Happy Anniversary!

Today was our actual anniversary. We took a trip to Lassen with my parents, which was fun. There was nobody at the entrance window when we got there, and the sign said most of the place was closed; that we'd only be able to drive 1.3 miles before having to turn around, but the sign was wrong. We ended up driving all the way through, stopping at a few different places. First was a short hike through the woods where a volcano caused an avalanche a long time ago. The last spot smelled of sulfur and had bubbling mud and various dirt and rock hills that spilled smoke. That was all pretty cool. Then we headed home, which seemed to take way longer than getting there. The sun was going down, and it was dark by the time we got home. Treese heated up some of her hot & sour soup for dinner. We got some trick-or-treaters, not a lot, but there were a few really adorable ones. I handed out handfulls of candy, and at the end of the night we still had a bunch left over.

Anniversary Party!

Today was our 10th anniversary party! I think it went really well. My Dad and I cleaned up more throughout the morning, and one of Treese's friends dropped off the cake, which had a three dimensional skull on top covered in powered sugar I believe, and then three dimensional eyeballs scattered around. It looked really cool. Slowly people started to arrive, first Treese's brother and his family, and her mom who came up with them, then my mom, and friends showed up after that. After I got back from an errand I went to change into my costume, which I hadn't really decided on yet, so figured I'd just wear what I wore last year. But when I put it on, it was SOOO hot, so I took it off and tried on other costumes. I couldn't find one that would actually keep me cool, so eventually I just put on something and went out. A couple hours later, I had to take it off. It was a beautiful day outside, and it just wasn't the kind of weather for a black, full-body costume. I exchanged it for some shorts and a t-shirt, which felt wonderful. I conversed more than I usually do, and stayed outside the whole time instead of heading inside to watch television. Strange thing is, I never even had the desire to go in. It felt good being out there and part of the conversations.

Getting Ready For The Party!

My Dad came up yesterday to help us get ready for the big Halloween BBQ party we are having to celebrate our 10th anniversary, then today we just spent all day running around and trying to get set up. Later in the afternoon Dawn called to say Ray's computer crashed and wouldn't turn on, so I had her bring it over. After looking over it, my initial conclusion was that the motherboard just died, though a visual inspection of the motherboard didn't show any signs of why. There was nothing browned, bulging, or leaking, so I'm not 100% sure. This is the computer I just fixed up and gave them a week ago! It was working just fine when I was putting it together and had apparently been working fine for the past week and then today it just decided it wanted to die. Talk about frustrating! So I copied all the files back to their old computer so that he has something to use until we can figure out whether or not to fix this one or upgrade his old one some more or just go for a new one.

Annual Physical

Had my annual physical today, and apparently I'm in excellent health.

Moved the Console Systems

I moved our videogame systems from on the fireplace to inside the stereo cabinet, except for the Xbox which I put next to the cabinet, because I know those things can overheat pretty easily. This should make it look less cluttered. I tried to plug our Wii into the A/V receiver because it's supposed to be able to upconvert analog signals to high-def and output them though the HDMI cable, but unfortunately I found that it only does this for 480p signals, not for 480i signals which is what I had the Wii set to use. I could set the Wii to output at 480i, but it doesn't look nearly as good.

The Black Table

We got a nice, black table today from one of Treese's friends who was just going to toss it. Not sure where we'll put it yet, but I think it would look great over where we just moved our other coffee table, and it's the perfect height so it wouldn't been to be raised with bricks, but it is a little shorter than that table. So we'll see. I also discovered today that our subwoofer was no longer working. Neither one of us could remember the last time we heard it, so it's probably been dead for quite some time. I'll need to open up and see if there's anything obvious that can be done to fix it.

Brick It Up

We moved our coffee table from in front of the fireplace to against the wall, but it was at just the right height to interfere with the multiple outlets on that wall so we picked up some bricks at Lowe's to raise it up. While we were out, we also went to the Halloween store that is in the old Circuit City building. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look. Later that evening we went over to our friend's place where I hooked up a new computer for them.

Gutter Time

Spent all morning cleaning the gutters, then followed that up with cleaning all the spiderwebs that under the overhang of the roof. When I was done with that I went to Lowe's to pick up a couple of impact sprinklers, as two of our fixed sprinklers just aren't reaching far enough.

Print Cartridge Error

I unpacked and hooked up the wireless printer in my office this morning. When I turned it on, it gave me a print cartridge error message. I called HP and after getting disconnected while looking for the printer's serial number, I called back and spent over an hour troubleshooting with "Victor". He had quite a strong accent so it took a lot of concentration to understand what he was saying. Eventually he determined there was something wrong with the cartridge and handed me off to someone who could put in an order for a new cartridge. This new guy said it would arrive in a couple weeks or I could upgrade to overnight delivery (one business day) for $17. I said I'd like to have it sooner but there's no way I'm paying that much so he checked with his boss and was able to waive that fee. So it should arrive either tomorrow or Monday.

Donation Day!

Finally remembered to put out the bags of clothes for the donation truck that comes by! We've had that big sitting in our room forever because I always forgot to put it on the curb on the day they scheduled the truck to come by. Later in the afternoon we headed to Sacramento, as her sister was in town visiting before the Navy shipped her out to sea, and Treese wanted to visit with her before that happened.

New Wireless Printer

We got a new wireless printer that was on clearance for only $25. I'm going to try it out for a bit and if it seems to work good then I'll pack up and sell my current printer.

Happy Birthday Julia!

Today is my sister's birthday. Happy birthday!

The Thing

We went to see the 2pm showing of The Thing. Gotta love those free movie passes from donating platelets! Anyway, the movie was awesome! We both loved it. When we got home, we turned on the original John Carpenter's The Thing.

Mmm... Cookies...

We had intended to go see the 4:50pm showing of Drive today, but we were late getting over there so we just stopped by a friend's place instead as Treese needed to give her back some of her food containers. We each sampled some of her home cookies, which were good. On her fridge she had these tiny little magnets which were super strong. I think I'd like to get some of those and glue them on some old Working Designs pins after cutting off the sharp point that goes through your clothes.

Real Steel

We went to see the 5:30pm showing of Real Steel. We both liked it.

Psyclone Inductive Charging System

Found a Psyclone Inductive Charging System for Wii Controllers on clearance at Target for only $7.50, so I snagged that up. I also returned a small Wii-remote that Treese bought several months ago. Those small remotes are definitely comfortable, but unfortunately they chew through batteries like nobody's business. Apparently two AAA batteries just isn't enough to operate a Wii remote for any length of time.

Clean Fridge

I cleaned the fridge today. Now it looks all nice and new... wonder how long we'll be able to keep it that way.

Adding RAM

We went over to our friend's place this evening and I installed some more RAM in his computer. It definitely helped to speed things up, but he could still definitely use a full upgrade. When I was done we watched a bunch of the old Big Bang Theory DVDs they had.

A Day of Computers

One of Treese's friends dropped by with a couple computers, one Dell and one Gateway, plus a flatscreen monitor and backlit keyboard. Apparently the Dell stopped working and wouldn't boot up or something, and the Gateway was just an old computer. Anyway, she wanted me to get all the images and a few documents off both computers for her, so I did. I didn't even bother plugging the computers in to do that, I just opened them up and connected the hard drives to my IDE/SATA-to-USB device and extracted all the files onto my laptop. And since my laptop doesn't have a DVD burner, I transferred them over a computer that did so I could burn everything to a disc. Later on I took both PCs outside and blew out all the dust, which was a significant amount. There were some dust bunnies so thick that they refused to leave so I had to pick those out by hand. I don't think those machines had been cleaned since she got them.

Shopping At Spirit

We went to the local Spirit Halloween store this afternoon, and spotted some friends shopping there as well, so we all shopped around together. We ended up getting a barbed wire hanging head decoration and a hanging skeleton lady with hair and wearing a white dress. Before we left we made a date to head over to their place this weekend so I could install some more RAM in his computer.

Vallejo!

On Friday we headed on down to Vallejo. We left late so didn't arrive until around 10pm. The next morning we went to Six Flags. It tooks us a while to get through the parking lot traffic to park, but luckily we got to part right near the tram because of our handicap plates. Once in the park, Dad, Treese, and I rode the Medusa coaster, which was a lot of fun. Then Treese and I rode Kong, which was fun but not quite as much as Medusa. Then mom, dad, and I rode Cobra which was a fairly mild coaster ride. That was enough coasters for the time being, so we headed to the animal show which was supposed to start at 1:30pm according to our map, but the sign out front said 2pm. We sat and waited, and a lady came out to appologize for the mixup and said they were getting ready for the show, but at 1:50pm it still hadn't started so we left to get to the lunch event. Dad and I got food while Treese and Mom held a spot on a bench. I got myself and Treese a hamburger and hot dog. We didn't see any vegi burgers for Mom, so she went up to look and turns out she just needed to ask and they gave her one. The food was pretty good. Mom and Treese got a salad as well, so after I was done I went back to get one too. Next we headed out to go see the whale show, but when we got there it was closed off and lots of people were in the arena and it sounded like it had already started even though we got there at like 3:20pm and it wasn't suppose to start until 3:30pm. So that was confusing and a bust. Then we headed over to see the animal show, and actually got to see it this time. They had a skit involving a witch lady for the halloween theme, but I still liked the Turtle Bay animal show better as it shows more animals. Plus, the lady was hard to hear as her mic kept slipping way from her mouth. Finally we headed toward the entrance, looked in some shops, and while Treese and Mom rested Dad and I went to check out the Pandemonium ride, which had a long line and didn't seem all that great, so we all headed home. That was a fun day. On Sunday I went with Dad to get a new lawnmower, and once we got home it was almost time to leave for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Treese and I had already seen it, but Mom hadn't, and neither had Dad but he wasn't really interested so he stayed behind. After the movie we headed over to The Black Bear Diner where we were going to meet Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa. There were a lot of people inside and we were told it'd be at most 30 minute wait, so we put our name on the list. We actually waited over 40 minutes, and the lady said she came out and called us but we knew that was a total lie because we were out there the whole time. This morning I went for a walk with Mom, and when we got back we packed up the car and headed for home.