Stories's Log |
This log represents the Life and Times of the Las Vegas Dude. |
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08/10/2007 23:59:33 Jim Baseball, pizza, swimming and staying over | Fri |||||||||||||||||||
We went to the Bats ballgame. The Bats won. They always seem to win when we're there. We decided to go swimming afterwards, so we swung by the towers to pick up our swim wear. The elevator action looks a lot wilder than it was. I was just playing with the camera. I love its 'infinity mirror' effect. Rods pool was the perfect temperature. We ordered Philly Steak Pizza from Domino's and it came out much better than the ones we've had in Vegas. I think the dough is better here. It was late, and spending the night seemed like a good thing to do. I woke up at 10 am Saturday, thinking it was 6 am. I've never slept in a basement before. They've got it fixed up very nicely. |
08/10/2007 17:10:47 Jim Carpe Diem (seize the carp) | Fri |||||||||||||||||||
I was born March 31st, 1956, in Paducah, Kentucky, on what was most likely the most important day of my life. I can't recall those times, my brain wasn't quite all working yet, it still isn't, but I'm sure I was a heck of a smiler. Since then, life has had its ups and downs. I've been alive for 19,000 days, and probably the worst one was when my Mom past away. As far as the ups, well, most of the days have been pretty special for some reason or the other. I guess if I had to pick one, I just wouldn't be able too. Because, if you think like I do, the lowest you can go in life is death, and if you believe there's more coming after the curtains fall, then even that ain't bad. About the worst thing I could ever blame myself for, is for was waisting time feeling bad about my life. All those times, I could have just walked out the door, smelled a flower, watched a cloud float by, or listened to the birds sing their songs. What I'm trying to say is, every day of living is good, unless you decide it isn't. So go out and seize the day. Get a pedicure, go sky diving, explore your neighborhood...do something each day, that you've never done before. There isn't much time left, and you've got nothing to lose. I'm off to a BAT's Ball Game...see y'all.... And have some fun, people! |
08/08/2007 07:23:09 Jim Becky boldly went out on the town | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
And put in an application for a parking lot attendant. Who would ever guess, they'd give a MATH test. And why? It could be, that sitting in somewhere in a parking lot booth, there's an 'idiot savant; calculating the size of the universe? They asked her questions like: "If a person parks at 10:32 am, and leaves at 2:17 pm the next day, how many minutes did they park". Anyway, she's terrible at math, and I don't think anyone is good subtracting time. They didn't even her an interview. But she passed her background test, rode the transit system, knows the town better, and her spirits are high. We were both in the dumps, so we hit the road to Cincinnati! On the way back, we stopped by General Butler State Park. They offer cabins in the mountains, next to a lake. They have mini golf, a pool, and daily hikes/activities for their guest. Tommorrows activity is a hike using a tobacco stick...hmmm. We saw two fawns, and a racoon. |
08/08/2007 06:57:56 Jim We toured Cincinnati | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
The drive to Cincinnati on I70 is hilly and scenic. It takes over an hour to get there, but it feels like 20 minutes. Cincinnati just pops up over a hill. The downtown area looks like its probably twice the size of downtown Louisville. The buildings have a unique styles. Most of the buildings look like apartments, or condos. A lot of the shops have upstairs lofts, where the owners probably live. The impression I got of this place, was, its where you could get lost forever, along with a million other people. People used the streets like they might a sidewalk, not even watching for traffic. The bridges and stadiums are awesome. I couldn't quite get a good picture of the bridges, but theres five of them in a row, with different styles and colors. We came on a Reds game night. The riverfront was swamped with Reds fans. |
08/06/2007 06:14:06 Jim A very nice, but lazy weekend | Mon |||||||||||||||||||
I slept in most of the weekend. We rearranged the furniture, so now we're actually sleeping in the bedroom. I hung some blackout blinds so we can use the projector in the living room any time of the day. |
08/05/2007 08:36:08 Jim Finally got the apartment arranged. | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
Its a, ahem, unique arrangement. We are in apartment limbo. We can't buy too much furniture, but we need to be comfortable. I was told Friday that a full time position wasn't going to be created. Thats good, because nobody ever made me an offer, and I'm still getting settled in anyway. They were concerned that I might have taken it the wrong way. I'm not sure what exactly goes on where I work. I know they have a lot of meetings, and I know some of them are about me. I can only guess whats been said by studying the behaviour of the people who attend the meetings. It almost feels creepy. lol. All I can do is give them my best effort, try not to make any waves, and see what happens. Anyway, getting back to the apartment If my contract runs out in November, we're going to have to move again. Which means, we shouldn't buy furniture. |
08/05/2007 02:40:05 Jim In a World Between the Eternities | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
Another visitor has arrived. Her name is McKenzie Jackson. She's almost 9 pounds, the daughter of Renee Spurling and Jonathan Jackson. She's Becky's grandaughter, and Ruth Czachorwski's great grand daughter. And she's beautiful. One wonders what will she see in her lifetime. What beautiful things will come her way? And soon, after we're all laid to rest, she will have her first grand daughter, and she too, will be beautiful. And she will come into a world so wonderful, we can't even imagine it. |
07/31/2007 21:57:46 jim Lynnes Café | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
Lynne's Café on Baxter Road Here, you get fresh veggies, unique entrées and extremely friendly service. A waitress here sat down at our table and told us that the locals read 'The Leo' to find all of the happenings around Louisville. Its amazing, the number of name bands who just slide in and out of this place! Counting Crows is playing just 5 blocks away next week. I really don't get why anyone would pour beer from a pitcher into a coffee cup. Thats just disgusting. But another sign said that management isn't responsible for items left in the coat room, and there is no coat room. So, thats it, they're crazy, and they're lots of fun! Lynnes Cafe is hosting an ugly lamp contest. The person that wins the lamp contest gets free breakfast for a year. Bardstown Road is the place to go in Louisville. Louisville is all about small businesses. They're motto is 'Keep Louisville Weird'. They like the chains here, but the push is to keep the Mom and Pop stores open. I just think thats GREAT! Bardstown Road Houses Musicians and other talented people live in houses along the road. Most of these old homes are residential, but also host some kind of business. I think I'd like living in one of these, and maybe have a Tarot Card reading / Web Site building combo in my living room. A customer would enter, I'd go through some a beaded curtains and ask them, "What would you like today? Would you like a website built, would you like to know your future, my sweetheart also does manicures, if you'd like that.". That would be cool. |
07/31/2007 20:12:56 jim Louisville,KY-Lynnes Cafe | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
07/31/2007 06:38:42 jim BBQ at Rod and Resee | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
Rod BBQ'd corn in the husk, garlic potatoes, T-Bone steaks and um, his trash! The corn was especially delicious cooked that way. |
07/29/2007 12:06:44 jim Louisville,KY-Zoo-Becky,Rod,Jesse | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
07/29/2007 00:28:51 jim Got Glasses? | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
We do now. Finally, after all these years, I've got some new glasses. one set for reading, the other for driving. I rarely need them, but when I do, I REALLY need them. Becky got a new pair too. Her new pair is practically indestructable! We both left the optometrist with dilated pupils. So, we were both nearly blind, seeing rainbows around everything. Driving home was a real challenge. I didn't learn what I needed too though. I wanted to learn what might make someone's eyesight fluctuate between fuzzy and good over a couple of days. All the optometrist said was, try some Refresh Plus Eye Drops, and maybe take some Omega-3. |
07/28/2007 12:28:48 jim Louisville,KY-Apt Pool Becky | Sat |||||||||||||||||||
07/28/2007 11:19:06 Ruth1941 .Bordelaise Sauce | Sat |||||||||||||||||||
here is my recipe for chicken and noodle skillet dinner
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1lb boneless chicken breast 1 medium onion chopped 1 half cup
1 cup baby carrotscut lenthwise in half 1 cup frozzen broccoli
1cup uncooked egg noodles 1 can of chicken broth
1 can of condensed cream o chicken soup
brown chicken and onions in a skillet stirin remaing ingredients bring to a boil reduce
heat and simmer until noodles are tender add hot bread and you have dinner
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07/26/2007 21:28:14 jim Louisville,KY-KentuckyTowers | Thu |||||||||||||||||||
07/25/2007 23:22:12 jim It was a chatty day | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
Got up this morning to brush up on my stock jargon. Chatted with MIKEY!!! YEAH! Wrote a program at work today, to create test data, then tested it. Writing programs from scratch is fun! YEAH! Got home, went to Sam's and Walmart to get Becky a homeless cart... You know, one of those carts that have two wheels. She needs one to shuffle laundry up and down the floors here. We also picked up an air mattress for Rod. We popped his while camping...lol. Swung by Rod's house, but Rod wasn't home. awe. We dropped an air mattress off anyway. Got home, and webcamed SONNY!!!! YEAH! We spent about an hour or or so enjoying pleasant conversations about the whacky worlds we've been thrust into this last month. He's at Circus. I'm in Louisville. Everything is whacky! Got off, and webcamed GMa!!! YEAH! We chatted for some time, then Paul came down and got her microphone working, and life was GREAT! We topped off the night by swinging by Hilton's bar next door!!! YEAH! I wanted to try a shot of their famous Kentucky Bourbon. It was a beautiful bar, all woodsy, plush and beautiful. But, they were busy, it would have taken too long, So, now its BED TIME!!! YEAH!!! |
07/25/2007 07:08:48 jim Bond Fund jargon | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
Yield - What the bonds have paid in the last 7 to 30 days. Kind of worthless to look at. Net Asset Value (NAV) - What the bond fund is worth, per share. Total Return - What the bonds have paid dividends, along with their Net Asset Value changes. However, I can't seem to pin down what period of time this value uses. Hopefully, its over 12 months. Without knowing the time frame, its worthless. The way it plays, if I remember right The bond funds spit out a dividend, and the NAV goes down. The NAV eventually goes back up...and it spits out another dividend. While its doing this, it becomes very hard to track, unless you have kept a log of everything. For example: Take an instance where you invest $100 to buy 100 shares in a bond fund for $1 a share(nav). When the bond fund pays a dividend, its NAV drops to $.90 a share. Fair enough. The bond fund pays out a 10% dividend and you don't reinvest it in the fund. You get $100 because the Dividend=$.10 . You have 1,000 shares worth $900. You gained nothing. You only gain $10 gain when the NAV goes back up to $1. The bond fund pays out a 10% dividend but you have the dividend purchase more shares. You get $0 because you rolled the Dividend over, the NAV drops to $.90 . You now have have 1,100 shares worth $1,000 (1000x$1 + 100x$1) You gained nothing. You only gain $10 when the NAV goes back up to $1. There may be an advantage to buying the bond fund, right before it pays the $10 dividend. The price of the fund before it pays the dividend should be $1.10, I'd think. All of this makes funds very difficult to track without keeping a log. If you have the dividends payed to you, then you have to keep a log of all payments. Its comforting to know that if you have the dividends paid to you for years and years and years, its unlikely that the NAV of the fund would ever drop much less than your original purchase NAV. |
07/25/2007 00:02:54 jim Nightmare on Durrett Street | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
Today, I spent the whole day fighting Freddy Kruger. I only slept a few hours last night, and that Vicodin doesn't leave your system like it should. So, I kept nodding off. It was harder staying awake today, than it was on our 35 hour drive to Louisville. Rough day! I had two meetings today, on top of it all. One was a conference call with about twenty people connected. Very anticlimactic. I hear, that if I worked salaried at my job for a year, I could pretty much transfer anywhere in the country. I could even end up working in that old data center in Las Vegas, right around the corner from GMa's. Wow....it is a small world. hmmm. |
07/25/2007 13:29:32 sae (Reply).Nightmare on Durrett Street | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
But I thought you wanted out of Lost Wages? |
07/24/2007 07:10:35 jim We are Wall Streeters now! | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
I invested in the SWHFX mutual fund. I invested in Schwab’s Schwab Health Care Fund (SWHFX) Its Average Return runs around 8% If anyone has any investment suggestions, I'm all ears. |
07/24/2007 11:30:55 sae (Reply).We are Wall Streeters now! | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
How about investing in the "SAE fund for the monetarily disabled". It is my means to pad my wallet, and bribe Jeffwee and others to like me. The return on investment is -100%. Would you like to write me your first donation check now, or a bit later? |
07/25/2007 13:48:32 sae (Reply)...We are Wall Streeters now! | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
No, you give me money and/or other valuables, and I give you a very valuable nothing. |
07/24/2007 07:05:08 jim Phantom toothaches. Whats up with that? | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
Up most of the night. The dentist gave me a script of Vicadin, which I gratefully took. Vicadin seems to make me itch, and it keeps me up for some reason. hmmm. I guess it'll take a few days for the infection to go down. And I thought it was all over, too. |
07/23/2007 10:30:21 sae .Dentist Appointment | Mon |||||||||||||||||||
Good Luck with the dentist, Jimmy... I tried IMing you yesterday, and got no reply. It said you were online. |
07/23/2007 14:06:00 Jim (Reply)Dentist Appointment | Mon |||||||||||||||||||
Dr Mathis He told me we could save the tooth, like it was a cherished life form...haha. Appointment: 502-451-2212 3000 Bardstown Rd, 40205 I told him the tooth had no use, it had nothing to grind against. It wasn't a chomper. Once again, I heard the story about how I'm going to look all goofy. They always say its because my teeth have nothing to rest against, they'd fall over or be pointed in all kinds of directions (they teach that story in Dental School, I guess). I told the dentist what I really wanted was dentures or plates. And I'd like two sets of them made. I told work I'd be coming back in unless they turned me into a drooling idiot. Well, that's what they did, darn-it! Taking any kind of time off at this job is insane. But then again, coming in, frothing at the mouth and sounding like I lost half my brain could damage my already, odd, reputation worse. I really wanted them 10 years ago when I had more jawbone. The jawbone deteriates from tooth decay. If you have no teeth, you don't suffer as much jawbone loss (as I understand it). Anyway, I'm scheduled to come back 8/27/2007 at 2pm |
07/22/2007 13:57:04 jim Louisville,KY-IroquoisPark | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
07/21/2007 16:26:50 jim Louisville,KY-Six Flags | Sat |||||||||||||||||||
07/20/2007 18:36:18 jim Louisville,KY-Belle Of Louisville,Onion Coach Ride | Fri |||||||||||||||||||
07/19/2007 20:20:04 jim Louisville,KY-4thSt LuckyStrike | Thu |||||||||||||||||||
07/17/2007 21:10:54 jim Louisville,KY-Becky,Jim Bistro | Tue |||||||||||||||||||
07/16/2007 20:32:04 jim Louisville,KY-OldBld bldgs | Mon |||||||||||||||||||
07/15/2007 23:33:05 Chez2199 .The Lake Rudolf Experience | Sun |||||||||||||||||||
you didn't drink to much, just don't fish when your vision is blurred! silly boy .. you need to stick to things that are relative to the number of beers you have had.. fishing after more than 15 beers is not the right thing :-).
On the other hand don't get up and have another beer the next morning. get up eat some real good breakfast and take a nap.. you feel like a new man after that. :-)
All in all it was great to have you with us for the weekend |
07/14/2007 10:57:28 jim SantaClause,IN-HolidayWorld leaving | Sat |||||||||||||||||||
07/14/2007 08:08:01 Chez2199 Camping | Sat |||||||||||||||||||
Yo Dude!
now we camp for a couple days and enjoy the life of fishing eating drinking and the Glorious game of Corn-Hole.
A new experiance the the city slicker of las vegas LOL |
07/13/2007 21:06:15 Jim Eliminated those pesky bot ids. | Fri |||||||||||||||||||
I should do like Yahoo, Aol and the other sites do for logons They put a graphic up to verify a human is trying to log in. Another long day. Got up at 5am. Found the web site had been abused. So I wrote a fix and put it in. Figured out my project's design was flawed. I corrected it, but... The real problem is, I've sent the Documentation to several users for our meeting next Tuesday. So, my first meeting may make me look bad. Work keeps asking me if I'd consider full time. Its a toss up of benefits verses dollars. At any rate, I told them I couldn't commit to anythingt until my contract is up in November. I indicated I would like that. I finally got the seller's documents to sign. Grady called and said if i could get it signed today, the deal was probably blown. All this happened today, on a Friday, around 4pm. I had to go home during rush hour, get the docs, find a notary and a Fed Ex place. All this I had to do in a town that rolls up its side walks at 5pm. My brain is fried again. Somehow, we pulled it off, and I think I lost some of my hair. |
07/13/2007 09:15:14 Jim Hackers...what do you do with them? | Fri |||||||||||||||||||
Its funny when people try to hack this system. There's really no useful information in this system to steal or get. And almost everything is out in the open. Gotta love it |
07/12/2007 19:31:02 jim Louisville,KY-BAMS | Thu |||||||||||||||||||
07/11/2007 22:02:16 jim Louisville Blgs | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
07/11/2007 20:57:08 jim Louisville,KY-4thStLive Party List | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
07/11/2007 13:34:59 Jim Well, I am fixing toilets...lol | Wed |||||||||||||||||||
But I'm doing it for free. I know, I said I'd fix toilets for what work is paying me but The apartments hopper quit filling up and rather than wait for management to fix it, I went out and bought a Flowmaster for $6 and threw it in. Plus, I hooked up most of the Ice Maker. Our internet is still not working. A guy from Insight came out yesterday, and totally botched the job. He hooked up the cable TV, and just left the cable modem. After spending an hour on the phone with Insights Support (which, right now, costs me 45 cents a minute on my cell phone), they determined the modem was just plain BAD. Someone left the cake out in the rain, alrighty...lol. I would be upset, but they gave us a digital box for free. |
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