We got up at 4am and were on the road by 5. 12 1/2 hours later, we’re finally in the hotel in Chambersburg, PA. The drive wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, everything from Ohio on was very beautiful. We made two pit stops for probably a total of 45 minutes, and were held up for another 40 or so on the interstate in Maryland due to an accident a few miles up (it apparently took them several hours to get the accident cleared up, luckily we caught the tail end of it).

Time to head out for some dinner I think. The hotel has free dsl so I may try and post the 3 or 4 pictures I took from the car. And there’s always the crappy camera pics.

We went shopping tonight for some more boring, house related stuffs. First was a Shop Vac vacuum for garage/basement cleanups. Second was an electric yard edger. by Weed Eater. That exciting purchase was topped off with a sprinkler hose, faucet splitter, and a few new shirts for work. Like I said, pretty boring, even if they were needed.

Really looking forward to the long weekend. Ana’s sister is going to be in town and we’ll probably shoot off some fireworks!

As reported earlier, the sump line was connected incorrectly. Today I took off work and called Construx, expecting a quick conversation followed by them coming out to take care of it. Nope, suprise – they are done. They consider that since it’s functioning, their job is complete. The issue is dead.

So now we have to make a decision – dig and fix it ourselves or leave it alone. There’s really no advantage to ‘fixing’ it, since it does indeed work and is buried. I guess it’s just anger speaking that wants it done the way they originally said. Not sure what we’ll do yet.

Sitting here in Cheddar’s, having just ordered… shit just got notified they don’t have guinness on tap anymore- no black and tan for me.

anyhow we’re heading to see Chronicle’s of Riddick later on. Pitch Black was awesome, hopefully this won’t disappoint.

Ana and I went to the annual Carillon Festival in Washington Park this evening. We were there for about 2 hours – had a picnic and enjoyed the music. If you are interested in what the bells sound like, I have two avi files up at here and here (3MB and 16MB respectively). A few other pictures were also taken.

And a note about removing my capslock key – no I haven’t gone crazy, I was just getting annoyed today with it. If it behaves on the top of my monitor I may think about putting it back on. Only time will tell.

Today is Ana’s birthday! Wooo!

We celebrated with her family in a large party held for her, her grandparens’ 60th wedding anniversary, and her cousin’s graduation from high school. Now we’re sitting on the porch relaxing from the long day.

Last night was Melinda’s graduation and following that Ana and I went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. We arrived at the theater just over an hour early, and it was a good thing because it was packed. Overall, I enjoyed this movie a lot more than the prior two.

Thanks to a script from David and a little work figuring out exim, I can send pictures from my phone and they get uploaded into my photo gallery! Forget Sprint and their $5/month for essentially the same thing.

Anyway, it’s here.

I am writing this as we sit out on our porch in a pair of new chairs. We picked them up at Lowes today, along with a small table (also for out front) and a bench for our deck on the back of the house.

Other than that, today has been pretty uneventful. Assembling the bench took a little while and after that I mowed the grass, watered it, and grilled dinner.

Son of a bitch. For those who haven’t talked to me in the past week, Construx scheduled a couple guys and a trenching machine to dig and bury a new sump line – giving up on finding and repairing the existing faulty one. Ana took today off to be here at noon when they were supposed to arrive. 12:30 came and went so Ana called to find out what the deal was, she was told he was waiting outside for the trencher to show up (which is a lie because Ana was outside while she made the phone call). Anyway, the trencer didn’t show up until 2:30 or so.

So we thought our sump line was FINALLY going to be taken care of. Yeah right. Ana calls me at 3:30 saying all the power just shut off at the house. The moron cut through the power line (and telephone line, discovered later).

A few calls flew back and forth between myself, Ana, and Construx. They called City Water, Light & Power to come out and repair it. It’s a known rule/law in Illinois that before you dig, you have to Call Julie and they mark the locations of pipes, wires, etc. Apparently they didn’t do this, so they are going to be fined and charged heftily for the 4(!) electrical employees it took to repair it.

After about an hour of working on the line they had it fixed and all was better. Our trench is HUGE now, more damage to the grass than ever before, and the Construx guy still didn’t finish digging. So the progress for today was nil. There was also a mishap with the replacement doorknob but I’ll save that rant for another day. Pics can be seen here.

Ana was able to get all of her work done yesterday in NY so today was able to get on a plane earlier than expected for her return home. Instead of getting here at 9:30pm she arrived around 5:30pm. Her trip went well and the goals accomplished.

After dinner at Smokey Bones, we went to Lowes and bought some Ortho Weed b Gon to spray on our yard. There have been a bunch of small weeds pop up in the last two weeks that were getting on my nerves. You’re supposed to be able to see results within 24 hours, so I’m curious if it will work or not.

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