We got weather! (AGAIN)

So, we haven't had the You Gotta Be Fuckin' Kiddin' Me Snow Event of 2007 (yet), but we've got some interesting stuff going on this morning after a fairly restful weekend. This morning we have a wicked wind blowing. Blowing so hard, in fact, that I got introduced to a new weather phenomenon: the ground blizzard. This hurricane force Chinook pretty much closed Boulder this morning. Supposedly, there's an 18 foot deep snow drift right down the road from my office. Along the way to work, I saw a couple cars that were actively stuck in snow drifts (plus a giant 4x4 that had gone off the road) and a couple that were abandoned overnight. A large hanging street sign was hanging from only one hinge at Wadsworth...

It's like a friggin' apocalypse out there.

Oh, and there's snow in the forecast for Friday.

High Ho, High Ho

I have no idea how long it's been since I've actually been to work. I had the week between Christmas and New Year's scheduled for vacation, but then we had the Hanukkah Blizzard of 2006 so things got started off really early for me. I guess two weeks ago today was the last time I was in the office. Take a guess at my motivation level... ;)

Thanks to the Hanukkah and Kwanzaa blizzard combination, we ended up spending the holidays doing a lot of sitting around and staring at each other. We did get out to the tattoo shop to get the Mother-in-Law a new piece (of which I should really get a better picture) and for The Wife and I to get some touch up done.

Other than that, not a lot to report. We did watch some DVDs:

  • Nacho Libre (B) -- Jack Black, yo. Plus I love me some Lucha Libre.
  • Talladega Nights (A-) -- Best Will Ferrell joint ever. Period. John C. Riley is a king.
  • Aeon Flux (B+) -- I was a big fan of the animated shorts on MTV's Liquid Television, but I kind of like this better. There was actually a storyline available without creative interpretation. Plus Charlize is badass.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest (B-) -- Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow was weird in this one. Not nearly as good as the first one.

One quick link, while I'm at it: I like this guy's style.

Merry Ho Ho Ho!

Here's hoping everyone had a happy and fruitful holiday. I certainly did. Highlights:

  • My darling mother got me a solar powered atomic watch, so not only does it never need its battery changed, it never needs to be set either. This is timekeeping heaven for me. Now I just need to read the manual to figure out how to use its other functions. And of course, I need to get it sized waaay down for my girlish wrists.
  • The moms made out well: Mine got a cobalt blue Kitchen Aid mixer (she'd been eyeballing ours lately) and The Wife's got an iPod Nano (which is ridiculously small).
  • I got The Wife a Bella Umbrella. Without her realizing it, I noticed that she'd been talking about getting a parasol for the past year or so, so this was a home run for me. ;)
  • I also got my better half a Mac Mini, as her old iBook was having a hard time keeping up. That means I get to play with the iBook: So far I've reinstalled OS X 3 times and I plan to install Ubuntu as well (the third round with OS X was to get a partition for the linux).
  • As for me, I got some woodworking and home improvement accessories, some DVDs (namely two big time personal faves: Pete & Pete and The Greatest American Hero, and a CBC history of hockey that looks awesome) and lots of other stuff.

So yeah, materialistically, we all did pretty well. Better yet, though, we had some nice time off at home thanks to the blizzard, and yet we were mobile in time to make it down to my mom's house on Christmas Eve.

God bless us, every one, eh?

Let's Get This Pahty Stahted. Right?

Last Saturday, the Wife, Mother-in-Law, and I hosted a holiday dinner soiree at the Sutton abode. Good times were had by all. A few notes/highlights:

  • The slate tile was a big hit. It even survived a couple drunken games of darts.
  • The menu was primarily Italian-style fare. We did have crab rolls in split-top hot dog rolls that we'd had shipped from Boston -- they were a big hit.
  • We made waaaaaaaaay too much food. Should have forced people to take doggie bags.
  • I doubt anyone else even noticed, but I felt the music mix was spot on.
  • We had, at one point, three Asians in our house. In Colorado, this is actually worth pointing out. Sadly, though, that was the (almost) full extent of our ethnic diversity.
  • I'm actually impressed with how long it took the crowd to get into "Hey! What's this?!" mode at our bar/liquor collection. Absinthe and Japanese Whiskey were the most exotic samples that were poured.

If you didn't get invited and think you should have been, I apologize deeply.

Don't take it personally, though, OK? Good. ;)

Monkeys Are Awesome(ly Bad)

By way of kinyahbrutha: Court Reprimands New Delhi Over Monkeys

As forest cover around New Delhi has shrunk, the city has struggled with a growing simian population. Government buildings, temples and many residential neighborhoods are overrun by hundreds of Rhesus macaques. The animals will occasionally snatch food from unsuspecting passers-by and even bite them.

And by way of Dear Abby: Husband's monkey business is sign marriage is in trouble

When Suzy wants to have sex and asks him to come to bed, her husband refuses and tells her, "I'd rather spend time with Jocko."

Grocery snatching and home wrecking... Insidious little scamps, aren't they?

Updates & Stuff

First a floor update: After taking yesterday off completely thanks to the chill I caught on the motorbike and general laziness (it is a vacation, after all), I came out firing today. First, I scooted around on the subfloor removing the remaining staples from the carpet pad. After that bag o' fun, I scooted around on the subfloor some more, this time sanding the seams of the OSB to flatten them out enough for the mortar bed not to mind. After a bunch of sweeping and vacuuming and choking on the dust (I'm positively covered...), I finally got around to measuring out a standard centerline by centerline layout and giving it a bit of a dry fit test, as demonstrated below (see also: my Flickr set for this project): Office Slate Project: Testing the Layout SW Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

Car update: The mechanic tells me "there's definitely something wrong in the clutch area" of my Rodeo. So he's going to drop the tranny and see what's what. His initial guess (which covers a new clutch and clutch fork) is about $1400. Sadly, this is almost exactly the number I was expecting. Here's hoping it doesn't grow much.

One from teh intarweb: Seriously? People worry about this crap? Myself, I don't sign off personal emails at all. If it's someone I don't know that well or haven't been in touch with recently I might end with "- Jake". On rare occasions, I'll toss in a "Cheers" or "Ta". Work emails generally just get the hyphen-space-name treatment.

Frozen Thighs

As I mentioned, I had to have my Rodeo towed to a mechanic this past Saturday. Well, today I needed to get the keys to said mechanic so that they could actually work on the thing. (I didn't see any key drop box at the shop on Saturday.) The Wife is working, so that left me with my second vehicle: the Bonneville.

I wasn't that worried because the last forecast I saw said it would get up to 50 degrees. Sadly as it neared noon, my thermometer still read in the twenties...

The good news: my riding jacket is awesome with its liner in.

The bad news: I don't have cold weather-appropriate gloves or pants. Wearing jeans on a motorcycle in sub-freezing temps is very much like wearing jeans to go skiing/snowboarding -- Many of us have done it, but few of us would want to ever do it again (in fact, most of us went out and bought proper gear right after the experience). Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

The Holiday Project: Slate Tile in the Office

Keep an eye on my Flickr photos for updates on my latest home improvement project: tiling the office with slate tile. Office Slate Project: Subfloor NE Originally uploaded by Jake Sutton.

This is only somewhat hampered by the fact that my car broke yesterday (on the way back from fetching the remainder of my slate purchase, in fact) -- clutch went bye-bye. We'll see that that going to do to me tomorrow, hopefully.

Good times.

Bad Sikh Pun Here

Somehow, I've manage to avoid learning that Sikhs are required by their religion to carry a dagger:

The kirpan, one of five items baptized Sikhs are required to wear, is meant as a reminder of the duty to uphold justice. The others are reminders of other things: the kesh, or Sikhs' uncut hair, to live as God created you; kanga, a wooden comb, to remain neat; kara, a bracelet, to do good deeds; and kachera, or large underwear, to remain chaste and faithful sexually.

The story is about Homeland Security maybe being a little less asshole-ish to one particular group of brown folk, but I'm more excited about a whole group of people being required to pack a blade!

Root Canal: Take 2

Sometime between a year and two years ago, I had one of my molars crumble to bits, necessitating a root canal and crown. That was fun times. Starting a month or two ago, that very same tooth started acting tetchy.  Then one day a few weeks ago it went so thermonuclear that I couldn't see straight. Unfortunately, my pain tolerance allows me to let things get this out of hand before I do something about it.

Long story short, the original root canal - though it was a fine job - got "re-infected" and required "retreatment". Said retreatment was completed roughly an hour ago. I went to a new guy who specializes in endodontics, and I have to say I'm impressed. The whole thing took about an hour and I was falling asleep through half of it (which I attribute to a total lack of odontophobia and perhaps a very low-grade case of narcolepsy -- stress makes me drowsy ;) ).