243 - Quiet Evening

Overall, today was more positive than negative, after I got past the morning.  Tonight I was able to make progess on some projects as well as sit out in the back yard with the kids for a little while.

Not bad at all.

TTFN!

242 - Normalcy

Finally, a night at home to do normal things - cook dinner, do some ironing, read and relax.  I feel like I've been going non-stop since I got home ....

TTFN!

241 - I Know Things Now

You move just a finger, say the slightest word,

Somethings bound to linger ... Be heard

This Monday's positive - the last night of bowling.  I told my team tonight that I would not be bowling with the league next season.  Why?  It's a LONG season - 26 weeks; that's more than 6 months because we take 3 weeks off for Christmas.  I also miss singing, so am thinking about auditioning for a group.  Add to that the expense ($15 a night), and it's time to put away the ball for a while.  I did let them know that I'll be glad to sub next season when they need someone and will still sponsor the team.  Nice people, but it's time to move on.

And why is Into the Woods my photo for this blog.  Because, 1 year ago today I swallowed my nerves and went to Theatre Jax to audition.  Around 10 that night, ML called to offer me the opportunity to be in the show.  All shows make an impact, but this one seemed to make a bigger one than others.  I met a lot of great people, and made some wonderful, lasting friendships.  Without a doubt, that experience will always hold a special place in my heart.

TTFN!

240 - Lazy Day

I did not leave the house today. 

It was great to not have to go anywhere or do anything after 2 late nights. 

Gonna relax for the rest of the day too.

239 - Ziegler Family

Sisters of Tom Ziegler were at the closing performance of Home Games at ABET last night.  (The sisters are front row (sitting) in the photo above.  Back row is the cast of Home Games.)  One lives here in town and the other lives in Venice, just south of Sarasota, FL.  They loved the show, and made the comment that this is how Tom wanted the show done.

I was videoing again last night, and at intermission I asked them if they would be so kind to stay and let me take a couple still photos of them with the cast and crew.  They were thrilled to stay.  After the photos were taken, Ann (in red above) called her brother, waking him up, then passed the phone around to each cast member and the director.  To quote Matt (who played Frank) when he said hello to Tom on the phone, "I'm on cloud 9 right now. Can't believe I'm talking with you on the phone."  What an awesome thing for the cast members to experience that night.

Ann asked if I would send her a copy of the DVD when I'm done.  Of course!  Then she said she wanted to send it too her brother.  Oh!!  Ok. No pressure to do a good job.  :-)

TTFN!

Lisa talks with Tome Ziegler.

Matt listens to Mr. Ziegler.

Rebecca the last with the phone.

Bob and the 1955 Yankees.

238 - There's No Place Like Home

On the road by 7:30; heading home.  If there's one thing I really learned after spending 2 1/2 weeks in Tennessee, Jacksonville is my home.  There are times when I kick around the thought of moving up to the Knoxville area; in 2002 I even seriously looked at available jobs in that area (due to some difficult times at work).  But, working up there for over 2 weeks with no family in town for our get-togethers helped me recognize how much I really have here and how difficult it would be to start over.

My home is not big or extravagant, but it's mine (and the bank's).  My job isn't the best in the world, but I have the closest thing to job security that one can have (and intangible benefits like being able to work wherever I have high speed access).  I have a wonderful circle of friends and acquaintances; I'd be lost without them.

I celebrated being home by videoing Home Games at ABET and broke bread with friends afterwards.

There is no place like home, and I'm so glad to be back to my home.

TTFN!

237 - Royalty

Last trip to Johnson City, this time to have the permanent crowns installed.  Guess I'm royalty now.  It's either that or being painfully slammed into middle-age.  I'll take the royalty outlook.

Lisa and Mike were amazingly gentle, and I'm very, very fortunate to have them helping me out.

TTFN!

236 - Tangible Property Tax

It was a long, long day at work. I wrote the program that calculate's the companie's tangible property taxes as well as prints out the tax forms and required reports for filing.  Fortunately, I know the program very well, and when data from then end of 2008 and the start of 2009 didn't match, I was capable of some creative calculating so we could get the taxes printed.

This program is the one I'm most proud of at work.  The company is in 10 different counties, 2 states.  Each county has a different tax depreciation schedule.  Not only difficult calculations, but the designing the forms was equally difficult.  That said, when the tax forms are printed, they look identical to the forms provided by the counties for submission. 

By 8pm, the ending/beginning balances matched.

Woot!

235 - Life is Full of Little Pricks

Season 2 of Nurse Jackie started this week.  While I don't have Showtime, I'm able to find the shows online.  I actually look lunch and watched the first two episodes of this season.  Gotta love Nurse Jackie!

TTFN!

234 - Snow!

Coming up to Tennessee in mid-March, the last thing I expected to see was snow flurries.  I knew the temps were going to drop today, but the forecast was not calling for flurries.  Imagine my surprise when I saw these little white things floating through the air!  It is still too warm for the snow to stick, at least here at the house.  Lunch time, though, found Diva and I heading up to the top of Foothills Parkway to see if there was any accumulation there.  See pics.

The other very positive for today is that Mother came through her wrist surgery well.  That's a very, very good thing.

TTFN!

We're glad the bears are still hibernating!

233 - Playing Tech

One of the projects I brought with me to TN was to set up my refurb home computer tower.  Finally got to it this afternoon, and I think I'm in love with hot swappable harddrives.  First, I took the 750GB HDD out of the tower, replacing it with an 80GB.  Why?  Because I don't intend on storing anything on the boot harddrive.  If I get hit with a virus, all I have to do is reformat; nothing lost.  The 750GB and a new 1.5TB HDDs went in front loading hot swap bays.  That is just too freaking cool. 

Time to start installing software.
TTFN!

232 - Madness Begins

March Madness kicks off for the Women today. 

Lady Vols easily won their first round game.

231 - One Step Closer

One step closer to being done.  The temporaries are in.

230 - Let The Sun Shine In!

The clouds finaly cleared out and the sun broke through!!!

229 - Look Ma, No Pain!

The endodontist gave me an Rx for pain killers, which I did not fill.  He said I'd be very sore after 4 hours of work yesterday.  Well, surprisingly enough, I only needed one round of ibuprofen today, and other than that, no pain.  To top off the "no pain", I was able to rinse with cold water today and I'm celebrating tonight with Ben & Jerry's Banana Split!!!

Woot!

228 - You're How Old???

After fighting pain for months, then Mike not being able to get everything to numb up properly last week, today was finally the day for the root canal.  After the Endo looked at the x-rays, he determined that both 18 and 19 needed a root canal.  He said to do them both today, it would probably take about 2 and a half hours.  4 hours later, he and 2 assistants finally finished.

Positives.  Yes, there are positives.  I no longer have pain from the infected pulp.  No doubt I will be hurting pretty badly tomorrow after 4 hours of work, but that will go away.  The folks at the Endo's office were very nice and gentle.  They told me that I was the first patient who had a 'double' in the last 6 months or more that wasn't crying by the end ... part of that was their help.

Oh, and the "You're How Old?" title of the blog .... when the receptionist put my information in their system, my birthdate was messed up.  Joanne looked over and said, "There's no way you're 109 year's old, but that's what the screen says."  I couldn't wise crack back because they already had the rubber dam in my mouth.  I had to hold up the number of fingers to tell her my birthdate.

Everything, no matter what, can have some positive in it; you just have to look hard enough.
TTFN!

227 - Taking a Break

After a long, uninterrupted day of working mostly on property tax data, I went into town and took Diva with me.

She sits so lady-like in the front seat of the truck.

Little River is running quickly this Spring.

Diva did not like going on this bridge.

We jumped from rock to rock until we were partway out into the river.

She was happy running up Roche Creek (that's what I named it) when we got home.

Thunderation Falls (what I named it) aren't flowing quickly yet.

226 - Pecan Pancakes

The Pancake Pantry in Gatlinburg will be celebrating it's 50th birthday on March 17th.  There was a nice segment about it on the local news (I'm in TN right now), so I figured it would be a nice place for breakfast on a Sunday morning.  I took 73 through the western edge of Smoky Mountain National Park to get to Gatlinburg, a nice 30 minute drive along the river.  There's been so much snow and rain up here that the river waters are all running quickly.  I was fortunate to find a parking place about 2 blocks away, and my wait was only about 15 minutes.

It didn't take long to decide on the pecan pancakes.  5 large pancakes with powdered sugar, pecan chunks, an ice cream scoop pile of butter, pecan syrup (with more pecans in the syrup), and yes, a side of bacon.  OMG - they were fabulous!!!  I was only able to eat 3, and of that I'm glad. 

I took some time to walk around Gatlinburg and work off some of that breakfast.  Right next to the Pancake Pantry is a candy store where they make their own taffy.  (See pics below.)  What fun it was to watch the kids with their faces pressed up against the glass watching the taffy being stretched, then cut and rolled in paper.  Then, a guy picked up a handful and brought it out to the kids to sample.  It was nice wandering around at my own pace, in and out of shops, sometimes just standing there watching the people.  Once it started sprinkling, I knew the rains were coming, so it was head for the truck and home.

Such good, good pancakes, and worth the trip.  I was actually craving them the next morning.  Oy!

225 - Smoky Mountain Rain

The sun was out for maybe the first couple of hours this morning, then the clouds moved in and it's been raining on and off since then.  That's ok.  I'm still nursing a very sore tooth, so being "forced" to stay inside and not do much of anything ... I'll take that as a positive.

The top pic ... I took that Friday morning on my way to Johnson City.  It was shortly after 7am, just a mile or so outside of Smoky Mountain National Park. 

The bottom pic ... I took that Friday afternoon coming back into Pigeon Forge on I-40.  Hit a wall of water shortly after that.

Quack!

224 - You Can't Numb Red Pigs

On my dad's side of the family, I only have 3 cousins.  On a good year, I see them a couple of times, typically Spring and Autumn when the family gather's in TN for motorcycle riding.  It's unusual, though, to see all 3 in a week, in different locations, and most importantly, to have some one-on-one time wtih them. 

After the unsuccessful attempts to get my tooth to completely numb, we went out to lunch.  The restaurant is called "The Red Pig."  Not part of a chain, and great food.  A man greeted us at the door, shook our hands and thanked us for coming in.  Mike did have to laugh at me while I tried to bite into a sandwich with my left jaw being completely numb.  Gave up and just ate the pulled pork with a fork. :-)

When looking for a picture to go with this blog, I searched for my cousin, Mike, along with denistry and Johnson City.  Low and behold, his actual picture popped up, so WTH, I figured I'd post it.  I'll be seeing more of him this upcoming week, and hopefully, everything will go well.

TTFN!