Like we need more snow...

The month of January wouldn't be complete without at least one of us coming down with a cold. So when B started sniffling back on the weekend, I knew we were right on track. He had a full-blown cold by Monday morning so we kept him home from school. By Tuesday morning he was feeling much better, but I woke up with an awful sore throat. Great. Just what I needed.

So today I'm working from home, watching the snow fall (again! grrrr...), and trying hard to stay awake after my Nyquil coma from last night. I swear that stuff is great for helping me get to sleep, but I feel like it takes forever to fully wake up the following morning. Or maybe that's the goal of this product? To knock you out for the night and incapacitate you just enough the next morning so you aren't fully aware of how yucky you really feel. Whatever the reason, I'm coining the phrase "Nyquil hangover". Cause that's how I feel right now. Just without that nauseous feeling.

How many IT professionals does it take to troubleshoot a mouse?

I got into work today, put all my stuff away and plugged in the old laptop. Everything was going great and it's Friday so that makes things even better! Next I logged into the hard disk encryption software, then windows started loading. I sipped some tea, cause this sometimes takes a few minutes. Then the windows login prompt came up and I assume the customary finger positions. Left hand - ring finger on Ctrl, index finger on Alt, right hand - middle finger on Delete (my daily salute to Gates) and then.....nothing. Ok, it's a Friday, I'm tired. I must have hit the wrong keys so I do it again. Nothing. Ok, this time I'm watching my fingers like a hawk to make doubly sure I'm hitting the right keys. Still nothing. Great, there's something wrong with the frickin' keyboard. But wait, the Num Lock light is on and I can toggle it on and off. So the keyboard IS responding. WTF?!?!? Now I'm getting irritated. I look at the connection in the back of the docking station. Nothing's loose. Grrr...

Then I sit down and look at the keyboard again. And noticed the scotch tape. On the left-hand Shift key. Holding it down. WTF is that doing there? So I take the tape off and voila! Ctrl+Alt+Delete magically works and I can log into Windows.

So now you know. If you hold down the Shift key while hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete, nothing happens. No login box, nothing. I've been in the IT industry for 10 years now and I had no idea about this little trick. But I think I have a good idea who may have sabotaged my keyboard, so time to retaliate. With another piece of scotch tape. Under his mouse. Blocking the optical sensor. {evil grin} He he he.

So about an hour later he comes into work and I sit and wait to hear the tell-tale sounds of an IT professional troubleshooting a hardware issue. Gets up out of chair - moves docking station around - click, click, click - sits back down - moving the docking station again - an exasperated sigh...

That's when I decided to poke my head up and see what was going on. Convinced that his mouse isn't working, accused me of doing something (which I flatly denied as best I could) but admitted that he had no clue what I could have done to it. I was cracking up inside! Then he said that he'd have to call the help desk and ask for a new mouse. Ok - I thought - that was probably far enough. I decided to offer some "help". I asked him to pick up the mouse, make sure the optical thingy was still shining. Yup, then he put it back down. I told him he might want to look under there again. And that's when he saw the tape.

I feel vindicated! It took him 3x as long to figure out his mouse problem than it took me to figure out my keyboard problem. And now we're even. Until the next round...

I love my co-workers!

The Woes of Winter

It isn't even the end of January yet but I think I'm already suffering from cabin fever. You know the feeling...the longing for warmer temperatures, when the sun would set at 8pm not 5, the smell of flowers blooming, fresh-cut grass. Yeah, ok, I know that's all months away, but a girl can dream can't she?

Actually this is probably a great time to write a letter to mother nature cause I do have one request for her. So here goes:

Dear M. Nature,
If it's not too bold, I'd like to request a few days of above-freezing temperatures. I mean, it's not like we live in the upper reaches of the Northwest Territories here, so a partial thaw could be possible, right? Here is why I ask:

1.) We really need to put up our new mailbox post so I can ditch this routine of going to the post office every day to retrieve our bills and mound of junk mail. I mean, the guy knows me now. I just have to walk in and he high-tails it into the back room to get the dreaded stack. I don't even think the Hulk could break through the 3' of snow and permafrost that is the end of our driveway right now, so we haven't even tried it ourselves yet.

2.) The repeated layers of snow, sleet, ice, then more snow, sleet, etc. that has fallen in recent weeks has turned our driveway into nothing short of a bobsled luge. And unfortunately, my little SUV did not come with a "rails" option to make use of hills and curves. I'd like to think I've gotten pretty good at dodging the trees and shrubs, but I feel as though I'm put to the test every morning on my way to work and I just want to see dry pavement already!

3.) And lastly, I'd like to be able to wash the 6" of salt off my car. Cause my red SUV is starting to look a bit pink these days. And the color pink may be cool and all, but it's not the color I'd pick for a car. So if I could just wash it without fear that the doors are going to freeze shut, that would be great!

So, is it too much to ask for some warmer weather for this weekend? Maybe like 40° or something? I mean, I 'm not looking for an early spring or anything, but something to make me forget that it's still the middle of winter would be nice!

Sincerely,
Srg

Baby it's cold outside!

This was the reading in my car on the way to work this morning. Brrr...

Some Sunday Sledding

So we had a little bit of snow fall on Saturday, but not nearly as much as the weather forecasters had predicted. Even so, Sunday the sun came out and it was perfect weather for sledding. Here is J and B coming down the driveway. It's a nice big hill and great for picking up some serious speed, but that stinking tree at the bottom makes things a wee bit treacherous.



Have no fear - B was fine after that launch from the tube at the end!

And here's one of me and J for that roller coaster effect with me holding the camera.

I'm not a packrat, but I play one on TV

So I received one of those "page a day" calendars for Christmas this year. You know the type - you rip off the page to reveal the day's quote, sudoku puzzle, funny cat picture or dilbert cartoon strip. Then you're left wondering what to do with the page you just tore off. I feel guilty just throwing it away, cause isn't that wasting paper? I mean, there's a whole blank page on the back that could be used for something. So then you start growing a "scrap paper" pile on your desk, you know, for notes and stuff. But wait, I also have a post-it pad on my desk. So now in an effort to justify its existence on my desk, I think I'll just reserve the post-it notes for "important" scribbling cause you know, that sticky strip on the back gives them a higher rank in the paper world than a pile of torn-off page-a-day pages. And now my desk is feng shui happy.

But lately my guilty, don't-waste-paper conscience has amassed quite the collection of old page-a-day pages and I fear I might have to get rid of some of them cause there's just no way I'm going to go through that much paper in a year's time. But I love these little calendars and I don't think I could go a year without one. It's the one form of entertainment I have while I sip on some tea and wait for my PC to boot up in the morning. Plus, I have been getting one of these calendars pretty much every year since I started working in an environment that included a desk to put it on. Holy crap - I just realized I've been working in IT for 10 years now! How the hell did that happen??? Sorry - minor digression...

Anyway, this post really does have a point (after spending 2 whole paragraphs rambling about what to do with useless pieces of paper...) My current calendar is "365 true facts you never knew and probably never needed to know" or something to that extent. Yesterday's fact was rather interesting - "The Hoover Dam was built to last 2000 years. The concrete in it will not be fully cured for another 500 years." Wow - never knew that! But you mean to tell me that after 70+ years, the walls of that dam still aren't dry?? Guess that was before the advent of Quikrete fast-setting concrete products. Anyhoo, today's fact is even more interesting - "Statistically, the safest age of life is 10 years old." Now I'm left wondering exactly what kind of statistics they used to come up with that fact. I think they need to rename that calendar to "365 facts that will leave you asking more questions than we can answer."

Ice skating anyone?

It's a cold icy day up here in the Northeast. After a night of sleet and a ton of freezing rain this morning, our driveway is pretty much skate-able at this point.

So far the electricity has been holding out for us, but the winds are supposed to kick up this evening and with the branches all laden with ice (like this poor Japanese maple), we're sure to see some tree damage by the time the wind dies down.

An award? Pour moi??

Well let me send out a very big "Merci!!" to my life-long friend sj for giving me my very first blog award! How awesome is that! (sj - you'll have to let me know when you and J are free for some wings at JTims cause the first round is on me!)

And of course as with any prize, there are always a few rules to follow...

A) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!
B) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

So here are my 10 honest things:

1.) I am a list-writer. I have lists for everything, which can be good and bad.

2.) I have a tendency to push myself to the point of exhaustion in order to finish all the items on a list of stuff to do. I have no idea why, but my mind plays a game with me that persudes me to finish everything with the reward being that I can kick back and enjoy the next day since I'll have nothing left to do. Well that's a total gimmick cause there's always more stuff to do. So then I end up doubly exhausted and for no good reason.

3.) I'd love to become a writer. The problem is that I read a lot and the more I read the more I doubt my own writing abilities.

4.) B asked me if he could get a baby sister this year and I almost said yes. He even offered to take care of her!

5.) I am so on the fence about having another kid it's crazy. My thoughts about it change by the hour, literally.

6.) I think the cats would kill me if we had another baby in the house. It took them years to accept B.

7.) I ate so much this past holiday season that I am truly amazed I haven't gained 50 pounds already.

8.) I am completely addicted to TiVo. And now I'm completed addicted to 2 new shows (The Tudors and Californication) thanks to 3 free months of Showtime we received for being such loyal TiVo subscribers.

9.) And because of my new show addiction (see #8), I am now completely addicted to NetFlix because I can get every back episode of those shows delivered right to my mailbox. Well in this case right to my post office since our mailbox is still out of commission.

10.) I become addicted to things way too easily! Chocolate is another one...

And here are 7 bloggers that I think are more than worthy for this award:
Brit Gal' in the USA - cause this post was about as honest as it gets!
Emilie au pays de Heidi - ever so honest about her exciting travels
ScopeTech - cause this post says it all about honesty
Southern Belle Lives - very honest in her Australian style!
And Baby Makes Three - even though she hasn't blogged in a while, there's nothing more honest than pregnancy/baby talk!

Ok, I could only come up with 5 blogs that I actively read and either haven't been recognized by sj in her post or haven't won the award already. I guess I need to broaden my blog reading!

A not so happy start to the new year

I took a trip to the end of the driveway Saturday morning to put something in the mailbox (and if you've ever seen our driveway, you'd agree with me that it's a long enough walk to be considered a "trip") and I found this:

Yup - that's what is left of our mailbox. A pile of cedar rubble in the snow.

Yet another reason that we need to invest in a surveillance system for the end of our driveway since it isn't visible from the house. Of course, we've had similar discussions in the not so distant past because this is not the first but the 4th time our mailbox has been knocked over. However, the past 3 times had only resulted in the box getting destroyed. Which was a pain, but easy enough to replace with a new box given the fact that the post was still in tact. Well this time they managed to slice right through the cedar post as well. We're thinking someone must have done it with a plow since there is no evidence of an impact with a car like broken glass or paint marks. So now we have to try to find a way to dig through the permafrost (ok, maybe it isn't permafrost, but the ground is dang frozen anyway!) and put up a whole new post and mailbox. Not the way I planned on starting the new year!

Actually right now I'm thinking of calling up our masons to see if they could put up a 3'x 3' stone pillar that's oh, around 6 or so feet tall and embedding the mailbox in there. I'd love to see what would happen to the ding-bat's truck/plow/etc. if they tried knocking that over!

Happy New Year!!

I may be 5 days late with my new year's post, but between going back to work, getting B ready to head back to school, putting decorations away, cleaning the house, downloading all the holiday pictures (followed by uploading them to kodak, facebook etc.), I figure better late than never! And I have not made any resolutions this year. It has been noted that whenever I do make a resolution, I can never keep it for some reason or other. So this year I didn't bother. Plus I'm still in the middle of my Christmas resolution which was/is to copy all of my recipes to cute little cards and organize them in a cute little book. I was hoping to get that done before the new year, and truthfully I probably would have been able to finish it, but it wasn't my fault that I didn't. I ran out of cards. I copied a little over 60 of the recipes I had and I still have another 30 or so to go. So hopefully my new cards will be arriving soon. I am thankful for the break though - my hand was really starting to cramp up. I haven't done that much writing since grad school!