phillbecker

Back in high school, I started noticing this little bump that would form on my arm every summer. Just a little raised spot, no big deal. I assumed it was a wart and didn’t worry about it.

Then it got bigger. As years went on it got to about the size of a pencil eraser. I started cutting it off with finger nail clippers or a knife or my teeth. It grew back every time.

Then it got one of those things you’re supposed to watch out for - an irregular border. It never changed color, so I wasn’t real worried that it was skin cancer. Maybe a little, but not real worried. Besides, you can just get those “frozen off” right?

So I tried a take-home freeze kit from the drugstore. Not only was it smelly and painful, but it worked worse than just cutting the damn thing off!

Then I read an ad in a newsletter about how to “permanently remove unsightly moles and warts, without any harsh medical procedures or painful over-the-counter products!” I actually saw it a bunch of times before I decided to at least take a look.

The website went on and on about how great it was and had all these testimonials and went on and on. Now, I hate hype but it wasn’t that expensive and had a money-back guarantee. Doesn’t everything, right?

So I bought the e-book, read it, and almost went for the money back right then and there. The solution was just too simple to actually work. So I didn’t even try it.

But eventually I figured that I’d spent the money so I should give it a try before I completely wrote it off. After maybe a week or two of a band-aid on my arm covering my home-made paste, it was gone. That was May of 2006. Almost 2 years later and I can barely remember which arm it was on!

If you know someone who might want to safely remove warts or moles have them send me an email or drop a comment on this page or
read more. I’ll be happy to talk more about it.

home

• touchup paint kitchen
• clean garage
• clean library

coop

• find baby sitter for work days
• choose activities
• website
  • get content current
  • set up user levels
  • shopping cart system
  • calendar plugin
  • document sharing
  • get section headings straight

It’s not that dreaming is bad or I have nightmares or anything like that. It just seems that dreaming is a waste of perfectly good sleep time. In my dreams, I’m usually active or doing something or interacting… realistic dreams. I don’t have abstract, pretty color, flying / falling, or fantasy world dreams. Sci-fi sometimes, but still first-person and active.

So my brain acts like I’m doing things and thinking about what’s going on and trying to reason things out, which is difficult at times. When I wake up (or usually when I’m woken up) I have to switch gears, clear the dream out and get real-world functions going again. Since my brain has been active, I usually feel more tired after 6-8 hours of dreaming sleep than if I just crash for 3-5.
(more…)

i’ve slept … maybe 8 hours since tuesday 6AM. everything was so much more labor intensive than I expected… mostly ’cause I was doing it alone. My brother did help with some of the moving / loading, so that was nice. Now there’s crap everywhere. Dismantled furniture with screws in bags that were not taped to the furniture. We ran out of boxes so there are cloths baskets and piles of things everywhere. The “honeydo” list of things that were broken that we didn’t know about gets longer every minute.
word of advice. When the water heater is turned up to 170 degree, it may be because there is a problem with keeping the water hot.
Then, my boss called at 715 this morning and asked what time I was planning on coming to work… bastard. So here I sit helping ~2 customers an hour. yay.
But, we own the house. Oh yeah, did I mention that the sellers, who spoke little English, didn’t realize until about 24 hours before the closing that they were getting stuck with $5800 in pre-payment penalty? They were expecting to walk away with a couple grand and ended up owing close to $1000.
sucks.
sleep is for the dead. did I say that already?

We’re closing on our first home on Halloween. Then we need to be out of this apartment by Nov 3. Sleep is for the dead, right?

It’s a nice place - up on the hill a little, real steep backyard with a nice deck, decent neighborhood etc. Needs a little work (new shingles and floor covering) but we can do that once we move in. We were going to take November to move in and fix it up, but we got an offer to sublet our current place in Nov. So, rather than risk not subletting and getting stuck with a mortage and a lease, we decided just to move in like Sr. Speedy Gonzales.

I’m excited about having a place of our own. No more money tossed out on rent. Now it’s tossed out on interest. But we’ll get to paint and decorate and re-shingle and install hard wood floors and stuff. I have big plans to redo the wooden retaining walls with cement blocks and pavers, but that’s probably a couple years off.

We’ll miss the park, and the location of our current place. But the house was just too good an opportunity to pass up. At least that’s what I’m thinking now. Who knows, maybe like most things that are too good, there’s a reason for it.

For now, I’m ready for the move. No, I’m not. It’s going to suck and we’ll be unsettled for at least a month. The current plan is to:

1. rip out the carpets and wall paper in 2 of the 3 main floor bedrooms (its a split entry with the main floor upstairs and a 1/2 finished basement 1/2 garage on the lower),
2. repaint and install new carpet,
3. move in to those rooms,
4. get everything else into the garage/basement (this much has to be done by 3nov… yay.)
5. repaint the family room
6. rip out the carpet there
7. intall new bamboo floors (like hardwood really)
8. move stuff upstairs and set up like we actually live there.

Then eventually we’ll redecorate the kitchen, and then re-carpet / paint the other bedroom, then ditto for the downstairs room (oh, and it will need a de-humidifer)

Then there’s the chimney that’s not connected to anything, and the floor vents that are covered over. We might discover a fireplace behind the wall, or a place where a stove vented.

Yeah. The retaining walls might be a little ways off.