augiewan.com

Got the look and feel back.  Still have to recreate a TON of posts from 2008 and decide whether or not to recreate all the image galleries…

This stinks…

OK, here’s the deal.  Some moron hacked my old blog and messed it up good.  Serves me right for not upgrading, but WordPress just LOVES releasing new update all the stinkin’ time and I just don’t have time to  keep up.  Ever heard of auto updates guys?  It’s neat and most other software has been doing it for YEARS!!!

OK, I feel a tad better.  Wait, no I don’t.   Grrr…   I’ll have to try to reclaim the rest of the posts I couldn’t save…

Later…

So here I sit at work wondering if I’m about to fall backwards in to a pit of burnt building debris. Here, I’ve scribbled a little picture for you…

As some of you know (yes I know I completely failed to post about it) the building next to us was completely gutted by a nasty fire this past summer and now they’re finally clearing the plot. But as I sit here in my office I keep hearing the rumble of bricks and timbers and whatever else they are digging up over there. The building shakes every time they dig in and when I took a walk, I saw that they are literally scraping the old building off of ours!

You see, the buildings are in an old downtown setting and the walls are connected, which also explains why we were so worried our building would burn down too! But now my fear is that the big crane/arm/digging thingy is going to break right through the wall and take me out! And if doesn’t get me, I fear many of my office toys will perish…

Yeah, I know… I really stink at this “blogging” thing. Thousands of ideas, no time to post them. Oh well, I guess you have to enjoy what little I do post…

So we chose not to pay the ridiculous prices for school pictures this year and opted to take our own pictures. I think Sheila did a great job with it, and those of you who normally get pictures of the kids should be getting copies in the mail in the near future. We’ll be getting them printed soon. But for now (and for those of you not worthy of printed copies) here are some digital shots to enjoy…

But really, that whole “not worthy” thing was a joke! If you want copies, let me know…

A lot of people here in Michigan crack me up. With the first snowfall of each year, they start grumbling about the snow. They wake up to a beautiful white blanket of snow out the window and immediately become grumpy. They drop their kids off at school and they’re grumpy. They come in to work all grumpy. Many also seem to forget each and every year that the stuff makes the roads slick and they run in to things (and each other). I just don’t get it.

We are in MICHIGAN for crying out loud. If you really dislike the snow, why on Earth do you live here? It’s not Minnesota or Colorado and certainly not Alaska, but one thing you can count on here in Michigan is that it will (a) get cold and (b) snow. A lot. The specific area we’re in, we also get additional lake-effect snow from the lake.

I for one am not a fan of the summer sun for any length of time. I despise being hot. Therefore, I do not live down south where it is notoriously hot all the time. I actually like the colder weather up here. A perfect day to me is in the mid-60′s and sunny. Fall preferably so that I can enjoy the colors and the smells such as burning leaves. But I haven’t forgotten how to have fun in the snow. So once it falls and sticks around, I’m out with the kids throwing snowballs, making forts, and (although I completely missed out on it last year) going sledding!

Well anyway, I need to get to my work. Just had to rant a little since I just got the first wave of “I live in Michigan and I hate the snow” conversation for the year…

So we hit the big 15 year anniversary mark late last month! Yeah for us!!!

We didn’t really have the fundage to do anything spectacular like we had hoped to, but spending the weekend with the kids was great time for us…

Here’s a pic of two of my crazy gals. I’ll post more later!

Yeah, this past weekend proved to be a real nugget of joy…

Things were off to a bad start with the weather. It rained all weekend without let up, and now we’ve got a leak in the living room and a whole bunch of water in the basement. Now, I know things could be worse. I could live down where they just got pummeled by Ike, but then again I’ve consciously chosen NOT to live where Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Floods, and Tornadoes are a regular occurrence. Score one for the Michigan! (I can deal with snow just fine)

So Saturday was a funeral for a friend of ours who just died of a heart attack in his early 40′s. Their entire family is so sweet, and I just can’t imagine what it will be like for his wife and little girls now, or his parents for that matter. Sheila’s family was close with theirs since she was a kid, so it was a rough day. The kids weren’t too happy about us going either because they had to miss a local going-away party for some friends of ours who are moving to Texas. Lessons in life are tough, but they all understood that we needed to be there for the family that was grieving. Sheila and I did get to see a lot friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time, though it was bitter sweet considering the circumstances. I also got to see Coco and family, so that was a nice treat as always!

Overall very little got accomplished this weekend. It was consistently dark out, we woke up late, went to bed early… Oh and Saturday night we got a nice surprise being woke up at 3:00am by some idiot that came up and banged on our bedroom window. Probably some kids with nothing better to do..

So that’s about it. No real point to this post but to TRY to force myself to be more regular with posting. I’ll try to get some pics up soon of the kids first day of school from a few weeks back!

Love to all…

No, I have no idea if that quote or even that scene is incorporated in the musical “Monty Python’s Spamalot”, but I am GEEKED nonetheless to have found out today that some good friends of ours have purchased 2 extra tickets to go see the show with them in January as an anniversary gift! Thank you!!! Wow, I can’t believe we’re coming up on 15 years this month…

I have been SO bad at updating this site recently but I just couldn’t ignore this little nugget… Here’s to hoping I post again before I give my review of the show! lol…

The example set by my parents in how to love each other through good times and bad will always stick with me. They seem more loving towards each other now than ever before (at least in my relatively short time being around). They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in April and we had a few parties to mark the big event. On the gallery page, first you’ll see the pictures of the grandkids having fun at Nana & Bampa’s house and giving some small gifts. After those pictures are some of a small formal dinner we did with the older ones. We had fun at both and I think Mom & Dad did too!

See the images here…

So as I had mentioned many months ago (or sadly about two or three posts ago) my plan was to separate the personal “family & friends” site from the “geek stuff” site. Augiewan.com (this site) will remain the more personal site focusing on the recent happenings of my family and friends as well as some occasional personal views and rants.

The posts and content focusing on stuff like toys, art, comics, and other geeky things will now be found at theSpeakEasy.com.

So basically, family and friends stay here…

Geeks go here…