Memories

I've been cleaning out my stash of storage boxes full of what is supposed to be important information worth keeping. This weekend the neighborhood association is bringing a huge dumpster and shredding company in. Everyone in our association can bring their junk and discard it or shred it. A great idea.

So I've been going thru things. Stuff I've discovered:

-- A rent dispute I had with a good friend of mine in 1989. We're not friends anymore. I think I was a bitch during that dispute. Probably 50% or more at fault during the exchange.
-- The Broadway department store doesn't exist anymore. I probably don't need to keep those statements.
-- I actually bought stuff from the Swiss Chalet mail order catalog.
-- In 1991 I was in 3 car accidents - 3/19, 4/22 and 5/19. Definitely a bad first half of that year.
-- I had a horrible run of renters for my condo. Thank goodness I listened to Dena & got a property management company.
-- The IRS and I don't see eye to eye.

The thought that comes to mind after digging thru 20 years of paper is:

"Sometimes these scars define our life, others are just evidence of missteps during the journey."

The stupid things I do...

So I'm home being a bachlorette this weekend and tonight I'm thinking, hmmm, a Mojito would be nice. I'm gonna be cool and watch Lost by the fire and drink myself silly on Mojitoes. So I get all prepared at 5 PM and get the sugar, fresh mint, shaker, muddler and varietals of rum all ready. But wait, I can't drink yet, it's only 5pm and that would be counter productive.

9:00 rolls around and I'm getting a little tired and ready to wind down. I wander into the kitchen throw a couple lime quarters into my cocktail shaker, add a teaspoon of sugar, carefully prune some mint leaves and throw them in. Mojitos are an art you see, and I'm a Mojito artist. I begin my muddling. After the contents are sufficiently muddled it starts to go terribly awry. I like to mix a little Sprite instead of soda water. It keeps that whole lime thing going. At Vons they were out of Sprite because it was on sale. I bought some bullshit zero calorie Sprite because beggars can't be choosers. I go to open this 2 liter bottle & it starts to bubble over, and over and over. All over everything. No matter how long I waited and how I finessed the cap, it bubbled over. Finally, after subduing the unruly liquid I added the splash to my Mojito. Of course, I'm very aggravated now but I'm trying not to ruin my experience. I add ice and get the bright idea to shake the concoction because none of the ingredients were cold.

Obviously that was a big mistake. I shook the cocktail shaker and this upset the Sprite (which was quite mad already) and the pressure was too much for the shaker. It exploded all over me. Lime wedges, mint leaves and liquor sprayed like shrapnel thru the air. I took the brunt of the blast. I'm quite sticky now and have decided that a glass of red wine and a bath will suffice.

Bachlorettedom is not as exciting as it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Watching the New Horizons launch from Boeing

Sitting in the Boeing Phantom Works installing a VoIP system for a new secret satellite program I had the opportunity to watch this via live feed from Mission Control. It was very exciting to see the holds, the checks, the thrill of it all really.

The New Horizons spacecraft set out on a journey to the edge of the solar system. Liftoff occurred Jan. 19, 2006 at 2:00:00 p.m. EST from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. New Horizons is headed for a distant rendezvous with the mysterious planet Pluto almost a decade from now.

The mission plan for New Horizons is long, a 10 year journey to Pluto and then further plans out until 2017. This is how things are planned at Nasa, in decades, not years and certainly not days. You must have to be patient to be a rocket scientist. The project that I'm hooking up all our Mitel gear for plans on going "operational" around 2015. That means that from now til then they are working on getting whatever it is they are working on, working. LOL It's all very secret you know.

Possessed or Obsessed?

Last night as I stood in front of the door with my house keys, I felt something strange. I felt someone had been there. I actually pushed the door before unlocking it to ensure it wasn't ajar or broken. It was intact and I unlocked it. As I proceeded over the threshold to unarm the house I felt like I was not alone. Someone was in the house. I remembered that our alarm will indicate if it has gone off while we were gone, so I unarmed the house but it was silent. No triggers while we were out. I kept my strange sensations to myself as I quickly searched the house. One doesn't like to look a fool you know. Since all seemed well I dismissed the feelings.

Sometime in the beginnings of my night of what should be nice, calm sleep, I awoke with a scream in my mouth. The dream began with us in bed. Dena was having a nightmare. I tried to wake her but she would not. I pinched her, she still writhed in her sleep, obviously in a state of distress. Her face contorted into a silent, open mouthed scream and she mouthed "help me". I bit her, hard. She awoke and something escaped from her mouth. I screamed.
At this point I actually awoke with my heart racing and I was scared to death. Dena also awoke and tried to tell me to think good thoughts and go back to sleep. I was skeptical but thought of Hawaii as I always do when told to think good thoughts.

The next dream was the possession of Ipod's. All Ipod's are possessed and Apple is an evil company out to take over the minds of all that listen to it. I felt that since I often only listen in the car and not thru headphones I was relatively immune since most of the evil spurge was coming thru the headphones. But alas I was becoming possessed anyways. I was aware of it and tried to warn the world of its impending doom but no one would listen. I of course, awoke from this lovely dream that doesn't translate well into words. It was filled with terrifying visuals of evil emmanating from the headphone jack. I drifted back to sleep.

I awoke for the 3rd time with a terrible start, someone knocked 3 times with our door knocker on the front door. The knock was real. It was as loud and clear as if you knocked on my door now as I write this. I awoke scared to death. Now I'll confess that I have had this dream before. Not in a long time mind you, but I have. I also haven't had the feeling that someone was in our house for a long time. The last time that happened we put pictures of our fathers into the dining room and the presence left us. I felt our father's were guarding us. Since New Year's the fathers had been moved to the den to make room for the party. For some reason their protection only seems valid in the dining room. That's where this spirit emmanates from, I know it in my heart. The spirit is also not very nice.

The mouse

I remember the days when a mouse was just a pointing device. It had a little wheel in the bottom of it that got hair and other disgusting little things in it, and you knew when it had to be cleaned. It had 2 buttons, the left click and the right click. Now, I have an optical wirelss mouse with a scroll wheel. No ball to clean, no particular part to blame when it's slow or doesn't move, just a red little optical beam that magically senses where it needs to move.

The beam doesn't like mirrored or glass surfaces, that much is obvious. The wireless functionality is equally as frustrating as the batteries run low, you're not sure if when it's slow to respond it's your computer, the batteries, the wireless part or the red little beam underneath. You just don't know. How frustrating for a geek. Then there's the scroll wheel. I can't live without it. I had occasion to use some older mouse and my fingers kept dancing to the scroll wheel that was not there. My fingers wanted to shoot down the page FAST! Not drag an ancient scroll bar down the side of the page.

How we have evolved, I think.... Or perhaps we're just more productive? Or perhaps we just can surf the internet quicker...

New Orleans vs Grand Forks, ND '97

This is a bloggers commentary and comparison between the huge Grand Forks, ND Red River flood in 1997 vs the New Orleans debacle. There is some interesting commentary with some articles to back it up -- Find it Here