Category Archives: News

News

Look at me!

Here’s a new toy I’m playing with. You can now see a current snapshot of my desktop along with an inset picture of what our webcam is pointed to at the moment. Pretty neat, and the software that does it is FREE! Let me know what you think, and what you happen to catch me doing at any given time.

Click here to view our desktop and webcam
The page will refresh itself every 15 seconds. There is also a permanent link to this page at the bottom of our home page so you can get to it easily at any time. Have fun “spying!”

News

Family Daze

We had a great time at this year’s Pleasant Prairie Family Days! Kevin conquered the Titanic slide (twice), played a bunch of games and won some trinkets and took a train ride in a drum, among other things. We all watched the Aquanuts Waterski show on Lake Andrea, then came home for a rest.

The weather was interesting. We had a storm pass through about an hour before the fireworks. We left home again at 7:30pm to get there a little early and we could see the threatening clouds. In fact, Bear and George were going to meet us there, but the rain scared them away and they didn’t go. On our way there we had a torrential rain, then it stopped just before we entered the park! Perfect timing. In fact, I think the rain forced a LOT of people leave early, so it wasn’t even very crowded when the show actually started! It ended up being a very nice show, and they even started it 15 minutes early… Probably fearing more rain if they waited any longer. The ground was a little damp, but we had our portable chairs, so we were set. The show was really great, and I took hundreds of photos to share with everyone. I’ve narrowed it down for to my “Top 130.” Click here and enjoy!

News

Waterboy

We went to Rec-Plex tonight, and Kevin took a major step forward in his swimming abilities. Since he began swimming he was always afraid to put his head under water. He’d get very upset if you dunked him, even if by accident and even if only for a short moment. Tonight he took the plunge (pardon the pun) and went under… He seemed to be amazed that he survived such a traumatic experience unscathed, so shortly after that he did it again…and again, and again, and again. We couldn’t stop him, and now he’s swimming like a fish all the time! Matthew even took it a step further and showed him how to go under without even holding his nose! He picked it up quickly and was even more excited to show off after that. I know it’s a simple accomplishment for most people, but he’s very proud of himself, and we’re proud of him too.

Our lil Waterboy! Call him “Nemo!”

News

Our Museum Trip

The photos from our trip to the Museum of Science and Industry are now online. Everyone had a great time, and we were all exhausted by the time the train got back to Kenosha. Check out the pictures!

This is Louie and Kevin clowning around at the museum

News

Healthy Insurance

Over the past month I have learned something most of you probably already knew: Health Insurance is only for people who don’t need it. They won’t give it to people who need it. I know, I’m there right now. DENIED. My height-to-weight ratio is out of “spec” (I’d have to lose over 100 lbs to get “IN spec”) and I’m on medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Both of which are fully under control and at normal levels right now, while I’m on my meds. The problem is, soon–without the insurance–I won’t be able to AFFORD the meds, which is going to throw ANOTHER wrench in the works!

An insurance guy we talked to recently (whose company of course denied me coverage) recommended Coral Calcium. He said it does some amazing things, and among them are the lowering of cholesterol and the lowering of blood pressure. I was going to give it a shot, but after reading a lot of pages like this and this I decided I’d better hold off for now. Ideas anyone? I’ve already begun a more regular exercise program and I’m trying to eat better.

News

Toyz for Geeks

I’m sitting on my sisters couch at her new house on 75th street, typing this blog on my new toy. We’re just visiting, and Kevin is playing with his cousin Tyler outside in the pool. We haven’t gotten out much, so now we’re catching up while we have more free time.

I’m actually scrawling this message onto my, screen, believe it or not. Using a thin “stylus” (looks like a pencil) I just write directly onto the screen, in either cursive or regular print. Pause for a moment and viola–my drawn text disappears and magically appears in the e-mail message as typed text! It’s amazingly accurate at reading my handwriting too. Ain’t technology wonderful?

Read on for some photo highlights from our visit at Loretta’s…

Destiny1 (30k image)
This is Destiny, Erik’s daughter. Not lookin too happy in the swing…

Lorettas_Cat (11k image)
Loretta’s Cat… or is it Kari’s?

Cat_HeadStand (22k image)
Ever see a cat do a headstand? There ya go.

Lorettas_Peanut2 (30k image)
This is Peanut, Loretta’s Pomeranian.

Kev_and_Tyler1 (28k image)
In the little pool…

Kev_and_Tyler2 (33k image)
In the big pool…

Destiny3 (25k image)
Destiny waves.

Destiny2 (22k image)
Destiny stands!

Destiny4 (18k image)
And finally… Destiny pouts.

Replies

You have all the new toys don’t you? Did you forget how to type???? Kidding!!! I loved the picture of “Cat standing on it’s head”. Who does Destiny belong to? She’s so cute.

Rosemary said @ 07/14/2003 01:07 PM CST

Destiny is Erik’s daughter. Erik is Loretta’s son. (Loretta is my sister).

News

We had a nice (somewhat quiet) 4th of July at home this year. We bought a few simple (legal) fireworks and sparklers and Sandy, Matt, and Kevin used them out in the backyard after it got dark. I took a few photos, and I thought this one turned out pretty neat.

Sandy hands Matt two sparklers.
(Matt’s in the flag t-shirt)

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Happy 4th!

Just a quick note to everyone to have a safe and happy 4th of July, and to remind everyone of what it means. Here’s a pop quiz from an old History class:

Q: What are the colors of the United States Flag?
A: Red, white and blue

Q: What do the colors represent?
A: Red stands for courage, white for truth and blue for justice

Q: How many stripes are there on the United States Flag?
A: 13

Q: Why 13?
A: Each stripe represents one of the 13 original states

Q: How many stars are there on the flag?
A: There are 50 stars, each represents one of the present state

Q: What is the 4th of July?
A: Independence Day?

Q: Independence from whom?
A: England

And if you miss the fireworks, CLICK HERE and enjoy!

News

Translation needed

While looking for a job in the Kenosha News recently I ran across this ad:

ClassifiedAd (8k image)

Could someone please translate this for me? It’s like the smallest ad you could possibly have, yet nearly every word is spelled wrong (or should I say “spelt rong?”). I wonder if the ad was actually submitted this way and published verbatim, or if there’s just some illiterate ad copy employee working at Kenosha News… Hmmm… Which place should I send my resume to? I think I’d have better odds sending it to Kenosha News… my guess would be that even the number of the address is wrong in the ad, and it seems Kenosha News could certainly use a new Copy Editor…

News

Party & Parade

We had my 40th birthday bash Saturday.  Sandy threw a great party, made lots of great food, and everyone had a great time.  I think I had a few too many wine coolers myself, because I ended up with a splitting headache.  My bad leg was also a bit sore from all the walking around throughout the day, but that was expected.  The surprise “giveaway” sale at Bear’s neighbor’s house was a nice bonus. I think EVERYONE ended up taking a gift or two home from the party! Kevin was cute–as we left the neighbor’s house with a bunch of toys for him he said “Daddy, can I get some more toys at the NEXT house??”

Today was the Kenosha Civic Veteran’s Parade.  We watched from our usual spot on 60th Street and Sheridan Road at First United Methodist Church.  We sit there because they have a Strawberry Festival at the church the same day, and we love the brats, hotdogs and strawberries and ice cream!  It makes a great lunch, and then we’re early enough for decent seats when the parade starts.  The parade was pretty nice and I took over 140 pictures.  I’ll post them soon for everyone to see, as well as the photos from our trip to the Circus this week.

News

It’s a done deal

I’m finished. My career at CirQon ended at around 11:00am this morning. I was dismissed. I, along with a few other remaining co-workers, stood around the office and watched in shock as the movers carted away the desks, cabinets and chairs that were once part of our home away from home. They were amazingly swift today, as if the end of the day today was some sort of deadline and they just realized they were out of time. The other four days of the week were very quiet in the building and all of a sudden it was bustling with movers in nearly every department at once!

As a few co-workers and I waited for our “walking papers” we watched them clearing each room and moving on to the next. We even had to switch to different rooms to wait in because the furniture was being moved out all around us most of the time!

If you’re not bored to death by this yet, read on for some photo highlights…

Wow, are these exciting. Take a look.

BootDisk (23k image)

This was my Weapon of Mass Destruction for the past two weeks. I think I reformatted about 40 hard drives containing a total of around 175GB of information before carting each one out to the dock to be loaded onto a tractor-trailer.

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This is where the two servers were that sat next to me for years. Mark Stricklin, my former supervisor, added the countertop. It was attached to a desk on the left, and held up on the right by a fire safe. Mark got out of IT and went into politics and construction over a year ago. He was smart enough to get out before he was forced to…

LastWorkstation (66k image)

There it is. My lonely workstation before I was told to pack it up and move it out early this morning. The screen and keyboard at left aren’t attached to a computer–they were key conspirators in my use of the aforementioned Weapon of Mass Destruction… I would wheel each computer in on a gurney, hook up the IV’s (keyboard, mouse, monitor), and then procedure to fry all of it’s data. Can I be indicted for war crimes?

I have more photos of more empty rooms, empty shelves, and nothingness, but this is getting too depressing. Time to move on….

News

Ghost Ship

It’s eerie (eery?) here. Each morning when I come in to work it sounds a little quieter. Less whirring of machines. Fewer hard drives spinning. Less fans keeping things cool. Emptier offices. What once was an active manufacturing plant buzzing with activity and production has been reduced to a quiet, empty shell of a building. Even the two network servers that lived and worked right beside me each day for years are now gone, moved to a server closet with the rest of the network hardware. It’s depressing. All that remains in my cubicle are empty shelves, 2 empty desks, an empty fire safe, and my workstation in the corner. I’m afraid if I’m not alert enough or take too long of a break one day this week I’ll return to find my own workstation has been packed up and shipped out! All good things must come to an end, as they say… or as I like to say: “Working at CirQon has been swell… but the swelling is going down now…”

News

Stairmaster Swimming

Kev and I went swimming last night. Rec-Plex is amazingly uncrowded this time of year. Everyone must be doing outdoor activities instead. It was good to get back to it though. We love swimming, so I always try to go at least a few times a week but with the leg problems I’ve been having, the swims have been few and far between. The leg is looking almost completely normal now, and feels pretty good.

Kevin and I did 4 trips down the huge waterslide, which was no easy accomplishment (for me, anyway). It’s like a giant stairmaster, then a 15-second looping slide back to the bottom. It didn’t phase Kevin though, he was ready to go several more times if I had let him.

And check out my new toy… Briggs and Stratton engine… right outta Tool Time! Arrr arrrr arrrrr.

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1 down, 1 to go

Sandy’s last day of work was yesterday. It was the last day for many employees of our company, so the employees threw a nice potluck lunch. Everyone was thoroughly stuffed after lunch, and there were a lot of sad goodbyes, handshaking, and hugs. Hopefully it’s on to bigger and better things for everyone. I also received my notice yesterday, so I’ll be done next Friday myself.

News

Fed up!

Ok, now I’ve had it. My allergic reaction is now reoccuring, just as my original infection reoccured before it. I’m caught in some sort of loop here. I saw the doctor today and he stopped the antibiotics. Turns out I’m PROBABLY allergic to all of them I guess. So now I’m on Benadryl to treat the allergic reaction and I’m off the antibiotics completely. The doctor says if the infection comes back go back to the ER. (And I imagine we’ll repeat this whole scenario once again–Why does it feel like I’m my own personal version of the movie “Groundhog Day?”) Hopefully the infection is dead enough for my body to continue to fight it, otherwise I’m screwed. The doctor said even if he sends me to a specialist, the specialist will just prescribe more antibiotics… Sheesh.

He said most people who get an infection can get rid of it in a few weeks, but since my circulation in my legs is so bad it takes ME months instead. He suggested some foot exercises to increase circulation, and lots of elevation of the leg. I sure need to do SOMETHING different, that’s for sure. Guess it’s time to start doing the treadmill again and take off some weight.

News

Spam Test

As I understand it, spambots (not to be confused with SPYbot) automatically scan all HTML pages on the web and harvest e-mail addresses. I’d like to test this theory and see if it works. Since these blog entries are stored as html files, all I should have to do is refer to TheSpamminator@jimtrottier.com or someone familiar like Cletus@jimtrottier.com or maybe Zoltan@jimtrottier.com or CaveDweller@jimtrottier.com and then just sit back and see what happens. I have already setup a “catchall” mailbox to grab all the mail sent to my domain that isn’t directed to a real mailbox, so we’ll see what happens and how long it takes. It should be interesting to see the types of ads too, so I’ll post stats when they start arriving. I’m expecting Winkie enlargements and Viagra ads to be the winners though…

News

Happy Father’s Day!

Sandy and Kevin took me out to breakfast this morning, and Sandy’s cookin’ out right now for supper… Got some Cajun Sausages for me! =) Kev and I went to see Nemo yesterday. That was pretty cool! See my “30-second” review in our Forums for more information. Other than that, the leg seems to be healing well, a lot of the pain has gone now…and seems to have been replaced with a boatload of ITCHING! I just try to keep it coated in moisturizer and anti-itch cream, and that seems to help a lot.

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What’s up, Doc?

My doctor didn’t have much to say during yesterday’s visit. “Well, it looks better…” was about it. He gave me another week of antibiotics and some pain pills and said if it doesn’t clear up this time we’ll have to take some x-rays. He said that last time too, and I thought it DID clear up, but it came back anyway. I have to see him again in a week. We’re just a bit concerned with the timing. We’ll be out of work a couple weeks, and we had hoped to be done with the whole mess by then but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Well, Sandy got her notice this morning. Next Friday is her last day of work. 😦 Here it comes…