got me wrong

Kind of of funny thing happened to me yesterday, only now.
I spent all sunday changing the oil in the van, and then my little corolla. I've only changed the oil in my corolla once, so I was a little foggy, but confident.
I unscrewed the plug and drained the oil. After the oil was done draining, I changed the filter.
All totally normal.
I could not remember how much oil the engine held, but I did remember that I thought it was quite small. So I went through the owner's manual, and it was little help. In fact, it seemed to suggest that the oil capacity was 1.4 quarts, which I knew couldn't be right.
So I put in ~3 quarts, and checked the level.
It showed overfilled by almost a quart.
You've got to be kidding me.
Stupid japanese cars.
So I pulled the drain plug again, and watched as the oil drained again.
Then I put in 1.4 quarts of oil, and the dipstick showed it overfilled again.
I can't believe this.
Ok, sanity check. Drain the oil, again.
Watch until no more oil comes out, replace the plug, check the oil level now.
Shows 1 quart overfilled, still.
Ok, dipstick is broke or something. However that's possible.
Whatever. I put in the 1.4 quarts, and start the engine.
No oil light, so I decide all is well.

5 hours later, I need to run to the store. I start the car, all is well, put it in gear, nothing.
Parking brake is off, park works, but no go when in gear.
Weird.
So I get in the van, and drive to the store.
Halfway there I realized what you probably realized on the 9th sentence in this story, I was not draining the oil, I was draining the transmission fluid. So now I had a car with 3 times the amount of oil it needed, and no transmission fluid at all.
So today I stayed home and drained the oil, and refilled the transmission fluid, so all works well again.

If it hadn't I would have never admitted any of this ever happened.

happy mothers day

Happy mother's day to all the moms!
Mostly to my mom and my wife, Ann.
Hope you guys have a good mothers day!

hammerhead

The offspring have a new album coming out in June, and I am very stoked to get it. The first single, Hammerhead, is quite good.



In more insane news, Ann came home yesterday with another dog. Yeah, we still have the first dog, Daisy, and she's great, so I'm not sure why we now have another one. This dog is comically tiny, so I have dubbed him "Thor".

scratch that monkey

So I finally got the judo match video up and running, I have found that the player only handles flash video, so I have to convert them from the format the camera records to to flash video.
but now I know, and here's the second match I had that day.

i will tell on you

watching the office right now, still the best show on.
Working way too hard on things other than my real job.
I haven't done a lick of work on my thesis for several weeks, because I decided to just wait for my adviser to come back, so I could, you know, actually talk to him for feedback.

My parents were just here for 3 days, which was great, and in fact, way too short a time. many times when you have visitors, when they leave, you're all ready to go back to a normal routine, but they weren't here long enough for that to happen.

Now y dad is soon to have yet another surgery, hopefully the last. They seem to already have plans to move back here in the beginning of next year, so that will be great.

Now I go back to working on stupid extra-curricular activities.

cinco de mayo

Had a good weekend, and it was every bit as busy as expected.

The girls lost their soccer game, but they played a nearly flawless game, and did everything I expected, so I cannot complain. I mean, when you're the only team out there running plays, actually passing, and playing positions, yet the other team gets a lucky shot in because they don't play positions, well, I'm not going to feel bad about losing that way.

The UNL judo tournament went great, although Kyle and I were literally the only senior level players. So we decided to have an exhibition match against each other.



Just as a point of reference, Kyle weighs 260 lbs, and I weight 180lbs. I was pretty hesitant to do the match, as I really was the only one who could come out looking bad, but I guess I didn't let that stop me.
Oh well, it went well, and I we went out after words and had a good time.
Now my parents are in town for a few days, and we're hanging out with them.
Then I leave for chicago for a few days after they leave.
It's non-stop around here...

heavy

think I have a pretty workable bracket spreadsheet program going now. Although I'd lie to make it use better logic in splitting up weights into divisions. I cannot find a suitable statistically function that does what I want.

My hot rod HTC phone is due to arrive today, I've been a 5 year old kid waiting for christmas all week. I just hope I'm disappointed in terms of performance or something stupid with the shipping happens.

The girls have a school music performance this afternoon.
Tomorrow I have no major plans.

Then I have all the activities I mentioned before. I don't have a free hour the entire weekend I think.

I'm trying to get all my sleep now.

mama we're crazy now

I have had nothing really interesting to say recently.

This past weekend, I was swamped with activities.
Thursday and Friday I worked on a stupid work demo until very late both nites.

Saturday we had soccer, then BJ and Shelly had a baby shower for the kid they're finally supposed to be able to adopt. They don't even have him yet, but it's all supposed to be happening now. I drank way too much, and stayed up way too late.

Sunday, Aubrey got confirmed, so we went to church for that, and then all the family came over to our place for the rest of the day.

We are planning on hosting a judo tournament this weekend, at our unviersity facilities. It will be the first UNL judo tournament in like 6 years, so I'm pretty jazzed. I doubt the turnout will be that great, but it will be cool to be able to stay and watch the whole thing, and maybe, just maybe even compete.
Depends on who shows up. I'm not going against a bunch of young guys who will kill me. I want to go against old guys like me.

Then it's another full weekend, my parents are coming into town, so I'm going golfing with my dad and brother, then playing softball, then going to sports club banquet.
Then the rest of the week will be working, and hanging with the parents.

long road to ruin

the weather here is getting better. It's actually getting warmer, and it's here to stay.
Lot's of action at work.
Our CEO got canned, so I now have yet another new boss. I just hope he loves me as much as the last guy...

sea legs

We have had a typical weekend, and the weather finally was halfway decent to make it quite nice while we had all of our activities.
Friday, a lot of nothing. Although we had planned earlier in the week to go watch Ann's nephew fight in an amaetuer fight nite, but we couldn't find a sitter.
He did win, we found out, only because his opponent got disqualified.

Saturday was the girl's piano recital and then immediately after their soccer game, which they won 5-3.
I took some video of the recital, and I posted it in the extended entry.
Saturday nite we played cards and watched the serra vs St. Pierre fight, which was a good fight overall, but I got crushed playing cards, which I never like.
Today was church, then softball practice. I probably should have accomplished more today, with little else to do, but I chose to nap instead.
Napping has become almost the most important part of my weekend now. I look forward to naps more than almost anything else.
Truly a sign that I am getting old. Continue reading "sea legs"

mexican seafood

The best thing I ate on the trip to Hawaii was called poke. (po-k)
It's raw fish in 1/2" cubes, mixed with soy sauce, garlic,  green onions, and some other spicy sauces.
It's definitely smelly, but it's good. I made it for myself for the first time at home tonite, and was quite pleased.

I'm sure my breath is less than great right now, but that's nothing new.

i have a dream

Finally got the gallery going again, and got all the hawaii pics that I have posted.


Enjoy

austrailia

I am absolutely coveting this phone

Since my other xtra cool phone never materialized, this phone has all that phone's features, only, it works.

cheated hearts

is the song of moment, by the 'yeah yeah yeahs', who are the band of the moment.

just got back

ok, we are finally back.
it was 2 layovers, and total of 20 continuous hours of flying/waiting in airports, but we are now home.

I slept for 13 continuous hours last nite!

In the end, the whole "ATA going down and stranding us" ordeal worked out to our advantage in manys ways.
We got to stay 2 extra days and do some stuff we wouldn't have been able to otherwise, stay in in a waikiki hotel for 2 nites for free, got the flights re-scheduled for free, and flew back first class the whole way. The travel back was longer than I originally scheduled, but considering it was first class, it was pretty tolerable.

While I was gone, the server running this site has had several issues, including my gallery installation dying. So once that's back up, I will begin to upload the hundreds of pics we have, which I'm sure you're all dying to see.

At least that way, I can make several blog entries with pictures to give you all a narrated slide, something you're all looking for, surely.

still here

Well, we got kicked out of the awesome house we were staying in, since the next people were showing up. So we called around, and luckily, several hotels were putting people up for free just to help out. So we have a free hotel to stay in for the next two days, which is really cool.
It's a single room to hold both of us, which is a huge contrast to the giant house we both stayed in, but I'm not going to gripe about a free room. We'll try to get separate rooms tonite, and hopefully we can leave tomorrow as planned.

new way home

well, we think we found a new way off this rock. It will be 2 days later, and far more stops than we originally planned, but beggars can't be choosers.
We got rescheduled for free, and that's a lot better deal than many who are stuck here got.
Hopefully I'll be home sometime on tuesday now

stuck in paradise

ok, must type quickly, because this server is doing some strange things while I'm away.

First, Ann and I are in Honolulu with some friends, and we're having a great time
I have done many things that I can elaborate on later, but the I have been predictably bothered by many work things, all of which I sucessfully ignored.
I have attempted to get some things done for the judo club, and even attended a judo practice here, which was really cool, so I haven't avoided any judo, but that was by choice.

The crisis of the moment that I cannot seem to avoid is the fact that ATA went chapter 11, while I'm over here. We are all stranded. We're going through all the proper channels right now, but for the moment, I'm stranded in honolulu!
I could think of about 1.5 million places that would be worse to stranded, so we're making the most of it.
For the moment, I have no way home, so I'm just planning more vacation. When the next group shows up to stay in this house, I don't know what I'll do. Just cross that bridge when I get there....

honolulu

ok, must type quickly, because this server is doing some strange things while I'm away.

First, Ann and I are in Honolulu with some friends, and we're having a great time
I have done many things that I can elaborate on later, but the I have been predictably bothered by many work things, all of which I sucessfully ignored.
I have attempted to get some things done for the judo club, and even attended a judo practice here, which was really cool, so I haven't avoided any judo, but that was by choice.

The crisis of the moment that I cannot seem to avoid is the fact that ATA went chapter 11, while I'm over here. We are all stranded. We're going through all the proper channels right now, but for the moment, I'm stranded in honolulu!
I could think of about 1.5 million places that would be worse to stranded, so we're making the most of it.
For the moment, I have no way home, so I'm just planning more vacation. When the next group shows up to stay in this house, I don't know what I'll do. Just cross that bridge when I get there....

this is getting over you

So I'm pretty much done working since I'm nearly ready to go on vacation, and doing nothing at work but surfing through funny videos. I see this thumbnail, and it catches my eye for 2 reasons:
1) what is that guy doing to her, exactly? (when I saw it, there was no title, only the thumbnail)
2) that just happens to be a wrestling mat that is the same color as our judo room's, and even the same color walls...

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Perhaps I'll watch...
I was pleasantly surprised on both counts
Continue reading "this is getting over you"