Monthly Archives: April 2008

Hooper Springs, Soda Springs, Idaho

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While Perry’s family were in Soda Springs, we made a stop at Hooper Springs, a carbonated water spring just north of town. These are some pictures from this stop.

The photo gallery is a new feature in WordPress version 2.5. I’ve posted and deleted and posted this set of pictures working out how the gallery feature works. I still don’t have all the process understood, it seems. If you click on a picture, the text associated with the picture will show. Click again, and a full-sized picture will be displayed.

Spring, Yard, Motorcycle, Piracy, Taxes, and a Pregnant “Man”

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Raking the Grass

The snow piled up pretty deep on the front yard. The anti-skid piled up on the tree lawn. The voles made several pathways under the snow leaving lots of dead grass behind. Now that the snow is gone, the yard needs some serious attention. I raked a strip last Saturday. I took a few days to recover (with an intervening snow storm) and raked another strip yesterday. I figure at this rate it’ll take a couple of weeks to get the front yard raked and ready for fertilizer and ready to have the sprinkler system checked out. Raking is definitely a workout! I was pooped for the rest of the day.

Of course, with the departure of the snow, thoughts turn to … motorcycles! My battery wouldn’t hold a charge so I picked up a new one this morning and have it on the charger in the garage. It’ll go in the bike tomorrow and I’ll fire it up for the first time this spring … and maybe take a short trip around the block. The appointment is set on Tax Day for the oil change and spring tuneup. Let the riding begin!

Speaking of Tax Day, I finally entered everything into Tax Cut Pro. There’s a couple of small adjustments needed, but I’m very close to being able to file. We will get a refund from the Feds but have to write a check to the State of Idaho. A few years ago the competing program TurboTax very stupidly tried to combat supposed piracy of their software by putting a hidden program on the user’s computer. This hidden program caused a number of computers to crash, including mine. They eventually refunded my money but it took a lot of work to get the malicious program off of my computer. While they quickly realized their mistake, I’ve not returned as a customer. Tax Cut does just fine and there’s no reason for me to change providers. By the way, I just ran across an interesting article on H&R Block and Tax Cut. Click on the link.

Speaking of piracy, a luxury yacht was seized by pirates in the Gulf of Aden yesterday. Fortunately no passengers were on board, but the 30 crew members are being held hostage. I think we’ll avoid doing any cruises in that part of the world! According to the news article, more than 25 ships were seized by pirates in that area last year. Looks to me like a captain needs to find other work.

Finally, in the weird news department, some ten years ago a woman underwent a sex change procedure to become “male”. “He” is now six months pregnant in what “his” obstetrician is considering “a normal pregnancy“. I’m speechless.

Of Whirlwinds and Dentists

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I think it started with the colors on the walls in Jaelene and Scott’s home in Chandler. Unlike our house, where every wall in every room in the house is exactly the same color, the Chandler house has rooms of many colors. None are bland beige, either. All are in vivid color sometimes with different colors on different walls in the same room. It must have somehow inspired Nina. She got home late Saturday evening, contemplated during the day on Sunday while she was recuperating from the long drive. Bright and early Monday morning she began moving furniture. So far major pieces have remained in their original place, but bookcases, chairs, plants, and just about all that isn’t nailed down has moved. Some things have moved three or four times. I’m certain that she still isn’t satisfied … she told me I need to get the ladder out so I can get down some of the items up high on shelves so they can be cleaned and rearranged. So far all the rearrangement is fine with me!

Today also included a visit to the dentist (do a search on ‘dentist’ in the blog and see how much time I’ve spent in a dentist’s chair!). I have a tooth that is giving me a problem. The tooth is on one end of a bridge and he’s attempted to fill a cavity in the tooth before. That has not been sufficient so today he planned to pull the bridge and see what was going on underneath the crown. However, he wasn’t able to get the tooth numb. Everything else went numb … tongue, lip, cheek … but not the area where the tooth is located. He’s a good dentist, young and a year out of dental school, but he’s failed to get this area numb two out of three tries. After a few injections of the anesthetic, I begin to get affected. My heart rate goes up, I get the shakes, and feel a bit nauseous. With that, the work has to stop as he can’t try again with the anesthetic. When he called it quites today, he decided to refer me to an endodontist who specializes in this kind of work. Next Wednesday I’ll be yet again in another dentist chair. How the furniture will end up in the house is far more certain than what will happen in the dentist chair, it seems. And it’s a whole bunch more interesting!

Upgraded!

Computer Stuff,

WordPress has released a new version of our blogging software. I’ve installed it on my blog and will run it here for a few days. Then if there are no problems, I’ll upgrade the other blogs on this site as well. There is some new capability, particularly related to pictures and videos that I want to try out so I can answer questions that other blogs on this site may have. Stay tuned!