Happy Memorial Day Weekend

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We went to visit my parents which was a nice little getaway. I got to visit with Grandma Jean on Saturday morning then the other grandparents later that afternoon when we all had a wonderful BBQ dinner that Treese and Mom made. We were going to go to Black Angus but they had no seating available so we did that on Sunday.

A New Type of Alarm Clock...

A spider woke up Treese at 3:30 this morning by crawling across her chest. Her hand just reacted and before she knew it she had a palm full of spider guts. There was no going back to sleep after that, and I'm going to attempt to purge that entire situation from my memory or else I will never be able to sleep in that bed again.

Microwave Repair, Redux

A Sears technician came by this morning to finish fixing our over-the-range microwave. We were his first stop of the day so he arrived a little before 8am. It wasn't Dave from all the other times, it was some other guy. What needed to be done to finish up was basically just removing one screw that was stuck 3/4 of the way in and replacing it with a new one, but it gave him a hell of a time. I lost count of how many times he had to go back out to his van, and in the end he was unable to get the screw removed and just had to cut the head off it and screw a nut on top of it. Not the most aesthetically pleasing solution, but it is hidden behind the cabinet doors so it's not like it's normally visible.

BBQ at Anderson River Park

We went to a company picnic this morning for Treese's work. The last company picnic was hosted in the park right near our house, but this time is was hosted in Anderson River Park, the next town over. The weather was nice, sunny but not too hot, and we found a nice shady spot under a large tree to set up our seats. I got introduced to a lot of the people Treese works with, and she enjoyed visiting with them all. I enjoyed being outside, relaxing, and not having my face in front of an electronic device all day.

Alien: Covenant, a Wedding, and a Car on Fire

We went to see Alien: Covenant this morning. There was hardly anyone in the theater, maybe 10 people total, including us. During the movie there was pretty much no reaction from the audience at any point, and after it was over we both agreed that it was just okay. It wasn't great. It wasn't scary and was rarely tense. We liked it better than Prometheus, but that's a pretty low bar. There were several enjoyable scenes, and Danny McBride gave a terrific performance, but neither of us liked the opening, the story didn't feel like it made a whole lot of sense, and the one "twist" near the end everyone saw coming a mile away. Prometheus gave us so many WTF? questions that weren't answered here, and this movie raised some more.

After we got home from the movie we had lunch then got all dressed up and headed to Chico where Treese's friend was getting married. On the way there we ran into some traffic, and up ahead we saw a plume of white smoke. We figured it was a controlled burn until we got closer and notice a plume of black smoke beside the white smoke. As we slowly moved forward we saw a firetruck arrive to about where the smoke was, and when we finally got close enough to see what was going on we saw a car that was completely engulfed in flames. There was a police officer waving traffic on past it and as we drove by we could feel the heat through car, even with the windows rolled up.

Ghostbusters: The Return

Nine days ago, on my birthday, I received an email from camelcamelcamel.com about a price alert I set up for the book Ghostbusters: The Return which usually goes for at least $60 for a used copy. The email said the price dropped to $7.98, so of course I immediately head over to Amazon and purchased it. I've done this twice before and both times the order got canceled so I didn't hold much hope of actually receiving it, but lo and behold it showed up in the mail today, and it was in very good condition. Now I'll just have to find some time to actually read it.

First Morning with the New Mattress

Our first night on the new mattress went well. Treese woke up with no back pain, which hasn't happened in a long time. I slept just fine as well, but I usually do anyway. When I got out of bed it didn't feel like I was going to roll off the edge so that was quite nice.

New Mattress Arrives

Our new mattress arrived this morning. One of the delivery guys turned out to be the husband of someone Treese works with and was one of the people at the BBQ we went to a few weeks ago. I showed them to our bedroom and the bulging side of our old mattress was so obvious that they noticed it as soon as they stepped in the room. They packed up our "old" mattress in a clear plastic bag and hauled it out to the truck, then brought in our new split California king. They also dropped off the mattress protectors. The sheets were being shipped and those arrived via FedEx later in the day. I guess tonight we'll find out if the mattress is just as comfortable after a full nights sleep as it was for a few minutes in the store.

Another Year Older

Happy birthday to me! We didn't do much of anything special today; we both just worked like usual, but Treese did bring home a Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner and some super-chocolaty cupcakes for dessert. For gifts I received a George Foreman grill with cleaning brush, a Voltron: Legendary Defender 14" figure, and a Diamond Select Toys Ghostbusters Select Ray Stantz action figure. All great gifts!

Treese had my car today because hers was in the shop for its 90,000 mile service (which is crazy expensive, by the way). We dropped it off yesterday morning and it was supposed to be done by today but there were some small parts they needed which they couldn't find locally and had to order. They said it should be finished by tomorrow.

Sears Phonecall Headache

I donated platelets today and while there I started watching the anime series One Punch Man. I'm only a few episodes in but so far I'm really enjoying it.

I called the Sears service center today to check on the status of the replacement parts the technician needed to finish getting our over the range microwave properly installed. The guy I spoke to said he could find no record of any parts being ordered other than the ones that the technician had used to initially repair the microwave. He put my on hold while he called someone else. I was on hold for a while and then got disconnected. I called back and got a lady who could barely hear me, and I could barely hear her through the voices of several other phone representatives I could hear in the background. We got disconnected shortly thereafter. I called back again and got a different lady, and after explaining the whole situation for a third time she confirmed what the first guy said about there not being any record of additional replacement parts being ordered. So she set up an appointment to have a technician come out and see what exactly it is that we need.

New Mattress on the Way

Yesterday we went into Sleep Train (which is now actually Mattress Firm, they just haven't changed the name on the building yet) to once again look at mattresses. We bought one there two years ago but it recently started bulging out on the side so I had filed a warranty claim. After paying them $25 for them to send me an envelope containing a standard round metal washer (that could be picked up from the hardware store for maybe a dollar), some red string, and a paper card with measurements printed on it, I snapped the required photos and submitted them to the website. Not long after they sent us a letter approving the warranty claim, so we brought that letter in with us. We tried out several mattresses and found one that we both really liked. Of course, we can't really know for sure if we like until we spend some time sleeping on it, so we'll see.

This afternoon we went to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Usually sequels tend to disappoint, but we both really enjoyed this one. We didn't see it in 3D, and it looked like it would have been really great in 3D.

On the Roof Again

It was a pretty nice day out today. I headed over to our local Office Max to see if they had any great clearance deals since they're shutting down that store. They have a large banner on the building that has a giant 70% off written on it, but once I got close enough to read the fine print I noticed that it say "up to" 70% off. In the store, only the cell phone accessories seemed to be 70% off. Everything else was around 25% to 30%, with some 50%. They didn't have much, and what they did have seemed to be about normal price if purchased anywhere else, even with the discount, so I didn't get anything.

When I got home I went up on the roof and used Liquid Nails to permanently attach some of the concrete tiles in place (the ones which had slid out of place last month). I also used it to attach a bunch of little pieces that had broken off several of the tiles. I guess we'll see how well it works. I brought a broom with me up there so I could sweep off all the dead leaves which had build up. That stuff accumulates so fast!

Happy Star Wars Day

Happy Star Wars day and may the force be with you! Treese went to work dressed as Anakin Skywalker from Revenge of the Sith. Last night we got her costume out to do a test fitting, then I steamed it to get out all the wrinkles. Apparently nobody else in her department dressed up, but the higher-ups all loved her costume. I would have dressed up in my Obi-wan costume had I anywhere to go, but alas I spent all day at home working.

A Nice Evening with Ray & Dawn

On Saturday evening we visited our friends, Ray and Dawn. Usually when we get together we end up watching a few movies, but this time we started out watching the White House Correspondents' Dinner with Hasan Minhaj, who was hilarious. We then caught Samantha Bee's Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner which also also funny and entertaining. Split, by M. Night Shyamalan, was the only actual movie we watched. I didn't have high expectations going in since it was made by Shyamalan, but it actually wasn't too bad. And there wasn't any stupid twist at the end... well, not exactly. There was a surprise revelation but it had nothing to do with the story, it was about connecting this film to another of his films, indicating that both take place in the same universe.