May 1, 2001
How time flies it's already May. Today I woke up at 9:30 since I only had afternoon classes. A nice warm breeze was blowing in and the sun greeted me. It's been feeling more like July the last couple of days, usual for this time of year. This morning I watched a little of unsolved mysteries then I went and did my math. For lunch I had a grilled cheese sandwich which was almost ten inches long. I had to toast the bread 4 times to get it all down right. On the way back from class I noticed that gas prices jumped up to $1.95 at some places. They were saying on the news today that if that situation between the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel were to spill over into other Arab countries in the region they could increase the price of oil. In turn that would in turn put our prices of regular gas at around four dollars! It's not out of the question. My dad asked me to come over to work and cut the grass. The lawnmower wouldn't start for 20 minutes and then we gave up. That's another thing that needs fixing. I got home around 3:30 and decided to clean all the pop and beer cans I had found last night and crush them. I did that and I picked the tops off as I went; I have now 1,985 can tops. That took a thirty minutes right there. Then I put down a little mulch under a pine tree in the yard. Since it's been so warm the last few days that speeded up the leafs on the trees. About half way right now.
Another important news topic today which I'll emphasis on tomorrow is the Bush's plan for a Missile Defense System. No way; he shouldn't do it. More info at MSNBC.
11:44 PM
May 2, 2001
I woke up too early today and now I'm really tired. It was so warm in the house this morning that I got up at 6:30 just get cooler off. It way to warm for this date. My Wednesday morning was a typical one for the most part. In psychology today we talked about psychopath's which was different. Since it was Wednesday I didn't have algebra in the afternoon. On the way home I ran into a ton of traffic due to construction. I think every project in Lake County got under way all at once. I got home around 10:35; ten minutes later than usual. I worked on my site, watched some more of Bush's proposed plan on developing the Missile Defense System. First it will cost to much and second we don't have the proper technology and third it could cause a new cold war and higher tensions across the world. More people would be out to get back at the U.S. Gas prices are not getting any better. I just saw the last $1.79 go up to $1.85. I'm not looking forward to when the price goes to three dollars or $3.15. We have it lucky compared to other countries like Italy where they pay 4 or 5 dollars a gallon. I was planning on cutting the grass today but the lawnmower had to be taken in to be fixed. Our yard will be a jungle before this guy gets going on it. I heard he's a slow worker. Instead I trimmed a few branches and swept up the garage. Our neighbor was cutting his lawn again! He just did it Sunday for peat sake! He must have obsessive compulsive disorder of some kind. I think he loves doing it; he just rides and rides around his yard in a perfect pattern. After a while I got tired of the humidity and went inside to read some of my magazines that I've been collecting for a month now. After dinner I went to Kenosha to pick up my new prescription for my glasses and the place was closed and I swore they had said they were going to be open until 7 PM. Instead me and my dad went to Petrifying Springs on the north side of Kenosha towards Racine. We get spring water there for drinking and cooking. It's well worth getting it there for free. We ran into one of our friends who is a realtor. We haven't seen him in five years about. Then rest of the night consisted of watching comedy and looking around for Crayfish in our pond. We've got tons of them, I didn't manage to get any of them out because each time I flashed the flashlight down there holes they go further down. I used to catch them all the time seven years back or so. As I type right now it's still seventy-one degrees out and it's just about midnight. There calling for severe thunderstorms tomorrow.
11:55pm
May 4, 2001
This morning I was awakened shortly after one a.m. due to a raccoon fight in our driveway. Two big raccoon's were having a rumble for reason's I don't know. I flickered the lights at them and they scattered. I woke up this morning early again for no reason. I've been waking up at the strangest hours. Like 5:30 and 6am and so forth. I didn't get much sleep otherwise last night. This morning was going really good until I had to wait 10 minutes to turn left off of a side street. I didn't see an end to the traffic and I had to get going, so I turned right intead and went two miles out of my way. Then I encountered a traffic jam in Wadsworth due to a couple of cars running into each other. It was only minor though. Classes went smoothly today. In psychology my teacher was talking about the Massasauga rattlesnake that lives in this area. It's rarely seen but, I guess they live along the Des Plaines river which is just west of here. And a little girl around five years old was bitten by one in Darien, WI yesterday. Right now she's in the hospital. The snake is poisonous but is only a danger to kids under three years of age.
Last night I talked to one of my old friend's from high school for about an hour on MSN. I ran into him on accident kind of, but it was really nice saying hello again. I've been chatting to much lately. Almost every night now for about five days. My afternoon was interesting; different. I saw another accident where a guy rear-ended a bread truck. Me and my mom did a few errands in Kenosha. I finally got my glasses back from there upgrade. There alot better now. After that we stopped at the store and then went to my aunt Dee's house in Zion. She just got her first computer and she wanted me to clean it up, since she doesn't know anything about them yet. I worked on that for a little while then my mom and me went home. We all went out for dinner tonight at Whispering Oaks Inn in Bristol, WI. They had there anually Friday fish fry there which is always excellent. Come to think of it I've had seafood three times this week. While we were eating dinner we watched this black labrador in this car stare at everyone as we ate. I felt sorry he had to be in there all alone. He was probably bored, he kept switching seats. His owner should have brought him into eat! lol. After we got done eating we took a ride all the way out to Lake Geneva which is about a 40 minutes from my house. It's a really going tourist town that sits on the glorious Lake Geneva. Nothing much was happening tonight. Kind of cool for walking around I guess. After that we went straight home. All in all today was a little more exciting then I expected. I hope nothing wakes me up again tonight.
11:25 pm
May 5, 2001
Today was a very busy day indeed. I got up at 10:05 about, after sleeping fairly last night. I had a quick breakfast/lunch and while watching the neighbors driveway in back of us get torn up. I was a busy day for everyone in the neighborhood. I don't know how I got into cleaning the garage today but, I did; at least part of it. I started sweeping off some shelves that were full of birdseed. Then I just started taking stuff down that I realized was junk. And I kept doing that until 7pm tonight. But now and then I would have to take breaks because the dust was a little too much. So at about 2 pm I took a walk to the backyard to see what my dad was up to. He was fixing the fence again, after it blew down in violent wind storm last week. I took a walk to our unfinished pond and saw a rock that had fallen down to the bottom. So I decided to move in back where it came from on the hill. I turned it over and here is a crayfish sitting under it. I took a closer look and say that it was injured. Then I saw that she had baby crayfish under her tail. About 25 to 30 of them. So I decided that I better get them in a safer place with some water. I did that and let them be for awhile. I've had this situation before, and I did what was right by getting them into water. Now as of a few hours ago they have been coming out and swimming around. I don't think the mother will make it much longer. I almost positive it was a raccoon that did this; there about the only creature I know that eats crayfish. We have lots of coons around here too and I've caught them routing around in the pond for them. Crayfish mainly eat old plants and vegetation of sorts. I'll have to read about it and see what they like the most. I'll keep the small ones with me in the tank for a little while until they get a little bigger. They would have a really hard time withour there mother or some other means of care. Anyway I finished one phase of the garage project tonight and now I'm really sore. Hopefully I won't rain to much tomorrow so I can get more done. I have a feeling it will rain all day tomorrow. Our neighbors cut there lawn again for the second time this week. They always do it on Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday. Never fails! Those people have nothing else to do I guess. Well I have something to do atleast. Get this wrapped up and get some sleep and get more done tomorrow.
12:40am (5th)
May 24, 2001
Hello everyone! It's been a while I know. I'll explain what happened. When I went to publish on May 7th it wouldn't go. The error message read: 553 error, file not allowed. Well I thought it was a temporary problem. So I waited till the next day. I got that message up until tonight when it finally went through. I was asking everyone to see how long it would take to fix but no one would give me a straight answer. Finally I concluded that there was nothing I could do and they didn't know what they were doing. Finally I tried to forget about it earlier this week. And now it works. Alot his happened and I'll try to highlight the important things in the past two weeks. As of the 15th I'm working for my grandpa at our paper and printing business. Re-pricing paper and envelope stock and entering it into the computer. It's pretty easy. Marilyn has been helping me make hiking sticks by stripping the bark and then I smooth it done. That's it for tonight, tomorrow night I'll right more...alot more.
11:31 pm
May 25, 2001
Well today was a fairly exciting day. My friend Jason stayed over last night on a Thursday which was odd for me. Instead of him leaving first I did; for work. I got to work a little late, but my grandpa doesn't mind it that much. I worked at the end of the day till 5 to make up for a thirty minute loss of time in the morning. So far I have worked 51 hours. I have to go talk to my uncle about pay next week. I'm not even sure what the pay will be. Today I worked on designing the spreedsheets which are full of paper stock prices. It's all part of a brochure to give to all of our customers. On Tuesday I get to design the front cover. I have my own office sort of, actually it's part of the conference room, so it's nice and roomy. My desk already has lots of papers on it. Today I got my report card from CLC. I passed everything with two B's and a C. At least I passed Algebra 2 with a higher grade then last time. When I got home my friend was gone, he had just left. I get off about and hour and a half for lunch just like my dad. Work is only about seven minutes away from home so I don't usually have to fight traffic. After lunch the afternoon went well. I continued working on the project. I spent most of the time shading in every other row so it would be easier to read for the customer. I got done at about 3:30 and showed my grandpa and he said it looked really good. Then he went home. He goes home early, he should he's 77 years old. After that I went and I helped my dad in the shipping department by packaging up envelope that had not been correctly folded. Send those back to the company.
I went home a few minutes before five and went home. I noticed that the gas prices had not jumped up yet. But I heard they will tomorrow. Right now there at 1.90 or near that. Since five o'clock I've done a variety of things. Before dinner I talked to one of my friend's; Chris, who's birthday was today(19th). Then we had a chicken dinner with stuffing and mashed potatoes. During dinner a pair of Mallard Ducks walked throught the courtyard and made there way back to our unfinished pond. They stayed till dark then left. I watched the fog as it rolled in off the lake at eight o'clock. First the fog got banked up just a 100 feet away and just sat there. You could look to the west and it was pretty clear, but east was like looking at a wall of clouds. It finally made it's way in and now it's really foggy with a visibility of around a hundred feet.
My cat Margie tried to get into the crayfish tank this morning for the fourth time. She must not realize what's in there. There bigger than they used to be but there still just under a 1/4" long. There entertaining to watch though. The cat is to big of a playmate for those guys! lol... I did a little weeding in between dinner and the fog. Watched Jay Leno at 11pm. Read a log home book. We were supposed to go to a log home show in Milwaukee tomorrow but they moved it so now I''ll have to wait until September were it will be at Grand Rapids, MI; four hours from here. But that not too far. Even though you have to got through downtown Chicago and the the traffic that always comes along with that route. Today has been a long day, I just realized. hmmm... I'm really glad that the server is up finally though, that's a big relief. This weekend I have a big list of things to buy. Like an ink cartridge for one thing. I'll have to go to Best Buy for that. It's been a long cool week here with off and on showers with funnel clouds and hail. All due to a Cut-Off Low pressure system that is seperated from the jet stream. So it can't be steered out of here by those winds. So it just sits and drifts around the areas with unsettled weather. Hopefully it will be out of here Monday.
(12:50am)
May 30, 2001
Stopping to think about the days events as I sit here, I realized that it was a busier day than I thought it was. This morning I woke up to my feathered alarm clock; Marilyn! She started squawking at about eight or just before and let out about two dozen squawks before she quit when my dad gave her a piece of cheese. She likes any kind, she's a little different. I got to work just five minutes late. This morning I continued to work on fine tuning the Smead prices pamphlet for our customers. I got moved to a different location today because a semi-retired employee came and wanted to work in his office that I was using so I moved just thirty feet down the hall. The morning went fairly fast. At 11:45 my grandpa went home for lunch and I finished what I had to do. I left the building at 12pm and then I remembered that I wanted another pine stick to make yet another hiking stick out of. So I grabbed my saw out of the car and went to the back of the lot. There's about 3 1/2 acres of woods that the company owns in back. And I have to hike all the way back to get to the pine I wanted. So I decided that if I'm going to come back here I should blaze a trial through here. It took me about twenty minutes to get back to my destination. I got my tree branch and realized the time and hiked back to the car within five minutes. The forest is so dense that my path has alot of twists and turns in it. After that I went right home for my lunch break that lasts till 1:30. The afternoon was busy, I had to make alot of photo copies this afternoon, so many that I mixed them up will copying. It took me about fifteen minutes to sort it all out. The day ended with me sorting and counting out envelopes in hundreds. The day had cooled off from 61 to 55 by the time I had gotten out of work at 4:40pm; kind of overcast too. Once I got home I talked to my mom for about ten minutes about how my day went as she cooked some kind of turkey dish. I saw how hard hit the markets were hit today. I expected the decline soon or later, especially from the day before when key stocks came out with earnings warnings. Then I went downstairs and continued to clean up some loose wood to take outside that I'm going to burn later. The fire that I had just two days before was really hot; hot enough to melt glass, so about 1000 degress. Yeah and I had to stand back fifteen feet during the peak of the fire. Then I finished up trimming our Yew bushes. Then I went in and worked on my Michigan map/picture that I'm going to give to my aunt and uncle in Gladstone, Michigan. Then it was time for dinner which was good. After dinner everyone did something different. My mom continued her picuture organization and my dad washed dishes and then outside to continue mulching in the front. I on the other hand checked to see if Fortune City's website was up and it was. Harray! Then just now I finished watching the game between Philadelphia and the Milwaukee Bucks. Philie won; sad. But there is one more chance for the Bucks in a few days. And I changed the home page finally. Like it? ...
11:04pm