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.

Glowing

My niece is travelling this month. She captured this shot of the Gateway Arch. I remember driving past it years ago. My memory was in the daylight, though. I do recall hating the traffic in St. Louis at that time. A madhouse. Pure madness. I hope her experience was much better.

Silhouette

Serene photo, except for the cable wires and that alien-esque street lamp. Directly after the wedding ceremony at Sm@thèrs Bè@ch, Kèy Wè$t;  I pointed my camera west and caught the sky. The photo is untouched except for a slight shadow border and I blacked out the date from the camera (which was incorrect anyway).

Doctored

I doctored the above photo. Key West Sunset.

Sunset Sailing

Another shot from Mallory Square in Key West.

Sailing

Off the shore of Mallory Square in Key West at the sunset celebration.

I kind of liked having the sailboats in the sunset. After the sun set we realized there were many houses on the island in the right of the photo. We even noticed more islands that we did not see before because of the glaring sun.

I had an extra three week days to recover from the vacation and I have to say, I think I needed each and every one. I must have slept through Sunday and most of Monday. It was also so cold when we returned I could not move very far away from my electric heater. Of course, having the heater on may have contributed to my sleepiness.

Sigh. I guess I am ready to go back to work today. I tried to keep up with the e-mail messages. I still am not certain if I am supposed to report to a school this morning or go directly to my office. I will go over some of the early messages to see. I recall reading a message or two "...when Peruby returns from vacation....", so I will re-read.

I shopped for the food supplies for the wedding shower yesterday. I am making calico beans, taco dip, cheese tray and the punch. Non alcoholic. I am going to try a recipe that uses cranberry juice, pineapple juice, ginger ale, sugar and almond extract. I have never purchased almond extract before. Ouch!

The cake is ordered. I have to print off a pretty picture of a rainbow and run it over to the bakery today. I was out of yellow ink at home. The bakery will take any photo you print and create the edible picture and decorate around it. I may keep it simple and have this one:  simple. I really like this one:  bars   and this one:   butterfly.

A nice lady helped me decide on what to do for favors. I will assemble and take pictures. I have a party out of town Friday night so I do not have much time! Yikes!

Cruise

I have one brother who prefers to vacation via cruise ship. I have not been on one, yet. I have had a couple of opportunities to go, but have not, yet. We wanted to get as many family members as possible, but nobody ever has the money to go at the same time as a deposit is required many months in advance.

This cruise ship was in the harbor when my nephew and I slipped down to Mallory Square to capture photos of the infamous sunset. As we waited for the sun to set a young lady ran up to the huge ship and the crowd cheered. Seems as though the entire cruise ship was waiting for her. From a distance I could see that she had long flowing blond hair. Had on a black short outfit and was drinking a fountain drink. I wondered what had held her up for an hour. That was how long between the ship sending out it's long wail to call passengers and the actual time she arrived. They had to completely re-open the doors and put the walkway down especially for her.

It was the folks on land that cheered. Not the passengers on the ship.

But, oh what a sunset. My nephew was upset at all the sailboats and other vessels that blocked the view, but I rather thought their silhouette against the backdrop of the setting sun added more character to my pictures. By the time the sun set my camera battery was depleted (as we had been out walking for seven hours straight by then) and I had to use my cell phone. I was so worried I was going to drop it in the water. I had used up all the camera battery power at the Butterfly conservatory. My group of family kept laughing at me because I kept mistakenly saying the Butter conservatory. I came back with the obligatory coffee cup (my souvenir of choice). And a tote. Of course a tote to carry all the other souvenirs I purchased for other folks.

I washed all my totes when I came home. I really need to spread them out and get a picture of all of them. The cats love them so I have to hide them so they do not sleep on them and get their cat hair all over them. Most of my totes are black. The one I purchased in Key West is a clam shell white.

Do you have a certain item that you pick up each time you vacation? My brother-in-law collects shot glasses, so I picked up one for him. He does not even drink. LOL! I picked up tee-shirts for all the grand nephews. A couple of magnets for sisters. A hat for my brother. I also grabbed a new key ring for myself. We ate at the Hard Rock cafe but their souvenir selection was quite lacking.

September Sunset

Neil Diamond had his "September Morn" I figure I can have my September sunset. I stayed late after work and decided to drive to the top of the hill at our town park and get more photos of the sunset through the pine trees found there. Even though the weather was stunning and beautiful, there were very few folks out and about. I did run into someone I knew and chatted for a few minutes. By then, the moment to capture the sunset was gone. Ah, well. I have lots of this particular view, anyway.

My vacation time for October has been approved. Some family members and I are going to visit relatives in WV. We have an on-line calendar at work where we are to post our vacation and meetings. I have mine posted for vacation time. I just know my manager is going to schedule a meeting on one of the days that I am gone. I can feel it. He never checks the calendar to see who is going to be out that day. Hey, I just thought of something. Maybe he does check. And, when he sees that I am not going to be there, he schedules a meeting. I never thought of that! LOL! Well, bust my buttons. Now, I have a complex!

Clouds in my coffee

Sunset silhouette

I noticed clouds in my coffee this morning. I went to move the cup of hot Joe out of my way while putting my make-up on and I saw what looked like a bunch of clouds in there. I thought "Huh. Clouds in my coffee." Sounds like a song, eh? hee, hee.

So, I started thinking. What did Carly mean by that phrase? Was it a bad omen? I don't put much regard into that type of thinking, so I promptly forgot about it. I went on to work and what a day I had. I felt good at the start. I had a small success with a cabling issue. Then it all went downhill. I'll bet I spent three hours straight walking back and forth between a school basement dungeon (where the phone lines come in) and to the dark and dirty closet on the 2nd floor.

The telco insisted that their line was good. I tried every trick I had and then some to get that T1 line to come up. The school has 4 others, so it wouldn't miss that fifth one. It was the fact of that matter that the telco brushes us off. I was going to make damn sure it wasn't anything I could fix. I swapped cables, I re-routed cables, I re-crimped cables. I moved cables from one interface to another. I re-configured interfaces. I increased the differential-time delay. I was grasping.

The fifth T1 line remains in an unusableFault state. I have read Cisco web pages until my eyes dried up and fell onto my desk and I had to soak them in a glass of water before I could put them back into their sockets. Maybe there is a limit vector going on here.

I don't have any other school with 5 T1's (7720MB approximate) bonded together into one big pipe. I had one with four. They were in another area code and that area code got fiber. Our area code does not offer fiber. Between the telephone company and the cable company - it is a no go. Fiber offers the schools 10MB of bandwidth. They can go hog wild.

I'll be back at it tomorrow, drinking coffee, pushing the clouds out of the way. Oh, it is still hot in the closet. I tracked a custodian down to empty the air conditioner pan. It stops working when the pan becomes full of water. I asked him to wash the filthy filter, too. I replaced the power supply in the ATM switch (the other one burned up - surprise, surprise).

For now, I am back to reading all about Troubleshooting ATM IMA links... (yawn).

The day is gone

I lost a day. Sunday. It infuriates me. I should be used to it by now. I see the dr. this Wednesday and I plan to change migraine meds. My body must be getting resistant to the one I am currently taking. I'll see if there is one out there the I haven't taken, yet. I have been on this one for about two years, so I can't give it a bad rap.

I had a gazillion things I wanted to do. Outside and inside work. I got the basics done. Kitchen cleaned so that there is no odor or ants. Clothes washed. Stupid weather change rolled in. The air was nippy. Which would have made it perfect for working outdoors. Grrrr.

The photo is probably the last of the sunset series I will post for a while. Since I wasn't moving from spot to spot, the set became redundant. I did catch a spider close up (again) that I was not aware of until I looked at the picture on my computer. Yikes.

Work is busy. May usually is.

Gripped

Gripped by the migraine monkey, again. Until he leaves....

A Golden Sunset

Another shot of the big lake at sunset.

Apologies to Mr. Hackman

I couldn't resist

I loved Gene Hackman dressed up as a woman in The Birdcage. He was gorgeous. Pink is his color and that hair! This movie tickles me. I am sure I laughed out loud the first couple of times I watched it, but now I just chuckle. I know what they are going to say now before they say it. I can focus on facial expressions and such. Wonderfully cast.

Pines over the park

But this is the photo I shot just an hour ago. At the top of our park in town. I missed the red ball of sun going down. I hope to catch it another day. Everybody was outside today. I took the bird out and let her sit outside (safe in her cage) to get some of the dust off of her. She does not bathe. She won't touch the water but to drink it. I used to bathe her. I don't know why I stopped. She loves the blow dryer.

I know that Photo Friday's Challenge was "addiction" last Friday, but I think I posted the wrong addiction. I am seriously addicted to America's Funniest Videos.

A year ago today

Sunset Eastern Ohio

This deep reddish orange sunset was taken at my brother's house one year ago today. I recall it was a beautiful day. This is where we were introduced to the little teacup size chihuahua named Brandy. She is a precious little thing.

Somebody got me addicted to these. Remind me to strangle them. They have a resealable zipper on the bag. Yeah. Like I will ever use that!

My pulled muscle in the shoulder/neck area is much better today. I am washing clothes. I am sure it is not wise to carry baskets of clothes up and down the stairs, but hey. It has to be done.

I watched The Night Listener with Robin Williams and Toni Collette. That was a strange movie inspired by true events. That is just weird. There were many holes in the script that made it harder than what it should have been for the lead character played by Williams. Oh! You have to go here for a sinister eerie web page for the movie. Turn your speakers on and be patient. Play along. Click when your cursor turns from an arrow to the pointing finger. Creepy but superbly done!

The time changes today and already I feel like it is flying by. Lose an hour? For me it seems as though I have lost six hours. Must hurry and get things done. It will be bedtime before I know it and back to work in the morning. My shoulder will have to deal. I must vacuum the carpet because of the dog hairs.

Speaking of dogs, all but a dozen of the dogs taken from the shelter have been adopted. The community support was amazing. I would like to think that each one of them went to a loving and caring home.

Well, I am going to make sure my camera is charged and ready in case I see somewhere that there is another beautiful sunset to capture.

Another month or so

March sunset

Just another day or two of January, then a short month of February. The above photo was taken last March 11th. Although with the little snow we have had so far, we will probably have winter clear to Memorial Day.

I finally switched over to the new Blogger. Not sure what difference it will make if any. Just going through the motions. Yes, yes, whatever.

I borrowed a new book on web page building from work. I hope I get time to sink my teeth into it. It may be way over my head. I'll give it a try, though. It is titled Object Oriented Java or something to that effect. It will give me something new to learn during the long winter evenings.