A few updates
A sense of accomplishment
The huge project I have been working on at work is nearly finished. One significant portion of it has been completed. The other parts shouldn't take much time at all now. And with the help of my technology-guru/former protege and longtime friend, who now works in Connecticut for ESPN, and who, at age 26, is making ovver $80,000 a year, I have migrated from a software-based firewall solution that ran on a 7 year-old PC which was slowly dying, to a hardware firewall that is awesome. My entire network is running so much better. We also finally were able to connect the branch to us via a VPN tunnel, which means our entire active directory is working perfectly now. That is going to be total Greek to most of you, but trust me, it's way cool.
The end is near
Youngest Son's date of departure is looming large. In less than two weeks, he will be winging his way to France with his fellow students. He has finalized his Spring Break plans. He will be traveling to Rome for two days, then to Florence for two days, then to Milan and the Lake Como region for 4 days, then back to Paris - in the company of 5 females. They have arranged their hotel rooms in Rome and Florence, and a really cool hostel in Lake Como. They have booked all their tours, with the exception of the Sistine Chapel, though they will get that arranged soon. I have purchased an unlocked GSM cell phone for him from eBay. I have ordered his prepaid France SIM card so he can use the phone in France. There are some pretty cool sites for getting all this stuff at really great prices. He got his youth hostel membership card yesterday. Now we're still trying to figure out which rail pass to get. His last class is January 30th. Then he has to move out of his dorm room, move back home, write a paper on Seurat and pointillism, print it to take with him, pack, buy any last minute things he's forgottene, and then leave on the 3rd of February. There really is so little time, and I'm starting to get stressed out. Breathe, Gina, breath.
The leaky roof
I came home Friday night, looked up at the living room ceiling, and was pretty pleased. It was almost completely dry. I thought to myself, "hey, this may be okay after all." That was wishful thinking. I went into Youngest Son's bedroom. The water had moved from the middle of the ceiling to the bottom, where the wall meets the ceiling. Almost the entire length of the ceiling where it joined the wall was wet. The wall was wet at least 3, and in some places 6, inches down. Fortunately, the wall is cedar, so we didn't have to deal with wet sheetrock - in that room. The ceiling in the spare room was similarly wet. The cedar walls there are painted, so you couldn't see the wet cedar. Our room was another story. We have sheetrock on the east wall. There were these four big streaks down the wall with a bubble of water, like a blister, at the bottom of the streak. You could see how the water had slowly inched its way down the wall, separating the paper on the sheetrock from the sheetrock itself. Evenutally, the blister of water hit the edge of the sheetrock where it meets the sliding door frame, and then dripped onto the floor below.
The ceilings and walls are all dry now. The stains on the cedar will blend in over time, and will eventually look like wood grain. The walls in the sheetrocked rooms will be repainted. Why the roof leaked it still a mystery. Friday night it snowed 8 inches. Saturday, we raked the snow off the roof on the east side of the house about halfway up the roof. There was layer of ice about an inch or two thick under the snow, but that shouldn't cause it to leak. Everyone has a layer of ice on their roof. The Spouse thinks it was a weird weather fluke. We had those high winds, some snow, rain, ice, and more winds. He thinks something weird just happened that caused the leak - maybe even snow being blown into the rafters from the gable ends during the high winds, that eventually melted. It's possible. I'm still having the roofer come look at it to make sure nothing is amiss. The roof looks fine from the ground - no lifted shingles, none missing - so really, it is a mystery. I'll post photos of the damage.
An enjoyable birthday bash
Saturday afternoon, we headed for Spokane to celebrate Oldest Son's 35th birthday. We all met at the Olive Garden downtown. The party consisted of Oldest Son's family, Daughter's family, Youngest Son, us, and Daughter-in-law's sister and her boyfriend and daughter. The food was great, by the way. We had a really fun time with everyone. Then, too quickly, it was time to head back home. It's hard to believe OS is 35! Wow.
