Man Gifts My wife is usually pretty good about buying me good gifts. There are some gifts for him that she hasn't even thought about yet, which has me surprised. You see, she has been trying to make me a backyard mechanic since we started dating.

She hasn't yet bought me anything like a toolbox, garage workbench yet. Of course, now that we are at a place that is essentially ours, she might be planning to buy something like this in the near future.

A workbench would be ideal since it would be very useful and not just for holding tools. I could use it for my senior project that I will once again be tackling in 2008. If I present it to her that way, she might just buy it for me. I'll have to work on how I can casually bring it up to her. This will require some thought and I will have to proceed with caution. It could very well backfire, so I will have to tread carefully.  ¶ 6:48 PM 0 comments

  A Weekend of Nothing Writing this blog post has been probably the most I have done all weekend. I got to sleep in Saturday and then play Neverwinter Nights the rest of the day. Today has been pretty much a repeat of yesterday.

This is what I call a weekend. I'm still getting use to the commute and the earlier rise time.

Next weekend we travel to my sister's for the weekend to celebrate Rae's birthday. So, it will be anything but a relaxing weekend with the long drive to and from there. Glad I got in a lot of rest this weekend.  ¶ 6:29 PM 0 comments

  Renovating Well, we are moved and have a ton of boxes to unpack. But before we can do that, we have to fix up the place. So, I've been spending my nights and weekends patching holes in drywall and painting. It's been a learning experience, escecially since it's something that I never thought I would do.

The mobile home is actually looking pretty good. The holes repaired and with a fresh coat of paint, it's really beginning to look nice. This weekend we will probably move in and be staying there. There is still a few things to do but we can do those while we are living there.

Then the real fun begins as we try to make our stuff fit into this smaller space. Looks like a lot of our stuff will be donated to a good cause since we do not have room for it.  ¶ 9:41 AM 0 comments

  Memory Walk

My wife signed up to be a captain of the local Memory Walk that will take place in November. It's a great charitable cause that raises money for Alzheimer's research. Her Grandmother had Alzheimer's for many years, so this cause is near and dear to her heart. She is excited to take part but a little nervous at the same time since she wants to raise a lot of money for her team.

She signed up to be a team captain since there wasn't really a team in our area for her to join. Now she needs to recruit at least 9 team members. She has already had one sign up, and I'm her second one. She hopes to create a t-shirt for members and really fire up people to donate money. She has a couple of incentive ideas that she plans to put in motion within the next week.

Signing up for the Memory Walk was very easy and took not much time at all. Find a walk in your area and then join. Really it's that easy. I'm hoping to recruit a few of my friends since that should put us over the 9 member mark easily. I will be sponsoring her in her goal to raise a lot of money. I haven't done my pledge yet but will very soon. It would be nice for her team to raise at least $200, so that's our goal for September. Then whatever we raise in October is above and beyond our goal.

So, if you are in our area, sign up now to walk for our team. Use the find a walk link from the main page to get started. It really is easy and will take less the two minutes to complete the process.



  ¶ 6:57 AM 0 comments

  Moving on Vacation Right now we should be at Dragon Con. Instead we are still moving. Because of finances and other reasons, we canceled our plans to attend Dragon Con. We thought we would be done moving but that was just wishful thinking.

I had taken a few days off from work to attend Dragon Con. Good thing I took those days off but too bad I'm spending it packing the rest of our stuff. We have moved a good bit of items but still has a lot to do.

I have begun the huge task of sorting all of my Magic the Gathering cards. There are so many of them. I will probably be selling a good bit but still need to sort through for eBay or for trade.

Moving on my vacation really bites. Hopefully we will be completely done today. If so, then tomorrow is a date night and time to relax. Only for a few hours though since there is still much work to be done in our new home.  ¶ 6:53 AM 0 comments

  Halloween Horror I am much more into horror movies than my wife. When I pick one up for rent, she has this exasperated look she gives me like "not another one!" I usually wind up putting it back on the shelf and renting something more to her liking.

Every once in a while there is one horror movie that I really want to watch, so I ignore her disapproving look and rent it anyway. One movie I might just have to see in the theater is the new Rob Zombie movie Halloween the movie. The movie trailer has sparked my curiosity.



This might be a movie to go see with friends since I'm not sure my wife will want to see it. My favorite horror movie is Frailty, which is a different spin on horror than the Michael Myers movies. It's got that psychological thriller vibe going that I really dig. Halloween the movie reminds me of a mix of the slasher horror and a thriller horror movie. The line "Evil has a destiny" sends chills down my spine. It should be a good one, and I'm sure at least a few of my friends will be planning to see this on release day August 31st.


  ¶ 11:22 AM 0 comments

  Back to School So a co-worker of mine was shocked to find out just how close I was to completing my degree. After telling my wife about it, she wanted to send the woman flowers because it is a frustrating point with my wife that I'm so close.

Now with my new job, if I get my degree it means a lot more money. My wife has taken it upon herself to get me enrolled back in school to finish this one class. I will probably have to retake two classes since it's my senior project class. I'm scraping my original idea and will go with something completely different, which means taking the first class over again.

I've already cleared it with my boss to take the classes. I do have to admit that it will be good to finally close this chapter once and for all.  ¶ 11:17 AM 0 comments

  The List Even if Christmas is several months away, I like to make my list extremely early so that my wife has time to plan accordingly. I also like to know what she wants months before so I can do the same. Now that we have a daughter, Christmas is more about her than us, so we will probably be moving towards more family gifts than gifts for us.

Here is my list for us:

New TV
Travel DVD Player
Nintendo Wii

Right now it's a short list but it's a start. Those are some pricey items, so I'll have to keep an eye out for good deals.CouponChief.com is where I start when I'm looking for online deals. Many of my favorite merchants are listed, so I might can find a free shipping offer or other good deal on something I will be buying anyway.

I'm becoming a fan of Overstock.com and with their $25 off $200 coupon I could really save some money on one of those items on my Christmas list.

Sharper Image is another store that I'm incredibly fond of. I could find plenty of great items in there and with their current coupon of free shipping on orders over $100, I could really save some money for Christmas.

With our ever-growing list, any deal we can get will help our Christmas money go further and buy more needed items.

  ¶ 8:37 AM 0 comments

  Tournament Update While I didn't win, the L5R tournament, I did have a fun time. Well for the most part I did. I found some aspects very frustrating, mainly my playing ability. I got a massive headache and had to drop out because of it.

I was glad to hear that one of the locals won the sword. Some folks from out of town came in to play, which was great since it gives the rookies more playing time with different people.

Hopefully this is the first of many local L5R tournmanets.  ¶ 8:31 AM 0 comments

  Why I Love PayPerPost I have been blogging with PayPerPost for quite a few months and have enjoyed making a little extra money with my blog. My wife is a bigger "postie" than I am and her PPP money has bought our groceries and paid bills. She has also been able to do some fun things with her money, too. It isn't all about living expenses.

My PPP money is strictly for fun. I like to bid on online auctions or buy online, so it PPP helps to fund my PayPal account. While some may frown about ads on blogs, there is no denying that it is an easy way to make a little money. Since you choose what you want to blog about, only do opportunities that fit with your blog. This will keep readers happy since the content doesn't stand out from your other content.

It can be a win-win for everyone. The blogger makes cash and readers still get great content to read. Opps are really varied so there are many subjects. I find it fun just to read through the opps even if I don't take them simply to learn about a new service or product.

So far I've made almost $100 with PayPerPost which is great. I can't wait to reach the $1k club.

  ¶ 12:34 PM 0 comments

  Samurai Tournament This weekend is the Samurai L5R tournament at our local gaming store. The grand prize is a beautiful sword. It's really nice and since I love swords will be trying to win this one. It will be tough because there will be at least 10 others playing in the tournament.

I'm so glad to see such an interest in the Legend of the Five Rings card game. It's been wonderful to be playing again and introduce new players to the game. There are about five people driving about 50 miles to enter the tourney. There could be many more coming in from out of town too.

It should be a fun time. Of course any time I get the chance to play L5R is a good time.  ¶ 12:29 PM 0 comments

  Rolling Change My wife has been putting all of our change (well most of it) into a bank for Rae Rae. She has been meaning to roll it for a while. I keep telling her just to take it to the Coin Star and not worry with it but she is pretty frugal and doesn't want to pay the fee.

It'll be interesting to see how much money our change adds up to. She has been doing this for about two months. The little bank is almost full. Most of it is pennies but there is some silver in there.  ¶ 12:25 PM 0 comments

  A New Project Finally I am on a real project at work. It begins Monday but will be something I was actually hired for. So far I've done a lot of creative things but nothing directly related to my job title.

It feels good to finally be on a project that is more in line with my field than projects that have been mostly internal.

Now here's hoping that it all goes well and is not over my head.  ¶ 5:50 PM 0 comments

  eBay Lot We're splitting an eBay lot of some older L5R cards with a friend. It's amazing how the price just drops for cards that are not the current set. It does make it easier for new players to pick up a lot of older cards just for fun unlike older Magic cards that could cost a small fortune.

The cards should be in later this week, so that should make for a good day when those come in. Not like it takes much to make a good day ever since I started my fantastic job.

My wife has also started playing, which is very exciting to me since I've been trying to get her to play for years. I won't question why she has begun, I'll just enjoy that she is playing.  ¶ 9:03 AM 0 comments