a blog of little consequence

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews2.dbm?ID=1393

The good news is that not only is Mike Huckabee currently showing the largest margin of victory, but the Republicans are all showing strong against Hillary.

We took what seemed like 500 pictures trying to capture the ideal family photo for Chuck & Bethany’s family Christmas card. It isn’t “picture perfect”, but this is my favorite.

I think Chuck described it as very “Norman Rockwell” and I have to agree with him on that description.

[youtube aplqrWX5ehs nolink]Taking a family Christmas picture with a 2 year old turns into an adventure.

[youtube OsTniJh79BE nolink]

I had a post up showing you my tree, still standing in the field. Now the tree is in the house! I have been decorating over the course of a few days this year as opposed to the one night extravaganza that I usually pull off. I pulled out the decorations for around the house on Sunday and then Joshua, Andrew, and Benjamin C. came down to help me bring the tree into the house. It was actually the easiest tree installation I think I have ever seen.

Last night the Nelsons came over during the Pittsburgh monsoon (for those of you who watched Monday Night Football, you know what I mean) and helped me decorate the tree. Come to find out, Bill is a pro at lights and Ella is highly skilled at stacking ornaments on one part of the tree. I hope to decorate outside tonight, weather permitting. Here are a few photos of the tree and house to give you a taste.

I keep threatening to find a Santa hat for the Colonel. Maybe this year, I’ll do it.

So the blog is back…sort of. Unfortunately, most of the posts and all of the comments are gone. I was able to load a handful that I had published with Word 2007. So you see, I have started over. I have installed a new back-up program to hopefully alleviate this problem in the future.

While I am on the topic….what are your thoughts on the new blog template? Do you like a seasonal change or should I just go back to the old template with a Christmas banner?

Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago, I had air conditioner leakage problems into my spare bedroom. Well, I thought I had the problem fixed, so I decided to paint it. I even decided to try the linen faux paint style in pink (I have wanted a pink room my whole life. Well, I wasn’t very good at the faux, so there was no apparent texture and the pink turned out to be more Pepto-Bismol pink than the soft pink I had envisioned.

Well, this summer, my AC leaked again. So, I had to correct the damage and repaint. Here are some pictures of my progress which includes pre-spackle sanding, spackling with joint compound, and first sand of joint compound. I have some more sanding and spackle touch-up to do and then I will be ready to prime and paint. For your enjoyment, I have included a Grover favorite joke relevant to painting.

After finishing up painting the interior of a church a painter (doing community service) was packing up and was getting ready to leave, when the pastor of the church came out and asked him to also paint the exterior of the church. The painter agreed to do so, but in the process of painting he realized that he did not have enough paint to finish the whole job. But he also realized that if he thinned out the rest of the paint he would have enough to finish the job. Doing so, he was able to complete the painting of the exterior of the church. Then all of the sudden a rain storm came out of the middle of what was a clear sky. The rain fell only on the church, washing away all the still wet paint. The painter asked the pastor what God was trying to tell him about his life and the pastor replied, “Re-paint! Re-paint, you thinner and thin no more!”

My PC crashed (yes, my 5 month old PC). It seems as though Gateway did not install the OS correctly. Anyway, after lamenting the loss of nearly 2,000 photos and countless albums, I remembered that I had my Zune. I made a quick call to Zune support and was on live with a knowledgeable Zune specialist after the 1^st ring. He quickly walked me through the steps of restoring my library items to my PC. The sync is occurring as I type.

I was enjoying the restoration of my desktop PC today when I noticed not only how fast the PC was flying, but also my FiOS internet connection. I decided to do a speed test from an independent site. Look at the results:

I am safely home and happy to be home. I had a wonderful vacation. Every single part well exceeded my expectations. I am in the process of uploading over 1,000 photos to Flickr (yes, over 1,000).My Plan is to put all of the sets into one collection for ease of browsing.

The plane was packed but for the most part everything went fine. If I have to be on a packed plane, I am glad it was with a bunch of Pittsburghers. Nothing makes us happy like a 2-0 start for the Steelers.