Life goes on

It's been about a month, so I guess it's time to check in here.

Yay! I finally, thru the efforts of our local Geek Squad, have my inherited lap top on wireless. This is a good thing. I will now be able to be online at the same time as my wife or son, without going through complex negotiations or feeling guilty about wrestling the desk top away from one of them.

I can also recline on sofa or the "Dad chair", which is what we sometimes call our old leather recliner at our house, and simultaneoulsy be on the lap top and vaguely watching t.v.

That's probably about as close to conciously multi-tasking as I try to do.
Ok, I'm notorious for not being able to talk and drive at the same time.

One really anoying thing about this lap top is that as I'm typing, the cursor is jumping back through the previous text. Several times per line. Sometimes halfway back through the previous word, sometimes a whole line or so. I suspect that it may be somthing I'm inadvertantly doing on this unfamiliar keyboard, or perhaps I'm just hoping that's it and that I'll soon figure it out, without having to call Geek Squad back for a tune up.

Health continues to be an issue. I.B.S. is not going well. more tests going on, blood work, upcoming colonoscopy(oh, That'll be fun), etc. I was not aware that one can take daily vitamins and still be "seriously" deficient in vitamin D, or that they can/will write a prescription for weekly mega-doses of same. As you might expect, all that can put a serious damper on one's self employed earning ability, as well as one's ability to make obligatory work deadlines.

Hey, it's not like a single proprietor in a service industry needs a positive reputation for time-reliability, right?

The rest of this spring is set to be rediculously busy, hectic, a little scary, um, you know life.

Yesterday, I spent four and a half hours leaning into an aft cock pit deck hatch, attempting to fix a vacuum leak in a marine head system. It was less than totaly successful. The toilet will indeed flush, however the vacuum generator refuses to hold a vacuum, so the pump continually restarts every minute or so. What that means is that none of that time and painful effort is billable, and I still need to finish the job.

Imagine, if you will,(spoken in Rod Serling voice) lying on a boat deck, supporting your weight with your chest on the fiberglass edge of a long narrow hatch, stretching across about fourteen inches, down about a foot, over a flat topped square water heater, bracing your arms at about bicep level against the under side of the opposite edge of the hatchway , down about another foot, behind the water heater to work on water heater type hoses and a human waste pump system where you can sort of see about the top half of the system and get one, sometimes two hands on the work precariously, and with little leverage....for about four and a half hours. Oh, and all the while one is doing this, there is the pervasive oyfactory ambiance of well aged human poo, requiring serious hot showering IMMEDIATELY upon home arrival. I've got one line of welts(okay, bruises) all the way across my chest, two more across both biceps, more on my inner fore arms and wrists, and yes, they are pretty damn sore. And oh, did I mention I've still got to go back and fix the system, or - wait for it....switch the whole system over to a different type of electric system. NOW WE'RE HAVING FUN! It's good to have work, It's good to have work, It's good to have work.

Took AAron & his mom for new tennis shoes the other day. He is ecstastic with his new Sketchers light up "racing" shoes. He went out to the patio in the dark last night and did a little tap dancing type light show. It was actually kinda psychodelic. Kids get to actually display how adults sometimes feel about our new shoes.

Now I've gotta go talk to the boat head factory tech guy, then probably start researching ways and costs of changing to a new system.

This Week.

What a difference a week makes. Aaron has been getting out more. He's found a couple of boys about his age to RIP around on big wheels with. He chased a bee. He caught it. He learned about bees. He's learning to dribble a basket ball - pretty well. We thunder storm yesterday. I'm really busy at work. Stressing on deadlines. I'm going to Dad's next week - very good. Exploring more twitter (when can, It's a lot more diverse than previously realized). Back still hurts, some more - some less. That's about all I know right now.

this and that

Arron, hard at coloring, and about to get a hair cut.
Amelia, at some girl-shin-dig, before she got her hair cut

Sunday morning. I actually took yesterday off. two whole days of not working - WOO-HOO! slept most of yesterday, after having worked pretty much straight for a couple of weeks. Just finished a couple of bright work(varnish) refinishing jobs on a 47 foot and a fifty three foot yacht. and then there was the rush coast guard boat fiberglass and gel coat job( about which nothing went right or easily from the word go)

Ah, the joys of self employment, in this the best of all possible worlds.

I've been updating my library thing and music play list this a.m. Intuitive search engines - my butt. I don't need a list of 342, 645 songs that contain 100,000 or so entries of the same song. I want one listing of each and every song by the artist. this is the 21st century...and WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR?! Computers - a blessing and a curse. That for which my linguistically advanced daughter coined the phrase "the perversity of the inanimate".

This afternoon My son and I will go get our hairs cut. Always an adventure. At four, it still takes three people to hold him down and cut his hair, but at least now he's not screaming the whole time(OR DIDN'T THE LAST TIME)

We are still in the evaluation process of the whole Is he high functioning autistic spectrum disordered, and if so(which seems likely) how to best deal with that for him.

a good Autism resource link: http://www.autismspeaks.org/

Tomorrow, My parents will celebrate their fifty-first wedding anniversary back in Kansas. Quite a milestone, which all of us in the family will be thankful for with them, if even at great distance.


more later.......