Category: Misc

Snow has been an issue here in Denver this year … to say the least. We are just now finally getting streets cleared from the many snows that piled up and froze into mini glaciers and blocked our streets, sidewalks and driveways. And I won't even go into the potholes the white stuff has created. Cuz we know what's really important the city of Denver has wisely decided to pony up $30,000 to rent a “Snow Dragon” for a month in order to get our baseball stadium's parking lots clear.

The behemoth machine takes in snow, melts it, heats it to 120 degrees and spits it back out to melt more snow. It also filters the water before it goes out so the ickies don't go back into our storm water drains. They swear it'll be save the taxpayers big $$ and we'll finally be able to park at Coors Field. And the people rejoiced.

So I received a DVD ROM in the mail on Friday. A new expansion pack for one of my fave games. With Matt occupied in his shop, after dinner I retired to my office to test it out. I put the disc in the drive and busied myself with other things (checking email or something). A minute or so later, I sort of realized that the DVD-ROM drive was making a really loud whirring noise. I was about to open the drive when I heard a very loud POP! and saw a bit of smoke escape from the drive.

I escaped to the security of the stair landing and called for backup. Matt arrived on the scene moments later and we examined the scene of the incident. The DVD had exploded inside the drive!! In loads and loads of little pieces. The drive still appeared to have some function (opening and closing itself) but we decided it was probably a lost cause as far as reading and writing and removed it from the computer. I'll purchase a new one on New Egg sometime soon. Weird, eh?

I know this blog has become all baby all the time and I'm sorry about that, but not much.

I didn't get around to blogging earlier today… mostly because I was grumpy. The morning started out foggy and I had not gotten a good night's sleep and I overslept and missed about 15 minutes of a meeting. The house was messy cuz a) we've got a ton of stuff going on and b) our garbage disposal is broken, making the doing of dishes very difficult. I refused to cook tonight because I didn't want to have the bother of cleaning up.

I am also still missing my personal hard drive that I use to keep the files that I want to access at work and at home. And while there's nothing of real value on there, the hard drive would be hard to replace and the data would be annoying to replace. I'm pretty certain it's still around and not truly lost to the abyss, but I just can't put my hands on it.

Luckily the fog burned off (it was making other people grump too, I swear) and the sun came out. I had a nice nap and got to watch The Office (truly cringe-worth tonight, no?). I think it's almost bedtime….

First news of Harry Potter 7 and now an early spring! I could kiss that little rodent!! Spring cannot get here soon enough in my book. We've just had our 7th week of straight snow and everyone is a bit grumpy about the white menace. Plus, we woke up to temps this morning that dipped below zero. Ten degrees below zero. Brrrrrrrrrr!! I like this sort of weather only when I can enjoy it at home with Matt, Loki and some hot cocoa … or tea … I'm not picky!!

FYI: They're topically showing Groundhog Day today on Comedy Central three times today and then twice again tomorrow. If you haven't seen it, tune in … it's great!

I have nothing in particular to write about today…

Rumor has it that the end table for the nursery was finished last night. But since Matt rolled into bed around 2:30 AM with this announcement, I have not seen it and I don't have any photos. In any case, it still needs to be varnished. But I'm very excited to see it when I get home from work.

Outside, Mother Nature is doing her darnedest to get another snow storm going. Not much is coming down or sticking at the moment, but snow is predicted in the forecast through Friday, so I guess we'll probably see some stick anyhow. We're entering our 7th straight week of snow and I can't think of anyone around here who isn't a bit sick of it. Usually outsiders think of snow as the norm for CO in the winter, but it's really not the case. Usually we get a snow storm and then it melts … we'll get 60 degree days in the middle of winter and see lots of sun anyhow. We're really not used to all this snow on top of snow. And I'm afraid we're a bit whiny about it.

I got a notice in the mail yesterday stating that they had no record of me voting in the general election in November (and to keep my voter registration, I had to send in their card within 30 days). So now I've got to call the election office and figure out what the heck that's about. Matt and I voted at the same time and he got no such notice. And I sure remember voting, not to mention waiting an hour in line to vote. I even got that little sticker. I wonder what's up.

Aren't you glad you decided to stop by?

1. What color are your bedroom walls? A sort of tan color that was here when we bought the place. It's not stark white and I don't hate it. But I don't love it either. I just haven't had the desire to paint the vaulted ceilings.

2. What book are you reading now? High School Confidential Continue reading “Thurday Meme Cop-Out”

I'll arm-wrestle ya for the last peanut! Continue reading “The things that go thru my head …”

I somehow found this article yesterday while I was mindlessly surfing a few minutes away. It's an interesting story about India's tiffin-wallahs in Bombay who transport some 160,000 hot lunches (tiffins) from family homes to the offices and schools of hungry husbands and children and then perform the same in reverse with the empty lunchboxes. The tiffin wallahs who do the transportation are largely illiterate and rely on a system of symbols hand-painted on the tops of the containers to sort and process them in rapid order. Extremely impresive since they only make a mistake once a month, earning them a 6 Sigma performance rating from an unlikely admirer, Forbes Magazine. All this for the cost of about $3.33 per month, with service six days a week.

The tiffin wallahs are all of the same caste and a fairly closely-knit group, many related and largely from the same village. The service, in fact, is suspended for a month every year so everyone can go home for a long festival in their home town. Every tiffin-wallah works for himself and pays dues to a union or association and is guaranteed a job for as long as he can do the work. The association itself handles administrative tasks and then donates a large share of its take to feeding the poor.

A very interesting look a business I never knew about and probably wouldn't have thought feasible.

Man am I glad it's Friday!! Matt got back into town last night after a 5-day trip to Cali for work. We picked up Thai food on the way home and had a nice quiet evening. This weekend will hopefully be more of the same. It's a balmy 1 degree outside right now with highs this weekend topping off around 20, so we intend to do a lot of staying indoors. I've got a nice backlog on the Tivo and a few projects I want to work on, plus some extra fun stuff like cleaning the fridge. Matt plans to get slaving away in his shop on some more stuff for the nursery. Probably more than anything, though, I'm just looking forward to not having to wake up to an alarm for two whole days straight.

Matt, dear hubby of mine, is the *king* of bizarre internet stuff. I get weird links from him usually at least once a day … strange articles, silly jokes, bizarre pictures. So a couple of years ago, he sent me a link to the world's smallest country, Sealand.

It's a fort 13 miles offshore from England that was abandoned after WWII and claimed by Roy Bates in 1967. It's got an interesting history including a kidnapping (read the site, interesting stuff!). And most recently, it's been largely used as a place to keep servers for unrestricted internet content.

Well now, it's for sale! Hope someone buys it and does something cool with it.

UpdateIn a hilarious turn of events, torrent magnate, The Pirate Bay, is interested in buying sealand to house their servers and keep torrents and illegal content plentiful. Haha.