Archive for May, 2008
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
We took another trip to a different town today. We went food shopping at Stop and Shop in Colchester. Colchester was a pretty neat town, but a little busy for my taste. It was cute with a nice park right off main street. I think it may have seemed busy because rush hour was getting close.
While in Stop and Shop, I felt a bit tired. I kept wondering why. Then, I remembered what I had done all morning…raked leaves. By the way, Stop and Shop’s prices were waaay lower than Whole Foods. We got about triple the product for just a little mo’ money. That’s cool with me. I think we are still going to go back to Whole Foods because I like the atmosphere. Stop and Shop seemed much more like just buying food to survive. If I am going to go out somewhere, I like to have an “experience.”
Anyway, back to those leaves. Since this propery is a bit larger than our other one, it is taking a little while to get used to. One thing I noticed was that there needs a lot of raking to be done. There are many gardens (which are very nice and right up my alley), but they need a bit of TLC because of the Winter. The good thing is that they have a nice variety of plants already planted. There isn’t much in the way of running out to the nursery to get new stuff. Yesterday, we went to Home Depot for some spruces and pachysandra. I got the spruces, but there was no pachysandra to be found. When we got home, I noticed there was pachysandra already scattered throughout the front. They were just kind of buried with leaves.
A few days ago, I decided to it would be best if I picked one area per day to rake. There is no sense me killing myself and I can always use a nice break from the computer. I already did about three or four areas and things are starting to come together. Today, I did part of the big front garden and along the front of the house.
Believe it or not, this area had three tarp fulls of leaves. One tarp full equals about four wheel barrow loads. Crazy. If you are wondering what the heck a tarp full is, it’s me laying a big tarp on the ground and raking the leaves onto it. When it’s full, I pick it up like a big sack and carry it into the woods.
The front of the house was easier with only one tarp full. I needed to get the leaves away from the house because, well, it looks better and I can also get to the foundation for insect spray.
After I am all done getting all the leaves up, I am really going to focus on getting the lawn in order. I already have been doing some stuff, but it needs to be raked and reseeded.
Also, this is the month I get my new ride on lawnmower. I am planning on this towards the end of the month, so there maybe one tough day with the push mower.
Related posts
Posted in Gardening, Home Improvement, Landscaping, Spring | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
Today, we quickly ran up to Home Depot in Glastonbury for a few things. I had to get some yard stuff, some more light bulbs and some little pine trees. I got seven Blue Spruces. Oh yeah, I also wanted to get some screwdriver bits.
What I really needed was some sort of an extender for my existing screwdriver bits. I find myself increasingly needing longer bits, but I am stuck with all these short bits I bought a while back. I was just going to get a few long bits, but then remembered back to when I actually had one of these things…it got dull fast.
As I was looking around for alternatives, this little DeWalt set of screwdriver bits caught my eye…
I love these little kits. This one has the extender piece I need and a whole lot more. It is also the same size as my DeWalt drill bit set. I love having the kit, because I can keep it in my tool box, use the tool and then return it to the tolbox, nice and neat.
That’s the way I roll. Don’t try to change me.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
I know there are sooooo many people out there who hate pictures of other people’s animals. I also know that I have said this before. I am probably one of them. Oh well.
Since you have probably visited this blog before, you know that sometimes I just can’t help myself when it comes to this kind of stuff.
I found this picture on my camera the other day…
I guess Laura was taking pictures while I wasn’t looking. C’mon, can you blame me for putting this up?
Related posts
Posted in Animals | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008
I took a few photos of the back yard this morning. Every year, I like to take pictures of the trees in the area. I do this, because every year, I forget when the heck the leaves come out. It’s kind of like a journal…or a log…or a web log…oh wait, a BLOG. That was funny.
Anyway, since it was so wonderfully beautiful this morning, I decided to drink my coffee on the back porch. One really big reason it was wonderful is because there were no bugs flying around my head yet. You should’ve seen me trying to rake up some leaves yesterday evening. Whoa…it was like I was in a boxing match. I am sure the neighbor was laughing. I put on some “Off” and it did nothing. What is it with the bugs this year? I think I may be stirring them up by raking.
It seems like the leaves are taking a reaaaaaly long time to bloom here. It may because there are virtually no Maple trees. They are all oaks and they take longer. I bet Westchester County looks totally like Summer right now. Maybe with some more warm sunny days, things will start looking greener around here.
As I was sitting on the back porch, I noticed a little bird land on our bird feeder. I thought it was odd, because there was actually bird food in the feeder. Do you know what that means? It means that the squirrels haven’t figured out where it is yet. If they had, it would be empty. I think I am going to just keep walking around quietly to keep the thing under their radar. Everyone knows what happens when a squirrel finds a bird feeder. That’s the end of that. Squirrels are on Laura’s “nemesis” list. For an animal lover, I have never seen such darkness in her eyes…
Related posts
Posted in Environment, Gardening, Home Improvement, Landscaping, Spring, Summer, Trees & Shrubs | No Comments »
Saturday, May 3rd, 2008
Yes, I know, this is probably one of my more boring posts. Actually, maybe not…I have a lot of boring posts.
Well, we had our new washer and dryer delivered today. We left our old ones back in NY. We were going to bring them, but I thought it would be a good selling point for the other house if we left them, especially since they are almost brand new. Also, I really wanted to get one of these new types of washers. They are Energy Star® and use much less water. Also, the spin cycle spins the drum at 1,100 RPM, so the clothes really get a lot of the water spun out of them before they hit the dryer. That equals less dryer time.
The washer is very quiet. I was sitting right next to it, while talking on the phone and could hardly hear it operating. I like the way I can watch the clothes flop around in there. We got the “LG Electronics 4.0 Cu. Ft. Energy Star® Front Load Washer in White” from Home Dept. I think the Energy Star®, along with the reduced usage of water was worth the few extra bucks.
The dryer is a regular old dryer. It is the “GE 7.0 Cu. Ft. Super Capacity Electric Dryer” also from Home Depot. When we went in to pick them out, I really wanted the stainless steel drum. The sales girl told us that she went to a class just the day before and was told that the stainless steel did virtually nothing for performance. I thought this was a little odd because the stainless costs more and she would probably want to make a bigger sale. Since we really don’t need any fancy features for a dryer, we got this one.
The first wash is going right now. I am going to get the dryer going and start finishing up the pile was already have down in the laundry room.
Peace out.
Related posts
Posted in Environment, Home Improvement | No Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Since I got this new business class broadband connection (about an hour now), I have noticed a nice increase in internet speed. By the way, I figured out how to set up my static IP address. It really wasn’t hard. Sorry Hannigan, no call today.
Anyway, since I am blazing fast now, I decided to check out my actual upload and download speed. How did I do this? Well, I hopped over to SpeedTest.net and did my thing. You can visit them and follow the very simple instructions to check your own broadband speed. Here, take a look at my results…
I think that’s pretty good, but I don’t have anything to compare it to. I’ve never done this with any of my earlier connections. Now I wish I had. Boy, there’s got to be someone out there who can tell me if thi is fast or not…
Related posts
Posted in Computers, Internet | 4 Comments »
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
The other day, while driving home from Home Depot in Willimantic, CT, I noticed a sign that said, “Eastern Connecticut State University.” I thought that was pretty strange, because I had no clue that Eastern Connecticut was so close by. I knew that UConn was pretty close, but that was it.
Since I was intrigued, I decided that it would be nice to drive through the campus on a nice sunny day like today. We are always looking for a good college campus to go to shows, etc…
We drove over to Willimantic this afternoon and pulled into campus. I was very pleasantly surprised. The school is very well taken care of and quite attractive. Laura really doesn’t care if a school looks good or not, but I do. She is all about function and I am (a good part) about looks. I try to explain to her that I want to be happy when walking through a campus and not look only at bare concrete and parking lots. I am not sure I am ever going to get my point across. Either way, this campus looked great.
We drove around and left campus after a little while. I was going to take some pictures, but it was just too busy. We drove around town a little bit and then drove to the new hometown to stop at the local food store to get some cold food for dinner. Again, the gas people are coming on Monday. We need that to cook.
Related posts
Posted in Education, Travels | 1 Comment »
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
I am not sure if I previously mentioned this or not, but I am now in need of business class internet service, because I now require a static IP address.
The guys from Comcast just left. They switched our services from residential TV, cable and internet to just residential TV and cable and now business internet. They did a bunch of stuff, but the main thing was to set up another modem downstairs, alongside the old one and the router.
I already see a speed increase with downloading my files. I just happen to be in the middle of a big download, and strangely enough, the connection didn’t break…it just got faster. I have yet to set up the router to work with the static IP, but have found the support page that tells me how to do it. We are going out for a little while and I’ll give it a shot when we get back.
One thing I am going to do is the create a screen capture of the original settings, just in case I screw up. I am also going to have Hannigan’s number on hand. Hopefully he is familiar with Linksys routers.
Related posts
Posted in Business, Computers, Internet | 2 Comments »
