I had a nice long weekend this past weekend. It was Memorial Day here in the States. With my extra time I was able to cut down a few trees in the front yard that I really didn’t like. One was a bush that grew so large it became a tree. It was looking sickly and needed to be yanked down.

The other was a group of trees and what I think are weeds that grew into trees. Every branch had awful thorns that I think contained some sort of poison. Every time I got stuck by one of the thorns, my joints would ache.

After taking the giant bush down by hand, I decided to break out the chainsaw for the second grouping. However, I needed to get a new chain as the one I had was quite dull (the neighbor dulled it down good). At the store, there were no more chains, so I figured it was also a good time to get a chainsaw that didn’t have other issues as well. See, since I have a small yard and only tend to need the chainsaw once per year, I prefer owning an electric saw rather than a gas powered one. It’s easier to start after sitting in the shed all year unless the wires start to pull out of the back like they were on mine.

So, I got the new chainsaw from the store around the corner. I brought the saw home, made sure there was plenty of oil in it for the chain and went to work. About 10 cuts later, the saw died. I don’t think the oil was feeding and the directions on the saw say that it automatically feeds the oil and there is no adjustment for it.

Back to the store and returned it and picked up a slightly different model. But before doing that, (hehe.. long story, I know) my neighbor from across the street called to me. He’s the one that cut down ALL of his trees (I don’t know why really) and he wanted to know if he could help cut down mine. He knew my chainsaw was non-functional.

Well, long story cut a little shorter… I got the new chainsaw, the trees are cut down. Now I have to deal with a huge assortment of stumps to dig up. ugh.

I got another birthday coming up this week… today actually. I say we ban all birthdays. Since I turned 18, I wanted to stop time. oh well.

Being a “gadget freek”, I’ve been considering the idea of getting a new phone. I still have the Motorola Q that I discussed in this blog somewhere, but I want something fresher now. Something about the same size with more features. I feel like Microsoft is holding back too much with the ability of these phones and they need to let go. lol. Like that will ever happen.

So, I looked around for a new phone, and there’s nothing. Nothing out there that really offers me anything in the way of upgrades. I guess I’ll have to put that idea on hold.

I’ve been working on some Half-Life 2 coding issues and still can’t figure out a few things. I’ve got a particular question posted in about 5 different user forums and no one will answer them. I guess I am the only one to have this problem.

Valve is also doing some screwy forum things. They moved the SDK forums to Chatbear, a free forum community. People got used to it being there and not they are moving them back to the Valve site. I wonder what’s going on over there. Perhaps they have been arguing internally about how to support the modding community. It would suck if this has anything to do with the legal issues coming up in the news (going to jail for mapping your school).

I’m gonna go and check out a new house later today. I don’t like my neighbors where I live now. They are …. well, they’re jerks. I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a new house that we can afford.

The trouble would be selling the house we’re in now. It’s a good house, however the market is down in this state. No one wants to purchase a home it seems. The good part of this is that I might be able to find a house for a good price. The bad is that I might end up with two houses… that’s a good way to go broke. lol.

I’m also thinking again about fixing up the lawn. Last year I was going to fix the lawn and I made several calls out to different people. They were going to come by and give me an estimate on giving me grass again. Right now, I have a good mix of sand and weeds. It’s been like that since I moved in and I think it’s time to change that. The problem is that no one ever called back with the estimate. So instead, I bought a nice TV.

Now, I want better chances at selling the home, so I want grass again. I figure I need to kill all living things in my ground first (excluding the trees). Then I can ship in some new soil to cover the sand. Finally, I can plant new seed. Sounds easy, right?

Well, it’s not that easy because none of this is cheap. I really thought it would be cheaper. I would need about 94 cubic yards of soil and soil costs roughly $28 be yard. That comes out to quite a bit of money. I also think that grass seed is expensive and I’m afraid to tally that bill up.

Now have you ever seen a 94 yard pile of dirt? I’ve seen 20 yards and I thought that was big. I can picture 94 yards covering over my house. lol. And I think I can rake that out over the yard by hand? Yeah, I’m crazy enough to try. hehe.

We’ll see. I’m not sure what to do quite yet.

It finally stopped raining everyday around here so I got the motorcycle out of the garage. I washed it up today and it’s ready for riding to work this week. Good time for the motorcycle too since gasoline prices are on the rise.

I still need to do a little maintenance on the bike. I need to change the oil and oil filter and I don’t care for how the front tire looks. I might need to replace that tire. The outdoor cover needs to be replaced as it’s falling to pieces like moths ate at it. I also assume it’s time to replace the air filter. Maybe I’ll take it to the shop for a complete work-up since I can’t do the tire myself.

I’ll also need the motorcycle in two weeks from now. I’ve got an appointment to have the hood of my truck repainted. It’s under warranty and the paint is peeling just after 2 years of coming off the assembly line (geesh).

One final reminder… my birthday is coming up. May 24th. Plenty of time to purchase those gifts and get them shipped to me. hehe.