Monthly Archives: June 2005

Dad, Vacation, Accounting, and HTML

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Dad called me last night to present our bill for the group vacation. He explained a very complex formula he used in a spreadsheet to figure out that we owed $655.99. I tried to take notes. There was a per head charge of $135.20 adjusted by some factor that could be minus $40 up to plus $50. It had to do with who got what room and how many people were in the room as to what factor got applied. The factors ranged from 3 to 10.

“I wish I could just e-mail this to you,” Dad said, “but I don’t know how to send attachments.” I told him sending attachments was pretty easy. Just look for an “Enclose” button and pick the file you want to attach. He called me early this morning to find out if I had received the attachment, and he was surprised I was still in bed. I explained I had been up to 2 moving Wart downtown.

Dad has as much appreciation for a Mac OS X server as I have for accounting.

The interesting thing was that the Yahoo e-mail I received presented the table all lined up neatly in the e-mail instead of as an attachment, so I’m not sure how Dad sent the table. I don’t recall getting anything like this. See this posting on Tucker.

P.S.

Like any good accountant, I accused Dad of hiding the truth with his complex formulas. Dad is really a compassionate conservative socialist at heart, and is drawing from disposable income accordingly.

Estonian In The House

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There is an Estonian in our house right now. She has been working in our neighborhood all day. She came to our house earlier, and Kathy found out she needed a ride at the end of the day, so of course, being an Estonian, Kathy felt compelled to offer her a ride.

Danny, Kelly, and Claire are talking to her. I’m printing out a couple of Ted’s Estonian stories for her to take with her. I’m going to suggest that if she borrow someone’s car she drive within the speed limit.

Hat Sizes

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Danny lost his favorite baseball cap at a concert last year. He found a stained Bass Pro Shop cap at the same concert and has worn that one almost as much as his Brookwood cap. I put it in the dishwasher to at least sterilize the stains.

He found his lost, favorite fitted ND cap on www.lids.com that he would like to get for his birthday. He said he wears a medium.

He and Morgan are over visiting Gramalie, Grandad, and the Ettensohn crew tonight, so I called and had Mom measure his head. He’s grown a tad. At 23 1/8″ he lands in the large territory according to this chart. Depending on how strict they are on the baseball team, he’ll probably let more of his hair grow. Just hope he doesn’t grow a mullet.

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Prom Photos

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After a slight false start (Kathy and I went to the wrong house for the photo shoot) we caught up with Danny and Morgan. The party bus turned out to be a huge modified Greyhound with a large screen TV in the back and a small one up front. It took the gang across town to Ray’s On The River.

Prom 2005 Photos.

Morgan’s dress was made of tiny beads. She had to have it altered, and the hem was not real strong. Danny said that wherever she stood still for a few minutes, she would step away leaving a small pile of beads. A variation of Hansel and Gretel.

Snake In The Pond

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The dogs enjoyed another Bullfrog Catch (#3) a few weeks back. Today they got to help out with a Water Snake catch. Approaching the pond, I saw a snake slide into the water from a bush that hangs over the edge. I tried catching him with a net, but he was able to slide into the muck I stirred up. About an hour later, the snake was back out and up in the bush. This time I was careful not to stir up the bottom, and I caught him. The dogs were delighted. The smelly secretion a water snake uses for defense was so fun for Stout, he rubbed in it. (Yuck!)

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He had a thick buldge a little over half way down. Some kind of dinner. None of the colorful fish were missing, but it is hard to count the fish we have from the lake because they blend in. Hope it wasn’t a baby bird.

Claire and I dropped the snake into the storm drain and watched him slither down the pipe towards the creek where he may hook up with the Bullfrog. (Kathy does not allow me to kill the Bullfrogs.)

Little Birds on Porch

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Two little brown sparrows built a small nest on our screened in porch last year, but they never used it. They found an opening into the porch where the porch roof line crossed the house roof line. The nest has been sitting in the upper corner over the back door for a year.

This year they (or two others) decided to use it. Friday, the three babies decided to fly the coop. The problem was they flew into our screen porch, and the parents could not figure out how to get them on their way.

Clyde and Stout were very excited to see little critters on the porch. Kathy used a net to catch and release each one on the deck. Later that day, we spotted the parents working with the babies who were able to fly up into bushes far out of Clyde or Stout’s reach.