Wednesday

Jonny has created another link to an old diary entry. Back then there was another story to compete with Lowe's and Home Depot. It was called Builder's Square. He was also crying over not being able to go to the Pink Floyd concert tour.

Right now Jonny is watching the rain while working.

There is a movie Scream 4 being filmed right along Jonny's bike route that he takes to and from work. He got stuck in it and watch one scene being filmed live.

Kristina sent her pictures from the weekend. They looked great.

This week's parsha is Shoftim. And that word is derived from the Hebrew word for Judges.

Babs the dog went to the vet today. They said she needs to lose some serious weight.

Wednesday

Jonny took a pre-lunch nap. At this moment his officemate has gone off to a meeting. He is busy trying to get his ASP.NET program to go up a level. Everything else in his work an personal life is in turmoil. Last night Angelina was tired so she retired early. Of course Jonny used the opportunity to relax and stay up late. He did work on school work last night so the break was deserved. He is getting sleepy just now thinking of it. Jonny was awakened at noon to Angelina's cell phone call. She got the Black Nissan Altima out of bondage for a mere $882. Jonny was afraid last night that his favorite Scrubs episode would be erased soon. This was justified because AT&T U-verse said it was about to be erased. So he watched SNL which was in the same situation. He stopped at 11 and didn't finish. He did do stretching, hand weights and situps at the first act. Then he realized it was the song Tick Tock. After that he turned off the TV. So he is three days in a row of doing stretching, hand weights and situps while watching TV. That is impressive. After work he had part 2 of the 6 part bud-lite lime outrageously priced $7.99 beer. The family prepared hamburgers on the gas grill. Jonny listened to the parsha today. Jesse had his appointment and everything is fine. He needs to up his miralax. Angelina lowered it and his system got all backed up.

Jonny listened to the parsha of Bechukotai and then listened for the second time this week to the parsha of Behar. His program is giving him fits so he turned it off at the halfway point. He learned that some people repent on Yom Kippur and then commit the same sin later in the year. There are 5 places where Yacov is written with a vov. Safer Vayigrash is it's own book. Some people have that theory.

Jonny is on page 278 of To Say Nohing of The Dog, and on page 169 of No Man's Dog.

The network people are bugging him for a .NET solution to their forms based authentication problem of sharepoint. Jonny has no idea how to do that. He has a plan to get them to do it and to stop bugging him to do something that only they know how to do.

forgetting stuff

Jesse and Jonny were vacuuming the basement. Jonny found another one of those recycled gray pencils, that no one likes. He forgot to take it to work today. Angelina wanted Jonny to fax her timesheet. Jonny would have to go to Rob Schneider's office to do that. Doesn't matter he forgot to bring it to work. In addition, Jonny felt it was time to get a new toothbrush for his Hilton Hotel office. But he forgot that too. Jonny did shave today at his Hilton Hotel bathroom. But the blade is getting dull. He is out of blades and forgot to bring more to work. Lastly he found out the square footage of their house. It is 1900 square feet, per Angelina. Jonny posted on Zillow a question about the zestimate. He wants to know how come the price hasn't been going up like all the other houses on the street. There Jonny just did the stretching exercises from his computer's reminder program.

Just for fun Jonny has been keeping a log of what he has been doing at work.

9:12 turning on heat
9:26 set clock
9:34 picked a scab
9:43 drinking water
9:46 sneezed
9:53 shaved
12:05 coffee

Jonny was reading Passage. He is up to page 414.

He was also watching a movie. He started the movie Cocoon.

Tomorrow is Sam Douglass's Bar Mitzvah. The last time someone in his family had a Bar Mitzvah the Miller family dog got bitten by another dog. Lucy the dog had to spend the night at an animal hospital. She was picked up around midnight after the Bar Mitzvah party.

Also today Jonny listened to this week's parsha on real player.

Today Jonny and Jesse rode their bikes. They rode to Jesse's art camp. It was about two miles. Then Jonny rode to his Hilton hotel room. There he shaved, ate breakfast and brushed his teeth. Jonny stretches when the computer tells him to. But he wants to get back into stretching at home, plus situps and hand weights. He started using a nedi pot instead of the other nasal irrigation method.

Jonny went to Nicola book store and picked up a free book. On the way he listened to the book on CD that Lorraine had picked out. This was called Walking the Dog. The book he got was called North Of Nowhere. This was the same author of Cold Day In Paradise. Both are books written by Steve Hamilton.

was a miserable day at first

This afternoon is better than most. Jonny listened to the parsha this morning. There was also many fire alarms today. They were really loud. Jonny sent his father a birthday card on the internet. Angelina got a new ID badge today in the first floor of the Hilton. So she came and collected the pop cans. She also brought Alberta and Lorraine along for the ride. Hold on Jonny has to stretch. Jonny is up to page 363 of Passage. It is like a baseball game, 300 pages without a single hit and then a bunch of home runs. That was a simile, correct? What would a sports metaphor be then? The book is still in the 3rd quarter there is plenty of time left on the clock. This week's parsha is about finding a nice lady in the field. That was in reference to when the Israelites were attacking. Then, if they found a nice lady in the field. Today Jonny forgot his cell phone. He has been pretty busy at work. Fortunately he was able to delegate work to his mentor, Lea. Jesse has been in art camp this week. He was taken out early to go to the dentist. So far no nap for Jonny. Jonny found Alberta's cell phone charger. Jonny needs to go to the bookstore and pick up this free book.

Meeting at the Bee Hive

Today is a meeting at the bee hive. Rob Schneider gave Lea Thompson permission to skip it. But no such permission was extended to Jonny Lee Miller.

Jonny has been reading. Today he read Chapter 22 of Jeremiah. It continues with the King of Judah. He is also reading a new book. This was picked out by Lorraine some time last week. The book despite her comments is truly dry and non-fiction. Lorraine said "Dad I hope you're not to scared to read The man without a Face." Little did she know it was an autobiography by a less than humble communist spy leader. This is similar to the fictional weird book Jonny read a while back called Double Agent, Triple Cross. That book contained cynicism about the state of spying. This book contains too much bragging. It also contains history, which is informative, to someone like Jonny who forgot what little he learned about communism in the 80's. This was a time period when he was more concerned with the latest Simpson's episode and swapping stories at work about what hot babes appeared on Married with Children. Jonny is up to page 13.

On Sunday he went to Minyan by himself. Alberta was having a fit and refused to attend. They didn't need him, he was 5 minutes late and he stayed anyway. The dual service was over before 5:30.

In attendance at the Bat Mitzvah were: Alberta Watson, Lorraine Bracco, Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Jonny Lee Miller, Bob Sessions, Kevin Connolly, Sam Douglass, Max Ligosh (the dad), Anna Marie Zola (the Bat Miztvah girl). Zsa Zsa Gabor's son was invited but not his mother. The party was last night at Weber's Inn and she picked up her son and Jonny's daughter at midnight last night. Then Jonny, Alberta and Angelina got into a fight about the TV and the computer. So per Angelina's direction, it was all unplugged. Too bad too, Jonny was watching SNL from Saturday night.

On tonight's agenda is more sealing the floor. Jonny was unable to do any stretching last night. Over the weekend Jonny put up one of the new storm windows on Lorraine's room with Jesse's help. Then he took Jesse to a birthday party. Amy was there and her dad Ernie agreed to drive Jesse home. Jonny then took a nap. Alberta, Lorraine and Angelina went shopping for last night's Bat Mitzvah. Then they got into a fight.

The librarian was there and so was her husband and two kids. He bought Jesse a drink too. He came back to the table and she said where's my drink. So he gave her his drink, a warm whiskey in a large glass. She said I don't want it. Jonny said I do. Jonny said that the secret to getting drinks is to sit by the pretty girls because everyone buys them drinks. Angelina said there was an open bar. There wasn't.

Also this weekend Alberta had a soccer game. Jonny took a nap right before it started and missed none of it. They got there about 30 minutes early. It was only 14 degrees outside but he kept the engine running. Alberta's team lost 2-0. She was goalie for first half. Jesse was goalie in his game. The score was tied 3-3.

A mad house

Back home with Angelina it is a mad house. There is no school today. Lea sent an email hold on. She wanted some clarification on Jonny's credit billing program. Penny is behind Jonny talking on the phone. It is so annoying. Jonny finished his book at 373 pages. He still needs to check Amazon to see how the rest of the people enjoyed Death in a Strange Country. He put the book in the waiting room. Hold on let's see if it got taken. No one took it. The lady in the waiting room said that was nice that he puts those books in there. Right now Angelina is home with 5 kids. Annabella and Lorraine are playing together. Alberta is home too. Ernie dropped Amy off for Jesse to have to hang out with. Jonny's windows are in now. But it is -3 outside and one storm window needs to go up on the second floor. Jonny just finished listening to the parsha chanting. Lea email again. OK the program will get when it gets done. Reebok and Nortel are laying off people. Yesterday Jonny heard the Torah Gems first half again and the second half for the first time. He has a really bad back ache. It made his insides hurt. Now the pain has crept down the side of his leg. He isn't sure if it was from stretching too much, fights with Angelina about Kristina or sitting in traffic. This weeks parsha is called Shemot. This means names. The parsha covers grass roots. Also there is a fasting holiday period called Shevouum. The Jews were in there for 210 years. They started with 70 and increased to 600,000 aged 20-40 year old men. They had sextuplets. Moshe's reputation before the liberaton "he was a fighter for justing". There is a vertical line in the Torah separating Moshe's name when he is called by Hashem, as in Moshe | Moshe. A lot happens with the midwives in this parsha.

Yesterday Jonny and Angelina had a good meeting with their "banker". Right now it all rests apon the appraisal. As it stands houses are still going down in value. Jonny's house was sold to him for $250 but was appraised at $290. It has gone "down" in value. But major improvements have been made since then. So if it appraises for anywhere near what it appraised for at the time of sale then it has technically gone up in value and therefore so has Angelina's equity. She can reduce the payments b one or two hundred. And get this the city is going to increase the taxes because the house has gone "up"? Maybe the title of this post aught to be up or down in value?

This weekend is going to be instense. There is a Bat Mitzvah, and a party for it on Sunday night at 8 PM. There is a UM basketball game, Alberta's basketball game, Jesse and Alberta's soccer games at Wide World.

Tired, busy and unmotivated

OK, Jonny is guilty. He has been surfing the web. He is a little tired today. So now he doesn't even feel like writing too much. Maybe get back to work, nap, or surf. His eye has been hurting. He stayed up too late. Otherwise life is great. Jonny is sitting here drinking coffee in Hotel California and procrastinating the work on the credit program and the prostate database extracts. He got back into the routine of doing hand weights, nasal irrigation and stretching for one night, and taking vitamins. But he stayed up too late. Angelina watched the news and then nightline, g-d bless the Israelis for fighting with Hamas. Then he watch the 4th qtr of a great football game, MNF bears vs packers from last monday.

As the tag below indicates, he finished a book. He finished the DT concordance. And it was 239 pages. The maps kinda sucked. He is onto page 132 of Zipporah. Yesterday and today he listened to Torah Gems. This was the week of parsha vayigash. Josef tells his brothers to come close. Why? Josef asks his brothers is his father alive? Why? Also there are 6 Jewish fast days more or less. This week is the tenth of Tevet. From 7AM to 6PM is a fast day on Sunday. Doubtfully, most people have heard of it.

Recycling a waste of time?

Jonny was reading a blog after blogging. He does this for long term inspiration. He was so fired up after reading about recycling is a waste of time. So he is putting his response here. Recycling isn't a waste of time. Angelina paid extra money to have a huge dumpster garbage bin. The city gives you one. It is something like 96 gallons. If you pay a one time fee of like $25 you get the like 116 gallon version. Also she got a compost bin for a one time fee also around the same size 116 gallons. In addition there are four bins for recycling. 3 are brown for paper and cardboard. The 4th is green for containers, plastic, metal, glass, and cans. Most bottles go back to the grocery store for the $0.10 deposit. Sometimes if the beer comes from Trader Joes then it isn't worth it to return it for $0.60, so instead a homeless man usually picks it up out of the recycling bin. Understanding the system takes time but not really like your gonna bill the city for your time. Sure a diesel fueled bus is no more expensive than a bio-diesel fueled bus. Per Lyman Ward. He said you are satisfied that it is cleaner. The city uses these. Many people in Ann Arbor ride prius. They are more expensive and get the same fuel economy. They are cleaner. You can build a deck with fake wood. The fake wood is more expensive. It comes from #2 plastic. It will last forever. The idea of recycling a contact lens container into deck material is fantastic. In fact if Abraham was alive today Jonny is convinced he would be an environmentalist. There is a physicist doctor here in the UM who throws out nothing. He recycles it all. Every single piece of garbage isn't really garbage. So guess what his footprint on the earth is small. Jonny doesn't go to that extreme. Angelina would throw out all paper and cardboard cereal boxes right into that huge dumpster and the city would care, but wouldn't fine her. They aren't going to go threw the garbage and fine people for throwing out glass. They won't force you to recycle a can of tomatoe paste. They won't fine you if there is a teaspoon of milk in the #2 plastic milk jug. It is against state law to throw yard refuse into the trash. No one will catch you if a piece of wood with nails in it makes it into the trash can or saw dust or a couple of leaves. The hardest part about recycling is fitting it all into those bins. Occasionally Jonny takes a utility knife a cuts down the cardboard to fit into the boxes. Yes one truck picks up the recycling, one truck picks up the garbage and a third truck picks up the compost. See http://www.recycleannarbor.org/ and read essays on how recycling stops global warming and read essays on why recycling is important.

Jonny did stretching last night. Jesse started soccer yesterday. This weekend is another football game and a trip to Wiard's orchard. Kristina sent Jonny an email.

We haven’t heard from you in a month now! Let us know if all is ok. I guess you must be busy with the kids all going back to school and you are probably starting a new semester of teaching too.

Love, Mom

He wrote her back a twenty minute email.

A long nap

Jonny hardly slept at all. It felt like he was awake the whole time. Today he went out to his car from 10 to 11. And the same thing happened. Tonight is the first night of class. Jonny will be using the new MyItlabs product. It grades homework. So no Jonny hasn't managed to get back into the routine of going to bed early. He hasn't been doing the hand weights, stretching, nasal irrigation and situps. But he did ride his bike to Hotel California yesterday and back. On Sunday Alberta and Jonny walked to the Minyan. They do two services. So you hear the Kaddish 8 times. Angelina's call on the cell phone woke him up from the nap. Then he came back to Hollywood. There he ate a cheesy, chicken and brocoli lasagne from Hiller's. The painting in the living room is complete. Jonny forgot to shave. He had been using an electric but Angelina threw it out. He is out of floss over at the Hotel California office. One night this week Jesse came into his parents' bed. So Jonny slept on the bunk bed. Two days ago Angelina sold a book on Amazon. So Jonny wrapped it last night and she mailed it today. Jonny is on page 292 of Union Prayer book. He is deeply immersed in the VASE clinic audit. Or the clinic audit and struggling to use VASE with Access ODBC connection to the back end of the Oracle tables behind VASE. Jonny had a weird dream. It was the usual recurring night mare about being back in school at CMU in pgh, PA. But this time Laurence Mason was his roomate. Even though Jonny got a one week head start on Laurence, he was still behind from the moment of his friend's arrival. Will Jonny ever get his BS degree without feeling it was all due to good luck and not real hard work?

Matos

This week's parsha is Matos. The word neder shows up. This word mean a vow. There is a prayer that goes "...neder bakodesh, norah tehlote oh say fela.." This is an important parsha because it tells what to do when there is a vow. It says if you make a vow you must keept it.

Last night Jonny went to the hardware store. He went to Lowes on Carpenter road. They didn't have chain link fence that you can purchase by the foot. Apparently nobody does. Angelina is supposed to call the allied fence company today and ask them. But she keeps chickening out. On Jul 16 Angelina made 7 dollars. She took advantage of the Michigan over charge law. She bought some plants and some tomatoes. Last night Jonny bought tomatoe miracle grow, for $5. He bought some chandelear chain and electrical wiring 8ft for $7. He also bought 5 lawn and refuse bags for $1.96, he got two of those making it 10 bags. On July 14 Angelina bought food from Panera. On July 17 she got another air conditioning deflector vent. On July 18 the cashier at Target was annoying Angelina. She was really upset about the refridgerator. Then Alberta lost her cell phone. Angelina got the steam cleaner fixed. She gave Jonny some papers to sign so charitable organizations could give her some money for Jesse. It really is nice of those companies to do stuff for her. For example they might give her family a hotel room to visit friends in Pittsburgh, PA. Also while they are there he will go to an amusement park. So it is a family outing with another family.

Penny isn't here in Hotel California, so Jonny can just sit here in the dark and sleep. Last night was another baseball game. Lorraine did well, she got a hit and scored a run. She is little and not the best player. Lorraine really enjoys the game. That is what is important. In Ann Arbor corec they try their best to make it that way. The whole Lorraine family went to the game. On the way home from work Jonny so it was raining, so he waited a few minutes for it to let up. A few minutes ago Jonny used the stretch ware software. He stretched a little. Last night he didn't though. And his wrist has been killing him. So he had been taking lots of motrin. Then he gets stomach aches.

Guest List

How in the world is Angelina going to get the guest list? Diedrich Bader, Cloris Leachman, Erika Eleniak and Jim Varney are on that list. Jim said he and his group are coming, but they won't eat anything. Now come on. Angelina says the synagogue is strictly kosher. The food at the JCC will be strictly kosher. Earlier today Angelina wanted to know if Wendell had paid his deposit. So Jonny emailed him. Very reluctantly. Well that went ok. He wrote back one word. Yes. Jonny has been listening to Naso on his MP3 player. He is on the second listening to it. He went to his car today to take a nap. What else is new? He relaxed and let go. He read a chapter of From a Buick 8. Now he is on page 190. He listened to the parsha while relaxing, while walking to and fro. It is great. It is better than listening on the computer. He can walk to the kitchen, get coffee here in Hollywood. He can water the plants. Jonny can warm up a pizza and clean his plate, brush and floss, all while listening to the MP3 player. In school the students are going to have to take the midterm next week. Jonny wanted to do his online class today but now it is time to blog. Ooops went onto an internet tangent. But Jonny is back now. He was reluctant to learn yiddish because so much of what he know is wrong/questionable. Like the word noodge or nudge. This link explains it one way http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001008mag-onlanguage.html but that is long and boring. This link http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/ thinks the word is nudge in english and נודזש in yiddish also spelled nudzh and pronounced noodze. Jonny was always "taught" the word was pronounced as noodge. Or somewhere between a nudge and a noodge. See according to Yiddish a nation of words a yid likes the taste of loshen on his loshen. He likes the taste of a yiddish word in his mouth. So go say something like shlub kup and vont without laughing. Tonight Jonny will among five thousand other chores lookup weinreich's definition of noodge. But it probably changed between when he wrote it and now. He died 1 year before Jonny was even born. Last night Jonny called his mother. He and Kristina chatted like old friends for almost half an hour. Jonny started reading an ebook on his mp3 player called the aliens. He is up to chapter 30 of Plain English at Work, The title of the chapter is handling questions and answers. Jonny tried to incorporate some of what he learned in chapter 29 entitled giving your presentation - in the excel chapter 2 class. He figured out how to underline. Edit the html. Use the u tag. He practiced his Torah for 20 minutes from 10:40 to 11 last night and stretched for the first time in a while. You know what they say curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction made him fat. "Our nap lasted only a while. I think we should sleep awhile longer." per the web site. And lest he forget, he finished the CD Fahrenheit 451. Angelina bought stuff to plant at the farmer's market. Jonny has pt at 5 today next to the library. So he plans to kill those future evil times in the car by picking up another Bradbury right next to where oh for the last time spell the stupid word right, Fahrenheit 451 was. The granite counter is in the kitchen now. The cabinets have been going up. More work tonight. Not by Jonny of course of course. The handyman said the paint job was excellent. Jonny knows the ceiling looks awful. Believe it or not Jonny was in the car 3 times countem 3 times since the book was done. He had to listen to am radio. Clinton is almost out? Well there was the trip to school. The trip home from Lowes last night. There was the trip to work today. There will be the trip to the ice cube tonight. Ughh he needs a book on cd now. Even though he drives about 6 miles a day. On some days.

Waiting for a call

Jonny is just sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. Meanwhile why does this blogger look different on the Hotel California computer than it does on the Hollywood computer? Probably the monitor is smaller here and therefore the screen letters look bigger. OK next problem. Yesterday Jonny took Alberta and Sam to Sam's house. Then Alberta and Jonny drove to their house. Tonight Alberta has a fun night from 6 to 8. Angelina has called a few times to say the least. Jonny has visited with Rob. Later he visited with Jim. Well Jonny just lost his train of thought. No at least Angelina didn't call with another interruption. She of course is no interruption. She just laughs and says oh Jonny you are just so sweet. This afternoon she has to take Lorraine to the allergist appointment and has to drag Alberta and Jesse along. Angelina was complaining about Jennifer Badger. She is the mom of the neighbors that the Miller family carpools with to Sunday school and Wednesday's and Monday's too. Today's complaint is Jennifer complained that her and her husband Bill Maul do more than their fair share of the driving. But counters Angelina I watched your bratty kids Margo Winkler and her loud mouthed brother William De Meo. Jonny is waiting for lunch time. It is 12:13 all ready. The distraction was someone came in and accidentally locked Penny's door. Then he came back with the key. Rather than give him and the other research administrators pseudo names right now Jonny has a complaint to explain. He does this stretching exercise and it always makes his left elbow pop.

Hold your left arm just above your elbow with your right hand.

As you look over your left shoulder, gently pull your elbow toward the opposite shoulder until a stretch is felt.

Hold 10 seconds.

Do both sides.

Stretches sides or shoulders, back of upper arms, and neck.

Jonny does this on the left side and then switches arms to the looking over the right shoulder and boom the left elbow cracks. Give the guy some anti arthritic medications. Finally Angelina called and now Jonny is getting hungry. Penny came and went. He told her the whole story about the locked door and she listened and left. She said her purse was in there but she had the key. So her purse wasn't really locked up after all.

Jonny is up to chapter 50 of Isaiah and upto page 190 of Motherless Brooklyn.