Month: January 2002

Yay. Winter’s here. :P They’re predicting a “parfait of precipitation” today and tomorrow. So far, we’ve had some ice, then a layer of snow. Later, we’re going to get sleet, then freezing rain. Tomorrow, we’ll top it off with slush and more freezing rain. Fun! I was amazed when I woke up to our local school being closed (the school is easy walking distance from our house) when there was only maybe a half-inch of snow on the ground. By the time we left the house about an hour later, at least another inch had fallen, and it was coming down faster. I’m not sure how we’ll get in the driveway later… Well, at least it’s nearly February. Only about four more months before spring arrives. :)

Sleepy!
I’m very sleepy today – I didn’t sleep very well last night. I’ve been feeling kind of guilty because the other night I woke up at 3AM to find Molly curled up in a ball outside our bedroom door (we have a baby gate across it to keep her out). She looked so miserable, like she was trying to be as close to us as she could. So, last night I put everything she could get into away, cleaned the stray bits of stuff off the floor (I was much too tired to vacuum) and took the gate away. She was so happy, tail wagging, sniffing everything in the room, just hanging out. But when Denis turned the lights out, she went down to the family room. So, I spent the whole night listening for the jingle-jangle of the tags on her collar, hoping she’d come back upstairs…and worried that if she did she’d find something I hadn’t put away to get into trouble with! Of course, she also picked last night to bark at random things just about every 20 minutes, so even if we hadn’t opened up the gate I probably would’ve been up half the night. I used to be a very heavy sleeper, until I got a dog. I would imagine it’s much worse when you have children to listen for in the middle of the night!

The “Digital” Generation
My “little” brother, who just turned 17 yesterday, doesn’t know what shrinky dinks are. I mean, I realize there’s a nine-year difference in our ages (yes, if you do the math you can figure out how old I am) but I never knew he led such a deprived childhood! I’m going to have to buy him a shrinky dink set on my way home tonight. Thankfully, he does know what an easy-bake oven is and has seen (and possibly used) a lite-brite. :)

No Internet!
Ack! I’ve been without the internet all weekend… Actually, considering how lovely it was outside, it really wasn’t that big a problem. Except that I’m running out of chai, and had to wait until today to order it. Priorities, of course. :)

But, since Denis destroyed the internet (well, really, all he did was take down our router/firewall, and I probably could have managed to alter my settings so I could get out, but that would have taken some degree of effort – and besides, I’ve been sick of looking at a computer screen for many days now) we got lots done this weekend. The rest of my bulbs are in the ground, impatiently waiting for the real spring weather to appear. We patched the hole in the kitchen ceiling – another round of sanding and one more layer of spackle, and it might be ready for painting! I took two really long walks with Molly. And all the laundry and grocery shopping are done. (So much for getting tons of stuff done on my master’s project this weekend!)

I have a temporary fix for my images… This weekend I’ll have to do something better…

Waah! My image hosting service (RoadRunner) has suddenly been denied access through my firewall at work!!! Now none of my images show up… (Of course, anyone reading this who doesn’t work here should have no problems at all.)

Programming Marathon
Between work and my master’s project, I have not stopped looking at a computer monitor for three weeks now. Last night I couldn’t take it anymore, so I picked up Lord of the Rings again. I read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, and I only have 75 pages left. If I could’ve just stayed up a little longer… Tonight I’ll allow another evening off from my project to finish the book, but then it’s back to non-stop coding until May.

How can it possibly be Monday already? I spent almost the entire weekend working on my master’s project. As a result, I have absolutely no desire to be looking at a computer screen today, but unfortunately, that’s my job. :P At least I got a lot done. I’m planning on doing a demo for my advisor tomorrow, so I wanted to have it as polished as possible by then. There’s still a lot of work to do, but what’s there is really starting to look great!

In between bouts of frantic coding, we played a couple of games of Iron Dragon. It’s this really fun railroad game where you draw with crayons on a laminated board and go from city to city picking up and dropping off stuff. I lost both times, but it was still fun. Crayons are definitely a great break from the keyboard! Maybe I should buy a box for the office so I can color for a bit when I get tired of staring at the monitor…

TGIF!
Today is Denis’ birthday! We’re going out to a Japanese restaurant later for something I can’t spell. It sounds like “shabu-shabu”, but I’m sure that’s wrong – it really looks silly! Anyway, he had it in Japan, and has been dying to get it again ever since, so we found a place that actually serves it. We’ll see if it’s authentic or not.

I’m just so glad it’s Friday. I have been in a miserably crabby mood all week and I’m really happy that it’s almost over! Hopefully I’ll get lots more done on my master’s project this weekend, and be in a better mood on Monday. Well, Tuesday, since Monday is just not a good day to count on being in a good mood (especially with an 8am meeting!)