Happy Halloween!

My cute little cousin posed for me when his parents brought him by trick or treating.

Happy Birthday little sis!

I didn't take this pic today. In fact I didn't take this one at all so I'm bending my little rule for this blog, but today is my baby sister's birthday. She's the big 2-7 :)

Happy bday Kelly!!

I need more shelves

I was looking for something to watch last night and I realized that my movies are a mess. I used to have them organized by genre. Maybe I'll make that a project once I move out of this place.

Dull day

So here's a pic of some bricks :)



I had to get home quick because handyman was supposed to come again to "finish up" with my bathtub so there was no time to go to the store which we really need to do.. So as I waited in the drive-thru at Wendy's I got to looking at the bricks in the wall and I thought they were oddly random colour-wise and seemed almost "messy." with their rough texture.

That's all. Boring I know.

We got the video

After much fiddling before giving up and handing the camera over to someone with a Mac, we finally got our video from the Grand downloaded and edited.

Here's an amusing screencap :)

Go check out getindyknow.com to see the video and sound etc. :)

Project

So you're looking at my project for today and most of tomorrow. I'm going through about 45 minutes of audio looking for sound clips from the night in The Grand. Even though, disappointingly, we didn't encounter anything freaky, the audio turned out pretty funny - at least to us. I'm trying to find stuff that would appeal to a wide audience who weren't there for the inside jokes and stuff, know what I mean?

There was a moment or two of genuine fear though, at least on my part. I really didn't like being near The Void, in the dark.

Continuing Saga

Sorry for the lack of prettier, more interesting photos but the bathroom looms large in my life right now. It's now day 5,042 of the Great Retiling and so far, this is all the progress he's made:



I hate taking baths :(

The Haunted Grand

So tonight was the night some of the IndyKnow team members "spent the night" inside The Grand movie theater. I put 'Spent the night' in quotes because in actuality we couldn't do the entire night because of time constraints and the fact we all had to work the next day. But we were along inside the Grand for a few hours at night and we explored, trying to see if it was really haunted.

This shot is of an area behind the screen in the theater. Some old chairs and scary steps lead to an old boiler/coal room that was pretty freaky.

But we had a lot of fun poking around the place. Allegedly, the place is haunted by an old janitor, and possibly by the ghost of Grand Island legend Wally Kemp. We spent some time in his old office in the basement trying to feel if the room gave off a creepy vibe. We also spent some time in the theater just sitting at the top of the house looking down to the stage area because reportedly a ghostly janitor was seen pushing his mop across it by a woman who used to manage the theater.

Finally we made our way in the dark down to the basement storage areas, told ghost stories, talked about how the place made us feel and showing off our dirty joke repertoires.

A fun night. This Friday we'll have video and audio from tonight on IndyKnow.

I want to scream

My mom always told me to keep written records of things - especially when dealing with landlords, lawyers or ex-husbands. So here's my record of the crap I've had to deal with and put up with during my whole problem with my bathroom, beginning with the day the plumbers came to fix the leak:

Island Plumbers arrive and stay about 20 minutes. They shut off the water for a bit and worked on the cold water faucet and fixed the running water.

Before they arrived I was wiping down the walls in the tub when I put my hand against the wall to balance myself as I worked. I barely pushed against the wall when several more tiles caved in and one fell off.

Plumbers did not stay very long. 20 minutes at the most. There were 3 of them. One returned a little while later and replaced the plug switch and told me that he spoke with Lois who told him the handyman who was here on the evening of the 17th to try and stop the water flow will be coming back to retile the bathtub. When he's meant to do that, I don't know.

Handyman came by in the afternoon to look at the tub. Stated that he will return Thursday morning at 9am to begin retiling bathtub. Never showed up. Called landlord Friday (10/21) morning around 10am when there was still no sign of him and Gail gave me his phone number to speak to him directly. Sounded as if she did not want to be bothered with it. So I called him. He said 1pm he'd be out there. As I write this it is 2pm and there is STILL no sign of the git.

Called git at 2pm (Friday, 10/21) and he stated that he's trying to get over to us but was fixing a leak (funny, he couldn't fix our leak. Hmmm.) I told him that I needed to know whether to tell my boss I would be on PTO Monday waiting for him or not. He said he didn't want me to take time off work and could come in the evening. I said he didn't have to do that. We compromised and he has now said he will be at our place at 9am on Saturday (10/22.)

We shall see.

9:30ish am Saturday - Git shows up and removes tile, and puts up drywall. Says he will return around 5pm to place the tile. Did he show? Nope. So now we are without a tub probably for the next 2 days.

10am Sunday - I call the git. He claims to have lost my number (though his cell phone is a Virgin one like mine and I've called him 3 times on it so I should be in his call list, but whatever) and asks for it again and then says he will show up here around 12:30 today. I'm not holding my breath.

He showed up a little after 2 and stayed til 5ish with about a 45 minute fecking smoke break. He left, telling my daughter to sweep the bathroom floor and he'll call me when he comes back. The bloody wall is only half done and it's 7pm. I doubt he's coming back. This is so freaking ridiculous.

Here's a pic of how he left it (after I cleaned up):



I hate this place :(

Want some popcorn?

We seem to have quite a lot of it.


Only 5 people showed up for the movie last night, so Shannon brought home the extra popcorn :)

First Job

Here's the kid as she goes off to her first night at her new job at The Grand. Granted, it's a volunteer thing, but the time she puts in at the movie theater can be put on her applications for paying jobs, and the volunteer hours count for community service at her high school. Looks good on those college apps! (God I can't believe I'm thinking about college apps.)

Anyway she signed up to volunteer on the night of the IndyKnow show. She's really quite excited :)

The View From Here

Driving home tonight I came down Riverside Drive which is lined with gorgeous old trest that just explode with colour this time of year and I absolutely love it. But tonight there were an unusual amount of people in their yards raking and somehow, between yesterday and today, the leaves just went, "WHOMP" and fell off. It was very odd.

So I figured I'd better get my annual Fall colour picture quick before they all fall off. So this shot is from my balcony.

:(

This is getting fixed tomorrow but evidently the drywall behind my bathroom tiles was soaked and it weakened. The slightest touch these days seems to make the tiles just fall off.

Should have played the lottery today.

Harvest Moon?

I'm not quite sure what a Harvest Moon is exactly, but it seemed like a nice title for this pic. Yesterday as I was driving my daughter to school the moon looked really cool and I lamented that I didn't have my camera with me to take a pic. This morning I remembered it and sure enough, the moon looked cool again.

But it's odd that the moon looks like such a spec in this photo. IRL it was quite huge, like a luminous Christmas ornament hanging in the sky.

Anyway this was taken around 7:30am so it was still quite dark and you can't make out the gorgeous fall leaves, but oh well.

Good moon.

Why I can never read my paper at home.

Spooky usually nicks it and it becomes her scratch-toy for the day.

The funny thing about this pic is I have no idea what the white blob is next to her. We were nowhere near a window for it to be sunlight (and even if we were, my curtains were shut, and we face north/south.) It's not from a lamp either. Weird.

Argh

I totally meant to bring my camera with me when Shannon and I went to see Wallace and Gromit but I forgot it. I blame overtiredness. I think the stress of last week has hit me and I'm lethargic as hell. It's not even 8pm yet and I'm going to bed as soon as I finish this.

Anyway, I was going to take a pic of the W&G movie poster at the cinny but since I couldn't, here's a pic of our cool IndyKnow tshirts, and Spooky the cat.



W&G was very cute and funny btw, tho we really should have gone at another time. Both of us were so dog-tired that it was hard to focus.

Homecoming

Continuing with the Shannon theme I seem to have going... Tonight is her first Homecoming dance. We spent the morning finding the right shoes and the afternoon pretty-fying her. I did the makeup and hair and I'm well-pleased with how she turned out :)



She cleans up good.

Babysitter

And she returns triumphant from her very first paying babysitting job. The kid's having a good week methinks :) Cool concert, first job, Homecoming tomorrow followed by a sleepover with the girls where they will gush about the boys and relive every moment of their first formal dance...

Ahh youth :)

THE EVENT!

Whew just made it before midnight. Tonight was the really big shooo for IndyKnow. I'll blog more about it over on Ridiculous Thoughts, but today's pic is of the band Straight Outta Junior High. They were the final band of the evening and they kicked ass!

p.s. Any and all typos or grammatical errors are due to being utterly knackered :) It was a gooood time tho.

Make the bed?

Pshaw.

I don't make my bed. I never saw the point really. So this is the state of my bed before, um bed. Hehe.



And nothing fun happened today. Except that Mike loaned me some zombie movies. Those should be fun.

The Bane of My Existence

Damned Fu-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep-ing bathtub drain from hell has caused me no end of grief. But I triumphed and this is the last of the water draining away after much plunging and fiddling about with the pipes.

I should become a plumber. Just need a wire hanger and a plunger.

This is Tonga.

This loca chica is my coworker Tonya/Tonga. Tonga has been eating Now or Laters and they have magically transformed her normally tongue-coloured tongue into this purply/greenish... thing.

I love my job :)

Spooky

'Twas a terrible dull day today.

So here's a pic of my cat having a bath this afternoon.

THE Dress

This is the dress we finally ended up choosing for Shannon's first Homecoming dance.

Gorgeous innit?

Ready to Rock?

Look at that gorgeousity :)

Today at the paper we "blew a whole" in the boring old Options section of the paper to gear up for next week's big launch of IndyKnow in Print.

It's rather exciting for us because it's edgy and different and not something your granny's gonna like much - which means we're doing something right.

Anyway *cheeky grin* that flap hanging down at the bottom is a bit of my blog for IndyKnow :) I'm chuffed chuffed chuffed about the whole thing. It's going to be cool.

Working Late

Thursday night has rapidly become IndyKnow night (and Survivor/Alias night :D) This week is our fourth week for the new entertainment website the paper is doing. We've been working on this puppy for months.

Last week was all about Serenity, the film based on a defunct but quite awesome TV show called Firefly. The entertainment reporter at worked got the kidlet and me hooked on it and I have to say the film was a beautiful end (or maybe resurrection I hope I hope) for the show. Go see it if you haven't already.

Anyway I wanted a shot of the Serenity theme before I change it for our coverage of our IndyKnow print kickoff event next week :) A three-band concert at a 100 year-old movie house. Should be pretty awesome!

Cornhusker

Every week my daughter and I go out to "do Cornhusker" (an auto dealer in town where we go and take pix of their cars for an auto website for the paper.)

It's not our most favourite thing to do, but we manage to make it fun. It goes quicker with two people sifting through the list of cars.

Anyway this was what we did this afternoon.

A Fall Storm

I fear this will be the problem with this picture a day thing: nothing really terribly interesting happened today. So here's an example of tempermental Nebby weather. When I left for work this morning, it was muggy and warm. The sun was starting to rise and it was pretty clear out.

When work was done for the day it was cooler (usually in the early Fall it starts out cold and gets warmer), windier, and these menacing clouds were rolling in.



Now it's a couple hours later and I can hear the thunder and rain pelting my roof. God I love thunderstorms.

Back to Work

Gotta love Mondays and the slew of work you have to catch up on from the weekend. Hence the messy desk.

Homecoming

My baby's first formal dance, Homecoming, is happening in a couple of weeks. Today we spent hours looking for the perfect dress. We didn't find one at this shop in the photo, but funnily enough the first dress she tried on was the one we ended up buying a few hours later.

Guess next time we'll just go with our instincts :)

This should be fun.

I can't take credit for the idea, someone else has already done it, but I really like it - the idea of taking a picture everyday for one year. I think it would be a cool chronicle for me and mine to look back on.

So I'm starting today. No particular reason other than I wanted to get started on it and today was Grand Island's annual Harvest of Harmony parade. We went to it for the first time in years and had a lot of fun.

So. Today's pic is of Grand Island Senior High's marching band. Shannon, my daughter, is a freshman there. She decided to join orchestra instead of band so she wasn't in it, but it was still nice to see them at it.