The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey April 15, 2012

Apologies

Today, I was at work by 0555. We finished up the necessary work, I dropped by the nursery to pick up a couple more bags of mulch, and I was home by noon. So that's a good thing. A bad thing is that I managed to not push the publish button on last Sunday's second post: My apologies, as I really don't like shirking on my acknowledgement of the sacrifices made on our behalf by the men and women of our Armed Forces. * * * Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors: Spc. James…

Brian Bilbrey April 14, 2012

Third day and done

I decided not to add a new category: Pain. It belongs here, but it'd (hopefully) be so bloody rare as to be much like a broken pencil. You saw one before-ish (more middle-ish, really) picture from the front yard, day before yesterday. Here's one more deeply before picture: the right-hand bed off the front porch: You might need to click on the image to get the full extent of the pain this bed caused me yesterday. Bracketing the bed are a pair of golden euonymous bushes (pre-trimming. In the center is our wonderful batch of tiger lilies. They're being owned,…

Brian Bilbrey April 13, 2012

Spring: Sprung

For the second morning in a row, early temperatures in the mid-30's Fahrenheit put a bit of a damper on morning yard work. I've taken a couple of days off to get the front yard in order. I'm peeling out all the old mulch, weeding everything, edging around the trees, and re-seating border bricks around the beds. What I didn't count on yesterday was finding that a couple of the beds needed a deep turning. When I uncovered the bed you see above, the soil seemed a bit lifeless and compacted, in keeping with the tepid growth of the few…

Brian Bilbrey April 8, 2012

School and Lexi

First, Lexi ... She's a dog who epitomizes dogness, especially in the napping department. But when it comes to bed neatness, well, it's not her long suit. This bed had been made, before Lexi decided to climb back in for a late afternoon nap: You say, no, that's not Lexi ... You're the slob, Brian. Not so. See: But she's not very good at looking guilty, is she? * * * When all was said and done with the PeopleSoft upgrade of MyUMUC, many things were broken. THANKS, UMUC! For one thing, my instructor from the Software Engineering course has…

Brian Bilbrey April 1, 2012

Spring Semester Fini!

Yay! I wrote and submitted my last 11 pages of work for the Principles of Software Engineering class yesterday, so I'm done and waiting on the 'A'. Today, to celebrate a few weeks of freedom from school, I shopped, cleaned the coffee roaster, did yard work, roasted coffee, cooked, and cooked some more. Sore and tired now, but still happy. And of course, we won something on Friday. Nothing close to a half billion dollars, though. * * * Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors: Capt. Aaron D. Istre, 37, of Vinton, Louisiana, died…