Crazy Weekend

Well, this weekend, I finally got around to doing a few things, and started back up a few old projects.

My mom lives in Canton, OH. and I live in Indianapolis, IN. We don't get out to see her often enough, so, we took a trip out to see her on kind of a whim. That's never good when you have two kids in diapers, and not much cash in reserve, on a holiday weekend, with gas prices incredibly high, and no real place to stay. Fortunately, we got things sorted enough while we were there.

We left at 1:30, after dropping the cats off at the Humane Society, and Holly suggested the trip. I really think she just wanted to take her mind off of giving up the cats, because the trip was unplanned, and not budgeted. We got there that evening, and showed my mom her new and improved grandchildren. She was impressed. Ate some cookout food my brother had prepared while we visited, and then used my mom's computer and our credit card to reserve a room at the Canton McKinley Grand hotel... for $50. Sweetness.

The next morning, we got up, found some food, headed back over and visited with my Mom. I couldn't get her Mac to read the DVD+/-RW discs I had sent with pictures. However, I do think I got her computer set up to read the e-mail account that I set up for her on our AT&T Yahoo! DSL package. It was working before, but it wasn't using SSL settings, and it complained to her with messages nearly daily. She has Time Warner Road Runner... not set up for e-mail, unfortunately, and she probably won't even keep it. I think she was glad just to see the kids in person. They did warm up after a bit. Auntie Ann came by for a short visit too.

We went over to see my Mom's sister, Aunt Jo and Uncle Ed. The kids performed admirably, but indicated that it was time to go around 1:30. We didn't get a chance to see my cousin Angie and her son this time around... The kids passed out in the car seats, and we had a long drive home. The last hour was very rough, but we made it.

So, these old projects? Heh... I bought a set of faux wood blinds to put up in our bedroom. The vinyl ones were just completely torn up from Scott and the cats. Scott tried to tear them up last night, but a threat and a whooping put a stop to that. I'm thinking I'll have to do something to keep him off of those. They cost too much money for him to be tearing up.

Oh, and Scott can manipulate the gate we use at the bottom of the stairs now too. So, I bought a replacement for the gate we use at the top of the stairs... I'd have put it up... but... we ended up taking a trip to Ohio. I didn't get a chance. :( I don't' think he will be able to open the gate, even if he learns how... he just won't be strong enough... I'm super happy with the one we use at the top, but it was $60 that we really didn't want to spend until we had to at the bottom.

I got the garage of doom cleaned up a little after doing the usual weekend yardwork. Found a few new places for things, and stacked a few things that need to "go away". Paul and Amy are expecting, and we've got a high-chair, car seats, strollers, etc for them taking up space. I don't think they have space for them either. But hey, They gotta take them... I won't hold on to them much longer... because I'm mean. I should just go put them in their house while they're on their honeymoon. LOL.

I spent a little of my "personal time" thinking about trying out OpenSUSE. I really like Fedora, but it's too bleeding edge for me. I know I could just stay on the previous release longer, but I might just be ready to try a few new things. KDE hasn't ever been a necessity for me, but there were so many reports of it being completely unusable in Fedora 9, pending the 4.1 release, that I want to try out a Distro that really has it at its forefront. I started a download of the 11.0 beta 3 release before I went to work. Maybe I'll get some time to spin up the KDE4 live CD tonight. We'll see.

Oh, and my wife's grandfather... "Grandpa"... sent these e-mail pictures of Amy and Paul's wedding... freaking monsterous attachments. So, Holly's mom says, "hey were those just un-look-at-able for you too?" Here's the sweet sauce... I just used my FastMail account, dropped the attachments to a folder and put it up on the web. Easy peasy... rice and cheesy. I might be able to get someone else to use FastMail just off of that... unlikely... Mom-in-law is convinced that Kodak EasyShare is the way to go... and I pretty much set her up on that... my bad. I didn't know. She doesn't even like the dock though... so, whatever.