July 29

Parents are idiots!!!
All right, I am sure that you all know that my eldest daughter is in boot camp for the army. Well, we have been following her progress on Facebook. They post pictures and they tell us when she is able to call so that we are waiting by the phone. There is also a section on there where family members can make comments. The kids in the army can’t see them, but other families can and so can the person posting the information. Most parents will post things like their kid’s name and something inspirational. This one lady today posted a note saying that it was her son’s birthday and she wanted to see if the person posting could tell the drill instructors in his platoon to have the other recruits sing him happy birthday. Come on lady. This is the ARMY not summer camp. Even if they did what she wanted, don’t you think that from that moment on, they kid would be singled out by all of the drill instructors. She was more likely to get her kid beat up than to have a good birthday.
The Rockies are in the seventh inning and we are up 3-2. I don’t have the radio, but I’m following it on the computer. I was able to see the first few innings before I went to work, and the guys looked good. We got a bunch of hits and even the outs we’ve made, the balls were hit hard. Let’s hope we carry that lead all the way to the end.
My daughter’s boyfriend came over today. He had a few more pictures for the graphic novel. I scanned them in and put them on the website. www.thomnichols.com in case anyone wants to take a peek at them. I’m still going to update it a little more. Right now, I just have the pictures of the characters on it. I would like to get some of the book so everyone can see what it will look like. And, I need to put some captions on the characters so you’ll know who you are looking at. Maybe I’ll get a chance to do that this weekend.
Well, I better get to work. I’m putting Rush, Fleetwood Mac, and Journey in the playlist tonight for background music. We’ll see what I work on, I’m not sure yet.
-Thom

July 28

I just pulled a mean virus off of the work computer today. It actually happened last night. The guy I work with called me over and said he didn’t know what was happening with the computer. As it turned out, he had an Internet Security 2012 virus. He said all he did was click on the internet. But, I’m pretty sure he would have had to go to a site in order to get it. But, that’s irrelevant. I’ve pulled viruses off of that computer for a couple of years now and I started working on it. I thought I had it off a few times, but when I rebooted it would come right back. So, there was obviously something I was missing. I tried looking it up on some of the other computers here at work, but all of them were password protected. So, I couldn’t do anything. The problem with that is that the boss would come in in the morning and freak out. He had everyone sign something saying we wouldn’t use the internet for personal business and the last time someone got a virus, I wasn’t working so I didn’t get a chance to pull it off before he came in. The guy nearly got fired. So, we were worried that the night guy I work with was going to get in trouble. The only thing I could do was rush home and look up what I needed on my computer at home. Then, I called it in and had one of the guys that took over for us and walk him through what needed to be done. And, what needed to be done was kind of involved. So, I gave him a hack that would stop the pop ups and told him I would take the virus off when I got in tonight. Since no one got in trouble, I guess my boss didn’t find out about the virus. I started pulling it off tonight and it was a mean one. I got it completely taken off, but it left me with a little present. It disassociated .exe so that whenever I clicked on an executable, it didn’t know what to do with it. There is an easy solution for that. You just have to add it to the folder file types. Unfortunately, since the last virus where the guy nearly got fired, the establishment has locked a lot of stuff down. And adding a file type was one of them. There are ways around almost anything, and in this case, I would have to go into the register and change about fifteen things. Of course regedit was also locked off so I had to make the changes in a reg file and run it. The whole thing took about an hour, but that’s an hour I’ll never get back.
The Rockies avoided the sweep yesterday, winning 3-1 against the Dodgers. We were off today and we are taking on the Padres tomorrow. We’re still in the slump, and it looks like we’re going to need a miracle to get out of it. We’ve only won one of our last five games and our playoff hopes are going to soon be in jeopardy if something doesn’t happen soon. We are officially twelve games out of first in the west and we are eight games out of second. We could really use a good winning streak right about now. Even thought the Padres are in last place in our division, they are only three games back, so I can’t say that they are a soft team. But, it would be nice to start our streak with them.
Not much has been happening on the home front. My youngest daughter got a birthday card from my oldest daughter in boot camp. But, none of the rest of us got a letter. I’m going to write one this weekend to her. I had to work some overtime on Tuesday. My wife had a stressful day at work because the owner was supposed to show up. He never did. The baby seems to rather play with the little kids instead of spending time with us old farts. We’re going to take her to Chuck E. Cheese on Sunday. One of my nieces has planned a family get together. It should be fun.
Well, I better get to real work. It’s after midnight and all I really did so far was pull that virus off of the computer. I’m going to put Styx, Twisted Sister, and Boston in the playlist for background listening and maybe I’ll get something accomplished.
-Thom

July 25

I was a little concerned about the Captain America movie when I saw the previews. But, after seeing the movie, I was happy I went. I thought it was done very well and I even liked the story. The action and effects were great and it was funny. There were a bunch of great jokes in it that I really wasn’t expecting. There was a little clip at the end, after the credits, for the Avengers movie. I can’t wait until that comes out. It should be great. Other preview of upcoming movies looked good too. The Immortals, John Carter Warlord of Mars, Conan, and Planet of the Apes among others look like they are going to be awesome. It looks like this year was a good year for movies.
We received a call from my eldest daughter in boot camp. She passed her PT and her rifle range, so she is in the home stretch. There is officially less than a month to go. From the Facebook site, we knew that she was going to call. It said that all of the recruits were going to call to let everyone know if they were going to graduate on time or not and to arrange transportation to their next duty station. We are going to pick her up and drop her off in Georgia. But, for those people that can’t be delivered, they were going to arrange military flights. So, she was able to talk to all of us for about five or ten minutes. It was nice to hear her voice. She seemed pretty happy. The only problem came the next day. We went to see the Captain America movie and didn’t expect her to try calling again. I’m sure it was very disappointing for her. She called my wife a few times, my youngest daughter a few times, her brother and then finally her grandparents. They answered and she spoke with her grandpa for a few minutes. Then, she tried everyone again and my son picked up. But, by then her time was running out. My wife cried because she missed the call and then cried again when she heard the voice mail she left on my youngest daughter’s phone. So, now the new rule is we aren’t allowed to do anything on Sundays in case she tries calling. I don’t think she will be able to until sometime during the last week of boot camp, but my wife doesn’t want to take any chances.
The Rockies aren’t doing very well. We dropped two games against Arizona. One of them we lost 12-3 and yesterday’s game we put up the big goose egg. Today we are playing the Dodgers. When I left for work, it was 1-0. But, after dropping my granddaughter off at home, I turned to the game and it was 1-3 Dodgers. Usually the game is on here at work, but the supervisor that owns the radio is on vacation. So, I don’t even know what’s going on. I’m going to have to sneak a peek on the internet after I post this.
My brother came back from vacation today. He spent the week in California with his in-laws. His funny story, (It was funny to me, not to him) is that his in-laws take it as a personal offense if they stay at a motel when they are out there. But, all they had were air mattresses for them to sleep on. Needless to say, the hilarity commenced. It ended up with his wife sleeping on the floor. But, they stopped off in Vegas on the way up and back and won their gas money. So, all in all it was a good trip.
Well, I better get started working. I’m going to put Whitesnake, Dio, and Van Halen in the playlist for background music and I’m going to try getting some River of Magic done tonight.
-Thom

July 22

I got the drawing for my website today. It’s a three phases picture showing a bust image of all aspects of the main character Billy from the book Centaur Planet. It looks pretty good. I am going to scan it in tomorrow and put it up on the website then. I will also update the website. I got an email about a week ago saying that the chat room has been discontinued. So, now I have to think of something to put on that page as well. So, we’ll see how it looks tomorrow.
The Rockies game is on right now. It’s the top of the eighth and we are ahead 5-4. We really need this win and several others, but this one especially because it is against Arizona. Arizona and the Giants are ahead of us, so we really need the games in this series. Woo hoo, Dexter Fowler just made an RBI triple. He just needs a homer for the cycle and he has put us up 6-4.
With the game on, it looks like I’m going to have to cut this short so that I can concentrate on it. So, I’ll put Chicago, Air Supply, REO, and Styx on the playlist after the game and I’ll figure out what to work on then.
-Thom

July 21

Time to complain about Chase bank. I don’t bank there, but I have a car loan with them. And, unfortunately I had another car loan with them. During a wind storm, a tree was blown over and it landed right on my car. The insurance paid off most of it, but not all. I called Chase and they gave me the balance remaining. I paid that and everything was fine until yesterday. I came to work and my boss was very upset. It turns out that they called during the day twelve times asking for me. So, this morning when I got off, I tried calling them. Their automated phone guide is one of the worse ones I have ever tried to navigate through. It hung up on me twice. The first time I thought was just an accident, but the second time it hung up in the exact same place. I spent over an hour trying to reach someone to find out what was going on. The only way I was able to get past the point where it hung up on me was to use my wife’s social security number. The old car was in her name. Then, I was finally able to talk to someone. (It’s funny that hers worked because I have an open account with them and my social security number wouldn’t work at all. I guess the only time they let you talk to someone is when there is something wrong with your account.) Well, when I could talk to someone, they said that I still owed $139.56 and it was getting ready to go into collections. I tried to tell the person that I called and got the payout amount and paid it, but she was stupid or something. She kept asking me how I was going to pay the balance. I ended up just paying it to get her off of the phone. Then, she wanted me to update my address and phone number. We got as far as my phone number, which I didn’t know. I told her that I don’t call myself and I never bothered to learn it. So, she asked if I could tell her my new number. So, I said I didn’t know what it was. So, she asked me if I could tell her my new number for their records. All I did was tell her yes when she read off my old address and number. Hopefully I’ll never have to talk to that woman again. Another funny thing is that the car was in my wife’s name. All of her contact information should be on the account, but they didn’t even try to call her or me. They went straight to my job’s phone number.
The Rockies dropped today’s game. That means we split the series with the Atlanta Braves 2-2. Unfortunately, they swept us a few weeks ago. So, we only took 2 of 8 games. Worst of all, was Carlos Gonzales hurt his wrist again while batting. At first it looked like the bat hit him, but I think he just pulled something. He looked like he was in a lot of pain. We were up for a while and then as soon as he was taken out, we started losing. So, we probably won’t have him against Arizona tomorrow. We are officially 47-52 for the year. Arizona is 52-46. If we can sweep them we can move up in the division. But, we are still 10 games out of first in the west. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
I was supposed to wake up early to pick my daughter up from work and take her to some meeting someplace. But, with the phone call to Chase this morning, I didn’t get to bed until 9:30 or later. She needed to be at the meeting at 2:00. So, I wasn’t going to get any sleep today. But, when my wife came home, I looked at the clock and it was 3:15. I thought I was late. But, it turned out that the meeting was canceled. I was lucky, because I was dead on my feet. It hasn’t been a good week for sleeping this week. But, it is almost the weekend. There is always time to nap then.
I’m putting Night Ranger, Tesla, Great White, and Prince in the playlist tonight. I haven’t done much work lately, but I’m going to turn that around tonight. I’m starting with the Great Detective Sequel so that I can send it off to my daughter in the army and then I’m going to work on the River of Magic.
-Thom

July 19

This is my 200th blog posting and what could be a better way to start it off then by saying that COMCAST SUCKS!!! But, instead I’m going to put a link to my ebooks. They are on sale for half price if anyone wants to take a look at them. http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ThomNichols
Yes, Comcast SUCKS!!! Unfortunately, I am a Comcast customer and I am only a Comcast customer because satellite service sucks just as bad and I don’t want to go through the hassle of switching. We had the worst time getting Comcast setup. I’m still having nightmares about it. So, about a year later, maybe a little less, I’m not sure about the timeline, our cable box starts to go out. It started with a single channel messing up. Sometimes it would freeze, most of the time the digital picture would be disrupted. Then, another channel would quit cooperating. Then, the shows we recorded on the Comcast DVR would freak out. Then the On Demand would stop working. All of this was over about a months time. So, we decided to call Comcast. They couldn’t fix it over the phone. They said that it was a problem with the box and they would be happy to come out and fix their equipment for a fifty dollar service call. What we should have done was cancel it right there and maybe they would have came out and fixed their stuff for free. But, to avoid the fee, we told them we would bring the box in and exchange it. When we got to the cable office, there was a line out the door. (I guess their crap breaks down a lot) We get about half way into the building when their power flickers. We only had to wait an additional twenty minutes for their stuff to reboot and come online again. (It gave them a nice little break, but we weren’t getting out of line. I wasn’t going to go through that twice.) When we got to the counter, they tried to get us to buy extra channels so they could pad their bills. Then, they gave us this number we were to call so that we could activate the box after we installed it. It took my wife six times to work her way through the automated phone tree. When she was finally able to speak to someone, they were incompetent. They didn’t know what to do. My wife gave them the number we got from the office, but whatever they did didn’t help. They continually said that it wasn’t connected correctly. (Believe me, after paying for cable for as long as I have, you become an expert on cabling.) It wasn’t connected incorrectly. A few more calls and my wife spoke to someone that knew what they were doing. She gave them the numbers again and the cable came right on. I think Comcast needs to practice what their commercials preach and start training their people. It’s too bad there isn’t another option out there besides cable or satellite.
Enough complaining. The Rockies spanked the Braves today. It was 12-2 at the end of the night. I had tickets to go see the game today. (Good tickets, five rows above the Rockies dugout) But, I also had to work tonight, and it was raining a few hours before game time. I was still going to go, but with the rain delay and parking, I would have only been able to see about an hour of it. So, my wife and my daughter took the tickets and seemed to have a great time. I didn’t see them on TV, but they sent me several pictures from their phones. The Braves had swept us when we played in their stadium, and they took the first game of this series. But, the Rockies had their number tonight. Our pitching was great. Our batting was great. Everything just clicked. It stopped raining before the game started and would have been a great day. Let’s hope the rest of the series goes like it went today. We need some good solid wins under our belt to take up back over five hundred.
On the Army Facebook page, it said that there were five expert shots at the qualification range today from my daughter’s company. They listed them and there was one person listed which is probably her, but the name is misspelled. I am sure it is her. Hopefully we’ll know for sure tomorrow. They posted a bunch of pictures of a different company that had qualified the day before. So, they should show the expert shots from C Company and we’ll know for sure. And, we’ll have a good shot of her. The only picture we’ve found of her so far was in the background of a guy puking after getting out of the gas chamber.
Well, that’s about enough for today. I’m putting some Ratt, Tesla, White Lion, Dokken, and Poison in the playlist for background music. I’m going to work a little bit on the River of Magic today and the Great Detective Sequel.
-Thom

July 15

Woo hoo!! That was two in a row for the Rockies. Now that’s the way to come off of the All Star break. We beat the Brewers 12-3 yesterday and 4-0 today. It was nice. I hope they continue this streak. We have tickets to go see the game on Tuesday against the Braves. Now, the Braves spanked us in Atlanta the other week. They swept us four games. So, we need to sweep them right back. So, everyone needs to start rooting for the Rockies to give them that little umph to keep them going. I’m counting on you. Besides, you get to watch some good baseball.
Speaking of baseball, I might not get to see the game on Sunday. We’re going to go see the second part of the Harry Potter movie. I think we’re going to Red Box the first part on Saturday so we can remember what was going on. Then, we’ll go to an early movie. (It’s cheaper) But, we have to wait until my youngest daughter gets back from college. Nope, she isn’t in college. She went on a three day sleepover thing to check out the college. They audit classes on Thursday and Friday and I don’t know what else on Saturday. She called about an hour ago saying she was at a party. My first thought was a college frat party. But, it was a party for the high school kids that participated in the sleepover thing. (I don’t remember what it was called) And, it is supervised by the chaperones.
My granddaughter didn’t come over today. We’re going to go pick her up tomorrow. I think my wife needed a night off this week. She usually stays over on Friday night so that the kids can go out and do something. I was hoping to see her so we could begin construction on the Danni chain. (It’s like a Christmas chain where you remove one link every day counting down until Christmas. But, in our case it will count down the days until we go pick up my oldest daughter from boot camp.) Since she didn’t come over, we’ll do it tomorrow. It will give us something to do.
Well, I wanted to make this a long one, but my boss gave me a huge project to do tonight and I better get started. So, that means I won’t be able to work on my books tonight. We’ll pick it up on Monday. I’ve had a few ideas for the River of Magic, so I think I’m going to put in some time on that one. I am putting in Motley Crew, Metallica, Dokken, and Tesla for background music tonight. That will keep me up so I don’t fall asleep with this boring project.
-Thom