Brett Michaels has become my sort of hero just because he is such an advocate for diabetes research, especially Juvenile diabetes.  Well, he just did something else that added to his hero status.  He is playing this week at the theater that I will always call Pine Knob (even though it's now called DTE Music Theater).  Anyone who has a military ID or proof that they are a veteran gets in free, and up to four guests.  So guess who I'm going to see Tuesday night? 

Also, today, while I was playing World of Warcraft, Roger was looking around on Craigs List.  He said "Come and look at this."  I did.  GREAT bargain.  So we are having this delivered tomorrow.

It's regulation size (7' long) and has a slate top.  Delivered and set up -  I couldn't pass it up.  It includes balls, regular rack, 9-ball rack, 3 cue sticks, bridge stick and chalk.

Several of my friends from an online community I hang out at sometimes are coming to visit next weekend so I'm sure we'll be breaking it in

I update so rarely, that Xanga makes all my posts related to each other LOL  I guess they are related in that I write them.  I wonder what their logic is for what they consider 'related' posts.

edited to add:  Today would have been mine and Mac's 16th anniversary.  Last year, since we had just gotten our divorce (same day, I think) we went out to dinner and celebrated our anti-versary.  Maybe I'll send him a text message wishing him a happy anti-versary lol (We're still friends, so he will see the humor in it.)

...I planted flowers! Here are pictures.

North side of steps to deck

South side of steps to deck

Going around the south side of the deck.

I also planted some Astilbe  and Iris bulbs along the edge of the steps and along the lattice.  I hope they come up next year if not this year!

This is what the Astilbe should look like - we planted red.

And this is the type of iris I planted

Went out and bought a bunch of plants yesterday.  I'm hoping my brown thumb will show them some mercy.  Got some miniature lilacs for under my bedroom window, coleus for my hanging planter, pots of red, white and blue petunias for my deck (as a decoration for my Memorial Weekend party), and some other stuff.  We're going to plant some perennials around the deck, with some hostas on the side where it's always shady.  We bought a variety of bulbed flowers that have been started and should bloom in June.  Maybe when it's all done I'll take pictures and post them.

But not by much....

Restoring one's computer to factory settings.  Fortunately it was my work computer and most of my important files are kept on external storage devices.  Still, now I have to reinstall World of Warcraft on it. Seriously.  They can't expect me to travel for work and not have something to do in the hotel room.

Saw K.T. Tunstall tonight at the Park West in Chicago.  A very intimate venue and the show was AWESOME.  What talent and creativity that girl possesses!  Of course she did Black Horse and a Cherry Tree.  Her first encore was Suddenly I See.  She also did some deep cuts off her first two albums and some acoustic finger-picking stuff she has on her current ep.

Just needed to update to say life is good   When things are going well, it's kind of boring to write about.

Work has been really busy.  We have a huge deployment coming up for a very large governmental organization and I've been working 11-13 hours a day writing reports, manuals, training documents, etc. to get ready for the big deployment.  To top it off, right in the middle of it I have to give a presentation (training/seminar/lecture type) to the National Users Group of the software we are deploying next week.  It just happens to coincide with my birthday next week.

And speaking of which, after encouraging a Xanga friend to get a Kindle, I decided I needed the new one for my birthday so Roger is getting it for me   It will arrive while I'm in Chicago, but he is taking a train with some friends and will be bringing it to me.  We're going to spend the weekend in Chicago after I finish my conference on Thursday. I'll probably go into the office on Thursday and then take a 4-day weekend.  I'll be driving everyone back home on Monday.

And in necessary evils, I'm having a colonoscopy done the Tuesday after Easter.  Hopefully this one will come clean and I won't have to go back for ten years.  I had one four years ago and they found some polyps.  This one is to make sure they didn't come back.

We're getting ready for entertainment season.  Roger cleaned the grill and cooked steaks on it last night.  We'll be bringing the patio furniture out of the garage soon.  I am hoping we will get to have a summer kick-off party on Memorial weekend.

I have the dream job.  I get paid very well and work from home most of the time.  I occasionally have to make a trip to Chicago to check in at the office.

This week I've been working a lot of hours because we have a deployment coming up and we're at crunch time. I've been having to rewrite some reports that a colleague wrote - he tends to do things the way he thinks they should be done instead of how the customer asked them to be done - so I get to go back and do them the way the customer asked for them.

Because it is such a crunch time, I decided it would probably be easier for me to work in the office next week, so I'll be in Chicago all next week.  The following week is the deployment.

Then I have to train the client on how to use the software.  This is a pretty big installation and there are about 80 people I have to train. Part of what I'll be doing this week is getting the documentation ready for them.  I've already created the training manuals for the product.  I just have to "tweak" them for this client.  But the training will take a week, so I'll be in Chicago and Springfield all the following week.

Then, the week after that is the big users group conference for the software we support.  My boss was scheduled to teach a class at the conference, but he is going to be unavailable that week so he has asked me to take over and teach the class.  I'm okay with it, but wonder if the person who took my position after I was laid off from one of my previous jobs will be there.  He's a moron.

Then Roger and a couple of my friends are taking the train into Chicago for Easter weekend and we are going to stay downtown and do some touristy stuff.  Having lived in the area for almost 20 years, I've pretty much seen everything.  But we're going to see Blue Man Group (I've already seen them three times).  They want to go to a museum and I'm going to suggest the Museum of Science and Industry.  It's the coolest of all the museums in Chicago, IMHO.

Then I get to come back and have a colonoscopy.

Somewhere in there I'll be celebrating my 55th birthday.

Is that even a word?  Anyway, I seem to be scatterbrained sometimes.  Maybe it's the lack of sleep.  But this morning I left the house (my old house in Chicago) without taking my laptop.  To work.  Duh.

I am in Chicago because my boss is interested in seeing my work from the past few weeks for a project that is going to be launched in a couple weeks (after having worked on it for almost a year).  I considered driving back for it, but I have to be here for a meeting at 9:30 and my boss is leaving early today to go to Springfield so it's imperative that I'm here for this meeting.

I should have turned right back around as soon as I got here but I didn't and now it's too late.

I'm hoping that I can leave right after the meeting and work from 'home'.

I didn't get to sleep until almost 1am and was back up at 5.  It's hitting me right now how freaking tired I am.

My "updates" page hasn't changed in almost two days. Must not have been much going on, or the Moon got to everyone this weekend.

I guess I'll update, then.

I started physical therapy last week for my right (frozen) shoulder.  I already can move it more than I could before last week, but I still have to take ibuprofen all day and vicodin at night to keep the pain at bay.

On the plus side, I've been having normal blood sugar readings every morning for the past two weeks (that is - I started testing again and I'm finding my morning readings consistently normal, which is why I had stopped testing in the first place.)  I have to send my readings to my doctor.  I'm sure when she sees them, she will ask me to start testing after a meal.  That's when she'll probably have me start back on the short-acting insulin (right now I'm just taking Lantus at night).

Marriage is good (haha, as one would expect after only 2 1/2 months).  I think I am happier than I've ever been.

I started doing research on Ancestry.com.  It's been fun and interesting.  Now I understand why my mom would tell me "Oh, I think that's your cousin" every time I talked about someone in high school.  Both parents came from large families with large families all staying in the area.  Makes me want to go back through my yearbooks and mark the ones who are related.  Fortunately, so far, nobody I've dated has been related LOL  And I'm from MICHIGAN!

One of my favorite pictures - singing a duet with Roger - this is my basement, and yes, that is a disco ball.  We're standing on the parquet dance floor