I had a few days off work, St Patrick's day came and went, we got 4 feet of snow and the US started bombing Baghdad. I don't think so much has happened between blog entries. Today was a snow day. After being only one of 5 people who made it into work yesterday, and a rather hairy drive home, I had decided that if we got any more snow I was staying put. We got another couple of feet overnight so I was well and truly snowed in. The piles of snow from shoveling sidewalks and driveways is quite spectacular, and this is the most snow I have ever experienced. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to going to work tomorrow. If the alley opens up a bit more and the side street snow melts I may chance it, if not I'm quite content to wait for the city snow ploughs...which may not arrive until Friday!

I was surfing a few weeks ago and found the website of one of the programmers I used to work with at RMI. I just loved her Feb 7th, 2003 entry in her blog and just had to incorporate it into my blog. Currently we are oscillating between yellow and orange until “W” pulls the lever, then we really will need the moist towelettes.

Today I saw one of those things you think you'll never see in real life. Sure I get my fair share of e-mail attachments showing silly things, but I never think they are real; must be someone's touch up in Photoshop. Well, not today!

While driving to work I noticed a driver get out of his car at a stop sign and run back and say something to the driver of the car behind (a male driver I might add). When the car got to the stop sign it turned off the road...and there it was, the remains of a gas pump. The silly guy had driven away from the gas station with the pump nozzle and about 10 feet of hose still injected into the side of his car. As I sat in my car looking at the incredulous sight, the driver got out of his car and walked round as if to check on a tire or something, then nonchalantly removed the offending hose, closed his gas cap, got back in his car and drove off.

Ahem, I'll have no more jokes about women drivers!

Ah age, something we just cannot stop and something that is very close to me at the moment. So, when I find something that stands up for older women I like to promote it. What is not good is that this wonderful article listing the merits of older women is listed in a joke archive!!!
It's not funny, it's true!!!!!!
...well it better be, I'm dangerously close to joining the club.

There is no way plastic wrap and duct tape will stop chemicals and biological particles entering my house. After I have covered all the windows and doors it will come in through the furnace and drier outlet. I love the duct tape jokes on Slate. They made me realize that the true use for the stuff is probably to joke about it and lift our spirits.
Now I want to know what we are supposed to do with moist towelettes ?

So, I average between 3 and 4 miles a day just doing my usual work. If I walk to the post office and to the store for milk I can do over 5 miles - that's a decent goal for the summer. Recently the weather has been very cold, so I haven't been doing much walking; I'm waiting for the temperatures to go above freezing. Call me a wuss, I just don't like walking in the cold!

I bought a couple of pedometers off the Internet earlier in the week and they arrived yesterday. They are rather cool as they measure steps, distance traveled and calories burned. My mother was a nurse and always claimed that nurses walked an average of 5 miles a day. Since I have a desk job I wondered, in comparison, how far I walk a day. I have been awake for an hour and have done 641 steps = 0.25 of a mile. I think I probably do a little more than most as I prefer to walk to someone's desk rather than call them. Also, around 3pm I usually fidget and have to move to get the blood flowing to my brain!
My goal is to walk 5 miles a day.

Yesterday, the company I work for had the afternoon off to go to the movies. The first plan was to see About Schmidt, which I was vaguely interested in seeing. Then, someone complained and the decision was made that we were going to see Shanghai Knights, a film that I was not even remotely interested in. Finally, enough people complained and the group was split between Shanghai Knights and Daredevil a movie I could tolerate. I'm not really in to J.Lo's boyfriend and the violence was quite shocking -- I must be getting old.

Whooph! What a weekend.

On Saturday I met a group of people I used to work with. It was a "sign-of the times" meeting. We all used to work for an ISP that is now no longer with us. Even when we worked there we knew management didn't #1. understand the technology and #2. didn't know how to run a business if their life depended on it. It was the usual thing, all the good people got fired and the so-called experts brought in to save the company didn't understand the business well enough to know who the customers were and how to best serve them. Our group was part of hosting, Web development and maintenance and we were all casualties of the dot.com bust. Many of the group were still unemployed and of those with jobs most were in a totally different field (retail, teaching or back in school). People with good jobs had moved out of state. It made me very thankful that I am in roughly the same multimedia position.

Another Hallmark day.

I think this day should become
Heart Health day where you wish your loved ones good health and learn CPR. Money would be spent on fighting heart disease and stroke research. You could still go out for a romantic dinner, but the restaurants would have heart-healthy meals and people would exercise instead of eating chocolate.

May be I'll just do that anyway