Ups and Downs of the week.

 Springtime is here – Into the 70s today. Loved every minute of it. I left work early just to get out and enjoy it.

  “Unofficial” St. Patrick’s Day – Annual excuse for student drunkenness and stupidity. Thank the greedy bar owners who started and continue to promote this nonsense.

 Team Brawn? – Looks like former Team Honda will be back in Formula One this year, albeit with Mercedes engines. Not sure what the team will be called yet, but former Ferrari guru Ross Brawn bought the team outright. Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button will return as the team’s drivers.

 Dad – Walking several laps of the hallways now and climbing stairs. Still looking good for him to be going home soon.

  Boston Bruins – 3-5-2 in their last 10 including three consecutive losses. They’re still in first place in the Eastern Conference, barely.

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Clarksville, TN – Nice place. I’m visiting my nephew who is stationed at Ft. Campbell. I was stationed there 30 years ago and today I stood in the same office where I worked back then. My nephew is the First Sergeant of the unit occupying those same buildings.

  Ice storm – The ice storm that hit southern Illinois and Kentucky last month wreaked havoc on the trees here. Check out the damage just along I-24. (Excuse the somewhat poor shots. I shot these while driving without really aiming.)

 Bugout Gear – Nice equipment. I bought a black backpack today that can be expanded for a weeks’ worth of clothes and all my electronics or collapsed for just carrying overnight stuff. Very versatile stuff.

  Stomach woes – Still suffering from frequent sour stomach. Blech.

 Dad – Walking a bit. Now he just needs to be able to stand up by himself and he can come home.

I turned 50 today. Yep, Elvis and I share the same birthday. I don’t feel 50. I still feel like I haven’t even settled into a career yet, like that is all still to come. I do feel like it’s time to start living out some dreams I’ve always had, like owning a decent sports car and traveling to places like Hawaii and Prague and so on.

I also need to get in better shape, or I won’t be feeling as well by the time I hit 60. It’s much harder to lose weight now than it used to be, but sadly much easier to gain it. Maybe I need another year-long stint at UPS. During the year I worked for them I lost 60 pounds. Who needs a gym membership when your job keeps you fit? There’s a reason you don’t see any overweight UPS drivers. 🙂

Ups and Downs of the week.

 Home again – Be it ever so humble, there’s no place as comfortable as home.

  Blago and Burris – What a pair of losers.

  Feeling healthy again – Whatever it was that had me feeling lousy over the holidays is gone now. ‘Bout time.

 Celtics and Bruins – Both teams still smoking along and on top of their game.

Ups and Downs of the week.

   Gas prices this week – Yesterday morning regular was $1.48. It had been going down, so I decided to wait to fill up on the way home. That afternoon, when I was just about out of gas, the price had jumped to $1.65, so it cost me $3.40 more to fill up than it would have that morning. Today it’s back down to $1.59, so I could have saved $1.20 if I had been able to wait. Now I know this is all bus fare as far as money goes, and I’m very glad I’m paying only $30 or so to fill up, but the constant up and down drives me nuts. It’s like they just decide that Thursday will be ripoff day and jack up the price for a day.

   Our esteemed governor – He and his trash-mouth wife are a pair of self-serving, cold-hearted crooks. And he even has the gall to deny doing anything wrong despite tapes recording his despicable behavior.  Unbelievable.

  End of the semester – I need this break.

  Mount Washington Observatory (MWOBS) vest – Thin, light, and very warm. Best buy I’ve made in a long time. Had to buy one for Sarah because she kept stealing mine.

 Boston Celtics – 14 wins in a row. Incredible. This team could even surpass last year’s dominators.

 Bruins – Also looking good this year. Finally.

Ups and Downs of the week.

  Cranberry Sauce - Best part of a Thanksgiving dinner. 

   Research Papers – I swear, no more after this semester. 

  Inniskillin Eiswein – Very tasty. 

   Black Friday nutcases - Willing to injure others to save a dime. Pathetic. 

  Gas prices - Still down. Hope it lasts until we get back from our Christmas trip.

Ups and Downs of the week.

  Progress – Dad is finally out of the cardiac hospital and into a rehab hospital. Now the rebuilding begins. He’s lost a lot of muscle and will need to learn to walk again, but it’s a step towards home. He’s happy and so are we. I’m hoping he’ll be home by Christmas.

   Saturday morning tests – What an awful time to plan a final; the Saturday starting a big vacation week.

  Time off - Even though it’ll be a working “vacation,” it’s time I need badly.

    Big Three Auto Company Bailout – On the one hand it’s important to try to keep people working, but on the other they still have to sell cars, which they haven’t really been able to do effectively.

   The Economy- Getting worse by the day.

I mean a real vacation. Something with a beach and warm breezes and bottomless Margaritas. Some place where my mind can just drift. No phones, no kids, no cold rain, no school work, no server worries, no email, no internet, no driving, no newspapers, no TV. Maybe a good book would be ok.

It seems lately that annoyances are everywhere. Last weekend we went out to eat at our favorite Indian restaurant in Champaign. Just after we sat down, a family came in and I knew right away they’d be obnoxious. The two kids, especially the little boy, were quite loud and the parents’ only reaction to their outbursts were to shhhh them. Over and over and over. Then the kids starting singing “Frère Jacques” and the parents joined in!! So instead of my wife and I having a nice dinner conversation, we were treated to two verses of the world’s most annoying song. We couldn’t get out of there quickly enough. Then this past weekend we went into our favorite Thai place in Urbana and the same family was there!! No singing this time, but the same “this is our living room” attitude. Luckily the place filled up and the generic background noise drowned them out.

Today I received a laptop from our office in Chicago. This laptop is a Dell with the idiotic Media Direct button on it. Apparently the owner pushed the button by mistake and it now will only boot to Media Direct. After searching for answers online, I learned that this is a common problem with such laptops. The Media Direct application overwrites the Master Boot Record (MBR), supposedly temporarily. However, in many cases it’s irreversible. Good thinking Dell. Even Dell support failed to correct the issue, so they suggested reformatting and reloading the OS. All the remedies I found online failed to bring the OS back to working condition, so I decided to stop wasting time and I started over from scratch. Just what I needed to start this week.

To top it all off, this whole week is supposed to be cold, gray, and rainy. Fits my mood perfectly.

 This is where I’d rather be.

President Obama has a hell of mess to clean up, but he can do it. He has the tools, he has the Congress, he has the will of the people. I’m amazed and happily surprised at the American voters. They finally woke up and smelled the coffee. It’s about time.

Ups and downs of the week. 

  Cool cover art – This is Sarah’s most recent cover story for Bookmarks. Great art for an excellent article.

  

  Be it ever so humble. – Good to be home again.

   Stomach bugs- Nausea and travel don’t mix well..

  Serendipity – US Airways needed a volunteer to stay in Boston one more day and I needed to sleep until this stomach bug went away. I ended up with a free stay at a Hilton, dinner, and two free round-trip tickets on US Air to anywhere in the US. US Air got the seat they needed for another passenger. I had almost canceled my flight earlier thinking I couldn’t fly being that ill, but it would have cost me a fortune. I’m glad I waited. Funny how things work out sometimes.

    Patriots – They *might* have a halfway decent season after all, but I’m not getting my hopes up yet.

  Shapiro Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston – Awesome care. Super professional staff. Great facility. It’s THE place to go if you need heart surgery. 

  Philadelphia Phillies – They’re making a series of it and showing the Rays that an AL victory in the World Series is definitely not a given. They need to take heed of the ALCS, though, and finish this before it returns to Cowbell Palace.