Satellite is sold

So our buyer for the Satellite picked her up today. It was bittersweet for both Marla and I. For me because I had wanted to fix it up to have a nice cruiser and for Marla since it was the last link to her youth.

I did finally get to drive it yesterday. For a car that hasn't been driving since 1993 it really didn't seem that way. No doubt the motor would be a lot more peppy with a good refresh, but it was still plenty torquey when I gave the gas some blips.

Either way now, the car is not in our possession anymore and we have enough money to sod next spring and do some other stuff around the house.

On another topic, funny thing about my glasses. I went to get my eyes tested a few weeks back and the eye doctor told me that the prescription I currently had was going to change quite a bit. So I say ok and go and buy some new glasses. When I got them I could barely see. Everything that wasn't a foot or closer to me was nothing but a blur. I gave them a few days since it was a different prescription, but nothing changed. I went back to Lenscrafters where I had purchased them and they checked them and said they were to the requirements specified by the doctor.

So it was back to the doctor... who of course was on a two week vacation. Finally got to see him this past tuesday and he was befuddled. He tested each eye and for each eye it was the prescription he gave me. However, my binocular vision with the prescription was no good. He did some more testing and found out that while with each individual eye the prescription he had given was in fact better, my currently prescription was actually better when I use both eyes.

Considering I typically use both eyes at the same time, he figured it was best to use my current prescription. I agreed with him. My currently prescription actually gives me better than 20/15 vision when I use both eyes, but each eye by itself is only 20/20. Weird.

Well, I guess I do know a second language

So today I'm out bbq-ing and I saw our resident ground squirrel out foraging through the grass (aka weeds). I called Marla since she hadn't seen him (or it could be a her) yet. I then proceeded to "chatter" like a squirrel and he came running over to the deck and stood about 2 feet away from us. I say stood, because he was standing on his back legs looking at me like I was going to give him orders. Well, after receiving nothing worth listening to he went off again on his merry way.

I came back outside to check on the bbq and decided to see if I could repeat my ground squirrel calling routine. I started chattering again and in the back yard three houses away I saw him stand up. A few more chatters and he ran like, well, like a ground squirrel running fast. It was quite cute. He came right back to where he was before, except this time he tried climbing up the deck. Again, either I bored him or said the wrong thing and he left.

Anywho, here's a picture of the type of ground squirrel we have around our house.

Shed's done

All together now. Took about 3 hours total. Of course there was no wind at all when we were wheelbarrowing the 3/4 down over and lifting all the patios stones, but as soon as we start putting up walls, the wind showed up. It matches the house colour fairly well.

So... hot... ughh...

So it's 30 degrees here today with the humidty in the mid 60% range. Of course today would be the day we decide to put together the new storage shed we bought. I get ahead of myself there however but first we had to build up a level base of 3/4 down and then a subfloor using 2'x2' concrete pads. So the yard and a half of 3/4 down is... down and so are the pads. Makes a nice 8'x8' patio... again I get ahead of myself.

Just taking a break right now and having some food. After that the shed gets started. It's a nice one. Plastic, two windows that can be placed on any wall and a skylight. All for under $800 at Costco. It was more than we wanted to spend but we need to stop using the garage as a shed.

So, I'm tired, sweaty and sunburnt. So here's a picture. It was actually taken a few minutes after the one in the previous post. I feel that it has a more surreal look to it than the other.

Severe Storm Warning

So we were issued a severe storm warning tonight with the possibility of tornadoes. A tornado touched down near my brother-in-laws place last night and as they say, "tis the season." Anyway, here's a pic of one part of the storm taking from our deck (and modified in photoshop of course) about 15 minutes ago. I figure it's about 20 miles away.

Plain and simple: A Picture

Took this picture tonight after a huge thunderstorm we had.

Little Boy Happy

Well, the visit today with the prospective buyer for the Satellite went well. He and his friend were quite impressed with the condition of the car. We must have spent a couple hours just talking about it and other mopars.

We do have some of the original documentation for the car in the way of the owner's manual and original warranty slip showing a delivery date of May 15, 1972 from Midway Chrysler in Winnipeg. There are a couple other not so cool documents as well.

We also heard from the repair guy for Future Shop. They are covering the entire repair with no cost to us. Yay!

Here's to hoping the car does actually get sold and less burnt out lamps for the TV!

In other news we are kind of in the market for a new computer. We've spent some time looking around at macs, but determined they are too expensive, so we're going to go with Dell again. That being said, we are waiting until the end of this month when the new Intel 2 dual core processors hit the market. They are supposed to be noticably faster than anything out right now and, if news is correct, sell at a price less than the current Pentium D (Dual Core).

Little boy blue...

Feeling a little blue today. Work has been nuts since last Tuesday as my coworker has been out on vacation. That means I get double the work. Unlike doublemint gum, it isn't double the fun.

We also had the lamp on our Sony Grand Wega TV crap out this last weekend. We bought the extended warranty based on the salesguy telling us the lamp is covered, but we have the warranty people and the repair man saying it isn't. The price for the replacement lamp? $472 plus taxes. The repair guy said anywhere from 16 to 24 months is the average lifespan of the lamp if the TV is used regularly. If we had known then what we know know we wouldn't have bothered buying it.

Anyway, that's not resolved yet. The salesguy actually handwrote a note on the warranty slip saying that the lamp was covered, so we should be ok.

There's a guy coming tonight to look at the Satellite and he seems serious about buying it. It's a little sad knowing that we won't be able to get an old mopar like that in the future without having to spend some serious cash on it. Oh well, the need for grass and a fence overcomes the need to burn gas and rubber.

Another photoshop example

I was happy with the way this picture looked so I decided to do a "cross-processing" effect in photoshop. True cross-processing occurs in photography when different chemicals are used to develop film (chemicals for slides used to develop 35mm and vice-versa), but photoshop is capable of delivering a fairly faithfull rendition.

The only thing I would change is having the picture without the background interference from the tractor, wood pile and stairs (although the color of the stairs came out nice). I did have to tone down the tractor as the color from cross-processing made it the focus.

Dodge Challenger is a go!

The extremely popular Dodge Challenger concept from this year has been given the official green light for production as a 2008 model. Final decisions as to volume and price have not been determined. Either way, Dodge will have a hit on there hands.

For Scott

How's this for a castrol ad? ;-)

Threw it together in about 5 minutes in photoshop.

Satellite up for sale

So it's officially up for sale now. Marla's 1972 Plymouth Satellite Sebring went into the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday at a price of $5500. I'm surprised there have been no phone calls yet, but perhaps putting it in the paper at the start of a long weekend wasn't a good idea.

Here's a pic I snapped yesterday after we had washed and waxed it.