Hmmmmm

Well, no update as of yet on the security thing, it slipped my mind until I sat down to blog.

I talked to my mom earlier tonight and realized that I have not yet posted my blog, so here goes.

However first, I would like to post a comment to Grandpop's blog. It gave me error messages earlier, so I will just do it here.

I really enjoyed your blog, and if you have any more stories, I'm sure we'd all love to hear them (childhood stories or otherwise!). I bet you could fill a book, and I'm sure we'd all love to read them. I remember you telling me a story about being at the armory during some riots, and getting things thrown at you (I think that was for a school project). Tell some more stories if you get stuck for a blog. It would be neat to hear them!

As for my childhood memory, I don't know about a favorite, but I do remember a camping trip the family took. If I was a boy scout at the time I was still new to it. We didn't hike, just went to a campground. Mom and Kate were with us.

I remember my ball bouncing into the lake and running full speed, fully dressing in after it. To this day I still don't know why my mom got so mad. I was scared that the ball was going to float away, and my clothes getting wet didn't factor into the equation. I think I got in about chest deep before I got it back. When I got to shore I was told to sit down and stay quiet until I was dry.

Mom was pretty peeved. I think it is because she was having to sleep in a tent, but I'm not sure (just kidding mom!). I finally dried out (except for my shoes, they still sloshed when I walked) and was 'released' back into the wilds.

I also remember that trip because dad made his now (in)famous beef pasta dish. It was rotini pasta and sauce with ground beef. Only it had some special seasoning. Apparently when the 'chef' cleaned his pot, he boiled soapy water. However, he forgot that he was cleaning the pot and dumped the pasta right in to boil. It wasn't until he was cleaning up after dinner that it hit him what he had done! To this day it was the best tasting pasta he has ever made, though I'm not sure if that was because we were starving or because of the soap. I'm not sure I'm willing to try and find out either!

As for a favorite childhood memory, there are too many happy ones to choose from. I remember dad showing up at a soccer game and the foreign kid thinking he was a cop. I remember burning through both tanks of gas on my dad's old truck making loops in the neighborhood learning to drive stick (he couldn't figure out why the truck was on empty when he got back from his trip!). I remember Katie wanting a copy of Peter Pan with the closed captioning from when we visited family friends in Orlando and went to Disneyland (the lady we stayed with was hard of hearing, and it was Katie's first time with CC on a tv). I remember dad sitting Katie and I down at the kitchen table in Jackson and having us close our eyes. He said things that lead us to believe we were getting a dog, and he made us hold out our hands. We thought we were going to feel warm puppy kisses on our hands and a wiggly body, but instead we felt paper. Luckily (for him) when we opened our eyes it was a picture of a dog we were getting (Champ, the first Brittany Spaniel), since he had built it up so much.

I remember going quail hunting with dad. I was still pretty young, so we went to a place where they pen raised them, so we would have a successful hunt. The dog didn't bother sniffing for birds, he had it down pat and knew where they would be. It was my first time hunting over a dog and I had a fantastic time. At one point they told us the next bird would be a pheasant. Dad had some steel magnum goose load left over from when he had been in North Dakota the year before, so he loaded up both barrels in his over and under with it. I shot that pheasant 3 times with my little 20 gauge, and the birdhot didn't phase him. In fact, the first shot hit, and the bird gave me a dirty look, the second shot missed, and he laughed at me, and when the third shot hit, I swear that bird gave me the finger! I moved, and dad dropped him with the first shot. Being the old pro that he was, as the dog brought over the bird he deftly replaced the spent shell with the smaller quail load. His next shot was at a quail. It was coming straight at him. He missed the first shot, which was quail load. The second shot was still the goose load. The bird was about 3 feet from the end of the gun when he pulled the trigger. I remember a much louder roar than I was expecting, and the bird went up in a red puff and feathers. It looked like he had swallowed an M80 firecracker. There was nothing left. We had a good laugh at dear old dad, who had forgotten to put in a smaller round for the smaller bird.

I also remember the days of coming home in the fall, and the whole house smelling like chili where mom had put it in the crockpot in the morning. I remember (in Savannah!) mom making me Jams out of material she let me pick out. They were the best shorts ever. I remember the spandex Batman costume mom made me for Christmas one year.

Here's one for Katie... remember playing your game first and promising to play mine after? You STILL owe me sis :D . I also remember with Katie we would play outside in Jackson during the summer, and be soooo hot that even when we came inside into the AC it wasn't much cooler. Dad had the automatic thermostat and it wouldn't kick on the AC in the day unless it got up to about 83 in the house (and we didn't DARE change the setting), so we would stand by it all hot and sweaty until the thermostat kicked it on. I remember Katie getting Brittany for Christmas, and the dog hiding under the end table terrified.

Tons and tons of great memories. I feel bad that I don't post more! I guess I better cut it off here though. Take care guys, it has been fun reading your memories, and I hope to read more.

Since mom brought it up...

In the next day or two when I get my home internet situation sorted out, I'll be testing some of the settings on blogger. If I can get it to reliably only let in selected people (you guys) I'll post some instructions on how to do it. I'll try to write more later. Take care.

Catching up again

Well gang, things have been a bit hectic around this branch of the Shore household, but there really isn't much to report. We have officially (tried to) ditch our cable provider. They have awful service, so I won't bore you with the details. It was like pulling teeth to get them to acquiesce. Finally I 'used my words' and was able to convince them that I didn't want to pay them anymore. They were supposed to cancel it on Friday and pick up their boxes. I waited around all day and no one showed. I did some subbing this morning, and called the cable company this evening. They agreed that they were supposed to be here Friday but that no one showed up. They didn't know when someone would be out. Told ya they were on top of things at Charter! They have stopped billing me but I still have the stuff turned on. I guess tomorrow while I'm out and about I'll drop their boxes off to get them out of my house.

We have switched to satellite and DSL, and so far so good. A bit of a hiccup with getting the DSL set up (it is a self install kit that neglects to mention the last step) but all is well now. Hopefully it will be a more reliable connection than the cable.

As part of the new package we also have a home phone line. I'll give the number to you (removed) but we don't have long distance or any bells or whistles to it, so our cells are still the best bet to reach us since we may not answer the home line. In fact, so far the only call we have gotten on our new phone was a telemarketer, which is why we ditched our phone line to begin with! But you have to have it to get the DSL, soooo.... (well, you don't, but it costs like $10/month more so it makes no sense to pay more for less). I'm seriously considering just unplugging it so that we don't have to deal with telemarketers again! The satellite is taking some getting used to but the picture is much clearer and the channels actually work!

We also put in a new dishwasher. So far so good.

Anyways, thats about it. I managed to write a whole bunch about nothing again (should I rename it the Seinfeld blog? Its a blog... about NOTHING!). Cha cha cha.

Pictures from yesterday's excursion

Another picture blowout, sorry for that but I'm making up for lost time when I didn't post any pictures. April took all of these, so she isn't in any of them. I guess next time we'll have to switch up camera duties. If you are wondering what these are pictures of, see yesterday's blog.

We had the whole trail system to ourselves that day. There was one other car parked there but we never saw another soul.

I thought this looked like a Blair Witch tree, April just thought it was cool.

There were lots of places where the trail would have crossed a stream if it had rained more recently. Hopefully this fall we'll get to go back and see it.

April got this picture of a vulture sitting on the edge of the bluffs.

It was neat walking along the edge of the bluffs and looking down on the Duck River.

Here is the entrance to the cave. The next few shots are just as you go through the cave. The flash lit it up pretty good, we needed flashlights to get through some of it (more to see where to set your feet than where to go). The cave was shorter than we hoped but still pretty neat.

Yeah, they have a little captain in them.

We had a blast and are looking forward to going back again soon.

Haven't had a chance to do anything with this yet beyond read the article...

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/08/get-your-blogger-following-fix-in.html


but one has to wonder why they didn't implement this from the beginning!

April and I took the mutt wonder on a hike today. It was a pretty cool place, about 20-30 min. from the house. The trail meandered along a cliff overlooking the 'scenic' (their choice of words, not mine) Duck River. There was even a (very small) cave you could explore, which came out about 30 feet below the trail and gave you another view over the water. That was probably the best part. There is supposed to be another cave nearby, but I have as yet been unable to locate it. I emailed the guy at the state in charge of these sorta things (no really, I did!) and hopefully he can help out. We took some pictures today, we'll have to get them posted for you later. Take care all.

Let's see if this works...

Well, unfortunately when I created this google account, I used my charter.net email address. That address will be going away in a few days when we get the new internet provider. Rather than make a new address with the new provider and potentially have to change that one in a few years, I am going the route of Katie and mom and using gmail, which is a part of this whole google blog thingy. Remember when I said I used the charter email? Well that is the primary email address attached to this account, so I don't know what will happen when that goes away. I think that the google email address


cshore987 (at) gmail (dot) com

will still function, and while I am not a fan of that address, it would be easier to use it than to try to get a new blog established, everyone subscribed to it, etc.

However! I did create a new email address for myself at Gmail, and I think I have it linked up to work. So, if you want to send me mail, please send it to


Chris.S.Shore (at) gmail (dot) com

I think I have it setup so that it now works as my primary without having to change my login info. How's that for complicated? I'm not even sure what I've done, but hey, if it works, who cares!

Thanks!

One more picture

Just FYI, I did upload those pictures to the other blog entry.

This is a flyer we got on the door a few weeks ago. Check out the third item they offer for lawn care. Click the picture to make it bigger (hopefully!)



I suppose that you have to call for the price since the cost of aviation fuel is changing so much these days. Air Raids can't be cheap! I have such a small yard too, it must be tough to get accurate enough. Maybe they wait and see if they can get 3 or 4 yards in a row so they can hit it?

Picture bonanza

Hope nobody is still on Dial Up! There are a ton of pictures at the bottom.

While I'm thinking about it, watch this blog for a new email address for me in the next few days. Our current ISP (Charter communications) has gotten the boot. We'll be switching the whole shebang over to Bellsouth. Lately our internet crashes approximately 15-20 times per day, our cable will decide that we don't subscribe to channels that we do (like ABC or CBS) and it will sometimes drop the volume out (but if you pause and then hit play you get volume back, but if you FF back to live TV you lose volume again). I have called and called, and they have me reboot the connection and it works. That's all well and good, but I shouldn't have to reboot multiple times per day. I asked them to come out and check the wire running into the house and they refused, stating that that is never the problem. Go figure. I think I blogged a while ago about their last visit where the tech told me the equipment I was paying a monthly fee for was about 10 years out of date.

I called today to find out how to cancel and if I would have to pay any fees. The woman I spoke to was very nice and offered to have a tech come out and find the problem, and even admitted that sometimes new wires needed to be run from the street to the house and said that she would send a crew capable of that. The other part of my arguement was that by switching providers I could save about $50 a month, and they would guarantee my prices for 2 years, whereas my cable provider has increased my price every month since the first of the year. The woman on the phone was unable to match the new price and even went so far as to say that it sounded like a great deal and that they wouldn't be able to meet it. Her honesty (and English!) was refreshing from them, considering their customer service has been suspect since we signed up with them.

Not much new to write about, just doing time till we get ready to work on the house a bit more. We finally got some rain and some relief from the heat, but it has been back up to around 97 or so the past few days. Yesterday we went to a guy I work with's house for a BBQ, and today we are just taking it easy.

At the BBQ they had built an 'adult slip and slide'. Basically there was a decently steep hill behind the house, and they ran foam padding and plastic vapor barrier materials down the hill and into the side yard, all the way to the street. It was 100' long! They had rigged some sprinkler head type things at the top to keep it wet, they were loading it down with dish soap, and they had a hose to wet down the riders and keep the water flowing strong. I didn't partake, but it looked like a blast. They also had some volleyball and a ton of food. He had invited his neighbors over for a block party and decided to invite the guys from work too. I really miss living in neighborhoods like that. It really was a bunch of fun.

April was off today for the holiday and this was one of my regular days off. I have next weekend off and a vacation day on that Monday, so April took the day off too, and we are discussing what to do with ourselves. I think we are going to head over to Murfreesboro for the day and visit their indoor shooting range and try out my new .22 (I got it for Christmas and still haven't fired a round through it, I just don't know where to go around here to do it!).


I finally got around to taking some pictures of the nightstand April's dad and I built, as well as the Marlin Model 60 .22 rifle he did up for me for XMAS. I'll let you guess which is which!

Well, I guess I'll have to post the pictures later, it won't let me, the internet is trying to crash again... check my next blog for pictures please...

Nevermind, I got them up and running, so enjoy!!!

This is the nightstand. I did the top a dark color, but since we built it out of birch I really wanted to do a lighter color for the inside to really show off the wood grain. I just used the clear poly that I was going to seal it with, and I think the two tone turned out nicely.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.

She has yet to sleep in there, and the only times I can get her in are when I bribe her with a treat. She is still pouting that we moved her crate out, and I think the smell is still too strong for her in there yet. Hopefully she'll get over it soon and start sleeping in there some again.

We even went so far as to add some detailed trim to the edges.

The finished product; it is huge, about 3'X3', but it was a necessity to be able to fit the dog in there.

This is a better shot of the trim work.

This one didn't turn out as well, but you can see the wood grain in the back better.

Charles did all the engraving on this gun by hand.

Even the grip got some attention.

That is a Sacajawea gold dollar in the butt there.

He coated it in a poly, so it is going to be very durable.

It looks so good, that is part of why I haven't shot it, but he told me he made it pretty but tough so that it would be able to be used (which is what I requested, I don't like things that are just 'for looks' and don't have a use).

Charles said that when he was a kid he would do this stuff to make extra money for the family (they lived on a farm with no electricity and no running water growing up, so it was definitely a situation where everyone had to pitch in and do their part to make things work).

Hopefully these pictures will enlarge for you so you can see some of the details better.

The picture turned out a bit blurry, but that is the gold dollar.

He even engraved an 'S' on the bottom of the grip. There really is a ton of detail. You'll have to see it in person sometime.

And of course the dog did her part. Yes, that is the couch. Yes, that is the remote, and yes that is an open computer. Everyone else was hard at work and there she was, taking it easy! I think the heat is really wearing her down these days, and she's even an indoor dog!

Alright, a really long blog and a ton of pictures, but that's what you get when I don't blog for weeks on end!