College is closed today. For the first time in a decade, Earl has closed his plant due to weather and has canceled his traveling plans, so he’s home all day too.
And it’s Valentine’s Day.
The snowblowing can wait until tonight. After all, if you’re going to move one foot of snow, you might as well move two.
Everybody snuggle!
I received my first grade of the semester in my English Composition class. I’m delighted to say that I got an “A”. My paper was about my weight loss from cycling.
I was a little concerned about my paper because I tend to write in a conversational style. I attribute this to my blog, as well as my training as an ad copy writer back in my radio broadcasting days. Nevertheless, the instructor found the paper delightful and all is well with the world. I had to submit my latest paper for the class today, which was a “process essay”. I wrote an article on how to grow a mustache. I figured I was a pretty good at it and familiar with the subject so I might as well write about it. I even invited the ladies to join in on the fun, but I doubt any of them will.
We are now under a “heavy storm warning” with three feet of snow being targeted for our little area. While I love going to school very much, I can’t help but be as giddy as a school kid at the thought of a snow day tomorrow. If classes are canceled tomorrow, the adult in me will kick in and use the opportunity to get ahead on my studies.
Especially since we’re fresh out of bon bons.
The National Weather Service is promising us another blast of winter this week. This should prove to be interesting.
NYZ009-015>018-036-037-131130- /O.CON.KBGM.HS.W.0001.070213T2000Z-070215T0000Z/ NORTHERN ONEIDA-YATES-SENECA-SOUTHERN CAYUGA-ONONDAGA-MADISON- SOUTHERN ONEIDA- 1017 PM EST MON FEB 12 2007 ...HEAVY SNOW WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 PM TUESDAY TO 7 PM EST WEDNESDAY... A HEAVY SNOW WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 PM TUESDAY TO 7 PM EST WEDNESDAY. SNOW IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON...AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES LATE TUESDAY NIGHT AND DURING THE DAY WEDNESDAY. THE SNOW WILL TAPER OFF TO SNOW SHOWERS EARLY EVENING WEDNESDAY. BY THE TIME THE SNOW ENDS WEDNESDAY NIGHT...10 TO 20 INCHES OF SNOW ACCUMULATION IS POSSIBLE. SOME LOCATIONS COULD SEE LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS.
It’s a good thing I bought two gas cans full of fuel for the snowblower. It sounds like I’m going to need it.
I’ve been doing pretty well with my good health efforts since the beginning of the year. The change in pace from becoming a student has been beneficial in that I feel more active and more awake than I have in years. I don’t if it’s because I’m not sitting behind a desk all day anymore or if it’s because I’m actually thinking rather than going through the motions of a job, but I feel like I’m cooking with gas. The scale hasn’t flown across the bathroom in a couple of weeks as it’s spinning up the right numbers when requested.
However, I feel like I’ve put this streak of good health into jeopardy with the baking of double-chocolate brownies last night. There was a mix in the cupboard, I was in the mood to bake, so viola, instant decadance. I’m sitting here at the kitchen table eating some soup for lunch and all I can think about are brownies. I bet I could sit down and eat the entire pan of brownies and not leave one morsel behind. There’s something so comforting about brownies. I don’t know if it’s because they smell so good or invoke memories of grandma’s homemade brownies after school but my goodness they are screaming out my name.
I will be strong, I will be strong, I will be strong.
I’m going to slice off one little piece for dessert and then muster up all the will power I can to leave it at that. I’m sure the scale will thank me for it later.
Earl and I continued our work in the basement today. We are now getting his space ready so he can move his office down into the cellar. Then we won’t have to rely on instant messenger to communicate, as he’s currently upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms and I’m in the basement.
Such a technolife we lead.
No home improvement project is complete without a visit to Home Depot or Lowe’s so today we chose the former. When all is said and done I think I’ll be ready to wire the electric service for an entire house, as we were able to install two new receptacles, complete with surface wire molding and tie it into the house current in less than 30 minutes. They say opposites attract, and that must be true, because Earl and I have completely opposite ways of approaching a project, but after almost eleven years of doing this, we have a system that works for both of us.
One of the changes that came about was the relocation of my favorite clock from my school clock collection.
This clock is from my elementary school. Back in 2000 the school district replaced all the clocks by popping out the face, glass and hands and bolting a new clock on top of the wood casing. This clock had been removed for a remodeling project and wasn’t reinstalled, so they offered it to me when they found out I was a collector of these clocks. From what I’ve been able to find out, the clocks in my elementary school were custom designed for that school (there’s no documentation anywhere and this particular style clock hasn’t been found anywhere else to my knowledge) so this could be the last clock left completely intact. It’s rather loud when it advances, so those that sleep in the spare bedroom will be glad that it’s been moved to a new location.
We are traveling to the Big Apple next weekend, so the home improvement project will have to be on hold until after the flooring for the locker room/office arrives.
It always comes around these parts at this time of year. The snow keeps falling. The snowblower keeps blowing. And the natives get surly while they’re snug in their homes waiting for the sun to shine once again. We call it “cabin fever”.
Earl and I spent the day moving furniture and cleaning around the house. It hasn’t been the most exciting weekend we’ve had together, but at least it’s been productive. I’ve been out of work for 42 days so I thought I should unpack the box of my belongings from my old desk. Hence the photo of the very technical piece of telecommunications equipment pictured above. There is an antiquated piece of equipment called a “reflectometer” which was used to troubleshoot the telephone network. Back in my on call days we had a customer that would call us and tell us that we needed to use one of them on his phone lines. I would just agree with him and clock the overtime. When I mentioned at the office that I didn’t know what this customer was talking about, this was on my desk. It was a gift from a co-worker a couple of years ago. It was used to monitor how pissed I was becoming while providing technical support. It’s now part of my new office in our basement.
Perhaps I should shine it on the lawn and melt some of this snow.
The moving into the new “creative space” continues this weekend. I had to pause for a moment to show off my “Ray Of Light” platinum CD, complete with my name on the bottom. “Presented to commemorate RIAA certified multi-platinum sales of more than 3,000,000 copies of the Warner Brothers Record cassette and C.D. ‘Ray of Light'”.
I know every radio station gets these, but this one at least has my name on it.
I made a promise to myself today. The next time Earl and I are househunting we are only looking at houses on dead end streets. Actually, as an aspiring civil engineer I’ve come to learn that there are groups out there trying to abolish the term “Dead End” on road signs because it’s too negative sounding. Apparently the city folks that are moving out to the country are depressed by reading signs that say “Dead End”. They prefer “No Outlet”, which doesn’t necessarily mean “dead end” but it’s happier sounding to them. I say get your ass back to the other side of the bridge where you belong and mind your own business.
But I digress.
Cleaning out the driveway has become an almost twice a day event this week. At last measurement (as seen by my handy posts in this photo above) we were just shy of three feet of snow covering our lawn. While the folks in my native northern Oswego County have over twice as much, I’m rather impressed with the amount of snow that we’ve been blessed with. The National Weather Service has just issued another Winter Storm Warning for our area, we could see up to two more feet of snow by late Sunday night.
It’s a good thing I don’t mind running the snowblower!
The reason I want to live on a dead end street in the future is so I don’t have to keep stopping to let every car pass in fear of hitting them with snow/rocks/grass/etc with the snowblower. In addition, I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands as these idiots in vehicles entirely too large for them to handle are bombing down our road like it’s the Indy 500. The roads are snow covered with a generous amount of ice underneath. There’s a bit of sand courtesy of the county highway department to help provide traction, but for goodness sake people, slow down! If there’s a game out there where you earn points for hitting people shoveling or snowblowing, I’m not playing as one of the pawns.
My school proudly proclaims that it has only closed for the entire day twice in the past twelve years.
We are a hearty lot.
Here in Upstate New York we have a car dealership that sort of exploded in the past ten years and has opened several mammoth dealerships all over the state. He carries every car brand imaginable this side of the AMC Pacer. I’m not going to name his dealership by name as I don’t want to lend a hand in free advertising on his behalf, but his trademark is that “it’s huge”, in the most gutteral, annoying, uneducated belch of words possible. He has pretty much become the Wal*mart of the auto dealer set.
He is as annoying as hell.
First of all, the public is constantly barraged with his image. Everywhere. There’s a huge billboard on Interstate 81 in Syracuse with the word “huge”, his ugly mug and his arms spread wide like some sort of manic bird. He has a clock up there and it’s never right. Since stationary images are never enough, Centro, the regional transportation agency, has sold advertising space to him. So naturally you would think that his picture is on the back and/or sides of the bus. Wrong. The buses are completely wrapped in his image, forcing riders that must ride the bus and care to look out the window to do so by gazing through his hairy nostril or around his hairy armpit. Those in the back look through his teeth.
It’s disgusting.
As I’ve mentioned countless times, I worked in radio for over a decade. I’ve always been a fan of radio. However, I will not listen to a station that runs his ads. I don’t care if they are playing a string of Kylie Minogue, Madonna and The Pet Shop Boys constantly, if you stop the music for one of his commercials, your station is promptly on the SL and it’s staying there until XM or Sirius falls out of orbit. Now he doesn’t buy one ad to run four or five times a day like most sane organizations. No. This guy purchases one or two 60 second slots per break (what we in the industry called stop sets) and then barks out his “huge” numerous times and talks to some announcer shill guy named Tom over the phone. Tom acts like he’s at the car lot and Billy is out finding new deals for his buyers. Cluephone boys, we know that Tom is in some cushy studio in Florida and Billy is actually at one of his many dealerships barking over a speakerphone, because we’ve also heard Tom on spots in New Orleans, Orlando and Atlanta and they weren’t with you Billy. How does that make you feel, knowing that Tom is chatting it up with other car dealers too? He’s a manwhore.
I have now come to the point where I will terrorize a driver with a car with the little license plate frame that tells the name of this dealership. It is beyond my comprehension why any self-respecting person would make the largest or second-largest purchase of their life with this idiot.
When Earl and I travel, I take a certain comfort in knowing that Auto Idiot #1 will be left behind and it’s safe to listen to the radio. But no, now he’s in Niagara Falls, he’s in Albany and god knows where else. I think the only way to escape him is to go to the other side of the Mississippi.
I wish someone would just tell this guy to shut up, pack up your money and get the hell away from us. We don’t find you cute. We don’t find you articulate. We don’t find you clever and we certainly don’t find you pretty.
Just go away. Please. Oh, the cluephone is ringing again. We know why you keep barking out “huge”. It’s to make up for the more important parts that aren’t so huge.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
