Month: March 2005

If so, you are seeing my new server. Yay!

Well, as it turns out, I do have hail damage. The trunk of my car looks like a golf ball. I hadn’t quite pulled it in far enough when I parked that evening. By the way, what I was parking under was my brand new carport, so things could have been worse. Of course, the metal roof on the brand new carport (did I mention it had just been completed that day?) looks like a metallic golf ball. Since that would fall under my home insurance, I won’t file a claim unless my house also needs a new roof. The deductible is so high it wouldn’t make any sense to file for the carport roof.

And, while it sounds like I’m whining? I do realize how lucky I am. My mom suffered much more damage, as did many people on my street.

Now I just need to find my freaking car title…

So, I’m sitting here in my comfy chair in my living. Surfing the web and looking out my front window when I see a mattress go walking down the street. Well, the mattress wasn’t walking on its own, but it sure looked that way from my angle.

We had a powerful hail storm tonight. First, it was noisy! Perhaps the new metal roof on my car port helped, but it was darn noisy. It sounded it the hail was coming right into the house. Second, there was a lot – my yard ended up looking very, very icy. Here are a few pictures. It was dark and I didn’t go past the porch, so they aren’t that great, but I wanted to try and capture the moment.

The back porch:
yard/IMG_2070

The front porch:
yard/IMG_2072

My “welcome” mat:
yard/IMG_2073

Just off the front porch:
yard/IMG_2078

(You can click on the small images to see a full-sized version.)

I started the day off running late and in a daze and I’m not sure I ever fully recovered. First, there was some annoying news at work. This was followed by a very long meeting about our site redesign. At least it was across town so we go to drive around in the lovely weather for a bit. During the meeting, I was asked for my business card. I wasn’t sure if I had one or not, but I started digging around in my bag only to encounter some sticky goo. It was a rather disconcerting discovery. I tell the meeting people, “No cards” and sit there with my sticky hands hoping I won’t have to shake hands on the way out.

This was followed by lunch and then another long meeting. I didn’t get to really investigate the purse goo until around 4pm. As it turns out, a tube of lip gloss (which I rarely wear but feel obliged to carry around all the time) had broken and the gooey, sticky fluid had oozed all over everything in my bag. Everything includes: my cell phone, my pager, my iPod, my camera and, well…everything. Even after much cleaning, things still feel sticky and nasty.

And now, the interesting links for today!
The non-typographer’s guide to practical typeface selection – I have so freaking much to learn about typography.

Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene – very interesting.

This CNN poll graphic isn’t misleading at all, is it?

To me, “Hall of Fame” means, “past their prime (or popularity or whatever), but we honor them as the geniuses they were.” So, I had mixed feelings when I heard that U2 were being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. However, the induction speech given by Bruce Springsteen made it worthwhile.

Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. I’m on my elliptical machine just going along while watching The Mole* on DVD and I hear a howl and Mishka runs out of the room. He must have gotten run over by one of the runners, but I didn’t feel it. I’m not really sure what happened. He seems to be fine, though. Perhaps now he’ll fear the machine and stay away from it and stop trying to jump on it while I’m using it!

On another note, I got my haircut today. Nothing cheers me up more than a good haircut! After “the work week that wouldn’t end,” a little cheering up was greatly appreciated.

* Shut up! It’s Anderson Cooper.

I bought some pants online and when they arrived this last weekend I was very excited that they fit. It’s hard to find pants that fit me right (unless they have elastic waists – and I dislike those). Usually if they are large enough for the thighs and butt, they are way too large in the waist. Way too large. So, when these fit and looked nice I was very happy. They were mainly cotton with a little spandex. I would have preferred 100% cotton, but who cares? They fit! Not too tight, a little loose, but they are mainly cotton, right? The dryer should take care of that. I washed and dried them. They were indeed a bit tighter, so I wore them to work yesterday. Now, I knew the spandex made them “stretch” pants, but I didn’t know that meant they would be constantly expanding all day. By lunch, they were very loose and were falling down all the time. And things went downhill, so to speak, from there. At least it was one day I was grateful for my big ass – it kept the pants from falling all the way off.

My calves ache. No, more than that. They hardly move. I got the elliptical trainer to help me feel better – knowing I needed to exercise to accomplish that. I knew I’d feel worse at first, but this? I hobble now. I had to step off a curb earlier today and had to jump because I couldn’t stretch out my calf enough to step down smoothly. I wouldn’t hurt this much from 17 minutes a day of walking. I had no idea that elliptical would cause this much over-all muscle soreness on start up. Granted, my knees are happy, so that’s a good thing.