And the Kitchen continues

My Dad came over today and this was my list of things I wanted to accomplish.

Remove old sink plumbing (drain and supply, and cap/plug for later).
Finish rough-in electric work for kitchen (at least so we could close up walls).
Fix outside brick/plaster wall
Put in drywall and mud first coat.
Look at electric panel for future upgrade
look at fancy metal backsplace
look into insulating basement windows.

We got everything done, except the last one, we talked about it, but didn't look at anything at the hardware store.

Tuesday I will put the second coat of mud on the drywall, and fill in some more holes on the brick/plaster wall.

Then I will start putting cabinets together :)

We should have it done by Febuary!!!!!!

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

I don't know how many of you have heard of this? You can read more about it at Laptop.org. Rachel and I's friend, Josh Parsell, chatted with me one day about OLPC's Thanksgiving promotion of "Give One, Get One". I investigated it, and after chatting with Rachel and talking and Praying about it, we decided to do it. What happens is that you buy 2 of the OLPC laptops. One of them gets sent to Africa, or some other third world country, and one gets sent to you. This is two fold. One is that it is a neat way to get people to help finance this program, and the other is so that OLPC can have people in the US that have the laptops to provide tech support for the children in developing countries.

Basically, you get to write off one of the laptops on your taxes, and you get to keep one for you. So as I said, after Rachel and I prayed about it, we decided to buy two of the deals. This was back in November, and they had told us that they didn't know if we would recieve our laptops by Christmas or not. We weren't in any rush, as we weren't getting them for Christmas presents anyways.

Well, long story even longer ;), we got home from the Nead family Christmas, and found a large heavy box on the front porch. Now, mind you, this isn't unusual with Rachel's ebay habit, but we were perplexed none-the-less.

I get it inside and open the box, and inside are two of the laptops. Now as anyone who knows me would realize, I got a bit excited :).

So we unboxed one of them, and got it up and running for Ricky, then got the other one open and set it up for Wes. Of course one of the instructions is that infants are not to use it.

Well, ok, its late, and I need to head to bed, as we have Church tomorrow, then the Johnson Extended Family Christmas in Cincinnati tomorrow.

Unboxing pictures are at photos.johnsoax.com

Back Home

Fall Gathering is over. Some of the chapter and National officers have headed for home (me being one of them).

I have a few pictures up on my flickr page. Once I figure out Youtube (won't let me post for some reason), I will have some video's up also.

In Ada

I'm in Ada for the weekend for the STE Fall Gathering. I'm looking forward to some Brother time.

Sleeping Bag

So my best friend Andy and his family came over this weekend to visit.  We hadn't seen them since our trip to Florida together.  Since we are remodeling, we usually let visitors have our bed, and Rachel and I sleep in the living room.   The last few times, Rachel has taken the couch, and I sleep in my sleeping bag on the floor. 

Well when Andy and his family got here, I couldn't find the sleeping bag anywhere.  I searched the whole house, the basement, the garage, and Andy and I went to the two storage units that Rachel and I have, but we couldn't find my sleeping bag.  We did find Rachel's, so we grabbed it, and that is what I slept on for two nights. 

This coming weekend is the STE Fall Gathering, and I am going to need MY sleeping bag.  (Its just more comfortable than Rachel's.)  I even started to  contact friends and family to see if I had loaned it/left it someplace.  And after many people told me that they hadn't seen it, I once again walked around the house looking for it, wondering if it had indeed been damaged when our basement flooded earlier this year.

Giving up and deciding to go to bed, I was getting the dog some food when Rachel asked me to come into the bedroom.  In her hands she held my sleeping bag, which she had pulled out of the storage box at the end of our bed.  It was there the whole time. Grrrrrr.


* There are many reasons why this sleeping bag is important to me.  1. I have had it for years.  I'm pretty sure that I was still in Boy Scouts when I got it.  I have had some great trips with that bag.  It is also one of the most comfortable things to sleep on in the world.  It never seems to be too hot, and I am never cold while sleeping in it either.  Anyways, sorry for the weird story about my sleeping bag.

Test of using a txt

Test of using a txt message to enter a blog post. And of sending a text message to an email address.

Test of time post on blog posts

We will have to see what time this shows up on the blog.  I am typing it around 10:15, and I will hotsync at lunch and the check the blog to see what time it shows that it was written.  Then the next test will be that I will write a post tonight, and then when I hotsync tomorrow, I will find out if the date and time is correct :).  Then maybe I will start to post more.

Test of blogging while mobile

This is a test while posting from my handheld.  I have a Treo now, but I have data turned off because Verizon is too expensive.  So this is via a hotsync with my work computer.  The next test will be how the post shows up if I make the post at night, but can't hotsync at work till the next day.  Hopefully it will preserve the date and time that I wrote it, and not the time that I hotsync.  Only time will tell.

Testing a new way to post messages

I am doing some work behind the scenes to make it easier for me to make blog posts.  This is a test of that system.

I like Mike

I updated my template to put the Mike Huckabee link in the link section. He seems to be the best of all the presidential candidates that are out there.

So if you want to learn about him, click on the banner and surf around his website and see if you can get behind him as well. :)

Not still on our trip ;)

As Chris pointed out in the comments, Rachel and I made it home from our trip to Florida in August just fine. We have been working on the house, playing with the kids, visiting and being visited by family and friends, and just generally living life. I am working on setting some stuff up to update here more often. Lets see if it works :).

Pictures of the kitchen cabinets going in at http://photos.johnsoax.com/

First Leg over

On the way to Florida.

Stopped after the first 10 hours of driving. South of Atlanta.

More as the vacation proceeds. :)

Quick Funny story

Last night we were having trouble getting Ricky to go to sleep. Ricky and I were talking, and I held up my hand for some reason, and he pointed and said "5". I said, "ok", and held up 4 fingers, and said, "How many is this?". Ricky smiled and instantly replied, "Not 5".

Rachel and I looked at each other and just started laughing.

Moving. Well sort of........

For a few weeks, Rachel and I have been discussing moving my computer from the living room down into the basement. My office will eventually be down in the basement anyways, if we ever get to the basement finishing stage of our house.

So we are having a little get together in a few weeks, and we are trying to straighten up the house. So Rachel informed me today (by text message ;) ) that I am moving my office into the basement. Here it is, can you blame her?



So I came home from work, and after dinner, figured out where I wanted to put my full desk. I have only been using about a 1/4 of it in the living room, as that is all that would fit. After I figured out where to put it, I had to run an electric circuit to it, as our basement doesn't have many outlets. Then I had to run a network homerun.

Then I moved the part of the desk that was already in the basement, swept up really good (paint that is partially pealing off a concrete floor is a pain in the butt to sweep up, especially when there are multiple layers of paint :(). I then went to the second floor of our house where we have some stuff stored and found one of the 5x9 carpets. Took that down to the basement and unrolled it.

Got the desk unloaded, carried into the basement and fully assymbled. And now I have all of the computer set back up.



More pictures on our flicr page :)

Wesley

Forgot to post this yesterday.

We had a Dr's appointment for Wes and we went over the test results from the Friday before. Wes's platelets have come up to 175k. So they are in the normal range now. And his Jaundice is about gone. It isn't even a factor anymore. So we get to cancel the Hemotologist appointment, and Wes is doing just fine!!!!!

And that was fast

Rachel called before lunch to say that I got a letter from ELSES (the testing company).

So I decided to go home for lunch.


It was a really thin letter.


I passed :).

Your Results have been mailed

This was on the Ohio Professional Engineer and Professional Surveryor Lecense board page this morning.

"Ohio's 2007 April FE, PE exam results have been mailed by ELSES

Ohio's 2007 April NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering and Principles and Practice of Engineering exam results have been mailed by ELSES, the Board's exam administrator. The Board cannot give exam results over the telephone or by email."

So, I will find out soon if I passed or not.

Home

Being home is great!!!

Rachel and I are blissfully tired :). Ricky has a cold on top of the new little one. Wes is doing great. He is eating good, pooping good and sleeping good, and that's about all babies do ;).

Today I am going to clean up the kitchen, pull off the chair rail, install a water line to the fridge, and do some rewiring. Fun, fun, fun :).

Hopefully Ricky will help me.

Oh, pictures are up of Wes at http://photos.johnsoax.com/

Home

So last night was rough. I was pretty sleepy on the drive home, and then Wes, having been isolated under the bili-light for two days, wanted to be cuddled and played with and fed all night long.

Rachel tells me that I got more sleep than she did, due to me falling asleep putting Ricky to bed.

Today is going well, we went and had the biliruben test this morning, and it is now at 11.1. Yesterday was at 11. But Dr Gill (our normal pediatrition) thinks everything looks good. He schedualed another biliruben and CDC (for the blood platelets) test for Friday, but if everything comes back good, we may not have to see the hemotologist at all. As Dr Gill said, "If all of your blood tests are normal, what is a hemotologist going to do?"

We also have another appointment with Dr Gill in a week. So we are having fun as a family now :).


Off for a family walk!!!!!

I should be getting the pictures up tonight.

We are coming home!!!!

The jaundus has gotten better. We went down 3 points, and he got
older, so unless it gets worse again, we are out of the danger zone.

We have a Drs appointment tomorrow with our normal doctor!!

The hospital Dr gave us a choice, either stay one more night in the
hospital for the next billi-ruben test (jaundas), or go home and go to
St Mary's hospital in the morning to have the test. He didn't have a
preference. So which one do you think we chose ;).

We still have to set up the hemotologist appointment, but it won't be
till the 21st.

Pictures to follow tonight!!!!

--

New Update

Wes looks really good today. He has had lots of dirty diapers (best
way to clear up jaundus), and we are just awaiting the "official" test
results. Then he needs to be removed from the bili-light for 12 hours
with the jaundus not getting worse. So as far as we know, we may be
able to come home today.

Otherwise, I don't know what is going to happen. Ricky is staying
with my parents, and Mom only has so many vacation days to use for
this. I should be home for the whole week, but I have to confirm it
with my parents.

Please pray for our family.

--

Update on Wes

Saw the Dr. Unfortunately the jaundus hasn't changed, so we are stuck
here another day. Once that gets under control, we should be able to
go home.

On the platelet front, there was also no change, but we are going to
be refered to a hemotologist tomorrow. If there aren't any
appointments this week in Lima, we will get one in Dayton.

I'll keep you updated as things change.

Wesley Matthew

Wesley Matthew Johnson was born May 31 at 2:08pm. He was 8lbs, 4oz and 20 3/4; when he was born. The labor was perfect, Rachel gave birth in a hot tub! Unfortunately, they found some issues with Wes's blood, then he got moderate jaundace, so we are still in the hospital. He is on an IV and under the blue lights :(. Hopfully we will get out today, but should be out by tomorrow. I will get somw pictures up on the picture page (photos.johnsoax.com) as soon as I can. I only have my pdas, so I am a little limited in what I can do (will attemp to fix some of that when I get a chance when all of this is over)/ Ok, time to eat breakfast.

Weekend

So Ricky's party was fun!!! He ran around and said Hi alot. Also, he likes cake :).

Saw a lot of family, and our friends Josh and Ann stopped by :)


So we are getting close to the big day. Rachel is getting really tired, and some contractions have started :). So maybe in the next week we will have someone to introduce you to. :)


Anyways, house is still going slowly. Haven't gotten much of anything done since the big tear out. I have to go get the appliances this week, more junk in the garage :)

We had a church picnic yesterday. Ricky Ran and ran and ran and ran and ran. Wore Daddy out. But he really likes swings.

We are having the pastor over this Thursday, so hopefully the baby waits till then :)

Check out the pictures from the party :)

Catchup with the Johnsons

Rachel and I are getting ready for Ricky's 2nd B-day party this coming saturday. We are staying at my parents on Friday night so Rachel and Mom can make the cake (we don't have an oven right now ;)).

Last night we cut Ricky's hair for the first time with the clippers. It was so much faster than with sissors. He cried a little bit, but then I took him out to play on his slide, and he talked to the neighbor. Watch photos.johnsoax.com for pictures of the haircut.

We also interviewed a doula for Wes's birth yesterday. We decided to hire her, as we really got along with her well. She will be there to help me keep Rachel comfortable. I wish more insurances would cover these professionals, as they easily save more money than they cost for the delivery. Oh well, it is definitly money well spent.

Had to buy a new printer. The two year curse strikes again. And this time, right after I change the cartridges :(.

Well, we are trying to get the munchkin to bed. More later.

Web changes

Well, thanks to Registerfly.com loosing their ICANN Accredidation, I will be changing a few things around.

johnsoax.com will point to our webpage, (that used to be thejohnsonfamilyonline.net)instead of here. This blog will now be blog.johnsoax.com.

I have made the changes, now they just have to propagate through the internet before they work.

I will fix the webpage to show the new address, and change thejohnsonfamilyonline.net to show a page directing people to update their bookmarks for the new addresses.

And I will just be letting thejohnsonfamilyonline.net expire in november. Mainly because Registerfly is not letting me move it to another registrar and because it is just too long. ;)

Anyways, have a good day.

Long time no type

So, I haven't updated this in a while.

So lets see, what haven't I talked about?

Had to do alot of work on the office computers for the daylight savings time update back in March.

Rachel went to San Diego for her sorority and her flight back was cancelled, so I had to take an extra 4 hours off of work and Ricky and I got to stay in a hotel in Columbus to get her early in the morning.

Picked up a new toy, email me if you want details.

I got elected as the first National Treasurer of Sigma Theta Epsilon (at least in the new Constitution).

I took my PE test last week, I think I did pretty good. But I will have to wait for 12 weeks to find out if I passed or not. (It is multiple choice for crying out loud).

We have tried out a few churches. Really like the one we went to last weekend, going there again on Sunday.

Not much going on today

I spent half of the day up in Elida at a church we are doings some basement renovations for. Trip there and back was a little hairy with the snow.

Rachel and I are planning a trip to go the Chicago IKEA to get our Kitchen cabinets.

Well back to work. We are Busy :).

Yayyyy Its Friday

So I am getting ready to head to work. Its -4 outside right now.

The whole electric department is heading for a school that we are remodeling so that we can make sure our drawings are good this morning. Probably take all morning.

Rachel and I get to go to a fancy dinner tomorrow (well I hope it is as fancy in real life as it is in my head).

We got our check from my bad 401k account yesterday. Yeah, money to fix up the house. (I know, we will get hit with a 10% penalty, bla bla bla bla, its lost 10% in each of the last 3 years, so suddenly 10% more doesn't seem like such a bad deal).

First up, redo the upstairs, leaving provisions (mainly door frames) for the new bathrooms (one remodel, one completely new (have to love cap cods, all that space under the roof just waiting to be used by building a dormer)). Then the kitchen gets remodeled. Then in the spring we will probably replace the windows, and the outside doors to the house. Plus build the new bathroom dormer for the upstairs, and replace the roof at the same time. And at the same time as that, we will replace the siding on the upper parts of the house (lower parts are brick). And then I think that will be quite enough work for the year.

Maybe higher someone to build us a garage in the backyard. I had a link to the plans for the garage, but I can't find it now. It is a two car 30'x25' garage with an upstairs, Basically a cap cod garage :).

Ok, need to leave for work.

Here is my Winter Gear

So you can check my flickr page (at the link in the last post) for more pictures of the Blizzard of 2007 ;).

I also thought you might like to see how I dress up to walk to work right now. I've been doing this even when it was 6 below zero. (I have a backpack on too. Its a BumBakPak )

Crazy Snow - Blizzard of 2007

So as I type this, we have been getting snow for over 12 hours. We started out the day with about 3" of snow, but with the new fallen snow and the wind that we are getting, we have drifts that are about 3 feet tall, and an overall snowfall of about 12". AND IT IS STILL SNOWING :)


Everyone who doesn't live in town left the office today before lunch. I don't know how many people are actually going to show up tomorrow for work. Since I walk, I really don't have much excuse to not make it (besides the fact that I'm betting some of the drifts are taller than me now).

More pictures on my flickr account. Here

Pedometer doesn't work and States I have visited

Yeah, I know, not really related, but hey, its my blog.

So last night at Kroger, I was testing the Pedometer and found that it was only counting my 2 or 3 step. I stepped off 20 steps twice. The first time, it recorded 7 steps and the second time it recorded 9. So, I gave it to Ricky to play with, and I will have to find a better one ;). Any suggestions?


And now for the states visited map.



create your own visited states map

East of the Mississippi I am pretty good. Just have a few more to visit. West of the Mississippi I need quite a bit of work.

And here is Ricky's Map

Hmmm, I guess I don't walk much at work

So my walk in was 997 steps or something like that. Well it is 3:10 and I now have a total of 1792 steps. Wow, a couch potato is supposed to have 3000-5000 steps a day, and I walk a mile round trip for my commute to work.

Crazy.

Getting Warmer

It was a balmy -1 on the walk in. Felt tons warmer. Can't wait for the 20 degrees that is supposed to be coming soon.

In other news, I started wearing a Pedometer. My walk in was roughly 1000 steps by itself!! Hopefully I am going to walk off the pounds. :)

More later....

Brrrrrr......COLD

So my walk to work was a little cold this morning. -4 degrees. Before windchill.

I had estimated that my winter gear was good to about -5 degrees. So I'm glad that I was close. I now think it is good to -10. I wear an American Eagle Snowboarding coat (with hood and zips up above chin), a balclava made of thinsulate, a stocking cap over that. A scarf around my neck under the coat, and a scarf around my mouth on the outside of everything else. Plus some $25 snow boots. Works well for the 1/2 mile walk to work.


So STEBowl was great fun over the weekend. I really had fun being one of the ref's, and seeing some friends.

Pictures here (Thanks DJ for taking them!!!)

more later......

What a crazy night

Tuesday night I installed a new driver for my Logitech trackball. When I got up Wednesday morning MY MAC HAD CRASHED!!!!! This has never happened. I force rebooted it and did what I needed to do in the morning. Then I went to work.

I asked Rachel to shut the computer down just to make sure that stuff wasn't screwed up.

So I immediately suspected the logitech driver, and sure enough the web is littered with complaints about the last THREE versions of the software (I was 4 old). So I uninstalled it. The computer was acting wierd, but I had to run to the hardware store.

I get home and I have a Kernel Panic on the screen. Arrgghh. And the USB bus isn't working (including my internal bluetooth). So I find my system disk and load up and the USB bus works now, but my 7 port USB 2.0 hub doesn't. Grrr. My hub is fried.

I downloaded the last system update that I had installed, and now the USB bus is working again, but the Bluetooth still isn't. And the computer didn't crash overnight.

GRRRRRR. I just rebuilt the laptop this summer. I hope that I don't need to do it again for a stupid trackball software (That I don't even need. MacOSX regonizes all of the buttons automatically (except I can't change the scroll wheel press from anything except "click").

Introducing.......

We would like to introduce you to the soon to be newest edition to the Johnson Family. The elusive "Little Mystery One" was photographed for the first time today, January 23rd, 2007.

And without further adu....

Yes, the baby is waving at you.
Profile shot
Another Profile Shot
and Yet another profile shot
Do you see what this picture says.

Yes, as the last picture says, it is a boy!!!!!!!!!
And yes, it is there, you just have to look.

Everything is going great. The baby seems to be completely healthy, and we were even able to check his lips and toes and fingers.

And just so you know, all of the old wives tales picked correctly.

Meet our son, Wesley Matthew Johnson, due to arrive June 13th, 2007.

Sick part 2

Well, I went to the doctor last Thursday, and am now on two antibiotics. One is oral, the other is for my eyes. The cold actually settled in my sinuses and my eyes, so my eyes were all itchy and red. No contacts for a while. I am really remembering why I don't like wearing glasses. I have another drs apointment this Thursday so hopefully I will be able to go back to contacts then.

Work is fun. Working on a renovation which is always a pain in the butt. How much do you keep, and how much do you replace? :)

Here we go again

Well since I was sick, I didn't get much done on the list, so here it goes again.


Clean up basement.
Design/buy/build shelving for front wall in the basement - Design done
move everything from upstairs to shelving in the basement
move all tools from Garage to basement
clean up and organize tools
install new mailbox
Done - install indoor/outdoor thermo One set Kitchen and outside, other set master bedroom and ricky's room
clean up garage
park one car in the garage (it is only a one car garage ;))


Done - return belt to wilson's leather
Done - get battery changed in tigger watch
Done - Look into new door between Garage and house - All Steel auto close
Done - Look at Garage plans/models
Pick up Garage door opener from parents
Install new (to us) garage door opener (wish list)

Sick

Rachel, Ricky and I are all sick. We have been sick since Friday. I am mostly recovered, just have a nasty sore throat left. Rachel is a little worse, as she has some face pain too. But none of us have fevers anymore. Hopefully I will be returning to work tomorrow.

Getting started

I have a list of things to do this week.

Clean up basement.
Design/buy/build shelving for front wall in the basement - Design done
move everything from upstairs to shelving in the basement
move all tools from Garage to basement
clean up and organize tools
install new mailbox
install indoor/outdoor thermo One set Kitchen and outside, other set master bedroom and ricky's room
clean up garage
park one car in the garage (it is only a one car garage ;))


return belt to wilson's leather
get battery changed in tigger watch
Done - Look into new door between Garage and house - All Steel auto close
Done - Look at Garage plans/models
Pick up Garage door opener from parents
Install new (to us) garage door opener (wish list)

Think I will get it all done?

Next week starts the upstairs renovations (if I get this list done, if not, then when the list gets done.