Normally, I look forward to celebrating 2 days every year — my birthday and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a religious event for me. The combination of family and friends gathered to celebrate thanks brings me more satisfaction than any other time of the year. Normally I reflect on the past year and use those thoughts to write a special “Thanksgiving Message.” It truly is my favorite day of the year. Ricardo was a great friend....

My good friend was murdered this morning during a robbery. The only word that comes to mind is devastated. [][1]Rest In Peace my friend

GAINESVILLE, FL — So for the last few weeks, I’ve been working hard to get the house “ready to sell.” With the help of Orlando, Linda, and Richard (aka J4 Cruisers), the kitchen, master bedroom, and living room have been painted. When no wood flooring was available to repair the living room I had two options — (a) replace the entire wood floor (over 1000 sq ft) or (b) carpet the living room....

[][1]Cartoon Fred There’s a great site out there where you can create a cartoon avatar of yourself — it’s called Face your Manga (it’s an Italian company). Anyway, with this site, we now have Mr. Cartoon Fred. Cartoon Fred meet the world. World, meet Cartoon Fred. Cartoon Fred isn’t really angry… he’s just drawn that way.

[][1] Screen capture from Freds iPhone We know that I love Zippo lighters. If the economy was based on Zippo lighters, I’d be a rich man — but alas… that’s discussion for another rant. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah… Zippo lighters. Well, my new favorite iPhone app is the “Zippo Lighter” program. What does it do? It’s a virtual zippo lighter. You choose the lighter you want and using the iPhone’s motion detection you flick the lighter open....

Yellow Crowbar, Utility Knife… Punk bands from the 80’s? Spackle, Measuring Fee… Things you bought at Home Depot And we have a winner. 🙂 Home Depot has carpet marked significantly lower than my previous estimate. They are running a 199 whole home installation (plus 15 bucks to move furniture)… and promised to have it done before next Friday. I’m as optimistic as life allows. Now it’s off to Larry’s Subs to join Mr....

First… let me tell you how big the Spiders are in Gainesville. They are what I like to call HFS big… (Holy Fucking Shit Big). Except for Peter Parker, I’ve never liked spiders… but at least growing up they were managable annoyances. Spiders in the South are large and in-charge. They are huge… beyond big… they have zip codes and in some counties can even vote. Anyway, the point here is (1) not liking spiders + (2) HFS big = scared Fred....

Well, there are three main rooms that need to be painted. The Kitchen, the Master Bedroom, and the Living Room. The Kitchen was mostly a second coat. The lovely former real estate agent had her “handy man” paint the room, however they did at best what I’d call “half assed” work. Half-assed at best. So, I started painted and the realization of my painting skills became immediately apparent. I do not paint well....

GAINESVILLE, FL — So I’m back in Gainesville trying to get the house ready for selling. I had chosen a realtor who made some amazing decisions that would be sure to get me that “quick” sale. Here’s the short story: Apparently my built-in entertainment center was something that made the house un-sellable, and according to the realtor impossible for anyone to imagine their furniture in my house. So, Ms. Realtor and her hired handyman remove the entertainment center, leaving some big ol’ holes in the wall and about 40 sq....

I’m flying from Detroit to Phoenix to attend Astrocon– a conference of Asterisk users. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to attend a conference on a product I both like and am interested in; so I’m pretty excited. We woke up real early this morning and picked up Yeni’s mother who will be visiting us for a few weeks. I was hoping to sleep on the plane but my neighbor is a seat hog who moves in a violent jerking motion; it’s lovely....