Mik's First Tornado Siren Experience

Last night I happened to catch the news and they were talking about possible tornados with storms today.  Earlier this month Mom and Dad were out of town and heard about bad weather in our region and wondered whether Mik and I knew what to do in a tornado.  I did, as I remember a few times hearing the sirens during the summers I spent in Illinois as a kid.  Mik didn't and when I asked him last night he still did not know, so I told him where to go if he heard the sirens.

This afternoon I heard a siren like noise, but at first I thought it was the laundry I had just started (my desk is right next to the laundry room).  I opened my door, though, and realized it was in fact the tornado siren, which I kind of was expecting since I happened to have the local channel on and they interrupted regular programming with storm watch coverage as the storm.  I went to see if Mik heard it (also, our safe spot is also right inside his room), but it could not be heard in his room at all at first (could slightly hear it when he turned his game system off).  Apparently, my room is not as sound proof, which makes sense considering it is the garage area.

When he saw that the tornado watch was in effect until 7 p.m. (it was only 4 p.m.), he said he really missed Tucson now because there are like no natural disasters there.  It only lasted about 30 minutes, though.  In that time, though, he decided we should have an emergency supply kit in the linen closet in his room, since that is in the alcove that makes one of the safest areas in the house.  I have a lot of that kind of stuff in my room and we sure keep stocked on food considering Mom and Dad seem to keep being going for weeks at a time, but the only thing in that closet is a big bag of dog food (and we did not even think of letting Billy in the room...poor Billy) and his glow stick flashlight that I only hung on the closet door this morning.

Mik's Xbox Drives Us Nuts

Last week Mik's Xbox 360 disc drive stopped working. He was going to have Dad try to fix it, but after finding out he won't be home for another month and the Xbox 360 now came in a newer version with the WiFi built in he decided it was worth spending his savings on a new one instead. I got it with my Amazon Prime shipping, so he was back to playing games quick. It was even surprisingly easy to transfer the harddrive data over to the new one and that is really saying something because I really stink when it comes to Microsoft/Windows stuff. What stumped us, though was getting it to connect to our WiFi network.

At first the Xbox seemed to not be able to understand that there were two networks with the same name when we have an extended network. We read about it being a known problem for some, so we thought if we got it connected to the main base it would then work like the old one did because that one was connected before we has the extension. So, last night we spent hours trying to get it to work in my room near the wireless router only to have the same issue of it not working. Part of the problem seemed that no one could remember setting up the password to login into the router to change the settings that may be messing with the Xbox connecting. We finally gave up and put it back in Mik's room to reevaluate what to do another day.

Then this morning I decided to finally hook up the Apple TV Mom got awhile back because I wanted to have it up and running for watching Nationals games on MLB.tv before the free MLB ends on DirecTV. When setting it up Mom noticed I was typing the password to join the wireless network wrong. Turns out I had been doing that the whole time with the Xbox, too, although I know I did it with re correct password at least once with it still being an error connecting. However, going back to it this afternoon I got it connected no problem and it appears it really was just typing error and one fluke of nonconnection error.

Getting Trapped

Several times since we have moved into our new house I have been annoyed by the door between the laundry room and the kitchen because when the pantry door is open it blocks that door. It hasn't been a problem lately because no one else was home using the pantry and every time until today I just ended up pushing the pantry closed when opening the door. Today though Mom opened the pantry door all the way and when I tried to come in the door would got stuck and it wouldn't open enough to get through. I guess if I really had to I could have gone out to the porch from my room and in the front door, but I called mom over to let me through and Mik thought it was funny that for once someone else was stuck and not him.

Who Really Moved?

The past week Mik and I have been wondering who has really moved to our new home in Alabama because neither Mom or Dad have been here for over two weeks and only Mom "should" be here two days in the next two and a half weeks.  Thus, it kind of feels like only we moved, especially since Dad is back in AZ most of this time.

Considering the first month we were here, we spent two weeks at Disney World, and the other time running around to government and medical places to get things all transferred over here, not only is it like half the household has not really moved here, but we have not really moved in either.  Boxes are still taking up half my room, although yesterday I did finally clear the path to open the door that goes out to the trash cans from my room.  Dad's den is still full of boxes and is actually a bigger disaster because he asked me to find his camera stuff and I could not exactly keep the somewhat organized set up when going through the stuff by myself (and I did not even find the stuff to go with his camera, so finding the camera was useless!).

So, going on two months in our new house, it does not seem much different than the day we moved in.  At this rate I predict we may have the boxes unpacked after a year in this house, but that does not take in consideration who knows what ended up in the attic!

Dog Feeding Check Mark Calendar

Last Friday Mom set up the dry erase weekly calendar to have checkmarks when someone feeds Billy, so he isn't fed extra as sometimes happens. In theory it is a great idea, but not so much when I went to erase the marks put there last week and discover the Monday evening and Tuesday ones don't come off. Apparently, someone (i.e. Mom!) used the permanent marker instead of the dry erase ones. The sharpie is in the organizer the calendar is on, but it was in a different slot and it is a retractable style marker and not one with a cap like the dry erase ones we have.

Luckily I knew about using rubbing alcohol to remove permanent marker after having to do it off of pumpkins when working at the pumpkin festival last year and a group decorated theirs before realizing the pumpkins were not free.

Calendar is now set back up with dry erase markers and sharpie is moved to junk drawer.

Forgot to give Mik a tour of house

Tonight Mik tried to have me go wake up Mom with the excuse that he did not know where Mom & Dad's room was.  I thought he was bluffing, but turns out he legitimately did not know where their room was.  I guess we forgot to give him a tour of the whole house after we moved in.

Seriously, the house is smaller than our old one, but the layout is with separate wings, so you really can just use the common areas and not encounter each other's rooms for the most part, especially since Mik has his own bathroom rather than sharing like the rest of us do.

At least Mik did vaguely remember my room was through the kitchen and he really did try to bluff knowing that he could get to my room right out the front door.  He definitely knew that, as the other day when he came home with Dad they knocked there to ask me something.

Mik Grapples with Concept of Daylight Savings Time

Having lived all his life in Arizona until this year, Mik was kind of mind blown when we talked about losing an hour overnight for daylight savings time. He knew about Daylight Savings Time and basically understood how it worked, but having only 23 hours in the day when the clocks spring forward had him staring trying to grasp the reality. In particular, because we were talking about driving home from Disney World today and gaining an hour when we got back in our home time zone, but would then lose the hour with Daylight Savings Time tomorrow. Bottom line was he could not figure out the purpose of Daylight Savings Time and likes it the way it was in Arizona, which we all agreed with.