Author: Jeff Milner

Most of the ants died after only one application of the diametrious earth. It did rain the next day so maybe that is why they didn’t all die. I put some more on the last anthill where there seemed to be some survivors. Jeff’s recomendation: If you have ant problems then diametrious earth is the way to go.

Update: The Diametrious Earth didn’t work. I ended up using Green Cross and THAT worked.

It didn’t really work. There are still a few ant hills in the front lawn. After awhile I just gave up trying to get rid of them.

Dad visited me today and now he’s gone. I was supposed to fix his computer but it seemed to be working fine when he brought it here, so I don’t know what the problem was or is, but I suspect he will still not have his internet working when he gets home. Something with either his ISP or the router. Hopefully I’ll be able to help them over the phone.

Anyway while he was here, he took Anna-Maria and me to Pizza Hut for all you can eat pizza! He also made me a nice loaf of bread in the bread-maker. I guess the problem I was having with it had to do with substituting butter for shortening. He substituted some vegetable oil because I don’t have margerine or crisco and it seems to have made a really nice loaf. I love fresh bread.

I hope you had a happy birthday Gary, and I hope you are enjoying your vacation in BC.

Anna and I bought Pizza and had a good time eating it while watching an old video that Scott had laying around, “Cocktail”. Well I was pretty confident that after talking so sternly to Jason (the 18 year old roommate) about eating and drinking my food that the pizza would be okay in the fridge. All I can say is – at least he didn’t eat the whole thing. Anyway he still hasn’t paid the rent for this month (just half and only today did I get that much) and so I still haven’t told him that I’m kicking him out. I figure I’d better at least collect the rent so that I do indeed get paid. I suppose I could always take it out of his damage deposit – just so long as he doesn’t wreck anything before he’s gone. Speaking of wrecking things – now you may think I’m overreacting, but someone (probably Jason because he’s the only one around and the only one that would do this) anyway someone took a permanent marker and drew a small line about 1 cm on the front of my computer. Why would someone do this? Why would anyone think that the front of a computer is a place to draw a small black line? I spent the last 10 minutes scrubbing at it and now it’s barely noticeable. I’m glad I discovered it today and not a few weeks from now when it had really set in. The thing is now, I don’t even want to talk to him about it because for one, I am sick of making him feel bad, number two I don’t even know if he did it and I don’t want to constantly be accusing the guy of all these nitpicky things and yet I feel violated by him all of the time. I guess it’s time I put the computer in my own room and said – sorry Jason, you can use the Pentium 130 if you need to check your email. Well now that I have vented all my frustration I feel like I should finish my laundry, go upstairs, and make something to eat.

P.S. Happy Birthday Gary (I know it’s tomorrow but I don’t want to take the chance and forget to post)

The other night when I was in Medicine Hat with Anna, I spent about 15 or 20 minutes playing the original Nintendo Entertainment System with her brother Josh. It brought back a flood of memories about stomping on the evil mushroom kingdom turtles, and searching for the Triforce or even for Zelda herself not to mention the endless possibilites of Excitebike where you could design your own levels! Anyway it just so turns out that today I discovered a webpage dedicated to the 1st issue of Nintendo power. I really had to laugh about this:

From the page:

“Ah, the famous ‘1-Up Trick’ from Super Mario Brothers, something with which I had a success rate of .0007% in accomplishing. It’s not that I didn’t know how to do it – the information was right there in front of me. Still, for whatever reason, I could never seem to pull it off. I’d get that first Koopa turtle out of the way, and when the fabled second Koopa made his trek down the brick mountain, I’d always [screw] up and somehow kill Mario. You know the music that played whenever Mario lost one of his lives? Well, and I swear this is true – it got to the point where that music would play as soon as I got up to that second turtle. The game became so confident that I was gonna die again that it’d roll out with the theme prematurely just to spite and shame me.

I really hated that stupid Koopa turtle. The second one, I mean. The first one was just doing his job. The second one was mean to me.”

I came home from Medicine Hat this afternoon and the house seemed to be in good shape, nothing broken – the oven wasn’t left on, and the lights were all out. Nobody was home and things seemed good. I went to teach swimming lessons and when I got back I noticed a strong scent of my cologne in my room. I hadn’t used any of it for a while now so I was suspicious. It seems that someone had spilt it sometime after I left and before I got back. I decided then that maybe it’s time for Jason to move out. Not only was he stealing from me but he was in my room stealing from me – and he knows that he is NEVER allowed to go in my room. I’ll give him until the end of the month. Now in the mean time I’ve got to find more roommates.

When I went out to mow this evening I decided to mow my front lawn first because it was looking like such a jungle compared to all the neighbours that had just mowed yesterday and today. It was lucky that I did because when I got to the back and finished about one quarter of the lawn back there the lawnmower made a bad sound. It was one of those bad sounds that are accompanied by a very bad vibration and the sinking feeling that this particular lawn won’t be mowed tonight. As well the feeling that – “Oh no I’ve just wrecked Anna’s lawnmower!” I guess it’s not such a big deal, she said she was going to give it to me anyway when she moves, but I still felt bad for wrecking it. I shouldn’t feel bad though, because it’s not like it was something that I did, it was just the lawnmower Gods calling their sweet beater of a 3.5 horsepower mower back to whence it came. Now I can go out and get something with a little power, a nice 6 horsepower lawn-devouring machine. I bet you with one of those I could mow my whole lawn a hell of a lot faster than six horses could eat it.

I have a little ant problem. Actually the ants are little and the problem is big. There are about three anthills in my front lawn (four if you can’t the little one) and they are peeking up so high that if I mow over them the blades rub down on them sending sand and dirt flying everywhere – not to mention ants. It has gotten so bad that I actually mowed around the anthills. I also applied some diametrious earth, which is supposed to be the best way to get rid of ants and other insects and so far so good. They don’t seem very lively now, in fact there isn’t a single ant to be seen.

Aron Ralston is described as “an avid outdoorsman in exceptional physical condition” who has climbed 49 of Colorado’s highest mountains. And yesterday, he amputated his own arm just below the elbow (CNN.com Story / DenverPost story) when it was pinned under a boulder. Then he rappelled down a canyon and hiked until rescuers found him.

It is reported in a Canada.com story, that comments were made in an annual report on International Terrorism criticizing the Canadian Government for not “spend[ing] enough on policing” and “plac[ing] too much emphasis on civil liberties.” I guess they would prefer us to get rid of the very few laws we have protecting our citizens just as they have destroyed some of the laws that I thought were so dear to the heart of every American with the creation of the Patriot Act. (The Critical Voice Article) I guess my Social 30 teacher was at least partially right stating that Canada’s government could be turned into a dictatorship under the right circumstances, but it turns out that it’s the United States Government that has turned authoritarian.

Update: The links have been taken down. It’s funny how I can keep posts on my blog for a few years, but news agencies feel they need to get rid of old content. Funny strange, not funny – haha.