My flowers are finally blooming! Here are some pictures.

Sorry for the long absense, my wife has been keeping me busy this past week.  I've had to plant a tree (shantung maple), which it turned out involved hacking away at some roots with a pick-axe for two days straight.  I've had to help her entertain my parents and my brother's family (which wasn't easy with the current issues) this past weekend.  I've also been working away at my pathetic attempt at a short science fiction story for a while on my old PDA, since I haven't been able to get to the computer as much as I used to, so that's still slowly working away.  I've got a few posts that I have to make on some Xanga pages, then I'll try to get back to my own...

P.S. Have you heard the verdicts?  Here are just a few importent cases that you haven't heard about, thanks to the 24 hour coverage of the Jackson trial.

High court ruling reaffirms race-neutral justice
Ruling Could Lead to Internet Sales Tax
Appeals court media ruling is left standing
Iraq detainee wins court ruling

-J.

Well, my wife's off of work for the summer.  I'm not that lucky though.  However, I'll be going to South Padre sometime soon for my first vacation since I started working.  The only interesting thing going on in my life is that I finally saw Star Wars and I had a fight with my parents.  Star Wars was about what I expected.  My mom said that my wife was purposefully trying to seperate me from my family, while indirectly calling my wife a liar.  She's apologized for saying it, but since she still seems to believe it, I don't feel like subjecting myself or my wife to her attitude for quite a while.

On another note, check out the story below.  It's an editorial from a librarian who was asked by the FBI to turn over a list of people who checked out a biography of Bin Laden.  It also sheds some light on some of the problems with the Patriot Act as it now stands.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-05-17-librarian-edit_x.htm 

Oh, and by the way, I have finally found a good way to tie the
beginning of my story with the ending, so I should have that finished
soon... I'll post both of the final chapters when I get finished.

On another note, I've recently been told something rather
embarrasing.  Throughout my whole Xanga, I don't mention my wife
once.  I went back through and I was trying to see what I
origionally expected from this Blog, and what I actually put into
it.  I had wanted it to be a place where I could encourage myself
to write my dreams and stories, and get a few friends' opinions and
more stranger's opinions on them.  It turned out to be that a
little bit, but I more often posted my comments and complaints about my
life.   I wanted to avoid mentioning too much personal stuff, like
work and stuff, but I didn't mean to leave out such a big part of my
life.

I can understand why I wasn't complaining about my wife, she's a doll,
but I would have thought that I would have posted about her by
now.  Oh, well... I'll try to mention her a bit more.

Last night I had one of my first nightmares in quite a while.

It was about twilight and I was outside with a friend who was helping me.We dug up a small mound of earth and found a small round metal object.When we lifted up the object, we noticed there was a deep hole below the object. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I was preparing to go into the hole and search inside.Luckily, I noticed that I had a backpack full of lights and flashlights.

My friend must have suggested that we go inside a nearby house, because I soon found myself inside a small bedroom.About that time, my friend turned out the lights in the room.I was suddenly frightened, and I felt that someone was watching me. I got out one of my flashlights and told him that he should turn on the lights because I thought something had come out of the hole. Of course, my friend thought I was crazy and kept turning out the lights. Somehow I knew that whatever was after me couldn't stay in the light.

At one point, I thought I saw something move in the shadows. By this time, I was getting really nervous.The lights were turned out again and I was standing, shivering, on the bed, searching the room with my flashlight.

As I shone the light on one corner, I saw a few tentacles of this creature that looked like it was made entirely of shadows. Imagine the shadow of an octopus, without the octopus, that also wouldn't disappear when you shine a light on it. That's about what the thing that had been stalking me looked like. I woke up then, with my heart pounding.

Of course, this description doesn't seem to impart the horror of the dream. If you're seen the re-make of ''The House on Haunted Hill," the creature near the end was similar to what I saw; only it only appeared in the dark.

I blew up my air conditioning this weekend...Not really, but I had to go an evening and most of Monday without it.  I was trying to install a new programmable thermostat to replace the one that came with my 15 year old A/C unit, and ended up with two extra wires.  When I tried to put the old one back on, the whole thing no longer worked.  I had to take a day off (poor me) and wait for the A/C guy.  He showed me the reset button was hidden in the attic, behind a panel that can only be removed by removing one of the support beams.  He also showed me my dirty filter, which was also hidden in the attic behind yet another completely unmarked panel and wrapped with strips of duct tape.

After calling several support centers, and his tech guy, the A/C guy finally figured out how my A/C system was hooked up and wired my thermostat for me.  I had wired it up right with the exception of the two wires that he also had a hard time with.  Thankfully, he was the owner of the A/C place and he didn't charge me for the time that he was as confused as I was about the wiring of something that was supposed to be simple.  I guess that he's betting (correctly) that I'll be calling him again when my old A/C needs more work. 

But for now, it's back to work...

Going to Padre Island this summer (mid-July)!  My first real vacation since I started working full time.  I'm going with family and a few friends, but I need to find a hotel/condo/whatever that accepts pets.  I think I've found one, just need to look around the web and make sure it's not the worst place on the island. 

I don't think I've been sleeping well,I haven't had a dream in a while.

For all you coldplay fans, I just heard that Coldplay will be on the Saturday Night Live season finale on the 21st.  I haven't watched it in a while, guess I'll have to see this one...

Still alive, still busy...I'll update when I get a chance...

-J

Never, never....and I mean NEVER get involved in a homeowners association.  It's one of the classic blunders...the most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia.....But I digress.  I've just learned (after moving in 3 months ago) that we are about to vote on whether we should raise the monthly dues by $60.  We almost passed up this house because the dues were expensive to begin with ($90/month), but they took care of the lawn, gave us free basic cable, and upkeep a pool and a hot tub.  We figured that cable is worth about $40 a month, and $50-$60 a month was comparable to other HOAs in the area without free cable.

To make matters worse, the few neighbors that we've discussed this about seem to think that this will be voted through.  The extra money will be set aside with the "intent" to be used for road maintenence, but of course noone but the board members will be able to ensure that this will actually happen. 

I was looking on the internet and was trying to find a listing of HOA dues for the area so that I could write a letter and ask why this increase would be justified since I know we will be one of the top priced HOAs after this increase (except for the rich "brand-name" gated communities).  Anyone know how to get information like this?

Well, I got a call before work that my sister is in labor... I'll fill in the details about my new little niece later today after I get a chance to see her!

She's a cute little thing.  They've named her Ellie Rose.  Everyone's making a big deal about the whole thing, meaning that my sister hasn't had a moment's rest, nor a moment alone.  I assume she'll get a chance tonight - they're keeping them there for two nights. 

They are not going to baptize the baby, for some reason my parents no longer believe in baptizing infants - though it was good enough for me and my older brother.  My mom now refuses to believe we were baptized as infants, "You were just sprinkled" --- despite the fact that I still have the BAPTISM certificate (stating the traditional Trinitarian baptism), and the program for that service that clearly states that I was baptized (one of the issues between me and my mom).  I guess she's fine with believing that I am a heathen that was never baptized.  She seems to think that even though parents choose what their kids eat, watch, play with, etc. and where they live and go to church, that parents can't choose to start their kid's lives with Jesus. 

I've heard that Ellie will be having a "sprinkling" ceremony, which as far as I can tell is a "wanna-be" baptism.  It just seems like some kind of sham to me, I don't see the point in going through the motions if someone isn't going to say "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," using water.  I'm sure the devil loves sprinkling ceremonies, I'm sure he keeps a few people from being truly baptized by later convincing them that their "sprinkling" was an actual baptism. I'm just surprised that Satan's kept so many people so confused that they are convinced that infant baptism is somehow un-biblical.

Anyway, enough religious rambling...She's cute, she's healthy (and a bit chubby), and so is her mother <grin>.  And I'm an uncle (again).

Alright...

My story seems to be in limbo right now.  I know the ending that I have to have, but I'm not sure how I can get from where I left the story to that ending.  I'll try to look at it again this week and see what I can do.

On another note, I had a dream that I was Rocky - fighting the Russian... Which is wierd since I never liked boxing all that much, nor have I seen any Rocky movie for several months.  I was in the final round, trying to slowly wear him down (of course, while avoiding being killed).  Though I didn't notice it, at some point in the fight, I got my own face back (instead of Stallone's).  Then later, the fight just kinda faded away and I became more concerned with getting some sparrows out of the house-that-used-to-be-a-boxing-ring.  I was trying to call (whistle) them out the front door, but only a few of them came out.  Needless to say, I woke up feeling very strange.

On yet another note, I'm currently starting to read a short story by Phillip Dick (author of Minority Report), that is called A Scanner Darkly.  It's about a deep undercover narcotics agent 'Fred' posing as a drug dealer.  He's so deep undercover that he reports anonomously to his superiors, and his cover (as 'Bob') is not known by them either.  Fred is assigned by his superiors to investigate Bob, the drug dealer that he's posing as.  To make matters even more confusing, the drug that he is selling (and perhaps taking?) causes the user's personality to split into two opposing personalities.  I assume that his 'Frank' personality may forget that he's just undercover as 'Bob' (and visa-versa), and will actually try to investigate his other personality.