10/3/10

Sunday morning, got to sleep in a bit. Unfortunately the night before I felt like a million bucks, ready to keep laying wood floors, this morning is a different story. Looks like all the aches and pains as well as the loss of energy has caught up with me. From my legs to my back, I actually had a hard time getting out of bed. The cure for this is coffee, I know it. I made some coffee and let the dogs out to play. I let Reece run a bit on her paw because she had been getting around on it fine the last two days.

I had a few cups of coffee and did some research online for an hour or so. I took the chance to update a few of my spreadsheets. I had a combination bowl of cereal (Cinnamon toast crunch and cheerios). Then the pups and I went outside to eye our project for the day. I took a look at west side stairs that I started last weekend. Decided I needed some pieces of lumber before getting started, made a quick trip to Lowe's. This should be all I need to at least get the steps done and usable.

When I got back, I left the dogs in the house while I continued to construct the stairs. Because of the type of decking I got, I had to 'picture-frame' all the edges. Though it looks better then just ending the decking, it takes a lot more time. Plus with my miter saw out of commission, I had to do the cuts with the circular saw. Speaking of the miter saw. It was a wedding gift from my brother-in-law Jamie, it lasted a solid 8 years of service. Cutting of brick for the patio may have done it in though.

At around 1:30pm, I finished the stairs. Actually, I ran out of decking screws, but I had at least 3 screws per board so it's safe enough to use. It was perfect timing because my back was killing me and I was getting really hungry. I picked up a few of the big items I was using, came in and made some pasta and meatballs for lunch to go with some Aleve. I let the dogs out to play ball for 20 minutes, then headed for the couch. Turned on a football game and proceeded to fall asleep. I got up at 4:30pm and played some more with the dogs. Then I cleaned up everything I was using outside and put away.

At 5pm, I took a ride over to the grocery store, got milk, lunch meat, OJ, and jello. Came back to the house and gave the dogs their dinner. I 'm not 100% sure what I did from 5 to 6:30. But I talked to Cheryl on gmail for 15 minutes or so, she is doing well as daylight is almost 24 hours now. I let Cheryl call 'Outside' for the dogs as we ended our conversation. I took the pups for a walk, we did a 1 mile loop and I took Reece's booty off about half way. She seems to be walking fine on her paw now.

Got home, made a meatball sub with provolone and headed for the couch. Finished eating just as Animation Domination started. Because I don't like The Cleveland Show, I streamed 'Community' instead because I missed it this past thursday. The Family Guy was pretty good, they had Rush Limbaugh on. It was interesting because Rush converted Brian to a republican and for most of the show made Rush's views to be great. Then at the end they really lit into Rush and Brian went back to being a liberal.

Went to bed at 9:30pm hoping to get a good night's rest.

10/2/10

Day 3 of Reece's paw soaking. Today I took the picture of this action, posted on yesterday's blog. I know the picture was a little far away, but it was the best I could come up with. This morning I took a few pieces of old cereal boxes out of the recycling bin so that I could write a few posters letting people know that my house was not open to the public today. I played with the pups in the backyard, then had some breakfast and coffee to wake up. As I headed out the door for the dog walk, I ran into my neighbor, Paul. They are having a yard sale today. I warned him that he may get a bunch of liberal crunchies stopping by to buy things.

The dog walk was as usual, not much exciting happened. Though I do have a story to tell about a walk the other night that I forgot to blog about. So, when Chance goes #2, he tends to be a walker. He starts in one place, then shuffles forward a foot or so between each 'loaf'. Well, the other night he chose to start with his face planted into a Carol Shea-Porter sign. After each 'loaf', he tried to move a foot closer, to the point he actually had his head under the sign to his neck. When he finished, it was a fiasco, he got all tangled up in the sign, thrashing like a bucking bronco. Good thing it was dark and no one saw.

Anyway, at 9am, I put the pups in the basement with the radio on and headed to Jeff and Shannon's to help with their wood floor. Shannon's mom was up from Pennsylvania and she pre-made some meatballs and cookies for lunch while she, Shannon and Oskar were out. SO I have some progressive photos of the work Jeff and I did. Since this is pretty much all I did today, the blog should be short. We took a good lunch break where I made a beer run, had a meatball sandwich and plenty of cookies. I apologize for scarfing down too many, I have an obsession with cookies.

We finished the last board around 6:15pm and picked up all the equipment. We put a few things away, though Jeff has more work cut out for him tomorrow installing trim pieces. Cheryl called just as I was getting ready to head home. I was sent away with a care package of pasta and meatballs, enough for at least 3 meals. Thank you guys so much for the food.

When I got home, I took the dogs in the backyard to go to the bathroom, brought them in for dinner, then back out for a walk. Nothing too exciting on the walk, so I heated up some of the pasta and meatballs for dinner, made my way to the couch and relaxed. Not sure when I fell asleep, but woke up around 10pm and made my way into the bedroom and went back to sleep.

10/1/10

Day 2 of the Reece paw soaking excitement, see how excited she is? Actually, today was a little bit better, though Chance joined in to see what was going on. Also, being the first of the month, I know what our energy consumption was for September and how much energy we fed back to the grid. We produced 347 kWh of electricity from the solar panels, used 202 kWhs (our lowest monthly usage to date), so we had a net surplus of 145 kWh. PSNH issued us a letter that we currently have 781 kWh 'banked' with them.

I continued the morning routine as usual. Of course, adding the fun and excitement of the paw soak. We went for a shorter walk, but I think Reece's paw is getting better and we will be able to do longer walks shortly (still with her booty). But today is pastry day, so no eating breakfast at home. I went into work 15 minutes early today to prep myself for what will surely be an interesting day.

Paul R. the electrical engineer, it will be his last day today, as well as Seth's last day. There will be lots of discussions going on around the office that I want to stay clear of. Seth was only in for the morning, and was sent off with a cake and ice cream. As I said before, even though Seth is leaving CHI, I will be hanging out with him often as we are on a winter league basketball team together. A few of us took Paul R. out for lunch at Lexies. I had the same Chicken sandwich I had last time and the fried pickles. One of the tough things is, as I blogged about before, I was getting excited about the young talent that CHI was hiring over the past 8 months. This got me to form the 'young employee' group a couple months back. Well, we have lost two of the group members today. I hope we can keep making strides in bringing in young talent for the company.

After work I went home and played with the pups between 5 and 6pm. We played ball in the yard, they had dinner, then we went on a walk. The rain kinda sucked. I don't mind walking in the rain, but trying to get your wet hand in a plastic newspaper bag to pick up poop really puts a damper on it. At 6pm, I met up with Mackenzie, Dan, Emerson and Cailin for dinner. It was Emerson's 4th birthday. Emerson was so good at the dinner table, and got sooo shy when the waiters sang happy birthday to her. I had the sirloin steak with broccoli and baked potato cubes (under 550 calories). But I finished that off with a chocolate mousse desert, yum.

After dinner, I went home and talked with Cheryl on the phone for 2 minutes. I was looking up education programs for renewable energy on-line while watching all this weeks episodes of The Daily Show. I went to bed around 10pm with Reece, while chance slept on the floor under the bed.

9/30/10

Good morning. Today will start my new routine of trying to soak Reece's paw in the blue solution the vet gave me. I guess I shouldn't say 'gave me', I'm sure I paid for it. Anyway, this should be easy right? I mean, Reece loves water, she will gladly put her paw in a cup of water for 5 minutes. Well, I think I got more of a soaking than Reece's paw. I am only glad that Chance stayed away and didn't get too nosey. (Cheryl) - Getting a photo of this may be very difficult.

After what seemed like 20 minute, but was closer to 3, I gave up and cleaned up the mess that was left. I proceeded with my typical routine. The good news is Reece is limping less as I am walking he a bit more each day. The scrape is looking better. After our morning walk, I had a bowl of Cinnamon toast crunch cereal and prepared for the day.

Work was an interesting mix of things. By the end of the day, Paul R. had handed in his notice to leave. Friday will be his last day, Paul was a new hire that had only been with the company for 8 months. Seth invited Carl Hoge and I over for dinner tonight and to watch The Gladiator. Which as I later found out is 10 years old, though I hadn't seen it yet. At lunch I went home and played with the dogs, I only had two slices of ham left, so my sandwich was a little bleak. No worries, someone at work was having a lunch & learn, when I got back to to office there was a few pizzas left over so I had a slice.

It was during lunch that I discovered something interesting. We received our open house packet of information for this year's Green Building Open House Tour this weekend. What is interesting about this is that I never signed us up for it. I checked the NHSEA's website, and there we are, on the open house tour. I called NHSEA, they mistakenly copied our information over from last year. No worries, they will just take it off the website. I am being a little sarcastic here, the people were very nice and very apologetic, but I still have the concern of 120+ people showing up to my door on saturday. Since my property was on the website for over 2 months, taking it down 36 hours before the tour isn't really going to help. Since I will be over at Jeff & Shannon's installing wood floors, I don't want people peeking through the windows and setting off the dogs. Any suggestions?

At 4pm I left work to open the house op for the city assessor. This came about from my meeting this past saturday. The assessor seemed very nice and informative, took about 10 minutes to review the house. I made a point to tell him that the majority of the building material was 'second hand' vs. 'reclaimed'. Kinda like 'used' vs. 'certified pre-owned'. Anyway, after the assessor left, I played with the pups in the backyard while phoning into a conference call for work. This worked out well, I was involved yet playing with the dogs, what a great concept.

Something interesting must have been going on in the universe between 5:15 and 6pm. I received 8 phone calls in that time, from different people. As I was talking to Harry about work, I got two calls that went to voicemail, as I checked the voicemail, I got two more. I started calling people back, and more calls came in. So, I apologize for anyone I haven't got back to yet, I am still listening through the voicemails.

Some play time in, we went for an early walk with a slightly early dinner. This was all in preparation to head over to Seth's at 6pm for dinner and a movie. Seth was flying solo with Hudson (Seth's 5 month old son). I couldn't believe what a good baby Hudson was. He watched as Seth made dinner, while Seth, Carl and I talked. It was definitely a fun time to hang out and talk with the guys outside of work. Being that we all live in Portsmouth, that made it easier to organize to. So, Seth made some past with meat sauce. Which I am greatly impressed by. I need to be more motivated to make real dinners as opposed to my cereal or cheese and crackers. Carl brought banana bread for desert, which we ate while watch the movie. Admittedly, this was a late night for me, but well worth it. Hopefully there will be more nights of hanging out during the winter.

Made it home a little after 10:30pm, took the dogs outs and headed to bed.

9/29/10

I was told that my blogs seem very long for not a lot of action, therefore making them difficult to read (Cheryl). Well, some people like my long drawn out descriptions of the dog walks and non excited things, so I will continue that way. This morning I got up after larger amounts of Reece snuggles, it was almost too difficult to get up. We condensed the morning routine (outside, check electric meter, coffee, write in blog, dog walk, and breakfast {bowl of cereal}) so that I could get to work a little early. Since Reeces vet appointment today is at 10:40 am, I wanted to make up some time this morning.

Everyone at work seems to be doing fine, it is a countdown as Seth leaves at the end of the week. At 10am I left work and picked up Reece and headed to Barrington. Since it was a beautiful day, we both enjoyed the car ride with the windows down. Reece did well in the waiting area as there was a small 'yappy' type dog also there. Dr. Harrington looked at Reece's paw and found the same scrape I did the other day. He gave Reece her kennel cough shot and a wellness exam. We also got some antibiotics and a soaking solution for the paw... I am suppose to use this solution to soak Reece's paw for 5 minutes a day for 5 days... this is going to be fun. Reece did so well at the vet, though she really looked frightened. Hopped back into the truck and back to the house.

Got back home at 11:30am, so I played with Chance in the yard a bit then made a ham and cheese sandwich and made it back to work at noon. I continued to work on outstanding projects. One that I am most excited about is a structural steel enclosure that I am designing on some equipment in Lynn, MA. I can't remember if I already mentioned it. It is interesting, though not very extensive, and I have to have another engineering form review and stamp it.

Looks like I will be in NC for the second half of next week, possibly my last visit down there. Maybe the week after we will have a night out with the 'younger' CHI employees. For those who may not know... this year CHI hired many young employees, I'm not sure if it was by design or not. But last year, I was the youngest office employee with a company wide age average hovering in the mid 50's. Well, since february, we hired Aaron (35 - civil eng), Carl Hoge (24 - mech eng), Seth (25 - IT), Emily (mid 20's - admin). So, for the past couple months, I have been organizing after hours hangouts once every 3 weeks. It has been fun so far and I hope the tradition continues.

After work I went home to play with the dogs, then feed them dinner. I went out for my first run in 5 or 6 days due to my cold. It felt really good to get a run in on such a great day. Got back and played with the pups in the backyard a bit, took a shower and cleaned the house a bit. Talked to Cheryl on gphone for 20 minutes until it was time to take the dogs out for their walk. This is where my day got interesting...

As I passed Cass St. walking down Middle St., I noticed a bunch (10) of guys crossing Middle St. stopping traffic. I thought it was a bunch of punk kids, so I contemplated crossing the street to keep away. Then they started moving down the side of a house (rental unit), a motion light came on, the guys were wearing swat team gear with military style guns and bullet proof vests. Once the light came on, they booked it to a door at the rear of the lot and busted it down. Not sure what they were looking for, but it was a pretty impressive raid. As a nosey Portsmouth yuppy, I stood around and watched. Hey, this is the most excitement I've had in awhile. Within a few minutes there were Portsmouth cops around. Not as much police force used to breakup the underage drinking party on July 4th though.

After all that action, got back home, made a pizza for dinner and watched my newest Netflix movie. Watch 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'. It was ok, fell asleep and missed the last 15 minutes. It could have been from the movie being boring, or that I had a beer. In bed at 10pm snuggling with my little girl Reece.

9/28/10

Another rainy morning in NH. The dogs and I got up per our usual routine. I finished the last of the OJ, but I don't plan on going to the store until the weekend. I am feeling increasingly better and not so sniffy. Reece seems to continue to gimp a bit, but I think she is staying off it enough to heal. After the coffee and blog time, I grabbed a booty from our collection of good stuff to put on Reece's paw. I am hoping that it is gentler on her paw than the concrete sidewalk. We went out for a short walk to Cass St. and back. Poor Chance wants longer walks, but he will have to survive with these shorter ones. I made a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast... bad news, looks like only one bowl worth left. That was my morning, then off to work.

On a side note from last night, I bought some different light bulbs over the weekend at Home Depot (instead of Lowe's) and tried one out in the recessed lights in the mudroom. These bulbs were instant on and a brighter white than the ones I got at Lowe's. It really does depend on the manufacturer.

At work I continued on my multiple projects. I have been working on one with Dennis the past few days, a bridge crossing in Mass. Working with Dennis on projects is good, he can make things hilarious that might otherwise seem ordinary. It really helps me keep a positive mood at work. At lunch Aaron and I tried out Lexie's over on Islington St. I have been wanting to go there to try it out, they advertise organic food, peace signs everywhere and generally look like a fun liberal place to eat. Aaron had a mushroom burger and I had a chicken malinese sub, we both got it with fried pickles! Ordinarily I wouldn't have finished the sub, but because of my cold I haven't been eating much lately. The sub was fantastic, and the fried pickles even better, definitely a do over.

On the way back to work, we stopped by the house and let the dogs out for 10 minutes. I showed Aaron my attempt at the side entry stairs. Since it has been raining the last few days, there has been little progress. Back at work, very similar to before lunch. Continued work on my outstanding projects, trying to make progress in any way. Seth started asking about basketball team names for the monday night league, many suggestions but I don't think any were very serious.

I was going to meet up with Maggie after work for a half hour or so, but we decided to hold off till next week instead. So I stayed at work an extra half hour to close out a project. When I got home I took the pups in the yard for some ball throwing. Since I put the booty on Reece, she didn't want to run around. We went in, and I fed them dinner. The dogs and I got into the truck and headed over to Lowes to return those crappy light bulbs. I then bought recessed light trim pieces for the rest of the lights in the house. Walked over to Target and bought 5 boxes of cereal... but I forgot the OJ. Next I went over to Home Depot and bought more of the light bulbs that actually worked.

We got home and I took the dogs for a quick walk to Cass St. and back. I actually cut it back early because Reece's 'favorite' dog was walking on the other side of the street and Reece was putting a lot of pressure on her bad paw. A quick wipe down of the pups in the mudroom and we were in for the night. I installed the new trim pieces and light bulbs to the 4 recessed lights in the mudroom and noticed it was 8pm. The other lights in the bedroom and bathroom will have to wait. I grabbed my bowl of chocolate pudding (this was my dinner) and headed to the couch to watch NCIS. Finished watching TV at 10pm, and off to bed.

9/27/10

Started my morning with a nice tall glass of OJ to help with my cold. This is how I get through all of my colds, NyQuil at night and glasses of OJ. Took the dogs out, checked the electric meter and sat down to write in the blog. I think my blog is missing something to keep it interesting, any suggestions? I know it is early in the 5 months of blog writing I committed to, but I feel I could really add something to it.

Our morning walk seemed to go well, the dogs were good and we came across Don from Merrie Sweepe. Don built our chimney and wood stove surround. He is reconstructing a chimney on Lincoln St. for a week or so. We stopped and talked for a bit, then headed home. I made myself a bowl of cereal and got ready for work. Monday's at work are always a bit interesting, everyone taking a few minutes to discuss what they did over the weekend. Stories from Dennis are always great, he can really get you laughing with things that happened to his kids. Sometimes I wonder if he is able to laugh at them while in the moment, or only in reflection. I certainly would be frustrated with a lot of it, but enjoy a good laugh about at later. Maybe that is what I need to start doing, find the enjoyable bright side of things while in the moment... I'll work on that.

Came home at lunch, threw the ball once for Reece and noticed she was limping worse today. I first noticed her limp either saturday night or sunday morning, so I tried to keep here from running and jumping all day sunday. Yeah, that's my excuse for sitting in front of the tv and watching football all day, and I'm sticking to it. I thought she looked fine this morning, but she has a real gimp now. Called the vet to make an appointment, looks like wednesday morning. I had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch. Washed the dirty dishes and played a bit with the pups in the house doing 'stupid dog tricks'.

Went back to work, not much to elaborate on here, trying to schedule my next trip down to NC while scheduling a dog/house sitter. Looks like a dark and wet day today, the forecast is for rain and overcast skies for most of the week. May need to turn the hot water heater on, I will try to go as long as I can. I texted Maggie to see if she could watch the dogs next week, she officially moves away October 11th. Her schedule is pretty tight and probably can't watch the dogs, but we might get together tonight to hangout.

After work, came home and let the dogs out. Kept an eye on Reece, she was still limping a bit. I kept her from running around and brought them both in for dinner. Then I did the worst thing in the entire world... I hooked up Chance for a walk and left Reece at home. She had the largest puppy dog eyes in the world, wanted nothing more than to go for a walk, it broke my heart. So Chance and I took a mile ling walk by ourselves in the misty rain. Tried a different route back to escape the construction on Lincoln St. Got back to the house and watched an episode of the Daily Show online, best show ever. Then Cheryl and I talked on the google phone, looks like I need to get a webcam and headset and it would be perfect. The pups could hear Cheryl's voice, they got all excited, Reece was smiling all around the kitchen... Chance started to look around the kitchen for Cheryl, then got a worried look on his face.

After our phone call, I took both pups for a walk to the next block and back. Reece began limping more, I think walking on concrete or asphalt really irritates her paw. Came back and made some 'dinner' for myself. I sliced up some monterrey jack cheese, had a sleeve of crackers and buttered the butts of two loafs (4 slices) of bread. I know it sounds like a ridiculous dinner, but it was very tasty. I sat down and watched my tv shows, grabbing a bowl of chocolate pudding with whip cream as a desert. Maggie texted me at 9:30pm to say she wasn't going to be able to hang out today, maybe tomorrow. Went to bed, w/o any NyQuil! I am feeling a little better, so I'll try to get some sleep without it.