Computer Troubles x 2… Part 2

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So while my computer was away I needed another computer so that I could try to get at least some work done. The Fair Piper remembered that our old laptop was stilling hanging out in the office not doing anything. We had given up on that thing because it was extremely unstable. If you even slightly bumped it the computer would crash. But it was better than nothing.

I got it working and after a couple bump-crashes I thought that, since I’ve got time, maybe I’ll reinstall Windows and perhaps that will help. Basically I was hoping that maybe the crashing was a software issue. I wiped the hard drive and began reinstalling windows from the recovery partition…. but it kept crashing. There was one point, the same point no matter how many times I tried, that kept causing the computer to crash. Once again I was stymied. Continue reading →

Computer Troubles x 2… Part 1

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Last month I took off two whole weeks from work. In the past we took fun and interesting vacations. Now a days, with a kid, two pets, and too much to do, we just stayed home the whole time. I had hoped that it would provide plenty of time to finish up my business plan. Instead I face technological woes and mediocre corporations.

It all started with in the first day or two of the vacation. I was watching TV and looked down and saw that my laptop was in the middle of rebooting itself. That’s slightly unusual but not extraordinary, sometimes Windows forces a reboot. I kept watching my show and later on I look down and it was still rebooting! So I watched the laptop for a while and found that it kept trying to start up but would fail part way through and just start rebooting again. Those of you that know computers know that this is bad… Continue reading →

This Is A Bad Idea… But We Have A Cat

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We found a stray kitten recently and ended up adopting it. It’s kind of bad timing in many ways. We have neither the time nor the money to wrap up into a cat but it looks like were doing it anyway. In another way it’s prefect timing because the Fair Piper and I had always discussed getting another pet around this time. Our dog is about middle age and it would be good to have a second pet for when the first dies (yep, we’re that pragmatic). Of course Piper never, ever wanted a cat. She has always been against cats but also long haired dogs too. She didn’t want to be bringing pet fur and allergens into work. Continue reading →

The New Water Heater

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Our house is a little weird. It’s not any bigger than your average house but for some reason they built it to be serviced by two different water heaters. The kitchen and master bathroom have one and the hall and guest bathroom have another (yes, despite having three bathrooms the house really isn’t all that big). The second water heater hasn’t worked for a very, very long time. This meant that guests had to wash their hands with cold water but otherwise it didn’t really affect anything so we didn’t worry about it. Now recently we had some family spending a few nights at the house. That left us with two options. Let them use the master bath (which still has a hole in the wall from an earlier project) or get a new water heater. We decided on the new water heater. Continue reading →

Stretching The Fence

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Last year we bought some mesh wire fencing in an attempt to keep the dog and Firecracker in the yard. Setting up the fence was simple enough but we found that the mesh sagged. No matter how much you pull on the material you just can’t get it taut. This summer I was suppose to put up another section or two of fence but I never got around to it for a few reasons. Lack of money, lack of time, and lack of knowledge. Recently I did some digging online and was able to fix at least one of those problems.

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Keep On the Google Side of Life

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Since I’ve started my business endeavours I’ve found myself using more and more of Google’s applications and recently I’ve decided to go all in. They have a versatility that seems to fit just perfectly with my working style. I can access everything I need pretty much anyway (mostly assuming an internet connection), they have the types of applications I need, and best of all, it’s free!

If you’re reading this then I’m sure you already know about Google as a search engine and most of you also know they do email as Gmail (makes sense, right?). I first started using Gmail back in college and it’s pretty much sat there unused for the last 10 years or so. Sure, every once in a while it came in handy but I really needed it when I began looking for a new job. And obviously I still don’t want my current employer knowing my work on buying a business (please don’t mention their name if you leave a comment!) so I’ve been using it a lot in the past few months.

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The Lawn Mower Problem

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Since the very beginning of the mowing season my mower has been giving me troubles. It had been running under powered to the point that I couldn’t go at full speed. In fact, if I was running the blades and tried going up hill it would nearly stall out. Our lawn isn’t small to begin with and with the machine running so slowly it was taking me around 3 hours to cut the whole thing.

After talking to Dad and a few other folks and checking the internet, I think the general consensus was that using bad fuel had clogged the carburetor up and it needed cleaning. Although another possibility was that the fuel line was partially clogged. I intended to take the machine down the a repair person who lives in town but just never got around to it. Between work, family time, business research time, and mowing the lawn very, very, very, slowly there isn’t much time left over.

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The Business

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As many of you will know, I’ve been doing research to start my own business for quite a while now. I intended to open a store selling home brew supplies but, for various reasons, I’ve pretty much put that idea on the back burner. Not forgotten, just not ready yet. At the same time I’ve been keeping my eye on the beer distributor in Washingtonville. It’s a small store but seems to do good business thanks to being in a great location.

Derry Beverage

Recently I’ve gotten very serious about it. At this point I’ve taken meetings with both the broker and a CPA to have the financials examined. I’m bound by a non-disclosure agreement so there isn’t much that I can say about the meetings except that, for the most part, I really liked what I heard. I’m actually not sure how much I can and cannot say because of the NDA so I’m going to pretty much leave it at that.

But, I think this is worth pursuing, I’m really excited about it, and I’ve got a lot more work to do!

The Culprit

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And there we have it:

Freeze Pop 2

How do you suppose that got there? For those who might not be familiar with these things, that’s a freeze pop handle. You put cool-aid in a freezer tray and put that thing on top so you can eat it. Firecracker really, really, loves these things.

On the plus side, I feel better knowing that there was no way anyone was getting that thing out of the toilet.