Finally an overhead light in my room

It had been bugging me ever since we moved in that there were exposed
wires in the ceiling in 2 rooms upstairs. I somehow had found a light
fixture from somewhere here and 3 wirenuts to attach it. But the problem
was not knowing which wires did what.

The wiring was incredibly crazy but I guess that's how this place was
done when it was originally built. As the wiring went, it allowed for a
ceiling fan to be installed and have the fan and light independently
switchable. I don't need a ceiling fan - in fact, the ceiling here is
way too low to allow me to move around with one without accidentally
damaging it. I think these 2 upstairs rooms had one in each of them. The
former tenants must have been ceiling fan crazy, as the kitchen and one
other room downstairs has them. They're in the other apartments as well.

There should have been only 2 wires to connect a fixture to. There were
3 bunches. !! I had a plan and used a circuit tester to find the live
pair. This thing is basically a little light with 2 metal probes at the
end. It lights up when I find powered wires. What about the other two
bunches?

The electrical socket behind my bed doesn't work. So I'm guessing one
set is supposed to connect to the live pair. And in order to have a
switchable circuit, you have a direct connection to one wire, while you
have the other interrupted by a switch. Using my voltmeter's continuity
tester, I found which pair goes to the switch. Presto.

A little fight with the wirenuts (I needed 3) and I now have an overhead
light I can switch on and see better. I see there's 2 sets in the other
room, so figuring that out and putting in a light there should be
easier.

At some point I might connect the electrical outlet behind my bed. Or at
least put in a grounded 3 prong outlet.

Da battery in Da Car

After 4 times having to deal with a dead battery that's still good, I've
taken a few steps to make sure I have a car battery with a charge.

Since I've kept blaming the cold on the problem - I had the new Duralast
battery for 3 months and then when it got painfully cold the last week
of January 07 it decided it didn't want to work right... I've been
taking the thing out and putting it inside since the weekend. I also
experimented to see if I needed to charge it - I don't. The car manual
for the Kia says to remove the battery if it needed charging. That makes
sense as the week I spent hooking the trickle charger up to it while
still in the car didn't exactly produce consistent results.

So the one Wednesday or Thursday it did its Dead Act, I went to Napa.
One guy there brought out a couple of meter testers. He checked the
charging system and at idle, it was working just fine. Shut off the car,
and he tested the battery with a simulated load for 10 seconds. That
also tested good.

Then he tested the cold cranking amps. The battery is rated at 590, but
the meter said 456. Ah. The guy said it's still pretty good, the battery
isn't that bad where he'd condemn it.

While talking to a few people at the anime club meeting on Saturday, one
guy said there sounds like there's a short somewhere in the electrical.
I kinda doubted that a bit, but then I remembered the test. And Myers
said he wouldn't be surprised if some critter sneaked up into the engine
area while it wasn't being driven and chewed a bit on something. There's
a drain of something like 130 amps it seems (maybe) and perhaps there's
a short in the starter system. It'll do these text book crank and
starts that are not very long and strong, but if it has to crank for a
half second longer than it likes, it acts like it stops and has to
really go again. I hope it's just something simple like a slightly bare
wire and NOT inside the starter. There's also the thing with the fuel
pump. There's times where I had to turn the thing off and on a few times
and also crank a few times before it would catch. One mechanic said you
sometimes have to "wake up" the fuel pump. but then there's times where
after I've ran it a while, it just starts right up no problem, and
probably a strong half second crank...

My mom had no problem for all the time she drove it, then I get the damn
thing and it costs me money and aggravation.

The latest with my sister...

Well, you won't believe the latest.

First of all, info we recently unearthed is public record.

If you go to http://www.landaccess.com/ and go to Carroll County, OH,
then search with the name "Castle" you'll get a list, of which Candice
Castle should be in.

Click on the Details link and you should see another list.

On that, there's the filing for the Quit Claim Deed as mom and my aunt
and my grandfather all signed the property over to my sister.

Then you see my sister filing an Open Mortgage for $40K with Grange
Bank. Mom claims this was not supposed to be 40K, but $16K and plus a
few things my sister asked if she could put on it. My mom should not
have OKed it. I knew about this one for $40K, but apparently mom doesn't
remember it, says it should have been for about $20K or so. This was to
be used to pay off mom's bankruptcy case because they didn't get a good
attorney who could have gotten mom off from paying.

Then about a year later or less, you see my sister extending that to
$75K!!! The previous mortgage is paid off then she's grabbing another
$35K!??? WTF... We're going to find out what she thought she needed $35K
for. As Myers has said, she got the property signed over to her, and saw
nothing but dollar signs as she bilked my mom out of her inheritance.
That New vehicle Myers saw probably came from that. She didn't need
it!!! It was not her money as we all know.

By the end of 2005, the same records show the sale of the house but she
used a Warranty Deed which claims she sold the house for "$1 and other
financial consideration".. Well, Myers has also said and we're saying it
now as well especially my mom and aunt, that Candice has been lording it
over us how she's got this Doctorate and how we're so stupid. She
thought we'd never find out what she did. What the hell is a warranty
deed? It also doesn't tell us exactly how much she got for the house!
She wasn't so smart that we wouldn't catch her absconding with the
money.

The $75K Grange loan is paid off. There's at least $40K she still owes
my mom and my aunt because she used it and was not authorized to do so.

Even though I couldn't figure out how to find the document online, the
Columbiana County recorder does have info to tell us where the sale of
the Bayard Road house is at their office. We found out the house was
bought for just over $17.5K and on a credit card, not the $20K we've
been told all along.

I hope the lawyer my aunt got to handle this case is able to find her
property info in Florida as well.

My younger sister and her family I don't think got any money for helping
out as was promised. And nobody's told Candice of the time when we got
the Amerigas propane tank hooked up how we woke up every morning for a
week with massive headaches because too much propane was flowing into
the furnace, and had I not figured out what was going on and reduced the
flow, that house would have killed us both - with excessive propane
fumes and an explosion. Anerigas could have been sued for not properly
adjusting the flow and as it was we ran out of propane in that week, and
nobody told us it was only 5% full - and it was to be filled up soon
after delivery but wasn't!! They keep also trying to bill mom for rent
on a tank we no longer have at an address we no longer own... I have
helped out and I deserve consideration. I think mom should get her share
of the sale of the house back, and any money she paid on taxes and
insurance. My sister forced my mom to waste her money.

If anything, I hope it gets set up that my Aunt gets the money from the
rent on the apartments here after everything gets fixed up. My aunt got
the letter from Candice after the sale of the house promising what would
be done with the money, so while my dad was offering bad legal advice
(oral agreements mean nothing?), my aunt has this letter ANYWAY.

Only thing is, my sister promised (also) that money my mom paid as rent
(or other money received from the jerkoff who moved out) was going to be
used to fix the place up - well, she's been spending that. Heh.

Hell of a day today

Went out to start the car, and the battery acts like it's dead. Oh
great. Just when I need it. It was painfully cold last night, so I guess
the Autozone Duralast batteries last only when they aren't cold.

So I get AAA to come out. I also put on the charger on the battery -
last week on Thursday it did this thing as well. I had it jumped, took
it to Autozone, the guy tested it, but due to the loose connections,
they couldn't get a good reading. So I put on new tight American
designed top mount battery terminals. Paid a guy $5 to put a $3 part on.
Runs fine afterwards. Even started nice and strong on Tuesday when I
started it to what I hope would charge the battery.

Anywho, Just as the guy from AAA comes to jump, I try the thing again
after the charger was on the 10 amp charge setting for 1 hour and 14
minutes. It starts. Took it to Autozone again, the guy tests it. The
tester says to charge the battery and try again. WTF? But as it does the
test, I see the voltage reading creeping up to 12 Volts. The battery
obviously was cold and didn't want to work. ARGH. Guy tests the charging
system, and again it shows OK. I know the alternator is working because
when I had the terminals changed from the Kia strips of metal to the
significant ones I bought, the guy removed one (it just came straight
off) and the car continued to run OK.

Guy at autozone says if I still have problems, bring it back and they
will change it for sure. I mention the battery charger, and he says
putting the battery on a 2 amp trickle charge isn't a bad idea,
especially with the forecast of it getting damn cold in a few days.

Anywho, I get to work late, but I call to say I'll be late, is 10 to 5
ok? Manager OKs it, I tell this to the HR lady and she'll fix it because
Rick approved the change due to the circumstances.

Get ready to go home, get some water, and the right front tire is flat.

Well, this is the one that I put Fix a Flat in it, and it was working
until today, when I guess when it gets painfully cold and batteries
don't want to work, Fix a Flat stops working too.

Get back to work, try to change it, but the jack is rusted. I borrow
Jean's (she's got a Kia, too), and manage to do the change with the
spare.

Waiting at home is my Passport (less than 4 weeks!), and an order for
MP3 players that are also card readers, one of which I'm trading to a
friend for a 1G SD card.

My refund this year is over $700. If I had earned one penny less, I
would have $6 more in my refund. Instead of tax breaks, why the hell
doesn't someone increase the EIC?? Dammit!

Well, tax breaks would have been nice, too.

So all told, I'd have money for a ticket to Japan, but little else.
Someone said that in spite of credit cards being usable in Japan, it's
still mainly cash only.

I doubt I could receive my refund fast enough to be able to pull this
one off (well, there is electronic filing over the net... I guess with
direct deposit and stuff) or had time in March. Does Narita have that
airport exit tax still?

I'd have enough to go to Japan, shop for 1 or 2 days, then go home.

I'm tired, and I need a pizza and a beer.

ttaku... I'm going to see if I need to put the charger on the battery
over night tonight. It's been forecasted as being in the single digits
or lower for the weekend.... T.T

In search of another MP3 player!! Argh!!

What is it with Toys R Us?? They advertise a $20 MP3 player, 512MB, and
the very next day - they're all OUT!! Doesn't it make sense to order
MORE of what you advertise and make sure there's plenty on the shelf??
WHAT GIVES? I'm So frustrated at TRU for doing the Lure People In but
have only 3 of anything that's in their stinking ads!!!

Not surprised to see all the Tamago-chi Version 3s out. But still!!!
512MB for $19.99!! Dang it!! Toys R Us - ORDER MORE OF THE AD ITEMS.
IMPOSE QUANTITY LIMITS. OFFER RAINCHECKS!! ARGH!!!!!!!

So why are all these USB thumbdrive based MP3 players so dang popular
that everyone buys too many or more than they actually need?

Well, iPods, like all Apple Computer products, are Overpriced. the iPod
Shuffle, a 1G model is $74.

iPods have an internal rechargeable battery. Well, it recharges until it
doesn't anymore. Then it's expensive to replace, most of the time. In
order to put anything on it, you need a crash-happy Mac computer (which
can and do get viruses - shame on you liars for those misleading Mac
commercials - and with you having Intel processors now, it'll get even
easier to write Mac viruses!) or Apple's iTunes software on your Windows
computer.

I don't want iTunes on my computer. I don't want anything Apple on
there, but I'll put up with Quicktime. For the moment, anyway.

These thumb drive MP3 players are - cheap, easy to use, and use
replaceable batteries, usually a single AAA. You don't need any software
other than an MP3 ripper, and Windows Media Player 10 can do that. And
perhaps audio editing software like Audacity to optimize sample rate to
pack more files on your player. Copy the files onto it, and you're done,
ready to enjoy music.

In 1986, I had wished for there to be a way to reproduce music or audio
without any moving media (tape) or spinning parts (record or CD or hard
drive). 20 years later, I have a 128MB USB thumb drive MP3 audio player.
The only moving parts are a few buttons and the electrons in the
circuits!

I predict at some point we won't have hard drives anymore, but instead
flash memory like that seen in memory cards and thumb drives. I have a
1G thumb drive that's about the size of a cracker, and yet it can store
the entire contents of my Win95 laptop hard drive with some room to
spare, in both meanings of the phrase!! Sugoi nyo!!!

Suggestion I tried to send to Bandai

For some reason, they use a script that checks whether or not an entered
email address is valid - and it doesn't work!!! Here's what I wanted to
tell them:

Well... I think it's time you gave us U.S. fans of Tamago-chi the real
thing. I had a friend bring back the latest Uratama Tamago-chi Plus and
That is the product that Bandai should be bringing here. Except with a
Pause feature added in. Leave in the Japanese text support (and in fact
add a feature somehow to use that in the name of the Go-chi when it's
born ^_-), translate everything else faithfully and correctly. Keep in
the support to connect to ALL JAPANESE TAMAGO-CHI MODELS and Tamago-chi
Station - but make sure it can connect to ALL U.S. VERSION 2s AND
VERSION 3s as well! The ability to take and pass gift items between V.2s
and V.3s. V.2 to new Version and from New Version to V.3 or from All
Japanese models to US models - with the note IF it can be passed on or
not. HEH.

Passwords should also work the same. (I can't get e-tamago.com to work
right on any U.S. Windows PC for some odd reason and it should.)

Rumors abound that the Version 4 (also rumored) might be color. Eh.
whatever, Uratama has a blue LCD screen.

AND FOR ONCE - TELL PEOPLE HOW TO SAY TAMAGO-CHI CORRECTLY. Leave out
the "T"!!! and you'll do fine!! Even tell people you guys originally got
it wrong for no reason - here's a chance to fix all that. The people who
did the commercials need slapped upside the head.

GO GET A TAMA"GO"-CHI

Great toy, btw. But I want what Japanese consumers are getting. It's a
plus I can read and translate Japanese, so I can finally see what we
U.S. and other English-speaking fans are missing.

Oh yeah- Tamago-chis are so well made, you can drop one in a bucket of
water, dry it out, and it will eventually work right again. ^_^;;; I
found that out by accident.

Later!

This year's Black (ink) Friday parcipitation

Last year, right after Thanksgiving, if you haven't read on here about
that, I managed to buy my Cyberhome recorder at WalFart for $68. Circuit
City has one this year but with a $12 rebate. Oh well. Cyberhome went
out of business due to owing Philips Magnavox some royalties. I'm lucky
to have the update that fixed it.

tonikaku, while working on Thanksgiving morning (and once again
unfortunately putting the ads in the local paper wrong.. At least 2 of 3
inserts made it in - last year I forgot to put anything in! Geez, tell
me how many thingies go in so I have some idea!!), we go through the ads
at the store and look over the early specials. A few catch my eye:

We B Toys has 1 Gig MP3 USB thumbdrive players for $29.99. Ah. I have a
256MB model, it would be nice to have more room on it, even if I am
optimizing space using Audacity to reduce the sample rate without
sacrificing quality per se.

I'm also looking for a 1 gig thumbdrive by itself. Hmm.. Best Buy has a
PNY model for $14.99. Target had a "Dane-Elec" 512MB model for $7.97.
Office Max interestingly has a SANdisk 1G drive for $12.99, but they
also have a 2G drive for $24.99. Staples and Circuit City have 1 G
drives that come with a rebate. The Staples one (also a Sandisk variant)
would be $7.98 after $7 rebate ($14.98), and CC's one is $3.99 after $26
mail in rebate ($29.99).

Best Buy also has Sandisk 1G thumbdrive MP3 players for $34.99, so
that's a backup plan in case I can't get the We B special.

Targe't (Tar zhay) has the Jakks Pacific 5 game TV unit with Ms. Pac Man
and Mappy for $10!! I saw this at WalFart for $17, but decided to wait.

How did I fare?

I got up on time and left about 4:40 am or so and went out with money in
me pocket. I got to We B Toys just after 5:15 am and went in. There's a
crowd (of course!) and I look for those MP3 players. I did a little
investigating for drivers and what brand it could be because you're not
told that bit from the ad. I get close and guess it's a Diamond Memory
model, and Windows 98 SE drivers can be had on the company's website.

I'm there no more than 6 minutes before finding out those players SOLD
OUT already. I guess a lot of other people thought a $30 1Gig USB drive
MP3 player was a good idea. (The iPod Shuffle is 1Gig and costs $74!!!
Not only over-priced due to being an Apple Computer product (all Apple
stuff is over priced anyway) but you need their iTunes software to do
anything with their iPod products. USB thumbdrive MP3 players? Plug it
in, copy files onto it, eject, and go. How much easier could it be with
a PC? Macs get viruses too !! Apple - don't lie about Windows!!))

tonikaku, I leave as soon as the We B Toys employee tells me that and I
head over to TarZhay. I want the Jakks Pacific videogame unit.

I'm there in line at 5:31 am. I have my MP3 player that I've got already
(not an Apple iPod variant but better) and wait it out. Building lights
come on, and the line soon starts moving. Idiot woman grabs a broken
cart and someone with security tells her to leave it because there's
plenty inside everywhere and the one she's messing with is broken
anyway!

Now... having carts everywhere is good, makes them handy to get almost
anywhere. It's also bad because if you needed to leave in an emergency,
there's these shopping carts taking up space!

Everyone seems to head for the electronics department. I score the Jakks
Pacific Ms. Pacman and et al game unit. Trying to find the 512MB
Dane-Elec drive proved a waste of time. They're ALL GONE in minutes!
Win98SE drivers for it were on the company's website, even though it
didn't seem to have an English version page, the same file worked for
other European languages.

So, ok. I really wanted a 1G thumbdrive anyway, the 512MB cheapy was a
bonus. So I'm 1 for 2.

Get back to the car, and decide next plan. Officemax has the 1G Sandisk
for $12.99. No rebates to mail in. Where's the store? Ah.. one on the
Strip. I go there, because there's a Best Buy there, too. Right next to
Officemax.

I get there, and eventually find the Sandisk. Plenty of them! I guess
office supply stores aren't exactly hot magnets for early shoppers. This
is all still before 7 am. It took me an hour to get out of Tarzhay. So
for my goals, I'm 2 for 3.

But hey, we're here. Let's check Best Buy. I decide to look for the
Lazytown soundtrack CD ($11.99 - yay! Bing Bang!) and then they're
advertised 1Gig MP3 USB Sandisk thumbdrive player for $34.99. THEY'RE
SOLD OUT, TOO! Argh!!

I head people were camping out in front of We B Toys the night before,
as early as 11 PM. Sheesh! One guy who was in line said he had gotten up
to do something, and when he got back, police removed the chair he had
been waiting in! Heh.

So in the end, I saved $30 on a 1G player that I couldn't buy. That goes
back to be saved. Ah well. I got Ibuprofen for mom, and got back just
after 8 am. I go on to work today 12-7 and then I have 8 days in a row
off. Vacations are nice. Paid ones - even better.

Someone keeps putting up incorrect info...

On Wikipedia, I have been diligently trying to keep people updated on
how to say Tamagotchi correctly. Here's the edit I put up, which was
changed since the last time I corrected it:

Name origin and pronunciation

The name combines the Japanese word for egg ("tamago") and the syllable
"chi" which denotes affection, so it could be taken to mean "loveable
egg". It is also a pun on both "wotchi" borrowed from English "watch",
as in the time piece) and "tomodachi" (Japanese for friend). Because
"tamago" is Japanese for egg, and "tomodachi" is Japanese for friend,
Tamagotchi could be taken to mean "egg-friend."

In Japanese, it is pronounced with a long "o" sound ta-ma-goh-chee. The
romanization of the name from the Japanese phonetics using the generally
accepted method of doubling the consonant sound of the final syllable
("chi") produces the "tchi" spelling. The "T" in this case is not to be
associated with the preceding long "o" and resulting in an incorrect
pronunciation. Alternatively, the name could have been romanized as
"tamago-chi" which preserves the correct Japanese pronunciation in
non-Japanese text.

And so they opened the box they found...

I got to do something I felt was really worth it. But I have to explain
why.

The local school system got a new Junior High built, even though they
don't call it that - the term they use I absolutely hate because it
makes no sense. I went to a Junior High, and that's what they'll always
be.

Anywho, the old building was required by passage of the levy that built
the new one to be demolished. And as such, during the demolition, a
little copper box time capsule was found in the 1931 cornerstone. Today
that was finally opened and the contents looked at during a public
ceremony on the former site of Hazen Junior High in Minerva, Ohio.

HJH as I'll abbreviate it, was where I went to 6, 7, and 8th grades. It
was the source of some of the worst moments during the time I went to
school.

Mr. Hudson's shop class where I never got many good grades due to
Hudson's own judgement, which he never explained anything. I want those
grades expunged from my record. I don't know why he didn't give me any
advice as to what I was doing wrong. HE NEVER EXPLAINED ANYTHING!

Miss Beck and her math class - I thought it was incredibly funny to say
to her "I have your Teacher of the Year Award" then blow a short
raspberry in front of her, then run back to my homeroom. She didn't
think it was funny. Miss Beck, I'm sorry about that, but when you're in
6th grade, the strangest things are funny. It took a lot of courage to
do that. I remember flicking a booger that landed on the open book page
of the boy in the row in front of me, and I laughed to myself when he
and his friend next to him noticed it and wouldn't touch it because they
didn't know what it was nor where it came from!

Mr. Wiley and his insistence on the boys taking showers after gym class.
Uh, no. I got out of that one. I remember him trying to get me to take a
shower after lunch one day because I wouldn't do that in front of the
other boys after PE. It took so much effort that my mom had to go to
the school to get me out of that one. BTW, the day Wiley tried to force
me into the showers - I snuck out the other door to the boys locker /
shower room. Up until that time, the showers were inoperative, but man
oh man the things that happened after they were fixed.

Mr. Swank the music teacher throwing chalk at students who don't pay
attention. The time I took a stupid chord organ to school. Mr. Cyders
nosing in on us doing a play in 6th grade and getting me in trouble.
Miss Glauss / Mrs. Syverson (same person) banishing me from 6th grade
Art class because I used to look forward to art in school and kept
asking "What are we doing today?" too many times when she showed up. I
don't know what her frickin' problem was. It took meeting Mr.
Butterworth in 8th grade before I liked art class again.

But there were a few good moments and teachers. Mr. Miller in 7th grade
English. Mr. James Hetrick in math. Mr. Walker in 8th grade English.
Mrs. Pearl in 6th grade homeroom. (I'm sorry about crying at the
Christmas party that year - you gotta understand even in 6th grade we're
still kids who will cry.) That one kid who traded stamps with me and I
ended up with a load of them when he forgot to take them back. Heh.

(Never mind the sheets of notebook paper that people blew their noses in
and then handed them to me to look at. kimochi warui!!)

My "career" in any school choirs ended in 5th grade. Thank god. I hated
it. I don't know why I was forced into doing that. It had to do with
Miss Homer / Mrs. Fugelberg (same person) wanting the boys to do
something stupid to "I'm going to wash that girl out of my hair" at the
edge of the stage. I didn't know nor was I given the option to say I
didn't want to do it. I got sick the day we were supposed to do this for
people. Nobody believed that. I was summarily kicked out of choir.

I hated Mr. Wiley and gym class most of all. We all thought he was gay.
I hated wearing gym shorts. To this day I won't wear shorts of any kind.
I also don't go swimming anywhere.

Mr. Marcenkoy (sp?) at the high school made my 2 years in PE bearable by
not asking me to do anything except keep an eye on the baskets. Thank
you. I hated PE. I liked Marcenkoy. About the only part of PE I liked
was when we went bowling. I sucked at it.

Anywho, as the box from the cornerstone was opened, they presented 1931
copies of local papers: The Alliance Review, the Canton Repository (full
name there), and The Minerva News and Clay City Times. Where is / was
Clay City? The papers all mentioned the laying of the cornerstone on the
front page.

The Masons and the Oddfellows appeared to have had a hand in making sure
this school was built. Letters from the faculty, superintendent, and
principal were in there. A copy of The Crescent from 1931 was in there.
All items were practically still brand new as if they were in there
yesterday. Explanations of the Depression were abound. People unable to
pay property taxes lost their properties to the bank, and the banks
unable to collect on the debt went under. It was a massive domino
effect. Nobody at the time knew when it would turn around, and the
Depression lasted for about 10 years or so. Then Roosevelt (The 2nd one)
passed the New Deal and of course World War II happened. One paper
mentioned something about Chinese Troops in 1931. As soon as the items
from the time capsule are on display at the historical society, I plan
to read those newspapers, hopefully.

Lots of interesting things were in there. The Newspapers were most
enticing. The Minerva News was a whopping 8 pages!! I think I'll try
re-creating the masthead using Word. ^_^

It seems in spite of that building being the source of the Worst times
of being in the local school system had the last word as voices from the
past let us know what their hopes and dreams for the future of the
children and the school would be. They added more onto the building
later on, only to have it torn down nearly 75 years later. At least my
last memories of the building would be those from that box, and they're
good ones at least. I got video of the ceremony of the opening of that
box. ^_^

I wonder what's in the cornerstone of Mary Irene Day Elementary, or if
West Elementary has one??

Hisashiburi desu nyo...

I guess the lack of additions means not much bad has been happening. And
for the most part of that, it's true.

My older sister went back on her "promise" to have me be Property
Manager and reduce our rent. Hey, I work a more or less full time job -
I can't help it if on my days off I want to do something for ME. I can't
help it if I get 40 hours on a paying job. Some of the things she did
when she visited in June were some of the same things I needed help
doing. I can't do it by myself!! The basement pretty much got the
cleaning out it needed, but I still want to get some sort of power
washer down there. I wouldn't store anything in there for the life of me
- not without a good water proofing and replacement of insulation and
other stuff.

July was pretty damn hot. After I came back from Anime North, I put in
the small air conditioner we have (from mom's room on Eucild mainly) at
the top of the stairs, and it did my room and the first floor pretty
well. Then in July, it got hot. and I mean HOT. I was starting to wonder
if I should have put the big air conditioner in the window instead. At
that time I put it in, Apartment B was still not rented out.

Oh yeah, Apartment B - rented out to a friend of one of the ladies (who
no longer is assigned to help my mom) who came to help my mom with
whatever she does. Turns out she's kinda odd. The terms Redneck and
Trailer Trash almost apply. Then she was seeing this son of one of her
clients. He doesn't have a job or a car. She's got a job and a car. Then
he was all of a sudden staying with her in Apartment B, and she turned
nasty right after that. Mom says tonight they had some sort of argument
and he left. Heh.

I've been getting some good hours at work. Got overtime during July 4th
week. Been finding more $3 and $4 anime DVDs at local Big Lots and
Dollar General stores. Finally got to see Angel's Tail and Galaxy Angel.
Added the first OVA DVD of Stratos 4 to my boxed set of the TV series.
Heh. July was a rather expensive month. I started to amass a bunch of
DVD+R media for my recorder. HP DVD+R disks are working pretty much 100%
of the time. I have so many tapes I want to backup on DVD... Ranma 1/2
collection, Card Captor Sakura fansubs, and Miracle Girls. I'm going to
need a lot of media for this.

Heck, some of the cheap anime DVDs I haven't even watched yet!

Been trying to get things together and get my passport application
started. I still don't have photos for it.

Did I mention being able to re-pack the first Wedding Peach DVD and
extras disk in a 2 disk thinkpack, then including the other 9 thinkpack
disks in the first artbox? Heh!!

Gotta start selling things on eBay. I have to clear out space in our
only extra room somehow - and it's going to be done MY way. My older
sister threw away whatever didn't sell at the "yardsale" which was
pretty much putting things out on a tarp, then throwing them away
without our permission when some of it didn't sell. She took the money
people left for mom's books!! What a ----ing rotten landlord my sister
is!!! I thought stuff like that was ILLEGAL.

Still lots to do. We haven't settled in yet - still.