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Ever had one of those work days that seem to drag on a bit longer than necessary?

I'm working the PM spot this week as the PM Supe is on vacation. I really enjoy the PM crew and we get along great, so the week has flown by... but woe is me, there was an upgrade scheduled for the portable computers the drivers use - and it always takes longer than the time it says it should take and involves at least one call to the company's tech support group.

So now I'm sitting here, waiting for "the next available representative" to take my call.

It's the last step of the installation and there's only one left to complete. I've sat here for over an hour while all of the other Data Information Acquiring Devices chirped and beeped and completed the upgrade like good little troopers, but they're all the newest version of this style Hand Held Terminal - and the one that's being bucky is Version 3 (the previous version).

So as I patiently waited for all of the other HHT's to complete the upgrade, the computer screen that displays their status had them all flashing from yellow to black to yellow to black (and so on) except for the DIAD3... who just sat there mocking me while the little square representing it on the computer screen remained a solid green.

But what's a guy to do? I locked the building up for the weekend and completed everything else work related that needed to be done. I checked the other blogs and saw Connie's is the only one that's been recently updated. I inspected my $125 Nike ZoomVomero3 running shoes and am quite pleased with myself for having worn off the grips on the bottoms and blown out the sides and lacerated the breathable mesh at least 7 times - and probably still haven't ran in them for over a mile in total combined running time.

There's a stain on the toe section of the right shoe. It's been there a while. I don't even remember what it's from but suspect it's probably chainsaw oil from last summer...

Ah! What is this? The call was a success! Version 3 is chirping away in the charging rack outside the office door! Now the download begins! (yellow black yellow black...)

... where was I?

Oh yeah. Chainsaw oil on shoe. And speaking of chainsaws, I need another one. The one I have is in great shape. It starts fine and runs fine and all that... but I have trees to remove and it's nice to have the extra one available to cut out the first one when the tree makes an unexpected shift and the blade gets stuck. (If you say you've never left a chainsaw sticking sideways out of a tree trunk while retrieving the back-up, you've either never used a chainsaw for any length of time, or you're lying.)

I like trees, and it pains me to have to cut them down, but the woods are storming my castle. Not exactly the same way Shakespeare's woods did (which would be significantly cooler) but you get the idea.

I've finally cleared the vegetation behind the house enough to walk all the way around it without pushing branches to the side, but I still have a long way to go and it's overdue in getting done. A couple of years ago, a few friends came over and we took out a number of the larger trees that could've posed a threat of root damage to the foundation of the house. The trunk of one of them was loaded with carpenter ants, and recently I've had some carpenter ants show up inside the house, so I suspect there's a nest...or swarm...or hive...or colony...or an Ant's Anonymous meeting ...taking place in the half-dead tree on the side of my garage. (Of course, the power line to the house also had to be right there.)

And there's other wildlife that's been trying to enjoy the comfort of being indoors.

(My blog. I can start a sentence with "and" if I want to. So there.)

Back when I put up the new gutters, a squirrel sat in the back gutter and burrowed his way through the facia board and into the garage. Thankfully there were no further unauthorized entry attempts made by this squirrel after I patched the hole - with tin - as I'm not sure how to operate the live trap a guy at work gave me. (For the squirrel's sake, that is. My next attempt would have been to put a piece of metal on either side of the hole that the squirrel would have had to squeeze between. I would've then hooked up the cables, turned the knob to "jump start", and fried the little rat-bastard the next time it came in.)

I recently arranged the garage again. (Bought Todd a new bike. Between the bikes and yard equipment it was getting hard to navigate the maze.) Plus, the next day a friend and I would be ripping out my shower, walls, and floor because the people that installed it wanted to save the extra $20 it would cost to use the right sheetrock under the tile. I was also arranging the garage for tool-usage space in case in case of rain.

As I was finishing up for the night, a mouse ran along the concrete ledge below the garage window. It stopped when it was even with me and looked me over. Well, I'm not one for having mice in the house - but it wasn't in the house - so I did the same in return.

I suppose we hung out there for about 15 minutes. It's little ears would perk up when I talked to it. It waited patiently while I dug out my phone and figured out how to zoom in. It wasn't at all bothered when I decided I didn't like the way the picture turned out and took the next picture with the camera held about 6 inches from it. Nope, it even waited for me to walk outside the garage door and bring in the cat. It calmly sat there with it's ears perking up as I talked to the cat, like so... "It's right phucking there! What the hell are you looking at?!" ...and then it started to feel sorry for me and my futile attempts to get the cat to understand that there was a motionless mouse right in front of where it was being held, so it helped me out by moving to get the cat's attention. (Down into the cinder blocks.)

Yup. Cute little thing. I don't know why people are so scared of them.

But like I said, I don't want 'em in the house... so I set 8 glue traps, 3 live traps, and 5 "snap" traps. Blech. There's NEVER just one mouse so I've had some luck...if you'd call it that. (No poison. Don't want dead mice stinking to high hell in the humid heat somewhere in a wall.)

Besides the whole new shower set-up and getting the garage in order, I've been busy outside as well. My spare firepit is about to become my primary firepit. My old one saw a lot of use while I knocked back the shrubbery (Monte Python would be proud) with the old hand scythe like some Crocodile Dundee bushman, or Chainsaw Massacred my way through the Living Dead trees. The last time I emptied the ashes there was daylight showing through a few spots.

I had my first visit from a vandal since moving here. This person broke solar lighting on both sides of the path and smashed the glass to a seperate solar light closer to the patio. They also, um...moved?...the marble gazing ball I had in the back part of the property. (Not sure if it got stolen or rolled down the hill somewhere.)

I'll admit that I find this a bit annoying. I can more-or-less fix the path lights and have 5 more of the solar lights like the one that got smashed that have never been put in the ground. I even have a spare marble gazing ball that's never been taken out of the box. But I shouldn't have to replace this stuff.

If it happens again I might have to Gladiator/300 someone with my Garden Claw Red. ;)

Oh, and I picked up one of those Mantis garden tillers like you see on TV. 4-cycle Honda engine, lightweight, and handy as can be for areas you can't get at with a rear-tine tiller. It's the more expensive version, but if you've thought about getting one I'd say you wouldn't have buyers remorse after doing so! (This promotional statement not authorized or paid for by any political candidate or the makers of motorized yard equipment, or their affiliates. Cheap bastards.) :)