There’s one thing that’s more frustrating than gas prices and its gas stations that are no longer accepting credit cards. I guess I could use my card as a debit card, but they aren’t accepting those either. The gas station that is right outside my office hasn’t been accepting credit cards or debit cards for weeks now. At first I thought it was due to a change in ownership, but I checked yesterday and the pumps still have duct tape over the card slots at the pump and a sign saying cash or pre-approved check only.

I headed down the road to the next station, forgetting that I actually had my check book with me in my work bag. After pulling up to a pump at the second station, I noticed the same thing at these pumps. Unbelievable! I thought for sure I was going to run out of gas but luckily there was a station a couple exits down the highway with pay at the pump and it worked! Typically I’m not one to carry cash, but I am considering it if this trend continues.

Is this something that is only affecting me or have some of you experienced the same thing?

“Your teeth are perfect,” the dentist told me about an hour ago. I think I’ve finally perfected the flossing method that I’ve been trying to master for years. I know some of you know what I’m talking about. You don’t floss regularly, but when you get the notice of your upcoming appointment you floss like a mad man. Well I put the appointment off for an additional week and did two full weeks of flossing each day. At my appointment today there were no comments, from either the hygienist or the dentist, that I should be flossing more. Patent pending.

It looks as if I may have praised the window air conditioner unit a day too soon. Kim got back to KC yesterday a little before I was off work. She fired up the unit and noticed that it wasn’t putting out cold air. The fan was blowing out, but the air coming out didn’t feel any cooler than when the unit was set to fan only. She shut the door and waited until I finally got home from work. We opened the door to the office only to realize that the room did not feel cool. I think the temperature got up to almost 90 degrees in the room, so something is definitely not working.

Can these things be serviced? Is it even worth it, or should we just suck it up and buy another one? I’m not even sure where this unit came from. It could be 20+ years old for all I know. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Luckily the outside temperature shouldn’t go above the 80s today. As long as the rain stays away this is shaping up to be a great night!

Well there was at least one good thing resulting from my trip to Cincinnati, I was able to pickup an extra window air conditioner unit that was sitting in my parents’ basement. I believe that I mentioned before how hot the upstairs of the house can get, but it’s worth mentioning again. The bedroom can stay a little cooler as long as we keep the door closed and fans on. On the other hand, the office is the hottest room in the house. I’m sure the dark brown wall color doesn’t help, and neither do the two computers and the basking light for the turtle tank. So we are in the process of solving this problem using the air conditioner unit. We installed the unit in one of the windows in the office last night. Now we need to decide if it is powerful enough for the entire upstairs, or if we would be better closing the office door as well to keep the cool air in there. This will require some trial and error.

Speaking of the heat, what is up with this summer? It seems hotter than any other summer of the past. And I don’t think it’s just a Kansas City or Cincinnati area problem, just look at this current US map from weather.com. The entire eastern half of the US is colored red! And even when we get a break from the heat, the rain always comes with it and ruins the better temperatures. This is why I haven’t played tennis in weeks, the weather is permanently crappy.

I think my Dad said it best when he wrote the following, which appeared inside of the program at the funeral.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our family and friends who have helped us make a better place for Bryan. With your support and encouragement we were able to provide Bryan with everything he needed. The love and dedication showed towards Bryan was so overwhelming no matter where we went. We can’t thank everyone enough for the wonderful well wishes and gifts we have received during this challenging time. As we struggle with our loss, we are comforted in knowing all the people who have touched Bryan’s life.

Bryan is a unique individual who can break your heart with a simple crooked smile. We have so many fond memories of Bryan to take with us wherever we go. We are so thankful for the years we have been blessed with Bryan’s love in our lives.

He will forever be in our dreams, it is there where he can be free of all his handicaps and be the normal nineteen year old that he deserves to be. We love him so much and miss him so much already. We can always remember the great times he has given us, and the ways he taught us all to be better.

Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts,

Ed, Claire, Ed Jr., and Tim

I am back in Kansas City after making the drive back last night. The few days that I spent in Cincinnati were full of so many different emotions and it was pretty hard to leave. Please continue to keep my family in your thoughts, at least until they leave this coming weekend to spend a week at the beach. :)

If you didn’t already know, I’m back in Cincinnati for the next few days. There’s not much that I can say right now, perhaps that will change with time. Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers…

Bryan Robert Paff
May 14, 1987 – July 25, 2006
Loveland, Ohio

Visitation: Family and friends will be received on Friday from 6 to 8 pm. July 28, 2006 at Tufts Schildmeyer Family Funeral Home 129 N. Riverside Dr. Loveland, Ohio 45140
Funeral Service: Mass of Christian Burial will be held 11 am. Saturday July 29, 2006 at St Columban Catholic Church 894 Oakland Rd. Loveland, Ohio 45140
Interment: at Gate Of Heaven Cemetery Montgomery, Ohio

Beloved son of Edward J. and Claire (Busch) Paff Sr. Loving brother of Edward J. Paff Jr. and Timothy C. Paff. Grandson of William and Lorraine (Grafe) Busch and the late Clarence and Monica (Knue) Paff. Survived by many aunts, uncles, cousins, and dear friends.

Attended the Thomas A. Wildey School in Batavia

The family requests memorial gifts in Bryan’s memory be directed to the Thomas A. Wildey P.T.A. c/o Lisa Davis P.O. Box 156 Batavia, Ohio 45103 OR the St. Joseph Home Respite Center 10722 Wyscarver Rd. Cincinnati, Ohio 45241

This weekend we also got together with many of our friends to celebrate the recent engagement of Amanda and Joel. In case you may have forgotten, Amanda and Kim work together, not for the same company but their respective companies do work together. Their wedding will take place just less than a year from now on July 8th, 2007. Amanda was concerned when she thought that Pig-Fest was on the same day every year. Contrary to that belief, we’ve never had it on the same day in it’s thirteen years of existence. So around this time next year we should be making a trip to North Carolina (or was it South Carolina?) for their wedding.

Our night of celebrating took place at O’Dowd’s on the plaza, the site of their first date. Before Saturday night I don’t think I’ve been on the plaza since we moved to our house. It was nice to make a return, especially since the bars are so close. The roof-top deck wasn’t too packed, probably due to the recent heat wave, so we sat outside for most of the night and had many celebratory drinks.

Speaking of heat waves, is anyone else sick of this crap? The upstairs of our house has been hitting 90 degrees or higher for the past few days. Our little air conditioner can’t keep up. Help!

With lots of help from Phil, I was finally able to work on a project I’ve been wanting to do since we moved in to our new house. We installed a coax outlet into the second bedroom, which I’m obviously turning into an office. My desk, along with computers, have been in the office since the move, but in order to have a connection I had to run a coax cable across the hallway floor from the master bedroom. I’m not in college anymore so it was decided that something else would have to be done.

Phil and I had thought long and hard about this project and yesterday was the day to actually do something about it. During the month of planning, we decided that it would be easiest to install the outlet on an outside wall rather than messing with interior walls. We picked our ideal wall and I began drilling a hole from the inside of the room with the hopes that the extra long drill bit I had bought would go all the way through to the outside wall. Unfortunately this didn’t happen and I’d say that we miscalculated the depth between the two walls by a couple of feet. Rather than trying to drill a hole on the outside and hoping they were close enough to work, we decided to drill a different hole on a different wall.

Luckily the second attempt worked much easier and cable was run from the outside to the inside with very little problems. We attached the cable down the side of the wall and to the main coax line. It was already split there multiple times so we just had to connect the new cable and everything worked perfectly. Now I’ll just have to patch the extra hole in the wall and finish installing the outlet faceplate. Then the furniture in the office can finally be put into it’s final resting place. The home office is coming together quite nicely.

We finally had another weekend where we were actually in our new house. If you remember we first started moving on the weekend of May 12-14. The following weekend we were in Greensboro for a wedding. The weekend after that we were up in Minnesota for a mini vacation. After that we finally had our first weekend at home but I caught a slight cold that ruined parts of it. Last weekend was spent camping at Wakarusa. Finally this past weekend was spent at home, our second weekend doing so in over a month of being home owners.

In addition to finishing up the deck staining project, we attended a block party on Saturday evening. A guy who lives a couple houses up from us put it together and invited everyone that lives on Genessee between 45th and 46th to attend. The turnout was great and we got the chance to meet around 75% of the block.

We also went up to Eddie Delahunt’s “Cafe &” that I mentioned at the beginning of last month. It just opened a week ago and seems to be doing really well so far. We walked up there on Saturday morning and got a couple cups of coffee and some muffins from Eddie. We watched one of the World Cup games up there and socialized with Eddie and some of the other patrons. I’m sure we’ll be back sometime soon.

We started our first home project yesterday by staining the deck on the back of the house. In this picture you should be able to see the deck and the difference between the left and right sides of it. Sometime before we bought the house a new section of lattice (the furthest left) and a handrail was added. Obviously the new wood looks funny next to the old untreated deck wood. We decided that staining the entire deck would help blend the old and new as well protect the whole thing. So far I think we are about half way done but a bunch of the lattice is left and that is the hardest to do. It’s so hard that I’m considering removing the bottom lattice sections and attempting to clean up underneath the deck, though that might be considered a project of its own.