• Family:
  Drake is starting to crawl fairly well now. Check Violet's blog for a video. What's really cool is that a few days ago he crawled over to me as I was lying on the floor (in his nursery) and then he used me to prop himself up into a standing position. He stood all by himself, wobbling just a little bit, for almost a whole second!
  The cats and dogs are fine, though somewhat bored. I haven't been home much lately to entertain them.
  Our neighbor complaimed about Sebastian coming up to the fence in an agressive manner. the fence is a standard chain link fence, about 3' high or so, so Sebastian can get his head and paws on top pretty easily. The neighbor feared for the safety of his granddaughters, and threatened to kill the animal if he ever crossed the fence. He insisted I do something about it. After some conversation we agreed that he didn't care about the dog barking, he just didn't want the dog potentially jumping the fence. He isn't wrong.. if my neighbor's dog seemed agreesive when Drake was trying to play in the yard, I'd complain to. I would have threatened to call Animal Control as opposed to shooting it, but that's just me. Anyway, there are 2 fences. My yard's fence is metal chain link the entire length of the shared border. He has another fence adjacent to mine running parallel, a 6' wooden privacy fence, but its length doesn't run the entire length, it stops about 40' short. I told him I would fix the issue. He mentioned under his breath he should finish his wooden fence, but I felt that he had neither the desire nor the resources to do so. Besides, he's too busy playing horseshoes. That afternoon I went to Home Depot and bought a metal fence mesh and some stakes (about $50.00 all in) and installed it. It's a 4' high fence, but the stakes are 6' so I raised the mesh above the current chain link fence. I then attached the bottom of the mesh to the chain link using strips of baylene (sp?) wire. I'm fairly happy with the results. I'll hopefully take a picture someday and update the blog.
• Home:
  I've neglected most house chores lately. Art isn't on the walls, a dozen or more boxes remained unpacked, and the general organization is still somewhat chaotic. I did however take the time to baby proof Violet's office from Drake pulling on the network and cable wires coming out of the wall and into the deprecated heater vent along the lower wall. he still pulls on it, but it's "safer" now, I suppose.
  One of the support brackets on the riding mower had come off due to a bent cotter pin, which I had discovered by luck. I was actually looking for a missing wheel or something becasue it seemed the cutting deck was lopsided toward the left front corner. This caused some minor cuts into the dirt and uneven cutting while I mowed the lawn. It was easily fixed though and now I'm back in business. The thing backfires everytime I shut it off though, which I don't quite care for.
• Work:
  Well, crunch mode is over now. No more overtime, at least for a while. The next month should be fairly relaxed since I've been lightly scheduled due to having worked so much the previous month or so. More beta players have been invited in, and the forums on Warhammer Alliance (and others) are abuzz with the latest newsletter.
• Other:
  I don't buy music very often.. maybe one or two every year, and then only because Violet hands them to me. I'm usually quite content listening to the same CD over and over again. I tend to keep the CDs in my car for months at a time. So anyway, I recently bought 2 new CDs, Sara Bareilles and Colbie Caillat, based on Violet's suggestion of new music I would like. So far, I do.

My mom visited over the weekend, so I took Fri and Mon off from work. We did some letterboxing and shopping while she was here. She liked it enough to buy her own stamp. Its good for the whole family!

Drake's crawling better and sits up with ease now, which I am happy about.

Otherwise I've just been really busy working on this.

I started reading a new webcomic. It started back in 2003, so its pretty old, but I find it interesting. I also removed the Pet Professional, since that hasn't been updated in forever.

A few weekends ago , like, 2 or 3, I decided to use my mowers bagging system.
This was mistake #1.

Although I'm happy a ton of dead grass isn't lying around the yard, its collection meant that I had to stop the mower every time it got full. Or clogged. which happened a LOT due to the grass being wet and tall. I ended up with about 20 bags of grass. Sorry, I have no pictures because I forgot to take any.

It took 4 HOURS.

The headlights work fine, BTW. It took so long that night fell before I was done.
Important tip.. if you're mowing the grass and don't have the cutter engaged, the grass just lays flat and uncut. Even if you drive over it 5 times trying to figure out why no progress is being made.
That was mistake #2.. probably wasted about 10 mins doing this.

When during the course of mowing history you find yourself wielding a machete(Yes, I have a machete.. what of it?) to cut off low branches from trees and bushes, be wary of random police cars driving by. This didn't happen to me, but it could of. I'm just sayin...

Kitchen bags do not fit (well) inside the mower's bagging system. They just don't.
Mistake #3

You can't trim grass with a cordless trimmer if there's no actual cord in it. This is likely true of corded and gas powered trimmers too.
Mistake #4

Don't wear your normal work shoes for mowing the grass, especially when its wet, and even more especially if the shoes are not water poof.
Mistake #5

The following weekend I bought some cord and spent another 30 mins or so trimming the edges. I'm still not done (I ignored the drainage ditch) though because the battery doesn't last as long as I recall. I have a 2nd charger and 2 extra batteries, I just don't know where it all is.

I just bought new shoes this weekend.