No drooping

Well, you can't really droop and climb these steps. That is what I had to do yesterday. I met the tech at the Admin office which is a building across the street to this school. The wiring closet in this school had the tech equipment I needed to work on.

Sigh. And, they were not as bad as I thought. The tech was a slim lady. Older than me (maybe, I can't tell any more) but very slim. She had trouble unlocking the doors so that gave me a chance to catch my breath.

Once inside I had to squeeze past a desk area that was about seven inches wide. Fortunately just my legs had to do the squeezing. And at the same time try not to snag any cables on my body and unplug something. (I got stuck in this closet area once before and did not want a repeat.)

I got the job done - so glad. A lot of techs like to perform upgrades and changes when there are no students and staff in the building.

My back hurt me all during the night and this morning. Not certain if the steps were the reason or not. I did no heavy lifting that I can think of. Usually I have to carry very heavy technology equipment into the building and doing that with those steps would have really done me in. I had nothing yesterday except for pen and paper and my car keys. Didn't even take my cell phone in.

Dragging

It is off to work for me this morning. Dragging.

My dry erase board

My daughter drew the red part months ago and I drew the green picture right afterwards. It has remained on the dry erase board but does not look as fresh.

It will help me on days like then when I have to go in to work. I will probably be alone in there as the office I work out of - they are closed. I also work on Friday. Grumble, grumble.

There are no schools in session - well, one vocational school that I am traveling to today to switch them over to an upgrade. I hope it goes smoothly.

It just works out like this sometimes.

A sunset

This one was taken in October. When we went to the winery for the pumpkin chunkin and the T-Rex that ate cars. People kind of look like zombies just walking around the big field carrying their small children.

On my way out to another busy day today.

What the heck?

So there I am last Saturday after the family party. I plug my phone into my computer (as I have for a couple of years) to pull the pictures off of the SD card. What? The computer no longer recognizes my phone. Kaput. Nothing. I mess with it for a while and then I just open the phone, pull out that tiny SD card and plug it into a multi-port card reader that I had purchased a while back. I got the pictures that way.

The next day, I am thinking - I am going to fix my phone. I work with it. I fiddle with this, with that. I google the problem. I followed one post's advice. Something about changing the phone Settings from Mass storage to Media Sync.

It didn't happen right away. In fact I think it took 12  hours. But lo and behold, I started getting e-mail messages from 2012. A slew of them. There were old 2012 messages that went to co-workers, friends and family. What the hell?

A few who did not read the date were confused. They contacted me and said "What is going on?" I sent a mass e-mail to all my contacts explaining what had happened and to "ignore" any old messages they may get from me.

But, what I got was another story. I can recall a time when I would take pictures with my phone and share (send) it to my e-mail account. I have one in gmail and my regular roadrunner accounts. I never received them so I would send them different ways. Nothing. I finally was able to share some through facebook, others I had to wait until I got home to my PC and pull them off my phone that way.

I must have received twenty old images. It made me smile. The above photo is one such image. Remember a while back when I did the hot sauce episode (for about a month?). I looked it up, it was March 2012. If you click on the "hotsauce" label you can read all my posts about hotsauce.

 At one point I went back to the same store and snagged more photos. The one posted above is from that trip.

Some interesting reading on hot sauces:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

http://www.chilliworld.com/factfile/scoville_scale.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_sauce

A warm holiday glow

The restaurant knows how to decorate, I'll give it that. We had our annual family dinner last evening. The weather caused a few concerns, but all showed plus two extra. Wow. I had called the restaurant earlier stating that we may have some cancellations so they cut our table size down to twenty. I then had 23 adults, 5 children and 3 tiny babies show up. It got crowded - again.

The games were kind of sloppy. I was not organized at all. There were fewer gifts (lack of funds). The kids wanted more, more, more and I felt inadequate. 

And the chicken was rubber. I should have ordered the steak.

But I got to see all the little tiny ones. From 7 down to one month old. Two brothers did not show. They spent the evening with their fire department/town hall Christmas parties.

The roads were a mess. I had put two brand new tires on my car that morning. I had been to that restaurant last week (just to check it out) and driving home was quite a feat with two bald, front tires. I was  more prepared yesterday. Much better. My pocket book did not need the extra expense this close before the holiday but when does a car care about that? Never.

A little warmth

Picking a photo with some heat in it today. Naturally, this photo is from this past summer. This is my grand nephew. (or, great nephew - depending on which you prefer to use).  As his daddy says "Keep him out of the sun, his skin is translucent."

I have the family Christmas dinner this evening. Only 26 are coming. About ten fewer than last year. I can't find my games. I think they are on my computer at work. I saw my work desk this week for five minutes maybe.

Wednesday and Thursday I spent with a tech from California. Ugh. Every minute together almost (for the work day). My head was ready to explode with a migraine by Thursday afternoon. It took me all of Friday (a vacation day) to recover. I call this having to stay "turned on" - as in my brain. Riding in the car together, having lunch together both days - with no other co-worker to help me keep up the conversation. I know a ton of stuff about his family and friends.

He is a tech trying to sell me on this new appliance for our network. I just don't like to spend that much time with a "stranger". Trying not to offend in my conversations, etc... It was a serious drain on my brain. Fortunately, I kissed the blarney stone at one point in my life (not literally, I have not been to Ireland). But all that chatter and thinking give me a fitful headache.

Edit:  YAY! I just remembered my "older" laptop is in the trunk of my car and I think my Christmas games are on it. :)

Well, heck.

I guess I've been too busy to post. Ah, wait. I know what it is.Work is busy, my brain is drained and by the time I get home I have lost any sense of making any sense to put anything into words. I have been off now for three days and I am starting to climb back up and out of that dark hole.

Here is a photo of my nephew's little baby. Almost six months old. And the apple of his eye by far.

Somali Piracy

I watched the movie "Captain Phillips".  T Hanks comes through as usual. Wonderful actor, just wonderful. I was crying at the end (or teared up anyway).

Of course I had to research the real story.

Spoiler Alert! Not a lot, but a bit.

Two things. Captain Phillips (to me) neglected to heed the warning of keeping his ship 600 miles from the coast of Somalia. He was 240 miles when they were overtaken by the pirates. All ships were advised to stay 600 miles away. Perhaps the pirate ships were not capable of going that far out to sea. Hence - some crew members are suing.

Second - me thinks that the pirate (Muse) has a much better life in a federal prison in the United States than he would have - had he stayed and lived in Somalia. Photo above is lifted from the Internets - typical family conditions in Somalia.

I guess I'll add another tidbit of information. It appears to have escalated (the piracy) when big tankers dumped waste into the waters killing the fish and the local fishermen had no way to make a living so they turned to piracy. As usual, things got out of hand quickly when greed takes over.