Quiet Weekend

This weekend has been really quiet. Jacob and Kris are off at Country Fest, Annie is off at her church fundraiser, and I'm left at home with the dogs. I have a Marui Hicapa on the way from Hong Kong, I'm stocking up for next month's airsoft game, and a new airsoft retailer in Eau Claire has opened up shop on my path to work. Andrea was bought The Sims for her GBA, Jacob got a deal on a P99 EBB, and Kris is trying a new treatment for her migraines.

Country Fest
Each summer there are several music festivals in the area - Country Jam, Country Fest, Rock Fest, etc in which thousands of fans pile out into a muggy Western Wisconsin field and party for a few nights of music. Kris and her friends make a point to go every year. This year, Toby Keith is performing and Kris and Jake both love Toby Keith. So Kris decided to reward Jacob for doing well in school by taking him to go see Toby Keith. 'nuff said, right?

The Fund Raiser
Annie is working at a few fundraisers to make money so she can attend a Church camp this summer. The fundraisers include bake sales, car washes, and the usual. The camp she is going to is a Lutheran Church Camp. Yes, you heard it right, Lutheran Church Camp. Its part of a requirement for her Lutheran Endoctrination Holy Trinity...blah, blah, blah.

Honestly, I think its a big crock. Annie shows almost no interest in becoming a Lutheran, she hardly ever goes to church, and when she does go, it's usually just to go to Sunday School and then she skips the service to go play. Secondly she shows no interest, whatsoever, in acting like a good Lutheran. She doesn't listen to adults, she doesn't follow any rules, and the entire concept of being respectful to others is somehow lost on her. Even the concept of "do unto other as you would have them do unto you" is lost to her.

So, basically, its just a way to piss us off by having to drag her off to a church function, but only when she feels like going. When we try to push her into going every Sunday, she pitches a screaming fit. I have no problem with her wanting to join a religious faith, but she clearly isn't interested in doing that. She just wants to flit around.

Marui Hicapa
Hmmmm, yeah.


After the last year, I have had to sell off almost all of my airsoft gear to pay bills. 2005 was not a very good year. Once I got my job with Discover-Net, I decided that as soon as we got all of our bills caught up, I was going to buy a few guns and start attending games. After I got most of our bills caught up, I decided to poke back into the hobby.

I decided to buy the Tokyo Marui Hicapa 5.1 based on almost a year of positive reviews. There have also been several aftermarket parts to come out, that would allow me to mod the gun to my taste. Right now, I had planned to just mod it with the following:

• Stainless Steel Slide
• 4x Magazines
• Nineball Strike Face Plate
• Either a KM or Surefire Tactical Light

These mods will come in right under about $200, but will help make the already solid shooter even better. I will post pictures as soon as its finished.

New Airsoft Retailer in Eau Claire
In the last few years, airsoft has really taken off in this area. Its kind of exciting to see the hobby coming up and it would really be nice to have some events that don't require more than an hours worth of driving.

Our new retailer has opened his shop on my direct route to work, meaning that I can pop in at lunch or after work. Jason and his wife are very friendly, easy-going people and it seems the entire family works at the store. They also confess to the occasional family games which sound like alot of fun.

The store is practically packed to the ceiling with guns and gear and they are more than willing to allow you to not only shoulder the guns, but occasionally take them out back for some shooting. Jason, himself is a nice guy who loves to talk shop. It sounds like they have a lot of fun with the store. I know I would if I had access to all that fun stuff.

Finally, when I took Jake in on Friday to look at everything, he gave us a deal on the EBBs he had for $5 each. So, Jake got a P99 EBB to play with at his cousin Blake's house. I also told him I would give him the rest of my spring pistols once I had replaced my primary pistols with an airsoft version.

I hope Jason and family do well in Eau Claire and it is really nice to have them here. I hope to give them plenty of business over the next few months! :)

Andrea's Game
Well, since Andrea has been working very well this summer, I decided to buy her a GBA game off eBay. She has been bugging me to play The SIms on our computer for the last two years, but the computer just won't run alot of our games anymore. So I decided to buy her the GBA version and made the offer to buy the Sims 2 for GBA if she kept up the good work.

We got the game Thursday and she hasn't put it down since. The game lets you follow the daily life of your character (Sim) and interact with places and their world. The game is incredibly insightful, but I found it almost depressing. YOu have to make your sim do most everything or he becomes depressed. I found thqat the harder I tried to keep my Sim happy, the more depressed I felt that I was wasting my day making a game "happy."

Andrea and Jacob have taken the game by storm and are very difficult to convince to not play it all day. Andrea has already created two characters for herself and Jacob - one. Between te two of the, the game is running almost non-stop. Its really nice to see that such a small investment has kept them so busy.

Kris' New Migraine Treatment
Suffering from another round of killer migraines, Kris found another possible way to treat migraines when they first hit is to drink Gatorade. Migraines can sometimes hit as a result of being dehydrated and for a few other symptoms. When Migraines get too bad, requiring a trip to the hospital, doctors can sometimes put patients on a Saline Solution to help rehydrate the body.

Gatorade is a very similar Saline fruit drink that is designed to help rehydrate while providing a saline texture to help athletes retain water. It does make some sense that it would help treat migraines as it can help keep the person's body hydrated. It can also help cool the peson down as a cool beverage is always a good way to cool a person off.

Time will only tell if this works for her. She hates Gatorade, but has really never tried the different flavors to find one she likes. I found I liked the Black Cherry flavor, but have never really minded any of them. I have also encouraged her to drink more water and more liquids that are better for her, rather than her traditional 3-4 diet cokes a day. Hopefully, we can find another way to get her feeling better that doesn't rely on trips to the hospital.

Airsplat and Jungle Toy are ruining Airsoft!

Sometimes, I'm amazed at some of the things that Paul posts on the boards. No matter how hard he tries, he often comes off sounding like the "rich kid" that some of his fellow Youngstown chronies refer to him as. I've known Paul (more or less) for the last five years and have spoken to him lots of times.

Four years ago, the thought that Fox would be known as a AO Vet would have been a frightening prospect. Nice to see he hasn't lost too much of that nasty streak he was known for back on the older site.

Harsh Weekend
Last weekend was busy. Friday was a real ballbuster - I took several dozen calls, back-to-back in "spurts." They ranged from the regular email problems, connection problems, to some horrific messes that took 30 minutes to an hour to straighten out. These customers really got their money's worth.

Scott and Brooke had their last day on Wednesday (June 7th) and its already been a ful week without them. It's been a little harsh, trying to pick up from Scott being gone, and with Brooke gone, the other two Web Dev people have had their hands full dealing with Bill (the owner). Nate and Ben have been taking over most of Scott's admin duties, such as dealing with the Domain customers and troubleshooting the various networking issues that have come up. Also, the changes to our web page are still cuasing problems for some of our customers, even though it has been up and running for nearly four weeks.

In between home and dealing with the kid's summer schedule, I haven't had much time to work on the blog or website. The other problem has been with the way our network is set up at work. We have a filter/firewall that causes some problems with the Blog software.

The way the Blog works is I log into my account at blogger.com and create my entry. Then I publish the page and it save each entry as a dynamic text file. This text is displayed on my webpage and on the Blogger.com site. I don't know much more specific than that, but the way it publishes the page, our firewall at work, does not like it at all. So I end up having to save it as a draft rather than actually publishing it to my blog.

This is why the last three entries have been "Recently Unpublished." When I get home, I simply don't feel like messing on the computer. I spend most of my day with computers and having a little quiet time without them can be really nice.

Kids' Summer
Andrea has been working very hard to build our trust so that she can stay home. To do this, she has been given a daily list of minimal chore to do - usually three things and walking the dogs. We list them on our bulletin board and she checks them off as she finishes them. So far, she's done really well and it seems to be keeping her out of trouble.

Jacob, on the other hand, has been enrolled in a summer sports camp to keep him out of trouble. When left by themselves, the kids cannot keep from causing trouble. Jacob refuses to listen to Annie and usually acts like a little shit all the time. SO we stuck him in the summer camp so he will be out of her hair, it will allow him to burn off all that steam, and it gives him the chance to meet other kids his age.

Kris's Summer
Kris has been working late to try to get some of her bills caught up. She also recieved a nice inflatable cast to help her leg heal from April's midnight stumble she took while putting the dogs out. She had a hairline fracture of her foot and she also start having some problems with the muscle in her foot. It hasn't been pretty.

My Summer
I'm most likely going to spend my summer working. My weekends are often time to try to recover from work. Work is not hectic or stressful, but it often wears me out. I was going to try to get back into airsoft and go play a few gaems with the Wausau guys I played with last summer, but the computer project and catching our bills has severely impacted my hobby.

If I do get back into airsoft this summer, its likely going to involve me buying another MC51. I had such tremendous luck with my first MC51 and G3A4, I really would like to get another. Unfortunately, I also need to pick up additional gear and accessories, which would severly limit my computer project. Right now, I'm just praying to get the thing finished so I can get back into airsofting.

The Dogs' Summer
Lily and Jada are getting to walk and go outside alot. It has been a tad hot, so hopefully, they're getting plenty of water as well. I really would like to put a dog house out there or get a large umbrella to put outside. Jada likes to sun herself, sit in the shade under our swing, and eat the freshly cut grass. Lily like to go outside, pee, and then come in to snuggle in her chair.

There are a few other projects I would like to take on this summer, but financial resources are making that difficult. My only real hope is to hang in there until January, when I get my next raise. Hopefully, Discover-Net won't evolve too quickly, leaving me without a job.

June is Here

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