Christmas Lights

Since I have updated the Christmas tree to LEDs, I have 1500 or so mini-lights left over that are not being used.  So this year instead of putting out the grapevine snowmen and reindeer, my outdoor decorations are going to consist of plain, white lights wrapping the shrubs.  I like to have something out front, because it helps makes the season less depressing.  Face it, getting dark shortly after 4:00 just stinks, and having some lights helps to make you forget that you’re in the dead of winter.

Last year when the lights were put away, every single string of lights were working.  And just like every other year, as soon as you take them out of the bin to use, there are strings that are out.  I thought that I would have plenty of lights, however, I ended up with just enough to cover the shrubs.  This is because I had 5 strings of lights where half of the string was out.  I was not about to go thru the strings to find the bad one, or ones, that were causing the whole bunch to be out.  I got lucky though because if I would have had one more string not working, I would have had to run to WalMart to get more.  I think that they are made to not work so that you need to get more every year.  If you get more than a year out of a string, you’re lucky.  Now I just have to hope they make it thru the season, because if god forbid one of the strings goes out before the Christmas season is over, I’ll be running to get more.  I may go get more anyway, just to have on hand.  Because they’ll get used, and the longer I wait the fewer there will be.  Maybe I’ll think of some different sorts of displays for next year so the front of the house isn’t so plain.  But I also think I need to have something that I don’t need to worry about getting buried in snow. 

Christmas Prep

As has been the tradition for at least the last ten years, the weekend after Thanksgiving is the time to get the Christmas tree put up.  This year I really wanted to move the location of the tree from the back corner of the house, to the front of the family room.  Ideally, I would have been able to put it in front of the front window so you could see the lights with the shade down.  Unfortunately, the tree from the last few years was just way too big (wide) to fit.  So this year, while shopping for supplies for the Indian Invite at Sam’s Club, I saw a tree that was thinner, and thought we could possibly fit that one in front of the window, or at the very least slide it into the front corner of the room, which would also help with the heat in the room and not prevent the thermostat from turning the heat on in the house.  It was also pre-lit, so I thought, great, I am NOT going to go nuts this year and put 2000 lights on the tree because it takes too long, gets the room too hot, and totally jacks the electric bill for December.  Also, if it is already lit, then I won’t need to do anything other than put on the ornaments. 

After getting it home and trying to rearrange the furniture in the room, I determined it wasn’t possible to put the tree in the front of the room (BOOOO!).  Unfortunately, our furniture is just too large.  So we need new furniture in addition to moving the tree (actually I have known that we needed new furniture for some time).  So this means that we need to put the tree in the back corner once again, slide the dining room table against the wall, and move the chest/hutch in the basement; just what I was trying to avoid. 

Once I got things moved and the tree in place and plugged in, both Kris and the girls said there weren’t enough lights on it to view the ornaments.  So then before the decorating could begin, I had to run out and get some more lights to wrap around the branches, though I didn’t do nearly the job I usually do with wrapping them around to make sure every branch has a light.  And instead of the regular mini lights, I had to find LEDs, and they had to be a particular color, Warm White, so that they matched with the “pre-lit” lights that were already in the tree.  This year the total of lights is 1600, 600 pre-lit lights and 1000 on strings that were wrapped around, which is still less than normal. 

The only thing I don’t like is the glow from the tree.  They just don’t have the same warm, yellowish, golden glow to them.  Instead the light coming off the tree has a slight bluish tint, and it looks more sanitized.  It just doesn’t feel the same.  Maybe next year I’ll just quit putting up a tree at all and plan on going to visit my parents in Florida and not worry about who wants to go, or who wants to be back in Wisconsin when.  It’ll just be much easier.  Just call me Scrooge!  Humbug!

Basement Cleaning

Now that all the Christmas stuff is out and up, it was time to get things cleaned up in the basement and straightened out.  We also had all the things that were displaced by the Indian Invite stuff to put back as well as the Halloween decorations since there wasn’t room to get those bins back out with the Indian Invite mess.  As I started getting things moved, I also began to do some cleaning up in the floor joists.  They were full of cobwebs and dust.  I actually can’t remember the last time I cleaned this stuff up, so it is probably a good idea that I started.

As I was moving things, such as the washer and dryer, and the freezer to clean all the dust under them, I was able to notice that there was a hole in the duct coming from the dryer as the base where it joined with the dryer exhaust.  This lead me to start looking up where I have the dryer duct exiting the house and I noticed something.  There appeared to be water stains on the wood and the caulk around the window frame seemed to be deteriorating to the point of needing to be replaced.  As I looked closer, I found that the caulk that I had used to fill the crack between the top of the foundation and the house frame was loose, and easily removed just by pulling.  I concluded this was due to the years of having the dryer vent into the window well and that over time the steam and exhaust had settled in the window well, even possibly up under the aluminum siding (which could be trouble with the frame, or at least the old siding that is under the aluminum).  I think this is what is causing the water stains on the wood as well as the paint peeling from the outer frame and any deterioration of the caulk. 

The first step was to get the old caulk out, which didn’t take much effort.  I still had a couple of cans of expandable foam crack filler from the yellow jacket incident this summer so after going outside to see what the possible extent of the problem might be, I just sprayed a line up into the space figuring if there was a gap there, this would definitely fill it.  This is, I am sure, also what was leading to finding yellow jackets in the basement a couple of months ago.  Now that the gaps are filled (or refilled) I will need to see what I can do to get the dryer exhaust away from the window well, and above grade so it doesn’t migrate up under the siding, or around the window.  I have some ideas, so I will have to see what I can possible get done.

Leaf Clean Up

Since we are now done with the Indian Invite for another year, I can focus on what is really important, getting rid of the leaves and mess outside before it snows.  It was actually a not too bad outside, so it wasn’t a big deal getting the leaves and sticks that blew into the yard and up against the house the last week or so.  It always amazes me at the number of people who decide to get out and rake up all their leaves into the street the day AFTER the village comes around collecting the piles.  All that happens then is the next good wind/rain storm we get, they end up blowing into everyone else’s yard.  Then again I suppose anyone could make the argument that if they don’t have trees on their property they shouldn’t have to rake.  It bothers me more than anything else because I take the initiative to take the stuff I collect to the landfill for composting rather than putting them into a big pile to blow around. 

So… that being said, our yard has some serious wind tunnels where the leaves seem to just collect.  So in a way they are already collected into a single spot, and it is just a matter of vacuuming them up and bagging them.  I think that this is going to be the final week that the Village comes around to collect leaves, but I am going to haul them to the landfill myself anyway, just because I don’t know when they’ll come around, and I don’t want to have to do this again.

Indian Invite 2017

We didn't get to see Ali and her team perform since we were stuck in the kitchen.  Luckily one of Ali's friends was able to record it.  The scorecard they got was pretty good.  If they actually had been competing, they would have taken first place.

 2017 Indian Invite from Dennis Hahn on Vimeo.

Indian Invite

Another Indian Invite has come and gone without a hitch.  Well, not exactly without a hitch, but we’re done and overall I believe it was a success.  We had about as many teams as we had last year.  Concessions (our area) went smoothly, there were no major disasters, we managed to set-up and clean-up quickly, and the girls did their exhibition routine rather smoothly.  Now we start planning for next year.

At least next year if we do the kitchen/concessions again, we’ll have a little better idea of what to get and how much since I like to think we improved our record keeping.  Now Ali starts to work preparing for their nationals qualifier in two weeks!

Day Off - Competition Prep

Just like last year, the Friday before Indian Invite is preparation day.  Last year we spent all our time after I left work until we got to school to set-up running around and then a good three hours or so at the school getting things set up in the kitchen.  This year I decided to take the day off so that I had time to do all the necessary running around getting the last minute items before going over to school.  We needed to go run to Sam’s Club and get the things that needed refrigeration, but had to more or less be fresh, such as shredded lettuce, and a few other last minute items.  I also needed to pick up some bakery items that were being donated (thank you very much Kwik Trip).  Overall, things went much smoother with taking the day off, so if we have to do it again next year, I think that is going to be the way to go.  Now we just have the completion tomorrow and then we can relax.

Tired of Firefox

I have been using Firefox as my web browser for almost as long as the internet has been around.  Back while I was still in college (20+ years ago), I preferred to use the Netscape browser, Navigator rather than the crappy one Microsoft included with the Windows operating system.  Then as time went by, for whatever reason, Netscape went away and what remained was Phoenix, which was created by the Mozilla Foundation as an alternative to the Mozilla Application Suite.  I could go on and on about the history of Mozilla and the Firefox browser, but I would just bore you.  The point being that I liked Firefox.  I liked the speed, the look, the layout, the add-ons that were available, and the ability to customize it for how I thought it worked best for me.  Well that is all gone now.

With the latest updates to Firefox, the majority of my add-ons have been disabled.  No more weather, my status bar is gone, my page loading meter, just to name a few are disabled.  When I looked it up, Mozilla gave some sort of reason for it having to do with cyber security or something, but a little warning to either the developers of the add-ons, or to the users of the browser would have been nice.  It still works, but I liked Firefox for the ability to customize it.  To layout where things were, such as the print button, and to have weather forecasts displayed unobtrusively on the add-on bar (both of which are gone now).  I have been using the Brave browser lately, though I don’t like the lack of add-ons.  It does run fast and eliminates/blocks trackers, though I have had some display problems when using it, such as my blog.  Chrome is nice too, but again, I am not happy with the lack of add-ons.  Maybe I am just not proficient enough with it, because both Sarah and Alison love using Chrome.  Though I do worry about Google and what they can and can’t see/track.  Sort of like Facebook before I found out that they lie and DO track everything you do online as well as sell your contact info. 

I have found a couple of other smaller web browsers that I may try out.  Something called Pale Moon, and Comodo IceDragon.  I remember using a Comodo firewall program a few years ago that I really liked, so maybe I’ll give that a try.  Of course there is always SeaMonkey, which is also built on the Mozilla platform.  Performance-wise, it is OK, but I am just not wild about the look.  Either way, unless I get my customization features back with Firefox, I may just be ready to throw in the towel.

I Hate Leaves

Autumn is the worst season of the year, at least late autumn.  That is because of falling leaves.  It is one thing to have the leaves in my yard fall and then have to collect them up to dispose of.  I can even handle leaves falling from neighbor’s trees.  But the leaves that the neighbors see fit to rake into the street so that when a good wind come along, that all get blown up into my yard. 

I will generally use my yard-vac to suck them up and shred them into tiny pieces that get collecting into a bag, and then transfer those to a larger, plastic bag to haul to the landfill for composting.  I say generally, because I also play the game of raking them into piles in the street to be collected by the village.  I did that initially when the leaves started dropping.  However, it took almost a month for the first collection by the Village, so that in the interim, much of what I had raked up was blown back into my yard as well as the neighbor’s.  Once my pile was about 20 feet long by three and a half or four feet high.  It is now only about two feet high.  So I decided to raise the deck on the mower and suck up what has been blown around and just take them to compost myself. 

We have some very strange wind patterns around the house, and it seems like things always collect in a few certain areas.  That and in lines approximately two feet from the fence.  Those are easy enough to vacuum back up, the stuff that collects behind the house and around the back stoop.  The leaves that congregate there tend to be a pain because collecting them will end up clearing out cocoa mulch in addition to the leaves.  I just can’t wait for the next good, hard freeze so that everything will drop and I can be done with them for the year!

Kwik Trip Update

This year with being in charge of concessions for the Indian Invite Cheer Competition at the Falls, we were looking for ways to cut some of our expenses.  In the past it didn’t look like we ever asked for any sort of sponsorship, or corporate donations, so this year we thought we’d see if we could get any concession contributions.  Last year we had quite an ordeal trying to make coffee in the large percolators that the high school had in the kitchen.  This year, my initial thought was asking someplace to donate a few gallons of coffee that we could sell.  I didn’t want to do Starbucks (because I am not a fan) so I thought I would ask Kwik trip, my favorite morning convenience store.  I found that they had a special page on their website where you could request donations.  Unfortunately, I had problems with submitting the request.  To make a long story short we couldn’t get coffee, but we could request bakery items (donuts, muffins, etc.).  And after talking to a manager of our local store, I was routed to a corporate person who helped me get the request input and fast track it so we could have a decision before the event.  After a couple of weeks not hearing anything, I sent the woman from Kwik trip a request for an update and she was nice enough to get right back to me.  So we got our request approved, although not a specific amount or item(s).  Kwik Trip is going to be giving us a $125 gift card to use toward items from one of their stores.  The plan is to go with bakery items.  Yummy!  Thank you Kwik Trip!  That’s one less thing to worry about.

The Final Cut

I got a break in the weather of about a day where it will be sunny and dry, and not too cold today.  I busted my hump to get done at work so I could get home and get the grass cut before it got dark (which is now around 4:45).  I think I am the only one in the neighborhood who takes yard waste to the landfill for composting.  Everyone else collects their grass clippings and leaves and dumps them in the street this time of the year.  Which ultimately ends up blowing back in my yard, since the Village hasn’t come around to collect them yet. 

So I figured this would be the best time to drop my deck and go low for the last time this year.  That way, if the grass did end up growing a little more, it still wouldn’t be too long before the frost completely killed it for the year.  I ended up with three large yard bags full of clippings, about a 50-50 mix of grass and leaves.  Prepping for winter is certainly a drag, but now I can focus on getting all the other stuff put away for the season.  Although the mower is still going to be left out for a couple of weeks (as long as it doesn’t snow) to collect more leaves, because until everything has dropped, I’ll still have them blowing into the yard.

Printers Suck!

I am convinced that the printer is the single worst piece of electronic equipment ever created.  It always seems like if someone is having computer problems, 75% of the time it has something to do with the printer.  Ours is no different.

Last month when we were getting Kris’s dad’s paperwork updated, we had to fax information to one of the government agencies that was requesting information.  Odds are if you have to fax something, 95% of the time it is going to a government agency, because God forbid they would ever modernize and use email and a scanner (But they want us to trust them with running our health care).  Unfortunately, we had only a printer/scanner, not a printer/scanner/fax.  So we had to go out and spend money on a printer that also had a fax machine feature.  Luckily they are pretty cheap (only about $70) it is the ink that costs a fortune (Because as we all know, when the hard times come, printer ink cartridges will be used as currency).

Anyway, before faxing things, I first had to print it.  Well that was where the problem came up.  For whatever reason, jobs were being sent to the print queue and then disappearing, without ever printing.  After running all the self-diagnostics and trouble shooters, and after doing so, I was able to print a test page.  Once that was done and I realigned the print head, I tried to print the documents out, and again, sat there dumbfounded as nothing came out.  I went to the printer maker’s website to check and make sure the driver was up to date, which it was, but still couldn’t get anything to print.  As a last resort, I uninstalled all the printer software and then reinstalled it all, which took about an hour and fifteen minutes or so (that must be the equivalent of ctrl+alt+del when the OS hangs up).  After doing that, I was able to get the test page printed and print head aligned.  Then I when I sent the print job to it, I finally got results.

Total time to actual printed pages was over two hours.  I should be able to charge the damn printer company for my time.  What a waste!  We’re back up and running, at least until the next time when we’re not.