P22 Chorus

Okay, maybe you’ve heard of them, but I saw their “director” the other day. They are an elementary school from Long Island, NY I believe.  Their chorus director Gregg was on TV the other day and I thought they were really good.  It would not be a service to kids to cut programs like this one.  I think kids need much more than math, English etc.  I guess they’ve met quite a few famous people, and has many celeb fans.  Anyways, here is a link to my favorite video.  There are many more posted on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tcE4rWovI

Kids in public

Before I had Addison, I really didn’t like other people’s kids.  It seemed everywhere I went there would be some sort of kid screaming and generally bothering me.  I’d always get the kid on the airplane that was kicking my seat, screaming in my ear, or asking all types of stupid questions.  Now that Addison is a part of my life it has changed a little bit.  I never thought of this, but with a little kid we seem to get better service.  For example, when Jen went to Crate and Barrel to get a wedding gift for someone, she drug Addison into the store too.  Right when she walked in someone met her at the door and asked if she needed help with something.  Jen told the gal how much she wanted to spend, she looked at the registry and went and got it from the shelf, wrapped it up, and that was it.  Jen didn’t have to do anything since she had Addison in her seat the whole time.  Now that’s service that you might not be able to get without a kid.  I also believe we usually get our food faster when we go out to eat.  All restaurants should always bump families with small kids up to high priority and should get their food faster than others.  It’s not only good for the families, but also good for others in the restaurant.  Kids just can’t sit as long as adults, and if they wait 40 minutes for food, they’ll be making all kinds of noise.  If I didn’t have Addison with me I’d volunteer to have my food come out 5 minutes later in exchange for a non-crying baby.  And that’s okay if they don’t want to bump us up, I’ll just let them sit there and scream.  I’m used to it.

I give up

I’ve owned my house for more than 6 years.  Over that time I’ve maintained a really nice lawn that I’ve cut at 1/2 of an inch.  After this summer, I give up.  I’m tired of mowing it every 2-3 days.  I used to have the energy to do this without much of a problem, but once Addison came along I just can’t keep up anymore.  So far this summer I’ve sat outside on my back deck enjoying my lawn 5-6 times.  That’s it.  I’ve played 1 game of Bocce Ball.  So, if anyone is interested in having their own putting green, I can cut you a good deal on a mower.  

I will still keep my aerator and thatcher, but not the greensmower. 

A few lawn notes: 

If you’re going to fertilize, use Scotts turf builder.  It doesn’t burn your lawn like others do.

In Feb-March put down granuals that kill lawn grubs.  A little work then saves a lot of time later if you have to deal with crane flies.

If you get a dog, get a male dog.  When it pisses on the grass it goes a little here and there (spreading it out), and a female dog “puddles” the urine.  Since urine has a high nirtogen content, it will burn your lawn just like too much fertilizer will.

Make sure your blade is always sharp.  After you cut your grass, look at the tips of the grass.  If after a day the grass has white tips, your blade is not sharp enough.  The white part are fibers that didn’t get cut all the way.

Water in the morning, at 5:00 am.  Make sure 2 sprinklers cover all areas.  Only 1 sprinkler doesn’t quite cut it adn shoots over areas. 

Put down super sweet lime every month.  It keeps the moss away.

Keep a bucket of 3/4 fine sand, 1/4 grass seed to put down in thin areas.

Top dress your lawn with 1/4 inch sand every 2-3 years.  I don’t have the time to explain this one.  Trust me.

When you spray use an adhesive like Activate Plus.  It will double the strength of your spray by breaking down layers on leaves of plants you want to kill.

Change your mowing patter.  You don’t want the grass to get “trained” and lay down.

Aerate and put down seed every year.

Spot spray weeds, don’t use weed n’ feed.  It’s bad for streams.  Spot spraying is cheaper, too.

Olive Garden

Jen and I do like to eat at the Olive Garden every now and then.  I usually get the soup, salad, and bread sticks since it’s usually inexpensive.  I can understand dinner prices being higher than lunch prices, but what I experienced last Thursday was just bad.  We drop Addison off at m parents house and go to a movie, then head over to Olive Garden to get what we get 95% of the time.  We get seated right away, and the server comes over and we tell her we want the soup, salad, and bread sticks.  She says okay, and asks us if we know it costs $11.25.  Jen said, “Each?”  She says yep, so we get up and tell the waitress we’re heading over to Stanford’s for happy hour instead.  Seriously, $11.25 for soup, salad, and bread sticks?  Come on, folks this is the Olive Garden, not the Keg or something.  The lunch price is $6.99.  It must taste better for dinner.  I now have to add Olive Garden to places I avoid for dinner.  I’ll take happy hour just about any day of the week.

Wedding Costs

This has to be one of the most stupid things ever created.  What are the point of these?  It’s almost like, hey, I’m inviting you to my wedding, but I’m probably not going to be satisfied with getting one gift from you, so I’m going to have this “shower” where you can buy me something else.  I can totally understand baby showers, because after the shower is over, that’s it.  No more gifts or time commitments.  But when women get married they decide that the wedding isn’t big enough for them (because they’re so important) that now they need a shower too.  I know people are going to say well, their friends throw it for them (so they throw one for them back someday cough, cough), but women should say no.  I have come up with a plan to fix this.  Decide how much you are going to spend on a couples wedding.  Whatever that amount is, every expense you come across for their wedding, deduct that amount from the total.  Let’s say you have a really good friend.  Maybe your total would be $100 or $150 or something.  If you’re in the wedding, deduct $60 for a tux rental.  Deduct $40 that you may have to spend on a bachelor party.  If they think they’re so important to have a wedding an hour away from everyone, it’s okay to deduct gas money.  Whatever is left is spent on the wedding gift.  You should also deduct shower gifts from your total too.  If we’re deducting, there should also be positive credits too.  Dinner, $10-$20.  Beer, wine, and soda should also always be added.  Driving1-2 hours, getting a hotel, going to a bridal shower, renting a tux, bachelor party, and paying for parking can add up.  Of course if you really don’t care, you can spend $200-$300 pretty easily on a wedding.  Not a big deal, but I think it’s important to look at it as a whole package instead of a bunch of little events that can really add up.

Text Messages

I know most people reading this are going to disagree with this, but I really don’t care.  Get your own blog if you want.  I think phone text messaging isstupid.  There is a time and place for e-mails (text) through computer, but not text messages from a phone.  What, is e-mail not cool enough for you?  People tell me, “It’s so convenient to text someone” and other crap like that.  Seriously?  Is it really more convenient to type something on a phone keypad than to say it?  How many buttons do you push to write a sentence?  Then you have to find them in contacts to send it.  Why not find them, call them on the phone and leave a voice message?  Oh, yah.  That’s right.  It’s so much easier to text.  How about you never call anyone on the phone ever again and text them all the time because it’s so much easier.  Better yet, don’t ever talk to any other human beings.  Just text everything on your phone and show people your phone.  When you go out to eat, type your order on your phone and show it to the waiter/waitress.  It’s so much more convenient.  Voice messages are just like texts.  The receiver can check them whenever they want.  So it’s not like it makes any difference to the receiver.  The people who really crack me up are the ones that buy voice recognition software.  They speak, it converts to text, and then they send a text.  You got nailed by the tech guy at the store when you bought that one.  I’ve contacted T-Moble and all of my texts are blocked.  I can’t get any or send any.  You can all now thank me for saving you time.  Just call and leave a message.  It’s faster and you don’t have to worry about spelling or crap like  typing u instead of you.

Thank yous

One thing that annoys me is thank you cards and letters.  For some reason people have this notion that they have to write a thank you card to someone when they’re given something even after they say thank you in person.  What ever happened to someone just saying thanks?  I don’t think there is anything wrong with someone just saying thanks and move on.  If someone gives you something and EXPECTS a thank you card or something, then I don’t think they should have given you something in the first place.  Seriously, why would you GIVE  someone something and expect something in return?  Makes no sense.  Maybe you should think about why you give.

Weddings

Today I went to a wedding I didn’t really want to go to.  It was another one of Jen’s friends, and I didn’t really know too many people at the wedding.  It seems like women drag men to more weddings than men drag women.  Anyways, when we got there we realized there was a seating chart thing.  Seriously?  Like I can’t find my own seat.  This reminded me of a wedding we went to 2-3 years ago.  Jen was the maid of honor (so I for sure had to go).   When you got your wedding invitation you had to decide if you wanted filet mignon, salmon, or veggie something.  Of course I chose filet mignon.  When we got there, we realized that the table where the wedding party and their “dates” sat had a couple of extra chairs.  Also, when you came in after the 1 hour open bar at the governor hotel you picked up your name tag and brought it to the correct table.  I walked by the table and saw that there were 5-6 tags where people didn’t show up.  A couple of them had the filet mignon picked out.  I decided to take the initiative putting it all together and put their name tag on an empty seat next to me.  When the servers brought out the dinner, I got 2 plates of filet mignon.  So if you go to a wedding where you have assigned tables and dinner is already plated, go back after everyone seems to have arrived and get yourself an extra name tag  and dinner.  Especially if it’s filet mignon from Jakes.

Moles

A couple days ago I got a mole in my front yard.  Since I keep my lawn pretty nice, this bothered me.  This post is about how to keep moles away from your lawn and how to best kill them.  First, moles come into your yard because there is quite a bit of stuff to eat.  They’ll eat worms and grubs in your lawn.  Both of them, in my opinion, are not something you want in your lawn anyways.  So if you can get rid of the mole’s food source, you’ll have a much less chance of having moles in your yard.  First, you need to put something in your lawn like Dursban.  You can’t buy this anymore (illegal), but if you check out an estate sale of and old person that died, you’ll be able to get this there.  Usually you can get a huge bottle for 50 cents or something (never pay full price at a garage sale anyways).  If you spray this, you’ll need to keep animals and kids off your lawn for a day or so unless you want them to get sick and maybe die.  Of course if your neighbor’s cats in your yard this might not be a bad thing.  Anyways, Dursbanwill get rid of the grubs like Crane flies and worms etc.  Therefore, there won’t be anything for the moles to eat.  You can also put sand down in your lawn.  These grubs don’t like sand.  The grittiness of the sand doesn’t feel good to them, so the grubs and worms will go somewhere else, and so will the moles.  But sometimes you’ll get a mole anyways like me.  It tried to get into my front lawn, but the grass was too thick and after trying to tunnel 6 inches gave up and turned around back into the flower bed.  I have 2 traps I use that have never been touched by human hands (I always use gloves when working with them).  Moles don’t like to have their tunnels opened, so I set the trap in a tunnel and then open up the tunnel to air about a foot in either side of the trap.  The mole will come through and fill the first hole, and when it goes to till the other open side, it has to go through the trap and then it’s dead.  I had set the traps today and because of the flowers in the bed, I didn’t want to really dig things up and didn’t set them up right.  The traps had been sprung but I didn’t get the mole.  So I decided to open 3 holes to the air and wait in a chair with a shovel for the mole to cover the holes up.  After about 20 minutes, the mole showed up to close the tunnel, and I sliced it with a shovel.  Surprise, mole.  The sheriff is back in town.  Seriously, a mole digging in my yard is like robbing a police station.  It’s not a great idea.  You can also get a road flare, light it and stick it in a tunnel so the fumes go into the tunnel.  Put a propane torch on the hole so the heat forces the smoke in the tunnel.  After the flare is out, cover the hole (and anywhere in your hard where it’s smoking).  The mole will die inhaling the fumes.  Always leave the mole in the tunnel.  They are territorial, and a dead mole could discourage another from taking over the tunnels.

Taking friends fishing

I have a couple hobbies where I don’t really have very many friends that share the same hobby.  The big one is fishing.  I really like fishing.  I don’t have to catch anything to have a good time.  I think I like it because of the challenge.  It is hard to catch salmon and steelhead, and once I had a salmon hit my line, I’d fish 8 hours just to feel that again.   It’s a rush.  Anyways, I have a hard time finding friends that go fishing with me.  Part because I teach and they have to work Monday – Friday, but most of my friends don’t really care about fishing.  Then I have some other friends who like fishing, but “can’t go” just about every time I ask them.  Then when I see them some other time, they always say, “Hey, you need to take me fishing”.  Seriously?  I’ve asked you like 4 times and you said no every time.  That made me think, how many time should I ask these people to fish when they keep saying no?  I’ve decided to always fish for something that I can do by myself and don’t need anyone else, so if I can’t find anyone I’ll just go by myself.  I’ve also decided that I’d ask someone around 3 times.  If they say no all three times, I’m done asking them.  I do have a friend that will say no, but try to set up a date to fish in the future.  This friend does not apply to the new rule since they have taken the initiative to set something up in stone.  I’m considering applying this rule to other events, like Beaver games.  Sometimes you just get tired of asking people and them saying no.