Super Bowl Sunday

We had an interesting weekend. First, we "babysat" our new "grandchild", my daughter's new puppy, Lola, a darling Shih Tzu pup. Shana and Ryan had longstanding plans to go play snowshoe volleyball in Priest Lake. It would be an overnight, adults only (lots of drinking going on) event, meaning the kids would be staying with friends while Mom and Dad went off for some grown up fun. On Wednesday, my daughter purchased a Shih Tzu puppy from the daughter of one of my coworkers. The puppy is absolutely adorable. I am whining and begging Tom to let me buy one of her brothers, but he's having none of it. We agreed to watch Lola overnight on Saturday. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity for Tom to fall in love with her and realize just how much happier his life would be with a puppy in it. Shortly before Lola's impending arrival, we received a phone call telling us we would also have Tyler for the night. Turns out he had decided it would be more fun to hang out with Poppy and Grammy than his sister and her friends. Tyler is almost 5, and as one might expect from a 5-year-old, is a bundle of pent up energy, waiting to be released. Additionally, Tommy and his family, including 3-year-old Alyssa and 11-year-old Sydney, would be arriving at about 6:30 PM, and Jonathan would be coming with them. It promised to be a noisy, exhausting night.

Lola and Tyler arrived at about 1:00 PM, along with detailed instructions for both. Lola is just 8 weeks old and is being housebroken, meaning she would have to be watched intently and taken outside at the slightest hint that she was going to piddle. My sister, the dog trainer extraordinaire, has trained her Shih Tzu to ring a bell when she wants to go outside. Shana is training her dog to do likewise. So, every time I took the dog outside, we stopped first at the door, put her paw on the bell sitting there and rang it, then headed out saying "let's go potty" or something along those lines, in a cheery, enthusiastic tone of voice. When the dog accomplished the task, she was to be enthusiastically applauded and praised, and then brought back inside. I never realized how often puppies have to piddle. Lola had a couple of accidents, which really means I didn't watch her, or anticipate her needs, as closely as I should have. All in all, though, we did quite well, Lola and I. Sometimes, when we went outside in the snow flurries, rain, and cold, Lola would chase leaves, play with the tufts of grass, try to dig to China, and bark at the rocks, before finally getting down to business. Other times she sat, shivering in the cold, looking forlornly at me as I encouraged her to "go potty, Lola! Go potty!" We wouldn't come inside until she at least looked as though she had gone potty. She really is an adorable little fluff ball, though. I didn't really mind one bit tending to her. She is a pup, though, and she loves to chew - on fingers, on shoe laces, on Duplo blocks, on candles, on hair especially, on pretty much everything. I'd forgotten that about puppies in the 19 years since I've had one.

Meanwhile, Tyler is getting bored and really wants to go in the hot tub. There is no way we can go in the hot tub and watch Lola too, so we put Tyler off, explaining that later, when his cousins get here, he can go in the hot tub. He agrees to wait. I put on every cartoon I could think of, hooked up his video games, fed him his favorite foods, and played blocks with him. By 3:00 he was roaming around, obviously bored. Tom and I had to get the bedrooms ready for the kids, so we set about doing that, asking Tyler to help us keep an eye on Lola. There is one rule Tyler has to follow - do NOT pick the dog up and carry her about. He can sit and have her in his lap, but he is not allowed to hold her while standing up. A fall could seriously injure her. Tyler was playing with Lola on the living room floor while we were making up the spare room bed, when suddenly we heard a thud and a yelp. I ran out of the spare room to see Lola limping and crying away and Tyler standing in the hallway, mouth open. Clearly, he had been carrying Lola and had dropped her. I ran to the dog to make sure she was okay, admonishing Tyler about holding Lola while standing, trying to get out of him exactly what had happened, what had hit the ground (her head, her feet, her back?), and getting nothing out of him but tears. The dog seemed to be fine. Tyler was bawling. I was yelling at him for not minding. It was chaos. Fortunately, a very short time later, we all sat on the sofa and I hugged Tyler, explaining why I'd gotten so upset with him, telling him we knew he would be very sad if he hurt Lola and that is why he is not to carry her, and reassuring him that she was okay and that we loved him. He sat with her on his lap for a long time after that.

Everyone arrived later that evening. I had to watch Lola even more closely to make sure she didn't get overrun by one of the kids, or have an accident due to all the excitement. Finally, we all went to bed. I knew I would have to get up with Lola multiple times during the night to take her outside, so set my alarm for three hours (1:30 am). I awoke at 1:15 am. I checked on her and she was sound asleep, so I went back to bed and shut off the alarm. Ryan had said she would whine if she needed to go out, so I just decided to wait for her to alert me. Suddenly, Tom's cell phone started ringing. I jumped out of bed to answer it. The caller ID showed "restricted"... I answered, heard a muffled "grrmmppphhh" and then it went dead. Some drunk with the wrong number, apparently. I climbed back into bed and tossed and turned for a bit before finally falling asleep. At 6:15 I awakened and realized the dog hadn't whined all night. I checked her to be sure she was okay. She was sound asleep. She had slept all night. I got her up and took her outside to do her business, and then went back to bed until everyone else got up - about 45 minutes later. I hadn't slept well, an ear cocked all night for Lola's cries, but I would be able to take a short nap later if I needed one.

Shana and Ryan arrived with a very tired Olivia at about 10:30 a.m. Olivia had been up until 1:00 a.m. with all her little friends, and had gotten up at 6:00 a.m. She was going to be cranky. The house was filled with the noise of running kids, the blare of the NFL pre-game shows from the TV, people talking at once, and food making. Little arguments broke out between the kids, one tattling on the other for something pretty much all day long. Someone was always hungry or thirsty. The dog needed to go pee. Chaos reigned. We set out all sorts of food - shrimp cocktail, chips, dips, fresh veggies, scones, muffins, beer, soda pop, juice, pizza, sub sandwiches, pretty much every snack you could think of - and kids and adults alike snacked non-stop all day long. I wasn't very hungry, limiting my noshing to a few tortilla chips, some celery and carrot sticks and ranch dressing, some shrimp, and a few mozzarella sticks. The kitchen was a disaster. The spare room was a disaster. The living room was a disaster. But we were all together and having a great time.

The game started. We were all rooting for Seattle. It was not to be. A few bad calls, some huge mistakes by the Seahawks, dropped passes, unconverted opportunities, and the game slipped away. The Seahawks lost, 21-10.

Then, almost as quickly as they came, everyone gathered up their things, and off they went. Shana and Ryan, as they always do, helped clean up the kitchen before they left. We discovered right after they left, that Tyler had rearranged some things in our bedroom, things he should not have gone near, and we couldn't find Tom's wallet, gas card for his work van, and a few other important things. A phone call to Shana didn't help, as Tyler claimed he didn't touch anything. Finally, we found the missing items stuck on top of some books on a bookshelf, where Tyler had put them. He is now banned from our room unless we're in there with him. He has gotten into a weird habit of taking things out of drawers, rearranging things, hiding things, even at his house. We thought he'd stopped doing that, but apparently that's not the case. Anyway, we finally fell into bed at 9:30 p.m., exhausted by all the noise and chaos. Family get-togethers are fun, but draining, especially on Sundays when you have to get up for work the next day. I think future gatherings should be at Shana's or Tommy's where they have better facilities for the kids. Our house is just too small and there isn't enough to entertain the kids here. We have the big screen TV though, so gatherings that involve watching sporting events on TV are usually better here. It's a dilemma.

Now... off to start another week of work.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - Update

You may recall from an earlier post (here) that the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew came to town and built a family an amazing new home. That episode aired on January 22. I'm sure a majority of the television sets in this area were tuned to ABC that night, in hopes of seeing, not only the story of the Hebert family and the amazing transformation of their home, but of seeing some of their friends, neighbors, and coworkers among the crowd. We were sorely disappointed.

This show bears out, yet again, my contention that you absolutely cannot believe anything you see on TV, nor most of what you read in magazines and newspapers. Watching this episode, one could assume that:

• a) Sullivan Homes is a local family-owned business (that's what Ty Pennington said)
• b) to enter the local Sears, one must ride an escalator (they showed Ty riding the escalator, at the top of which was the entrance to Sears)
• c) the house was built on-site, from scratch, in 7 days (they showed all these people putting together walls, excavating, working all night)
• d) Eric Hebert's sister had only two children, the twins in the show (they never mentioned any other children)
• e) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition provided everything necessary, except manpower, to build this home (I never heard them talk about anyone else providing anything but manpower).

Every one of those assumptions would be 100% incorrect. The truth?

1. Sullivan Homes is a Spokane homebuilding company. It may be family owned, but it's NOT local. Spokane is almost 100 miles away.
2. The local Sears is on the first floor of our local mall - The Bonner Mall. The Sears in the show is located in Spokane at the Spokane Valley Mall.
3. The walls of the house were all prefabricated at Sullivan Homes' facility at least a month before the construction was started (that was reported in all the regional newspapers).
4. Eric Hebert's sister had a son from a previous marriage. He is 14. He lives about 40 miles from Sandpoint with his father and stepmother. He was never once mentioned, not included in the generosity of the show, wasn't sent on the trip to the Bahamas, yet HIS mother died too! He suffered a horrible loss as well, and he lives in a tiny trailer with his family. Why was he excluded? Oh, I know, it's not quite as poignant a story with him in the picture, is it?
5. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition supplied virtually nothing for the construction of this house except the stars of the show. All the supplies, labor, food for the laborers, furnishings, appliances, everything except the $50,000 for the family, was donated by local businesses and local people. In order to even access the site, a road, to the tune of $40,000, had to be constructed. When the local paving company balked at providing that much in donated materials and labor, they were told that if they didn't provide all of it, (they balked after providing almost half the cost), another company would be brought in to complete the job, and that company would get all the publicity. Interstate went ahead and did the entire job, but I didn't see one second of publicity for any business but Sullivan Homes, Sears, and whichever company it was that donated the $50,000 (I forget). Oh, maybe during the credit roll at the end they may have listed Interstate, Pucci Construction, and some of the other dozens of local businesses who donated thousands and thousands of dollars in time, materials, food, etc. but if they did, it went by so quickly I didn't see it.

So, this project was done for this family, which is really a neat thing for them, and they are more appreciative than words can express. It was a great thing for the community to come together and do. But even the most generous business, when giving out so much, hopes for at least some recognition, some publicity, some measure of goodwill, in return. They got nothing. The cameras didn't pan the crowd long enough, or slowly enough, to make out a single face in the crowd, though I know dozens of my friends were on hand for the unveiling. But boy, we sure saw a lot of Ty, Ed, Eduardo, and everyone else in the cast, who, by the way, spent almost every night during the project partying at the two "hot spots" in town, drinking, dancing, and basking in the attention the star-struck residents of our small town heaped on them.

How much nicerm how much more meaningful, this show would be if it focused on how well a community can come together to do something wonderful for their residents in need - and the residents of Sandpoint did just that. Instead, the show depicts what a generous bunch the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition gang is for doing this wonderful thing for the Herbert family, making Ty Pennington and his crew look great, generous, thoughtful, and so on. How sad, and what a lie. Another nail in the coffin of the believability of the media.

Microwave grilling - you can do it too!

I am a fan of Lean Cuisine meals. Some of them actually have great flavor, especially the new Spa Cuisine meals, like the salmon, basil, and orzo one. YUM! They're very convenient, especially for workday lunches. They're low calorie, low fat, all that good stuff. They recently added four new meals to their line. They are Causal Eating Classics, which are the line in which pizzas are found. The latest additions are paninis. Now, you might wonder, how can you make a panini in the microwave? After all, a panini is a toasted sandwich with very visible grill marks from the grill on which it is toasted. It's not simply a toasted sandwich like a grilled cheese, toasted in a frying pan. A panini is specially toasted - on a grill! Well, I wondered the same exact thing, but one look at the packaging made it clear how this miracle was accomplished. They have invented a Revolutionary Grilling Tray, and it is included in the price of the meal! What more could one ask for? Find this hard to believe? See for yourself!

Well, that's all well and fine, you might be thinking, but we all know that the packages lie. The food inside almost never even resembles the photos on the outside. I knew you'd be thinking that, so let's see what the inside looks like. First, the frozen stuff, pre-revolutionary grilling tray.

Remember, don't judge a book by its cover. Maybe the unappetizing mass above will look and taste better once it's cooked on.....ta da da da... the revolutionary grilling tray included with the meal FREE!

So... what was the end result after 3 minutes in the microwave? Judge for yourself:

It actually tasted pretty good, although the toast was a tiny bit rubbery. It's kind of smallish, but that keeps the calories down. As you can see, the revolutionary grilling tray, which is included for free, did put grill marks on the toast, even in the microwave. A panini? A pretty poor imitation of the real thing, but not a bad toasted sandwich. They come in four varieties. This one, chicken, spinach and mushrooms, is my favorite.

When you can't type, Audioblog!

Good day, Sunshine!

How can one not feel great when the sun is out?!?! I went to the gym this morning (yay me!) and had a really good workout - 25 minutes on the treadmill (just fast walking at an incline until my knee pain subsides), and then an arm workout - 4 sets of 3 exercies for biceps and triceps. I felt great. To make the day even better, the sun came out and it's beautiful outside! So, here's the view from my office window. I face east. The snow-cappped mountains are in Montana. Just to the southeast was this neat low-hanging cloud with just the top of Gold Hill showing above it. Had to snap that. The library is on the west side of town, just west of an old residential district - some of the older homes in town. About 1.5 miles east of my office is Lake Pend Oreille. It boasts 280 miles of coastline. There is an interesting site I just found by a Japanese traveler with tons of photos of the area in case you're so inclined. The writing is obvious by a non-English speaker, but the site has a ton of stuff on Sandpoint and Lake Pend Oreille and the surrounding area. http://sandpoint.web.infoseek.co.jp/sandpoint.html Interesting.

Comp Time

I am fortunate to work for an agency that has a generous holiday pay schedule. We are paid for 10 holidays a year. In addition, we accrue vacation days at various levels, depending on our length of service. I now receive 12 hours a month with a cap on how much I can accrue of 144 hours on the books at any time. All 40-hour per week employees accrue sick leave at the rate of 8 hours a month (the others accrue on a pro-rata basis), all of which accrues indefinitely with no cap (I have accrued 410 hours of paid sick leave during my 11 year tenure). Last Monday, January 16, was Martin Luther King Day for thos non-US readers. The library was closed. Libraries such as this - President's Day, Columbus Day, Veteran's Day - holidays my husband typically does not have off - are perfect days for me to do major upgrades that require shutting down servers or disrupting service in some way. This past holiday was the perfect day for upgrading our telephone and voice mail systems. So, I worked. Which meant I had comp time coming at the rate of time-and-a-half. The difficulty is finding a day to take off, given the fact that I have far too many projects to complete in far too little time.

I got up this morning fully intending to go to work. In fact, I was planning to go to the gym for my third consecutive workout, and then go to work. But as I was getting ready, an idea presented itself. Why not take today off. I had nothing pressing to do today that wouldn't still be there, no more pressing, tomorrow. I needed to use my comp time. I have a meeting on Friday, so can't take it then, and I only want to take a Monday or Friday off, giving myself a three day weekend. Today was the perfect day, so I did what any self-respecting person would do. I called work and told them I would not be in today.

I had big plans for today. I was going to read. Then maybe watch a few shows I have on Tivo. Then go to the gym for a much more leisurely and energized workout than the ones I have at 6:00 AM, and finally, I would go grocery shopping during the daylight, not after work on Monday night, as is my usual routine. So, what have I accomplished? I have read - but not the book I intended to read. I've been reading blogs - Charlie's, Diane's, JoAnn's, Amy's, MC's, Sara's, Kaitlin's, and a few others. I've read email - work email. I've helped my daughter-in-law avoid being scammed by an Ebay scammer and emailed Ebay about said scammer. I've watched my shows, though only two today. I've had lunch with my husband, a very rare thing indeed. I have yet to go to the grocery store and now it's 6:16 PM. I don't think I'm going to make it after all. I never did get in that workout. There's always tomorrow. All in all, a good day, albeit not nearly as productive as I'd hoped. It has been relaxing, though, and rejuvenating.

Time to turn on the porch light for my husband and figure out what I'm making for dinner. I still have 2 hours of comp time to use, too. SWEET!

Thanks for noticing!

I used to wonder why I bothered to blog. I really didn't think anyone read what I wrote, let alone cared if I did or didn't. Fortunately, my friend JoAnn, always writes to remind me that she's reading. Now, thanks to the friends I've made via Charlie's blog, Highland Dreams, I am actually getting comments checking to make sure I'm okay since I haven't posted in a while! That is so cool! Thank you Middle Child, for asking.

In case anyone else wonders where I've been, here's the scoop: I've been working too freaking hard! The last post outlined the "fun" day I had when I had to update 37 computers. Well, things haven't slowed down a bit since then. On Monday, which should have been a holiday for me as it is one of the holidays the library recognizes by closing, I was working. Our new phone system came in and needed to be installed, and what better day to do it but a day when we're closed? So...

Monday AM I met our installer at the library and we set about installing the new phone system and voice mail system. I had no part in the installation of the phone system; that was his domain. But I had a major role in the installation of the new voice mail system. First, a word of explanation. Our existing voice mail system runs on a 486SX-25 and is DOS based. That gives you some idea just how old it is. We first installed it in 1995 or '96. It ran on a 386 then. We upgraded the hardware a year or two later when the 386 croaked, but the software didn't change. That system has been running 24/7/365 since 1997. It's a wonder it was still alive and every day I held my breath, praying it didn't just die on us. We were well past due to replace it. In fact, we were the last client still using that old system! So... back to Monday.

We were installing a new phone system so we can run voice-over-IP (more on that later), and a new voice mail system with all sorts of bells and whistles. So, as soon as the voice mail system was up and running, Michael set about showing me how to configure it. It is a lot more complex than our old system, but it's not user unfriendly, is Windows-based, and is fairly easy to administer for me. Michael's pump on his well went out and he was without water at home (a home populated by a wife and 3-year-old twins), so he was anxious to finish up with me and get home to address his water problem. I was eager to let him do just that, so after a cursory review of how the system worked, I sent him on his way, leaving me to set up all the mailboxes and whatnot. Part of the whatnot involved recording all our prompts - the greetings you hear when you call the library at various hours, holidays, etc, that direct you to push this button for reference, that button for overdues, and this other button for a human being, among other things. You see, no one else wants to be "the voice of the library" so that task falls on my shoulders. Someone who knows me but has never called the library before, and does so for the first time, is usually taken aback, sometimes amused, when they realize it is my voice welcoming them to the library and directing them to the various departments. I hate my voice, of course, but others have said it sounds quite professional. Pffft! Anyway, our prompts are long and involved. I had to listen to the one on the old system so I'd know what to say on the new system. That meant I pretty much had to write down, in some sort of shorthand, what I was saying and where I was directing people with the various key presses. Ugh.

By 3:30 PM Monday, I had set up all the user mailboxes and was ready to start recording the prompts. I entered the supervisor menu using the method I had thought Michael had shown me. When I pressed 4 to record greetings, I was told by the generic lady's voice that I didn't have access to that feature. ???? So I tried again. And again. No luck. I called Dave, Michael's boss, and played the lady's voice for him so he would know what I was facing. He didn't have any answers. Michael was out of reach, probably down in his well replacing a pump. Okay, enough. I went home for the day. I had at least recorded a "we're closed" greeting while Michael was still there, and better yet, I could plug our old system back in with the holiday greeting until I could get with Michael on Tuesday and figure out where I had gone wrong, which is exactly what I did.

Monday night we had a great dinner. Tom had gotten a gift certificate to this wonderful shop that specializes in fresh homemade pastas, breads, sauces, and great wines. I decided to get dinner from them. My choice for the night was veal and spinach cannelloni for me, and Italian sausage and peppers ravioli for him, both with marinara sauce. YUM! While the cost of my order was being calculated, I spied some sharp provolone in the cheese case. I am a sucker for good cheeses, especially pungent, tasty ones. I had her add the wedge in the cheese case to my order. I could almost taste it already! As soon as I got home, I cut myself a chunk of the cheese. It did not disappoint me! If the only provolone you have ever tasted is the bland stuff they sell in the local grocery store, you have no idea what you're missing. REAL provolone, the imported stuff, is very flavorful, much drier than the soft, almost gooey stuff they pass off as provolone, and is amazing! One chunk was not nearly enough. I cut myself another. Then just another little bit. Then just a tiny bit more. Before I knew it, it was gone! Thank goodness Tom hates the stuff. Okay, so time to start cooking the pasta. The ravioli would just boil for 4 minutes or so, but the cannelloni would take half an hour of baking. At exactly the right moment, Tom walked in the door. Dinner was on the plates, waiting to be consumed, in a matter of seconds, freshly baked sourdough bread, smeared with melted butter and cut into chunks, accompanying the fresh pasta and sauce.

It was a delightful meal and I ate way too much! I paid for it. At about 1:30 AM I woke up hotter than blazes. I kicked off the blankets, letting the 65 degree air in the bedroom wash over my overheated body. My mouth felt as though I'd been living on a desert island, so I got up to get a drink of cold water. I downed three glasses of water. My stomach sloshed as I walked back to bed. I was bloated with water, undigested cannelloni, and who knows what else. I felt like I was going to be sick any minute. I tossed and turned for the next two hours, unable to find a position in which I could lay without feeling like I was going to lose my dinner. I fell into a fitful sleep around 3:30 AM, with the alarm blasting me from my troubled sleep a scant 60 minutes later. I made Tom's lunch, his espresso, and his coffee-to-go, all the while lugging around a belly so bloated it felt like it would explode any second. When he left for work, I fell back into bed and fell soundly asleep for another hour. Unfortunately, I had to get to work by 8 AM so Michael could help me with my prompts problem.

It was all I could do to get ready for work. I didn't even bother with makeup, which is pretty amazing for me. When Michael got to the library, it took only a few seconds for him to show me what I'd done wrong. I was trying to access the supervisor menu using the old method, which works to a point, but there is a different way of doing it with the new system which allows me access to the company greetings. Doh! By the time we went over all the other questions I had, it was 10 minutes until we opened and I had yet to record our "open" prompt. Michael left, and I set about recording prompts, and re-recording them, and re-re-recording them, until they were satisfactory. The rest of my day was spent working on the details of the system, making it work efficiently, and finally, helping staff set up their mailboxes and retrieve their messages from the old system. One really cool thing about our new system is that it has voice recognition. So, instead of a caller having to press 1 for hours or 2 for the information desk, they'll be able to say "hours" or "information desk" or "check on a hold" or "Gina" and get to the right place. I have yet to inform the whole staff of this new feature as I wanted to get it all set up first. I will be recording new prompts telling our callers of this option in the next week or so. They are going to LOVE that as long as I can come up with every possible way they might ask for different departments and enter that into the system. Anyway, it's pretty cool.

As for the VoIP feature, what that means is that we can put a phone in our branch 32 miles away and call them on it as though they were an extension in our building. Right now, we have to actually call them, tying up a line on our end and their only line on their end. With the new system, their phone lines remain free (and ours) while we talk between branches, something we do quite often. We use the internet connection between branches for this new method of communication (hence the term voice over IP (internet protocol). There are companies that make this technology available to home users - Vonage and Skype for example - so it's becoming better known. It's pretty cool! And.....

In addition to all these recent projects, I just ordered 39 replacement PCs from Dell to replace all our staff workstations. They should arrive in about 10 days, which means I get to:

• unbox 39 PCs and 39 monitors
• install all application software on each one (MS Office, Acrobat, circulation program, etc.)
• copy each staff member's profile (desktop settings, favorites, etc.) to their new computer
• take down their old computer and find somewhere to store it (????)
• put new computer in place, hook up, join to network

I figure this will take, on average, 4 hours per workstation. So, I have about 160 hours of work ahead of me, not including all the stuff I have to do normally anyway (maintain web site, help patrons, network administration, etc.) So, I figure I'll have all 39 workstations up and running in about two months. I'm going to need a looooooong vacation!

Oh, FYI to my readers - I do not blog on the weekends...family time and all that you know. :)
Thanks for noticing I was MIA for a week or so.

Sleepless in Sandpoint

Yesterday was from hell. Our library software was due for an update to the latest revision. No problem. We do these about once, sometimes twice, a year. The software vendor tech connects to our server after we close at 8PM (11PM his time, poor guy), then runs the necessary scripts and does the necessary things to our Oracle database to update our files. This usually takes all night. Then, I come in early the next day and run the client side update on each workstation. That is usually a one-click process and goes fairly quickly. Well, that was not the case this time.

Problem #1: Power outage due to major storm occurs at 5:40 AM PST. The scripts have been running for about 5 hours. The outage lasts long enough that the server reboots. :( I get in at 6:45 AM and see that the server has rebooted. I try to call the tech on his cell phone. No answer. I leave a message. I don't know whether to continue with the workstation upgrades or not, so I don't, waiting for a call back. I finally decided to do my workstation to see what the process is like.

Problem #2: This is not a one-click upgrade. I have to install Oracle 9i on each workstation, which takes about 13-20 minutes, depending on how ancient the computer is (some are 5 years old with barely enough hard drive space to turn on and only 64MB RAM), then I install the library software client. This process takes anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes per workstation. I have 37 workstations to do - alone.

Problem #3: An hour passes and no call back. Now I'm getting stressed. I call the company, who calls the tech, and who also gets no answer. I figure the poor guy took a nap after being up all night, and has no clue the power went out. The company tells me that the database is probably corrupted and the tech will need to restore our old database, so don't update workstations. Finally, half an hour later, I get a call back. The database
wasn't corrupted. The tech caught the power failure at about 6:30 and restarted the scripts. We're about an hour behind schedule on the database upgrade, but I'm almost two hours behind schedule on workstation upgrades.

I begin frantically updating workstations, running into three that have to have their RAM increased because they simply will not work with only 64MB. I set about doing that while simultaneously starting the upgrade on multiple computers. I spend all day - literally all day - running between computers in various stages of upgrade. The circulation and information desk computers were the priority ones, of course (there are 10 of those), so I had to get them done ASAP. Next came the cataloger's station, then the circulation supervisors. Finally, I started on all the other staff workstations. I had NO help whatsoever. I worked from 6:45 AM until 6:45 PM, non-stop, no lunch, nothing. I went home and just fell into the recliner, with barely enough energy to make dinner for Tom. I really needed to go to the grocery store, but just couldn't bring myself to stop on the way home. I still had two troublesome workstations to do today, one of which is still giving me fits, but that's nothing compared to yesterday. What a day!

Now, I have to just get our new firewall configured and in place, get the one for the branch ready to go, install the new switches, and then I can move on to the next project - ordering 33 replacement computers to be delivered the end of the month and put into place - again by me alone - over the course of the next month. Oh, and while I'm doing that, I get to install new software for managing our public internet access on 33 workstations, including installing 33 smart card readers that have, so far, given me fits whenever I've installed them. The joy of it all.

Some people will buy anything

Okay, this is just too hard to believe, but go to this link:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem%26item=5651954281

This is an ebay auction (ended) for a brussel sprout that went for 1,550 British pounds. That's almost $3,100!!! True!

Note to rain: This is Idaho, not Seattle

You'd never know it by looking outside, but it's January 6. The sky should be bright as blue topaz, the ground should be blindingly white and crunchy underfoot, the streets should be slick as snot, with cars spinning their wheels as they take off from the stop sign across the street from my window. The thermometer should read 16 or 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead, the humidity is so high it's falling from the sky. I think they call that rain in some parts of the world. It's a sweltering 43 degrees out. The ground is a sickly, gooey brown with splotches of green here and there where grass forgot to go dormant for the winter. The streets are strewn with pebbles from when they "sanded" (they use gravel, not sand) the roads a month or two ago. There isn't a speck of snow to be found, save perhaps the mountaintops in Montana, which I can't see today thanks to the humidity. Winter is supposed to be pretty - all whites and blues and crispy. Instead, it's ugly outside. Wet, and dank and soggy and brown and gray and definitely not crispy. I think God's forgotten his geography (much like I do when I try to remember whether Minnesota is east or west of Wisconsin) and included the panhandle of Idaho in his Pacific Northwest weather instructions. Yuck.

Politics and Religion

As much as is humanly possible (and that's pretty often), I avoid discussions on these two topics like the plague. For one thing, discussions of this nature, unless with someone who shares your political or religious leanings, usually are not pleasant. They may start off benignly, may even seem to go well, but more than likely, deep down inside, someone goes away from the "discussion" feeling angry, hurt, upset, attacked, or even harboring negative feelings toward the other person. It's not a good thing.

Why do we feel compelled to share our often vitriolic comments about the "other point of view" on these topics with everyone within earshot? What good comes of it? Do we think we're going to somehow convince our opponents that our viewpoint is, in fact, right, that we are the possessor of the one truth, the more caring, humane, wonderful human being, and that they have simply been misled, duped, led astray, all these years by the purveyors of their point of view? Do we actually believe that "we" are right and "they" are wrong, simple as that, black and white? I certainly hope that's not the case! Each of us has, hopefully, come by our convictions through soul-searching, research, study, education, seeking out the thoughts and opinions of those we respect, taking it all in, boiling it all down, and then finally coming to our own conclusions, developing our own opinions. If we have done so, why do we not give our "opponents" credit for also having done so. Instead, we too often treat those who believe differently than we as morons, idiots, sycophants, uneducated fools, and worse. It happens on, as they say, both sides of the aisle. Conservatives are as guilty as liberals, Christians as guilty as atheists. It makes me sick. I'm tired of the name-calling. I'm tired of the lack of tolerance - and I don't mean the PC kind of tolerance. I mean tolerance of a fellow human being who just has a different opinion about things.

I suppose the war brings out the worst in people. It happened during Vietnam, maybe during WW II and we just weren't around to know, and it's happening now. It's not that I'm for or against the war (I'm not sharing my opinion on that topic here), it's just that I read so many articles, hear so many things in television interviews, read blogs and blog comments, and it seems so many people are so hateful toward the point of view that doesn't mesh with their own, that it makes me ache inside. If you don't like things, politically, then vote. If you don't vote, shut up. We live in a representative democracy, which means the side with the most votes wins. If you don't like that, maybe you'd better think about relocating. At any given time, some folks are in the minority, others are in the majority, and the two change positions often it seems. It's kind of like the weather here, if you don't like it, wait 15 minutes, it's bound to change. The political weather seems to change almost as frequently. If you really don't like things, do something constructive about it - run for office, vote, campaign, volunteer, whatever, just DO something. But don't just sit around bitching about the current state of affairs, denigrating those in power, regurgitating what the media, with all their various biases, spews 24/7 as if it's the Gospel, and puffing out your chest in "I told you so" vainglory when the "other side" gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar. The tables will be turned before you know it. That's just the nature of things.

Religion is another hot button. I have very strong beliefs, but I don't run around trying to browbeat everyone into believing as I do, nor do I belittle someone for believing differently. I just don't think that's my job in this life. Do I think some religious groups are being harassed, their point of view being scoffed at, belittled, even opressed? Absolutely! But I also think a lot of that behavior comes from some who consider themselves very religious, not just the secular. Christians fight amongst themselves far too often, one denomination claiming it is the true Christian church, denouncing all others as false doctrine. People of various religions have been persecuted horribly throughout history, Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Pagans, Buddhists, and Christians alike (and half a thousand others I've not listed). It's just plain wrong - as wrong as it is to persecute someone for the color of their skin, their caste, their lack of intelligence, or their politics. Why are humans so darned awful to each other? I just don't get it. My best friend is my polar opposite on the subject of politics and religion. We don't discuss these topics much, though our beliefs do color things we say, our perceptions of things that go on around us at work, and the like. But we don't view those beliefs as hindrances to our friendship. We have each come to appreciate the other's point of view and understand why they would believe as they do, despite the fact that we believe so differently. She has come to realize that not everyone of my political persuasion is a selfish bastard and I have come to realize that not everyone of her political persuasion is a moron. Why can't people STOP labeling and criticizing and start just appreciating people and all their varied stances on things? I hate it.

Phew! I had to get that off my chest. Now off to read much more interesting stuff, like the new scandal brewing on Charlie's blog, what with his impending divorce and whatnot! :)

Back to school

This past Monday we took Jonathan back to college after his two week Christmas break.  It was nice having home, though we barely saw him; not because he wasn’t home much, but because he stayed in his room 24/7 playing World of Warcraft, coming out for food, drink, and to make wisecracks.  But just knowing he was just down the hall was comforting. I could walk down the hall and just look at him, ask him a question, or give him a hug anytime I wanted.  I miss that when he’s gone.  We did watch a few movies together, and of course, spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve and Day together, but yeah, pretty much he was in his room.  Had the weather been better, he might have gone snowboarding with his friend, JW, who was home from school at Georgia Tech for the holidays, but it rained most of the time, making conditions at Schweitzer pretty pathetic.  The 6 or 8 inches of snow we had in the yard is completely melted.

Anyway, I was an idiot.  We had plans to meet the Harrisons for lunch at noon.  I figured we’d move Jonathan into his room, then zip over to Red Robin for lunch, no problemo.  Well, by the time we got the cars loaded with all Jonathan’s stuff, it was already 10:00 AM.  That meant we wouldn’t get to Whitworth until probably 11:30, leaving less than half an hour to unload and get to Red Robin by noon.  So, I called JoAnn to tell her we’d have to make it 12:30 instead of noon.  No problem, says JoAnn.  We get to Whitworth at about 11:40 after contending with bad roads about halfway between Sandpoint and Spokane – surprisingly, it was snowing like mad for about 6 or 7 miles, making travel a bit treacherous – only to find the dorm locked.  What???  No one is around anywhere, no kids are unloading, what is going on?  Just then we spot a security truck making its rounds.  Jonathan asks the guy what the deal is and we find out we can’t get into the dorms until 1:00 PM.  Duh!  No wonder Harrisons wanted to meet at noon.  By now it IS noon.  I quickly dial up JoAnn again and tell her we’re at Whitworth and will go ahead and see them at Red Robin now.  We hooked up finally at about 12:20 or so.  They must have thought we were really rude to not even be able to make our lunch date on time!  I had no idea we couldn’t get into the dorms until 1.  I thought they’d open at 10:00 like they do during initial move-in.  I should have looked at the little calendar on my fridge a little more closely, which I did do when I got home. It clearly states the time for moving in is 1:00 PM.  What a dork!  

We had a great lunch visit with the Harrisons.  Every time we get together it just reinforces just how much I like them!  JoAnn and I click so well it’s amazing.  We thought Lynsey would be with them.  To Jonathan’s disappointment, she was not.  He was really looking forward to seeing her and trying to convince her to choose Whitworth over Pacific.  Nathan looked great – and a lot thinner!  I guess walking all over the UK for three months and not eating dorm food helped him shed a few pounds, though he didn’t really need to.  We sat at the tables in the perfect arrangement – JoAnn and I sat next to each other, the two Toms sat across from one another, and the boys sat across from each other on the other side of the Toms.  We initially started out all talking to each other, mostly listening to Nathan talk about his trip.  Eventually, as is usually the case, JoAnn and I talked to each other, the Toms talked to each other, and the boys talked to each other.  Our table was abuzz with three different conversations.  It was perfect!  I wish we’d had more time together, and more time to listen to Nathan’s stories about his trip, but we had boys to move in and the Harrisons were faced with a 6 or 7 hour drive back to Troutdale, so at 1:30 we each headed to our cars and to move our boys into their dorms.  It went by much too quickly.  I just wish they lived closer so we could hang out.  I think we’d have so much fun together.  I know, for a fact, that JoAnn and I would!  She just rocks!  

So, the boys are involved in their Jan Term classes (ice skating and bowling for Jonathan and a filmmaking class for Nathan), and our house is a bit too quiet for my tastes again, but that’s as it should be.  Jonathan is loving ice skating – his first time ever on ice skates was Wednesday.  It’s a very social class filled with a lot of his friends.  I am not so sure how bowling is going.  He said something about it being filled with mostly upper classmen and having some guys who lived upstairs in his dorm last year that he didn’t really get along with in it, but it’s bowling, which is always better than, say, calculus.  I hope Nathan’s filmmaking class is all he’d hoped it would be.  I’ll be looking forward to his blog posts about it.  I’m assuming the Harrisons made it home safely. I did worry about them having to drive so far so late (they both had to work the next day).  I should call JoAnn and see how the return trip went.  I do hope I get a chance to talk to Nathan at some point about his trip.  I hope Jonathan gets to do some sort of study abroad course during his tenure at Whitworth.  At least we’ll all get a chance to see a bit of the UK in May!  Can’t wait!

Readin' and Writin'

I love both. Problem is, I don't have enough time to do either very well or as often as I'd like. Take reading, for example. Since I was taught to read at the age of 3, I have had my nose in a book. My younger siblings, to this day, grouse about the fact that, growing up, while they were off playing and getting into trouble, I was usually in my room reading. My mom was always reading. Ask any of the four of us kids to describe Mom and we would each say, "I picture her sitting on the couch, twisting her hair (a nervous habit she had), reading a book, and smoking a cigarette". That was Mom. She passed her love of reading on to all of us, but probably more to me than the other three. I escaped from the harsh realities of life through reading (don't we all?) I imagined I was Nancy Drew in my sporty blue roadster, solving every mystery that came my way with my trusty boyfriend, Ned. As I got older, I was Sherlock Holmes, or some other sleuth, using my wits to outwit the murderer and bring him to justice. I was never the helpless damsel in distress - no way. I was always the heroine, the smart gal who solved every crime, was admired by all, had zillions of friends. Yup, that was me. Now, I'm lucky to get through a book in 90 days. I've been trying to finish the same Gabaldon novel for over a year now. I just don't have time! It is so frustrating.

Growing up, when I wasn't reading, I was writing. I looked forward to my creative writing classes and my composition classes that allowed me to write and write and write. I loved essay tests. These afforded me the opportunity to demonstrate to my teachers my amazing mastery of the English language as I expounded on the subject at hand (at least, I thought I was amazing). Give me a pad of paper, a notebook, and I was writing something - short stories, poems, brief articles for the school paper, anything. The books I read often gave me ideas for my creative writing assignments. I am a very good mimic. I can copy another author's style, cadence, mood, and voice with little effort. I can mimic not only another's writing, but also one's manner of speech, gestures, mannerisms, and accent. Sometimes I think I should have been an impersonator. The problem with this "talent" is I wonder if I even have my own writing voice. When I read someone else's work, if I set about to write something of my own, I find myself sounding like the work I just read. If I read Charlie's blog, I start to write like Charlie (well, I could never be that good or funny, but I try). If I read Diana Gabaldon, I start to sound like her. If I read Heinlein, I'm writing like him. Stick some Hemingway in my face, and I'm writing spartan prose like his. It's frustrating, annoying, and weird. Who am I anyway?

Beyond that frustration, is simply the lack of time I have to write the way I'd like to write. This blog, at least, offers some teensy weensy opportunity to express myself in writing, however meager. I am so critical of what I post, too. I ponder whether this blog should be about family, friends, my beliefs, just random rambling, none of the above, all of the above, or something else entirely. And then I wonder if it even matters at all. I actually started a novel right here in a blog. Chapter 1 was pretty good. And then I got stuck, too busy, didn't like the blog format for writing a novel, which would be edited a thousand times anyway, so I hid it from public view. It's still there, nudging me every now and again to revisit it, add to it, breathe life back into it. Perhaps I'll do that one of these days - when work isn't so busy (that will never happen), when my family life is not so demanding (never be a time like that), when I have nothing else demanding my attention (maybe when I'm 80).... in other words, it will probably languish forever and die a slow, undignified death. Are all writers - or rather, aspiring writers - this negative about their writing? Hmmmm.... I'm sure my readers will share their thoughts, experiences, etc. with me (PLEASE!?!).

All blogged up

I can't keep up. I have too many blogs now that I just have to read, some of which have multiple posts each day by their prolific authors. One might just wonder why on earth I don't simply cut back, not feel compelled to read each and every post on each and every blog. I suppose that's a valid question. The key to the answer lies in the use of the word compelled. I admit it. I am a compulsive blog reader! I can't help it. When I find a blog that is well written and interesting, a blog with an author who comes across as personable, someone with whom I'd love to sit and visit over a steaming cappuccino, I simply must revisit their blog regularly. If the blogger is relatively new to blogging, I'll go so far as to read every post since the blog's birth. If the blogger is an "old-timer", I'll at least read back a few months to get to "know" the blogger. I usually read the comments too, which frequently lead me to other great blogs. It's a vicious cycle. The only respite I have is that some of the blogs I've gotten hooked on are written by bloggers in foreign lands, many time zones later than mine. That means they are rarely updated after 3 or 4 PM my time, leaving me the evenings to catch my breath and catch up, maybe even post to my blog a bit.

I complain, but I do so tongue firmly planted in cheek. I love these other blogs and the people I have "met" as a result of reading them. Many of these bloggers are very talented writers, and I hope to hone my own writing skills as I peruse their blogs. One blog I am newly addicted to (it is newly created) is a blog for writers. It is full of great advice, tips, suggestions, caveats... quite worth a read. It can be found here: http://www.weejie.blogspot.com/

The other blogs I have fallen in love with are listed in my links to the left, which I will update regularly as I stumble across even more wonderful, albeit time-sucking, blogs to which I am certain to become addicted.

To my new (and some old) blog friends: Please don't stop posting. I look forward to each and every new entry, to the resultant set of comments, and to living vicariously in Glasgow, Portland, Troutdale, New South Wales, Texas, Alabama, and Spokane through all of your postings. You guys rock!

Be it resolved....

I claim I don't make New Year's resolutions, and I don't - conciously. Well, that is, I don't make a list or state "my New Year's resolution is to" do thus and so. But the reality is, I do make them, quietly, in the back of my mind, all the while denying that I have done so. I think most of us do. It's only natural, I think, to set some sort of goal, make some sort of commitment to change/do better/improve/whatever when we reach various milestones. The beginning of a New Year, though simply a turning of a page in a calendar, carries a sort of emotional or psychological heft that says "this is a time for doing something better". I think birthdays, especially those magically numbered ones like 30, 40, 50, and so on, anniversaries, life events like job changes, retirements, graduations, weddings, and births, and the beginning of a new year, all cause us to pause, look at what we've done, where we're headed, and how we're going about getting there, and make, or at least promise to make, adjustments as needed to help us get there in the best shape (not just physically) possible. So, despite my claim that I don't make resolutions at the beginning of the new year, I have to admit, there are things I've determined to do differently. Wish me luck, and I'll do the same for you.

Women are from cyber-Venus

I just half read an article on the front page of today’s paper that was entitled Women are from cyber-Venus. It basically said men use to the internet to find things to do, women use it to find people to talk to. So, that’s news to someone? I guess blogging fills both needs. If it didn’t, blogs would be predominantly authored by women, and when I blog-hop, that’s not what I see. Some of the best, most riveting, funniest, most entertaining blogs are written by guys.

Okay…time out… I just choked on my own saliva. How crazy is that? You know, when you somehow breathe in the saliva that you meant to swallow and you go into a coughing frenzy trying to clear your trachea of the unwelcome liquid making its way toward your lungs? Wow… thought I was going to die.

My cat, who was lounging on my lap as I awkwardly tried to type on my laptop as it sat on the arm of the sofa, instead of my lap where SHE was sitting, is now sitting next to me glaring at me, twitching her tail, as if I had this near-death episode just to get her off my lap. I admit, there have been times I’ve been tempted to have some sort of seizure or other seemingly uncontrollable fit as a way of removing her from my lap.

You see, we have this routine. Ali, the queen of the house, our 8 year-old calico, sits on the back of the sofa waiting for me to get home from work. I come in the door, do the usual coming-home-from-work stuff – dump my purse and keys, bring in the paper and mail, take off my Uggs and put on my slippers – and then usually make my way toward the other sofa (the reclining leather one) so I can start blogging. The minute I sit down, she runs to the foot of the sofa and sits, waiting. I open the laptop, sit down, and get the Mexican blanket I use to keep the chill off, pull out the recliner – and then she makes her move. She jumps up into my lap. I dare not try to remove her or she will bite the living heck out of me. Since her declawing (see post) she bites more than ever. I guess it’s her way of getting even with me.

Not only does she insist on sitting right in the middle of my lap, she sticks her face right in mine. I cringe, waiting. It’s only a matter of time before she takes a chunk out of my cheek or nose. I usually put my hand up between her face and mine, just in case. She’ll sit like this, in my lap, as I reach over her to type on my crazily located laptop, until she gets good and ready to leave. Sometimes that can be half an hour.

I know, I’m nuts. I should just give her a shove and send her flying off my lap. I’m too nice. I actually adore this little furball. When she’s not next to me at night in bed, curled into the small of my back, I find it difficult to fall asleep. When Jonathan is home from school, his bed is her preferred sleeping spot, so unless he shuts his door to keep her from bugging him all night, she sleeps with him. I hate it. I miss her little warm body. It’s amazing how heavy a 12-pound cat is when they’re sleeping. She’s a real bed hog too. But I love it.

Anyway, my coughing fit scared her, and made her mad. She’s flicking her tail back and forth like a bull whip. Maybe I should be very afraid.

So, back to the article. My first inclination is to disagree. I use the internet to find stuff I need to know – for work, personally, whatever. I don’t IM like all the kids do, I don’t play games (though I have been known to do a Sudoku puzzle now and then), and I don’t visit chat sites. But I do blog, love reading other blogs (well-written ones or those of family or friends), commenting on blogs I read, and “meeting” people via the blogs. So, I suppose that does fit the premise to a certain extent. But I spend most of my internet time researching things. That occupies far more of my time than does blogging or blog hopping.

So, here is the story:

Women are from cyber-Venus …
Gender differences translate to Internet
Victor GodinezDallas Morning NewsDecember 29, 2005

DALLAS – Men spend their time on the Internet looking for stuff to do. Women look for people to talk to.

These are among the main findings to emerge from a series of surveys released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Deborah Fallows, a senior research fellow with Pew, said that men and women have become equally adept at navigating the Internet. "Beyond that, there seems to be a little of a fork in the road," she said. "Men are more action-oriented, and women are more communication-oriented."

Men go online more often and spend more time on the Internet. For example, men are more likely to check sports news (59 vs. 27 percent of online women), get financial information (56 vs. 33 percent), download software (48 vs. 31 percent) or participate in an auction (30 vs. 18 percent). Men (42 percent) are also more likely to pay bills online than women (35 percent).

Women lead in other areas, such as sending e-mail (94 vs. 88 percent). And 74 percent of women look up health and medical information online, compared with 58 percent of men.

"Right now, online life mirrors off-line life very closely," said Fallows, the report's author. "I was surprised at that. I was looking really hard to find counter trends and just find things that either broke the stereotype or changed what you typically believe."

Online retailers and other vendors should pay attention to the findings, Fallows said. She said, for example, that when shopping in clothing stores, women often chat with one another in the dressing room, looking for tips and opinions. For an online retailer catering to women, building a message board or chat room into the site might allow similar interactions.

"If you were a savvy Web designer and had this stuff in mind, you might make some of the shopping experience more tailored," Fallows said.

One finding that Fallows said was somewhat counterintuitive was that a greater percentage of women ages 18 to 29 are online than men that age: 86 percent vs. 80 percent.

"Technology doesn't seem to be an impediment for the youngest women the way it is for older women," she said. "They've grown up with it."

The report included data from a variety of surveys conducted from 2000 to 2005, and the margin of error ranges between 2 and 3 percentage points.

Interesting…. I am very atypical. I’ve been paying bills online since my bank first offered it over 5 years ago. I get financial information online, download software (usually work related, though often not), and I participate in my fair share of auctions, especially when it comes to college textbooks. My husband also atypical. He hates computers, has zero interest in the internet unless he wants ME to look something up for him, and is freaked out about blogging, email, and “online friends” (his term). In fact, he’s so weird about my “internet friends” that he doesn’t even know I have a blog. He thinks it’s weird that I read my son’s college friends’ blogs. I guess it’s something he can’t control so he doesn’t like it. Anyway, interesting article.

Gotta go check the crock pot. Got something delicious brewing! :)

Holiday Pause

We're between holidays now, a good time to catch our collective breath. Christmas was really nice. We spent the day at our oldest son's house along with his family (wife, 2 girls), our daughter and her family (husband, 1 girl, 1 boy), younger son (not married), daughter-in-law's father, stepfather, mother, 2 sisters, brother, sister-in-law, AND..... my husband's ex-wife. Despite the fact that she had previously told the two oldest children that my husband and I were not be included in the holiday gathering, things went well. She and I spent most of the day talking to one another - a marvel in itself since, before Christmas, the longest we've ever spent talking to each other nicely was about two hours when our 2nd granddaughter was born. It went quite well, actually. I even fixed her computer for her. We had an incredible dinner of the most amazing prime rib, superb ham, mashed potatoes, vegetables, green salad, breads, and desserts, with some fine wine to accompany the foodstuffs. It was great! And the kids got way too many presents - so many I don't think they know yet everything they got - and spent the day playing with video games. It was a very nice day.

Now, let's pray the New Year is filled with the Lord's blessings and that we each remember exactly what Christmas is really all about.

The Da Vinci Code

I've been reading - errr, rather, listening to - that book. For the longest time, I had no interest whatsoever in reading it. I tend to be "that way" - not one to jump on the bandwagon of the latest, greatest, hot thing. I have yet read a single Harry Potter book, though I have seen the movies. Back to Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code was such a phenomenon you would think I'd have plunked down my library card and added myself to the unending list of requestors, but I did not. Only by chance am I listening to it now. One of my co-workers has previously recommended spoken word books that I have really enjoyed. I was feeling the urge to listen again to some literary masterpiece, so I went to him for a recommendation. He mentioned a couple of titles, then said something about The Da Vinci Code and I decided "why not?" We had it on CD, which was perfect! I could listen to it on my way to and from work as well as in my office. Since my commute is a brief 15 minutes long, just listening to it in my car would require about a year to finish it. Well, one CD into the book, I was hooked. I can see why the book created such a stir among Christians and non-Christians alike. I found myself saying "wow, I didn't know that" or "is that true?" I had to find out more. I did what any good techno-geek would do; I went online for answers. If you've never done it, Google The Da Vinci Code sometime. It's mind boggling. Conspiracy theorists must be having a field day. There is a lot of stuff out there, most of it crap. Fortunately, I am pretty good at discerning good sources from bad ones.

I found some very interesting and informative sites. One notable site is lisashea.com. She does a great job on the topic. Click here for her Da Vinci Code info. From this site, and a few others, I gathered the information I was seeking. I just need to keep reminding myself, as I'd told people all along before ever reading the tome, it's fiction, people, fiction! There is enough fact interspersed with fiction to confuse you, and to make for a very convincing story about the Catholic church's role in hiding the truth about Jesus, but it is a work of fiction. The less-than-factual information does not lessen my enjoyment of the book one iota. It did get me to look up some stuff I probably would not have otherwise, which means I learned something, and that's always a good thing (gosh, I sound like Martha Stewart). It's an interesting concept, to say the least - that the Catholic church supressed (hid?) the role of Mary Magdalene, and women in general, and lied about Christ's divinity in order to further their cause - but I don't buy it. I guess I'm just one of those people who believes that Christ is the Son of God, that He died for us, and that the Bible is the Word of God, given to man to guide and teach us. Are there, perhaps, some interpretational issues in the various versions? Probably. Are we to take everything in the Bible literally? I can't imagine how we possibly could. That's why we have to understand to whom each book was written, or what the writer's purpose was in writing the book, so we can understand what was written in the context of the times, the audience, etc. Certainly, if God were to give man the Bible today, there would be references to MTV, iPods, and the internet - and what would those things mean to a generation 500 years from now? 2000 years from now?

Anyway, I'm on my soapbox. Back to the book. It's a great mystery, well written, captivating - and I have yet to finish it, so don't spoil the ending for me! If you haven't read it, do so. If you, like me, find yourself too often short of time to read, listen to it on tape or CD. The actor who reads it, Paul Michael, does an excellent job with accents, French, keeping the characters straight. It's quite entertaining.

Par-Tay

Today will be a fun day. My best friend and I are having our annual Christmas lunch/gift exchange today. I adore her. We work together - sort of. We work in the same place, but she works downstairs, while I work upstairs. If I don't visit her office or she mine, we could go all day without seeing one another. These little escapes, of which we partake on our birthdays and on Christmas, are nice escapes wherein we can gossip about everything and everyone, complain about our husbands and children, share our well-kept secrets, and celebrate our wonderfulness. We have a blast! The staff lounge is already filling with Christmas goodies. The air is celebratory. The holidays are upon us and I am embracing them enthusiastically!

Christmas came early

The weekend began on a positive note. Saturday morning we went to Spokane to pick Jonathan up - well, actually, to pick up some of his belongings that he wanted with him over Christmas break that would not fit into his car. His car held his computer (naturally, we couldn't expect him to come home for two weeks sans computer) and two monitors, his clothes, and sundry other things, while our car held his photography portfolio, his Photoshop projects, and some miscellaneous electronics. Turns out, he didn't really need our help after all.

Next stop was Burlington Coat Factory. Now, I had told Tom I didn't want anything for Christmas. He recently took me on a clothes shopping spree, during which I bought 4 pairs of jeans and about 6 or 7 new tops. I don't need anything! I finally said "well, the only thing I can imagine wanting is a new coat. I want a nice, feminine wool coat, about mid-thigh in length." Knowing the buying me jeans took two full days of shopping, he figured buying me a coat would entail a similar investment in time, and knew full well he could not even attempt to buy one without having me try it on. I have broad shoulders "for a girl" and very long arms (that sort of is a given when you're 5' 10"). Because I have spent a good number of years lifting weights, I larger than average upper arms, made worse by the layer of fat currently covering any muscle I might have left after this past year of relative inactivity. In other words, he was smart to take me along. As soon as I realized our destination, I knew our purpose. I found the women's "pant coat" racks and set about finding the coat of my dreams. I had it in my head, just wasn't sure it really existed. We waded through dozens of coats of varying styles, cuts, colors, and prices. I tried on one London Fog coat that I liked, but it had a hood, which I didn't like. It also had patch pockets, which I wasn't too keen on. I wanted a double-breasted coat with no belt and vertical pockets, black wool, and flattering. Many of the coats I tried on were way too tight in the arms and shoulder area. Even coats way too big for me fit that way. I was getting a bit frustrated. After about 30 minutes, Tom pulled a coat off the rack that looked like it might be a likely candidate. It was a Jones of New York coat. It was black. Was double-breasted. Had no belt. Now, would it fit my arms? I put it on and YES! It fit perfectly! It was better than I had hoped for! It is double-breasted, has a very flattering cut - it comes in at the waist slightly and is princess seamed, which makes for a very flattering and slimming fit. It has a nice detail on the sleeves that mimics the mock belt in the back. It was the coat of my dreams - and it was only $90! So, here's a photo of it. Guess they also have it at Overstock.com, so it must be an outdated model, but what the heck do I care?!?!? I love it! It's black.
So, I got my Christmas present on Saturday! Between the coat and having Jonathan home, I couldn't ask for much more. We drove to Coeur d'Alene and met Shana, Ryan and the grandkids for lunch at Chili's - another great time - and then headed back home to unpack Jonathan and sit around watching movies. Now I just have to wrap all the presents, buy Tom's present, and I'm all set!

Feeding Frenzy

I'm eating a Zone Meal. It is a perfectly created meal in the exact right propotions of proteins, carbs, and fats to put me squarely in The Zone (think reverberation chamber and deep James Earl Jones type voice when saying that). Why, you ask, am I downing this swill? Well, a couple of reasons come to mind. One, it was in my pantry. Has been there for probably 3 or 4 years. It's one of those indestructible type meals that requires no refrigeration or freezing, the kind you take into Y2K with you - just in case. And now that I mention Y2K, this meal probably pre-dates Y2K. I was on The Zone Diet for a while. Both of us were. We wanted to rid our bodies of all the horrible things and get in (reverb chamber) The Zone. It became quite cumbersome to balance every meal perfectly, so I resorted to buying Zone meals. Then we went off The Zone Diet and the uneaten meals languished in the pantry. They got pushed further and further back every time I went to the grocery store. I think I finally gave several away to the Boy Scouts for one of their food drives. Heck, they're not cheap, they are nutritious, they are a complete meal - the food bank should be delighted to have them! Anyway, I realized I still have three or four in the pantry. I'm trying to eat properly, and it turns out it's sort of a "zoneish"diet that I'm following, so when I went looking for lunch makings today, and this little Zone Meal was waving its hand, jumping up and down, and saying "pick me, pick me", I decided to take a chance. So, today it's Chicken Gumbo. It's not bad, just awfully fatty. That's what I do remember about the meals. They seem fatty, or more specifically, oily. The meat is good and the black beans and corn are tasty, but the layer of orange oil that is stuck to the sides of the serving container is a bit nauseating. I'm not sure what kind of oil it is. It reminds me of dirty Dexron II ATF fluid. I think I've just lost my appetite.

Disappointed

Alas, no moon tonight. The sky is overcast, the mountains are not visible. I was hoping for a photo-op, but there is none to be had tonight. A missed opportunity. Too many of those in life. We must learn to take advantage of them as they present themselves, not let them slip away.

Moonshadow

I was on the phone yesterday with Jeff, my rep from CDW-G (the government sales department of CDW) chatting about college basketball (go Duke! go Zags!), NFL playoffs (go Colts!), and other sports-related matters, when I looked out the window, and stopped in mid-sentence. It was about 4:00 PM. My window faces east. I look out over most of the town of Sandpoint (my office is on the second floor). To the east is a range of mountains that are right about where the borders of Montana and Idaho meet. This time of year, they are snow-capped, and on sunny days, they are glorious. At dusk, they are usually painted in pinks and oranges, set off by a deepening blue sky. This view serves to remind me just how lucky I am live here, despite how I might grouse about the snow or grey skies or unceasingly wet weather in the spring. Yesterday, what stopped me was not only the beauty of the mountains, but the shockingly low-hung full moon, sitting just above the treetops a bit to the northeast, brilliantly illuminated, like a street lamp just turned on. It was still so light out, and yet the moon shone so brightly, and sat so huge above the trees. It felt like you could reach out and touch it. I shared the scene with Jeff, exclaiming the beauty of the scene. He was in Chicago, where it was well past dark. He couldn't see the moon - something about a storm in his neck of the woods - so viewed it vicariously through my description. I meant to take a photo of it, but I got busy and forgot. I'll watch for the scene to repeat itself tonight, and hopefully take a shot of it to post herein.

This morning is awash with its own sort of beauty, as the eastern sky (my living room faces east too) welcomes the sun to paint it in delightful magentas and brilliant oranges. It will be sunny and cold today - 14 or 18 degrees for our high I think - a beautiful day indeed. Cheers!

Ugged

I loathe shoes. A native Californian, I wore them as infrequently as possible. I spent most of my childhood barefoot, despite my mother's well-intentioned warnings about rusty nails, tetanus shots, gangrenous infections that would result in the loss of toes, and worse. After actually stepping on a rusty nail that protruded from a discarded, weatherbeaten two-by-four, whilst wearing Keds, the sole of which offered no protection whatsoever from the nail that went right through it and into my foot, I decided shoes were definitely a waste of time. I usually removed them as quickly as possible as soon as I was out of my mother's sight.

When my feet grew to size 9 1/2 by the time I was 12, shoes were more bothersome than ever, especially finding them to fit. Women with size 9 1/2 feet were not that common then, whereas today, size 9 is the new size 7 - everyone wears a 9. Back in the day, shoes went from size 9 to size 10, unless you were ready to part with a week's pay, and even then, good luck finding a 9 1/2. I know this because my first job ever was selling shoes. Ironic, huh? A girl who hates wearing shoes spends two years selling them during her high school years. But we didn't carry 9 1/2's. 9's or 10's, no 9 1/2's. I will admit this - during my tenure as a shoe salesperson, I bought lots of shoes. I could wear 9's in those old square-toed styles that were popular in the early 70's, so when we got our shipments of new shoes, if there was a style I liked, I snatched one of the two pairs of 9's we would get in. I eventually had a shoe wardrobe consisting of 25 sinfully indulgent pairs of the latest, greatest shoes available. Since footwear was required in school, and flip-flops did not qualify as acceptable footwear in 1970, I made the most of my employee discount. I even had navy blue patent leather boots that laced up and had brass eyelets and hugged your leg and matched a navy blue belt with big brass belt holes like the eyelets on the boots. I was so hip! But I digress. I only wore shoes when I absolutely had to, like to work, to school, to funerals and weddings - that pretty much covers it. The moment I got home, off went the shoes. Feet were meant to be unbound, toes free to wriggle and spread as needed. California was the perfect place for a shoephobe like me.

Then I moved to Idaho. Summers here are warm, and going barefoot is perfectly normal. But when we moved here, most people had gravel driveways, not cement or asphalt. And most of the parking lots were gravel. Big, jagged, gnarly gravel. The kind that, when you walk on it barefoot, makes you wish you were shod. Not me. I have leather for soles on my feet. I have the toughest feet ever. I walked daily from my front door to my mailbox across a 100 foot long, very rugged, gravel driveway for nearly ten years. My husband would run to soak his feet after simply watching me do this, but then, his feet hurt walking on carpet. He always wears socks inside, shoes outside. He has baby feet. He thinks I'm insane.

And then it snowed. Did that stop my barefooting ways? No way, Jose! I walk to get the newspaper in my bare feet more often than not. It gets a bit cold at times, especially when we are in the midst of an Arctic blast, but my feet can take it. They've had 50 years experience!

Now, when it rains, and the (now paved) driveway is covered in nightcrawlers, and I'm walking to get the paper in the dark and step on a slimy worm, well... then I give my barefooting ways a second thought, but that's about the only time. Before you go getting all crazy on me about safety issues or some such nonsense (like my mother and her lockjaw stories), let me sayd, I do wear shoes when I mow the lawn. Well, sort of. I wear my Chaco sandals. Obviously, I have to wear shoes at work. In the summer, I wear my Chacos every single day. Wearing them is almost as good as going barefoot. My feet get a crazy zig-zagged tan line, I paint my toenails, and do what I can to make my clodhopper feet look at least a little feminine, which means I put lotion on them to try to soften my calluses. But Chacos aren't the most feminine sandals around. They're pretty much designed for mountain climbing, stream hopping, hiking, and whatnot. I love them. They are so comfortable, and comfort is the name of the game! In the winter, once the snow gets too deep for my Chacos, I don my Uggs.
Uggs barely count as shoes. They are soft, warm, and oh so comfortable. They are almost as good as going barefoot, especially since you don't wear socks with them. I love my Uggs. I have black ones, with black sheepskin inside, so my feet turn a greenish-gray from the dye rubbing off on them. It reminds me of how people are supposed to make sure they have on clean underwear in case they get hit by a car and have to go to the hospital - something about doctors and nurses seeing you in clean underwear so you don't embarrass your mother. What would they think of my gray-green feet? Would they think I had some horrible disorder and bring in Dr. House to determine the cause? I don't care. I love my Uggs. I loathe shoes, but I love Uggs.

Fact or fiction?

I stumbled across a really interesting blog yesterday.  Actually, interesting is too bland a word.  The blog is called Waiting for Bloggo – a play on Waiting for Godot.  The link is http://waitingforbloggo.blogspot.com.  It is purported to be a team blog, maintained by david and elizabeth – they use lower case letters when they speak of and to one another.  To really get a feel for this blog, one must read it from the beginning.  I initially believed it to be truly a team blog, with postings by two individuals.  As I’ve now read all of it through today’s posting, I have come to believe it is a carefully constructed piece of fiction posing as a team blog.  It is quite well written and the feeling that it is actually a team blog with postings by two different individuals is hard to shake, but too often the writing styles and cadences are too similar to be merely coincidence.  There are also too many coincidences in their lives to be simply serendipity.  Nonetheless, it is entertaining in the way a good piece of fiction is entertaining.  I find myself returning to it regularly, looking for the next chapter in their “love story” as it unfolds before me.  One thing it does is makes me want to write better.  Some of the descriptive passages by “elizabeth” are so very well written it almost breaks my heart.  I started off trying to write interesting, thought-provoking, well constructed posts on this blog.  I have missed the mark more often than not.  Too often I simply write the way I speak – quickly, voluminously, and without much content.  I need to do better.  Another thing this blog has done is point me to a few other interesting blogs, some of which I will link to.  It has also made me ponder the idea of creating a completely anonymous blog like david and elizabeth’s in which I can pour out my soul without fear of retribution or discovery.  Perhaps blogging should be more anonymous and hence, more honest.  It’s a thought.

Diet Killers

Wow, did I pick a bad time of year to decide to stick to a diet.  I officially started last Monday.  I stuck to it, more or less, until Friday.  Friday was our staff Christmas breakfast, which meant many delicious foodstuffs to be had.  One of my coworkers brought in three different cheesecakes.  THREE!  One was chocolate, one was something kind of chocolatey but with some wonderful carmelized crust, and one I didn’t try because it looked like it had blueberries in it and they are not my favorite fruit.  I never get cheesecake because my husband hates the stuff – can’t even stand the smell of it – and yet, it has to be my all time favorite dessert.  Naturally, I had a piece of both of the chocolate-based cheesecakes.  I made frittata as my contribution, and couldn’t pass up a serving for myself.  I think I had some other things to eat too, but mostly remember the cheesecake since it was the major diet-buster.  

After the party, I headed to Spokane to have the radio replaced in my Jetta under a recall.  Seems the radio has some problem in its firmware that makes the satellite receiver go bad, which happened to us, so it had to be replaced.  That project was projected to take “a couple of hours”, so I had Jonathan drive over to pick me up and take me along with him while he finished taking photos for his photography class.  That was fun, actually.  I helped him select some scenes to photograph, and he took the pix.  He said his biggest problem is deciding what to take pictures of – narrowing the choices – and he welcomed my suggestions.  He took shots of the Spokane River and Falls from a little walking bridge that crosses it near the Flour Mill.  Then he took photos of the view of the clock tower and Expo tower thingee from the steps at the Spokane Arena. I guess those turned out pretty well.  We about froze to death (it was in the teens), but it was fun.  Finally, at 5 PM, my car was done.  Jonathan I and drove to Coeur d’Alene and met Tom at Chili’s for dinner (another diet killer), after which we each headed to our respective homes (Jonathan back to Whitworth, Tom and me back to Sandpoint).  

Saturday was our granddaughter Olivia’s 7th birthday.  That meant pizza and cake – diet killer #3.  Sunday was a Christmas shopping day for Tom and me, which involved eating out at Applebee’s.  I don’t think Chicken Panini, as wonderfully delicious as it was, is on my diet.  And I doubt the chili and cornbread we had for dinner when the kids came over to watch Polar Express was either.  So… last week was pretty terrible diet-wise.  This one should be much better – I hope.  I just have to stay away from any goodies that show up in the staff lounge.  Better yet, I should avoid the staff lounge altogether.  Too bad that’s where I have to store my lunch and go for coffee or hot water for tea.  Pray for me.  I need all the help I can get!

Fairmont Hot Springs, BC, Canada Weekend

What a terrific long weekend we had! On Friday, we (Tom, me, Shana, Ryan, Olivia, and Tyler) loaded up the Suburban (our trusty steed) with food, clothing, and the necessary toiletries, and headed to the Great White North – Canada. Our destination – Fairmont Hot Springs, BC, Canada. Tom and I have a timeshare in Las Vegas at the Tahiti Resort. Ours is a two bedroom deluxe – sleeps 8 –model, which means we can exchange for two one-week stays in a one bedroom, sleeps 4 (or bigger), condo pretty much anywhere in the world for a nominal exchange fee. That’s how we’re going to the UK – we’re exchanging for two one-week stays in a 2 bedroom, 2 bath cottage in Great Britain for $150 each week. Anyway, since we have the timeshare, through our exchange company, Interval International, we can buy “getaways” – weeklong stays at various timeshares all over the world – at greatly reduced prices and without giving up any of our weeks. We knew we wanted to go to a hot springs, but were undecided whether to go Ainsworth Hot Springs or Fairmont.

Ainsworth is cool, but there is nothing else to do there but go in the hot springs pools, and the road to Ainsworth is narrow and winding and kind of scary in the winter. There’s no town of Ainsworth. There is one restaurant, and the room sleeps 5, so we’d be sneaking Tyler in, and we’d be on the crowded side. It was going to cost us $260 to stay for two nights at Ainsworth.

Fairmont, on the other hand, is a little town with a grocery store, restaurants, and a couple of little shops. A much larger town, Invermere, is only 20 minutes away. If we got bored and wanted to just walk through a quaint little tourist town, we could head to Invermere, or even to Radium, about 40 minutes north, which has a very cool hot springs and tons of mountain goats and Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep on the craggy peaks above the hot springs. Fairmont just seemed like a much better idea. So, I checked Interval to see what was available in Fairmont, and learned we had our pick of 4 different resorts – Fairmont Villas at Riverside, Hillside, Riverview, or Mountainside. After checking out the info on the Interval website, we decided to go to Fairmont and stay at the villas at the Riverside resort. We would have a two-bedroom, two-bath, sleeps 8 condo with a full kitchen, a kitchenette, two living rooms, and 4 TV’s (no fighting among the kids over what to watch). The cost? $304 for a week! Too bad we could only stay for three days.

View from our condo patio.

Friday morning we loaded up and left Sandpoint at 9:30 AM. We had just had two days of snow and winds and the forecast was for even more, with travel advisories in place for northern Idaho and eastern Washington, but the forecast for the Fairmont area was partly cloudy and no snow. As we headed out, the roads were snow-packed, it was snowing, and it was slow going. By the time we hit Cranbrook, BC, about two hours north of Sandpoint, the road conditions had improved, but it was still cloudy and snowing lightly. We arrived at our resort in Fairmont at 1:30 PM, about half an hour longer than it usually takes to get there. Check-in time at the resort was 4PM but I figured we should see if we could get in early. If we couldn’t, we could always go up to the hot springs and hang out there until we could check in. Well, I completely forgot that Fairmont is on Mountain Standard Time, so instead of being 1:30, it was 2:30. They told us at the desk that we could check in at 3PM, so we only had half an hour to kill. We were welcome to use the recreation area of the resort while we waited, so we checked out the pool, hot tub, game room, children’s play area, and movie room. It is a super nice resort!

They show a movie every night at 7:30 in the upstairs movie room on a big screen TV. Friday and Saturday they were showing Because of Winn-Dixie, a movie I’ve heard of but have never seen. We thought maybe the kids would enjoy seeing that that night. Finally 3:00 arrived and we went downstairs to check in. The resort was pretty much empty. They are in the process of renovating several of the buildings and redecorating all of the villas with more contemporary furnishings, carpeting, etc. The current color scheme is teal, mauve, and cream. It looks like the new colors will be warm golds with black accents, and some other more dramatic colors.

Anyway, we headed to our villa – a two bedroom villa on the ground floor. We entered via the small side, which was nice, and then opened the door to the big side (remember, these can be rented as one unit or two separate units, so there is a locking door between the two sides). It was amazing! It was huge and beautifully decorated, even though, with the exception of the sofa, chair, and dining table it was the “old” style. The kitchen was as big as my kitchen at home with nice GE appliances, including a microwave over the range. The dining room set was gorgeous and enormous, easily accommodating all 6 of us. The living room was spacious, with a sofa bed, coffee table, side chair, TV, DVD/VCR player, stereo system, and gas fireplace. The large master bedroom had a queen-sized bed, and opened onto the master bath, which featured a 2 person jetted bathtub, a separate walk-in, 2 person shower on one side, and enclosed toilet on the other side. The “small side” featured a small living room with a sofa bed, TV with DVD/VCR player, and stereo, a kitchenette with a 2 burner stove, over the range microwave, small bar-sized refrigerator, and eating counter, bathroom with 2 person-jetted tub/shower, and a bedroom with a queen-sized bed and TV. Along the wall between the kitchen/dining room and the bedroom in the large side, there was a built-in buffet with drawers and cabinets, a countertop, and mirrors. Along the back of the large side was a huge patio with patio furniture, a gas barbecue grill that was plumbed into the natural gas, and a gorgeous view of the mountains, the golf course, and the huge homes that lined the fairways. Just outside our villa was a playground for the kids. It is an absolutely gorgeous resort and we had it practically to ourselves!

Shana & Ryan have never stayed in a timeshare, so they were blown away. The kitchen is, of course, fully stocked with pots, pans, dishes, glasses, silverware, cooking utensils, toaster, coffeemaker, and the like. I have to say, this was probably the nicest timeshare we have stayed in yet. Our condo in Vegas is new – only a couple of years old – but the rooms are not as big. Also, it’s Vegas – people are there to be somewhere other than their resort, and it shows. At Fairmont, they have scheduled activities all day long, every day; everything from craft activities for the kids, to walks along the meadows in the snow looking for wildlife, to movies every night. Golf is the focus in Fairmont, and a round of golf only takes so long so there have to be activities to occupy the rest of your time, whereas the Vegas Strip is the focus in Vegas and everything revolves around activities on the strip – free shows, dinners, etc. Very little time is actually spent at the condo in Vegas, with the exception of maybe hanging out at the pool in the morning before heading to the strip for dinner and a show or some gambling. Anyway, the resort in Fairmont was awesome.

We set about unpacking and eating a very light lunch, playing in the snow at the playground for a bit, and then decided to just take in the pool on-site that night, leaving the Hot Springs for the next day. We went to the pool about 5 PM. The kids just loved it. Olivia is like a little fish. She could spend all day in the water. Jonathan was like that when he was little. He just never wanted to get out of the pool. To our amazement, Tyler suddenly knew how to “swim”! Well, he dog paddles, and he does so so ferociously that he tires himself out in no time. We tried to teach him to stroke, which he would do for about 10 seconds before reverting to his dog paddle, but he could make it across the width of the pool, which is something he couldn’t do just a few months earlier. There was an outside hot tub, which we all soaked in while snow fell around us for about half an hour. Finally, about 7:00 we headed to the room to have dinner. We had planned to have frozen lasagna for dinner that night. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize it would take almost two hours to cook. By the time it was ready, the kids were almost falling asleep. It was all they could to keep their eyes open while they were eating. The time in the pool had helped tire them both out. They would sleep well that night. We all got a great night’s sleep. The condos are very quiet!
We got up the next morning, had breakfast, then headed to the Suburban for the 3 minute drive to the hot springs. Uh-oh. The Suburban would not start. The battery was dead. This came as quite a shock because the Suburban is so reliable. After not driving it for almost two months, it started right up the morning we headed to Fairmont. We figured something must have been left on. We found one of the resort workers and asked if he had jumper cables. Well, he did, but they were in his other truck. He checked with several people and all had the same story – their cables were in their other vehicle. Finally, one guy dragged out the crustiest, most decrepit set of jumper cables I have ever seen. As he was bringing them to us, one of the connectors fell off. He went to the maintenance closet and managed to reconnect them somehow. We hooked them up to our battery and the battery of one of the maintenance trucks, waited about 10 minutes, and the Suburban started right up! I have to say this – the guys there at the resort were awesome. They went out of their way to help get us started, spending over half an hour locating cables for us and then making sure we got started. We found out the temperature had dipped to -20 Celsius that night – which translates into -4 Fahrenheit. No wonder the Suburban wouldn’t start! There was hoarfrost on everything. It was a beautiful, sunny, cold day. Surprisingly, it didn’t feel THAT cold. It’s very dry there.

We made it to the hot springs and bought day passes so we could go home for lunch, and come back that evening for another round of soaking. The hot springs are the largest odorless hot springs in Canada. There are 3 pools. One is the hot pool with a temperature of about 100 Fahrenheit. It’s almost the size of an Olympic swimming pool, but only about 4 feet deep at its deepest. Then there is the cool pool – a bit warmer than a normal swimming pool. It is Olympic-sized with a maximum depth of 5 feet. Then there is a diving pool that is normal swimming pool warmth and 10 feet deep with high and low dives. It’s about 1/3 the size of an Olympic pool. A day pass cost us, with a discount for staying at the villas, $8.75 CDN, which is about $7 US, per adult. Olivia was about $5.00 and Tyler was free. The steam rising off the water made it impossible to see more than 4 or 5 feet away until a breeze would come along and blow it clear. The steam droplets would cling to your hair and freeze, making it look like we had white feathers in our hair like a feather boa. It was pretty funny to see these strands of hair sticking up coated with hoarfrost on everyone. When we went back that night, the effect was even more dramatic. I had my hair in a ponytail, and I got tons of comments from other people in the pool about how amazing my hair looked in back with all the frost I had on it. It probably coated my hair in a layer about half an inch thick. We had a blast in the hot springs. We went back and forth between the pools, which was exhilarating. After our morning session, we went back for lunch and a nap – the springs relax you so much you just can’t help but take a nap. We went back about 5:30 PM and stayed until 8:30, then came back for soup before bed. The guys were worried about the Suburban dying again, so at 2 AM Ryan got up and started it and let it run a bit, then at 5 Tom got up and did the same (though he had gotten up at 2 as well). It started every time with no problem, even though it had gotten down to -22C/-8F that night. The staff at the resort stopped by to make sure it had started, which was so thoughtful!

At 9:30 AM on Sunday, we took in the spectacular Sunday buffet at the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort restaurant. It was amazing, with made-to-order omelets, made-to-order pasta dishes, the usual array of eggs benedict, sausages, bacon, salads, fresh fruits, meats, fish, cheeses, breads, pastries, and a dizzying array of desserts, coffee, tea, and any kind of juice you wanted. This feast cost us about $14 US for adults, $8 for Olivia, and Tyler was free again. After breakfast, we packed up the Suburban, checked-out, and returned to Sandpoint, arriving back home in just under 4 hours.

It was a terrific weekend, a great time with the kids, super relaxing, and tough to see come to an end. We have decided that we want to spend next Thanksgiving week up there and rent one additional small side for Tommy and his family, take Jonathan along, of course, and just get away for an entire week together. It should be awesome!

Thankful

Thanksgiving was great.  Everyone was here; Tommy and his wife, Shannon and their girls, Sydney and Alyssa, Shana and her husband, Ryan, and their kids, Olivia and Tyler, and Jonathan and his roommate, Steve.  We had plenty of food (two turkeys!), lots of fun being together (no arguments or hurt feelings), lots of games (Xbox 360 and good old dominoes), football (Madden 2006, college, and NFL), and good weather.  It was great.  Hope you can all say the same thing about your holiday!

Addicted

I officially have no life.  Either that or I am addicted to my computers.  Probably the latter.  So, why am I saying this?  I’m sitting here with no good reason not to go to the gym this morning, and all I want to do is check my email, blog, read other blogs, check my email, read news online, check my email, read blogs….  Pretty sad, isn’t it?  Why aren’t I in the other room packing my gym bag?  It’s only about 24 degrees outside, the wind is blowing, it’s snowing…. Sounds like perfect stay-at-home weather, doesn’t it?  At least until it gets light out and I have to go somewhere – i.e. work.  Ugh.