So we were given a project by our niece to take a bunch of pictures around Des Moines, sometimes the shots were to good to just have ones with a little paper girl in them. The first set from the Franklin Avenue Library and on or around the capital grounds. The Second is from the Des Moines Botanical Center, and the third is from the Blank Park Zoo. Pictures taken over the last two weekends.
Journal
It's not to often...
It's not to often that I open something up and say, wow, that's freakin cool.
20,000 Photos
As I mentioned on the twitter, I crossed 20,000 photos in my library I started taking pictures (not with my own camera) on 10/5/1999 (I think this may have been a scan). This was on the way to an mp3.com event with Brandon's band.
Then I bought my own camera, here is the first saved picture off of a Kodak DC280 From 11/11/1999.
We did send the SD550 for repair and it allows us both to take pictures with our cameras now. They both are showing their age and I kind of want something better. Even if we only get a newer pocket camera, I'd also like a DSLR. A new camera has added into the mix. After much debate, my place of employment decided my logic was correct and allowed me to get an iPhone 4. So the first picture off of that, was...well...
So 20,000 photos over 4,592 days, 136.81 GB in my iPhoto library. I know some have more, some have less, but it's still quite an accomplishment.
Freyja's late evening adventure (or scaring the hell out of us)
So I start to sit down to a bit of late night video game playing and I hear Shannon call down the stairs. I hear her come down the stairs and she tells me that there is a whole in the screen and Freyja is missing.
This is not what you want to hear at 10:45 at night.
I quick save my game, head upstairs, put on some sandals, quick grab my house keys and follow Shannon out the door.
It didn't take us long before we hear her mews and whines. Freyja was really expressing herself. The problem was we knew where she was in the area, but not where. Shannon is shining my big mag light in the pine tree between our's and the neighbor's home. I stop and listen and I think I hear more from my left ear, rather then my right (house on the left, tree on the right). So I get the flashlight and start shining it on the low part of the roof (above what I assume was a kitchen addition), then up e steep roof line of our house. At the very peak of the roof, there are her glowing eyes reflecting back.
So the problem, now, is how do we get her down. We don't have a ladder that high, not by a long shot. So we head around to the deck on the back of the house. The deck is a quarter to half story above the main level. So we relocate Freyja and she is going between the edge and the vent (?) on the house. So we tap on the base of the roof hoping she can just gently walk down with our encouragement.
This did not work as we expected. Shortly after she leaves the peak she starts to slide down. You can hear her claws (back paws, front declaw) run along the roof. I caught her about midway between the kitchen back door and the west side of the house. I cuddle her up (so she can't jump away) and there are a few meows, som hisses and some other odd noises. We head around the house and get her back inside and begin to check her over. At first we think she just needs a good brushing. After a bit, I notice that there are some blood stains on my white undershirt.
So Shannon pulls out some flour (say what) and says that it can help bind up the injury. We checked her all over and it appears as if she absolutely shredded her rear claws as she was coming down the roof. Several of her rear claws were damaged down to the quick. Shannon even them out a bit and then covered the rest of them with a bit of flour. After a couple of patches, we let her go to wander around the house. All the windows were lowered to one notch (barely open) and now we kind of need to figure out what we are going to do there. There's a big hole in the screen.
After spending a good chunk of time on Shannon's lap (I think Freyja's a bit angry with me, because I held her while Shannon cleaned up her claws) and then some time on my shoulder, she's calmed down and napping on the couch, at least she was napping until I took this picture.
Heath and less important things, like the Polk County Convention
So Heath decided to make himself known this past Thursday (it was going to happen one way or the other). We got to spend a good chunk of time with New mom and dad, and holding the youngster.
He's a cute chunky little boy and clearly has his Father's hair. I look forward to seeing him again.
So on Saturday morning, I headed to West Des Moines to participate in the Polk County Democratic Convention. It was was an interesting, if not anal retentive process. So I showed up around 8:AM and left around 1:PM or 1:30 PM, so clearly it's not for the faint of heart. The big event of the day was to vote on the segments of the party platform, pass people on to the District and State convention, and elect a Minority Chair, or something like that. It was interesting following the whole process. Things got defined, altered, voted on, delayed to collect signatures to amend, it seems like a very legal process. Because of the length of time and the process involved, it seemed very clear how a platform can be overtaken by a few people. There was a whole large subsection to debate one part. One lady was convinced that reading was being too emphasised in schools (SRSLY?) and there were several times where there was some clear misinterpretations of what was actually written in the platform. One would expect this sort of thing with a large enough audience. And as I thought about it more, I thought that a process like this would really only allow the highly dedicated to take part. I've committed to two more Saturdays (one in April and and one in June). I'm looking forward to how the next parts go. Like I told Shannon after, it's like watching sausage get made, most people don't want to know.
10 Years Ago
I wrote about this, 5 Years Ago, and I still remember the same thing.
I have seen many things over the past week dealing with this dreadful anniversary, and I clearly have not processed all my feelings about this, because they have been boiling up in rather strange ways.
My heart goes out to all of those who lost someone on that day and all of those who risked and some who sacrificed their lives that day.
Spare bedroom, redone. Book organization finished (for now)
Let the book organization begin!
Personal Nonsense - Update
Everything looks clear (no polyps or cancer). Though I have a follow up in a few weeks to check out my esophagus and stomach. A lot less prep for that, though.
Personal Nonsense
So this past Wednesday, Shannon said that there was an employee from the Des Moines Water Works, and then on Thursday, as I was about to head towards the shower, another Water Works employee knocked on the door and said he wanted to listen to some pipes inside the house, so I let him in and directed him to the basement and he listened with his device and headed back outside and listened some more and back inside. The conclusion of all of this is that on Saturday we got a letter from the city that stated that we needed to replace the service line. When I called today for further details today, it looks as if we need to replace from the stop box to the house (from research, I've found that it's water main with an off pipe the stop box, stop box to house, simple enough, Denver Water Works had some nice diagrams). We also found that this was our responsibility. So I had remembered hearing some where some number of how much it cost and for some reason I had in my head the number of $10,000. Now we don't have $10,000 laying around (we should have an emergency fund with way more then that, but we're working to get there, but aren't even close to that). So we were under the assumption that we'd have to shoot the gains we've been making at debt reducing in the face.
We just got the first bid in, and it's well under that $10,000 number and broken into a couple of parts (waterline to stop box, one part, stop box to house another) and together they'd be around $6,000. Well we don't have that either, but we do have the money to cover the stop box to house line...though just barely (we could cover the stop box to the waterline too, but not both). What this does mean, however, is that the external painting of the house is put on hold for another year.
Houses are expensive. It seems that every time we get settled and say, hey, We've done the (in order of living here):
- Water heater (~6 months after I moved in)
- Various plumbing things (the previous owner thought he was handy, I feel we have been slowly replacing everything he's done)
- Roof Patch
- New Roof
- New Gutters (immediately after new roof)
- Gutter repair (there were large chunks of ice that fell off the house that just bent the gutters out of shape)
- Dishwasher (this was actually quite the deal)
- New HVAC system (heater, A/C, exchanger, humidifier)
And that doesn't include the painting that we've done. It's getting tiresome. Every year or so, yields something expensive. The only year were I feel like we haven't had at least something going on housewise, was last year, and that was a year we had several unexpected expensive vet visits (which is why we didn't paint last year). So...what else can go wrong? Haven't we pretty much hit all the big things?
Personally I've been fighting an unexplained iron weirdness. This is leading to anemia. In a little over a week, I have the join of getting a procedure more then 15 years before you would normally start getting it, to make sure that I don't have polyps or worse. It has been affecting my ability to get out of bed, my general mood, and my ability to pay attention. I've been doing my best to counteract the affects I think it is having, but I cannot be sure that I am adjusting enough, or if it's due to a larger amount of stress. Either way, I've been taking iron supplements, and just take a moment to look out what a general side effect of that is. My family has a history of poor iron uptake, polyps and cancer in that area, though mid-thirties is a bit early for that stuff to show up.
Oh well, I feel unburdened, and that's quite enough bitching out of me.