I have not really posted in a long time and things kind of build up, so this is just kind of a random dump.

I feel fortunate to have always had jobs I enjoy and don't dread going to every day.

Sheri stopped by my office late Friday afternoon and I walked her around to introduce her to people I work with. I was a little surprised that a few of them gushed to her about me. I expect "It's so nice to finally meet Brad's wife." Not "It has been great having Brad here. He has made my life so much easier. He is never in a bad mood. Etc. etc. etc." Of course it was nice to hear though.

We are dog sitting again. Today we took him to walk around our downtown and park area. I forgot how approachable you become when you have a dog. I don't think we were walking more than five minutes before we were stopped by a woman asking if she could pet him. I think for the few hours we were out with him people stopped to talk on average about every 10 – 15 minutes.

On the way home I remembered that we still have a good amount of hummus left but are out of pita bread. We stopped at Trader Joe's just for some pita and I forgot that they have a fantastic soy pita bread. (I think I even wrote about it before but I forget when.) It tastes better than some regular pita I have had in the past. Of course it is very high in protein and fiber and has fewer net carbs than regular pita. Just delicious.

I don't know why pre-made hummus in the store always seems so expensive. I little 8 ounce container will sell for over $3.00. For that much I can make a couple pounds of hummus at home, and it will probably taste better.

The hardest part about making hummus for the average American is they don't keep tahini in the fridge. Tahini is just ground up sesame seeds and is very similar to peanut butter. Do yourself a favor and buy a big jar and keep it in the fridge. I think hummus is about a near perfect food and I can make a meal on a couple pieces of pita and lots of hummus. High in protein, fiber, and good fats, but it is also delicious. I especially like it in the summer because it is cool and refreshing.

I found a neat shareware program that will set the clock on your computer with your GPS called Tardis 2000. They use it on the International Space Station to keep their computers on time. (Yes, you can get a GPS fix in space.) I have it running on my laptop and it works great. It also acts as an NTP server so other computers on your network can get their time from that computer so you only need one GPS receiver for your network.

It is a little pet peeve of mine when people say "GPS coordinates" or "GPS location" or "GPS latitude and longitude". They are still coordinates and locations and lats and longs, regardless if you got it through GPS or not. All you have to say is coordinates, etc.

I think I am getting close to buying this barometer. It is the only one I have been able to find that graphs out the barometric pressure over the last 6, 12, or 24 hours.



We are getting the walk-way that leads from our driveway to the front porch mud-jacked on Wednesday. It has settled and become uneven. They will drill strategic holes in the sidewalk and then pump concrete under pressure into the hole until it lifts the slabs back to the correct position.

At work I can apply unused sick days to my retirement seniority. So if I have half a year of unused sick days, I can retire half a year early.

My tomato plants are doing great. Loaded with tomatoes but none of them are ripe yet. This was the first year I had a tough time finding suitable tomato plants. I could find single plants in a large pot for $1.60. I am used to six smaller plants in a flat for about $1.60. I think we finally found our tomato plants this year at Menards.

So that I don't waste any tomatoes when I get sick of eating them (Sheri is not a huge tomato fan) I think I will cook them down into sauce and then freeze it. Every week or so I will make a batch with whatever I have left over and then just put it into a freeze bag and freeze for later. It kills me to through out moldy tomatoes that have been sitting on the kitchen counter for too long.