Our Poltergeist Home

Wow, this is bizarre!

Last night was my last night on 2nd shift and as Murphy's Law would dictate it was busy as hell so I wasn't able to leave until 11:30pm, a half hour late. I drove to the Walgreen's pharmacy on Central Drive and Bedford Road about a mile and a half from home. I needed to pick up a prescription for this nagging cough. While in the pharmacy, Cristina called me and said she was sitting on the couch in the living room when she heard something like footsteps in the attic followed by the wall between the living room and the bedroom move. I need to come home ASAP.

Hum, the wall "moved"? So I headed home. I grabbed a flashlight and begin the process of looking around the house. I saw a black cat run across the backyard (no lie). I went to look in the attic.

Well, I found nothing. But now come this morning I know what it was... a 3.0 earthquake!!

Here's the story from the Dallas Morning News

Video news from the local Channel 11

Preliminary report from the USGS

A map of where it occurred from the USGS.

HOLY CRAP!! I definitely didn't see that as a possibility! Add it to the things to worry about which could happen to the house. Along with tornadoes, grassfires, airplane crashes, foundation cracks, gas leaks/explosions, and robbery.

Abby's New Sandbox

After many weeks of working a little on it here and there, I finally completed Abby's new sandbox in the backyard.



I had alot of people ask me why I didn't just go with "The Turtle". The Turtle is a plastic sandbox found at Target or Walmart. It's a... turtle... which you remove it's back to reveal the measly 3 bags of sand it can hold.

BLAH!

I decided Abby needed a REAL sandbox that could hold ALOT of sand. So I built this puppy from scratch. I use (4) 4 foot long 2x12's for the sides and (2) 4 foot long 2x6's for the benches. The lid is (for the time being until I can think of a better method) a 4 foot by 4 foot 15/36 inch piece of plywood. I stained the wood of the sandbox and it's lid with a quart of stain Lowe's had on the mis-tinted discounted rack. I then applied 2 coats of clear gloss polyurethane varnish. The sand? Try (12) 50 pound bags! That's right, 600 pounds of sand!! Doing the math... that's nearly 16 times more than what Abby weighs. And since she's only about 3 foot 6 inches tall she can create "sand angels" in it.

The blue tarp peeking out from the bottom will be covered along the sides with mulch as I build out the rest of her playground area. Cristina asked me "if it doesn't have a solid bottom, how are we ever going to move it?". My answer, "NEVER". In the event of a nuclear war there will be two things left on earth, cockroaches and Abby's sandbox! ;-)

Our 7th

Today, Cristina and I celebrate our 7th Wedding Anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long!

I remember freaking out about the ceremony itself and hoping I didn't trip on something or just pass out from the heat of my tux. To keep my mind off it and to have some fun, I repeatedly called Cristina, cellphone to cellphone, to ask her if she was "doing anything special today", or "whatcha wearing?". :-)

I love my babe and look forward to our future together.

AnimeFest 2008

Have you ever had someone tell you about a great new TV series they watch but you couldn't get into it because it had been on the air too long and you couldn't figure out who was who? Kinda like starting to watch the Sopranos on HBO in the 4th season. That's the way I felt about Anime. I've had people tell me how interesting it was but since I never could figure out which one was what, I never could determine where to jump in at.

Yesterday I felt like I corrected that. A while back Cristina shot wedding photos for a couple who after they were married had their honeymoon in Baltimore at an Anime convention. Tiffany and Blake really like Anime and enjoy it as a couple.

So what is Anime? Anime is a form of animation originating in Japan based on "Manga". A Manga is a graphic novel. Some might incorrectly call it a comic book. A comic book is much shorter and doesn't have the plot depth as a Manga. Or so I seem to understand. I'm still a noobie here.

So this past Saturday Tiffany and Blake hired Cristina and Efrain to come to AnimeFest 2008 in Dallas to shoot Tiffany dressed as a couple of her favorite Anime characters. I came along as bag boy since it sounded cool. It was! Blake showed me around the downstairs area where vendors had booths set up selling Manga paperbacks and Anime DVD's. In looking back I show have bought a Manga but I was on a budget from the boss. ;-P I was surprised at the number of people in costume and the level of detail in the costumes. Tiffany, I learned, wants to open her own shop to design and sew costumes for fans. She could do well at it since her self made costumes were flawless.

There were others I saw in the crowd who were dressed in costume but maybe they didn't get the memo it was an Anime convention. I saw a couple guys dressed as Ghostbusters complete with the nuclear reactor backpacks. I saw a pirate who looked like Capt Jack Sparrow. Correct me if I'm wrong but these characters didn't start off in the Japanese pop culture world. But ya know... it didn't matter. Not one bit. Everyone was happy, the place was jumpin', and smiles were the norm.

While Blake was introducing me to the various Anime story lines one caught my attention. It's called "Death Note". The story revolves around a kid who finds a notebook that was dropped to earth by a god. He realizes that when he writes someones name in the notebook that person dies of a heart attack. He uses the notebook on a vigilantie killing spree to kill criminals. There's also a cop who is begins to see a pattern to the killings and trys to track down the kid. I've already added the first 3 DVD's to my Netflix acct. Looking forward to checking it out. Tiffany and Blake surprised me with a Death Note keychain. COOL! They're a great couple. There's another Anime convention in May of next year I hear. "A-Kon" is many times bigger than this one was. We're all planning on attending it also. I'm looking forward to it.

Cleaning and adjusting the motorcycle chain

Yes, it's been awhile since my last posting. Things have been REALLY hectic with the purchase of the new house. So I thought I would post this picture that Cristina took of me Friday, May 23rd.

It was a hot and humid Texas night around 11:30pm and I was working in the garage. I put about 1,000 miles on the bike so far. The chain needed tightening a bit, cleaned, and lubed. The dealership Cristina bought it from lubed the chain with oil (or gear oil) which over those 1k miles attracted a world of dirt and grime. Oiling the chain with gear oil is the perfectly acceptable method and is outlined in the manual. But I read up on better ways to clean and lube modern chains and learned that wiping down the chain with WD-40 would removed the grime. Then coating the chain with Dupont's Teflon Chain Wax will lube the chain but not cause it to attract the dirt. I've gotta say it worked fine and the chain looks great now! Needless to say I won't be using gear oil on the chain ever.

Cristina's skills

Beautiful day out today. While in the backyard Cristina took a few photos of me and used her Photoshop skills to piece them together. Pretty dang good job, IMHO...

Irving Bank Robbery

A bank near my workplace and my daughter's school was robbed earlier today by 4 machinegun weilding bandits...

WFAA-TV Channel 8 story

Scary.