At the new job sites like blogger.com are filtered so I can't make quick posts during breaks like I used to. I miss doing that because it was a good way to get something out of my head and then refocus on whatever I was doing.

Now when I get home from work writing a post falls very low on my priority list. By the time I bring in the mail, go through the mail, change clothes, run any errands we may have, do any chores we may have, pay bills, etc., I am not in much of a mood to sit down and write.

At least a few times each day something will pop into my head and I say to myself I want to write about that, but it just have not been able to get around to it in the evenings, or I forget about what I wanted to write about.

I just got ANOTHER birthday gift in the mail today! It is a Lexar JumpDrive Sport 1 GB USB flash drive. I love the form factor of the Sport. The "cap" is made of flexible rubber and covers the whole drive. It is also what attaches to the lanyard. Every other drive has the hook attached to the drive itself. If you need to use the drive you have to take your lanyard off to plug in the drive. Having the rubber holder design lets you remove the drive and plug it in while leaving the cap on the lanyard. Thanks Mom-In-Law!



I had a JumpDrive Sport that was only 512 MB, but I lost it a few months ago. I felt naked without it, and TurboTax (or it might have been Office Depot) had a promotion of a free USB drive with the purchase of their software. The drive was only 128 MB, but it didn't cost me anything. I will give this drive to Sheri to keep in her purse.

In 2005 I was self employed and made quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS, but I didn't think to do the same for the State. I got a bill in the mail yesterday from the State for a little over $100 for a penalty for not paying taxes to them all last year. Ouch.

I was asked to sit in on the monthly board meeting at work today. That was pretty cool.

I am starting some sunflowers in little pots on the kitchen window sill right now. They are all about 4 inches tall and looking pretty good. They each have four good sized leaves right now and are almost holding themselves up. They are resting a little bit on the window, but that might be because they are all leaning that way to get more sun. If they were outdoors and the sun was overhead they would probably all be pointing straight up. Last year I planted sunflowers in the garden and the rabbits ate every last one of them as soon as they were only an inch or two high. I really want to do an Elmer Fudd on those little bastards.

I wanted to cut the grass and then go for a bike ride with Sheri after work tonight, but didn't have the energy. Maybe this weekend.

I am pretty sure I am going to buy this soon. It is the Garmin StreetPilot i2 GPS navigator. It is the size of a baseball. Will run from a cigarette lighter or two AA batteries. The amazing part is it only costs $240. All of the reviews I have read said it performs as well, and in some cases better, than the built-in units that cost $2,000 - $3,000. It comes with street level detail of the entire United States on a DVD, and you can download map updates from the Internet when they become available. We bought a Magellan 750M GPS navigator when we first moved to Chicago and we have gotten A LOT of use out of it, but it is about the size of a small laptop. Plus the maps are a little out of date and not updateable. With this baseball-sized one we can just drop it into Sheri's purse and use it in any car.


We should probably treat the other half of the garage this weekend with the water proofing. The first half did not turn out the way I expected. I wanted a shiny shellacked look. Instead it looks like plain old concrete. The bottle says it penetrates and protects the concrete down to 1/2 inch.