Keeping up with the Browns

Wow, I start hooking up into some of the blogging community such as Thursday Thirteen and suddenly my visibility climbs.  Now I have to make sure that I create something interesting on my blog for everyone to read.  I don’t know if I can keep up with the pressure.  I mean how do you create something different and interesting all at the same time?  At least my Thursday Thirteen should be interesting.

I just need to keep working at this blog engine and train it to behave the way I want it to behave.  If I can just keep the thing from messing up the flow then I should be good.  First thing on my list is to figure out how to let those comments come through without having to moderate every single one of them.  Need to find options…..

Thursday Thirteen #2 – My Morning

I’m starting to get the hang of the Thursday Thirteen thing so here is a list of my morning.

Thirteen Things about what I do in the morning Hit the snooze button on the alarm clock. I don’t know what it is but I need that extra 9 minutes of sleep. Have a shower. I’m generally a pretty clean person. I like the fresh feeling of being clean first thing in the morning. I also think this helps me wake up in the morning. Put in my contacts. Yay! I can see again. Dress in the dark. This is more difficult than it seems. I can usually find all the stuff that I need however I don’t keep my socks together so finding a match can be difficult. Why in the dark? I get up before my wife and I try not to wake her. Sneak down stairs. If I can get downstairs without waking anyone (presuming my shower didn’t wake them), I get to have my morning to myself. Make some breakfast. I don’t do the eggs and bacon thing. I’m more of a cereal or bagel and cream cheese type guy. Clean up the kitchen. This doesn’t generally involve much. Most of the big stuff has been handled from the night before. I do want to make sure that I don’t leave the kitchen a mess for my wife when she gets up. Get my pocket things. This includes my wallet, bus pass and office access badge. There have been days when I’ve forgotten my office access badge and have had to wait outside for someone else to let me in. Brush my teeth. Have to keep those pearly whites! Collect my gear. I need to make sure I have my stuff that I bring to work each day. Grab coat and shoes. Obviously I won’t need my coat when the weather starts to get warmer. Shut the lights off in the house. No need to waste electricity if nobody is up yet. Re-arm the security system and lock the door as I leave. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Christine d’Abo – What I do as I’m editing (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Silencing the Noise

Ever notice how noisy a workplace gets?  I work in an office and I sometimes find it amazing how much noise we live with on a day to day basis.  The excessive whine of 30+ computers struggling to stay cool and the groan of the air conditioning system keeping the air moving in the building is enough to drive one crazy.  Add to that the fridge in the lunch room and the occasional fan pushing air and soon you can’t think straight.

Thankfully there is a solution to all this.  Noice cancelling earphones.  Luckly you can then pipe music into your ears or you would probably go crazy in the silence.

You little Whelpling!

Did I mention that I game? In World of Warcraft there are cute little non-combat pets that you can find that can follow you around and add coolness to your character. One of the ones I find most interesting is the Black Whelpling. This is a rare pet drop in the Badlands. Apparently 1 in 1400 kills can produce one of these. I spent a few hours grinding the mob that should drop these and didn’t find one yet. On the other hand, I did advance half of a level and managed to pick up some good vendor trash.

It was a stormy morning…

Oh wait, is that supposed to be night? Ah never mind.

This morning is promising to bring lots of rain. The sky is dark and clearly there is a lot of great wetness waiting to make its self known to the world. My nameless story continues to sit on the sidelines while I give priority to editing another story. On the down side to that, I’m awaiting “chapter 5″ so that I can edit that. I quote the chapter since I already know that in the next run of the editing the start and stop of the chapters will be adjusted.

I Game

Okay, I’ve got it out now. I’m a gamer. It both enhances my life and ruins it at the same time. I play the MMORPG WoW. I love the interaction and being able to work with other players from around the world to compete and accomplish different tasks. There is also a great exposure to attitudes and approaches to tasks. This feeds my creative side. On the bad side, apparently I’m playing it a bit too much and neglecting RL too much.

Solution, I’m now only going to log in to my MMORPG twice a week and I’m going to dedicate more of my other time to other tasks.

One question: Is playing a MMORPG a good substitute for watching TV?

Thursday Thirteen #1 – Things I like about Spring

Thirteen Things I like about Spring

Thirteen Things I like about SpringEdit: After looking into it, it doesn’t look too hard, I’m working on it. I am feeling inspired today to give a list of 13 things I like about Spring. Sneakers, Jeans and T-shirts Cool breezes when you want a cool breeze Air that is so fresh that it should be bottled That smell of both dry dust from freshly exposed earth and smell of wet patches of snow still evaporating. Not having to wear a hat to keep your head or ears warm Bright sunny days. The bloom of flowers and trees. Birds tweeting happily as they hunt for breakfast Being able to keep the windows open Walks in the park No sense of rushing to get somewhere else The gentle open of the earth from a silent dormancy Light cool rain which washes and refreshes Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Flooring taking a toll

As I’m wrapping up the last bit of laying down my 400 sqft flooring, I’m noticing how tired I am. I’m getting to bed earlier than usual, getting more sleep, getting up at the same time and finding that I need to snooze on my bus ride into work. At work I’m feeling exhausted, getting distracted easily, being unfocused and waiting for the end of the day.

Fortunately I will finish tonight. They say that the worst part of putting in a floor is the first row and the last row. This may be true about a square room but I say that the worst part of putting in a floor is the odd places that you need to conform to. I can’t complain too much though. It’s been fairly easy so far. I guess it’s just the actuall amount of work that is getting to me.

I appologise to all me readers (if there are any of you out there for the delay in my blog today.

Pass me that pillow

I am soooooo tired. zzzzzzz
…
Saturday I picked up a great deal on lamenant flooring from a local big block store. I have one room in my house which has never had the floor finished so it seemed like a good idea. I’ve never put down flooring before. This stuff is the kind that interlocks together and doesn’t require glue or nails. So relatively simple to install. I only have around 400 square feet to cover which worked out to be 18 boxes of the stuff. After purchasing underlay, a kit for installing floors, a new saw blade, and some other items that I can’t remember now, I was set. First task was to carry 16 of the boxes up 3 flights of stairs. Next, the room that is to be done has way too much stuff in it. Right now it is functioning as a large bedroom for my three kids. I wasn’t going to finish this task in a day so clearly there is some staging to be done here. On Sunday I managed to get two rows of underlay put down and after pushing through all the work of getting the first row of flooring down, managed to get the flooring covering both sheets of underlay before losing my outside light for cutting. Did I mention that I had to travel up and down the three flights of stairs on each row for cutting the end boards? Monday night, I managed to get one more sheet of underlay covered and I figure I’ve only got two more sheets to cover. That is if I managed to stay awake long enough.

Back from the weekend

Okay, so I’m back from a break.  Had to spend some time with the family so I took the time off and have now returned.  I came to work this morning in reasonably clear weather but as I look out the window, I’m noticing a bit of a storm brewing.