Blogrilla

So I’ve done it. I used my company’s connections to HP to get a big
discount off of a new iPod. I called up “Joe” at our distributor and at
first he wanted to talk about how many I wanted and I had to confess it
was only one. So he hooked me up with a 20GB iPod+HP at a good price.

I
paid for it with my American Express card then transferred the money
from my savings account, to my checking account. THEN I went the Amex
web site and paid them for the iPod right away! hot diggity. I love a
good use for technology.

Now I have to look at accessories. I
think I will want one of the docking stations… but maybe not. I think
I’ll want something like their iTrip so I can get my tunes in the car.
What else? I’m not sure.

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http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=64965

This article in the Boston Herald is about the snow storm. Buried deep
in the 16th paragraph is the fact that Melrose got 36″ of snow! I TOLD
YOU IT WAS A LOT OF SNOW! Now the National Weather Service is there to
back me up. Also the temperature only got up to TEN degrees. And in
fact it won’t get anywhere close to the freezing mark for at least a
week. The warmest we’re likely to see is 22 degrees!!

criminy!

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I got lots of exercise yesterday with all the snow, but today was
looking like a pretty quiet indoorsy type of day. With so many people
being out and work being so quiet I figured I would squeeze in another
visit to the fitness center. So I did. It was exhausting but I think it
did me some good. I notice I’ve lost three pounds without doing very
much. In fact, last week I didn’t visit the fitness center at work or
at the Y. So I’m hoping this works out.

I’m taking a few minutes at my desk before getting some lunch because.
1. Despite a thorough shower I’m still sweating and need some more cool-down time
2. I’m frankly a little out of breath and need some more cool-down time

Its a beautiful, sunny, very cold day out today. In fact its begging to for me to be elsewhere.

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We’ve had a lot of snow today. Liz and I are pooped out from all
the digging! I’m proud of the result, though. The driveway
is completely clear and the sidewalk looks good. We dug through a
lot of snow and ice to get to the road. The pile of ice
that the plow threw up was probably four feet tall and maybe five
feet across at the base. Part of the trick is that you can’t just
toss the snow to either side of the drive way. As you look
at the house, it has to go to the left — because when the plow comes
through it will push any extra snow that’s to the right back in
to the drive way. That means there’s a fair amount of
throwing or walking involved.

Now I’m trying to find out if I have work tomorrow. The kids have
no school. Boston has no school tomorrow or the day after.
I just logged on to work to see what kind of policies we have in
place to deal with this. Sometimes its staight-forward: If
there’s a state of emergency, there’s no work. But when is a
“state of emergency” over? I know Mitt Romney declared one
yesterday but does it extend all the way in to tomorrow?

I think half the people won’t show up, but I think that, as usualy, I’ll be in the half that does show up.  Ah well.

Also, it looks like my beloved New England Patriots are kicking the TAR out of Pittsburg!  HAH! 

Eat it, Steelers.

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Liz and I went out and shoveled for about 45 minutes or so. Gabriel was a pleasure to have along.  He had fun digging out the car.  We got the whole front sidewalk cleared and passable.  Its not the usual three feet across, but its maybe two feet across!  Its neat and was a good start.  We also got the car mostly cleared out.  There’s still one side left and Liz got about 30% in to the terrible pile of snow made by the plow in front of the driveway!

Ain’t she something?

In any case, we’re inside for a little rest right now.  I can feel the strain in all my muscles and they need a few minutes to rest.  However, I see that its 3:33pm already.  It will be dark in an hour, so I should really get back out there in a few minutes.

The sun is out.  The snow is still blowing around somewhat but not enough to slow us down too much.  The woman across the street dug out her steps and a little path to the street.  Then she walked down the street to her driveway and started work on that.  My next door neighbor, Maurice had his car dug out and the sidewalk cleared by about 11:30am!

Well, back to it, I guess.  I need to wrap this up in time to watch the Patriots kick the daylights out of Pittsburg at 6:30pm!

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HOLY CRAP!!  I can’t believe how much snow is out there!  I
can’t tell you either.  The news stations are putting it around
two feet right now with another eight to ten inches predicted for
today.  The reason I can’t tell you is that 50mph winds keep
blowing the light snow all over the neighborhood and the drifts are
piling up in funny ways.  While we can get out of the house just
fine — the wind blew a spot clear for us — we can’t get to the cars
or in to the garage.  There’s a drift on top of the car and in
front of the garage that goes over the roof.  They’re predicting
the wind will go on all morning for sure, but I’m hoping it eases off
in the afternoon.

The good news is that because of the heavy winds there’s no way I’m
shovelling while its doing THAT.  You clear a spot of snow and
five minutes later its filled with snow again!  Crazy!  The
kids initially wanted to go out and play in it.

Before I start digging I’ll post some photos.

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Weather!  I can’t believe this.  Now they have maps on TV of which areas will get how much snow.

Worcester is getting 12″.  South shore: 18″.  Right around Boston:   24″+

rats.  At least I’ll have all day to do it.

HA!  One more thing.  It turns out that I didn’t misread the
thermometer!  It really did say 20 degrees despite the temperature
outside being only two!  I figured out why.  It fell off its
little stand and had been buried in the snow where it was 20 degrees!

HA!  funny, eh?

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When I got up this morning I looked at the new thermometer my folks got
me. Its wireless and shows me the temperature outside. I was a little
surprised when I saw that it was 20 degrees outside — I had expected
it to be significantly colder. Nonetheless I dress pretty much the same
for FREEZING as I do for REALLY COLD. When I went outside I thought it
felt much colder than 20, but decided that it was probably the wind
that was blowing.

Nonetheless when I got to work I thought I
would check on what the Weather Underground had to say about it. They
said it was only ONE degree out!! And with the wind, it felt like it
was eighteen below zero!! I wondered if my thermometer had blown a
gasket, so to say, but then I realized that it was probably just fine.
It was ME that needed an adjustment.

When I looked at the
thermometer I didn’t notice the decimal point. It was really saying
that it was only TWO POINT ZERO degrees!

Holy cow, is that
cold!! Now I’m at work and its 72 and fluorescent — just like always.
The house was a little cold this morning. I should change some of the
thermostat programs so they don’t let it get so cold. I think right now
they’re set to let it get down to 55 in the night. That’s too cold.

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Its been a difficult day at work. That is, while I can be proud of the quality and quantity of work completed today, it was nerve wracking getting it all done. I’ve been busting ass all day long and never quite catching up. Here it is, 3:10pm and I’m just now starting to feel like I can get started on my usual work. Sometimes, instead of falling apart bit by bit everything comes down at once.

Whew!

In any case, I hear that Gabriel is still sick. He hasn’t eaten today and isn’t interested in fluids. Liz is forcing him to sip water but he doesn’t want to. I’m going to bring home some Gatorade and see if that doesn’t pique his interest. He didn’t vomit last night or all day today, but is under the weather anyway. Chloe is finally recovered. Ben complained about feeling sick but hasn’t displayed any symptoms (Technicolor yawn). With some kind of bug making the rounds of the house it seemed prudent to keep him home.

Liz must be getting really tired of being house-bound with sick kids. I know that the last couple of nights she’s been particularly tired. Oh yeah, she said something about a cold that’s been creeping up on her slowly. She says that she wishes the bug would just do its worst and get it over with, rather than continuing to run her down day-after-day.

Me? I’m fine. Except that I’m a lousy exerciser. I HAVE to get back to it.

I got a happy-birthday package at work from my brother today. It had some cool LED lights that plug in to the USB port on a computer. Why? Why not?! They’re for decoration. There was also a plasma mug  — maybe you’ve seen something like it at Spencer’s or some other novelty store.  There was also a stamp that says “Complete and Utter Bullshit”. I’m not sure when that will come in handy but I’ll be ready for that eventuality! Maybe I can sneak over to my boss’s desk and stamp all his “important” papers for him while he’s gone.

We got three inches of snow last night. As usual I got up early and started shoveling long before the stinking sun came up. Fortunately it was pretty light and fluffy stuff. It took maybe twenty minutes to shovel all the snow and another five minutes to salt and another five minutes to clear and prep the car. Like I’ve said before, it isn’t difficult, just unpleasant.

More snow is due on Sunday. I think maybe we will go ice skating this Sunday. My feet feel good. I’m healthy. Heck, lets go ice skating and wreck it all! I’ll probably fall and concuss myself in to a week away from work!

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So how did the transfer go? Perfectly! I was really
concerned that it wouldn’t go so well. We were trying to send
2.6GB of data across the internet for 48 hours! There are so many
things that could possibly go wrong! But none of them did.

Actually, one of them did. My brother confessed that he
accidentally ejected the disc early on but he suspects that WS_FTP
managed the connection so well that it didn’t wreck the whole thing!

We both agreed that transferring a file of that size rendered his
connection unusable — I’ve seen the same thing happen with mine when I
upload files.

We watched the episode of Lost last night and quite enjoyed it.
About every minute the screen would freeze and pixelate. While I
wouldn’t want to watch TV that way on a regular basis we were so
thrilled to have the episode that we didn’t mind the
interruptions. I mentioned this to my brother who expressed some
surprise. I have to agree. I don’t know where the problem
came in, though. Its a new DVD recorder that made the disc.
Copying of the file shouldn’t have resulted in any degredation of the
image.

So he’s looking in to it.

Chloe is feeling better. She’s stopped vomiting and used today to
recuperate. She stayed home from school. Gabriel started
feeling sick to his stomach this morning. so he stayed home. Ben
also stayed home as well — it was SUPER cold out and the other kids
were sick.

Gabriel says he is feeling better now but if you ask me (and you
didn’t) he looks awful. He’s staying home again tomorrow, but the
other kids are going back to school.

The weatherman is calling for 1″ to 3″ of snow tonight, too. I
should probably plan on doing some shoveling in the morning. Its
a rough way to start the day, I can tell you.

I haven’t been back to the fitness center to exercise this week.
Today I went to Whisker’s for a haircut. I really like getting my
haircut there. Its close to 1000% better than “Mike’s” barbershop
down on the corner. It turns a chore in to something to look
forward to. So I didn’t have time during the day to work
out.
Yesterday I had to go to the post office to send a birthday
package to my nephew Aidan.

He’s turning three years old.  Yuppers!  The big
Oh-Three!  Some said he’d never make it to three.  Not
me.  I always had confidence.  In any case, I could have
exercised either Monday or Tuesday in the evenings but it was so nasty
out and I was so tired I decided to stay home and watch TV — a far cry
from actually doing something healthy.

While I want to watch LOST tonight, I’d also like to exercise. 
Due to last week’s recording SNAFU I don’t think I can convince Liz to
record it and watch it at 9pm.  I guess instead I will put off the
bike until 9pm and then exercise.  What I hate about that is that
I will be tired and then I will shower and head to bed.  That
pretty much brings the day to a close.

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