June 11

As awlays, please visit my website at http://www.thomnichols.com/
It has been well over a month that I have posted a new blog entry, so this might run a little long. But, I have a gnarly headache, so it might not. The reasoning behind my serious breach in keeping you all informed of life at the Nichols residence was mostly due to working a butt-load of overtime. There were times when I didn’t get any days off during the weeks. Then, I had a normal week, but that was just laziness on my part. Now, I’m coming off of two weeks straight without a day off and I figured I better post something or the one or two of you out there that actually reads this might find somewhere else to spend a few minutes.

Let’s start with the big news. River of Magic is out and ready for anyone to buy if they want. Here are the websites. Book or ebook The book version is $14.00. Sorry it’s so much, but it was the minimum price they would allow because it is a long one. The ebook is only $5.50. If anyone wants the book version, I get a discount, so I can get you a copy for about $9.00. You just have to email me and let me know. It’s still a lot, but it’s the best I can do.
Now, on to the kids. My youngest daughter has officially graduated from high school. It was a pretty nice ceremony with the exception of the long speeches. One of the graduates giving a speech couldn’t pronounce the word valedictorian, but it did add a little humor. When one of the graduating girls finished her speech and went to sit down, her chair slid off of the raised platform and she tumbled backwards off the stage. She ended up being ok, but she must have received a hard thump on her head. She didn’t return until the end where she got her diploma.
Since freeing herself from high school, my youngest enrolled in college and has been working very hard at the movie theater. She might even start a second job in the mornings with a company she worked at while she was at school. I don’t want her to work too hard, but she wants to stay busy over the summer and prepare for college. She wants to have a car by the time she starts, and we’re saving for the down payment, but we have to finish off paying our car before we can take out another loan. The good news is that it should be paid off by January. My youngest decided to make an extra car payment here and there to speed everything up. I told her I didn’t want her to spend her money like that, but she really wants a car. We’ll see.
Speaking of cars, my eldest daughter bought a new car. It is a 2012 alien Kia Soul. It is a really nice little car. It is a standard (So that her brother and sister can’t borrow it). And, it drives really nice. It had 55 miles on it when she got it so it’s brand new. Alien is a shade of green and green is her favorite color, so that worked out. It was the last standard they had on the lot, and we had to walk all the way into the back to find it, but she fell in love with it almost as soon as she saw it. She told me she filled it up the other day and it only took twenty dollars. I’m so jealous. It takes at least fifty for me to fill up the SUV. I knew I should have gotten a smaller car.
My son and daughter-n-law haven’t been up to much, but my granddaughter is getting too smart. Just yesterday, she was climbing the stairs to get to our upstairs apartment. There are nineteen steps, and my wife always counts them with her as they walk up. Yesterday, I was watching through the window as she was coming up alone. She was counting, but when she got to the last step, she was already on nineteen. She stopped and looked at that last step. She knew that something was wrong, so she looked down as if she were going to go back down and start over. But, then she shrugged, said twenty, and took the last step. She starts school this coming up year, which will be nice. Right now, she’s just happy that the swimming pool is open.
My wife has been busier than I have been. She was worked some overtime, but her schedule was more wrapped up in the graduations and the graduation parties. She put in a lot of time and effort and MONEY. Yes, kids are expensive. But, everything should be slacking off now that its summer.
I went over to my mom’s today for a visit. She’s doing ok, but she’s been without internet and TV for the last week. She said she finished seventeen books in that time. Speaking of books, we went over to my brother’s house and he loaded me up on books he wanted me to read. I think I have about seventy lined up now that I’m supposed to read. He still hasn’t found a job yet, but he’s on his third and fourth interviews with a few places. For the jobs he’s applying for, it’s a long process. But, he’s still upbeat. I think I would have pulled all of my hair out if I was out of work for six months. But, he bought furniture a couple of months ago and even repainted the inside of his house. My other brother is having some mechanical troubles with his car. He took it in to have the breaks looked at and they said that the breaks disintegrated when they took the tire off. They told his wife that it would cost $1,100.00 to fix them. Needless to say they were taking advantage of her. He took it somewhere else and it cost half of that. My sister is coming to town over the fourth of July. We haven’t seen her since last year sometime. That’s going to be fun. She’ll stay about a week.
Over the last month, we did manage to go see two movies. We saw Snow White and the Huntsman and MIB3. They were both thumbs up movies. And, it’s about time. Not counting the Avengers, which was awesome and deserves three thumbs up if I had three thumbs, the last few movies I’ve gone to were a little disappointing. It is very nice to see some good ones. I did miss a lot of good ones along the way. So that means I’ll have to rent a bunch if I ever get some decent time off.
Baseball has been a little disappointing. I don’t think the Rockies have been over five hundred this year yet. We were about ten games back when we started to rally last week. We even took the first game from the Dodgers. But since then, we’ve lost five in a row, dragging us back to where we were. We’re sitting at 24-35 right now. The only good news in that is that we’re still over the Padres. (My brother’s team) We’re playing three games against the Oakland A’s starting tomorrow and then Detroit after that. Hopefully we’ll start that winning streak and get back on the plus side very soon.
I’m seven chapters into Gremlin Planet, but I’ve taken two weeks off this last week because of work or laziness, I’m not sure which. But, I’m going to start up again tomorrow. I would begin again today, but I have to help the guy I’m working with keep his job so that I don’t have to cover for him along with everyone else. He has this certification test on basic stuff that he doesn’t know, so I’m writing down the answers for him. If I don’t start on Gremlin Planet tomorrow, I might work a little bit on Sliders. I’ve finished two chapters on it, but over this weekend, I’ve decided I want to go in a different direction with it. So, I’m going to re-outline and redo it. So, we’ll see what happens.
I guess this one wasn’t too long. I’m putting in something to keep me awake in the playlist tonight because I didn’t get a real good night’s sleep because it is soooooo hot. I’m putting in Tesla, Van Halen, Motley Crue, and AC/DC. That should do it.

See you next Monday night
Thom