Rain's mom and big bro are visiting w her. We're in the waiting room cuz it was 2 hard watching them.

Updating from cell phone.

Latest about Renee and us

I first of all want to give everyone who is praying for/sending healing energies/keeping Rain/Renee' in your loving thoughts; a huge thank you. I cannot put into words how much you're all helping.


The latest about Renee' is that they discovered that she started having siezures. I have no idea why, but they told me she is now getting medicine to treat them. Once they get that problem managed, they'll be better able to assess what more can be done to give her more ability to come out of the coma. Compared to the last few days, tonight she looked more at ease and appeared to actually be sleeping. Tomorrow (Sat.) they'll do more scans (catscan, MRI, etc) to figure-out why this is happening (the coma?). She did have a heart attack, but there were no warning signs - total shock to everyone!


We really miss her! Can hardly wait to talk to her, kiss her, hug her. She our everything - and we'll NEVER let her forget that, ever.


Meanwhile, we're trying to stay strong enough to get everythng on a more regular schedule (groceries, houeshold stuff, bills).


Right now we're down to only one computer (Renee's) and currently getting free wi-fi. Once I can get a USB wi-fi connector, I'll be able to do more regular updates. Just keep doing what you're doing; it's truly helping. Angelica's laptop got a virus and we can't seem to figure out how to her her back online using the other
Windows-7 user account. The comput itself works, just can't connect online.


Got a $25 TV today, and have cable television, so at least we don't have to sit in silence anymore.


Tomorrow I need to call a few/some bill senders (car payments, prescription-D, medicare) and let them know that we WILL be catching-up, it's just going to take a little bit longer than expected.


We like our new apartment. It has an ecercise gym, hot tub, and a swimming pool. We're able to get to the hospital and back home quicker now. We can get to Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens for medication, and so forth. It's hard emotionally, for sure. Angelica & Eldin are being as grown-up about everything as they can. We're hanging in there. Having such awesome friends is awesome.


That's all there really is to update. All we need is love! Furniture (sofa/loveseat, dining table chairs, etc) would be nice, but at least we have air-beds and blankets.


I hope everyone has a great Christmas/Yule/whatever you celebrate this time of year.

Todd

Waiting..waiting..waiting

Well, we called the apartment (Fort Branch at Truman's Landing, Austin, Texas) this morning to ask if we will be signing the lease today. That was at 9:30 a.m. It's now 12:40 p.m and we've heard nothing except the two times we called them only to be told they haven't heard anything either :-( We were really hoping we didn't have to pay the hotel for yet another night @ $47 because we'd really like to be able to afford to buy air beds to sleep on when we do move in. It's not looking good on being able to :-(

Money woes

The apartment complex which we thought we'd be moving into today had their printer/fax machine go down. We'll have to stay in this motel until Monday or early Tuesday (which means we're going to have to pay for at least one more night [Sun/Mon]) since we're only paid-up through Sunday morning. *sigh* The problem? Unless the apartment manager gives us a break on the 1st month's rent (halves it), we may or may not have enough money for the entire first month's rent there because we're out of any "extra" funds. I'm sure it'll all work out, it's just really stressful waiting for official move-in approval.

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

The Latest

We are almost moved-in to Austin, Texas, from Long Lane, Missouri. By "almost" I mean that as far as I know we have been approved by the owners/managers to live in the Fort Branch of Truman's Landing apartments. All we're waiting for now is for someone from the apartment complex to call and let us know that it's "official", tell us what the move-in deposit is (we're hoping that they only charge us half of the 'first month's rent as a deposit' since it's the 15th of December, 2011, since they recended on the original incentive to choose them of 'the first month's free'). See, we don't have a hell of a lot of liquid money because we were counting on not having to come-up with a 'move-in deposit'. Luckily my finance manager (aka: my wife) was smart and withheld payment for this month's car payment and Internet bill "just in case". We plan on (now) having to catch-up those 2 payments in a couple of weeks. We hate that we're having to do it this way. If we have to pay only half of the deposit on the apartment, then we'll use the other half to get a few things. We'll need 4 of the least expensive air beds we can find, a few pots and pans, a used Goodwill TV, dining room table & chairs, loveseat or sofa, and a digital recorder box (we plan on checking Freecycle for this stuff). Then we'll have to give our new adress to the Long Lane post office so that they can send all the mail that's been put on hold for the last couple of weeks. Open a local bank account and contaqct the Social Security Administration so they'll directly deposit our SS. Disability benefits into our new-to-us bank (a credit union). Of course we'll also have to buy a few groceries, put the electic & water utilities in our names, set-up for (most likely AT&T) highspeed internet, and then the girls will start putting in job applications. All we need is a real address and it's a go. We should definitely hear from the apartment people tomorrow morning.

The only thing that is kind of an emergency, is getting the on-hold mail taken care of ASAP because I'm completely out of the LDN I take as a Multiple Sclerosis treatment. I've been out for 2 days and not had a problem. I'm just a little nervous about it though because I really don't want for MS health issues to worsen. I don't!
http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Misery loves company

For those of you who have experienced sever lower back pain (sciatica nerve region), won't you please send me some vibes that will ease the back pain? Join my company if you can relate.

Yesterday afternoon I was bored, so I knelt down if front of the closet door (which was open) and started pulling bags of items we had packed in said bags and brought with us, just to look through the stuff. No pain. Didn't think I was straining to pick stuff up. Then a couple of hours later I stood up, after laying on the bed watching television. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my lower back and my knees almost buckled. What the fuck? I haven't experienced pain that intense for a very, very long time.

I've tried stretching while laying on the floor. Not much luck, it felt like a vertebra was about to pop out. Took a nice, long, very hot bath. I am taking 3 Ibuprofen every 4 or so hours. Nothing helps. Rain has gone to the store to get some Arnica gel to message into my back, and a hot pad.

I can walk maybe ten steps before I have to either sit down, or collapse on the nearest thing available.

Fuck! It hurts!

In other news... I've turned in 1 assignment for each college course I'm in, and have already received a 100% grade on one of them. I just turned in the 2nd one not long ago. I'm still waiting on a grade for it.

The move to Texas has been good so far. Still waiting on the result of the move-in application at one apartment. The signs (numerology #'s 11 & 22 [room # 1122) say it's meant to be. "New beginnings" (#11). I can't remember what the #22 means, but it fit and it was good when I heard it.

http://ramblemns.blogspot.com

(pic) Mango in the recliner

If he were the same color as the recliner it would be very hard to see him. It's like he's part of the chair.

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Actual size: 640 X 179 (.jpg)

Flickr : cat, lazyboy, mango, recliner
Technorati : cat, lazyboy, mango, recliner

Time Remains

There's only about 10 minutes until the Sunday Night, NFL football game starts, so I don't want to spend enough time on the computer to write a long post. But as you can literally see (as opposed to not really seeing? lol) that 'the countdowns' have begun. The left is until my birthday. Well, they're labeled, so I don't need to tell you. It's going to be weird once/if people start buying the big stuff like the fridge, oven, sofas, computer desks, and the like. The Mega Moving Sale begins on this coming Thursday at 9 am to 4 pm. Happens during the exact same hours on Thursday Friday. On Friday we start packing the car with everything that'll fit, and wait for our friends to visit (depending on the weather (which is supposed to be "not bad"), and whether or not there is anything left for them to sell for us once we're out of state. Other than that, we just got to try not to watch the clock. Also going to try and enjoy the end of one chapter with happy anticipation of beginning the next, in Texas.

Todd

Flickr : austin, countdown, garage, garagesale, long lane, missouri, moving, movingsale, relocation, sale, texas, timer, timers, yard, yardsale
Technorati : austin, countdown, garage, garagesale, long lane, missouri, moving, movingsale, relocation, sale, texas, timer, timers, yard, yardsale

High price of diesel makes truckers rethink their work

Is it just Greed? "Until a few years ago, diesel fuel — a *byproduct* of oil — was generally *less* expensive than regular gas." High price of diesel makes truckers rethink their work

Failure of The Economy

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : Contributor, Economy, Major, The, To, U.S, cash, cashflow, depression, economics, energy, fuel, gas, money, oil companies, petrol, recession
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Major Contributor To The Failure of The U.S's Economy

Flickr : Contributor, Economy, Major, The, To, U.S, cash, cashflow, depression, economics, energy, fuel, gas, money, oil companies, petrol
Technorati : Contributor, Economy, Major, The, To, U.S, cash, cashflow, depression, economics, energy, fuel, gas, money, oil companies, petrol

Cat-toon funny with live cats: "Cat won't look up"

Flickr : cartoon, cat, cattoon, humor
Technorati : cartoon, cat, cattoon, humor

Cat-toon funny with live cats: "Cat beds"

Flickr : cat
Technorati : cat

Our moving process

We're pretty much ready to move. All that really left to do is collect the move-in deposit (obviously we have a buyer), have a yard sale to sell what our friends don't want/need/need to sell for us, put in a change-of-address in at the post office, and of course cancel the phone, Internet, and electric services. Those last three won't be done until the day of our move-out. We've got the motel we'll be staying at in Austin, TX, while we look for an apartment/house to rent, reserved. We have a place to stay out of the wind and rain once we get there, so that's good. My prescription-D (Medicare prescription) drug plan is national, which means I'll just have to give them a new address to send statements to. That'll be easy enough. Besides, I've got until December 7 to choose a new plan if I need to. We've got time.

==> Both cats have had the Texas, animal, required rabies shot now. Next we'll need to get them used to wearing their harness's and having a leash attached to that, so we can stop and give them restroom breaks on the way there. Hopefully they'll get on a stop-schedule similar to ours, thus reducing the amount of stops needed.

==> My school book(s) and/or software should be here before next Saturday. All I'll need to do is give the school our new post office box number. Since it's an online-only course, that's all I hope needs to be done. Speaking of school. It's an interesting feeling knowing you have no more required home-work to do, a week and a half before the end of the class. I don't know if I should feel the need to be learning more about the class, or see what I can learn about my next one. I guess I could do both.

==> There ya go. You now know the scoop on our life happenings. Thanks for staying and reading this far.

==> http://ramblemans.blogspot.com <==

Flickr : austin, buffalo, long lane, missouri, mo, move, moving, relacation, relocate, relocating, texas, tx
Technorati : austin, buffalo, long lane, missouri, mo, move, moving, relacation, relocate, relocating, texas, tx

Cool picture

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : blogspot, picture, rambleman, ramblemans
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Beauty

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Flickr : beauty, blacklight, image
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Comfy kitty

He oozed even more after I took this picture :)

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Flickr : cat, feline, kitty
Technorati : cat, feline, kitty

Monk Egg_Todds Breakfast

By the way, that's tea in the coffee cup :-)

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : Monk, Todd, bacon, breakfast, egg, hamburger
Technorati : Monk, Todd, bacon, breakfast, egg, hamburger

Todd's resume, courtesy of VisualCV

Hello, I'm sending you my VisualCV with information on my background and qualifications for your consideration. View my VisualCV by clicking on the link. Hopefully you find the information in my VisualCV useful. I would love to hear what you think about it. Sincerely, Todd

Todd Milligan's VisualCV: http://www.visualcv.com/shares/259113?pro=f8a68537a7d84c581a6de64ba338dc77

Employers, did you know you can post jobs for FREE on VisualCV? Learn more...

My latest creation

Here's my newest blog Header

http://ramblemans.blogspot

Flickr : blog header, blogspot, ramblemans, todd
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Love is everything

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Flickr : fact, love, ramblemans
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You know a class...

...is more up your alley. That you're enjoying it a lot more. When you have 5 assignments due this week...

...and You Are Done With Three Of Them Already. And it's only Monday.

Woot!

Ramblemans.blogspot

P.S. Another thing that says This is my kind of class is that although I set up a schedule to make sure I don't burn myself out, I don't feel the need to worry about how much time I am actually spending on my classwork. Not only that, but the work is enjoyable and almost seems a bit too easy. I'm not saying it won't get more difficult in these last 3 weeks. I'm saying that I'm looking forward to them, no matter how difficult they get.

Flickr : InDesign, Typography, class, college, homework
Technorati : InDesign, Typography, class, college, homework

Current life

It's been a fairly emotional week. The decision to actually move to Austin, Texas has been confirmed. We're doing this. A little scary because I really don't like changes in a big, life altering way. However, I understand completely the reasons for our change, and I'm okay with them. 100%. We want change, and yes, I know that's cliche, considering the political crap that's been going on for almost 5 years now. I say 5 because I'm taking the time of political campaigns that brought the idea that people feel that change is all part of evolution. As much as I don't deal with drastic change great, I understand that the quote that says, "The only true constant in the universe is change." School continues. Right now I'm enjoying learning all about typography and it's history. I do not know what my next class, starts in December, will be. Should be interesting, I suspect.

Later.

Flickr : austin, current, itt, life, tech, texas, update
Technorati : austin, current, itt, life, tech, texas, update

Trivial Answer

There are 20 raw Almonds in an ounce.

ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : almond, raw.20, trivia, twenty
Technorati : almond, raw.20, trivia, twenty

Yard sale-Online

This is a virtual yard sale. ALL items will HAVE to be picked up in Long Lane, MISSOURI (Dallas County). If necessary we can deliver as far as Buffalo, MO, but absolutely no further. All prices ARE negotiable :-) So make an offer.

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Bench seat from a full size Chevy Conversion van. $25 O.B.O.

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Very used Adirondack chairs $5 each, O.B.O
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Ancient skateboard. FREE to whoever wants it.

http://www.ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : adirondack, benchseat, chair, conversion van seat, flea market, must sell, skateboard, vanseat, yard sale
Technorati : adirondack, benchseat, chair, conversion van seat, flea market, must sell, skateboard, vanseat, yard sale

Superfast Broadband Development Still Going Slow: Internet News

Superfast Broadband Development Still Going Slow: Internet News

Anyone know just how widespread & how fast the high speed internet is in Austin, Texas?

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Mango picture

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com/mango-picture

Flickr : cat, feline, harness, kitty, male, mango, orange, photo, photograph, picture
Technorati : cat, feline, harness, kitty, male, mango, orange, photo, photograph, picture

Used bicycle and snowboard sale

If you are willing to drive to Long Lane, Missouri, USA and make us an offer for 1 or more of these bicycles, or the snowboard. Christmas could be very happy for someone.

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Every one of these will get bigger (to 640x480) if you click.

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This is my 10-speed. Works great, just needs new tires.

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Just needs new tires. It's a 12-speed.

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1-speed with 26 inch wheels. Kid decorated!

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Just needs the seat fixed so it doesn't tilt forward or backward when landing after a jump.

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Just needs new boot locker inners, but would work with these as they're just cracked on the back.

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http://ramblemans.blogspot.com

Flickr : 10-speed, 12-speed, 26-inch 1-speed, bicycle, snowboard
Technorati : 10-speed, 12-speed, 26-inch 1-speed, bicycle, snowboard

Pics of a Very comfy kitty

Sorry about the blur, I couldn't find my tripod and I tend to wobble. Anyway, this is Mango, whom we should probably have named something more like 'The Oozer', or 'Mr. Limbo/Laid-back/Chillin' or somerthing.

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(click to enlarge)

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(clikk 2 largen :)

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com/

Flickr : Mango, cat, feline, kitten, limber
Technorati : Mango, cat, feline, kitten, limber

41 more outside pics of Home for sale

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1596350885129.47494.1726708328&type=1&l=5e9dc5e4b2

Flickr : 2011, long lane, missouri, owner financing, pictures home, sale
Technorati : 2011, long lane, missouri, owner financing, pictures home, sale

Proud 2 B A Liberal

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Flickr : liberal, proud
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Home For Sale - Owner financing!

For $1500 you can move in and get all the appliances (electric cook stove/oven, refrigerator, heavy duty upright deep freezer, microwave, washing machine, dryer, 3 window air conditioning units). For only $500 more ($2000 total), you can move into a fully furnished home (2 full-size sofas, of which one is a pseudo-leather fold-out sleeper, 2 queen size beds, 2 computer desks w/chairs, a Lazy Boy recliner, 2 solid oak tables (1 round, 1 that seats at least 6)) PLUS all of the appliances.

Then you sign a contract agreeing that you'll be pay us $500 a month to BUY the house on 9.44 acres, with your own well. Then in an agreed upon amount of time for us to move out, you can move in.

Or you can get your own home loan to buy it through a bank at any time. Current balance owed = a little over $60,000.

Comment on this blog or on Facebook if you're interested.

http://ramblemans.blogspot.com and http://facebook.com/toddlius

Flickr : long lane, missouri, owner financing, sale
Technorati : long lane, missouri, owner financing, sale

Slower DSL since Fri night

We have had DSL going on 4 years. Have had at least 4 different technicians come to our place over the years and check things out. Not *once* did they say we needed to have phone line filters on our phones. Same when talking to DSL technicians on the phone.  They always ask if we do and I always said no. Today, after we got our new modem (technicians could not find anything else wrong),  I called to tell them that the new modem did not change our DSL speed. The phone tech said that he believed that after we put the filter(s) on our speed would magically be what it's supposed to be (1.5 Mbps). Apparently nobody thought it important to mention that we should have filters on the phone lines, now I see that is because we don't need them. *sigh* By the way, the last speed test showed results of 0.95 Mbps a minute ago. Earlier I was getting speeds of 0.35-0.49 Mbps. Frustrating.

What a drop in interest...

...of my blog. I mean, according my monthly Google Analytics report for last month, I only had *3* visits.  Yikes! Good thing I'm not in it for the money, eh? :-)

New class MO better

If you can recall how I felt while attending the last college course of Programming Using Visual Basic 2005, you know I did not enjoy it. I don't feel I really learned much from that class, other than it's looking like programming is not a career I want to specialize in. I don't know what the reasons were, but for some reason I just did not feel able to remember to coding rules of Visual Basic. Yeah, I'm told I will probably need to know at least some basic programming, which I do, very, very basic :-) In the end I recieved a grade of a C+, desipite failing the final exam miserably (per the grade and how I felt after taking the test). That is over though.

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Currently I am enrolled in the next class towards my degree. It's called Typography for the Web. It's basic how to use the program InDesign CS4 to create any type of written materials (books, magazines, etc) to convey meaning in type. I'm enjoying this class a lot more. Granted I've just began the 2nd week, but still. I'm grokking it much better as I'm a visual learner, hence why I'm majoring in Web Design (technologies), which looks odd when I see it written. I like how things look more than needing to know how they work (in general anyway). So far I'm getting an A. Yay!

My DD's birthday

Her cake was a 2-layer, round meat cake, which I can't find pictures of. It looked like the usual kind of cake, but instead of sugar-frosting, it was covered with mashed sweet potatoes spread like frosting.

http://ramblemans.blogspot.cpm

A thing we attended in Buffalo

that I cannot remember the name of. Families picked a country to represent food-wise so we could taste foods from other countries. These are the pictures I took.
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http://ramblemans.blogspot.com.

Thank the gods it's over!

With the last assignment today (before midnight Monday), I sent the below question to my teacher last night. His "answer" is in red. Needless to say, I won't get a good grade, if any, for the assignment I turned in. As for the final exam, I don't want to talk about it. Seriously.
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Question I asked about the course's last assignment.

I'm at a loss. I know nothing about office accounting. I'm trying to research what kinds of expenses a company's offices would have. I've never worked in a an office. They would need printer ink, paper, pens, pencils, and stuff like that, right? Basically I don't know where to begin, but I also don't want a "0%" for the assignment, so can you help get me started somehow? Video, webpage links?

Teacher’s answer: You have summarized some expenses. that is fine. The goal is not that you have a magic list but that you can accomplish the project requirements. Please proceed. http://ramblemans.blogspot.com