So it’s crazy here when it snows. For one thing, a lot of the roads aren’t really flat, so people go sliding around. For another thing, we only get this every few years, so there’s no reason to be prepared for it all the time. And yet another problem: the weather forecasters here have no idea what they’re talking about. The last few times the said we’d get snow, we got nothing. Last night they said we’d get a couple of inches maybe and it would be gone by noon.

I didn’t get a very good nights sleep last night and I woke up feeling like doodie, but when I looked outside I knew my trip to work would be delayed.

It turns out the roads were a mess and there was no way anyone was making it to work. If you go to our local news station’s web site you can check out a video of a Volvo SUV sliding down the hill and hitting five cars on the way down.

So I just stayed inside until I decided it was time to shovel the walk. Sounds like it’s not going to be any better tomorrow, so I’m not going anywhere.

I did go for a walk to the food co-op with the neighbors, and I did shovel the walk. I did not make it to the gym, but I’m not even sure they were open. That makes it a week-and-a-half since I’ve been to the gym. I wonder if I’m losing weight.

I got nothing good to say, so I’m saying nothing. Except maybe that my Costco credit card makes it easier to buy gas at Costco. Other than that, nothing. Oh, and I got a call from someone who wanted to buy my domain name (twofifty.com). Several hundred dollars is too little for a domain I’ve had for almost eight years. In any case, I got nothing.

Yesterday, while I was watching football, I was trying to fix a program called, “Jeweltoy,” for my mom. It doesn’t store the high scores properly, but I’m not all that good at programming on the Mac. So it was mainly a lot of fooling around and repeatedly playing the game until the score got to be about 1000 and then seeing if the high score thing would work. I sure wish I knew how to use the debugger as well. In any case, I say, “Trying,” because I never did get it to work correctly.

Today I moved memory around in other computers and then I tried to figure out how to invest in my 401k. I shouldn’t say, “How,” when I really mean, “Where.” I just wanted a nice S&P index fund, but I didn’t see one offered. So now it’s spread into a lot of random places. It’s not like a normal person should know how to predict the future.

OK, so I’m not really wicked. Or maybe I am. I’m just quoting a David Byrne song that has a nice dance remix. I actually left work on time, and I was going to head to the gym, but I was tired from all of the weirdness at work. Sitting and babysitting computers while they ran odd, uninteresting programs. And what am I doing doing instead of exercising at the gym? I’m actually watching three computers compile programs on three different windows. All sorts of scrolling geeky text. For some reason I find it comforting.

I’m trying to figure out how to run a virtual machine on my new computer so I can compile a different release of NetBSD. What that really means is that I sort of promised a guy I’d give him my spare computer and I’m trying to figure out how to cut down the number of running computers I have in the basement. I still have to make sure I can keep my sister’s blog updated and that’s why I have to go into the virtual machine mumbo-jumbo. It also makes me seem cooler than I am, doesn’t it?

The snow never stuck around so I had to go to work today. I left at 11:42PM and got back at 7:45AM or so. I tried to leave early today, but it was another day of babysitting computers while they ran. I think it was around 8PM when I finally left.

This overabundance of work is not making the job look any better. There’s nothing interesting coming down the pike, just more work. Ah, well, that’s probably why they give me money to show up.

I’ve told myself that I’m only killing myself to finish the first round of data and any amendments or fixes will have to happen on a regular schedule, but I bet I’ll get more grief about it all. Well, we’ll see what tomorrow brings. It sounds like it will be black ice on the roads.

So I never made it to the gym tonight, mainly because it closes at 11PM and I’m writing this at 11:15PM FROM WORK. It’s supposed to snow, so I figured I’d better get some stuff done if I’m not coming in tomorrow. Well, lots of things have gone wrong, the thing I was supposed to get done can’t be done because we don’t have the proper “licenses” for the software we’re running, and I’ve had to cobble together tools to get things going as well as I have (which is not very well).

When is the last time a normal person had to use FLOPPY DISKS to work on brand new computers? Fifteen years ago? More? I’m in a lab and I can’t find a screwdriver to save my life. Sheesh.

In any case, there’s some good news. Let me think of what it could be. My dinner, perhaps? A Payday bar covered in chocolate? (And who thought they needed to improve the Payday bar, anyway?)

Looks like it might actually snow again, and so I might have to work late tomorrow to make up for not showing up the next day. That means blowing off the gym, but Dave the Trainer is off in NYC this week anyway. Good enough reason for taking a week off, or at least screwing up my own schedule. Of course work is doing their best to screw up my schedule and I can’t say that it’s unexpected. That’s just the way the high-tech industry is. Life is for the company.

In any case, I’m counting on more continued misery this week. We’ll see how it goes.

I noticed that I was having trouble writing a coherent sentence yesterday night and I awoke today feeling like I had a cold. I also noticed that the football game to watch was the one I missed last night between Seattle and Dallas. I suppose that’s just what I get.

So today I spent some time eating Advil and wondering if my cold would get worse. I did, however, make it out to see a video at a friend’s house and this reminds me that one of the friends there was supposed to come up with a New Year’s Resolution for me but so far there’s nothing. Maybe I should resolve to eat at least one piece of fruit every day. That sounds OK.

OK, so my job is pretty darn cushy compared to most, but I do recall a conversation that, paraphrased, went sort of like this:

“Do you think you can do all this by next month?”

No way in hell.

“Great. You’ll be working weekends until it’s finished.”

You can probably guess that most of the stuff isn’t even working yet, and we’re coming up on a deadline at work. I got to stay at work until after 8PM on two consecutive days. The second of those days was today, Saturday. I’m lucky because I’m just running some programs and recording the results. Other people in my group don’t have any results to show.

Yesterday my buddy Greg was working late, too, so we had dinner together after work. Today, not so much fun to be had. For some reason, I’m really tired from this little bit of extra work.

Oh, well, maybe this means we get to keep our jobs. We’ll see.

Yesterday I tried to go to bed early, but I don’t think this one week of trying to change my schedule is working quite yet. And today at the gym I thought I was going to pass out. What was it that one of the club managers said? “Oh, is some woman working in with you? Are you going to put some more weight on there before you use that machine?” Everyone’s a critic.

Yesterday at Megacorp my new manager of 3 days told me I might want to think about looking for another job. Just for comparison, mind you (or so he said.) Today, he’s assigned me to be the “owner” of a project. Mixed messages, I tell you. I’ll just keep doing my job and see how bad I really end up. I wonder if they’ll give me credit for how much weight I can lift.

I did almost nothing on vacation and I had much more fun than being at work because I WASN’T AT WORK. Heh. I don’t know why some people don’t understand that. After getting up at 9:30AM every day for two weeks, it was torture to hear the 6AM alarm clock. And they started in on me early, because the project leads are all leaving for different sections of Megacorp and they want to have their parts of the project complete. I’m probably going to be the only one left in the group just before they lay off everyone in the group.

I had a hard time getting going at the gym today because I was tired, and because there were so many people I hadn’t seen for a while. The start of the year is always a popular time for people to come back to the gym. I’m too chatty, so I had to say hello to everyone. And when I should have been going home I got sucked into watching a boxing match on ESPN. It was an old fight of Muhammed Ali’s and I was pretty sure he was going to win but he took his own sweet time at it. I don’t really like watching boxing, but I get sucked into watching lots of sporting events when I shouldn’t. Ah, well, it kept me from staring at the women, which I know is rude but what else is there to look at while you’re stuck on the cardio machines?

Well, I had two weeks off and I wonder if I completed everything I was meaning to. I screwed up some plumbing, put together a computer I didn’t really need, played a lot of Solitaire, and watched a lot of football. I had several things on my, “to do,” list and I can’t remember what they were, but I did finish them.

I’m not sure what do to about my New Year’s resolutions. I should probably do something that I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t gotten around to, like seeing the Grand Canyon or making it back to Japan, and maybe add some nerdy goals like writing a program that lets me play Bedazzled for free. I haven’t seen the people who usually make my goals for me, and I’m surely not going to listen to the only phone call I’ve gotten all year, which was a recorded message that told me I should do more with my membership at Gold’s gym. I already pay a personal trainer. What more can I do?

Oh, maybe I should take some yoga classes or start running again. Those are resolutions I could have.