Bruce was called for jury duty but was told his group did not have to report. New Years Eve and News Year Day were quiet with Bruce watching football bowl games. At midnight New Years Eve Bruce went for a walk around the neighborhood and watched fireworks.
A friend of Bruce's got a warning from her Home Owners Association wanting her to take down the Television antenna on her roof. Bruce finally got around to getting his ladder over to her house so he could get up on the roof. Tuesday he took the antenna down. During the evening during commercials Bruce installed a new modem in the computer that his friend brought back from New Mexico. Bruce spent the evenings continuing to study JavaScript and watching football bowl games. Christmas Eve turned into a quiet evening of Bruce watching football. Christmas day Bruce went over to a friend's house and they watched an old movie that Bruce had taped several days ago. Bruce went off to work some more with the new computer. Bruce spent a lot of time on and off continuing to clean up the new computer.
Three friends of Bruce's returned back from Santa Fe Tuesday night. The excitement during Bruce's friend's New Mexico trip was caused by following to close to a truck load of gravel on the Interstate. The stones flying out of and falling from the truck caused a rock storm. The car ended up getting both fog light lenses broken. For what should have been a thirty minute job, Bruce spent almost all Sunday morning removing the broken fog lights. The delay was caused because Bruce didn't use enough force to break loose the lights from their sockets. After the Sunday night football game he spent another hour putting his friend's car back together. Saturday night Bruce went to a Christmas party. On the way to the party, Bruce went wandering on the streets looking at homes decorated with Christmas Lights. Sunday afternoon Bruce was at the home of a friend when she broke out in a severe allergic reaction. It was so bad that while his friend took a shower trying to wash off the irradiant Bruce went to the drugstore to get some Benadryl. Bruce received his new tennis shoes from the contest he won last month.
Bruce was doing some paper work and watching/listening(?) to Monday Night Football when a neighbor came over to ask for some computer help for his granddaughter who was trying to print out the information from a Internet site. One thing lead to another causing Bruce to get the information captured, shipped to his house, then he had to go to his house to get it printed out, bringing back the printout. Bruce is watching a friend's two dogs for five days over the weekend until Tuesday. Friday night Bruce and a friend met downtown and went to a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game. They got extra entertainment as the game went into overtime. The final score was 3-3. Sunday Bruce went to the open house of the new Phoenix Coyotes home stadium, called Glendale Arena. He got their early, stood in line for the open house fifteen minutes before the doors even opened. Then the line was so long it took an hour and 45 minutes for him to reach the front door and go in. All that was available was one side of the arena for people to walk from one red line to the other red line. That was the whole thing; no tours, not much else. At least he stuck around long enough to find out that they were handing out tickets, so he snuck back in and on the way back out picked up two tickets for a game next year.
Bruce has been busy. Bruce finished reading the user's manual for a friend who bought one and wants now to learn to use it. He installed the camera software needed to transfer the camera's pictures to his friend's computer. He also had to make several calls to Olympus to get technical help and to tell them of several errors in their documentation. He also started to make an AC adapter for the camera to replace the batteries. His project had to be terminated as the camera draws more current than any of the power supplies he was working with. Tuesday Bruce got a phone call that he won a pair of tennis shoes from a contest he entered last month. Monday Bruce was invited to a dinner of some of the turkey enchiladas that were made last week. Not only were they good, they took the chill out of the room. Bruce put up Christmas lights for a neighbor. Bruce went out and got a battery charger and batteries that were on sale for the friend's camera. The camera really sucks the life out of batteries. While Bruce was shopping he almost bought a universal card reader for his friend but it would not read the camera's card. Saturday Gary and Carol were in Phoenix for one of David's Taek Won Do events. Bruce met them at a GM car show where people got to drive the cars. Bruce waited an hour and 8 minutes so he could drive the hummer for 6 minutes. The man made hill in the terrain course was scary. Circumstances really wrecked the rest of the weekend. Bruce was to go shopping and had a list of things to do on the way home from the car show. Instead all he did was stop off and test drive a Santa Fe. Very disappointing. Bruce ended up canceling going to the Tempe to have dinner with Bruce's cousin visiting from Las Vegas and Gary, Carol and David. He even cancelled having dinner with another couple that was scheduled for Sunday evening.
Thanksgiving Day came and went quickly. The host made a fine turkey and Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey was very tender. The leftover turkey was made into sandwich meat and a turkey soup. Bruce had his favorite Thanksgiving routine. He watch football.
A friend had been considering buying a digital camera for her niece who is moving to New Zealand. Friday after Thanksgiving Bruce woke her friend up 15 minutes early telling her of a camera on sale thinking she could go shopping an her way to work. She went to the store on her way to work to look for the digital camera. The first time she went to the store the parking lot was filled. At lunchtime she went back and found a parking place. She ended up buying a camera that was $20 less than the best price that Bruce had found while he has been gathering digital camera information. On top of that there was a $20 discount because it was a returned camera and she's getting a $20 rebate. The end result is the camera that lists for $299, who's best price found was $230, and with rebate will net out with tax at about $140. Bruce spent most of Friday night reading up on the instructions. After learning about how to operate the camera the friend made the wise decision to keep the camera thinking it was not the type of gift for a 14 year old. Saturday Gary, Carol, David and a friend of David's came up for the weekend. What a weekend. Bruce did yard work in the morning then he met everyone downtown. They spent several hours looking at the new cars displayed at the Phoenix Auto Show. After the show Bruce went home to wait for the family to go to their motel and check in. Gary got the wrong directions to the motel and then had problems checking in. They all ended up going to an other motel to check in. That made them very late all meeting up. The group went to downtown Glendale to see the Christmas lights during Glendale Glitters. It was crowded, cells phones between people did not connect and people kept getting lost from each other. The activities finally ended about 11 PM. Sunday was another full day. In the morning everyone met for breakfast. They sat around too long and had to rush doing some shopping to meet another couple at the opening of the new Glendale Sports Arena. It was a long drive to the arena only to find the open house got cancelled. Tempers were a little short. Gary and the group went to get gas, do more shopping and return home. Bruce food shopping and looked for a part for the new camera. He then went to a friends home to see the house and have dinner. While the women walked around the house the men watched the Sunday night football game.
About six weeks ago Bruce won two tickets to a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game. Wednesday Bruce went to the Phoenix Coyotes hockey game at America West Arena. Phoenix won 5-4.
About 2 months ago Bruce ordered from AOL an AOL 9.0 CD. He waited three weeks and when the CD did not arrive he then called AOL to find out the status of the missing CD. He was told it had already been sent. So he ordered another CD. AOL said the CD should arrive in seven to ten days. In the mean time Bruce found an AOL CD display in a grocery store. He installed it Thursday. Saturday he got a package of not 1-not 2-not 3-not 4-but 5 AOL CDs. That is right! Five CDs. Bruce went to an alumni dinner and meeting at Glendale Community Collage.
The week started out slowly. Bruce voted Tuesday. Bruce finished up studying the three books on JavaScript he checked out from the library. Now he will be reviewing his notes and try writing programs and using what he learned on websites. Friday things got really hectic. Bruce has always had problems installing Window updates. Recently MSFT has been putting out patches like Sears puts out ads. He found out there was a special telephone number for MSFT free help. That is like getting free money, lots of it. He called three times Friday going through the automated answering system, waiting on hold for about 8 minutes each time, getting frustrated and hanging up. Then he called as soon as they opened Saturday hoping to get in before the rush. He waited about seventeen minutes and finally got a person to talk to. He and the technician went at it for over an hour and a half over the phone getting advice and giving feedback. At one point he had the Internet going, papers all over my desk, notes on pieces of paper scattered all about, downloading a patch as a trial installation and had a cell phone at his ear all at the same time. Somewhere in there during the process someone interrupted him an IM which he deleted in less than one second. Anyway the problem seems to have been solved and I got the patch installed on my system.
Wednesday Bruce ended up really hurting his back again. Bruce started to trim the vegetation in Friend's backyard. It was much worse that the injury he got while doing the lawn work last week.
Saturday afternoon Bruce went to the wedding of Rob and Maria. Rob is the fellow Bruce practices with Saturday mornings.
Pretty quite week until Saturday. Bruce started early in the morning to cut the grass. Not only did Bruce have trouble starting the lawnmower, but also it is believed the lawnmower broke, rolled over and died. Off he went to Home Depot to get an electric lawn mower. After returning home Bruce decided he didn't like it; off Bruce goes to exchange it for an other model. The grass was so wet the grass would continually clog the lawnmower up. It took three circuits to finally get the grass cut. After cutting the grass Bruce had to rake up the cut grass. There was so much grass that Bruce got only half of the lawn raked. Sunday Bruce finished up raking the lawn.
A week of catching up. Bruce had a brake cable break on his bicycle last week. Friday he finally got around to fixing it. Unbelievable, the total time to get the repair done was less that 20 minutes. A snap. The rest of the week was not as smooth. Tuesday he went to the post office to buy stamps. He remembered putting the receipt in the front pouch of his fanny pack. Thursday he goes to send off some paperwork and a purchase rebate. He can't find the stamps. He can find the receipt but not the stamps. He even calls up the post office to see if he had dropped them while still at the counter. Friday morning on the way to work he goes to the post office to mail a payment. Just by luck he looked at the envelope to see if it was addressed correctly. No stamp was on it. After work Friday he goes back to the post office to buy three replacement stamps. He opens up his wallet to get money and there are the stamps. For some reason he put the receipt in one place and the stamps in an other. Well at least that made him fell better. Bruce bought a set of 5 flying simulation programs. It netted out to 6 - 6 plus tax. He installed three of the five programs. Two of the programs don't work; he hasn't tried the third program yet. The rest of the week was spent continuing to study JavaScript and watching all the football and baseball on TV. Friday night there was no baseball on so Bruce and a friend went out to dinner. Terrible service. Service was slow, had to ask for refills and when Bruce got his meal it was cold - not warm, cold. They left to eat at 6.30. Bruce's friend wanted to be home by 8 to watch TV. It was after 8 before they even left the restaurant then they got caught in a traffic jam due to construction. Almost 2 1/2 hours for dinner.
This was an unbelievable and active week!
Friday Bruce went to an Arizona Diamondback's baseball game. It wasn't a very good game and Bruce left in the top of the eighth inning. Saturday morning Bruce went out and practiced tennis with a friend then took off to spend the weekend with Gary and Carol in Tucson. Everybody met for lunch. After lunch everybody went over to Bruce's Mother's house. The plan was to test drive his Mother's car in order to get it ready to sell. The battery was so dead it would not accept a charge. Bruce and Gary finally got the car started. When they came back to the car intending to drive it, there was water all over and the engine temperature light was on. Believing that the car could not be driven it was left there overnight to cool down. Bruce got from Gary the print out of two pictures that Bruce made for a friend by taking pieces from several photographs, combining and editing them using my software.Bruce spent the day in Flagstaff helping friends unpack, unload and move furniture at their new home. At the end of the day he took their children home in Tempe then went home to watch the NCAA tournament.
Bruce helped a friend move 22 tons of rock from the street into his friend's back, side and front yards. He was there 5 1/2 hours. All was not work. He had 7 beers, 4 donuts, one-foot long sub sandwich and a soda.
Bruce had to baby-sit four dogs for friends that went away on vacation. One of the dogs ruined a lot of things by chewing on them.
David had a soccer tournament at Cave Creek Sports Complex so his family came up Sunday. David's team won and took third place in the state. After the game they went to Fry's and then went to lunch. Bruce spent the rest of the day watching sports.
Bruce's friends flight coming back was delayed and they missed their connection. They had to stay over night in Charlotte, South Carolina. They finally got back home Monday.
This was not a good week at all. Bruce spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday down in Tucson.
Monday was one of those days were almost everything went wrong for Bruce. After Bruce packed and loaded his car (like with two computers he hoped Gary would be able to work on). He drove to get some spending cash and some automatic transmission fluid at Checker (even though he likes AutoZone better), then drove to get gas for his car. After filling up the car he drove all the way back home to lock up his house. Then he drove to an electronics parts store in order to get parts to fix a lamp that he got from Dorothy. He cashed in some aluminum cans in order to make room in his storage room. While there he realized he did not get his change after filling up his car with gas so he had to drive back to the gas station to get his change. Next he drove to Black & Decker to check on parts for a trimmer that he reconditioned. He found out that parts are no longer unavailable for that model. Finally after missing many freeway entrances he got on the freeway to start his trip. All is took 3 1/2 hours. He drove through both Eloy and Marana to look for an AutoZone store in order to buy a compression checker. No AutoZone store in either city. While driving to Tucson he missed a freeway exit due to construction and had to circle around. About four miles from Gary's house Bruce's car stopped. He pushed it into a store's parking lot, borrowed a phone in order to called Gary to bring him some gas (to help get the car started) and to help him out. Bruce went back out and got the car started -- called Gary back and told him to cancel the trip. Bruce went back out found out he locked his keys in the car. After getting in this car he could not get the carry started. Finally after repeated tries Bruce got his car started. On the way to Gary's the road leading to Gary's home was blocked due to construction and Bruce had to double back in order to get around the construction. When he got to the corner near Gary's home the car died again and Bruce just coasted to in front of Gary's house. To finish off this bad day Bruce help to Gary bled the brakes of his car. Well these two shade tree mechanics forgot to put a rotor on one of the wheels and the piston popped out one of the wheel cylinders. This cost about 45 minutes while Bruce rebuilt the wheel cylinder. After all that Bruce and Gary finally got the brake lines bled. Okay, that pretty much sums up the bad day.
Tuesday Bruce and Gary attended a Microsoft Internet security seminar. In the afternoon Bruce spent the remainder of the day working on his parents car. In the evening Bruce and Gary finished up and the brake job on Gary's car. Turns out the problem and on his parents car was a combination of bad spark plug wires and spark plugs. He basically did a tuneup.
Wednesday after finally getting his car loaded, he visited his parents and on the way he home about 20 miles from his house Bruce had another tire tread separate. He was able to limp home on the bad tire.
Friday Bruce took a neighbor to the airport to send her off on her Caribbean cruise. Now he gets to babysit four dogs.
Bruce went to visit a friend for the day where they watched TV.
Bruce finally got his refrigerator back. The long time was due to getting a new compressor and waiting for the ground to dry out and become firm so the refrigerator could be delivered.
Friday Gary, Carol, and David and one of David's friends came up to spend the day at the zoo. Bruce drove to Tempe where they all met for an evening dinner. There was supposed to be heating on the outdoor patio but it was still cold.
Gary and Carol came up to Phoenix for the day. David was in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. The afternoon was spent at Fry's Electronics looking around. Then everybody went to have dinner. After dinner everybody went to Bruce's house. Gary brought up a degaussing tool. Bruce fixed a new television set he had repaired by degaussing it and adjusting the picture.
Thursday Bruce's mother died. Saturday Bruce went to Tucson for the funeral. The trip was truly an exciting experience. It started out by Bruce finding that the car had a leaking water pump. The car performed okay if the car kept moving but it overheated twice on the trip down. Once it overheated because Bruce got caught in traffic stopped on the freeway due to construction. The second time when was Bruce had to pull over just outside of Tucson to find Carol's cell phone number. Bruce went to look for Carol and Gary at David's soccer match but got bad directions and spent a lot of time trying to find the game. While Bruce watched the game, the car cooled down then Bruce was able to drive it to his mother's house. Sunday was Bruce's Mother's funeral. Bruce gave the eulogy at the funeral. There were quite a lot of people who attended the service. Whatever free time there was Bruce spent Saturday and Sunday playing auto mechanic. He replaced the water pump on the car and Bruce and Gary worked on trying to find what the problem was with the rough running engine of Bruce's parents' car.
Bruce's refrigerator quit working. The compressor went bad. The refrigerator was taken in for the installation of a new compressor.
Bruce watched football all day.
Friday Mary and Leo came to visit for the weekend.
Saturday Bruce had a wonderful Korean dinner with his group of close friends so they could met Mary and Leo (See the picture in the photo album).