augiewan.com

You know that crunching sound you get when you crack all your knuckles at the same time? Kind of like stepping on a bunch of twigs. Snap, Crackle, Pop…

Yeah, that’s the sound I heard right before shouting quite loudly after Corbin did a backwards “hop” right in to my bare foot. I was just sitting their minding my own business, well that’s not entirely true. I was actually laughing while watching Corbin do what he calls the “booty dance”. I have no idea where he got it from but he sticks his butt out behind him and then hops backwards like a rabbit in reverse.

The problem was that I was too busy laughing to see that he was coming right at me and wasn’t paying attention himself. I wasn’t even sure which toe(s) were hurt at first because there was a general numbness to my entire foot. But after a few minutes, it became pretty clear…

I thought it was broke at first, but after a few days I was able to walk pretty normal on it. Now that it’s been about a week, the color is “almost” back to normal. In fact just about an hour ago, it was so much better I forgot about its current status and kicked a football to Shalen across the back yard. It uh, kind of hurts again…

While their name would portray trees and old barns as a favorite place to bash their long beaks into in a jackhammer-like motion, our local woodpeckers seem to be converts to the new school of metal…

After weeks of trying to get a good shot of one of these crazy birds, I finally snapped this one a few days ago perched up at the top of our TV antennae. It was rattling away at the antennae and making quite a racket while doing so. I don’t know a thing about woodpeckers, so I don’t know if this is actually common. If you have some insight on the subject, let us know! Why would they DO this?

It’s time… I might as well post about it…

On Tuesday of this past week I found out that I was no longer gainfully employed. This is the second time in 18 months, but this time’s a little different. 18 months ago, the company that I had worked at for the previous 10 1/2 years was closing its doors. I was simply a casualty of war. As much as it hurt, there wasn’t much reason to take it personally. Last week was the first time that I’ve been dismissed from a company that is going to move on without me.

Now to clarify, I don’t blame them for making the decision. I don’t. The business model coupled with the drying up of client based work (and income) made the company take a good hard look at what was essential and what could be outsourced. When you take those factors in connection to my salary, there was a big red arrow pointing at me. I of course didn’t want to see it coming, so I didn’t. I tend to think on the optimistic side no matter what and I’m not going to stop now…

I will find work. Soon. In the meantime, maybe I’ll post here a little more often. Too bad it’s not spring. I’d ask dad to go fishing…

As I was hunting through my hard drive for an image I needed for work, I came by one that I haven’t seen in a LONG time. It’s Shane and I hiking in “garb” we brought along with us on a trip after I graduated High School. This has always been one of my favorite images of the two of us and you can click for a larger view…

We were the best of friends through our late teens and twenties (my mom called us two peas in a pod), but somewhere along the course of us working together, worshiping together, and playing together, our lives took separate paths. I don’t think we talked to each other more than a dozen times during the last year we lived in the same town, and it’s sad that it happened the way it did.

Every now and then, someone we both knew asks, “Oh man, what’s ol’ Shemp up to these days?” and I quietly reply that I don’t know. I always get the exact same look, the one that you’d expect to see on the face of someone who just found out that a close family member died. I add that I haven’t heard from him in over 8 years. But you know what? He hasn’t heard from me either…

I think all the galleries are updated correctly now and the gallery pages are back. The audio files now work as well.

I’m still working on getting all the old comments back in place and then I think the site repairs will all be done. Whew…

Just love all this work. Stupid hacks…

Well, the site is mostly back to normal now. I still have some image gallery issues I’m working through because they are numbered differently than they were the last time due to me not re-creating the Invader Zim galleries. In some ways, I’m kind of glad that this happened because it forced me to update my WordPress sites to the latest software. As Cory had commented a few posts before, this is a pretty nice new version (2.7) and now that they’ve got the auto update feature in place, I should be able to keep up without fretting that I’m going to break the site every time they release an update.

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…

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 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…

La la la… I haven’t posted in well over two months… Plenty has happened, I’m just inconsiderate and don’t want to share! La la la…