At work it was my bosses birthday yesterday, so the IT team decorated her office for her. We decided to go with a western theme and transformed her office into a well stocked saloon.

The “saloon doors” leading into her office. (click for larger image)

Looking into her office through the doorway. (click for larger image)

Looking from her desk at her office. (click for larger image)

I also put together a design for some wanted posters (edited here to protect her identity) and distributed them around the company buildings so that she would be sure to get a lot of attention on her birthday. (click for larger image)

I’ve completed putting together the t-shirt design for the Soldiers For Shelter team that will be participating in the Dallas Help The Homeless Walkathon this year.

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Here’s the front and back mocked up on tshirts:

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I also got invited onto the team to participate.

I vacuumed the interior of my BMW. It amazes me the amount of dirt that I track into that car. Did I not notice that one of the “features” of my Polo Jeans Co. shoes was that they glommed onto all available dirt to later deposit it? It seems to me that Polo Jeans Co. should charge extra for that little hidden feature.

Went over to the in-laws with my wife in the afternoon. My realtives, Doyce and Shirley are still living in their RV out the front of my in-laws house after evacuating from Lake Jackson, TX. They still have no power back there (they are waiting on a call from some of there neighbors whom have already returned).

Doyce and Shirley had to put down one of their two dogs while they were here. I feel sorry that they had to go through that. I finally met their surviving dog. Quite cute and quite besotted with the both of them. Its attention focused on them constantly.

Home made grilled hamburgers for dinner. Yummo. I grilled my bun after the patties were done on the receding heat as I am not the fondest of soft squishy bread and the grilling gives it a bit of toasty hardness. My hamburger construction consisted of bun, patty, lettuce, Grey Poupon mustard, rings of raw onion, and baked Lays ridged chips mashed down on top. Very tasty. Especially washed down with a couple of Shiner Blondes.

Afterwards I fell asleep on my wife (literally) while watching golf. I attribute this unsociable behavior to a very long and exhausting week at work, a great meal, some beer, and that I find watching golf nigh on par with watching grass grow. Eventually, my wife suggested we go and take a little nap on the in-laws bed while we waited for the golf to be over which I eagerly agreed too.

Shortly after Ashley and Michael arrived so my wife got up and went to see them. I struggled to get up to do the same, but the clutches of sleep were too strong and pulled me back down onto the bed and into darkness.

Some time later my wife came back and woke me up with the news that the golf was over and everyone was ready to play some cards (Crimpit – a favorite for our gatherings). I mustered myself and joined them, disappointed to see that I had missed Ashley and Michaels visit entirely.

Crimpit was a lot of fun, and I was glad that Grandmom came to join us. George won the first game, and I won the second game (though it was touch and go, with Shirley for the winners circle, for several hands), netting myself a $7 pot!

My wife and I headed back home and ended up playing some more cards on the bed – a couple of hands of Double Solitaire and Gin. I won all four games, so my wife decided to call it quits in disgust.

To round out the evening Crickie showed me photos from her recent trip to Vail, Colorado. It looked like a beautiful alpine village. I am putting it on my list of places to visit one day.

My aunt and uncle in-law evacuated from Lake Jackson, Texas this weekend ahead of Hurricane Ike. They, with their dogs, RV and truck, came to stay with my in-laws for the weekend. We do not often see Doyce and Shirley, but Ike did us a nice favor. We ate jerky, drank homebrew and they did their best to fleece us at cards.

We regularly visit with the in-laws one day a week. This weekend was an added bonus. My aunt and uncle, Doyce and Shirley were there, having evacuated from Lake Jackson, Texas ahead of hurricane Ike.

I debuted my latest batch of beef jerky with the family, and it went over well.

They had called their house (no one is there), to see if the answering machine picked up (a good indicator of whether they still had power or not), and it did. My wife joked light-heartedly that their phone/answering machine was probably sitting there untouched surrounded by a pile of rubble.

Dinner was delicious – grilled filet mignon, side salad with my father-in laws homemade dressing. Mmmm.

We played several rounds of Crimp-It (cards) and, I am sorry to say, we fleeced the evacuees! My Father-In-Law won one round, and my wife won the other. Overall, the evacuees were down four dollars for the evening!

I also debuted my homemade beer for them, and they both seemed to like it so I think that was a small price to pay for some good beer

My respect and thanks to all the men and women who are currently sacrificing, and whom have sacrificed, in order to afford me the life that I live. A life of freedom, of happiness, and of hope.

Although the flag I fly out the front of my house is American, I think of it not as a nationalistic emblem, but as a symbol - and at its basic primeness it is, a symbol of peace and of freedom. So with it I hope to honor all that fight and sacrifice for those causes, globally.

Each and every one of you: Thank you.

Thursday evening came with the discovery of a business card taped to my front door, left by the code enforcer for the city that I live in.

Scrawled on the card was the note “Call me about gate”.

My gate? I went out and had a look at it. There was nothing wrong with my gate…

Then I glanced over at our next door neighbors fence/gate:

Yeah, small mistake there Mr Code Enforcement Guy

I have a new fridge.

I didn’t particularly want a new fridge. I hadn’t really planned on getting a new fridge, nor had I budgeted in the slightest for getting a new fridge.

But I have a new fridge.

My new fridge is nice and black and shiny. It is impressively large (it almost doesn’t fit in the allotted “fridge space”).

My new fridge has two doors. I have never had a fridge with two doors before. The freezer is on the bottom. It has a drawer that you pull out. And another rack inside it which holds the ice tray (and more). The ice it makes is nice (made from filtered water), and manly. The chilled and filtered water dispenser makes me giggly.

I didn’t want a new fridge, but the old one gave me no choice. It stopped freezing stuff. When you have stuff that you rely on to be frozen, thats a seriously failing in fridge. Of course, it was looked at by a professional: “sealed system failure… see this… thats bad”. Bad roughly translates to $500+ with no guarantees and probable recurrences. Hence the new fridge.

Damn you old fridge. Because of you I had to spend my stimulus check on the last thing I wanted to do: stimulating the refrigerator industry. I’ve got bills damn it!

Here are some photos that I took of God Granny’s gardens on Mother’s Day.

J, my coworker had his birthday recently. Having a birthday is a serious liability when you work in the IT department at my company as you will see…

The plan was to wrap his office in cling wrap the evening before his birthday, after he left for home. Unfortunately, our boss whom has the master key to all of the offices had to leave early that day. This meant that we could not utilize her key to access J’s office after he left because she would not have any way of getting into her office the next day (she gets into work at some insanely early hour).

Then I realized that he had a key to the bosses’ office, so I hatched a plan…

Me: Hey J, you have a key to JT’s office, right.
J: Yeah, why are you going to do something to it?
Me: Yeah, M, U, and I want to wrap it in cling wrap after everyone has left for the day.

J smirks and gives me the key.

Later, while I am talking with J, we come across the topic of what we are doing for the weekend. He mentions that he is going out for his birthday at a restaurant. I feign forgetfulness: “Damn, that’s right, it’s your birthday… we should be wrapping your office! You better make sure that you lock you office before you leave tonight!”

Then later on, I went to see the boss before she left and did a little switch-a-roo with her: I gave her the key to her office that I got from J and she gave me the master key. So now, I was able to get into his office, and she would still be able to get into her own office in the morning. J was none the wiser, thinking that I only had a key to her office, and not his.

After J left for the day, U, M, and I went to work, and probably spent a good half hour in his office:

His office looking in from the door.

From the corner of his office looking over his desk toward his door.

We wrapped his chair to his desk. Did several laps of his desk and monitors. U piled up some loose items on two chairs back to back and then U and M created a mini wrapped pyramid. We wrapped his phone, then wrapped his handset, then wrapped his handset to his phone. After that, we wrapped his keyboards, his bar code scanner, and a pair of scissors. Finally, we did some turns around his entire office for good measure.

The most amusing thing about it all was that none of it would have been possible without his help with the key.