August / Various Photos
August 1 - Harold's "Slot o' Fun" officially opened
today at 7:30 p.m. and promptly closed at 10:00 p.m. Yeah, I know it
doesn't make much sense but bear with me. I picked up my slot machine
today and of course, had to put in every quarter I could find in the
house. Good part is, I had already saved up over $100 worth over the past
couple of years. Bad part is, they're all in the machine now. In
fact, most have been out of the machine and back in quite a few times.
It's really nice to be able to open it up, pull out a handful of change, then
close it back up. I'm betting that in Las Vegas, they'd not be very happy
if I did that. Of course, having a new toy with which to play, I didn't
stop by the apartment and pick up anything that's left. I guess I'll make
two or three trips tomorrow.
August 2 thru September - I really didn't plan to quit updating my site
but, I got everything pretty well moved and there's not much out of the ordinary
worth writing about. I mean, everyone mows the lawn, bends the blades of
the mower at a 90 degree angle when they hit rocks, has flat tires on the mower
about once a week, and has problems figuring out where to put the stuff that fit
in an apartment but won't fit in a house that's over three times as big.
Maybe some day I'll start the stories up again but until then, here's something
I hope to see on my next trip to Las Vegas - on a machine I'm playing, of
course.
September thru April - Planted some shrubs around the front; a red oak in the
yard with a little bit of landscaping; a few tomatoes, okra and peppers in the
back; a rose or two on the west side; and some bananas, palms, and joshua trees
in the back. Plans for the deck have yet again been put on
hold.
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Here's something you'll rarely see in Vegas - a Double Jackpot Bar 5 Bar5 combination. Of course since then I've hit every winning combination except three Double Jackpots. |
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Ever wondered what to do with all those annoying AOL disks? Make a Techno- Christmas Tree! For years, I've been planning my tree which was originally supposed to be an aluminum tree but I couldn't find one for a reasonable price. This particular tree is a work-in-progress but, for now it's decorated with CDs from online services (of course), old CDs that are duplicates or programs that won't work on my system, and a bunch of SGI disks that I found in the trash at work. The garland is CAT-5 patch cables and a couple of old mouses that were lying around. I've also stuck all the old cards from my old computers that I could find in and around the branches. |
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Later plans include getting a color wheel, making garland out of all those obsolete 3 1/2 inch disks I've got lying around, using nine-track tape for even more garland, and making a base out of the old IBM mainframe hard drive disk pack that I have. You'll notice that the lights are 18 feet of rope light. Oh, the trash bag beside the tree is full of cat toys. It's pretty cool that they take out the ones they want to play with but I really wish they'd put 'em up when they're finished. |
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This is my Cow Tree - decorated in all sorts of cow-themed ornaments. The lights are the chili pepper type and there's all sorts of white and black flowers and "stuff" stuck in the branches to fill it out some. |
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This is my tree in the dining room. It's probably too dark to tell but, other than being really thin and 9 1/2 feet tall, there's really nothing special about it - except there's no ornaments near the bottom and the lights are pulled down off the bottom branches. The cats "helped" me decorate as much of the tree as they could reach. |
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I have a photo of the jukebox in the dark on one of the other pages and it's easier to see the lights on that picture, but here it is after I restored it. I still need to adjust the tone arm so records will "reject" at the end of the song and put the "Seeburg" logo on the bottom front of the speaker cover. |
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Front of the house nearly a year to the date of when the foundation was poured. |
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Front of house two years after foundation was poured. The grass is filling in nicely. |
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I planted a garden (actually two as there's another "plot" right behind the house) this year with corn, squash, okra, black eyed peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, watermelon, butternut squash, and eggplant. This is about a week after planting. |
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This is the garden a month later |
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and a month after that, in full production. I've sprayed to kill the weeds to the left so I can plant a fall garden with mostly corn. |