Tone Parsons

The memorial day weekend is over.

We had a large BBQ and invited most of the family over. The steaks were very, VERY nummy!

After dinner, my son handed me a note and said “read this”.

IMA
SOFA
KING
WEED
TODD
DID

If you don’t get it… read it to someone. They’ll explain it to you.

Then we started playing Battlefield 2 and screamed at the top of our lungs “SOFA KING!!!” every time we were mowed down (well… it was funny at the time… but I have a few beers in me, so everything was funny and my in game skills totally sucked).

Sunday was spent drinking water and lying on the couch.

My father-in-law gave me a gift when they got here.

It’s the coolest thing ever…. a bottle of Gilbey’s “Spey Royal” scotch. It’s quite old (we’re not exactly sure, but the stamp from the liqueur control board seems to say that it was sealed on October 2nd, 1930). It has never been opened.

The box states that it’s “The Dancing Scott Music Decanter”. There’s a wind up key under the base, and when you turn a knob on the side, it plays music (when irish eyes are smiling) and the little Scott figure in the bubble at the bottom of the bottle dances around.Very damn cool!!

Here are a few pictures:

I know they’re not the greatest pictures, but they give you the general idea. I’m not a collector but it seems that something like this might be worth a dollar or two. Does anyone have any idea on this?

I did the google thing and found a couple of references, but nothing major. I’m all kinds of curious.

The cam on the site has been changed back to good ol’ ChillCam.

I had been running Dorgem cam software for the past couple of weeks, but it kept dying in the middle of the night (and during the day, and when the wind blew, etc.). I liked it because it was opensource and it had some pretty spiffy features, but I wanted something more stable.

I had been using ChillCam for a long time, but it was an unregistered copy and I was tired of the popup “Dude… you’d be cool if you registered” messages (which open a web page when you close it). I finally figured a way to stop that from happening…. I paid for the program 🙂

It’s only $25, and I have been using it for years (an old version that didn’t shut down after 150 hours). One nice thing about having a registered copy… I can update it from time to time.

Off to other topics….

My eldest son received a letter from school the other day. In thus said letter was a letter. No… not another letter, but a large letter “R” done in purple and white… the kind you put on a letterman’s jacket. He had lettered in academics, and it came complete with a nice certificate. As he’s not the type to put it on a jacket and parade around, I’ll pick up a frame that we can put it and the certificate into. It’ll look cool on his wall.

And finally… band!

Last night was the last band concert of the year for my eldest son. My wife, mother-in-law, and I drove to the high school early go get good seats.  They wanted to sit in the front row so I would have some leg room.  Unfortunately, you can’t see squat from the front row and most of what you can hear is the front rows of the band.

The concert was pretty good.  It started with a few songs from the Jazz Band, then 3 songs from the steel drum squad, 4 songs from orchestra, 3 from band,  and one from all of them.

I would have enjoyed it more if the audience wasn’t full of young kids who decided that the best time to use their cell phones, talk loudly, etc., was when they were playing (a couple of them came close to having a near death experience).

And that’s about it for me today.  Yay!!  Another post of nothing!  I’m getting pretty damn good at doing that.

I’m back at work today. I still feel like crap (all sweaty and clammy and stuffs), but I have work to do and there’s no point in staying home (I’d just be sick there too).

On the way in to work, I dropped my car off at the shop to get the oil changed. I went for the $29.95 deal (change the oil, lube the chassis, top off all the other various fluids).

The shop just called me. Apparently, my alignment was out and it had eaten the inside edge of both front tires. I’d noticed that they were wearing differently from the rear ones (and I rotate my tires every 6,000 miles). Unfortunately, I have all wheel drive, so if you replace any of the tires, you have to replace them all (so they all have the same amount of tread).

Now, to get my car out of there, it’s going to be just over $500.

I’m not too stressed over it, as I had planned on getting new tires this year and I have the cash right now. It’s probably a good thing they noticed this, as I’m driving to Portland, Oregon next month (my Dad’s getting married), and I’d hate for there to be a problem on the road (it’s a long damn drive).

Other news: well, there really isn’t any other news. My life is pretty damn boring.

Update:

I picked up my car.  The bill was only $431.00, so that wasn’t so bad.  It does ride much nicer than before (gotta love new tires!!).  They also got the alignment right.  I had to drive down to the Harley dealer to get tickets for the upcoming “Fun Run”.  The car went in a very straight line all the way there and back, so I’m happy.