Some time during the past cold dark winter days the bug got planted in my head that it was time to get a fresh coat of paint on the house. Actually, from the looks of the south facing wall it was overdue by a year or two. I am beginning to believe it was a severe case of longing for the warmer and sunnier days to come that festered this idea. So on May 7, after a normal period of thinking this project out, I got the extension ladder down, gathered my meager paint prep tools together and began scraping on the south wall. Objective was to get this sun baked wall spruced up before the heat got cranking in earnest. May has come and gone and as of June 1 I have logged 139 hours on the project and estimate that 60% of the task is behind me. 75 of those hours have been dealing with scraping, caulking and buffing up rain gutters and downspouts. So why is it referred to as “painting”?
Those of you that know me probably are wondering what the rush is about. Well, the job has to be completed by June 24 which is when Paula and I travel to Baker, Oregon to pickup Emily. We get to have her, without parents, for a few days.
Stay tuned for additional painting details plus distractions encountered along the way such as patio doors, concrete contractors, smoke alarms and the mystery of refrigerator lights.
Time marches forward and February 9 marks Emily’s 2nd birthday. I invite you to watch this video in celebration of Emily’s marching forward to year number three.
Do you want to speed up your Internet surfing? Do you want an extra layer of protection from “bad” websites, phishing and other assorted nastiness? Then give OpenDSN a try. Without getting to techie let me explain what this service does. DNS (Domain Name System) is a bunch of servers working in conjunction to direct your browser to your chosen website. It takes a human friendly string like Google.com and finds its’ computer friendly IP address (74.125.199.103). Try it – enter in that IP in your browser and see what you get. If you are so inclined you can read more here.
When implementing OpenDNS on your device you will be directing your browser to use OpenDNS servers. This is where a slight enhancement to speed can happen. Your typical Internet service provider’s (ISP) servers aren’t as fast as OpenDNS servers. That isn’t an ISP’s focus area. In addition OpenDNS servers block all known bad guys which can help prevent you being given an fake website that will give you all kinds of grief. Another feature of using OpenDNS is you can configure the level of filtering desired. Want to block adult sights? Tell it to and you or others on your network can’t get to them.
Don’t panic on trying to implement this. They have done a really good job of making it easy.
Collin was called back from his deployment early!! Rather than being away till March he arrived back in Shreveport Monday Dec 12 at 1130PM. So happy that he will be home for Emily’s second Christmas and birthday.
So why does a resident of Idaho making an online purchase that will be shipped to another state, Louisiana as an example, have to pay that states sales tax on their purchase? Does that Idaho resident still have to claim that purchase on their Idaho income tax return?
Idaho Mandatory Auto Insurance
Became aware of this from Dad and Norma’s recent experience. Here is the background – Norma was driving their brand new vehicle home from Pocatello. As I recall they took deliver of the car a few days earlier and it had 100 or so miles on it. Cruising down the interstate Norma came upon a pickup with a clothes dryer dancing around in the pickup bed since it was not secured. Oh, the tailgate wasn’t in the up position either. Long story short the pickup contacts Dad and Norma’s nice shiny blemish free vehicle causing significant damage. The pickup driver is at fault and has no insurance. Idaho law requires insurance to register a vehicle. The police come and do their duty after which the pickup driver hops in the pickup and drives off!! Common sense would seem to dictate that the pickup driver be given a ride to the local jail and the pickup impounded until proof of insurance is presented. Apparently, that is not how the law works. Question – what if this pickup driver got involved in another accident after this and a fatality was involved? Couldn’t the state of Idaho be a party to that since they let the driver go?
Electoral College
For those grumbling about the recent election and why a candidate with a majority of the popular vote can still lose please take some time to study U.S history and why the electoral college was designed the way it is by the founding fathers. A recent article (sorry can’t find the link) had the best yet example of how the Electoral College functioned as planned. In a nutshell the article pointed out that if California was removed from the overall results Trump would have easily had a majority of the popular vote. Clinton did win California and its’ 55 Electoral College votes. But as we know that was not enough to crown her POTUS. If the president was chosen by simple majority California alone would have determined the winner. And this is fundamentally what the Founding Fathers did not want to happen.
My personal belief is that the people up in arms over the Electoral College process is evidence that our schools are not covering the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as they should be. If you would like to do a study please checkout the online course from Hillsdale College.
![[ BoiseNeus ]](https://boiseneus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Header-6.png)
Some time during the past cold dark winter days the bug got planted in my head that it was time to get a fresh coat of paint on the house. Actually, from the looks of the south facing wall it was overdue by a year or two. I am beginning to believe it was a severe case of longing for the warmer and sunnier days to come that festered this idea. So on May 7, after a normal period of thinking this project out, I got the extension ladder down, gathered my meager paint prep tools together and began scraping on the south wall. Objective was to get this sun baked wall spruced up before the heat got cranking in earnest. May has come and gone and as of June 1 I have logged 139 hours on the project and estimate that 60% of the task is behind me. 75 of those hours have been dealing with scraping, caulking and buffing up rain gutters and downspouts. So why is it referred to as “painting”?
You must be logged in to post a comment.