ordinary weekend...

it was a fairly typical weekend although we did get some fun stuff in. on saturday afternoon we went to the "celebrating arden hills" festival at lake johanna. the kids got to ride pony's, chase animals around at the petting zoo, climb around on the fire engines, bounce around on misc shaped air "rides" AND see the teddy bear band. that night i watched the twins game on tv and happened to see my parents, who had travelled to milwaukee for the twins\brewers series, in the stands! 40+ thousand people and there they were on tv...what were the chances?
'nuther active week ahead. swimming lessons start, soccer rolls on, etc...more later.

by popular demand...

since i posted about spy sheriff a couple of days ago, several people have apparently googled "spy sheriff" and came across my site. i have received 4 emails to date asking for my removal instructions.
as described in my earlier post, i got help from a tech forum called techguide.com if you want to see the exact article i used for removing spy sheriff, click here.
i cannot promise results, but it did work for me. good luck!

"you don't know the history of phychiatry...i do"

if you needed more proof that cruise is a nutjob, click here.
i wonder on which skiing trip to aspen he had time to read his "research papers"? maybe a little medication would do him some good.

i shot the sheriff!...

yesterday about 3:00 pm i got hit with a nasty spyware related malware virus. it presents istself as a rougue application called "spy sheriff". there really is no such thing as spy sheriff but they want you to think there is. here's what went down. i was on the web when i suddenly received about 18 virus messages from my anti-virus program, telling me i had virus's called troj_delf.dg, troj_delf.hc, troj_delf.nw, troj_harnig.gen, bkdr_haxdoor.bn, etc. this did not fill me with warm fuzzies! at about the same time a "program" popped up on my screen called "spy sheriff" that wanted me to scan my system for spware at once! the progam looked legitimate enough, and if it wasn't for the fact that i sort of know a bogus app when i see one, i could see how a less informed user would have wanted to run it. i closed the app immediately and attempted to remove it via add\remove programs. i was sure that this wouldn't actually remove it and sure enough, it ressurected itself once i rebooted. somewhere along the line, a website dropped me a malicious program and installed it, unbeknownst to me. another thing that happened was that it replaced my exisitng background wallpaper with a black box which read: "System Stopped! System has been stopped due to a serious malfunction. Spyware activity has been detected. It is recommended that you use a spyware removal tool to prevent data loss. DO Not use computer before all spyware is removed". i knew i was screwed at that point becuase i did not recognize this to be any sort of a legitimate windows message. when trying to reset my background i realized that it actually disabled my display property buttons so that you couldn't manaually change it back. even a registry hack would not fix it! this turned out to be a very tricky challenge. i played around with various anti-spyware apps such as lava-soft ad-aware, spybot, trend house-call, etc. (with updated definition files) and nothing would kill it. i came into work last night at about 9:30 and it took me til close to 1 am to get it fixed! i ended up searching the deep, dark, underbelly of the www til i found a forum called "the tech guide forum". here i found someone who had experienced the very same problem, along with a helpful teckkie named vic who outlined about 6 pages of repair instructions. i stuck with it and used programs i had never even heard of before, such as "pocket killbox" from bleeping computer, ewido security suite from ewido.net, cleanup! 4.0, and panda active scan. in the end, with much determination and perserverence, i slew the dragon and am now functioning at 100% capacity. i have since tightened up my spyware software, updated my virus definitions, and gained some anti-spware skills. if this can happen to me, trust me, it can happen to anyone. if you ever have the dreaded spy sherriff, send me an email and i can provide step-by-step removal instructions.

stuff on your cat & more...

i was stacking blocks with my son owen last night, as i am wont to do, and our cat roxy was lying there beside us. for whatever reason, he thought it would be fun to stack the blocks on top of the cat. this endeavor produced varying results but in the end we were not that successful,(for obvious reason, i.e., not a completely level surface, the cat tends to move, etc.) i wonder what posesses one to want to do that but apparently it is a new trend. if you need further proof that anything and everything can be found on the web, check out this site.
i have decided to purchase a new battery for my 3rd generation ipod due to the fact that my 10 hour battery barely holds a 2 hour charge. i knew that this would be a requirement at some stage of the game but i have decided that now is the time. my tech-brother jeff has agreed to team-up with me on this, as cracking the case and replacing hardware is sort of a formidible task, even for the tech savvy among us. i will be documenting the event digitally so look for pics of the guts of my ipod at a later date.
more later...

happy father day!...

...we split up the morning and afternoon today spending the first part of the day with allie's dad and then the afternoon with my dad. went to early church and then roger came over to our house for brunch. after owen's nap we headed down to my folks and spennt the rest of father's day in eagan. my sister and her family had also come up from rochester. it was a great day and the weather rocked.
it occured to me the difference between mothers day and fathers day. on mother's day, you know the mother carried the child for 9 months and then went through the labour and the birth and is generally a lot closer to the child. fathering a child, by definition, carries a lot less responsibility. there are no doubt a lot of dead-beat dads out there but thank god mine isn't one of them.
back to work-mode soon...i still owe some daance recital pics.

classic cars, tom cruise, and coffee...

it's not often i do this but it has been an unusually busy, long, & demanding week so i need to blow off a little steam.
first of all, all of the roads in town our cluttered with classic cars. there are hundreds and hundreds of "streed rodders" in town this weekend mostly because of the minnesota streed rod association's show at the minnesota state fairgrounds this weekend. yesterday many of the cars were across the street from work at a smaller show so natuarally there were classic cars and scads of people everywhere. now, some of these cars are cool looking and all, and i know these old-timers put a lot of time & money into these things but.....what's the big deal??? it's an old car with a fresh paint job!! whoopty doo! i have to be honest - cars, especially old ones, don't really do it for me. i'm happy for you but i couldn't care less. spending $10 to go look at someone's old car? not gonna happen. going for free? no thanks...
and tom cruise is in the news. apparently he's now engaged to something called katie holmes (who was was born when tom was 17). what's this tom's 3rd marrige? good luck to you tom! i have to say cruise has always bugged me. he's been a couple of good movies and some bad one's too, but i just don't like him. he's just a goofball. maybe not on the michael jackson scale but a goofball nonetheless. now he's engaged and it's BIG NEWS! i just have to say SO WHAT! i couldn't care less about tom being engaged, married, divorced, whatever...i just don't care. give me some real news!
and while we're at it...when you buy your cup of coffee and you go to put your 3 creams and 8 sugar packets in, a piece of advice. take the creams and sugars and move somewhere else to put them in your coffee. when you stand there and dump cream after cream and sugar after sugar into your cup, people like me cannot reach over and grab what we need. why? becuase YOU are in the way. now we have to wait for 4 minutes while you are making a cake. just move somewhere else! don't think about it - just do it!
rant over
the dance recital went well last night. my girls did absolutely great. i didn't get many pics but i have a few and i'll get to that next week. enjoy your weekend!

the big shizz-ow...

tonight is the big finale, the big event culminating the last 6 months of hard work & practice. tonight is the big dance recital for the metro dance center at spring lake park high school. the girls have been looking forward to this event for quite awhile. i'll be sure to get a few pics and post them at a later date.
speaking of the girls, they both had soccer games last night. alaina even scored her first goal (the first one of the game) although her team did end up losing 8-5. noelle did really well too. they both seem to enjoy it. they ended up missing the first couple of weeks of games (see dance section above) but they are both on track now and there are 4 weeks to go. look for a couple of new pics in the images section.
that's it for now....more later.

keeping busy?

typical tuesday post. we're well on our way through yet another hectic week schedule-wise. besides my fulltime work gig here's what's on the docket this week. monday: noelle soccer practice, tuesday: alaina soccer practice, wednesday: alaina & noelle soccer games, thursday: alaina & noelle dance recital, friday: (TBD), saturday: twins game with allison & girls, sunday: fathers day various activities. other than that there's really nothing going on. i'm looking forward to vacation in august. more later

mac-tastic...

as some of you may have heard, i now spend part of my time at work helping support our mac environment. something new for me, something i have an interest in, and an area we're i am continuing to learn and still have a long way to go. i do, however, know a gorgeous computer when i see one and i have now seen one. i have received a power mac g-5 to "test", and it is the coolest computer i have ever seen. the thing is sturdy but sleek, kind of a brushed metallic looking tower. it's little boxy-looking but that is my only complaint. otherwise, this things is nothing short of awesome. it doesn't hurt that it came with a cinema hd display 23" widescreen monitor. i have brought in some dvd's today to make sure that it plays movies. i am trying not to get too attached to this thing but i know one day it will have to go. until then, we will try and enjoy our time together.

big doings...

wow...a big week for noelle. this past wednesday she graduated from kindergarten - with honors. a day later she turned 6. took some time off last week and took noelle to como park, or more correctly, como town, as the kid park area is now known. on thursday night we had the family party. on friday we had the "kid" party. digital documentation can be seen here.
enjoyed a fairly nice weekend...still trying to get 100% healthy. more later

still ill?...

sorry for the lack of recent posts. i was sick. then i felt better. then i felt sick again. yesterday i finally went to the dr. i was put on zithromax, which is actually an anitbiotic, (even though what i have is most likely viral). but because of the possible ear infection, i'm on zithromax which i think is starting to help already. if i stay fully drugged, i think i just might make it through the rest of the week, which is quite busy. here's what's on the dockett over the next few days.
today\tonight. alaina soccer at 6, noelle's kindergarten graduation at 6:30. tomorrow. noelles birthday, and family party. friday noelle kid party. you get the idea...thankfully i have a short work week as i am off after today until next monday.
i'll have recaps, updates and pics galore in a few days. all for now...