2.1.2005 - 2.28.2005

February 28, 2005:  The snow is coming, another storm that is going to stop everything.  People at work were leaving early and it's not supposed to start snowing until after 8pm!  I still can't believe that these people have lived here in New England their entire lives.  So the weather man says we're supposed to get up to 12" here at our place and even more where Lisa has to drive for class in the morning.  She's hoping for a snow day but not holding her breath.  We had a pretty boring weekend, but that seems to be our favorite kind lately.  Friday night we watched Ray and liked it very much, some parts were a little sad, we didn't know much about his past, especially not the bad parts of it.  I worked in the morning on Saturday and Lisa and I had lunch at our favorite pub here in town in the afternoon.  We sat around that night watching TV and crashed early.  I worked on the wheeler a little on Sunday, tested out the winch and realized that the hawse fairlead was already starting to fray the synthetic cable.  I ended up taking that fairlead off and putting the roller on, we'll see if that works better.   Summer won't be here fast enough, getting a little time in the garage made me even more psyched for that season to come around.  The company that makes my trailer sent me a box full of hub parts last week after I sent an email to their customer service department.  I just got it last fall and it already had some issues with one of the hubs, they were nice enough to send the parts to fix it, not the kind of service you find often these days.  I'm off to Rochester again this weekend, more work on the tattoo, we're going to start with some color this time.  Maybe I'll get another update in before the weekend, if not, have a good one.

February 25, 2005:  Hello again, it's just been one of those weeks here, but it's Friday so we're glad that it's coming to an end.  Lisa has been studying like a maniac all week again, she has two very tough tests today, something her school said would never happen, good thing nobody believes what they say anyway.  The man beat me this week, the Inspection Man.  I had to get my Element inspected because it was 3 months overdue, I went to a shop that a friend recommended, they would overlook my slightly illegal window tint he said.  So I went 30 minutes out of my way, got lost three times, and they failed me for that anyway and found a burned out fog light too.  Not only did they fail me but they took my old sticker off and replaced it with a big red R sticker for "rejected".  Now have a big flag that says my car has something illegal about it, great.  I spent 2 hours scraping the tint off the other night and now I have to go back to that place for a second try at passing, I wouldn't be surprised if they find something else wrong with it.  Last weekend I ordered a helmet for my wheeler, I've been using my brother's and it's way too tight on my big head.  On it's short trip from CT to my house it somehow ended up in IL.  It's still there and they told me we just have to wait and see where it goes next, they can't put a trace out on it until it's considered "lost".  That's a great plan, they could accidentally send your package to the other side of the world and as long as they knew where it was, there is nothing you can do about it, UPS is awesome!  I ordered a handlebar mount for my GPS to take on rides and that got messed up too, it got here in short time, but they sent the wrong item, I guess I can't win this week.  I did have my first review at work though and it ended up going very well, although I don't know what I will get as a raise for a couple more weeks.  I don't believe it will be all that much but I can't complain, I haven't worked at a place that has given raises in years!  We got some snow last night, the weather man predicted more than we got but that's alright with us, as long as we got some, maybe we will get some snow shoeing in this weekend.  I'm working a little overtime tomorrow, which feels normal because it was a short week anyway, it probably won't feel so normal next week though.  Oh, before I forget, I set up new email accounts for Lisa and I, jay@jayandlisa.org and lisa@jayandlisa.org, you can just click the email links on the left as always.  Well I guess that's it for today, have a great weekend. 

February 20, 2005:  Just a quick update tonight.  I just got back from my latest trip to Rochester, new pictures of the tattoo are on the left.  We got a bunch of the black work done, and it wasn't near as bad as the line work was last time.  We figure it will be done in three more sittings.  That's cool because I'm starting to get a little tired of driving out there every two weeks.  Its going to be a piece that makes you say "damn" when you see it, Jet is doing an awesome job and I can't wait to see it finished.  Lisa has another tough week coming up, two big exams so she's been studying all weekend and will be for the rest of the week.  We are both off tomorrow so she will be able to study a bunch and I will try to get some stuff done around the house.  Isis has been doing better lately, she has had more good days than bad ones, lets hope she keeps getting better.  It looks like we are supposed to get some snow tonight and through the day tomorrow, probably not enough to do any snowshoeing but maybe enough to take the Rincon out in the yard for a few laps.  I guess that's it for now, we'll talk again soon.

February 14, 2005:  Happy Valentine's Day!!  Another crazy week gone, one more closer to summer!  For some reason, this week was the first one that I have started to think about summer.  I normally like the winter just fine but for some reason I felt like it's time to go.  Maybe it's because the days have been longer lately, or because it rained instead of snowed last week, or maybe it's just because we're halfway through February, or maybe it's because I got food poisoning from Wendy's, spent two days in the bathroom and had nothing else to think about, I'm sure it was one of those.  I'm sure we'll get a few more big snowstorms so that should take care of the wishful thinking.  We had a pretty mellow weekend as always, went out for dinner with Emily and Paul on Friday at our favorite pub and then had a few drinks back at the house, it was a late night for us, after midnight, a big change from my usual 9pm bedtime.  Lisa had a rough week of exams last week, she had two on one day and another the day before, she really needed the weekend to recover from that mess. We went snowshoeing again on Saturday at that park up the road, there was a lot more snow left than we expected, more than Isis expected too, she took a couple of nose dives when her front paws broke through the top layer and sank down 2 feet, she's tough, she can take it!  It was a good workout for us though, it's nice to get out of the house and enjoy the somewhat nice weather we have had the last few days.  It would be nice to get a couple of real nice days, so I can get the cars cleaned up, we're starting to have trouble finding them in parking lots because the salt has changed the colors to a flat white.  I'm off to Rochester again next weekend, time for another sitting on the tattoo, should be all done soon, keep your eye out for more pics too.  Hopefully this time I will be able to catch up with Luc for a beer or two, it's been a while since we've done that.  I will probably try to catch up with a couple people at Dan's Crafts again too, maybe they will actually be at work this time.  Well, I guess that's it for now, have a great week. 

February 6, 2005:  Another busy weekend, Rochester was cool as always, all but one thing.  Our favorite sporting goods store Galyans's closed, it was bought out by our least favorite competitor of theirs, Dick's.  They have ruined the store and took all the good stuff out to be liquidated, I did pick up a nice camelback for a pretty good price but everything else was mostly picked through.  I went out to the Dinosaur BBQ with Brian, Hillary, and Emile last night for dinner, that food is sooooo good, well worth the 2 hour wait for a table.  We went there once before we moved with some friends and ran up an $80 bar tab while just waiting for our table, they have a bar in the parking lot in the summer to keep you busy while waiting for your table.  It's not the most classy place in the city but the food makes up for it, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.  Anyway, I also got some work done on my tattoo, you can see the updated pictures on the left.  I'm going back again in a couple weeks and I'll be updating the pictures as I get more completed.  I made it by Dan's Crafts again to visit a couple people, they ended up being off that day again, maybe next time I will be able to run into them.  Lisa has a killer week of exams coming up, I do what I can to help but it doesn't seem like much when she studies so many hours and all I do is come home from work and cook, clean, do the dishes and go to Dunkin' Donuts to pick up coffee.  We changed our home phone number and the old one will no longer work at the end of this month so drop us an email and we'll get you the new number.  Have a great week, we'll talk again soon.

February 1, 2005:  It was a crazy weekend for us, we went out for dinner with some of Lisa's friends from school and we went snowshoeing with the dog too, a big change from our usual sitting around the house.  The weather was great, about 25 degrees and pretty sunny.  It was a pretty good workout too, the new snowshoes and poles worked awesome, much different than I was used to, the old wood and woven rawhide kind.  These did very well at climbing, which the old type didn't at all.  We took a couple pictures, they are posted to the left.  Isis had a lot of fun but wasn't all that excited about running though the snow that was almost over her back in some places, she kept going though, and ran in our tracks whenever she could.  None of us get all that much exercise in the winter, now that we have some snow I can take her out for runs more often, we can even go out on the frozen lake down the street, lots of people are out there every weekend, riding snowmobiles, skating and ice fishing.  Work has been crazy this week, a project that we have been working on for the last few months may get scraped and we might have to rush a project to replace it.  We designed this system to be the most secure that it could be, a small hand full of executives think it's too hard to use so they are going to make us change it.  Job security I guess.  So Lisa has a bunch of tests coming up, she is going to be real busy these next couple weeks, she's down the hall in the office studying right now.  Time to crash, keep warm.