feeling better, just got some jacked up chapped lips and sinus pressure. once again white blood cells kick ass! arrrggh!

love the tylenol pm! knocked out for 11 hrs. helped sleep off this damn virus, still congested & hacking up junk tho.nasty sticky green goblins! damn swine flu!

Day of prep

i spent most of the day today prepping things in some form or another. I got my camping gear together for the weekend trip, packed it all up and double checked my things. I went to the grocery store and to the bank after to take care of a few things, pick up ingredients and deposit some cash.

After that, I made my fruit salsa that some people have been harassing me for the past week, so I bagged some up and will deliver either later tonite or tomorrow before I go to work. Hope that shuts them up for a bit.

After I made the salsa, I took a stab at making a standard Azorian classic- Caldo Verde or green soup. its a beef broth and kale based light soup that is relatively easy on the stomach and very, very good for you-well if you don't mind being super regular and busting asses. in this batch I put in beef and chicken stock, 2 bunches of kale, diced leftover corned beef, 2 potatoes, a small handful of macaroni, one linguicia link, olive oil, garlic, and salt. You really can put in anything you kinda feel like, as long as it has the kale, stock, salt and olive oil.

So that's what I had for lunch and dinner tonight, and I probably will have another bowl in a few hours. Its very low cal and digests very quickly.

After I finished making that, I updated my iPod for the camping trip and made some playlists up to listen to at camp. I also scheduled to have my elliptical to be delivered tomorrow at 11 and then I scheduled a meeting with my realtor at 1 to go look at properties for a few hours before I have to go to work at six. Tomorrow should make for an interesting day.

What to do with $1800

As some of you may know, I've been sitting on a large refunded amount just sitting on my visa card after the cancelled Hawaii trip back in March. I couldn't get a check written out to me, so I couldn't re-invest it, or redistribute it about my accounts. Instead it just sat as a credit on my card to be used for whatever i may charge on it. i finally decided the other day that my two options were to put it towards a partial jacuzzi purchase or to use it for things a bit more productive in my life. i chose option number two, which falls in two parts. first, last Thurs I shopped around and found the best deal for a new laptop (even on the internet...btw, dell and gateway are tanking...pull out any stock you got) was at Sam's club for a HP pavilion. It was about $50 cheaper than anywhere else for what I got, so score.

What to do with part 2? Invest in my personal health. I'm tired of going to health clubs and dumping cash into them, going 2 weeks and then letting my money go to waste. i want to workout on my own time, at my own home, in a environment that I control. Hell, i wanna even workout naked if I should so desire! So, tonight, after doing a LOT of browsing and reading reviews, I purchased a $1299 elliptical machine. Its a sharp looking, loaded beast of a fat burner and muscle builder. Ellipticals give me the cardio and toning I need without the joint wrecking that treadmills do on my knees, or the ass numbing seat grinding that bikes give me. Outside of using my favorite workout tool of all (a lap pool), I've always had really good and stress free workouts on these. I got a smoking sale price through the manufacturer itself, with no tax, free shipping, a 5 yr parts warranty and a 2 yr in home included labor warranty. MSRP for this Sole* brand commercial grade piece is about $2500, so SCORE! It should be delivered within 5-10 days.

how the time doth fly...

Damn, i haven't updated this thing in ages. Not that anything hasn't happened, just didn't feel like spending the time to sit and type up a book on the computer.

Well lets see, get the basics out of the way. I got a new laptop. Not that I really really needed one, just that the old one was getting slightly slower and fuller. So i did a combo move by getting a nice and fancy new one from Sam's club and taking the old one, stripping it down and cleaning it up to give it to Chris as his birthday present. The boy needs one. He's been lacking in the technology department for years and needs to catchup. It will bring a lot of good things to his lifestyle and he'll be able to access and touch a lot more of the world this way. threes still a few things that i need to clean up on the old computer that i couldn't access in time for me to give it to him, and i need to sit and teach him a few tricks and maintenance tips to keep his up to speed. The one downside so far is that he does not have Internet access at his apartment. He'd be sponging free wireless off the surrounding airwaves, but so far he hasn't found any access points at his place.

I fixed my freezer icemaker last week. its nice to make my own ice freely again. i bought new parts for not only the ice maker but the ice bin itself too which should help with it dispensing ice out the door too. I need to tweak things on those parts a bit though to really have it top notch again.

I installed new blackout drapes in the master bedroom. It helps so much already. I no longer am woken up at 7 am with the hot sun bearing down on my face. This should help postpone my eventual move to the extra bedroom "cave" during the summer months because its too damn hot and bright in the other. That should help cut a little bit of the cost of my power bills too in the next few months as they repel heat a little too.

My garden is seriously going crazy. I cannot harvest lettuce fast enough or give it away. I just dropped a bag of lettuce, artichokes and some peppers to whoever wants them at work to use. My grape vines already have plenty of grape seedlings on them and the 6 vines themselves have taken over the whole garden. I'm gonna need a machete soon to get in there. Hey, at least I can make my own wine this year! Viva La Familia Marco DeMelo vintage 2009 desert blend. It should be a nice fruity blend of rich concord grapes, fruity red flame grapes and light thompson greens.

Jenny is a old bitch! She got her haircut 2 weeks ago and is ready for the summer heat. Its nice to not have to vacuum up underfur and shedding every other day during this time of year. The downside is that when her hair is cut close to shaved, it shows all her grey. Her entire backside is white, her chest, muzzle and shoulders. its funny, she looks like a old hyena/rat mix. She doesn't mind though, because now with her relatively hairless, she is allowed more access to the couch and bed.

Work has been busier than I've seen it in a while. People are going out to drink more, and drink they do. I see more and more drunk people than before. Well, with the way the economy is, people can't afford big ticket, luxury or major items, so they fall back on simple pleasures, like getting their drink on. Fine by me. I'll take their cash all they want. The bad thing however is that after years (13) of working in the bar making the same repetitive arm motions of pouring and flipping bottles around, I've developed tendinitis in my right arm. Some nights its aggravating enough that its hard to sleep. unfortunately, its irreversible and can't be cured. the only things to alleviate the pain is to either take anti-inflamitories (advil, aleve), do regular deep tissue massage to the effected areas to dissipate the inflammation and increase bloodflow, or to wear compression bands/braces that help to limit the movement of the muscles and tendons of the elbow. or a combination of the three. The irony of it all?

It all started getting worse as soon as i cancelled my health coverage last month. I needed to do it to shop for cheaper insurance ( i was getting ass raped by my current providers). Now more than likely I'm going to go through Eitna or another cheaper and well known company.

I've been busy shopping around for real estate the past 2 weeks working with my realtor to look at cheap foreclosed homes to fix up and rent or fix up and flip for profit. Now is a great time to do it if you have the capital, which I can manage. I've looked at homes that were going for $45k...and they are negotiable. i just sent a reply to my realtor's MLS portal listings he sent me, so this week I'm going to go look at more. I'm getting a good feel for whats around here and depending on how the next showings go, I may make a offer on something on my own.

I'm getting ready to go on a camping trip next week with Chris and a few friends. They are all going for 5 days, but I can only show up for Sun-Tue because I don't want to take the time and money off on the weekend.

Cash has been really well lately. I'm still working on a big surplus refund from my trip cancellation last month and am making at least $500 Fri-Sat nights combined. That cash has been getting dumped into savings and the market while the stocks are still tanking, so over the past 2 months I've noticed my average costs lower and have been slowly making money back again. I actually have 1 or 2 stocks in the green again as opposed to everything in the red that it was back in January.

I'll save my more personal info and emotional stated either for later or for private, but things have been looking chipper lately and I haven't felt really that sad in a while. I may not look ecstatic and I'm still lazy as hell, but at least I'm in a decent mood for the most part.