9.1.2004 - 9.30.2004

September 26, 2004: Welcome to Fall in New England, it often has better weather than the Summer.  We have had a great week and weekend.  Lisa spent the week at school working with the new students for their orientation so she put in a few late nights.  It was nice to be able to spend the weekend together with no plans.  We did some errands on Saturday and took care of a couple things on the list for around the house, and then had a beer and watched a movie last night, it was awesome.  We got the new oven hood installed so the only light that doesn't work now is the ceiling fan in the dining room, not a very big priority but we'll get to it.  I made  a run to the dump to get rid of a bunch of garbage and the old hood, fun as always.  We made it to the famous Belchertown fair for a quick walk through.  We rode our bikes there, got some junk food, watched the very thrilling Ox pulls, and then rode back home to enjoy the weather.  Seeing as it was so nice we took Isis down to the lake for a swim, Lisa even joined her in the water this time.  If Lisa would go under water for a second or two Isis would drop what she was doing and take off in the direction of Lisa, we think she wanted to rescue her.  They were both in the water for a while, it was really warm but not enough for me to get in.  The dog hasn't moved since this afternoon.  Here she is returning the ball from a long fetch down the beach, if you throw one long and shallow she won't run on the dry beach to get there easier, she run through the water to get it, and if she can't find it she will stick her head completely under the water to look for it, weird.  Our landlord closed the pool today, we can't wait until next summer when we actually have time to enjoy it and hopefully have a couple "drink by the pool" parties.  After all the fun today I got to change the oil, rotate the tires, and clean the rear brakes on Lisa's car, it's been a while since it's had any love.  Now we just get to relax a bit before the week starts again.  Next weekend is Tad and Danielle's wedding and the Bavarian Autosport BMW show, hopefully the weather is as good as it was this weekend.  Dave and Jeanie should be arriving Tuesday and hanging out for a few days before the wedding.  We'll try to get some good pictures to put up next week.  Lisa's parents are toughing out another Hurricane in Daytona Beach, they have made it though the last three with only a few scratches, hopefully this one will treat them just as well.  Have a great week. 

September 21, 2004:  Time is flying by as always here at jay and lisa dot org.  It’s Fall already, feels like Summer just started.  Strangely we both feel like our Summer started when we moved out of Worcester a month ago, weird.  We had a pretty good week and weekend.  I got the new trailer registered in quite possibly the world’s fastest trip to the DMV, 7 minutes including the wait!  Lisa got the last few boxes unpacked and we were able to store away a few things that we won’t need for a while.  The garage is all organized, cleaned up, and just about ready to start parking the cars inside for winter.  I still have to move the Rincon and trailer into their winter location but I’m hoping to get one or two more rides in before snow flies.  They just finished installing new parking lot gates at work, they have this sign on them.  We laugh about it every day and I wanted to share the fun, that poor stick figure, always getting a beating!  We got Isis a new crate, she stays in it while we’re out now and the old one was a little too small. Today is her first day alone in it; hopefully she is more comfortable in this one than she looked in the old one.  I went up to NH for the weekend and rode the Rincon about 60 miles with my Dad, Gregg, and his father-in-law and brother-in-law.  We had a good ride until I noticed oil spraying out of a crack in the clutch cover of his machine, that shortened the trip.  It turned out that the crack had been sucking water into the engine all day and the oil looked more like iced coffee.  Gregg has a connection that should be able to weld the crack. A couple oil changes to get the water out and we will be back out there again.  Last night we started to look into why the dryer takes 4 times longer to dry the clothes than it used to.  I figured there was some lint build up in the vent but never thought that it was 90% clogged like we found.  It’s a good thing we finally checked it out, that can be a very dangerous situation, easily could cause a fire.  I still have to replace a couple of light fixtures and figure out what we are going to do with the bedroom walls but we are almost there.  Dave and Jeanie should be stopping by for a visit next week on their way to Tad and Danielle's wedding, we always have fun hanging out with them.  There is a fair in our little town this weekend so we're going to do some local stuff, should be a nice relaxing weekend.  Lisa starts her first rotation next week at a CVS near Worcester, for some reason they couldn't put her in the CVS that's under 1 mile from our house, but it's only for 5 weeks.  Well, that's enough for today, I'm going to try to get some pictures of our house up this week so keep watch for them.  Have a great week!

September 12, 2004:  So things are starting to settle down for us, we are almost entirely finished unpacking and getting the house set up.  I have a couple more things to repair here in the house, the hood over the kitchen stove doesn't work so I have to replace it, and the ceiling fan in the dining room needs to be replaced as well, it sounds like a 25 year old electric mixer and the light doesn't work.  I had to change the light fixture in the bathroom above the sink, it didn't work either.  The people that lived here before must not have been big fans of light, the bathroom, kitchen, front door, garage, dining room and even the refrigerator lights didn't work, weird.  We went to Gregg and Kristen's new house Saturday of the holiday weekend for Matthew's 1st birthday party, it was cool, he got lots of new clothes and toys and even got to eat cake.  We got to eat steak tips and drink beer and it was awesome, he was plenty happy with the strained carrots he had before the cake, doesn't sound so good to me.  After the party we drove up to my parent's place in NH to hang out for the rest of the weekend.  I met Kevin on Sunday morning to do some 4 wheeling, we rode about 55 miles through some pretty crazy stuff, it was a lot of fun.  After we got home Lisa and I stopped by Home Depot to pick up my very own trailer, I've been using my brother's to move around the Rincon and he needs it back.  For some reason we thought we would be able to load onto Dave's trailer by ourselves and get it home, not a chance that the two of us could lift a 450 lb anything.  They were nice enough to load it for us with a forklift, that was really awesome but it sat in the garage for three days while I figured out how to get it off of the trailer.  I made a few changes to make it better and installed some tie downs to hold the Rincon.  I have to go to the DMV on Monday to get the plates for it, that should be a great time!  Lisa is on break for a few weeks so she is trying to finish up her unpacking, she was way too busy to do it the last few weeks with finals and all, now we will be able to get the last of the boxes out of the garage.  Isis is doing well, she still gets nervous when we leave but she has been staying in her cage when we're out for a few weeks now.  She is getting older but still picks things up quick, she knows the drill when we leave, she goes right into her cage when we ask her to.  We're quite sure she doesn't like it but knows it's the rules.  This weekend has been a nice relaxing one, finishing up with the unpacking, organizing the garage, and making a run to the dump to get rid of three weeks worth of recycling.  I know it doesn't sound like fun but trust us, it's been a great weekend.  Well, enjoy the week, we'll talk again soon.