Year: 2017

So, on Friday I went to the Orland Park Cultural Center’s website to look for an Art Class. Lo and behold I found a watercolor class. Got the nod form my better half and tried to sign up. No dice, the class was cancelled. WTF? Aggravation is starting to set in on the ol’ South Side. Hopefully McCord is going to put up their fall class schedule soon.

On Saturday, I went up to my Sister in law’s new summer abode in Wisconsin, just North of the Dells. All I can see is a lot of work. Not that I wouldn’t be up for the challenge but I think it will take years. 6 acres in the woods. Lots of work inside and outside. On the plus side – 2 bathrooms. So while you could be working on one, you would have the other one still functional. Also, I found out that there is some type of mosquito trap that emits CO2, traps and kills the little buggers. I hate mosquitos and will post what the thing is. If it were my house all the way up there, I would be seriously looking at 2 things – a heated driveway and solar power.

Rat

Damn, I haven’t posted for an eternity. I feel like a total slacker. In that time – my wife retired, we went on vacation, I had breakfast with my kids: twice, we hosted the twins communion party, I acquired an AR15, celebrated Fathers day, I had my go live – worked like a fool, my old life drawing teacher had a show, I took some time off, celebrated 2 holidays, and my boss’ job was eliminated. WTF? My basement that I lament is slowly getting cleaned and straightened. I am a step closer to resuming my art career. I am completely saddened by my art marooning on the South Side of Chicago. I am pissed about my inactivity on the Tai Chi front, and my trainer left the gym to pursue his MS at Eastern.

I will tackle these in no particular order… One thing that I have noticed: Morraine Valley JC, while very beautiful and has an impressive campus is less than exciting/inspiring when it comes to art classes after 5:00pm weekdays. WTF? Is there no art on the south side of Chicago? Only drunk Irish? You can find a gazillion Irish pubs and Guinness galore, but try and find an oil painting class after 5pm… forget it. Life drawing… no way, watercolor… maybe in a pool, plein aire… 16″ softball (yep, it has no bearing). At least DuPage has art… a veritable flipping “Art Corridor”! Oak Park, Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard (I just stuck that in for continuity), Glen Ellyn, Wheaton (kinda runs out of steam there). Hell, even Naperville has an Art League! What the flip happened to Orland Park, Tinley Park, Oak Forest, Palos, Oak Lawn, Evergreen Park, Beverly? Welcome to the South Side Art drought…. I’m art parched just thinking about it. Kudos to the Beverly Arts Center, Tinley Park Vogt Visual Arts Center, and the McCord Center for the visual arts! You guys are the south side art oasis’.

Rat

It’s been a crazy week.  Next week should be crazy again but in a different way.  Heading off to IBM for some training.  This is last weekend before communion party for the twins.  Lots to do this weekend in 4hr window.  Including JDE app shutdown, SQL package deletion, IPL system, POC application on WebLogic, backup, restart JDE app, and restart of EPM production system.  On home front, have lots of weeds to pick, chopping up weed from hell, maybe get fire pit going, cleaning house. 

Somehow my XSport membership slipped through the cracks – ugh.  At least now I can go into club and discontinue.  Have health club session tonight.  Leg day.  Yesterday was a good chest, shoulders, and triceps day – sore today.  Texted by Danny concerning working out at dojo.  I miss touching/push hands.  I would love to do that – wish I was retired.  Not enough hours in the day for everything.  Love these Bose earbuds – SoundSport in ear headphones.  These work great with the iPhone 7. 

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Today, I was working from home.  Man, I have to start taking notes about what happened at work.  I am forgetting stuff lately – not good.

I am going to put some weed killer on the grass before the weather gets too warm and it goes against the instructions.  Don’t need a yard full of hay.  That seems to be the way any more.  Also have to continue trimming the bushes.  The weather is beautiful today.  We shall see…

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I am officially brain numb.  I’ve been watching (for the last 3 hours) some training on a new product from Microsoft called “Power BI”.  It’s very powerful and seems to be simple to use.  This should really be a good competitor to SAP BI/Business Objects (BI/BOBJ).

Well, I think my wife’s working career is officially coming to an end.  There are some financial ducks that I need to get in a row fairly quickly  to be able to adapt to this new world order.  No more disposable income 😛

-Rat

 

 

Lyrics out of “Stairway to Heaven”.  I still don’t understand JDE or agree with it.  What a “Charlie Foxtrot” (CF=Cluster Fuck).  How can you migrate code when the code exists in 2 separate states? 

I met this chiropractor the other day at the health club.  While not a traditional artist, he certainly is an artist.  You can call it data manipulation, photography, layer and markup manipulation with software, call it anything you want.  It’s still art.  Steve is a character, that’s for sure.  I love his enthusiasm, it is certainly contagious.  His day job is chiropractic but his love is art.  It seeps from his pores.  He probably wouldn’t agree but I can feel his passion.  Anyhow, he heads up a photography club in the area that meets twice a month.  I really want to attend.    I just have to figure out the details.  It sounds like its winding down for the year though.

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Well, Happy Birthday sis!  I hope your vacation/trip to Arizona was good.  Post many pix!

My wife is letting my sister-in-law have the twins communion party at our abode on the South Side – a month earlier than I anticipated (ugh)!  I’m going to be a nervous wreck with 4 weekends less to get all the stuff done AND I will be in Rochester MN for 3 days the week of.   And, I have taxes to complete, and I have a basement to clean.  Not everything is going to be on time and some stuff will need to be triaged.

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I got a brainstorm this weekend to put in a new light switch.  So, it was the 30 min light switch, switch.  I do not like turning on and off the outside lights every night, so I got the bright idea to use a programmable light switch.  Which is good in theory, however there are 2 things that make it difficult – the first is that there was no neutral wire and second, there was a red wire and an orange wire.  What the hell?  Who does this?  Apparently, everyone.  The orange wire was really 2 wires and are the load wires, and the red is really the line wire (a second hot wire).  Third, a real prerequisite for this switch is that you really cannot have only 2 wires – the reason is that there is a digital timer that gets its power, then there is a switch.  So upon further review I have to find the neutral wires (I think I remember them nutted together in the back of the box).  These instructions are not for the faint of heart.

I started back at the health club last night with a trainer (a new trainer) for the first time since the move.  I missed my buddy Ryan.  Pants are tight, shirts are tight, can’t hardly tie my shoes.  Everything gets me out of breath.  Pathetic.  Its hell getting old.  The FNG is ok though.  I am sore and have some tendonitis in my bicep/forearm front outside.  I could tell that the deadlifts were killing me.  Oh, and don’t get me started on mountain climbers – ugh.  I know I didn’t have enough protein last night before bed, I can just feel it.  Have to incline treadmill it tonight and stretch out.  Killer again.  No fun.

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I’ve been fighting a cold or the flu for the past week.  I feel pretty good today.  We are supposed to go to the gym tonight.  We should be signing up for a new trainer – the both of us (he’s a newbie).   Hopefully, once we have a schedule, I will be going regardless.  At least that is my hope.  I need to drop some weight.  Next, I will be fighting my appetite.   I also know that spring is on the way, I have to reconfigure my sump pump before the rains.  Always a fight.  Can’t wait to see my kids this weekend for breakfast.  Flipping Game of War, that is the next fight. 

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Happy Birthday to my favorite sister-in-law that will never be…Doreen.  Hope John recovers 100% from his bone infection, and have fun with “Mona” in Arizona watching the world champs.  You’re missing crappy weather and flu.  Wear sunscreen and drink plenty of bottled water.

Have I said that I hate my job?  Familiarity breeds contempt.  That goes both ways.  I don’t like being marginalized when everything goes well for so long.  They have not figured out that its that way for a reason.

I figured out that even with a blown tweeter, my 1.5x$1800 speakers sound way better than my 2x$300 speakers.  They also sound more efficient – who’d a thunk?  I have to find some way to hybridise them.  A cheap bread-board, some terminals and a way to add resistance to parallel connected speakers?  Maybe I will just bite the bullet and take the tweeter off and look at the connection and the crossover.  I just galls the shit out of me that I have to fuck up the case and trim.  At least I can put the speaker cover over when I am finished.

I decided to create a cover page and remove my logo to protect my anonymity.  Ha, it was on for almost a month.  My cover page kind of explains my feelings.

Listening to Spa – like: Stellamara – Immrama, Dana Cunningham – River of Grace, and Thomas Otten – Close to Silence.

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