've done nothing. For example, I have a bidder who didn't pay for the item when it closed in October, I left neutral feedback (I save negative for something rather heinous) for her and filed to get my fees back. Well now here it is some two months after the close of auction and absolutely no response from her and she finally shows up to the party and she's seething. She claims she paid (She first said she paid with a check, then a money order and then with cash), but alas I did not get said payment. She says she's angry and that I am a liar and a cheat. Not once did she respond to any emails not did I get payment. I doubt she has any proof that she did ever send payment. So just to make the whole thing go away so we can all move on, I said I'd give her the bloody CD for free. And folks she's getting "angry" over a stupid $3.25 auction for a stupid Sugarhill Gang CD. Well I hope she cuts herself on Christmas with something sharp and rusty and then bleeds to death. I don't see how I am the bad guy when payment was never received and no contact from her at all during those two months but what-bloody-ever. Screw her and her nasty self. She'll probably gloat over it and then try and claim I didn't send it but I will have delivery confirmation to back me up. So screw her to the Nth degree and her stupid parents who didn't use a condom the night she was conceived.

Okay...I feel better now.

Got some more snow. It started sometime yesterday morning and ended early this morning. Just a light snow, but we did get about a couple inches. The sun is shining now.

Went to Crown Center yesterday. Almost decided not to go because of the weather, but since I had wanted to go last weekend and didn't I figured we might as well go ahead and do it. After we were finished we went to Manny's for lunch. We got groceries and then headed home. It was a little slow going in spots but it wasn't to bad getting out and about.

There were heavy snow flurries for about two minutes and then it let up. If it does manage to snow, I doubt it will amount to much.

Had a migraine yesterday and much of the day was wasted trying to get rid of it. It finally left when I was about to go to bed in the evening.

Neglected to mention Richard Pryors passing. Although I wasn't a huge fan of the trailblazing comedian, I did like some of his stuff.

Most of the snow has melted. Yesterday it got into the forties and now grass is poking through some spots in the snow. There are still large mounds of snow in parking lots though.

Had a migraine much of yesterday. Finally it left late in the afternoon.

Bought a tree yesterday, a nice five and a half foot Balsam. It looks really good in the living room where you can see it from the street. We wont be putting any expensive gifts under the tree (although I wish Santa would bring me the new xbox with a few games and some gamecube games), so no worry about theft. Will post a picture of the tree later.

We got a foot of snow out there. It is a light and fluffy type, but yikes none the less. Took me and mom about an hour to clear the driveway. When we were almost finished I looked up and saw a huge line of Snow Geese flying. They were really high up to. Had to be close to a hundred of them, long line which was doubled up at spots. We could barely hear over a neighbors snowplow, but we did manage to hear a faint honk. It was just a wonderful sight. I have a tendency to look up at the sky a lot during the day (and night too). Particularly when I am out and about. So glad I looked up when I did.

It is cold and lightly snowing out. Does the chant "Snow, snow go away, I want warm weather right today!" work? Or am I just wasting time and energy?

Kiska loves the weather. Of course she's only four months old and this is all new to her. She will be five months old on Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas. I just haven't been in a Christmas mood at all this year. I am not completely Bah Humbug about it though. Managed to get the final two things I had ordered for mom. It turns out one of the sub drivers had delivered that first package to a house two streets over and they had refused it. He shipped it back to Amazon and probably never looked at the address to see that he had screwed up. If he had made an attempt to deliver it to the right house we would have had ten days to claim it before it was shipped back. Glad I ask my regular carrier about it, otherwise I would have never known what really happened.

It has been bitterly cold the past week. Might dance in the front yard and scare the neighbors if we have a warm spell. Lets see, which would be more welcome right now, a heat wave or junk mail. I think a heat wave would be but junk mail is not without its merits ( one being that you can light the stuff on fire in the fireplace).

Have been keeping busy by culling out some things I have neglected. I used to have quite a collection of sports cards, but I found I wasn't really enjoying them. So I kept my Topps cards and kept cards of the teams I like and still follow. The rest of the cards I donated to Goodwill and I don't care what they do with them, I am just happy I finally thinned my collection. Not sure what I'm going to do with my concert t-shirts. I don't have a lot, but not sure if it really matters that I have a t-shirt from a concert I went to twenty-something years ago. Might keep my Queen "Hot Space" shirt and that's it. As much as I love music, I don't have a driving need to go to concerts.

Got a couple loads of laundry done. Finished watching the last disc of the "Family Guy" set three, including some of the extras and played the commentary on all the episodes that had commentary.

Am a little pissed at one of the sub. letter carriers that worked my street last week. I was anxiously awaiting a package from Amazon.com because it contained Christmas presents for mom. Well the idiot delivered it to the wrong house, never bothered to look and see if he had the right addy and then ships it back to Amazon saying I refused it. Ended up getting a refund and had to re order the gifts. The second order was split into two shipments. One shipment is coming via Airborne and the other is coming via the post office. I just hope there are no sub drivers next week or I'm gonna cry.

The arctic chill has decided to visit early and will be staying around for a few days. So a few things, namely doing some laundry, are on hold for a bit. Might get a load or two of laundry done tomorrow in the afternoon if it gets above freezing and it looks like it will. I'm not desperate for clothes or anything, but I would like to get a mixed load of things and a load of mom's sheets done.

The only things that concern me about this sudden chill is: A) how will the Corolla handle it over time and how will it handle snow B) will we have pipes freezing again. There is a chance of snow, we already have had a dusting and it didn't last too long.

We didn't have much of a transition period. It was in the sixties over the weekend and then bam, its right to winter weather.

We had some severe weather come through the area yesterday afternoon and evening. Thought we might not get anything but twenty minutes after getting home from an errand, it started storming. It blow in and out within a half hour, got about an inch of rain from the storm. I understand that some areas got the worse part of the storm: stronger winds, bigger hail etc.

Right now it is lightly snowing out. It is cooler today then it was this weekend.

Saw the movie "Walk The Line" yesterday. It was not as good as I had hoped it would be. The movie was slow in parts and spent too much time on Johnny's pursuit of June. Maybe that was the point of the movie, but it shouldn't have been.

Did a little shopping and had lunch out yesterday as well. The server at the restaurant attempted to short change us by twenty dollars. We noticed and waited for her to come back around so we could tell what she had done, but she was way to busy chatting with another table. So mom got up and walked over and confronted her about it and she was so casual about the whole thing. I can only imagine she wanted us not to notice so she could have a nice big tip and a cool story about how two stupid women didn't say anything when they got short changed. Well I didn't feel bad about giving her a smaller tip. She could have gotten a five dollar tip but got a lousy two bucks. It wasn't worth talking to the manager about it, he probably wouldn't have done anything anyway.

I'm of the opinion that every house should have three basic tools: a roll of quality duct tape, a large can of WD-40 and a hammer. Because if you cant fix it with the first two, you at least have another option.

Yesterday it started out nice, clear skies and not a cloud to be seen. Then in the afternoon it turned cooler and cloudy. Today was cloudy most of the day, there was a period in the afternoon where it was sunny. Looked like it was going to rain, but didn't.

Managed to get the shower surround up yesterday. Took a little longer then expected to get installed, but it looks good. Finally got to take a shower this afternoon. Would have taken one earlier but wanted to give the caulk a few more hours to cure. The stuff looks better then the other crap we had up.

I've got all the Christmas shopping for my mom done. Now all I have to do is wait for them to be delivered.

It snowed for maybe an hour or so yesterday morning, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground. The wind gusts were pretty strong most of the day. The temperature dipped down into the teens last night. Was afraid Kiska wouldn't be able to take the really cold weather because she's so young, but saw her laying out on the patio this morning.

Will have a busy weekend. Have a bathroom project to take of. Bought a shower surround kit to put up.

We have a chance for some winter weather this afternoon. It was in the sixties over the weekend and was in the forties yesterday. It rained a little yesterday and it rained earlier this morning. Is a little strange to hear thunder at six am on a November Tuesday. We need the rain so I will not complain to much. The local weather forecasters have changed the forecast several times since Monday morning, so I don't know if I can really trust what they say is coming in. I am hoping that the Corolla will handle fine in the winter. I do know we still need to get a alignment done, but that can wait a little longer.

Got a little rain today, nothing measureable. Just enough to make the roads slick. Did a couple errands this morning and did some cleaning doen this afternoon.

Today was a long day. First I took Franklin to the vet so he could have another round of shots and get neutered. When I got home we looked into getting the Tracer finally hauled off. The first company never asked for our address but acted as if they wanted the car. We had called yesterday and then again this morning to check to see if they wanted the Tracer. The person who answered said the owner would call in ten minutes. Well an hour later we still hadn't heard from them, so we contacted another company. Company two picked the car up with in 40 minutes. Now that's how a company should be run. A customer calls and everything is handled quickly.

After the Tracer was hauled off, Mom got some things together to mail to a fellow genealogy researcher. We left to go to the grocery store to make copies, the post office and Kmart. Ended up buying so clothes while we were at Kmart. After we left Kmart we had lunch before we headed home. At two pm we called the vet's office to see if we could pick up Franklin and were told he was ready to come home. Before we picked him up we had to go to the place we bought the Corolla and get the title. Once we left there, we headed for the courthouse to register the Corolla. When we got there, we found that because the Corolla had a Texas title we needed to get the car inspected. So out to the inspection site we went, where with twenty minutes to spare we get the car inspected. Rather than going back downtown, we went to the court house annex and got the Corolla licensed there. In six to eight weeks we will have the title back.

Once that was finished, we headed towards our local gas station to fuel up and then stopped by the bank before we went home to get Kiska. Kiska needed to get her third round of shots. We went to the Vets office to take of Franklin and Kiska before once again heading home. But that's not all. We wanted to get something for dinner. So after I put the license plate on the Corolla, we went to Sonic and came home. I am amazed we got everything we needed to do, plus a couple other things, done today. If Mom had not taken the day off, most of this wouldn't have gotten done at all.

Today was pretty warm. It's supposed to be a little cooler the next couple days before we have another warm up. It's fall and November, I want fall and November like weather. Which Mother Nature will probably give us when we least expect it too.

Finally starting to feeling better. Still have the nasty cough, but it is getting better and not needing so much of the cough suppressant.

Glad to see the Chiefs win today and at the last minute. While I may change my mind about some of our rivals, I will always hate the Oakland Raiders.

The weather has been nice the past few days. The trees are finally starting to change. I just hope we don't get hit with a snow storm with the trees still full of leaves.

Neglected to mention anything about Rosa Parks passing away. Changed history with one small act.

We had only seven kids on Halloween, could have had more if they had bothered to cross the street. When I was a kid, and I do realize times have changed, I went to darn every house I could before I headed home. I thought of handing out baseball cards for a moment and decided not to, didn't want to have the house egged again.

Got a bit of rain this morning, it never really amounted to much. The weather is supposed to turn warmer this week. I would like Mother Nature to stay with the normal fall weather rather then the continued roller coaster stuff we've had all freaking year.

Feel the start of a cold coming on. Having been sick in a while.

Saw "Capote" over the weekend. It was good movie. A little slow in parts, but good.

Congrats to the Chicago White Sox for winning the world series in a sweep.

Some day I know the Cubs will win.

The rain past through the area again yesterday afternoon. I haven't checked the rain gauge so I don't know how much we got, but I don't think it was very much. Looks like we might get some more rain today. Cooler weather is in store for the entire week. It is a welcome visitor, I'll take it over the warmer temperatures any day.

The Chicago White Sux....I mean Sox beat the Houston Astros last night. This is Houstons first trip to the big game, the Sox haven't been in the series since 1959. Would like to see the Astros win the series.

From Wednesday afternoon until Thursday morning we got an inch of rain. I am so glad I got those bulbs planted and the trim around outside of the new door painted before the rain came.

This is Kiska. We call her Kiska, Kissy, the little Hoover, Houdini and Blondie.


Monday and Tuesday I planted bulbs. Tulips, Dutch Iris and some Asiatic Lilies bulbs were bought during the summer and shipped at the time they should be planted. The only bad thing about the company, is that they don't sell bulbs in smaller amounts. We had to over buy in order to get what we wanted. I will be happy if anything blooms next year. Other than a couple Peonies, will probably not make a big effort to bulbs ever.

We went to a used car lot on Saturday and bought a 2000 Toyota Corolla. Its a nice car. It is a dark green color with beige interior.

This morning we went to Enterprise and returned the rental car. Still have to figure out what to do with the Tracer. Will see if a charity wants it, if not might place an ad and sell it for parts.

$2,500 to fix the transmission on a eight year old car is highway robbery. Aamco must make a lot of money on suckers to stupid to know better. Well we got enough of our money taken from us by Firestone. They always found something wrong with the car that probably wasn't an issue yet. So now the car sits with the transmission in pieces in the trunk. We still have then rental car until next week. Will be looking for a cheap car we can buy, not sure how soon we will find one. Can you imagine the look on someones face if they tried to steal a car that didn't have a tranny.

Yesterday I had a migraine, watched the Lowe's guy install a new sliding glass and waited for the guy from the towing company to bring the dead car. On top of that I was waiting to see if the mail had any packages for me.

This has been quite a week.

It was cooler today then it was Monday. In fact there is a frost advisory for the evening. It snowed in I think Wyoming, Montana and Colorado. We go from 88 degrees Monday to 58 Thursday. There was rain in the forecast for a couple days but nothing happened. It's supposed to be cool and sunny for the weekend.

Will be taking the car to Aamco to have the transmission looked at tomorrow afternoon. Don't think its anything major, but I've been wrong before and I could be wrong now.

Kiska doesn't know what to make of spaghetti, but she seems to like a little rice mixed with peas and mushroom soup. Oh she seems to like leftover lasagna from the night before. Sergei loves the dry dog food so much that he wont eat the canned or leftovers for more then a few bites. If I start mixing the dry dog food up, combination of Iams puppy food, Beneful adult food along with Beneful puppy food, he heads over to the dry dog food bowls and waits for me to come out with it. I usually don't like to mix foods like that way but its the only way Kiska will eat her puppy food.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Getting some rain today. Wont have a total until tonight or tomorrow morning.

Have a slight headache this morning.

Didn't sleep very well last night. Late yesterday evening, Mom woke me up to tell me Sergei had something in the yard. She couldn't get him away from it and see couldn't see what was going on, only could hear the scuffle. Once I was awake I could hear the scuffle. Once I was dressed and out in the yard, we managed to get Sergei up near the house. Mom held Kiska while I took the flashlight out in search of the victim. I found a raccoon down in the gully (our backyard isn't flat..about two-thirds of is flat, then there is a hill a bit of a gully and then another flat part), it was alive when I first saw it, but it died while I was putting a new battery in the flashlight. Luckily we had a shovel already in the backyard, I changed shoes and took care of the body. Sergei knew he did something bad as was remorseful. Just wish he would let creatures pass through the yard without going after them. But I know this will never happen, he cant overcome the primal urge to kill. He hardly ate this morning, he still seems upset. Kiska got sick last night, probably from the excitement.

The total amount of rain we got Friday was one and three-quarters inch of rain. So far we have received a quarter of an inch of rain this morning. It looks like we might get more rain.

Saw the movie "Corpse Bride" over the weekend and not because I wanted to. Mom liked the movie "Nightmare Before Christmas" so much, she really wanted to see "Corpse Bride" in the theaters. If she didn't have a tendency to dose off sometimes while in the theater, I would have told her to see the movie on her own. I hate having to go to movies I have no interest in at all just so she can see a movie. So I suffered through the movie only to hear her say she didn't like the movie that much.

Woke up around four am to thunder and the sound of rain. Had to close one window and turn a off a window fan. It looks like it will be raining off and on all day. So far the rain gauge has about a inch and a half of rain. This summer we've had uneven weather. Long dry spells broken up by cool wet spells (these didn't last long). Don't think we've gotten nearly as much this summer as we typically get, but I could be wrong.

Hurricane Rita is churning in the Gulf, if it hits any oil rigs we will be paying more at the pumps in a few days much like we did when Katrina hit. But this time it might last longer then a couple weeks, probably stay high for a month or longer. It's not like the oil companies need an excuse to charge more at the pump, if the wind changes direction or a holiday comes around then they jack the prices up. Of course, they are rich enough that paying a few cents more per gallon every time they fill up doesn't effect them. It's Joe Everyman that feels the pinch. I don't feel sorry though, for the people in the large trucks or SUV (which really means Strictly Urban Vehicle) who could drive a smaller vehicle but drive those gigantic things. If they we're stupid enough to buy them, then they deserve to pay more for gas.

Kiska is growing like a weed. She has a very healthy appetite and hoovers up just about anything you put down for her. We gave them spaghetti earlier in the week and she didn't know what to do with it so she played with it. I think Sergei got most of it, so it didn't go to waste. Next week, we will be taking Kiska and Franklin to the Vet's for a follow up visit and their second round of shots.

The rain we got earlier in the week, didn't amount to very much. It acted like a big storm but gave us less then a quarter inch of rain.

Waited Monday and Tuesday to hear from the contractor, who didn't call until late Tuesday evening. I knew he had forty-eight hours to call us starting on Monday, but I wouldn't have thought he would call so late. Thursday afternoon he will come take a look at the old door and we will go from there.

Monday in the mail, I got the Over The Edge DVD, along with the collectors edition of Close Encounters of The Third Kind, that I had pre-ordered some three months ago. In November I will get the Family Guy Volume 3 set and The Family Guy movie, both pre-ordered. Also pre-ordered The Outsiders DVD Monday evening. The Outsiders is a bigger better version of the movie.

About four am, thunderstorm rolled in. There was a nice amount of thunder (which I don't like) and lightening (which I do like). Looks like we may get more rain today, so I won't have a rain total until tonight or tomorrow morning.

Went out to Lowe's yesterday and looked at sliding glass doors, those with and without screens. Monday or Tuesday we will have someone come out and look at the old door and frame to see if any additional materials will be needed. After that we will find out how much the price is to have a new door installed. What's good about the deal with Lowe's is that the person installing the stuff hauls the old crap away.

Got one and a quater inch of rain this morning. It is cooler today the it was yesterday and cooler then it was Sunday.

Looks like rain today, looked that way yesterday as well. Might actually get it today though.

Kiska went to the vet for a check up Thursday afternoon and checked out fine. She weighed in at eight pounds 6 ounces. That's what she weighs at 6 weeks old. Still can't tell what color her eyes are going to be. One looks like it might be bi-colored.

First weekend in October will be taking both Kiska and Franklin in for second checkups and second round of shots.

We have a new puppy and her name is Kiska. We got her yesterday from a family in Independence, Mo. She is a blonde-brown color and about six weeks old. Sergei isn't quite sure what to make of her. I was worried he would hurt her or that she would whine all night, but she slept soundly last night. I think she is comforted with Sergei looking so much like her daddy. Will get a photo up soon.

It is sad it has taken so long for help to arrive in the areas hit by the hurricane. If the people who couldnt or wouldnt leave for one reason or another had been white instead of black, help would have been there within hours.

Saw "Broken Flowers" today and it was really good.

Has a mild migraine this morning. Managed to beat it back before we left for the movie. Went to dinner after the movie at a seafood place and talked about the movie with mom.

Hurricane Katrina pounded the south, in particular New Orleans. I was in New Orleans once, in 1979 for a few days. Love the area, was nice place even though I was only 11 years old. I will be giving a few dollars to the Red Cross to help out would encourage everyone to donate some money if you can.

The combined rain totals for Thursday and Friday are two and a half inches of rain. And that to the six inches or so we got the week prior and that's a lot of darned rain. Yet some parts of Kansas and Missouri haven't had much rain. Its Mother Nature at her best.

Took Franklin to the vet's office yesterday and found that he's a healthy boy. He got his first go around of shots, he'll get another set of shots in a month and then will get neutered in late fall.

We've had more rain this past week, but nothing really measurable. Mostly just short bursts of light rain. And it's been raining off and on all morning. The humidity is making it a little tough to get things dry.

Our little kitten we who adopted us last week will be going to the vet's office Saturday for a check up. We have named him Franklin.

Because it had cooled off enough for us to feel up to going out, we decided to do a little shopping after we got groceries. But before we could leave we had to deal with the fact that a black kitten has adopted us. While we were out, we stopped at Petco and purchased a few things before going on with the rest of our day. All this and we still can't seem to find a companion for Sergei.

We got more rain Friday, the total so far is five inches. I need to get some laundry done today, even if it does rain today.

Had a nasty weather related headache develop last night. We went out to pick up a couple things at the grocery store and I felt the pressure begin to build behind my right eye as we left the store. When we got home fifteen minutes later, I thought I was going to vomit, but somehow managed to avoid doing that. Ate a late dinner,look something for the pain before I showered and went to bed.

We got about a quarter inch of rain this morning. Most of the night it looked liked it was going to build to this big storm and nothing really happened. Just a little rain then the storm left.

Had a nasty migraine yesterday. Didn't get as much done as I wanted to because I felt lousy all day.

This morning I woke up to rain, we got three quarters of an inch of rain in the short downpour. Which killed any chance of me doing a load of laundry this morning. It is supposed to be hot today and tomorrow, but will cool off again this weekend. Tomorrow has a chance of rain as well. Ugh, wonder how much rain we will get and how steamy will it get. We need the rain, but we could do without the heat.

From Friday morning until early Sunday morning we got 3.25 inches of rain.

It has been nice the past couple days and its shaping up to be nice today as well. Will have the finally rain gauge total later today. Not sure if it will rain or not today.

Went to a cat show at the KCI Expo Center yesterday. Did some shopping and had lunch out before coming home.

Got some much needed rain this morning and could get some more before the days done. Looks like the weather pattern finally broke into a more pleasant situation.

Had trouble sleeping last night, never got a full nights sleep. My room was a bit warm, even though I had the windows open and had the fans going. Felt like I was broiling.

Was hopeful that it wouldn't continue to be blast furnace hot, but I thought wrong. Another week of higher then normal temperatures and it is just zapping what strength I have. On top of that, some scattered storms are popping up here and there, but nothing in our neck of the woods. It seems the weather has to be one extreme or the other with seldom any patterns of normalcy at all.

This weekend will be a dull one due to the projected temperatures. Not that there is a ton of things we want to do, but we might have felt up to get out of the house for a few hours and do something fun if it weren't for the heat.

Got some much needed rain last night and this morning. But not nearly as much as we need. I am happy it is cooler but it will turn warm again next week. Thought we might get away from the blast furnace for awhile, but guess not.

It was warmer over the weekend then I expected it would be. Yesterday was hotter then predicted and the same will go for today and tomorrow. I am tired of the blast furnace heat. Will be happy when it cools off and we get some much needed rain, which might happen later in the week.

Have managed to get a few things done in this heat. Would like to get more done, but I just feel limp after getting a few chores done.

Got some much needed rain yesterday. I thought we wouldn't get any rain at all but late afternoon it came. I got a couple loads of laundry done in the morning, on the offhand we would get rain. Got some things done this morning. I feel a bit better now that it has cooled off. It was at least 20 degrees cooler yesterday afternoon then it had been the previous day. January and July are to of the nasty months weather wise to deal with around here.

It was a hard weekend to get through. The heat was just so repressive.

We got groceries Friday night and went out early Saturday morning to take care of a couple things. If we had not gone to the service station to ask about a lugnut and then gotten doughnuts, we wouldn't have needed to turn the heater on. It was fine up until we got back in town and had to deal with the idiot drivers and red lights. But it was fine after we ran the heater for a couple minutes.

The rest of the week is supposed to be a bit cooler, but we will see.

Next week is Moms birthday. I know she wanted to go the Zoo this weekend, but if it's hot, that isn't going to happen. Not sure if there is something else she would like to do instead. We will be going out on her birthday for dinner, though.

The heat is going to be brutal the next few days. So will not be able to do as much as I would like to do. Have managed to get a few things done this morning. Might try and get something else done before I settle into a cool spot, if such s place exists in the house.

When I woke up this morning, I saw clouds and I was happy for a moment. Then later this morning they cleared out. Thought we might get some more much needed rain, but alas nothing.

God has beamed Scotty up.

Rest in Peace, James Doohan.

The rain has cooled off the area, but the temperature will go up again once the clouds go away. We got a light rain this morning and might get some more before the day is done.

Got a half inch of rain this morning. Looks like we may be getting a little more rain before the day is done. Glad to have a cooler day and I don't mind the rain. The air smells a lot better now.

Had to take Sergei into the vets office this morning. He has an ear infection and we caught it early. It was hard going to the vets since we were just there Monday afternoon.

Will be going to get one of the tires looked at tomorrow. After the car gets taken care of, we then will do a couple errands before heading home. Because of the heat, we probably won't do much once we get home. Sunday we will do some cleaning, maybe some laundry and that's about it. Will be happy when it starts cooling off.

Managed to get a few things done yesterday despite a headache, had a headache on Wednesday too. Got out and mowed a bit of the front yard yesterday, would have done more but the headache zapped my strength.

Have been doing okay this week.

How do you say good-bye to a dog that you've had for thirteen and a half of her fourteen years on earth? How do you say you're sorry to see her put to sleep? It is hard to see a dog that was once so healthy, happy and active take a nose dive.

We love you Sasha.

Went out last night after Mom got home from work and went to get her some cigs. Well we tried to get to the place we normally go.

First off, they have a chunk of 635 closed to make repairs to the bridge that goes over the Missouri bridge, so to get to the places we need or want to go we take detours. And one of the detours sucks, in vain we tried to find another route to get to another bridge that crosses over the river and we failed. Of course the car temperature started to climb, it didn't help that closer to downtown there seems to be stop lights on every block....couple that with the fact Mom feels she can drive as if she's in the Indy 500 doesn't help. The heat, the hills and the stop and go traffic left us nearly overheating the car and so we pulled over and sat for a bit. Also add a truckload of construction that makes it impossible from getting from a to b.

Once we got started again, we decided to scrap trying to find a route to the other bridge and head to the video store to return some DVD's rented over the weekend and then go to the grocery store. While we headed that way we, turned the heater on and the cars temperature went down. If we hadn't hit seemingly every red light, hadn't hit the construction areas and Mom had gone a little easy on the car...I doubt the car would have gotten as hot as it did. But trying to explain stuff to Mom is not easy. Not to say she's stupid, because she isn't, but she feels that near home even in heat she can drive the car hard. I have to bite my tongue not to remark that unless she has a way to pay for a new car she outta take it easy. I don't think she'd talk to me for awhile is I said that.

Went to bed thinking of the London summer Olympic games of 2012 and woke up to news of bombings in London. Sad, sad event. I hope they find the people that did it.

Rest in peace, Hank Stram. Thank you for what you did.

We got half an inch of rain over the weekend. Managed to do some work in the basement despite the rain and the humidity. Looked like it was going to rain today but so far nothing.

Lots of fireworks yesterday but not as much today. WIll have a subdued display tonight.

We got three inches of rain yesterday, mostly in brief but heavy downpours. The power was out for nearly two hours in the afternoon. I had just turned off the computer and not a minute later, the power was off. My timing was perfect yesterday. Maybe I should have purchased a lotto ticket too.

It is cooler today then it was earlier in the week. In fact, yesterday was like 20 plus degrees cooler then it was Wednesday.

Had a headache yesterday and have a headache today.

Forgot to mention that I saw "Star Wars-Revenge of the Sith" on Saturday. It was actually better then I thought it was going to be. None the less I am happy that the Star Wars franchise is finally dead. Lucas can do great effects and do great things (sometimes) with the guys. But its like he is clueless as to what to do with women. I wonder what the films, and I mean all six, would be like if it was just totally men and men only. Not saying Lucas is gay, but I wonder he would have preferred that. Even then I think the dialogue would still be clunky. Guess Lucas has to big of an ego to ask for help in creating a great script.