If we went yesterday, we could have seen Herman's Hermits!
I heard they got captured, and were put on exhibit.
They were singing their number one hits, like:
"Mrs Brown you've got a lovely Orangutan"
"Something tells me I FELL into something good"
"Silhouettes on the Cage"
"There's a kind of a hush, all over the Zoo"
And last but not least: "I'm Henry the Ape, I am"
To those of you who didn't blow out a candle when the light bulb was invented,
Those were English/American hits sung by the Herman's Hermits in the 60's.
Life back then was all about Peace, Love, Go Go Boots and Mini Skirts!
(I just loved the boots and skirts, cause I was a pubescent kid and we didn't have the XBox)
Can ya dig it?
They Were Really Groovy Man!
That band was Really Far Out! 
They were a Trip, cause those Cats were Swinging, dude!

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.

In heavy 1 quart saucepan over low heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter,
cook 1 tablespoon minced onion until tender.
SLOWLY
add 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour; cook until lightly browned;
add 1 tablespoon chopped parsley,
add 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves,
add 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper.
add one 10 1/2 ounce can condensed beef broth (bouillon),
add 1/2 cup red wine,
add 1/4 cup water.
Increase heat to medium-high; cook mixture, stirring constantly, until sauce boils and thickens.
Apply to hair for 10 minutes. Wipe remainder all over your body.

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
In large oven roasting pan on rack, form tenderloin into ring so that thick end rests on thin end to hold securely.
Brush beef with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Insert meat thermometer into center of tenderloin.
Roast tenderloin 40 minutes or until thermometer reaches 120 degrees F (very rare).
Remove tenderloin from oven and let stand 30 minutes. Do not turn oven off.
2. Thaw pastry as label directs.
3. Meanwhile, in 10 inch skillet over medium-high heat, in 3 tablespoons hot butter, cook onion until tender.
Add mushrooms, thyme, salt, and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until all liquid evaporates.
Stir in red wine and cook over medium heat until mixture is dry.
Remove skillet from heat; cool slightly.
4. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll 1 sheet puff pastry into 14 x 12 inch rectangle.
Place puff pastry sheet on ungreased large cookie sheet.
Center partially roasted tenderloin ring on dough.
With knife, cut pastry with 1 inch border all around tenderloin.
5. Spread pate evenly over tenderloin; top with mushroom mixture.
With pastry brush, brush some egg white on pastry around tenderloin.
On lightly floured surface, roll second sheet puff pastry as above; place loosely over tenderloin ring, pressing pastry around base of tenderloin to seal; crimp pastry border to make a pretty edge.
6. In cup, with fork, beat egg yolk with milk; brush top and sides of pastry with egg mixture.
Bake Beef Wellington 10 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees F; bake 20 minutes longer or until crust is golden.
With 2 pancake turners, transfer roast to warm platter.
Let stand 15 minutes for easier slicing.
7. Prepare Bordelaise Sauce.
8. To serve, garnish with parsley, cut Beef Wellington into wedges.
Serve with Bordelaise Sauce.
Makes 10 hockey puck sized servings for the Cub Scout meeting.

Its kind of being forced on me at sofk.
They have a weather channel on TV above all of the cubicals.
I walk by some cubicals, and there on someone's screen is the weather channel.
The other day, someone wanted to show me where they lived. The used the satellite map from, the weather channel.
Okay, I get it! The weather channel is a hit here.
Its kind of digitized version of laying back, and watching the clouds float by (although it would be from outer space).
Whats funny is, if it said rain every day of the year, it would be 80% correct.

The Parking Lot
On Wednesday, we came back from Walmart with a rolling laundry hamper.
There, in our small, but extremely convenient parking lot, sat the attendent and some guy.
They looked like they were hanging out, (in the parking lot, with lawn chairs?).
I rolled the hamper up to them and blurted 'Nice night to take your hamper our for a walk'.
Becky asked the parking lot attendant, "What kind of training do you need to be an attendant", and  I chuckled.
Then the parking lot attendant (Susan) said, "None, but we don't have any openings. They might have an openning in the next parking lot". Then I chuckled again.
The guy (Peter) says, "Yea, I help her for free. They won't hire me and I've got nothing better to do".
We all started talking. Peter, who's a contract programmer like me, is goofing around, just like I did for 6 years. It turns out he used to be with the Tears For Fears band. He played the piano in 'Everybody wants to rule the world'. 
Anyway, we babbled, I told them my Elephant jokes, and we took our hamper home.

---

Outside the hotel, in the rain
Tonight, Becky and I were leaving the building to go grab a bite to eat or do whatever.
In the lobby, we bumped into Susan and our hotel security guard (Tim).
She said, "Hey, where ya going?".
Then she said "Peter and I are going to TGIF's once he gets back from the cleaners. Wanna come?".
We said, "Well, uh, we, um....Well YEA!".
And the next thing you know, we're waiting outside for the Peter to arrive with his laundry.
It was raining hard outside, but nobody seemed to mind it. 
A girl hit me up for a cigarette, then four gay guys hung out, and people coming in and out start collecting,
The next thing ya know, its like a big party....outside, in front of the hotel, with rain falling down everywhere.

---

TGIF's Restaurant.
Peter finally arrived, dropping off his tiny bag of laundry, and the four of us strolled around the corner to Fourth Street Live. A band was playing in the street, and there were 100s of people there. Thats home to the TGIF restaurant.
Peter and Susan were clowning with the hostess, and we got a booth.
Every waiter, waitress and bus person in TGIF's swung to our booth to clown around and introduce themselves.
These two knew everybody there! You can't buy entertainment like this. You have to live it.

---

The People
Peter is an older, but good looking, ex New Yorker, who has a radio announcers voice, and does impressions very well.
Susan, is an throwback from Woodstock, with no teeth. Her hair seems to fly around everywhere when she talks.
Tim, is our security guard. He's quiet, smiles a lot, and is an athiest.
Scott, not mentioned above, is our other security guard, and he's a preacher.
These four people as a group, can put first name to every body in this 300 room high rise.
Everybody here is good looking and they all have wild personalities.

---

This Hotel
It seems to have ghetto levels, retirement levels, party levels and posh levels.
If they put a convenience store on the bottom floor, some people would never the block.
Living in this hotel is the experience I was looking for.
Its like living in a Seinfield episode, but its much better.

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!!!

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.

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.

I bought a years subscription to Morning Star, and have sent you 4 emails trying to tell you how to get into it.
Morningstar is a really good investment site.
The site is at: http://www.morningstar.com
I'll call tonight and give you the logon and password for it.

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.

Now how does that work now Squirt?
We shower you with treasures and you shower us with...ahem...gold,
haha.

Now how does that work now Squirt?
We shower you with treasures and you shower us with...ahem...gold,
haha.

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.

He told me we could save the tooth, like it was a cherished life form...haha.
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

Eva Park - Dumpy
Louisville Soccer Park - Busy but nice
Hutchins Park - Okay
Cherokee Park - HUGE, long windy roads, a golf course is next to it. Its a jungle
Seneca Park - Very LONG, lots of soccer fields, very nice
The houses around Cherokee and Seneca were ancient and unique.
Iroquois Park - Beautiful - We saw 360 degree views of the entire Louisville area.
The houses around this area were new, and unique. They looked GREAT! I want one.


Waverly Park - Ok. Lots of trees. It ended with a home made lake...but I'd call it a mossy swamp.
Someone is building the lake with a backhoe. You can tell too. It has no water supply so the water is stagnant.
The ranches out here are spectacular though.
River Gardens Park - What park...it was less a baseball diamond with overgrown grass.
Campground Road - had no campgrounds to it, just factories.
Pleasure Ridge Park - nasty
Shawnee Park - Okay...we didn't really blend in.
There were only two parks where people parked in the grass, and blasted their music.
Both parks were 100% Hispanic.
Along the way, we stopped at a Fresh Produce Store
I ate almost an entire bucket of strawberries during the trip.
We watched a Railroad Bridge descend to let a train go over.
That was cool. I don't know what's more beautiful about this place, the area, or the sparkle in Becky's eyes!
Last of all we ate at Joes Crab Shack.
Half of it is on stilts overlooking the Ohio River. The food was the same, but at this altitude, with the air being more humid, the food tastes better. They're drinks are fantastic. Becky had a strawberry margarita, and I had a Pina Colada. 
Great people. Great scenery. Great food.
I'm beat.

I bought two season tickets from this fellow at work for 50% off regular rates.
This afternoon, we swung by just to make sure there wasn't going to be any hastles about us being non-residents.
Disneyland wouldn't give us our annual tickets, even after we paid for them online, which stunk! They wanted to see an apartment lease or utility bill. BTW - I know now, how I could've have beaten that.
We watched a Looney Tunes show which was pretty cool, and went on a ride that went up and down, in circles.

I called it a kiddie ride, along with the Marry-Go-Round and the Bumper Cars, and Becky got mad!
That was funny. She said "I'M NOT A KID!" and I laughed.
I should have Fear-Of-Park-Amusement-Rides (FOPAR)
myself, but I don't. FOPAR seems to be a genetic thing.
A thirteen year old girl lost both of her feet on the Superman ride, at this same park, about 3 weeks ago. I think that made national news. The Superman is a pretty tame ride, and its in a lot of amusement parks. A cable snapped and must have whipped around on its way down. I suppose that could happen in an elevator just as easily, but I'm not afraid of them either.
We polished off the night enjoying a nice Web Camming with GMa and Jennifer.
There's some kind of big party going on down stairs, but I'm just too burned out too join in.

Mike, Melody and a horse, of course. We met them on the Belle of Louisville, and we just clicked. Next thing you know, we're hanging out all night. I really enjoyed the last part. They put couches on Fourth Street with pillows, and we just kicked back and joked. It was like we were in an open air living room.
 

The $15 three hour tour goes north up the Ohio, and includes dancing and an optional $15 buffet. We wouldn't have missed the buffet. The band was very uplifted. We'd heard them on 4th Street Live earlier in the week.
Its a non-smoking tour, but ya know, 33% of the people here smoke. They were all around cuffing their cigs, haha.
The people on the cruise are just out to have fun and to socialize. We did a lot of that.

The lanes are all decorated, and there's a TV screen right above the bowling pins. Its cool!
But the people are SO polite here.
I just wanted to watch a clip from a Bruce Willis movie, and a guy next to use, kept motioning me on,
letting me know it was okay to bowl, he'd be more than happy to wait.
Now, its not like we were actually taking turns.
I know its supposed to be polite not to bowl a ball while the person next to you is bowling.
But sometimes, manners can just go too far.
I also noticed these guys couldn't remember which ball was theirs.
They kept using my ball every several rolls...hahahahaha. And they weren't drunk either....lol.
Manners in Louisville are extreme!
It shows up at its worst at 4 way stop signs.
Everybody's trying to let the other person go ahead of them, and nobody goes at all!
My head could actually explode here.
Just kidding. I love it here. Its like being in an episode of  "The Waltons".

Sonny, just wanted to let you know, I’m not forgetting you, slighting you, or dodging you in any way.
I’ve just bent so burnt out.
Maybe we shouldn’t have moved downtown.
Its definitely not boring.
We went bowling last night. We’re going on a steamboat cruise tonight.
We saw two concerts, went camping, and walked the Louisville skywalk last week.
I’ve got a natural curiosity of this high rise.
I’ve already popped a breaker taking an outlet box apart. They have of each room’s outlets coupled with half of the adjacent room apartments rooms. So I pop a breaker and half this apartment goes out, half the adjoining apartment goes out. Its weird!
And these outlets, Sonny, I’ve never seen anything like them before. They are so odd looking. You can see two bare wires sticking out facing the front of the outlet, right next to the cover screw. That’s seems dangers to me. And these outlet covers have plastic that goes into the outlet. I doubt you could buy them anymore. The breakers for the whole floor are next to the trash shoot.
I took a board off the wall. There concept to fixing a whole in the wall is to put a panel over the whole, and anchor it in there. It is kind of handy. But inside the walls is the interesting part. The pipes are copper, and the corrosion almost adds 10% to the pipes diameter. I’d feel fearful about touching any of the plumbing, even just turning off a sink valve. The pipes and valves are so old. They’re begging to break.So, its been a wonderland kind of life here too.
Its hard to believe we were in Las Vegas less than a month ago.
So much has happened in the last 27 days. That's why I want to keep this blog updated.
I'm going to forget this month if I don't write it down someplace that won't be deleted.

And they're not in Las Vegas!
Louisville's Channel 6 news said there are more than 400 fires in Nevada this morning.
But Las Vegas's Channel 3 and Channel 8 said nothing about it.
I first heard about them last week.
It's national news!
So I was surprised when, after I talking to Sonny, he didn't know anything about it.
Wanna know something about where you're living?
Look at another city's news headlines.

The things happening in this area are so exciting.
It's the free concerts around the corner every other night.
It's the water front, the old buildings, and all the history here.
It's the girls in their cowboy boots, mini skirts or shorts, and tank tops
It's the guys, none of which ever fails to smile at ya, and give ya the 'man nod'.
It's the quality of schools, people, and level of existence here that makes me feel good.
People in Louisville probably don't know what they've got here.
And people in Las Vegas don't know what they've lost.

We walked several miles around Louisville and ended up here.
Very EXCELLENT food!
Here I am, walking off the pounds, just to go to a restaurant to put them back on. We went to the water front. Walked along the Ohio River. Watched horse drawn carriages pull people around town.
Then we found the sky walk. Its an enclosed walk a story up, that takes you around and through the buildings downtown.
What can I say?
For a couple of weary travellers, its paradise.
These buildings are 200 years old. 200 years from now, they'll still be standing.

We took off Saturday morning to meet Rod, Resee and Jessica at the campground.
On the way, we picked some fold out popason chairs.
I thought it would be funny to use living room furniture for camping. "You know you're a redneck when there's a couch in your front yard".
It was fun bopping around the park
I decided I'd drink beer while hanging out. That added antics to the adventure.
Rod took the golf cart through the woods on to a highway! That was incredible.
He wanted to see if he could get the cart out of the park.
Jessica and I went fishing
However, I spent almost all of the time straightening up the line. I didn't succeed though. My beer hangover messed up my vision, so the 2 beer max rule is back in effect.
I was so tired the whole time.
I hope I wasn't too much of a putz. I just barely made the 60 minute drive.
My whole body is sore from all the activities in the last few weeks.
And I've got a killer toothache. We took off at 2pm Sunday, and  I have got to slow things down. After frantically jogging around the city trying to find a notary and a Fed Ex at 4pm on Friday, I thought I couldn't take any more. I was wrong.  I guess self abuse has no limit.
We drove through an incredible storm on the way back. Visibility was 5 to 20 feet.
I had too pull over, which was a blessing. I kept fading in and out. 
I just couldn't get any sleep. Kept having nightmares, and my dreams are almost always beautiful.
But all of that aside, it was fun weekend.
Its too bad we couldn't have stayed for the rides at Holiday Park.
I think next time, we'll plan things better and rent an air conditioned cabin or travel trailer.

I'm ready. We're bringing beer, smokes, blankets, and rubbers (wading boots).
I think I'd like to do some spear fishing.
This guy looks like he had fun.
I suppose, if I can't find a spear or a pole, I could create a new sport called "Stomp Fishing"
Holiday Park is only 60 minutes away. Thats great!
Too bad we can't do the water park together. That would be a blast too!
But HEY, its only 60 minutes away and annual passes are just over $100.
Thinking about it, I'd probably end on the news as the fat guy who got stuck in the water tube.
You'd see Katie Couric live at Holiday Park, 
reporting how a crane is dissassembling a ride, trying to a free a fat, ugly, desparate vacationer named LVDUDE, and that they had to shut off the parks water main to stop the flow of water.
hmmm.

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.

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

Been kind of broke...at least for this week, my checking account has been getting pounded for the last three months.
BUT, there's plenty of free things to do in Louisville.
Saw the last race for the spring Kentucky Derby Races.
Rod and Jessica picked us up.
WE WON!...actually, Becky did. She bet something like 2, 5, 7 and 9 to win.
Her pick was a long shot that paid 16 for 1.
Then again, we got a flat that morning, which cost $130 to replace...
So, WE LOST!!! yaaaahaha.
The Emerson Drive Concert
We watched a free concert on this block. About 1,000 came to watch it.
It's a blast living near the heart and soul of Louisville.
I love how these country people dress and behave.
They seem so peaceful and happy.

I love your writing Becky. Your personality comes out in your spelling (retstruants = restaurants).
I seriously enjoy your spelling of words more than the correct spellings.
They are very cute. So, I'm not gonna show you spell check yet.
Love ya bunchs and bunches and bounches. 8^)

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.

Friday, we signed papers for the apartment, but we couldn't move in yet.
So, we just hung out at Suburban.
We ate pizza at Old Chicago's, and I've gotta say, it was the best pizza I'd ever had!
Saturday, we moved into our apartment.
It took two trips to move out of the Suburban.
Then we bought a TON of Walmart furniture (airbed, chairs...)
We moved all of that in and passed out around midnight.
Sunday, we had to exchange another VCR (without a tuner in it, which we need)
Our GPS went strange on us, and we ended up at a Walmart in New Albany.
On our way back, we had to go down Albany's back streets.
We actually got stopped at a railroad crossing for 20 minutes (I hopped out and picked flowers...lol).
Albany's a beautiful, small town with very old Buildings.
I64 was out to Louisville, so once again, we had to take a detour and I blew a flat!
Finally, about noonish, we got back to Louisville.
Churchill Downs with Rod and Jessica.
Rod and Jessica met us at the apartments and gave us a lift. They are such great company!
Becky picked the horses and won!!! Yippee!!!
Ending the day, we went to The River Front Park
Cool place. There's a Joes Crab Shack high on stilts over the river.
The park has a water jet show, and lots of grassy areas. 
Kids were playing frisbee football and soccer. It looked like a blast.

We're going off line until we get our new internet service
Have a GREAT WEEKEND!