Irritation

Geek warning.   If you aren't a geek, or don't care about geek things skip this post.

Back in February, I decided to take the plunge and switch from Safari to Firefox as my primary web browser.   You probably already know that I am a mac user ( read "fanatic" ).   If you didn't already know that, who are you and why are you reading my blog?

My main reason for switching to FireFox, although the reasons became many more over time is that when I started blogging ( on a regular basis ) using blogger, it just didn't work in Safari.  It's been long enough ago now that I don't even remember what didn't work, only that it didn't.  I had been frustrated with Safari for a couple of other reasons so I took the plunge and went Firefox hard core.

Well...   Now, six months down the line, I'm finding myself more than a little frustrated about how flakey FireFox has been working for me.    The browser takes a long time to load, crashes frequently, and ( way more frustrating than any of the above! ) it has recently stopped working well with blogger!

Aaaauggghhhhh!

The menus don't display right, the browser crashes when I try to leave comments, etc, etc, etc.

I've looked on Google, and the other "normal" places but can't seem to find anything that has a resolution to the problems I'm seeing.    

So, what do to now...    I'm posting this blog from Safri 3.03 and it seems to be liking blogger just fine.    I don't have any of my bookmarks saved in Safari ( which should be trivial to port over ) or any of my password stuff cached in Safari ( more painful, but not really difficult to remedy ).  

I'm just frustrated.    Or maybe I'm grouchy.    Or quite possibly all of the above.

*sigh.   

Maybe I will just go back to lynx.

...

( ht to this post on NoHeat.com, which is where I borrowed the image for this post. )

Hamster Paradise

Well, if you are a follower of the lives of the Ruggles at all then you are already aware ( from here and here ) that we have recently become the proud owners of two new pets.

"Buzz" and "Woody" are a pair of very cute dwarf hamsters, compliments of the Ford Family Hamster Farm and Livery.

Now I was all about the "ten gallon aquarium with wire lid" hamster living solution as recommended by my good friend and hamster expert Martin L... However, our little shopping trip yesterday has resulted in our hamsters having much more luxurious accommodations than any mere glass box.

Behold, what Ellie now loving refers to as "The Habitat".



Needless to say we had a blast this evening, watching Buzz & Woody explore their new surroundings, run like crazy on the hamster wheel, and get used to life at the Ruggles Ranch.

Ellie is in the tent again... ( Yes, I took it down this morning, but we had to set it back up for bed tonight... ).

This picture is of the tent in relationship to "The Habitat" ( from the vantage point of the recliner ).



Ellie is sound asleep and snoring from within the tent, and Buzz is furiously trying to get some where on the hamster wheel...

All in all, today turned out to be another good day. Hopefully the remainder of the long weekend will fare as well as yesterday and today have.

With that, it is way past my bedtime. More to come.

-Roogles out.

Wow, what a day!

What a day this has been...

I took the day off today because I though it might be good for my mental health to have two four-day work weeks with a four-day weekend in between.

Our plan had been to get up early, and leave for Columbus by 9:00 AM. We didn't exactly get the start we wanted, but the business of the day made up for it in leaps and bounds.

By 10:30 or so we were on the road. We hit Polaris first for some places Jenn wanted to check out, and Ellie played on the most excellent playground in the mall while Jenn was doing her shopping and Silas was sleeping in the stroller.

We made our way from Polaris to Easton around 1-ish, and after hitting Target, Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, and Dick's Sporting Goods we grabbed a late lunch at Cosi. Great sandwiches if you ever get to check them out! While Jenn and Ellie wandered around to other stores at Easton, I spent most of our visit there in the Apple store, trying to decide what new gadgets and mac accessories I couldn't live without. Bumped into Huss while we were there, as he had just wrapped up an appointment in Columbus and was doing a little Mac accesorizing himself.

Knowing that we were going to run late, we made a mad dash from Easton straight to Jackson for the Waverly Jackson game tonight, where the home-town Tigers proceeded to stomp the IronMen flat into their pretty field.

Had a great time hanging at the game with Jodi, Ed Purpero, and Chris & Tesa. Also great to have so many of the kids from Youth acknowledge us old people as being their friends even in a public setting like a football game.

It's 12:30 AM now. I'm back in my recliner while the rest of the family is asleep. I won't go into detail about all of the crazy stuff we packed back from our one-day shopping spree, but among the spoils was a six dollar and fifty cent "dog" tent that we found on the clearance rack at Target. The provided photo, is the current view from my recliner.



As far as Ellie is concerned it was the best $6.50 we spent all day.

Good day today. Hopefully more good days to follow.

Roogles Out.

Something strange is afoot at the Circle K

Jenn and I don't find ourselves at Circle K very often. I'm not sure if there aren't that many of them around, or if we just tend not to frequent them in favor of the more familiar convenience store like Speedway or BP... In any case, when we do find ourselves getting gas or pit stopping at a Circle K, I always smile to myself as I recall Bill and Ted pacing in the parking lot and coming to the realization that "something strange is afoot at the Circle K"

Blogged from my iPhone.

.....

Edit : We happened to be at that same Circle K a mere three days after our visit which prompted this blog entry... I got a better photo this time, so I'm replacing the bad one, with the better one.

Meltdown

so yesterday I had a meltdown...

First things first... I don't melt down. I do not stress, I work well under pressure, I am a control freak (to the extent that it is possible in any given situation)... and even when any of the above isn't true I pretty much don't let it get to me.

Second things second.... Obviously this is all hogwash (link provided for all of you not up on your redneck terminology). To the best of my knowledge everyone has stress. Most people worry about at least one thing, and some people worry about everything. The trick to not melting down, is that people find things to do with the stress... Some people run, some people fish, or take pictures, or punch things, or cry, or drink, or fly kites, or take walks, or go on a silent retreat, or something...

and then some people just bottle things up inside, they supress the urge to let it out, thinking that it will show weakness, or character flaws, or that someone might call them a pansy, or some other reason... and then, eventually there is no where left to store it all up, and they meltdown.

I'm one of those people.

Typically I can detect when a meltdown is approaching and take some action to hold it off, or find a way to release some of the pent-up stress so that the meltdown is less painful, and less draining. I do one of those things I mentioned above (walk,fish, getaway,etc) and things go back to bearable, and life goes on...

I won't bore you with the details of what's going on, or what got me to the general state of stress I was in on Sunday morning because it would... well... bore you.

But anyhoo.... Sunday morning, in the midst of amazing worship ( thanks Marty & gang ) and an equally amazing message from Steven, I melted. I hope that I melted quietly. I am allowing myself to believe that only one other person noticed, because then I'll be less worried about the fact that I melted in public.

The meltdown, thankfully, was short and was followed by an awesome afternoon ( see here and here and here ) with the RVCC Youth out at Chris & Tesa's place. What an amazing group of kids ( and adults ). What an awesome blessing to be part of this exciting ministry.

But anyhoo... That was yesterday, and now I am back to real life where melting down is not permitted.

Ah well....

Eight things...

Tersie tagged me on this one, and even tho my inner procrastinator wants to put it off until later, I'm putting together my eight things...

Oh... and Tersie, this one was far too interesting to stick on the other blog.
Thanks for tagging me.

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Number 1.

I am obsessed with ink pens. You may already know this from a previous post... It's true though... I probably have fifty different pens on my desk right now, all of which write slightly differently... some of which are so nice to write with that I waste most of the ink just doodling with them, and some which are so terrible that I can't stand to pick them up. For me it isn't just about the way the pen writes either... it is about how it feels in your hand, how much it weighs, the balance as I lean it over my index finger and place the tip to the medium... This ink pen obsession is weird for me because I rarely have the occasion to write anything long hand...

Number 2.

Jenn worries about everything... In order to compensate for this, I do not.

This isn't the kind of not worrying that Jaki seems to be blessed with. I actually worry and carry stress around for almost every aspect of my life... I am a perfectionist, a workaholic, and an over achiever... I truly believe that my worst critic is myself, and most of the time it eats me alive... BUT, I know that Jenn wouldn't be able to cope at all if I let on that I was stressed over everything, so I nearly always squelch the anxiety with will power and assure myself and those around me that things are going to work out ok in the end... ( The fact that everything generally turns out ok in the end is, of course, not a coincidence... but that's another story ).


Number 3.

I have sleep apnea. I realize that everyone who has had the misfortune of sleeping with me or near me in the past 10 years or so already knew this... For anyone who didn't know though, this basically means that when I'm asleep I stop breathing, and then snore, snort, and make other horrific noises when my brain realizes that there is no O2 getting up there... To compensate for my sleep apnea, I wear a CPAP machine to sleep at night. It is basically a little box that blows air up my nose to keep all the pipes and stuff open. It is pretty small and unobtrusive, so I take it everywhere that I go that I might sleep even when I travel overnight somewhere. It was a little tough getting used to when I first got it, but after five years I hardly notice it anymore... The cool side affect of the cpap machine is that when I'm wearing it, if I open my mouth then the air that is blowing up my nose, just rushes right out... You might not realize why this is cool, until you learn that all I have to do is pucker up and then I can whistle non-stop, without needing to worry about breathing for as long as I an hold a pucker... It makes great Youth group entertainment on mission trips, trust me.

Number 4.

I'm a pack rat. I can't stand to throw things away. Anyone who has ever seen my office, my coffee table, or the inside of my shed can attest to this. I know it drives Jenn crazy, as she is always trying to get rid of my stuff... I attribute my pack-rat-ism partially to the fact that deep down I just can't bear to part with stuff ( see this post ), and partially that I have convinced myself that if I do get rid of something I will need it later... Being a pack rat is one of those annoying habits that I would love to kick, but am not sure how to start...

Number 5.

I have hair issues.

I hate the hair on top of my head. When I let it grow out it is thick. I don't just mean thick like it is full, or anything like that. I'm talking shag carpet meets wire brush thick. It can't be combed, styled, or tamed... So I shave it off... I prefer it shaved right to the skin, shiny and squeaky. It grows so fast that I can go from being shaved squeaky clean to an unmanageable mane in about three weeks.

In contrast to the hair upstairs, I seem to be follicularly challenged in my facial region. I would love to grow a big bushy mustache and a crowder goatee, but try as I might I get nothing greater than fuzz from the temples down.

See... hair issues... *sigh

Number 6.

For almost two years, while I was in college, I drank an average of two and-a-half pots of coffee per day. Maxwell house. I had a coffee maker next to my bed in my dorm room, which I would put the water and coffee in before I went to sleep. I had a big insulated coffee mug, which would hold half of the pot in one cup. When my alarm went off, I would reach out and smack the Snooze button, and the coffee switch in one swift motion and go back to sleep for nine minutes. When the alarm went off again I would sit up, pour the first cup, and drink it before I got up. Then I would empty the pot into my second cup-full, make another pot and take that cup to the shower with me. Post-shower I took another cup to my first class, and stopped in my room for the fourth cup-of-the-day between my first and second classes.

Typically I would drink either half-a-pot or a whole pot in the evening while doing homework or sitting around. Even though I was buying the coffee, it was too much of a hassle and I was too poor to waste money and effort on cream and sugar so I drank it black.

I'm better now... One to two cups per day with cream typically satisfies me.

Number 7.

I love to read. My favorite book of all time is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy by Douglas Adams. I read the five part trilogy for the first time while I was in high school, and have probably read the series hundreds of times since then. I make Hitchhiker references multiple times daily in my normal conversations, but it is only rarely that someone catches or acknowledges the reference. Most of the time I just get looked at like I'm strange.

Number 8.

I was running out of steam, and Jenn told me I should include this last one so here you go...

I love to cook. My specialties are home made fettuccine alfredo, all kids of breakfast stuff, chilli, and random other things. When I was in college ( back in the coffee-swilling days ) I devised a scad of different ways to cook things in the dorm ( where most cooking apparatus wasn't permitted ). Especially during my senior year, when my dorm room had a large living room, I would cook huge meals in my room and invite the whole floor down to eat and hang out. I also love to cook for guests or friends as part of evening entertainment.


Well, that's it... If you're still reading this far down I hope you found it interesting.

Thanks again to Tersie for tagging me. I would like to tag Marty, Lauren, Jordan, Steven, and anyone else who wants to get on the band wagon.

My other blog...

This post is just in case any of my regular readers haven't stumbled onto my other blog yet...

For anyone who has been wondering if I am just too grouchy, or too much of a stick in the mud to take all those online quiz things... I actually do fill them out most of the time...

However, rather that clutter up my "real" blog, I publish my results to all of that crazy stuff on my other blog... which you can find here.

Random by Roogles

Enjoy the silliness.