MRI on Wednesday

Yes it's true. Angelina had to get an MRI today. Jonny had to take half a day off to hold her hand. And what's worse. They didn't go to Hotel California to get it done. They went to the competition. Well Jonny better get to work now. He has been at The Hotel Hilton for an hour. He made a cup of instant coffee and sent an email to a friend. Then he went to the library to meet a friend that he met on the internet who he know wouldn't show up. But Jonny still got a DVD of two and 1/2 men. Angelina likes that comedy. Jonny got back from the bus ride a short time ago. He was able to be in and out of the libary and back on the next #2 bus, less than 15 minutes later. His coffee was still warm. Lorraine's Bat Mitzvah parsha speech isn't very inspiring. It is all about love thy neighbor. Over the weekend Jonny was playing with his pathetic candle. Today Lorraine got invited to yet another Bat Mitzvah. Jonny finished a book. Patriot Games was 503 pages. He later that day started reading D.A. Willis by Connie Willis. This is a very short book. Angelina is having trouble with her legs. She has numbness and pain in them. The doctor sent her for this emergency test today. Well Jonny had better get busy: going to the bathroom, irrigating hisnose, cleaning the bathroom, watering the plants, relaxing and letting go, taking a nap and touching base with Rob.

Ubuntu

Jonny has been working with Ubuntu. He was trying to get Jesse to have a computer with internet.

Last week Angelina called on 12/7. She said strawberry's were getting expensive. She needed a good physical therapist. The cord came in the mail. Lorraine had a 1 hour concert. Alberta's practice was over at 5 PM.

Jonny just had lunch a few minutes ago. He is cleaning the VASE database at work. Jonny is up to page 68 of Patriot Games. Over the weekend he watched SNL. Angelina and Jonny watched Law and Order and Criminal Minds.

Jonny helped Lorraine with studying the parsha of ShecLach. This is preparing for her Bat Mitzvah. They talk about Tzit Tzit in this parsha.

Monday

How can Jonny get more motivation to work at work? He took a nap and is ready for another one. He doesn't seem to have the stamina he once had.

Today Jonny listened to the parsha vayigash.

Over the weekend Jonny made an awesome bagel sandwich and then he made the same one for his daughter Alberta.

The family has been pretty negligent in lighting candles. They made latkes last night but didn't light them. Also on Sunday Jonny talked to his father. Alberta talked too. Lorraine skipped Sunday school. Jonny did cleaning most of the weekend, using his new hand held steam cleaner. He has been having a good time with linux on the dell laptop.

Jonny is on page 32 of Patriot Games. He read The Hunt For Red October and it was a decent book.

Monday

This was a depressing weekend. Angelina got no cars to park for the football game over the weekend. It was a good game too. But Jonny slept in bed while his wife watched the game. He fell in and out of consciousness as the score sky rocketed. Angelina had to call her father to ask her the overtime rules work. Thomas told her that they start on the 25 yard line. And that explained the ease at which they scored.

Jonny is up to page 178 of Wikinomics. He is still reading Rachel & Leah. He renewed both books online. They were due November 15 and now they are due December 15. Jonny also returned Drowning Ruth. It is an amazing beautiful day outside.

This week's parsha is Vayeitzei. Yacovmade the maariv prayer. The 12 stones fought to be the one Yacov laid his head on. He slept for the first time in 14 years.

The other depressing thing that happened over the weekend was that Annabella Sciorra, Lyman Ward and the rest of the family will be moving. Lorraine will miss her friend. Jonny and Angelina will also miss Lyman. So many people come and go in people's lives.

The third thing that wasdepressing has already been reveresed. Angelina has discovered that HGTV and the Food Network were taken off her TV. Well they are back now.

Tuesday

Jonny has been training Penny's new employee. He is seriously considering drowning his sorrows at a bar this afternoon. Jonny is really pretty happy now. Over the weekend he got a Yom Kippur surprise. Jonny's encounter with a stranger wielding a metal detector as any good elderly hobbyist prospector stranger turned out fortuitous. The man found Jonny's long lost wedding ring. 6 months ago he asked him if he could help find it. The man agreed to look for Jonny's "family heirloom" as soon as he could. This week he did. With a couple of back and forth emails the ring was found. Jonny is reading a new book called The Vendetta Defense. He is on page 100 now. Right now despite Jonny's late lunch and even later after lunch coffee, he is sleepy. The link above is to the losing of the ring.

Monday

This weekend coming up is Yom Kippur. So there is no chumash to study again this week. It is almost Sim Chat Torah. That is the holiday to celebrate the end of the Torah reading cycle. Today Jonny took some honey cake with him for breakfast to work. He is now up to page 100of a very exciting book that Lorraine picked out. Alberta had a three game, two day tournament for soccer in Lansing. Jesse is still fighting reading. Angelina hurt her toe on all the hoarded stuff on the stairs. And therefore she called in sick and didn't work for the flu clinic over the weekend. Jonny is reading The Great Divide by Frank M. Robinson and John F. Levin. Some of the grass that Jesse and Jonny planted a week ago started to grow this weekend. The reason Jonny had honey cake is because it is a sweet new year. The book is about civil war in the United States. The war is caused between the West and the East fighting over oil. It has the same style of horror and politics as Deception Point. For lunch today Jonny had a cornbeef sandwich on rye. Angelina and Jonny watched an episode of Criminal Minds last night that they hadn't seen before. They also watched and episode they had seen before.

Wednesday

Today Jonny listened to Nitzavim parsha.

Tomorrow Alberta is going to visit Kristina and Wendell. Hopefully Angelina will swallow her pride and take her to the airport. She is a little bit upset with her teenage behavior.

Last night there was seldom a short break in the complaining about Alberta. Angelina took a break from her yelling at Alberta to watch Criminal Minds with Jonny.

Jonny and Jesse grew grass over the weekend. They did a little tree trimming prior to the grass planting. This was accomplished via the long handled expandable trimmer. It was done only until the compost bin was filled to capacity. Also over the weekend father and son went to Lowes to buy a belt for the mower. They begged Angelina to let them buy a fire pit. But alas the allocation of funds was forbidden. Lowes was letting the fire pit go for a pittance $79.

Jonny is closing in on the end of Exodus. He is on page 484. He wanted to finish watching the movie with Alberta last night but there wasn't enough time to do everything.

Monday

Jonny's officemate Beverly is working in a different office. So it is quite dead in there. Jonny just cleaned the bathroom. He didn't ride his bike to work today. That is because he took Lorraine to the first day of art camp. Angelina took Jesse to his ultrasound. Zsa Zsa accompanied her. Angelina paid her back buying her a cup of coffee. Wendell told Alberta she could go to his beach house on Labor Day weekend. And Angelina said fine but first she has to clean her room. Yesterday Jesse and Jonny went for a bike ride. They went about 5 miles with the trailer bike. Jonny has been begging for that hitch for 8 months. Now they have it and it hasn't been used once. They will use it for the their up north vacation to Boyne. Jonny hasn't been reading much. His last book was Critical Care. It was kinda gross. Before that was Exodus and he didn't finish it. Jonny reserved it from the library. He also can get $7.99 off a book at Nicola's bookstore if he so chooses to do that. They send that coupon once a summer as a birthday present. Jonny has redeemed two books that way so far. Over the weekend he watched some TV. He and his wife watched several Criminal Minds episodes. They are so graphic, sometimes they have to fast forward past the gross parts. This week the parsha is Ki Sese.

beach trip return

Jonny and Jesse have returned from the their beach trip to see Kristina and Wendell. The trip was fun. They played catch with a baseball and softball. Jesse played with his DSI too. They played frisbee. They watched DVDs: Incredibles, Squekwell and Bolt. Kristina really liked Bolt. She made baked zitti. Wendell made dill flavored lox and chocolate brownie creation. They brought some back for Angelina. They went to the ocean at night and Jesse got a light that they brought back on the plane. Also they went to the beach during the day and played in the sand and cooled off in the waves. The waves were rough. Also Wendell BBQ chicken called beer can chicken. He also made BBQ zucchini. Jonny's parents took them for a bike ride and to the pool. Another adventure was kayaki. Also another adventure was fishing. Wendell bought them a tee-shirt and a sweat shirt to take home. They brought back some Delaware peaches. They went out for lunch to dumsers. They went out to dinner at baja's. They also had mango, corn, pancakes, french toast, watermellon, green beans, carrots, brisket and knishes. Kristina got the Jewish food made from potatoes from a store called Harris Teeter. The workers answering the phone at that store had never heard of that particular food so they didn't even know they sold it.Kristina made smoothies. Kristina bought Jesse a game for his DSI, Mario Cart.

Monday

This week feels like a short week. That is because Jonny is going on a beach vacation. He and his son Jesse are going to his parent's beach house. It will be a lot of fun.

Last week's parsh was Eikev. That parsha has the shma prayer in it. This week is the parsa of Re'eh.

Jonny finished Jericoh's Road. It was 288 pages. He is on page 324 of Exodus. Alberta was reading it at the same time. The two of them also started watching the movie.

Jonny watched some Scrubs. Angelina and Jesse watched Criminal Minds.

Jesse got a DSI for his birthday. He is extremely happy.

Lorraine went to camp. Over the weekend the family drove 4 hours each way. They toured the camp and dropped her off. Jonny and Jesse played catch with a baseball.

Thursday

As usual Jonny is mighty busy at work.

This week is the parsha of Eikev. Last week was Va'etchanan.

As a good Jew Jonny watched part of the movie Exodus. He is also reading the book that goes with said movie. Last night Jonny dropped Alberta off at the JCC so she could attend an annual Ann Arbor event including Israeli scouts.

Jonny finished a book. More like it was a book on tape. More like it was a book on CD. The book was unlike any other John Grisham books. It wasn't about lawyers and it wasn't set in Tennessee or New Orleans or some place south. The book was called Playing for Pizza. As usual it is time to look up the AMAZON results for the said book.

In other movie news Jonny watched the movie The Conflict. It was not a Jewish movie.

Jonny painted the side of the house. This was because the fish burned. The burnt fish put soot from the grill on the siding. The fish got burnt because Angelina was depressed about not getting any classes to teach in the Fall. So they burnt the fish by mistake, they got distracted.

Over the weekend Alberta went to a two day sleepover. She called it a Shabbaton. Right before he took her they almost lost power. There have been a lot of storms this month.

Well back to work even though it is late.

Other movies Jonny seen recently are:

• The Proposal
• A Walk In The Clouds

Monday

Jonny hasn't written in a while so he needs to catch the audience back up.

Today he continued the old diary entry. Click here to see about July 8, 1994. He was angry with Angelina and over worked with chores. It is an exciting time to write about since it is the same time of year. And finally one theme continues on to this day -- painting.

Jonny has a limited Jewish identity now and in the past. Now he has a daughter who is 14. They were pretty close to trying to conceive her when the diary was being written. Alberta will turn 15 this winter and was born in the December of 1995.

Jonny had a pretty unmemorable birthday experience this weekend turning 42. He is just happy enough for his birthday present received in January. The lasik eye surgery was a gift enough for the whole year.

Jesse still felt it best to give his father a present. Jesse picked out a book at the library and waited until Jonny's birthday to present him with Jericho's Road by Elmer Kelton, yes a Western. Jonny reads all genres.

He finished watching the movie The Proposal. He also watched some Scrubs over the weekend.

And finally Wendell bought the plane tickets. Kristina helped with the purchase. Jonny and Jesse will be going to the beach August 5 to August 8. Yipee for them.

Monday

Over the weekend Jonny gave Wendell a call. Jesse was having a swim lesson. He told his father that he was spending time with his son. Wendell liked hearing that. Really though Mr Pierce only cares about one thing. "When is Jonny coming to visit? Will he be bringing Jesse? Can he bring one of the girls too?"

VASE is running slow. The new temp just emailed Jonny and asked if he was experiencing slowness too. But Jonny has been busy programming in ASP.NET.

Also over the weekend he put some varnish on the railing. It required two coats. This weekend he will probably put on a third coat.

Jonny is still reading his two books. Page 424 of To Say Nothing of the Dog. Page 236 of No Man's Dog.

Wendell was telling Jonny about his vacation. They went to a super huge bar. They had an actual bull riding area. So Jonny volunteered that in his book, there is a bull dog.

book club results

Over the weekend Jonny was able to go to the book club. He caught the last 20 minutes of the discussion of The Zookeeper's Wife. The group will be voting on the next book. Jonny is on page 185 of To Say Nothing of the Dog. He is enjoying it. Today he has been kinda sleepy. So he is not quite finished listening to the parsha of Emor. Earlier Angelina called. She says she is behind the 8-ball again. Her sinuses hurt. There is a meeting for soccer tonight for Aberta. Over the weekend there was a soccer game in Macomb. Also over the weekend Jesse and Jonny planted grass seed. It was very nice that there has been so much rain here in Michigan. On Friday Jonny cleaned his bathroom at the Hotel Hilton. But his mop broke. So he took it home. Jonny applied hot glue to the broken mop. He brought the repaired mop to work. Today he cleaned his bathroom again. And again the mop broke. Now it is beyond repair. Also over the weekend Jesse got Jonny a book at the library. That was very nice of him to. It was called something like Lost Dog Last night Angelina and Jonny watched Criminal Minds an older episode. Jonny is still working on his D-Day Collection movie DVD. It helped him with a perspective on the book from the book club.

Mood is a good one

For Jonny the mood was a good one. He was happy and jolly on the bus and in the lunch room. Then boom the after lunch coffee and the after lunch lulls. He feels kinda groggy now because he had what Angelina calls "her 20 minutes". Jonny woke up around 1:45. He got right back into programming ASP.NET. He hasn't done anything else today. No other data entry tasks. He has no plans to go to Red Hawk. Jonny went there on Friday and had two Great Lakes beers. Jonny also went there on Tuesday. But right about now he is running out of money. Today it was too cold in the morning to ride a bike to work. So he took the 8:17 #14 bus, which gets him late to work. Lorraine picked him out a new book. The book is called To Say Nothing of The Dog. And Jonny is on page 40. Cell phone. It was Angelina of course. She was calling to complain about her students. Over the weekend Jonny froze at Alberta's soccer game. Also over the weekend Jonny talked to Wendell. But Jesse got him off the phone before Wendell could wine too much about the beach or the Shenandoah. Tonight is a concert at Jesse's school. Again this week is a double parsha. So Jonny listened to Acharei. He didn't really pay that close attention. OK if Jonny were trying to hit more tags... Over the weekend Lucy the dog had a blow out. It smelled so bad so yep, he pulled out the cherry flavored scented candle. He played with that most of the morning. Today Jesse has a doctor visit at 3:20. This visit is for his hand. About two weeks ago, Jonny and Jesse were wood working. Has the splinter ever come out? During the week Angelina bought some lox, because she was in the mood for it. Even thought Jonny has been programming hard:

10:25 water plants
10:32 timesheet
10:44 fonts of email
10:46 adjusting volume

Jonny thinks his book has hidden English humor. He needs a laugh track to tell him when the jokes are being told. It starts slow like One Man Running did. Cell phone. Angelina wants to know how much texting will cost.

completed some stuff

Yes Jonny has completed some tasks. He made brisket chili over the weekend. he finished his 8 shelf by 34.5" built in to the wall bookshelf. He also finished some books. Jonny is done with The Zookeeper's Wife, 340 pages. He is finished with the The DaVinci Code, 454 pages. He has visual studio, and visual source safe running properly on his computer at work. He rode his bike to work today. Yesterday Jonny went to the Red Hawk and had some Great Lakes Edmondt Fiztgeralt Beer. He listened to the parsha Tazria discussion for the second time this week.

Monday

Jonny was real busy last week.

He finished a book. He finished reading The Zookeeper's Wife. This was 340 pages, including the details explaining the chapters. There were reading group discussion notes as well. Jonny is on page 327 of The DaVinci Code. So he plans to finish that book tonight.

Over the weekend he made brisket chili. It is super hot. No one else in the family will eat it.

This week there is a double parsha. Last week there was none. Last week was a repeat of Shemini. This week is both Tzaria and Metzora.

Jonny has been struggling to load software. He is in the midst of getting DbArtisan and Visual Studio.

The bookshelf is finished. It is 8 shelves 34 inches wide. Last night Lorraine helped load some books onto it.

VASE is running slow.

Angelina obtained a 20% discount one of Lorraine's camps.

Anglina wants to buy a portable DVD player. Jonny researched a nice Philips brand for her. They have them reconditioned at Best Buy for $69.99.

Angelina called because Jonny didn't fill up the cars with gas while she was away. It wasn't on his list. She also called to get his Trader Joe food order, but he was in Rob's staff meeting. Lea didn't show up for it. Jonny thinks sometimes he would have been better off to follow his mentor's example and skip the boring, heavily laden with network talk meeting.

Angelina's substitute tested out some students. So she is mad about that.

book shelves

Alberta had an eye appointment that Angelina had to take her to.

Over the weekend Jesse and Jonny worked on a bookshelf. Fortunately Lorraine's friend Annabella's father Lyman helped. Jonny couldn't figure out why his circular saw wouldn't cut. Lyman discovered it was on backwards. Then he suggested they build the shelf not by using mason screws. So instead of making one shelf 4 feet wide, they plan to make about 4-8 shelves 34 inches wide. Lyman suggested bringing a board from the beams straight down. It worked perfectly.

It is still passover and Jonny had a roast beef, mustard, lettuce and matzah sandwich. He chewed the fat with Branden for almost an hour. Earlier he wasted a lot of time and fell asleep.

The wii has been fixed. Nintendo fixed it for free. They normally would have charged $75. But instead, they provided free $10 worth of shipping. Angelina purchased a federal express box for $5. They replaced the disc drive and the back of the wii. They also replaced two CD games. The games were probably scratched. The replacments were: Mario Brothers and wii sports resorts.

The parsha website claims there is no new parsha this week. So Jonny didn't listen to any parsha.

He is up to page 203 of ZK and 209 of DC.

April fools day

Today is a beautiful day outside. While inside Jonny has been reading books. He is up to page 170 of The DaVinci Code, DC. This is a very nice story. He is reading a book for the synagogue book club. He is up to page 186 of that book. The Zookeeper's Wife, ZK, is a sad book about the holocaust. Jonny is up to chapter 21. He will finish it long before the reading group meeting in 4 weeks.

Because of Passover, Jonny felt like not eating lunch yesterday. For dinner he had brisket. For lunch he had gefilte fish. For dinner tonight he is having brisket. For lunch tomorrow, brisket. Tuesday night Angelina reheated the brisket and served it for dinner. It was originally cooked over the weekend. Since she teaches and substitute teaches, she is too busy working to cook during the week.

Office 2007 now works properly on Jonny's PC at work. He forgot his iron key. But now he con consolidate all the fake name spreadsheets and back up copies.

Occasionally Jonny will take notes while talking to Angelina on the phone. Today's notes:

• She was making brownies,
• then she made the brownies,
• the wii is coming,
• then the wii came,
• what will Alberta do for 10 days while she is off,
• Alberta has no plans,
• Angelina is fed up with it,
• Angelina says Alberta is a slob,
• Lorraine has new problem each day,
• Angelina has to do all her work,
• Jonny will need to do the grocery shopping when Angelina is out of town, so no sweats allowed in Hiller's,
• take Alberta to the soccer game at 5:30 over the weekend
• tired of dealing with Alberta, the other kids don't want to be around her, she is rude
• how to cut a pineapple
• what is the phone number for blood draws, because the vpn client on the home computers blocks access to all Hotel California websites, only she called it quick points, because she has word 2007 on the brain
• new bottle of peppercorns to load when you get home

baking for passover

Today is a fast day. Jonny is fasting for the fast of the firstborn. So his mood is a strange one today.

He is up to page 122 of ZK and page 160 of DC.

The people working for Rob still want Jonny to read boring stuff on the internet. They want him to learn how to use .NET to configure sharepoint.

Over the weekend Jonny talked to Wendell. They discussed passover cakes and how to make them. Jonny was sitting in the car waiting to pickup Jesse from a birthday party. He was carpooling with another child who lives two doors away. But Jonny was busy getting the baking tips and tricks from his father. And his father's father was a baker too. Wendell is an economist. But Jonny's dad loves to cook.

It was cold so today Jonny rode the bus instead of the bike. He has drifted off to sleep once or twice this is because, with no food there isn't much else to do.

Jesse and Jonny also went to the liquor store and bought some Slivowitz, that is Hungarian, kosher, plum brandy. While watching a Hallmark movie with Angelina, and the bottle sitting in the window of the living room. Angelina kept saying, come on I know you want to open that bottle. So eventually he did. Half an hour later she said it again. Come on I know you want to have another shot. He had a another shot while watching the news and reading DC.

Today Jonny listened to the chumash. This week's parsha is Shemini. This means something to do with the 8th day. Aaron accepted the blame. He learned to blame himself. Not blame other people. Animals are kosher. This is not because Hashem knows that an animal isn't good for us. It is simply because Hashem has decreed it. In the haft-torah, David put the Torah in a wagon instead of his shoulders. Why did Rabbi Akiva's disciples all die during this three week period?

Well time to get back to work. The automatic rebuild didn't work. So Jonny is supposed to kick it off when he leaves for the day.