Marina

It was suppose to rain today but lucky for us it did noting of the sort. It was sunny and nice all day with a slight breeze to keep the air just cool enough. Birds were hootin' and hollering outside and people were moving about. Getting some early spring gardening done and that sort of thing, nice change from the cold winter months inside.

Walk

We had a stray dog in the yard today that Cicely took back to his owner. This primped a littl excitement and maybe even a little jealousy with Oggy so wage took him fo a quick walk up to the bush.

When they got back we realized he was still full of energy and so were we so off to the Sparks Marina for a 2 mile walk we went. What a great walk, a little windy and a lot of people but great none-the-less. I think Oggy will sleep in on Easter Sunday tomorrow which means we can as well. Win-win in my book.

Ceiling Patch & Paint

Cicely planted some bulbs in the back yard today in various pots and planters to welcome spring. Always dig it when she is adding some color and more importantly her touch, to the yard. Makes everything look so much better and colorful. I am so focused on the grass and trees that you would otherwise only get shades of green for the most part.

While she was doing that I FINALLY patched up a small crack in the ceiling and painted an area that discolored a little bit from a teensy-tiny water leak we had in the roof about 13 years ago - yea I guess you could say I put that project on the back burner for awhile. I blame it on the fact that I did not have my awesome new 10 foot ladder and I am sticking to it.

Anyway, it was caused by an area on the roof where one of the pipes come through for venting something. The area around its flange was not sealed correctly with tar and then overlapped with a shingle when they did the roofing so water got through. Super small amount but any water leaks are more than I want ever no matter the size.

Luckily, it only needed a little roof tar to fix it, then a small shingle layering adjustment and it has never leaked again. Lets hope that it stays that way. No matter, had some paint mixed at Sherwin-Williams to match the color of the ceiling so after a little spackle work I painted and feathered the paint on and you cant even tell there was ever an issue there - love it when a plan works out, even more-so kudos to the paint peeps for such an awesome match!

PC & A Simulator

So today I finally bit the bullet and bought a cheap ass PC tower to "hopefully" run the new Phoenix flight simulator that showed up today from my awesome UPS gal. I don't know if this PC will have the balls to run the game with high settings like I want it I figured it's worth a shot.

I can always return it and then order one of the Alienware X51's from this guy on eBay that has a few of them on hand. They are a refurbished model but I have never heard anything bad about going that route. Plus it saves $300 to $600.

So I ran the game on its highest settings and the new low profile Dell did not have a single issue displaying the game as I had hoped it would. Everything looks great and the game is a blast and will prove to help me learn to fly once I spend some quality time with it. On top of it the PC tower is super small and extremely quiet which is icing on the cake. I picked up a long ass USB adapter cable as well so I can sit waaaaay back on the couch, recline back and fly - awesome!

The only thing I am not a huge fan of yet is Windows 8. It is "ok" but there are a lot of things that I just dont think should be forced or set-up the way that they are. It will become the norm for most Windows users in a short time after messing with it but I think it will have some drawbacks in settings like I work in day to day because the way the hierarchy of the system is set-up is kinda awkward for rapid working.

To me, Windows 8 is setup to me more like you would expect a tablet, smart phone or media center device to be, not a workstation. But I wont go into a bashing session about it, it is what it is and so any of us that use it will have to learn to make it work otherwise what choice do we have? No way my company would go entirely Apple products, and in all honesty that would be a bad move as well. As much as I love their stuff they too have shortcomings when it comes to my type of development. For straight up artist though they are the shxt if you ask me.

Cracked

I think that is enough out of me for one day. Tonight all the kiddos around are eagerly anticipating baskets of candy tomorrow filled with fake grass holding up a plethora of goodies followed by a colored egg hunt in the yard. I love the smell of an Easter basket to be honest, I miss that part of my childhood! The eggs are fun to color, good to eat but the egg farts, not-so-much. Anyway, on that note have a great night!

Photo: Nice day at the marina. Looks like rain is on its way though.