I finally got one of our kayaks in.  Still like pulling teeth with those guys at The Great Outdoors though.  Who would have thought it would be such a hassle just to get those fishing rod holders?  I called them up on Friday to check status on the rod holders which are apparently being delivered by camel from Pakistan or something.  One was in and installed, but the other one was "probably at their Enosburg store".  Whatever.  I went down to pick up at least the one.  

My fear is that I would get the kayaks after we have had all this nice weather and then it will suddenly turn constantly crappy.  I really wanted to try it out.  So I went down to the store which is like less than 1/4 mile from our house.  I had the Prius which ended up being good.  The kayak is pretty short, only 10.5 feet long.  I was able to open the hatch back on the prius, fold down the back seats and fold back the front passenger seat. Doing that, I could load the kayak into the Prius and just tie down the hatch.  It is nice to know that I can do that because that is infinitely easier than putting it up on the roof, especially for a short trip.

I took it up to the house and checked it out.  It has foot pegs in it that you can adjust to your leg length for comfort. Well, I must have messed around with them for 10 minutes and I couldn't get one to move.  Then the other one got stuck too and I couldn't move it.  I was like, "What the heck?!" Am I just an absolute idiot with this thing or what? I did a quick internet search to see if I could find anything that I was doing wrong, but that yielded no results.  So I picked up the phone and called the guys at the store.  They must hate me because I have been calling them like 3 times a week about the kayaks.  I don't care, we spent a lot of money on them. So the guy said he would just come over and take a look since we are so close.  He drove up and said it would be pretty simple to move them.  However, he had just as much as a struggle as I did.  He finally managed to force them back into place.  We are not sure if maybe they were installed wrong at the factory or something, but when they go all the way back, they get stuck.  The temporary solution is not to move them all the way back.  When the second one is ready, we will compare them and see if there is one part that was installed backward.  If so, he will fix it.  Not a show-stopper, but just goes to prove my theory that no matter what you buy these days, it always SUCKS. I cannot remember the last time I bought something and there wasn't some sort of issue.  Why can't anything ever be easy and work as advertised???

Anyway, I wanted test out the roof mounting system.  Although the kayak only weighs about 50 pounds, it is still pretty cumbersome to get on the roof of the car.  Then there are five straps to strap on there.  The Prius also annoyingly has its antenna on the roof, so I had to angle the kayak cockeyed to not hit the antenna. But I got it on there and figured everything out. However, it is still way easier to just put it in the back if possible.  I imagine putting it on the Corolla will be a little easier because the car is smaller, and there isn't any other option with that anyway.  

I drove out to Clyde Pond to test it out.  There were a lot of people fishing in Gardner Park, so I didn't want my first kayak experience to be in front of a bunch of people in case I embarassed myself.  I got in and paddled around the pond for a while. I really like it.  It actually goes a lot faster than I expected and is pretty easy to do.  The only hard part is going in a straight line.  That is the disadvantage of getting such a short kayak -- it doesn't go straight as easy, but it is more maneuverable.  Also, getting in and out is a little tricky.  It was very stable once I got in it, and I never thought I would tip it over or anything.  I am sure I will get better at paddling it around with practice.  

Had quite an active past few days. Work was busy as usual. I had to go in on Saturday morning to deploy the latest price updates to our marking stations. I have to do that on the weekend so we don't have to incur downtime. Not a big deal because I had a lot of the work done ahead of time.

After giving a lot of praise to The Great Outdoors about our kayak purchases, I am starting to get a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth from them. I went in last week to see when they would be in. Our fishing rod holders that we were getting installed by them were the wrong ones, so they had to get other ones that would be compatible with our boats. They said they would be ready by last Thursday at the latest. So Jaime went in on Thursday to go pick them up with Tony, since they had his truck. When she went in, the dude was like, "Uhh....we keep forgetting to get them." This was after he claimed he didn't even know what we were talking about and wanted to see our receipt. So obviously that dude was an ass-clown (not the guy we had been working with before). He told Jaime that she could just take the kayaks and we could install them ourselves. Luckily she was smart enough not to do that. Why would I risk screwing it up and wrecking my kayaks, if they can do it? I checked again yesterday and one rod holder is in and the other one is on order. So hopefully they will come in this week. The ice is pretty much gone.

We have had really nice weather this week, so it has been wonderful working outside. Jaime went down to see her cousin Amanda in New Hampshire on Wednesday. Amanda is about ready to pop with her baby. I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday afternoon for a physical. Or so I thought. I went in and checked in with the receptionist and had a seat. I got there 15 minutes early. After about 45 minutes or so, I was beginning to wonder why they hadn't called me in yet. Finally, the receptionist called me up and informed me that I was a week early, that is why she couldn't find my sheet. I knew it had said the 16th on the note on our fridge for my appointment so I was a little miffed, but whatever. It was really nice outside and I wanted to go home and get some work done rather than going back to work that afternoon. I checked the note on the fridge, and sure enough, April 16th at 2:00 was right there. Well, come to find out that that note was not for my doctor appointment, it was for Jaime's facial she was getting down in New Hampshire. My appointment was on another note beneath that one sure enough, for the next week. So Jaime and I have to work out a better system for this stuff. First off, the note wasn't even labeled for what it was for, just a date and time. So that led to my confusion. Jaime wonders how I ever managed to survive on my own.

We took the plunge and plopped down the cash for the kayaks. Hopefully they will be in this week. Actually, they are in, but we are getting them outfitted with fishing rod holders, so we are waiting on that. No rush, there is still ice on the lake.

Jaime got a stomach bug this weekend, and spent most of Sunday sick. So that was no fun for her, especially since she is starting off her vacation week. Today she seemed to improve and I am sure she will be back to normal by tomorrow. She has a lot of things planned for the week so I am sure that she wants to not be puking so she can get them done.

It has been fairly nice outside, so I have been walking instead of sweating in the hot gym. It has been nice. It is the time of year when it is still cool enough outside that I want to walk. I go for about an hour, probably about 3-4 miles around Newport.

Work has been busy as usual. I have been finishing up a few projects, so it is nice to see some stuff come to fruition. I still have more work than I can possibly do, which does keep me busy. Sometimes I feel like I could lock myself in the office for about a year and not run out of things to work on!

I have a new personal finance program I am using. Right now I am entering all my transactions from 2007, then for 2008. I used Microsoft Money years ago, and that worked pretty well for me, but since I pretty much switched to Linux exclusively, I haven't used anything. I have been using Gnucash, which seems to be a little more like Quicken. I haven't gotten too deep into it yet, but I think it will meet my needs. However, it does take time to get things set up the way I want. So I am plugging through it little by little.

I also want to continue to get caught up on going through my pictures. That is also a never-ending process.

To distract me from these things, I have been addicted to the following game:

http://arcade.itch.com/games/random-defense/

204.8 this morning. Woohoo! That is less than when I started tracking it last April. I did dip below this before in that time frame, but gained it all back and then some. What I am doing is working.

We bowled last night and won two games. We won a couple last week as well. I have still not been able to get into a good groove. We would be a decent team if we could all get good at the same time. Seems like I have good games when the rest of the team doesn't or vice versa, so we never maximize our score. I do get disappointed that I never seem to improve, and sometimes I wonder why I shell out close to $20 a week just to make myself feel bad.

Jaime's grandfather had a heart attack last Friday. He doesn't have insurance and goes to the VA hospital. So he sat in his living room and endured a heart attack for 3 hours because he knew he couldn't pay to go to the emergency room here. It is a sad state of affairs with our health care system. He went to the VA on Saturday, then they sent him to Dartmouth. Jaime went down there and took Monday off to visit him there as well. They put in some stents into his arteries. He is now back home. While he was in the hospital, his thermostat broke and his oil tank sprung a leak that was not fixable. So he had to get a new thermostat and oil tank, which was not good. I guess bad things happen in threes.

I have been faithful about going to the gym every day. I don't usually go when I bowl that night though. I have found that I bowl a lot worse when I work out first, it must make me tired or dehydrated or something. And I usually meet with my nutritionist on Thursdays, but I didn't have an appointment this week.

Sarah has returned from her trip to Thailand and Vietnam. I have not been on the computer too much lately, so I have not gotten around to checking out her blog and pictures. We were happy to get a post card from her though.

We went to Mom and Dad's for lunch this weekend. I also went in to work for most of Saturday. I am working basically all day this Saturday as well. We have a meeting on Saturday morning that I need to facilitate, and I simply have too much work to do to get it done during the week. I am sure my efforts will go unnoticed and unrecognized as usual, but at least I can work uninterrupted on the weekends.

We are probably going to watch the Superbowl at Julie and Travis's house this weekend. I am trying to convince Chris Sloan to come. He has been traveling a lot lately.

I cranked up the Madden game and it is still kicking my butt. I think I am gradually getting a little better, but I am still having a losing season. It can be frustrating, but I guess the challenge keeps me interested.

Jaime didn't get her W2 again. That's two years in a row. I don't know why they say you have to get it by the end of January. There seems to be no recourse against the employer who doesn't provide it. I think the IRS should fine the employer for every day after the cutoff. It isn't fair because it causes the government to be able to hold onto your money for longer and you are giving them an interest free loan. But alas, Jaime is getting screwed over by her payroll department yet again. She finally got her 2006 social security straightened out after about 10 months of struggling. The social security office said they had never seen anything like it before, what is happening at her school.

Hump-day is through this week.   And it has been a long week already.  Not in a bad way, just busy. 

Work has been pretty long this week.   You know how some weeks there seems like you have more stuff to do than you have hours in the day?  This has been one of them.  I'm not complaining -- in fact, it is much better to have too much to do than to have too little.  It does make the day go by faster.  But sometimes it seems like a little too fast.

I found out today that one of the guys on my bowling team is in jail again.  He went to jail last year because he got drunk and picked a fight with an off-duty police officer outside a bar.  This time, it seems he got drunk and got into a fight with someone and ended up breaking their ankle.  Now, I'm not the type of person that usually associates with many people who spend significant times in jail, but this guy obviously has a drinking problem.  The worst part of it is that he is my next door neighbor as well!  So I called up dad today and asked him if he could sub for bowling on our team for at least the rest of this year.