Does anyone remember doing the “bug” project in Junior High/Middle School? Thats the one where you had to make a net (usually out of a coathanger, a pillow case and a broom handle) and then collect bugs so you could stick pins through them and put them on a display board.

When I was a lad, we had to make a “kill-jar”. You took a jar of some kind, put cotton balls in the bottom, and then took a piece of cardboard with holes in it and put it over the cotton balls. You would soak the cotton balls in some kind of chemical (I can’t remember what we used). Whenever you caught a bug, you put it in the jar and it would die rather quickly.

They do it a bit differently nowadays. Now, you just have to put the bug in a container and put the container in the freezer. For the last week, we’ve had more bugs in our tiny freezers than we have had food. Actually, there is another reason we didn’t put much food in our freezers. They don’t work very well. We’re living in a motel, and we borrowed a couple of tiny refrigerators from some friends. The freezers sort of work, but they aren’t cold enough to freeze icecream even.

That was a minor digression, but important. Yesterday, Aaron and I went out and caught the last 7 bugs that he needed (he needed a total of 25), including a bee and a yellowjacket. We put them all in the freezer overnight. This morning, he was collecting his bugs and putting them all together. They started out in separate containers, but now that they were dead, we could safely combine them into one container without fear that they would run or fly off. . . or so we thought.

We didn’t realize how poorly our freezers were working until the bugs started moving! One by one, the bugs snapped out of their cold-induced daze and started crawling around. Luckily they were still lethargic, and we managed to get most of them into one container, and then sealed it and put it back into the freezer. We hope that they will be dead by tomorrow. Meanwhile, the bugs were due today, so I wrote Aaron a note for his teacher, saying that we had all the bugs, but they weren’t quite dead yet.

Bookmark this post to:

We are going on our 3rd week here at the Valley Green Motel. It’s actually kind of nice being right in the middle of down-town. Everything we need is within a short walking distance - grocery store, movie rental place, pharmacy, dunkin’ donuts.

Cindy had been working 12-hours a day, third shift, doing home care for a gentleman with Alzheimer’s. She was making really good money. Unfortunately, the family of the man who she was working for decided to put him in a nursing home. She’s going to try to look for another job, but she won’t find one that paid as well as that one.

We just got an update on our new home. It is scheduled for delivery on October 4th. Set up time is going to take about 2 weeks, 3 weeks at the most. So we are looking at moving in by October 25th at the latest. That’s still over a month away. I’m hoping everyone can keep their sanity until then.

Bookmark this post to:

Okay, now here’s the story. . .

We were living with a friend in an apartment until our double-wide manufactured home was set up and ready to move in to. Last weekend, the friend we were staying with got an eviction notice — she had 30 days to am-scray. But the landlords were very insistent that we (that is to say, me, my wife, 1 dog, 2 kids, 3 cats) had to leave immediately.

So there we are. Saturday. Labor day weekend. A weekend for relaxation and bar-b-que. And we have to pack up all our shit and get out of dodge.

We had a couple of friends offering us a place to stay, but in both cases, they didn’t have a lot of room in their houses and we didn’t want to impose. However, we had one friend take our dog, and the other friend took our 3 cats, and my family and I got a motel room. A cheap, cheap, cheap motel room.

So this motel. A great little pit called “the Valley Green”. We are surrounded by rooms occupied by young hispanic men. I have no idea who these guys are, but this is New Hampshire, the whitest state in the union. Normally you would have to travel far and wide to find 2 people who aren’t white. But here at this motel. . . its like every hispanic guy in the state is living within 20 yards of us. Not that I’m prejudice or anything. Its just weird.

Anyway, it looks like we’re here for the duration. We’re hoping our home will be ready sooner, rather than later, but we’ll stick it out the best we can.

Bookmark this post to:

School started for the kids on August 31, and school ended for me on the same day.

I was taking an online class (”Quantitatvie and Research Methods for Leaders”) for my MBA. I pretty much aced the class, Which made me feel good, since I was averaging A-’s in all my other MBA classes.

The kids started school: Amber in the second year of high school, and Aaron in the second year of middle school. Since we are living so far from Keene right now, I get up in the morning and drive both kids to school and then go into work. After school, the kids go to the library until I get out of work. Aaron’s school is close to the library, so he can walk to it. Amber has to take a bus to the library. It works out pretty well, but we are all wishing we had our own home. Its never easy to live with another family.

oops, gotta run. its saturday and Amber is babysitting in Keene, so I have to drive her.

Bookmark this post to: