Saturday Activities

I thought I would try an experiment this weekend and you can be the judge if it worked or not. I took a picture of what I was doing, or what I was looking at, every hour on the hour. But unfortunately for you, I didn't do much of anything.
10:00 a.m. I paid some bills.11:00 a.m. I cleaned everything out of my office so I could begin on ripping out all of the trim base boards. I am getting new windows. So this seemed like the right time to paint and replace the trim throughout the house. I hate painted trim, to that is why I am replacing all of it. 12:00 p.m. I was back at my computer. I used to have a spreadsheet for all of my house bills. This really helped out when I had roommates to figure out who owed what since we split all of the bills. But I actually took this spreadsheet a bit further. I have all of the sheets tied together and each sheet has it's own line graph to show how the house budget changes over the course of the year and then will compare the changes year to year. I know, it is like a lot of things I do, way over the top and uncalled for.1:00 p.m. I DVRed the Badger Game. So here I am watching the game.2:00 p.m. Still watching football. 3:00 p.m. A lot of movement going on. Note the beautiful curtains I know have up to cut down the glare on the TV. It will probably take me a while to get new curtains up even after I get my windows in. I have been told it is 6 weeks for delivery of the windows. So this set up is going to stay for a while.4:00 p.m. I finally got motivated and started on the baseboard trim in the closet.5:00 p.m. I didn't get much further. The problem is that the previous owners put wood tiled flooring over the existing wood floor. I know that doesn't make any sense, but they did. The baseboards when down to the existing wood floor and there wasn't a lot of room to get the crowbar under the baseboard.6:00 p.m. I am nearly done with the baseboards.7:00 p.m. I am finally finished.8:00 p.m. Dinner, or breakfast. Apple juice and waffles.9:00 p.m. I fell asleep on the couch and missed 9:00, and I was in bed by 9:30 on a Saturday night.

I know that isn't too exciting. I may try it again this weekend. Although Sunday I am planning to be at my parent's helping cut deer. So you will get about 10 pictures of dead deer. Maybe that is a step up.

Remodeling

Despite some bumps in the road, I am well on my way to some more remodeling at my house. More specifically, I will be doing work to the Lincoln Bedroom, the office and the living room. I believe the window situation is resolved. But to be prepared for the windows, I need to get some things done. I have ripped all of the trim off of the windows. The next steps are removing all of the base molding, painting the ceilings, installing ceiling fans, painting the walls. While removing the trim around one of the upstairs windows, I found that the actual window frame was behind the door frame to the closet. Yes the closet that I locked myself out of. As you can see from the picture, I ripped the entire door frame out. And apparently the old window frames were green.
As I was taking care of things in the living room, I finally got rid of the curtains. They were absolutely hideous. They are the original curtains that came with the house when I bought it. And they have never been washed. I don't know, are you suppose to wash the curtains every once in a while? I don't recall who it was, but shortly after moving into my house way back in 1997, someone told me that I had to get rid of those curtains. And I told them, don't worry I am on it. 12 years later I finally threw them out.I have decided to try something a little different this weekend. I am going to try and get more pictures this weekend. The plan is to set the alarm on my watch to go off every hour on the hour and take a picture of what I am doing or what I am looking at. This could be interesting.

Veterans Day

I was looking around on the web for pictures for Veterans Day. As I did so, I stumbled upon photos of the National D-Day Memorial. To be honest I didn't even know we had a D-Day Memorial. I am a little embarrassed that I didn't know that. It is located in Bedford, Virginia. A while back I was in Washington D.C. and I checked out a lot of the memorials there, and I thought the best memorial was the one for the Korean War. I was also amazed at how big the Marine Corps War Memorial / Iwo Jima Memorial was. But in looking at the photos of the D-Day Memorial, this is one that I would really like to check out.

Closing a Chapter

This past weekend I did some cleaning around the house. I threw a bunch of stuff out and it was very liberating. It felt good to get rid of stuff that I don't use or don't need. In my cleaning I came across a framed poster of Brett Favre. Going back at least 10 years when Nate and Andy lived with me, when Andy moved in, he grabbed a hammer, pounded a nail into the wall and put Brett up on the wall in the kitchen. I brought Brett along with me with every move I made to Minnesota and to Appleton. He used to have a proud spot at my home in the kitchen right next to the stove. Now that spot is occupied by pictures of my nieces and nephews. But this weekend I gave him a new spot of honor. Borky if you hurry you might be able to pick Brett out of the garbage before the pick up day.

And the count up until I get my windows is at 116 days.

What Would You Do?

I realize that this post is going to be like playing with fire, but at this point I really don't care any more. Plus I have been burned in the past, it only hurts for a while.

One of the best things about my blog is that if it is a hot topic, word spreads fast. I honestly have no idea how many readers I have. I get about 30 visits a day. I know people don't check in everyday, but I will go out on a limb and say that I have around 75 loyal readers who check in at least once a week. It is astounding to me how fast I get paid up by people when I call them "deadbeats". This posting isn't about a deadbeat, it is about me getting what I want. I know for a fact that the mother of the person that this posting is about reads my blog nearly everyday, meaning the message will get across to this person. Actually the person who this posting is about, also reads my blog at least 3 or 4 times a week.

Allow me to give you some background. My house is pretty old. Built in 1954, if you do the math that is 55 years. I have been in the house for 12 years now. That fact is shocking to me as well. If you have been to my house, or just seen my garage, you know that I take pretty good care of my house. I have remodeled the basement, the kitchen, the bathroom. The next step is to take care of the living room and the bedrooms. But before I get to those, I need to replace the windows. This past winter I actually had frost on the inside of my windows. I doubt they are the original windows, but I also know that they aren't brand new. This summer I refinanced my house so that I could pay off my truck. I increased the amount of my mortgage by $5,000 to take into account the cost of new windows. I figured the large picture window in my living room will be close to $2,000.

Now where could I get the windows from? Back when I remodeled the kitchen, I got the windows through my sister in law, Julie, who works for Weather-Tek Windows. I was very happy with them. So this time around I thought I would use Julie again.

She sent me a email on July 16th, and the date on the quote is June 24th, 2009. And I still do not have the windows. It has been 114 days, nearly 4 months. Is she making these windows herself? She told me I needed a contractor to put them in. I got my brother's old boss, Wayne. He owes me a favor. The last time this topic came up she said I had to pick out a stain. I said "I don't care, just get me the windows."

I was over at their house two weeks ago. As many in our area are aware, the cable company switched up the channels. For some reason, their cable isn't coming in like it should. While I was over there, Julie called the cable company. She gave them a pretty good ear full. She even mentioned something about her working in sales, and I nearly burst out laughing.

So what do I do? I have been rather patient with Julie. At first whenever I saw her, the first words out of my mouth were "Where are my windows?" But she has been busy. However, now we are bordering on ridiculous. No?

I have been to her office and above her desk are three framed letters from customers that she has worked with that gave her outstanding letters of recommendation. I was actually going to do the same thing to see if I would make the wall. If I do, I won't write the letter for 114 days.

Do I look for another supplier? Do I call her everyday and hound her to get me my windows? I am not even looking for a deal. I just want the stupid things installed before winter hits, which as any Wisconsinite knows could be tomorrow. How about I go over her head to her boss? Do you think I would get my windows any faster then? I could stop in the office and speak directly to her boss. Maybe picket outside her office. Let the air out of her tires. Toilet paper the house. Move all of the furniture in their house outside. You have seen my garage, I have the spare time and energy. Annie, I know you are reading this, can you ground her for me?

Let's see how powerful my blog really is. Instead of a countdown, I think I am going to put a count up on my blog. I might even make it a Gyro contest, the person who guesses the correct number of days from the time I got my quote, July 16th, until the day the windows are delivered to my house.

Cell Phones

I think everyone likes it when I do something stupid. It makes people feel better about themselves. Last night, I didn't do much of anything. I watched some college football and played some "Grand Theft Auto", I know, real mature. Anyhow, in my 6 hours of being on the couch, I made the move on my couch from position "A" to position "B". I had just made some popcorn and grabbed a glass of apple juice. Nothing but the hard stuff. I don't have a coffee table, because I don't drink coffee, so I had the glass of apple juice on the floor. As I was sliding three of my remotes, my GTA strategy guide and my cell phone (in the event that anyone would call me with an emergency), my cell phone slid off the couch and fell right into a 32 ounce glass of apple juice. That is right 32 ounces of apple juice, "Big Gulps". Currently the phone is out of commission. I will give it another day to dry out and then tomorrow I will have to get a new phone if it doesn't come back to life.

Too Much Time On My Hands

This is the very definition of having too much time on my hands. But as the saying goes, "idle hands are the devils workshop". It is a bit long, but hopefully if give you the idea of the garage.

This Bothers Me

It wasn't much of an exciting Wednesday. Here are a couple things that crossed my mind.

I stopped at the grocery store to grab something to eat. Maybe is it time to take another depressing picture of my fridge. It was a little after 5:00 p.m. when I got to the store, so the check out lines were 3 to 4 people deep. I like the self checkout lanes, especially when I do "big" grocery shopping so I can have my MP3 player on while I shop and I don't have to talk to anyone. The only bad thing about the self checkout lane is I always have a problem with produce, I always get illegal item in the bagging area error. But back to last night, I am standing in line and behind a woman who is only using one hand to scan everything. She finishes scanning everything and her total was $12.35. She then proceeded to insert 13 singles. Are you kidding me? Just put a $20 in, what is the big deal about having to get rid of all your small bills. I don't know why, but I get very frustrated standing in line at the check out lane at the grocery store. Here is another scene that maybe you have experienced. I have been in line at the real checkout line with the cashier, and something rings up wrong. They are just about to start scanning my food, when the person who was in line before me is reviewing her receipt and noticed that they didn't take off $0.10 for the pizza rolls they just purchased. Then it is a 2 minute ordeal to get that $0.10 to the customer. Most times I feel like throwing $1 at the person and saying "It is $0.10!!! My time is worth more than that. There are you happy, now get out of the way." Anyone else ever experience this?

I watched some of the World Series. Here is something that has been bothering me for a while with baseball. Do teams actually have lip readers on their payroll? Is it really necessary to cover your mouth when a manager or catcher goes out to the mound? Is there anything that they are talking about, that even if the hitter knew what they were talking about, that it would be beneficial to the hitter? I don't think so. I watch baseball, many times when the catch goes out to the mound it is to talk about changing the signal. The only person who could even benefit knowing that would be if, "IF", someone is on second. And what is the manager going to say when he is out there. "How are you feeling? Can you get this guy out? I will let you get this guy and then I am going to pull you for the next batter." Aren't most manager's conversations with the pitcher about how they are feeling? How is that a matter of interest to the hitter? I guess I could see if the pitcher say "I don't know skip, my curve ball just isn't breaking like it should." But still is the hitter going to able to read that off of the pitchers lips from 60'-6" away? I highly doubt it. Stop covering your mouths!!

I think that is all that bothered me yesterday. I am hoping to get up my "garage video" up tomorrow.

Best Halloween Costume

Sorry, I had to redo this posting. Liquid got me her pictures late. Don't get mad at me, get mad at Liquid. So those that have voted will have to do so again. Here are the final costumes to decide from. The winner gets Oakland Gyros, extra pita and a large root beer on me.
Me as an annoying clown. Pochahontas as Mortica Adams.

MKA as a retired hooters girl. MKA sucking his finger like that makes me very uncomfortable.

Borky as Guy Fieri

Doug as Billy Mays.

Liquid as Betty Draper, I have no idea who that is.

Tom Brady as American Gladiator Malibu

Who had the best Halloween Costume?
	Annoying Clown
	Morticia Adams
	Retired Hooters Girl
	Guy Fieri
	Billy Mays
	Betty Draper
	American Gladiator Malibu
Free polls from Pollhost.com

The Packer Game

I would like to give my observations of the Packer - Viking Game.

Johnny Jolly: He is one of two things, he is either too dumb to know any better, or he cares more about having someone show him up than actually winning the game. 15 yard penalty after stopping the Vikings on 3rd down. Huge.

Aaron Rodgers: I have always thought the Packers did the right thing in letting Favre go, and I still believe that. My only criticism of Rodgers play was in the first half where there were two occasions on 3rd down where it appeared he could have ran for the first down, but instead he ended up getting sacked or threw an incompletion. If you were to switch quarterbacks in this game, the Vikings still would have one. Probably by more. It hurts to say it, but the Vikings just have a better team.

The offensive line: Late in the game, they showed a replay in slow motion from the end zone view, and it is a Viking coming off the ball without getting touched, Rodgers stood in there got rid of the ball and then steam rolled by this Viking defensive lineman.

Play calling: I forget which half it was in, but Jared Allen came off the ball without even being touched. The first Packer to touch him was Aaron Rodgers. How is it possible that coaches who plan all week for a game, can not account for the guy who had 4.5 sacks the last time they played?

Looking to the future. Three games back of the Vikings, realistically they are now playing for the Wild Card. But are they good enough to even make the playoffs. Look at their wins, Chicago, St Louis, Cleveland and Detroit, those teams are a combined 7 - 23. And if Rodgers gets hurt, which after watching the game isn't a matter of if but when, the Packers are looking at a sub .500 season.

Halloween

Here is the Halloween recap. I was driving out to Chris and Rebecca's and the afterglow of the sunset was great. I had to jump out and get at picture.Angela gettting ready for the night, she wanted me to delete this picture.More costumes. I forget who all these people are, Luke was Indiana Jones.Angela and Adam on the bus.Rebecca, Angela, Adam and Chris.Trinity, Ness and Angela.Chris and Ness.Me and Rebecca.I dressed up again the next day for my nephew's birthday party.Here is the birthday boy with his cake.Joey.

Are You Scared?

Yes it is Friday and I am happy about it. It was a rough week, between just the simple fact I need to wake up every morning and go to work, and locking myself out of my garage on Tuesday, I need a couple days to relax. But I doubt the relaxing will take place. Tonight I really don't have much planned. Saturday I plan on watching the Badgers, then heading out to the Palmyra / Eagle area where I will be meeting up with Chris and Rebecca for a pub crawl. I have been building up my costume for 2 weeks now, but I think it will live up to expectations. Sunday is my nephew, Joey's 2nd birthday party. He is 2 already. I have strongly urged all who attend the party to dress up, but I have a feeling that I will be the only one. What is wrong with you people? What happened that you just decided to stop dressing up? Or what age was it?

Because my blog is rather boring, other than the times that I lock myself out of my closet or garage, I thought I would sweeten the pot a little for my readers. I am asking my readers to email me a picture of themselves dressed up for THIS Halloween. I will then post the pictures and put together a poll. Whomever gets voted to have the best costume will win a Oakland Gyro with an extra pita bread and large root beer. Please email all pictures to me at mitch_kumstean@yahoo.com.

Random TV Thoughts

Last night I was at home and watching TV. I was flipping through, trying to get my barrings on the new TV Guide menu. I landed on Music On Demand, and you could pick a music video to watch. I watched "Dancing in the Dark" the Springsteen video with Courtney Cox. I can't believe I thought that was actual concert footage when it first came out. The second video I watched was "Beat It". It is one of the first scenes in the video as gang members start coming out of the woodwork to form, a manhole cover slides off and two guys come climbing up out of the sewer.
"So where do you live?"
"Oh, I have a nice place on 6th Street."
"Which side of the street?"
"Under it."
"Nice."

I wasn't too into the World Series, so I was watching a bunch of Nitro Circus episodes I have on DVR. I did get back to the World Series for the last inning. The Phillies had one out to go and the cameras were panning around to each member of the team with a close up on their faces, it was like they were instructed to stay on each player until they spit. And every single player spit while on camera. You would think baseball players would get dehydrated from all of the spitting that they do. I wonder, do that spit that much when they are away from the ballpark?

Dead Meat

As I mentioned, I watched Dead Meat bowl Saturday night. That is my Uncle Dave, Aunt Marilyn, Brother-in-Law, Tim, and my sister, Deb. I guess they won, because the other team didn't show up.

Let's Get Nuts

I think I am starting to loose my mind a little bit. I just got my statement for the mortgage on my house. I just refinanced in August, I did so to pay off the remaining balance on my new truck. Now that I have a larger home loan, I have more to write off when Roman does my taxes. But the statement I got in the mail said that my next payment is due January 1st, 2010. That didn't make sense to me. Upon speaking with a representative with the bank over the phone, they went over my payment history, and for some reason I have been making payments on the 1st and 15th of every month. I have no idea why I have been doing that. And it is a nice problem to have, but I am trying to understand how I can make an error like that. Yesterday I locked myself out of my garage, today I am making double payments on my house. Oh and last night I found my spare garage door opener, it was in the basement on my workbench. Funny because I never store it there, it is usually in a drawer in the kitchen. Maybe it is all of those paint fumes I have been taking in while painting in the garage.

Basketball?

Last night I was taking a shower and flipping through the channels on my TV in the shower and I came across an NBA basketball game. I didn't even know that the season had started. Then I continued to flip the channels and watched an old episode of Seinfeld. It is a sad state that no one really cares about NBA basketball. Really what is the point of watching an entire game. The last 5 minutes of any game is all you really need to see. It is really too bad, because of all the athletes that play all different kinds of sports, I believe that the athletes that play basketball are the most athletic and in the best physical condition of any of them. So will I watch any basketball games this year? Probably not. I may stop on a game for a couple minutes, but will most likely go back to flipping the channels during the commercial in search of something better. Will I attempt to go to any games this year? Again probably not, I might try to scalp a ticket on a given night, but it really isn't much fun when it is cold out, to stand outside and scalp tickets. I would say that the majority of my NBA basketball information will come from highlight packages on Sportscenter.