2020 / 2021 update

Hey, it's been a while hasn't it.   3 Years!   Just wanted to give a few quick updates.

Item #1 - After three years, the sister-in-law has moved out of our basement to go back to living at her house. There's much bigger story there, but I'd rather not relive any of it.  While she may not exactly be in a better situation, things were not going to improve unless she moved out.

Item #2 - I'm still hoarding music.  I was on the letter R back in 2018.  It's now 2021 and I'm actively working on the letter U and sitting at 172 volumes.  The letters S and T were massive and combined were 60 volumes (vols 112 to 172)

Item #3 - The daughter's braces are off.  Yay!  She has two missing teeth, so we're still trying to figure out if she should get a plate or actually have implants (though that can't really happen until she stops growing).  Speaking of growing, my 12 year old son is as tall as me now.  By the end of the year, I think he'll be the tallest in our family.

Item #4 - We got a new car since our previous car decided to start having some issues.  We got a 2020 Ford Escape and are very happy with it.  Granted, I'll be paying on it for quite a while but I think it was worth it.  The 2012 Fusion that I mainly drive it still driving along after 160,000 miles.   Since I work from home now, I put way fewer miles on it.  In the past year, I only drove 3,000 miles.  

Item #5 - I can't believe we've been in Hamilton OH for 5 years.  I finally stained the deck and the 'stairs to nowhere'.  I went through 4 and 1/2 gallons of Valspar stain and sealer.  I think it looks decent enough.  The water is beading up again, so I know it's doing it's thing.  I got my driver's license renewed today as well.  I went ahead and got the Federally Compliant ID.  They stared at the birth certificate for a while.  I got it when I went to Mexico with my school's Spanish club back in 1990 or 1991.  Considering it's age, it actually looked pretty good, but I could tell they were having a hard time reading the embossed notary stamp which obviously wasn't done hard enough.  Thankfully, they ok'd it.  I really didn't want to have to go through the hassle of getting another copy of it from the county.  BTW, going to the BMV right when they open is the way to go, though checking in electronically is pretty nice as well.

Item #6 - I've added another set to the Stupid Movie Collection.   It's the Definitive TV Western Collection.  

I had been eyeing this one for a while.    This set combines four of the TV Western sets from Mill Creek into one (Essential TV Westerns, Ultimate TV Westerns, Western TV Classics, and Western TV Treasures).   This collection comes in a nice wooden box and consists of 48 discs and contains a total of 600 episodes.  Reading the reviews on Amazon, a few people had busted cases, but I was fortunate and mine was in great condition.

I already had the Ultimate TV Westerns box set, so for a while I was trying to gather up the other three.  I discovered that they had bundled them two at a time in two collections called Western TV Heroes.   Vols 1 and 2.  But no matter how I much I looked on Amazon and eBay, getting the other three was going to cost me as much as just buying the box set itself and I wouldn't have gotten the awesome wooden box.  So I decided to just raise the money taking many surveys. I finally broke down and just bought the darn thing since the other collections and this particular set started to be more and more scarce on eBay and the prices started to go up both on eBay and Amazon.

I occasionally like watching tv westerns, though I think the completist in my took over and I knew I had to have it.  I'm so weird.  In theory this should be my last addition to the Stupid Movie Collection.  Mill Creek has moved on to bigger and much better things.  Glad to see that things are working out for them!

Anyways, I'm pretty sure that no one but me reads this blog and that's okay.  But in case someone is reading this, I hope things are going well for you.  Take care!