Sunday, January 29, 2012

Winter Camping

Well, not quite, though I'm open to winter camper browsing. Here we are again at the Call of the Wild RV Center's annual open house Saturday. Great day for it sunny and mild, a little left over snow and ice from Friday's weather. Carol and I arrived a little earlier than we usually do and pretty much viewed each camper we were interested in alone. There were about four that we liked the most, depending on how things go we may be in the market this year.

Call of the Wild puts the electricity and heat on all their units so being outdoors is no big deal. This one is about the size we're looking at buying.

Nice kitchen layout here with open floor space.

Plenty of living space here.

Yeah, a fireplace with an overhead flat screen,
couldn't go "camping" without them.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Mountain dude

After a short wait Ian has posted a bunch of photos on FB of his hike up Mt. Whitney and stopover in Santa Barbara. The hike had it's problems with the guide company he and his friends booked with but he made it back safe and sound with some great pictures.

On the way up.

At the summit.

Monday, January 23, 2012

TIME, TIMe, TIme, Time. time

Timesheets - the current bane of my working life existence. The web based system that the company I'm now part of is sucking my brain dry. Silly me, I thought being at work was about getting things done, not spending an hour or more filling out an electronic time record that doesn't always save a line or two that I've entered thereby leading in a merry chase of my own tail. Today's exercise included the dreaded "job number transfer" procedure. First you "reverse out" the line of a job number that was entered to get negative number so that there is no charge to a number that isn't active any longer, then you re-enter the actual job number (hope it saves). First one I did went through OK then I moved to another week's timesheet and the "reverse out" link was grayed out and wouldn't work. I tried three different ways to use the link none of which did the trick - logged out and went back to my work at hand. Finally, at the end of the day I tried it again - worked like a charm though I felt like there was someone at IT Central toying and laughing at the idiot trying to get a project done that pays his salary. Grrrr.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Good weekend

The weekend to weekend build up to each Green Bay Packer game has come to an end with their loss to the New York Giants last Sunday. Been some commiserating at the office with fellow Packer fans and the resident Steelers fan, some smack talk with a Patriots fan. The time has come to let it go and move on to watching the rest of the season. My picks today are The New England Patriots over the Baltimore Ravens for the American Football Conference then The San Francisco 49ers over the the Giants. All well and good but the highlight of the weekend was Ian and Alie coming here for a visit to Elaine and Steve's for Saturday dinner. The occasion was to see off Carol, Elaine and Lois' mother Margaret for her trip to Texas to spend time with their brother Greg and his family. Once we returned home we sat down and played "A Ticket to Ride - Europe" board game, a birthday gift Carol received from Greg's family. The game was a bit complicated on a look first look but Alie and Ian sorted it out and after a few turns even I was getting the hang of it. Need to play it a few more time to lock in strategies and the flow of play. Ian and Alie spent the night and after breakfast this morning headed back to New Hampshire. In addition to their visit was delivering to me the shareholder certificate of my 1 share of ownership in the Green Bay Packers that they and Carol had bought as Christmas gift. It hadn't made the delivery expected before the holiday. Carol framed it today and it's now hanging on a wall in the living room.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Disappointment to say the least

Be that the football season of my beloved Green Bay Packers. In spite of a No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs the Packers never really got their high end offense off the ground other than a few flashes of what usually is a very potent attack and lost to the NY Giants 37 - 20 at Lambeau Field Sunday night. I feel somewhat mentally drained today from my lofty expectations of another trip to the Superbowl for the Green and Gold while almost simultaneously holding a measure of doubt as the Giants came into Green Bay off an upset win over the Atlanta Falcons (which I predicted) with their stout defense, a hot quarterback and a strong running game. All of which played out to the Giants advantage. My disappointment will run it's course over the next several days and by the weekend I'll be ready to watch the two conference finals to determine who will be in the Superbowl. At this point I'll be rooting for the New England Patriots and the San Francisco 49ers though as far as predicting goes I'm leaning towards a Patriots vs Giants for the championship. As for next season my expectations for Packers are as high as ever, another title in the making.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Christmas Part 3 of 3 - There's no place like Mom's

A week and a day after Christmas the local siblings finally got together for the holiday at Mom's. There was a good turnout of the nieces and nephews too. The real trick to the great photo above was snapping the shutter when we had all stopped talking, joking and laughing for a mere moment.

Inside we had our usual pot luck dinner with such delicacies as homemade Mac & cheese, BBQ-ed hotdog bites, chili, meatballs, pork pot pie, veggie and fruit platters, cheese and crackers, pumpkin and chocolate cream pies. Yeah, there was beer and wine too.

Here's Mom getting a look at the HDTV gift from us "kids". It took a little rearranging of her TV hutch but with a carpenter in the family we made it happen.

Carol. Lindsey, Kailey, Jay, Deb and Dennis during the Yankee swap between the adults of the family.

Here's my trophy from the swap. I think it's pretty neat. I'd swapped it out but then regretted it and took it back. Carol says she has an idea to put it somewhere around the deck but I'm kind of thinking that maybe I'll take it to the office and keep it in my cubicle, at least until spring.

Here's a gift I didn't mention from my earlier Christmas posts. It's from Alie's father, Victor. I've been enjoying a nip now and then since receiving it. Sure makes the cold weather a little more tolerable.