So I've now owned a copy (actually one in print and one electronic) of The Lost Symbol for about 48 hours now. I've managed to get to Chapter 30, which is about 1/3 of the way through the book. For those that know how long it normally takes me to read you know that's like the speed of light for me...

I've decided to once this book is done I'm going to get all those books finished up that I've never finished. I have a habit of reading several books at once but lately I've been down to just Michael Crichton's Prey and whatever book I happen to be reading as well.




I'm still currently writing the the vampire book. I'll release the first chapter soon once it's rewritten.

I finally got around to installing a reader on the PDAs. So now I'm finally getting caught up on reading my friends' books! Oh that reminds me: The library of Congress is only charging $35 now for filing an electronic copyright! http://www.copyright.gov/eco/

I have also started writing again. I am writing them on my Handheld PC, which is a really small PDA with a keyboard. It makes netbooks look big...no really it does. The only problem is that I was copying everything back and forth to my laptop via a Compac Flash disc (like you use in a camera). What sucks is that I had most of the first chapter done and I tried to copy it only to find out that my Handheld PC's Compac Flash card had gone bad :( Somehow it lost the entire first chapter (but luckily I had a backup for part of it) :( I have to rewrite it while it's still mostly in my head. I will probably release the first chapter online soon.

Justin

I came home today to the barks of not one but two adult-sounding dogs. In this last month Elvis and his sister Presley (my friend's dog) have grown soooo much. Yesterday I realized his new collar was way too loose so I tightened it up. Today I had to loosen it again because he had literally grown overnight. A couple of days ago I saw him walk past his old playpen and suddenly realized he was now taller than it. I'm not sure whether it is just his age or the change to a better dog food that spawned all of this. I'm thinking the dog food has a lot to do with it. In fact, he now eats slower like a normal dog most of the time instead of trying to vacuum it all down as fast as he can.

Today I looked through my photos of him from back in May and he was sooooo small and so was Presley. I find it ironic that his birthday is the day before the anniversary of one of the most traumatic events of my life.

A few months ago I was in a book store and saw the book Marley and Me (yes the one the movie was based on). I saw in the middle there were pics of Marley. I realized that I needed to take more pics of our kids and pets. Then we got Elvis and I decided to take pics nearly every day. I slowed down on the pics over the last couple of months but we are still taking quite a few. If you have little kids or growing pets, take a lot of pictures because they really do grown faster than you will ever realize.

Justin

My phone has been missing for a week... It's been a busy week and I think it's in the house but today was the first day I've had a chance to look for it. I still haven't found it. So if you called me or texted me in the last week...I haven't gotten it... you might want to call Laila's number until I find it or get it replaced...

I sit here with like $20 to my name (because of all the car repair bills) but I'm getting paid sometime today so YAY!

Justin

I'm back in Tampa with the kids, the dogs, 3 more adults and 2 more kids...9 people, 2 dogs, 2 lizards LOL :) Long story.... I need to sleep now so I'll give a proper update later.

Leaving for Tampa soon. It will take a while (stopping several times for the puppy and my niece and nephew)...

Justin

In less than 20 minutes analog TV will be no more. Goodbye 20th century...

This question doesn't really apply to me...so I don't know why I'm answering it. Bored I guess...lol

28 DAYS LATER!

I was asked recently where I've been/what I've been up to. Don't worry I'm still alive.

So it has now been more than 4 weeks since the whole internal bleeding/trip to the E.R. thing and surprisingly I'm pretty well recovered. The hospital refused to give me a blood transfusion so they really slowed down my recovery. One interesting and postive note: I'm not currently having any problems with blood pressure which is really good. I am however behind on returning calls and e-mails :( I have hardly been online since all that happened. The recovery took a lot out of me and even though I thought I was 100% I'm still not quite there. I went 5 days without working. For those of you who know how hardcore I am about working (having once worked with a temp of 102) you know how messed up I had to be to not work for that long. The decision was made during that first week that we were going to wait until June to go out and do things. I have hoped to be 100% by the first weekend in June but I would say I'm close to 70% or 80%.


And now on to the other reason I haven't been online much: A week and a half after the ER trip I got a puppy...yes a puppy! He is a German Shepard/Chow mix just like Laila's dog Ginger was (I will scan in a pic of Ginger sometime soon). His name is Elvis and he was 5 weeks old when I got him although he was almost 7 weeks old in the following picture. Bella wouldn't play with him until he was close to 7 weeks old.



As you can see I have my hands full. This one's a real biter too. I nicknamed him Chomper LOL. We are currently working on breaking him of that habbit over the last couple of weeks. He's doing well.


LOL the little guy fell asleep biting his crate and was just starting to wake up when I took that picture.

On his 7 weeks birthday we took him to see his sister Presley. Yes, his name is Elvis and his sister's name is Presley! LOL



As you can see in the pics his ears were'nt perked up yet. One of them perked up the day after he saw his sister and the other perked up a week after the first. We have plenty of pictures. I have taken at least on pic of Elvis every day since we got him. We took him and Bella to PetLuv (petlove.org) to get their shots. It's a non-profit place in Brooksville. I got Elvis microchiped and Bella was...already microchipped???? wtf????? Now I've gotta sort all that out. Oh and did I mention my brother got a cat (which means that we are pretty much the ones taking care of it lol). His name is Furbie:



Devon (in the picture) wasn't able to keep him any longer so he is now living at my brother's house. He and Bella don't get along at all...like cats and dogs lol. I give Furbie lots of attention when I'm at work. Between Elvis and Furbie and Bella and Thor I really don't get online as much as I was before. And another oportunity presented itself that I couldn't pass up: I was able to save some tadpole from the recent storm. It's something I always wanted to do but never had a chance. These tadpoles started small too. They were all the size of a ball point pen tip when I found them. With all the animals I doubt I will be able to keep them when they become frogs. But it's a good chance to watch the tadpoles grow. What we will do with them when I travel.....I have no idea....lol. Well I guess I better go get some sleep. It's 7:33 AM right now lol.

Justin

I believe that people should be able to be in whatever type of relationship they want as long as everyone involved is on board with it.  Yes I believe in monogamy.  I also believe in polyamory.  I believe in straight marriages.  I also believe in gay marriages. What I don't believe in is cheating.

I believe this subject line was stolen from Highlander..lol.

So people may be wondering where I disapeared to...  Last Tuesday (that 12th) we finally BOTH got a day off.  That was actually the first time since December that we have both gotten a day off.  I took off about 4 days the previous week and returned partly to work on Saturday the 9th (the day before my brother got the cat).  I didn't resume a normal work schedule until last Wednesday (the 13th).

So....about Tuesday the 12th...  We saw the coolest car that looked like an alien spaceship with wheels.  We went to a bunch of stores and I actually had some blogs I was going to write when I got home.  Then the most unexpected thing happened.  I heard a horn honking outside our place and it was Lillith with a little puppy.  She said there were more of them and we went to check them out.  And then before we knew it, we had a brand new puppy.

Elvis is a German Sheppard mixed with ..... well we aren't 100% sure.  It could be a Chow...it could be another German Sheppard.  Here's the story:  female German Sheppard gets loose, female German Sheppard comes back home pregnant.   I've been taking at least on picture a day of the puppy.  I even have a couple of his sister Presley (Lillith's dog).... Get it:  Evlis and Presley!  LOL  So I promise pictures soon (and of the shaceship car too)...

Wow, everywhere I go I have animals to take care of....lol.  At home I've got the puppy, Bella (the Belgian Malinois)  and the 2 lizards.  At work I've got the new cat.  All of the cats and dogs are attention hogs and the big dog does NOT get along with the cat.  For once it's the cat's fault....he got all hissy and stuff with ALL of the dogs...but my Mom's puppy does OK with him and I'm sure Elvis will too.

At the moment I've got very little $$$ due to a couple of miscalculations here and there.  Next month I'm getting a copy of Quicken to put on the computer so I can keep track of this crap.  What happened this month is that I couldn't even drive for a couple of weeks and money was going out that I didn't know about and well, we HAD money LOL.  If didn't help that I had to pay a co-pay for getting the AC fixed.  It wasn't much, but when you are short on money...lol   I got a call saying that I'm getting a pay raise from the VA which will help BIG TIME...but I'm not getting the check till the 1st or after.  

We got a Pet Yard XT from my mother to use for Elvis which is a 6 sided plastic fence that can be used indoors or outdoors.  It's the same fence that Elvis and his siblings were in at the house we got him from!   I had to buy him a crate to sleep in.  He can also sleep in the Pet Yard enclosure but the crate is better at night or when we are gone. 

Ug, I've gotta call Brighthouse sometime this weekend from my parent's house and ask them how to get rid of this damn CA Security Suite that refuses to completely remove itself from the computer.  Ummm....in my day if a supposed antivirus program REFUSED to completely remove itself we called it a VIRUS.  The damn Kaspersky Internet Security Suite won't install because it says it's still there :(  I had to install Ubuntu Linux on their computer until this is resolved.  I'm going to upgrade my mom's computer from 98 to XP because the antivirus stuff won't work in 98 and you can't use Windows without an antivirus because there are WAYYYYYY too many Windows virii out there (which is why I installed Ubuntu which you CAN use without an antivirus).

Eh, gotta go.....I'll update more later!

I'm sorry for not getting back to people sooner.  I've just been really tired and haven't been online much.

Tweets, Myspace status updates, and facebook status updates have one thing in common:  they all require you to get it said in 140 words or less.

So here goes: Is doing better, but very tired all the time. Long story short: Internal bleeding, trip to ER, sent home, no transfusion, big bill, yay

Yeah that pretty much sums it up.  I noticed on Sunday night that I was bleeding and went to the ER.  That was a waste because they just sent me back home to bleed more with a non-stable BP.   Yay.  I think I might have lost over a third of the blood in my body.  It might have even been more.  They checked my blood while I was in the hospital and said I didn't need a transfusion.  I'd only lost half of the total amount of blood loss at that time. 

What's truly amazing is that this is nothing I did.  It was just a random thing.  In any even I don't think I'll be able to donate blood again for a long time.

I had to work as much as I could on Monday night--which was not much since I kept coming close to passing out if I stood up more than a couple of minutes.  Really I thought working with the flu was bad....no, that was easy compared to working after losing that much blood.  I'm doing much better now, just really tired.

Well I finally got a day off, the first since December.  No, that's not an exageration. I've had at least 3 days off so far...Tuesday, Wednesday, and today.  I'm hoping to return back to work soon.  OK so I'm not a trekkie but I really do want to see this new Star Trek movie.  I'm hoping to be well enough by Friday to at least go see it.  

Last night I went to the E.R. with internal bleeding.  They said that the problem should correct itself so I'm not too worried at the moment.  I thought they were going to admit me last night because my BP shot up to 180/125.  Yay.  They sent me home after several hours.  I'm still bleeding and having problems with blood pressure being too low (which is a first).  Anyway I'm over at my brother's now and will return back home later tonight.  I'm still not feeling too well so I haven't been answering the phone or making calls.  I won't be out and about for a while.  I'll update later when I'm doing better.

Justin

I'm straight edge...but it doesn't stop me from appreciating the following ironies (and posting those crazy videos earlier):

Craig Fergusson (on the Late Late Show on CBS) does weird things and then says something like "for those of you smoking a joint at home, you're welcome!"  You should really watch it tonight.

April 20th is both the day everyone goes crazy about smoking weed and Hitler's birthday.

Tomorrow is free icecream cone day.  Spongebob had a free balloon day.  For some reason a lot of people who smoke weed love to watch Spongebob.  Spongebob and Patrick stole a balloon on free ballon day.  Did I mention tomorrow is Baskin and Robbins free ice cream cone day?  Will Spongebob steal an ice cream cone tomorrow...

CNBC showed a special yesterday on the pot industry in California...the logo at the bottom of the screen was a GREEN NBC logo...  NBC always changes their logos to green on the week of earth day...  

Wait....why is Earth Day so close to 4/20....

WTF was KFC thinking by just reducing a price on something for one day instead of giving something away for free?  Were they high?  Oh wait....lol

Save the snowman, save the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCCkfjPm0o




Charlie the Unicorn Rickroll!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LypyR1KMSK4



Forget the Weed, take a CHILL PILL instead :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqYp1wUWWZY



This is what not to do if a giant monkey chases you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnTg9o9EDYg

In 2 and a half hours is will be April 5th which is the 14th anniversary of the accident where my brother was paralyzed from the neck down. Not a good day for me... That's all I have words to say right now.

Repeat after me...I WILL NOT POST PICTURES OF MY VAG ON MYSPACE. I WILL NOT POST PICTURES OF MY VAG ON MYSPACE. No, seriously. I've seen nips on myspace (for which they delete the picture and maybe even your profile) but I've never seen anyone post a picture of there vag on there before....before today that is. Oh lord.

Anyway...oh and I am really pissed off about the bark I got for Thor having insects in it. Plus I was allergic to it. I had to throw it all away. Then I got aspen...which I think I might be allergic to but I'm not sure. Yay.

I think it's the April 5th curse. It's now 3 hours away. I think we'll be at the Castle tonight. I think.

I turned MySpace comment approvals back on. No one did anything wrong. It's MySpace. People bitched about captchas and now they've come up with a way to verify users and turn them off. The entire reason I turned captchas on was to verify that PEOPLE were leaving the comments and not some computer somewhere that hacked into a profile. Now myspace has managed to screw that up. I don't need to get spammed because some friend of mine got hacked. So I will be approving comments again. If your comment doesn't get approved and you think I made a mistake just e-mail me. It might be that I never even saw your comment. MySpace used to lose comments and e-mails all the time. It's just easier to approve comments BEFORE they go on the page than to delete the spam afterward. Believe me, I HATE comment approval.

It's a shame that myspace can't verify every now and then that people are using the accounts and not just machines.

A used van. It's gets a whopping 13 miles per gallon. So basically it's a backup vehicle / vehicle to move big items. But hey it's only got 36,000 miles on it.

The problem is that the Bush Administration didn't have the authority to do that. That's a matter of international law. Not only that but the UNITED STATES defined water boarding as a WAR CRIME and executed Japanese who did this as war criminals. Members of our own government may be facing trial as war criminals. It's embarrassing. Of course that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.