Dave's Daily

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Payday!

ChaChing! It's Payday! But... where did all my money go? :-)

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new software bundle today that came out by Adobe. It's the Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements package. For what types of videos I do, I don't think I need the very expensive full blown packages, so these stripped down versions should do well. I also ordered a Western Digital 250Gig external harddrive for video storage. I didn't want to tie up the laptop's harddrive for video stuff.. plus I will probably need the extra room and portability. I may want to move video files between my system at home and the church video system. That'll be handy. Can't wait until it all arrives! :-)

Since we're going to be gone this weekend, we're having trouble finding someone to look after our dog. We called the vet for boarding, but they're all full up as well as another kennel here in town. Going to try talking to the neighbor girl as she offered to do so when we first moved in. Hopefully that will work out.

Blessings!

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Who Turned Up The Heat?

Man, it's even hotter today... Close to 100 with heat indexes at 105! I'll be glad when this heatwave is over...

Got all the pics scanned in (except for one girl who lives out of town and they are mailing her pics this week), so I'll start putting the actual videos together tonight for the Missionettes Honor Star crowning. It's always a tedious and stressful process, but I usually get a nice gift from the Missionettes when it's all over. Last year I got a gift card for Red Lobster, which was really nice and allowed my wife and I to have a nice date out.

Got the yard mowed last night too, not that it needed mowing very badly since we haven't had any rain lately, but it's just a weekly ritual I guess... :-)

Blessings!

Monday, June 27, 2005

Heat Wave

Wow! Has it been hot lately! Even though it's "only" been in the low 90's... The humidity has been the killer! The next few days are suppose to be upper 90's, close to 100.... Thank the Good Lord for air-conditioning! I may try to mow the yard tonight, but not until the sun goes down! :-)

Had a pretty good weekend. I put together photo montage videos for the church's Missionette Honor Star Crowning. It's a little video of 10-12 pics for each girl showing her life from baby to now. For the last few years, there have only been about 2-4 girls getting crowned. This year, there are eight! The actual crowning event is July 17th, but I'm going to be out of town for a few weekends before that, so I'm not going to have much time to get these videos done. I'm already about 2/3's done getting the pics all scanned in at least. One girl hasn't given me her pictures yet, so hopefully that won't cause a problem... It'll get done... It always does... but it sure is a hair-pulling experience every year... :-)

Blessings!

Friday, June 24, 2005

Meet Me in St. Louis

Just got back from a three day Media Ministry convention in St. Louis. It was put on by ChurchMedia.Net. They covered all kinds of topics of video production, graphics creation, copyright issues, etc. There was times of praise and worship in the general sessions too. It was just a nice relaxing time to learn and meet new people who are involved in what I do at the church.

It was also nice to get back home... but I didn't like having to come in to work today though... I hate all the catch-up stuff that it all entails...

Blessings!

Monday, June 20, 2005

Father's Day Wrapup

I thankfully survived the weekend (well, only one day actually) being alone with the kids while my wife was out of town. After dropping off my wife with her friend to head out of town, I took the kids to a local park. It was still pretty hot, even at 5pm, so we didn't stay too long. We headed over to my sister's house for dinner. They were celebrating her husband's and his brother's birthdays. So we had a nice visit and great dinner to boot! :-)

Saturday, we didn't do a whole lot. We played outside, watched some videos, etc. My wife got back home around 7pm.

Sunday was Father's Day. After church we went to a local catering service who setup an "All You Can Eat" buffet. Man, it was awesome. Chicken, BBQ Pork Steaks, BBQ Brisket, BBQ Ribs, mashed potatoes, grave, corn-on-the-cob, salad, desserts, etc. etc. etc. I could hardly eat supper from still being full from lunch!

Tomorrow through Thursday, I'm going to be attending a Media Ministry Conference in St. Louis. There are going to be classes/sessions on for all areas of TV Ministry stuff. I'm really looking forward to it, plus the church is paying for it... Even better!!

Blessings!

Friday, June 17, 2005

Early Start to the Weekend

I get to take off at noon today from work! Whoo Hoo! My wife is headed out this weekend to attend a Women of Faith conference, so since she has to leave town early this afternoon, I'm taking off to be able to watch the kids. I plan on taking them to a nice park this afternoon and then possibly going to visit my sister for dinner.

Oh, and I started yet another "project." Since one of my hobbies is genealogy, I saw a plea for help on the state's archive's website for volunteers to transcribe the older death certificate records into electronic format. I signed up and was sent a packet of 50 pages of names/locations/dates to fill into an Excel spreadsheet. There's about 50 names per page, so... let's see... that makes about 2500 names to fill out... It'll probably take me the rest of the year to finish it, but hopefully, it'll help someone in their research in the future. Hey, I've already got 2 1/2 pages done in just a few days... :-)

Blessings!

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Party!

My parents came down to help celebrate my daughter's third birthday. I put up some balloons and we got cupcakes and icecream to celebrate. We had a nice spagetti dinner beforehand too.

It was good to get in a nice visit with my parents as they are heading out today for a European bus tour. They'll be visiting London, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belguim, and France. They'll be gone for a whole month. I tried to let them take me along as a baggage boy, but no dice... :-)

My daughter got a few nice toys and games, so she'll be happy for awhile.

My wife called me today saying that my daughter didn't do so well at her 3-year-old Dr.'s checkup. She (my daughter, not my wife) wouldn't cooperate with the nurses/dr. and was crying, and carrying on. Oh boy...

Got a haircut right after work today, so better get things finished up so I can get out of here on time...

Then, it's off to home where I get to mow the yard tonight... :-)

Blessings!

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

More Birthdays!

Today we celebrate the 3rd birthday of my daughter! She's so cute, but she's really getting an attitude as well... Definiately comes from her mother's side... HA! My parents are coming down and we're going to have a little party tonight.

It's also Flag Day, so I got my flag out to proudly wave!

And, it's also the 230th birthday/anniversary of the U.S. Army...

Finally, we're getting a break from all the rain... It's going to be a very nice week with sunny skies and temps in the low 80's... Nice! Now I just gotta get the yard mowed!

Blessings!

Monday, June 13, 2005

Rain Rain Go Away!

For most of last week and continuing into today, it has rained quite a bit! We had a real dry spell for awhile, and we really needed the rain, but now we're getting too much! And from the weather report, looks like we're in for it again tonight too. Tomorrow is suppose to be sunny, which will be a nice break! :-)

Due to all the rain, I haven't been able to mow my yard. Since it was so dry, it wasn't growing much, but now it's starting to look a little "wild" out there... With tomorrow's weather rain break, I was going to mow then, but our daughter's 3rd birthday is tomorrow, so looks like it'll be Wednesday before I can get it done... IF it doesn't rain again... :-)

Vacation Bible School starts tonight and runs through Friday at our church. Thankfully, I don't have to do anything with it this year! My wife will be helping one of the teachers, but at least she doesn't have to do every night.

Blessings!

Friday, June 10, 2005

Birthday Girl!

Happy 41st Birthday Sweetie!

Did I ever mention that I married an older woman? :-)

Congrats and many more! Are you ready for your birthday spanking now? :-)

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Money Pits

As with anything, things tend to start to break down. As mentioned before, our A/C was low (5 lbs low) on freon. Got the bill today... The freon plus the one hour labor (but we did have a $10 off coupon for first time clients!!) cost $114.

Last night when we got into the car to head to church, it wouldn't start. Dead battery. It wasn't completely dead as the dash lights and stuff came on, but it engine wouldn't turn over. Since it was in the garage parked right next to the truck, it was just a simple jump to get it started again. We threw the jumpercables in the trunk and headed on to church. Thankfully, it held the charge it got driving to church and it started after church was over (barely). This morning I called a car shop to get a new battery (plus it was time for an oil/lube/filter change anyway) . The car almost started, but couldn't quite make it, so I had to jump it again. Dropped off the car, got a ride to work, and will be leaving soon to go pick it up. I'm sure it'll be close to another $100 for this repair job too.

After we had got home from church, I was going to just do the battery replacement myself, but things are so compact in cars anymore, I couldn't figure out a way to get the battery out from where it was located. How frustrating... I just hooked up all the cables and decided to let someone else do it. Ugh.

Oh, and due to not enough kids being able to go to the Royal Rangers Pow-Wow, we're now not going camping this weekend. Actually, I'm kind of glad. I wasn't really looking forward to going anyway. So, now I've got to come up with something to do tomorrow night to help celebrate my wife's birthday! :-) Any ideas anyone?

Blessings!

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Birthday Dinner

Last night, we got a babysitter for the kids and I took my lovely wife (and very beautiful I might add) out to Red Lobster for her birthday. Her birthday isn't really until Friday (the 10th), but as my son and I will be going camping with the Royal Ranger group over the weekend, we decided to celebrate a little early. The dinner was very good and afterwards, we went to Target to pick up a few things. It was so nice to just be able to take our time without the kids bugging us. HA!

My wife had taken the kids to the swimming pool earlier in the day yesterday which pretty much wiped them out too. So they went to bed right on time for the babysitter after watching a few VeggieTales videos. Thankfully, the babysitter actually likes VeggieTales, so at least she's not having to suffer through them. :-)

Blessings!

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

All is Cool Now...

The A/C repair guy had to put in 5lbs of freon in the system, but everything is now running cool again. We ran the A/C last night and it was feeling pretty good by bedtime. I'm sure there is probably a leak in the system, but it's a lot cheaper to just keep recharging every year than replacing the coils...

Seems like a lot of problems crept up today here at work. Strange ones that take a lot of looking and researching to figure out. Oh well... Keeps me focused I guess and doesn't let boredom creep in. That's good... right?

Blessings!

Monday, June 06, 2005

Happy 1st Blog Birthday

Wow... Has it been a year already since I started this thing? I can't actually believe I've kept it up to tell you the truth... ha! The actual "anniversary" date was June 3rd, so I missed posting on the actual day, but that day was really busy at work and I didn't have time. But, I didn't miss it by much...

It's been getting hotter here lately so on Saturday, we finally decided to turn on the A/C. The air coming out wasn't very cold... or even cool... Finally got a repair guy out today and we were 5 lbs of freon low... Seems like this always happens... But, talking to various friends, seems like everyone is having to add freon on a yearly basis...

Saturday, we went to an Open House for a step-niece that graduated from high school. She graduated from my old high school... So that was pretty neat. Afterwards, we stopped by the local mall while there in town since the mall there is much bigger than our local mall. I found some nice casual shirts and some "Spring" ties as my wife was always complaining that all my ties were "Wintery." :-)

This next weekend is a big one with the Royal Ranger Pow-Wow campout, my wife's birthday, etc. But more about all that as it happens...

Blessings!

Thursday, June 02, 2005

Thor's Day

Well, Thor can have his Thursday back.... We're still dealing with an unknown network problem here at work. All of IBM's horses and men (and women) can't put "Humpty" together again... Anyway, it will someday be resolved and we'll go on to the next challenge...

We got our new UPS (uninteruptable power supply) units in for our TV ministry control room at the church, so last night I got those installed and so now I feel a little safer on poweroutages/spikes.

School hasn't even been out a week yet and already my son is saying "I'm bored!" My wife took him to the library on Tuesday and then he played with a friend from down the street for most of the day yesterday. At least we have the Royal Rangers Camprama, Swim Lessons, Kids Camp, Vacation Bible Schoo, etc. to look forward to. Maybe we can sneak in a little family vacation in there too.

Blessings!