Starting To Pack

In an attempt to make sure that Sarah has all of her things that she needs (and to determine what I need to get to haul her stuff) for school in two months, we are starting to encourage Sarah to being packing some of her things. Granted, she doesn’t need to get everything packed right now, we have two months after all. But certain things that we already have for her, supplies like some of her toiletries (shampoo, body wash) Laundry detergent, etc. we can start putting into bins to get ready. That way there is less to do the week before we move her up to LaCrosse. I should also get an idea of how much room I’ll have. Then I’ll know if I need to get a 7 foot trailer, or maybe a 10 footer. It’s hard to believe that college is just around the corner!

New Bank

One of the things on the list to do for Sarah before she leaves for school is to find a new bank.  We are members of a local credit union, and she was unable to get a checking account/debit card because we had planned to have her apply for a scholarship from it.  As a condition, she had to keep her money in a savings account.  But now that she is leaving for school, I wanted her to get a debit card and not have to pay the ATM fees associated with withdrawing your money.  So I thought that was going to mean finding a bigger bank with a local branch where we could set up her account and then when she needed money she could go to a branch in La Crosse and not have to pay the ATM fee.  To my surprise, when Kris took her in to close her account, they told her she didn’t need to.  That she could get money at any credit union without paying the ATM charge, regardless of it were a Guardian Credit Union or not.  Well that was an unexpected surprise.  So now we don’t have to worry about closing accounts and opening accounts.  We were able to convert her account, and now she has a debit card she can take with her.  One less thing to worry about as moving day gets closer.

Governmental Red Tape

Since we are the ones handling all of Kris’s dad’s care, we have realized that we have finally reached the point where we need to start looking into getting him on some sort of govt. assistance.  In the just over six years of being at the assisted living community, he has burned thru almost all of his savings.  It is amazing what sorts of things they charge him for there and the little bit that he gets for it.

Anyway, Kris began looking into what agencies she needs to get in touch with and what sort of paperwork will need to get filled out.  Apparently, his finances need to be at a certain level before we can even submit his paperwork to be reviewed, so we still have a couple of months before that happens.  But after seeing what is needed to submit, it is going to take us that long to get all the records and fill out all the forms.  At least we have the basic information that we are going to need, and that’s a start.  

Back To Thunderbird

As I was reading some news on the internet I saw some story about Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram.  There was a picture of Zuckerberg sitting at his desk and this internet "expert" was going thru the list of things he was able to see on his desk that countered all the stories the government and the NSA are telling us about the eavesdropping and monitoring of people's activities on the internet.  In addition to having his webcam lens and microphone taped over, the guy noticed that he was using Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Outlook.  I wonder why?  hmmmmm....

I was thinking of switching back to using Thunderbird, and now I think I am going to give it another go 'round.  I was never really a fan of Outlook and since I got my new laptop maybe it'll work better.  It could have been the hard drive problems and the fact that it was 6 years old and wasn't able to keep up with the T-Bird updates that was the reason for my problems.  Or maybe it was the Windows 7 O/S that was giving me problems.  Whatever it was, we'll see if the problems are still there now.  I suppose I can always go back to Outlook if Thunderbird still blows, right?  I just won't delete the profiles.

Extra Tickets

Kris’s favorite band, Def Leppard, is coming to Summerfest again this year.  I tried to get tickets a couple of months ago when they went on sale, and even using the fan club pre-sale codes, I could only get in the yellow reserved sections at the Marcus Amphitheatre.  Not great, but not bad, at least for the price.  But I have learned over the years that you have to check back every couple of days and there is a chance that better tickets might get taken off of hold and released to the public for sale.  That happened a couple of days ago.  I snagged two tickets in the red section, dead center stage, but about 20 rows back.  Much better than the yellow section seats. 

But now I am left with two extra tickets.  The last time this happened was the Foo Fighters a couple of years ago.  And of course, I couldn’t unload them, even at face value.  I am not letting that happen again.  It shouldn’t be hard to sell two tickets to a Summerfest Mainstage show for face value, should it?  Well I can tell you it is much harder than you might think.  Even a ticket broker (legalized scalper) wouldn’t give me face value, when he is going to turn around and sell them for at least $50 over the face value of the ticket.  I have a few things in the works, but I refuse to get stuck with extra tickets again!

Lawn Problems

Since we got rid of the swingset/playground last year, I have been trying to get grass to grow in its place.  I was doing pretty good with a few rolls of sod that I bought and got established last fall/early spring.  I had a couple of bare spots where I had just put in a little top soil and seeded, and that was coming in nicely too.  However, over the last two weeks, something has been digging up those patches.  I assume it is a squirrel because something has been getting into Kris’s plants as well.

I had tried to put a little more dirt in the spots, and reseeded, but something just keeps tearing it up.  At this point I think I am just going to leave it until the fall.  I am not going to sit and keep filling and reseeding the same spots only to have a dang squirrel rip it up again.  I keep telling myself, one of these days I need to go get a pellet gun and then plug those stupid squirrels!  One of these days….

Hit and Run

Milwaukee has been plagued for the last year or more with an epidemic of car thefts and car jackings (which is just another reason not to live in Milwaukee, but I digress).  So yesterday, Sarah’s friend (the next door neighbor) was at the Bayshore Town Center with her sister shopping when they got rear-ended.  It was apparently and African American girl driving with a guy in the passenger seat.  Right away they pulled over and were on the phone to the police.  They stayed in the car to call, and surprisingly, the car that hit them drove away. 

That is one of the “techniques” the news has been reporting is being used to steal cars.  Rear-end someone, and when they get out to assess the damage, the person in the passenger seat of the car of the offending vehicle jumps out, jumps into the driver’s seat of the car that was hit, and both cars take off.  Sounds like they might have gotten scared off when Brit didn’t get out of the car.  I think she got lucky.  Hopefully Sarah learns a lesson from this.

New Chipmunk

For the longest time we have been chipmunk-free.  I’d have to go back and actually look thru all the previous entries, but it must be about two years at least since I have had the chipmunk traps out.  I have been noticing lately over the past week or so that there is a new chipmunk scurrying around the backyard.  It will sit under the bird feeders eating and collecting the seed that drops on the ground.  The cats will sit on the table and watch it, chirping at it the way cats do (cat people know what this is like).  I feel bad for them because I am sure they’d like to chase after it, for sure.

I have decided to just let it be rather than get the traps out.  Mainly because it isn’t digging up Kris’s flowers (that’s the squirrels doing that).  It actually lives (if you can call it living) at the next door neighbor’s.  At least I think it does.  I have seen it come out from under the shrubs in the front of their house, run across the driveway, along the pavers that are on the side of our house, under the fence, and into the backyard.  Then it will dart out under the feeders.  It has even earned how to climb the shepherd’s hook and get into the feeder to get the seed it wants.  I feel like I should reward the effort, and so as long as it isn’t digging up the shrubs, or Kris’s flowers, why should I care, right?  Congratulations Mr. Chipmunk, you get to live another day.

Bath for the Cat

Samson’s fur has been looking pretty ragged for a while so we decided it was finally time to give him a bath.  If I remember right, we have only bathed him once in the previous four years we have had him, and since he was so full of dander and shedding all over the house, I thought it was probably time.

Well, I remember why we haven’t done it in forever now, HE’S STRONG!  He fought like crazy just getting him into the sink, and then once we got him in, it was all I could do to keep him in the soapy water.  It took both hands to hold him down while Kris scrubbed and rinsed him.  It was much worse than washing a 50 lb. dog!  But it also reaffirms why we named him Samson.  The good news is that at least now he is clean and smells fresh.  The only thing left to do is watch for hairballs, because I am sure he’ll be licking himself like crazy now!