It’s time for our Third Annual Heat up the Pool Day. The water temp when we started (bright and early at 7:11am!) was a chilly 71 degrees. By 11am, we had 81 degrees and it was time to go SWIMMING!!!
Heat Up The Pool Day goes back to April 1st 2005 when Diane mistakenly turned on the heat to the pool instead of the hot tub. We closed the office and went swimming for the rest of the day.
Here is a short video of Lily with her new Shamu. We swam ALL DAY! Lily even skipped her nap. We had a lot of fun!
March 30, 2007 at 8:50 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
Wow – sure seems like it’s been a long week. And, in case you haven’t heard – it’s our Third Annual Heat Up the Pool Weekend! I should make teeshirts or something. Lily has been talking about it all morning. She actually got in the pool last weekend and swam about half way across before she decided it was too cold. The water has been at about 76 degrees. I think I’ve found 81 or 83 to be my minimum temperature. Not sure what we’ll heat it to this weekend.
You know all the stuff you learned in high school and quickly deleted from your brain? Well, I apparently didn’t delete all of the periodic table of elements and I caught a supplier confusing Na with K. Could have proven to be a costly error too.
Lily had a babysitter yesterday morning. She spent the first twenty minutes telling Ms. Sarah all of our dirty little secrets around the house. Fortunately, the worst thing Lily had on us was something about the cats and their litter box.
I’m starting to miss football. I just can’t get into hockey or basketball. I give baseball a chance for a couple of weeks, but then I get bored with it.
I did see that the NFL owners are expected to vote on some rule changes – one of which would penalize players for spiking the football.
Wow – and I thought our local numbers were high… Atlanta is even worse than Tallahassee! Better off not even coming anywhere near until we can erradicate all the trees.
March 28, 2007 at 9:51 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
The Partners in Allergy and Asthma Care say that 50 grains of oak pollen per cubic meter is all that is needed to cause a allergic reaction and lots of sneezing. The Tampa area has pollen numbers right now near 1,000 grains per cubic meter.
March 27, 2007 at 2:22 pm
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
I’ve set a new record today. I’ve issued a record net dollar amount in purchase orders for a single day. In fact, I’ve probably bought more today than I ever have in any given week’s time.
I’m filing a claim for my drum of apple juice from last week. The trucking company, knowing they were going to have a claim filed against them, chose to keep the drum and, perhaps, salvage it for some of the cost. Which is ironic, because then I got a call today from someone who didn’t know it was originally mine wanting to know if I had an interest in a busted drum of Apple….just one of the funny things that happens every now and then.
I hadn’t even considered selling it as damaged, but got to work trying to find a home for it – even tried my original customer. I made a deal with someone who would pay enough that we could sell it and probably not even mess with the hassle of a claim. No sooner had I made that deal than the trucking company called back and said they had accidentally dumped the product. Great – now I have to undo the sale and go back to filing the claim.
Busy day again today. My poor fax machine is printing/sending and receiving as fast as it possibly can.
March 27, 2007 at 11:32 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
Ok…I’ve done it. I put my fountain pen in my pocket without the top on it and I put it in nib down. I only have a pea sized ink stain on my new shirt. But I have a quarter-sized stain on my tee shirt and belly. Don’t I look stupid. Looks like I need a pocket protector.
So I came back to the office and had to fill my pen. Well, I take apart the pen and pull out the “converter” which I use to suck ink into and put the pen back together. In doing so, I have to tip the bottle on its side to get the ink out and not only do I end up with ink on my hands, I almost always nearly tip over a whole bottle of ink. The whole system just seems too imperfect…I know I’m missing something. I called the Fountain Pen people and asked the operator why it seems I’m doing this wrong. She didn’t know. She asks someone and finally comes back with a perfectly logical explanation. I WAS doing it wrong – totally wrong. There is no need to take the converter out of the pen to fill. I know – you have no idea the construction of a fountain pen. Suffice to say, I was the idiot and I’ve been doing it the wrong way for years now.
Just had lunch with Lily and got her picture taken with the Easter Bunny. We tried to walk in the Disney Store but she was in need of a nap and preoccupied with a new “boo-boo” on her thumb.
ESPN reportedly dropping Joe Theisman from its MNF. Boy, did they blow this one. Tony Korn-hole is clearly the weak link on that show.
The Final Four has never had all four #1 seeds make it. I guess they have determined that an “upset” is when a team is beaten by a team seeded 5 or more places below it. This year has had only 3 upsets: Winthro(11) beat Notredame (6), Va. Commonwealth (11) beat Duke (6) and UNLV(7) beat Wisconsin(2). Last year there were 11 such upsets.
NBC cameras spotted Sergio Garcia spitting into the hole after missing a key putt Sunday. He apologized.
The TampaBay Lightning are almost on their way to the playoffs again with 6 games left to play.
FSU is the number one ranked College Baseball team in the country. Swept BC this weekend.
FSU football’s annual Garnet & Gold Game is April 14th at 2pm.
Saw this in the paper…. at Karen’s Pizzeria in Hamilton, Ohio, they are deliverying pizzas in boxes printed with mug shots on the boxes of dead beat parents who are behind in child support.
March 26, 2007 at 8:21 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
I just love the smell of a fresh, crisp week. Too bad it has to taste like Monday. But there is something about sitting down to a fresh cup of Starbucks (which I don’t get all weekend) and my Monday papers. I didn’t even care that I didn’t get my parking spot. Babe-a-licious didn’t get it either, so I don’t care.
My hands hurt this morning. I did a lot outside and my hands are proof. I have three-one inch cuts on the outside of my left pinky knuckle where my hand slid off my saw. They hurt even worse because I have three ant bites on the cuts! Ouch. Somehow I ended up with two ant bites on my belly.
I’ve put up a new link on my home page (www.vincebelcher.com/veggie.htm) so you can see how Lily’s garden grows. The garden is doing very good so far this year – good, healthy corn, strong brocolli, no bugs. The only thing having a hard time growing is the spinach and that’s because Lily has decided it makes her run faster so she eats it by the handful.
I’ve got some work to get done this morning. My phone rang promptly at 8am from a trucking company making a pickup for me. They wanted to know how much twenty – 55lb cartons weigh. My lemon juice must have delivered without incident at 7am (that’s what I thought the 8am phone call was). The big one this week is to see if my truck from California can make it from southern California to central Florida by 4pm Wednesday. No big deal right? Wrong – he won’t leave until 10am EST today. 2900 miles and he’s got 54 hours…you do the math.
Or I could call the girl from that trucking company and see if she can do it.
I love the feel of Saturday mornings. Lily and I sat outside this morning watching the squirrels. We’ve bought them a different kind of peanut and I wanted to see if they were eating them. We watched them chase each other all over the tree and up and down the fence. Everytime a squirrel made it to the peanut tray, another squirrel would “attack” and the chase would be on again. Stupid squirrels – we were out there for 20 minutes and never saw them get a peanut.
Hoping to clean the garage out a little today. We spent the better part of yesterday evening out side and even ate dinner on the porch. The weather is perfect.
Diane is still sleeping so Lily and I are upstairs playing until we go down to make pancakes. Last Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day and we made green pancakes. Wonder what we should do today?
I love finding chores that Lily can do herself. She feeds the dogs, lets them in and out, takes down the garbage, separates the recyclables among other things. I have a small bird bath in the back yard that I’ve put lower to the ground so she can reach it and every other day or so she has to make sure it has water in it.
This morning, we went out to give the squirrel some peanuts and make sure the birdfeeders were full. I told Lily to fill up the birdbath so she grabs her bucket, scoops some water from the pool and heads to the birdbath. She walks through the wet grass on her tip toes but stops three feet from the birdbath because she sees evidence of ants. The fact of the matter is, there were no ants, just a little ant poison I had put down the other day so it would be ant free for Lily.
Well, she sees the poison and stops dead in her tracks. I tried to encourage her to go ahead and told her there were no ants. She wasn’t buying any of that and proceeds to throw her bucket of water at the birdbath.
March 23, 2007 at 8:19 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
Yes? It’s Friday? Whew…we made it. And after Thursday, I think we are all lucky to be here. I don’t know what it was about yesterday, but it was a doozie.
My day began (as many days begin) with my cell phone ringing well before 8 oclock with a fight between a truck driver and my warehouse that I had to referee. I got those two babies back in place only to have a new crisis arise. When they opened the aforementioned truck drivers truck, a pallet of Organic Apple Juice had fallen off the pallet. Four drums. $1000 per drum. Each drum has a big bag in it filled with 54 gallons of juice. The lids popped off and the big bags were laying on the floor. Imagine a 600 pound ziploc bag.
I rushed out to the warehouse, we did our best to “push” the bags back into the drum with the hopes of righting the drum but to no avail. The sharp remains of the drum lids and the ring that holds it on cut the bags. And with the pressure of 600lbs, a small nick unleashed a flood of gooey, sticky apple juice. We lost all four drums. Now it’s an insurance claim. And everyone spent the next hours covering their butts – trucker, warehouse dude, me, supplier, customer…
It was one disaster after another which had to be delt with on a cell phone from my car because I had 300 miles to cover yesterday. By the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to get home. But, no, the Gods of Thursday had one more for me…traffic.
Now, Brandon’s traffic isn’t too terrible. I suppose it has it’s moments, but no moment like yesterdays. Highway 60 was closed just east of town because of a 13 car pileup with fatalities. So that only added to the day.
This story reminds me of one of my own childhood adventures.
It was summer, I was 13 or 14 years old and my friend Brian and I bought some cheap blow up boats and paddles and headed to Armand Bayou, which at the time was a tiny creek. We pushed out into the water for a 3 hour cruise.
The “tiny creek” led to a slightly bigger stream which led to a slightly bigger river. Before we knew it, we were surrounded by wilderness and drifting along a nameless body water. Turns out, looking at a map, we were probably trespassing on NASA property.
About 5 hours later, the water started getting rough and choppy. The landscape changed from trees to sand and the water was salty! We were in trouble – big time.
We found a populated beach and a dock. Pulled our boats to safety and found a phone. No cell phones then and we hadn’t exactly planned our finances right so we had to borrow a quarter for a phone call. We called Brian’s mom and she came to rescue us – we were about 10 miles from home, scorched sunburned. I don’t think Brian’s mom was going to let us put the boats in her car so we deflated them and put them in the garbage while we waited.
And (as Lily would add) we all lived happily ever after. I haven’t ever found Brian. Probably should try and look him up.
I walked outside this morning to feed our iguana some strawberries and Lily followed me out. She walked outside and looked up at the sun and said, “Ah, what a beautiful day. I love the sun on my face.”
I’m working like a dog this week. Just one of those weeks where I don’t seem to have quite enough time during the day to get everything I need done. At one point, I had 6 faxes sitting here ready to go – I was working faster than my fax machine could keep up. Stupid, slow technology.
March 20, 2007 at 7:09 pm
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
My day began a little early this morning as I had to take the Volvo in for servicing and my appointment was at 9am. I was at Volvo until 10:45. The way I figure it – Volvo made a pretty nice hourly rate during those two hours.
I made it home for a quick lunch and worked the rest of the afternoon. Lily earned a trip to Toys R Us and we had some coupons so we went to the toy store and stopped at Longhorns for dinner afterwards.
When we got home, Lily and I made sure our sprinklers were all shootin’ straight (today is our watering day).
A quick bath, a little story time and Lily is off to bed.
Doesn’t seem like much, but it sure feels like a long day. First day of spring, so I guess the days are getting longer. It’s after 8pm now and the sky still has light. Sure makes it more difficult to put Lily down. But then again, that just means more day light to work and try to pay those Volvo repair bills. Might have to see if I can mow a few neighbors lawns.
March 20, 2007 at 11:39 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
Thanks Scott. And for clarification, the Rule says no politics. This is a joke, so I’ll let it in…
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be a Republican.” “I am,” replied the man. “How did you know?” “Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”
The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Democrat.” “I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?” “Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You’ve risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it’s my
fault.
March 18, 2007 at 6:14 pm
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
It’s that time of the year again. HGTV gives away a million dollar home. This year’s house is in Colorado and for the 11th year in a row, Diane has entered every way possible.
And like every year, Diane has planned the next couple of weeks: Moving in, what she should pack, how she’ll handle the finances, etc…
This year’s giveaway is being done LIVE tonight on HGTV at 9pm. Somewhere in the US, the HGTV producers are frantically planning on knocking on someone’s door and changing their lives forever.
And in our house, noone is allowed to get dressed for bed because “this is our year”. That’s right – Diane is so convinced we are winning this year that she won’t be getting dressed for bed until after the big giveaway on TV tonight. The porch lights are on, the house is cleaned. In fact, she’s doing her hair and makeup so she’ll look good on TV.
Me? I’m going to bed. I’ve got to get ready to cheer her up after tonight’s disappointing end.
Sorry – seems we’ve been a little busy and preoccupied lately. I don’t find much time to blog.
I promise to post a picture of the garden today. Lily and I worked in it yesterday and pulled out the last of the snap dragons that died in the last freeze. The rain this week didn’t affect our corn, which was good. After all the wind we had I expected to find all of the corn laying down. The spinach crop this year is especially strong. At least it was until someone sat there and ate handful after handful.
For those keeping track, I’ve changed my tea recipe. I’ve bumped up the sugar to 1 1/4 cups to 1 gallon of tea. That makes my glass of tea increase from about 75 calories to 90 or 95.
Positively gorgeous outside today. Mid 70’s, full sun and breezy. Perfect day to mow the lawn and get some yard work done!
March 16, 2007 at 7:13 pm
· Filed under Animals, Food
Weezy sent me this link by bark-mail today….
Hey Vinnie,
Until they figure out this whole ‘killer dogfood’ thing, don’t ya think I should have steak like you tonight? See you when you get home! Maybe we can play tug-a-war with that big rope with the knots in it! I can’t get enough of that one!
By the way – tons of restraint this week. Probably why there hasn’t been much blogging – hard to blog when there are so many things I can’t get into.
But we’ve found ourself at Friday after what seemed to be a long, long week. We’ve had a front move through over night – little more than a half an inch. The clouds have cleared away and a nice northerly breeze is keeping the temps mild. Looks to be sunny and 70 all weekend! I’m just hoping the rain and wind didn’t blow over my corn.
With apologies to my good friend Alan, allow me to state for the record my hatred for all things WalMart. I avoid that place like the plague. We have no fewer than 4 of the behemoths within a 10 mile drive of our house and, at last check, 3 of them were Super WalMarts.
I don’t think they are good for local economies or the local environment. I think their stores are eyesores – inside and out.
To make up for my day Monday, I played hookie yesterday. And I needed a bit more relief so I spent my post-lunch half hour at Lowe’s. In fact, I’m thinking about taking Friday off. It’s spring – it’s hard to sit inside all day.
Lily went to the library this morning for story time. She’s all decked out in green today – looks like a cute little leprechaun (yes, I had to actually look up the spelling).
I caught an episode of Leave It To Beaver this morning on TVLand. You gotta love that show. Ward got a new book in the mail and June said something to the effect of “if you are going to read all the time, you won’t spend any time with me”. Ward said, “Right, Dear, instead of bettering our minds, we’ll just sit and watch the TV like a couple of morons”.
Our garden is coming along very nicely this year. I haven’t taken a picture yet, but I will. The corn is almost knee high and our beans, cucumbers and brocolli are growing strong. It’s hard gardening with Lily because she doesn’t quite understand how delicate the little plants are. We have some new corn that’s barely popped through and the first thing she asks is “Can I touch it?” She can recognize the different plants and likes to pick things and eat them. “Can I eat this? , Can I eat that?” She ate a whole fist full of spinach yesterday…crazy kid.
March 14, 2007 at 9:11 am
· Filed under Uncategorized
Oh puhleeezee! Now it’s “socially mandatory” to complain about your fat. I’ve got an idea – try a salad once and a while, maybe a piece of fruit. Sorry – I don’t have much patience for the “weight challenged”.
March 12, 2007 at 2:20 pm
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
The stars just aren’t aligned the right way for me today. I’ve spent the better part of my day on two things:
First of all, I have a $0.90 error (that’s right…ninety cents) in my bank reconciliation. That took almost 6 hours to find.
Secondly, I have some product shipping to Puerto Rico. One drum of tomato paste. I made a whopping $26 on this drum and I’ve had to spend what seems like ALL DAY getting my customer’s paper work corrected and to the right people. I’ve had to make at least 15 calls trying to get it fixed. Fortunately, all the phone numbers I have are 800 numbers so, technically, I haven’t lost money yet. Except for my time. The problem appears to be fixed now thanks to some guy named Will. Thanks Will. Where were you this morning at 8?
Just heard from Lily – she’s going in the sandbox and she wants spaghetti for dinner. Which actually sounds pretty good.
I’ll tell the truth…I didn’t get in this morning until almost 9:30. Of course, it depends on which clock you are going by. My computer said 9:30 but my cellphone still says 8:30. In fact, the fancy Atomic Clock that receives automatic updates by radio signal from Father Time still says 8:35am. Father Time my butt.
Did quite a bit this weekend including pressure washing the back porch in an effort to wash away some of the pollen. Sprayed the pool deck, all the furniture even took a shot at the Evil Oak Tree of Death. Lily helped me blast away an ant bed we found.
I’ve got some pictures to put up – come back later!
March 8, 2007 at 10:28 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
It’s too bad…there are a lot of news stories I’d like to comment on today but I’m afraid I’ll offend someone. Unlike some people, I was taught if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.
My tooth is feeling much better today. But, wow, by this time last week I was just getting bad.
Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Mid 50’s this morning, sunny and calm. I love this time of the year. Feb, Mar and April are just gorgeous. The pool is warming up – won’t be long now. Lily was in the hot tub yesterday. I don’t know how this child has improved her swimming by playing in a 6 ft. circle, but I watched her yesterday and she’s going to have an awesome summer of swimming. April 1st is our annual “Heat Up The Pool Day” celebration. This is the third annual celebration, going back to April 1st 2005 when “someone” accidentally heated the pool. We took the day off from work and played so as to not waste the heat.
Lily has art class this morning. And we’ll probably meet for lunch.
March 7, 2007 at 9:37 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
I kind of like Wednesdays. I don’t know why, it just has a feel about it.
Another beautiful morning here. I saw the pictures out of the northeast – yuck.
I had planned on taking today off but that didn’t work out. I’ll take Friday instead.
What has happened to the Today Show? Why is it that every morning I sit down to breakfast I have to see a story on menopause, cellulite or “your cheatin’ man”? We get 3 minutes of news and then it’s all fluff. A cellulite breakthrough, Anna Nicole, Brittney in rehab – this country is one DUI arrest from imploding.
I had posted an entry Monday morning but something happened to it. If it had made it up, you would have known that since my dentist appt. last Wednesday, I’ve suffered terribly from a toothache. The weekend was especially bad – and Advil just wasn’t doing the trick. I figured on going to back to the dentist Monday AM but felt like it was starting to get better. Even now, I’d say it’s about 90% better. Not really a toothache – more like a bad gum area around my wisdom tooth. Still not eating on that side of my mouth.
Lily was up early. That child is up with the sun rise. About 6:45a she came to my side of the bed with a Cinderella doll whose head had broken off.
March 6, 2007 at 10:19 am
· Filed under Vinnie's Head
Diane and Lily are off to the mall. I’m sitting here staring out at the blue sky wishing I was playing outside. It’s positively gorgeous today. Kind of a cold start – low 40’s – but as of 10:15am, it’s already in the 60’s. Nice breeze, and not a cloud in the sky.
It’s Strawberry Festival time. Kind of interesting here – the school board has decided no more religious holidays in the school calendar, but kids still get a day off for Fair Day.
I went to the grocery store Sunday while Lily napped. On my way in, I saw the Girl Scouts set up just outside the door, ready to attack everyone as they came out of the store.
So, while inside, I sent Diane a text message (Lily was napping – I know better than make the phone ring) and asked what kind of cookies she wanted. She replied…
Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Smores and shortbread
I check out and head out of the store to the waiting Girl Scouts and I’m quickly mugged by 8 little girls. I told them that I was buying, I just needed a second to get my list off my phone. Then I read to them what I needed…. Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Smores….
At that moment, 8 little girls, in perfect unison shrieked…”SMORES?????”
Thanks Diane – they aren’t called Smores – they are called Samoas.
