John’s Blog

I will be packing up and heading off with my wife to the hospital late this afternoon.

Even though I know I don’t update the blog much lately, it is mostly Twitter posts, those may become very sparatic depending on how much time and how many chances I get to update once we are there.

So far this morning it has all been about cleaning up from the storm. We got about 16 inches of snow yesterday and last night. And since we won’t be here for up to a week, I need to get it all cleaned up before we go. With no snow blower it is an adventure. I have the driveway (including the 5 foot snow bank the plow left) cleared, mailbox shoveled out. Porches are cleaned off, and the roof in the back. I still have to clear the roof in the front, and make pathes to our oil barrel as well as propane tank in case they need to deliver while we are at the hospital.

Once I get all that done, then I can get everything packed up and ready to go.

Like I said, updates will be sparse, but I will be updating Twitter when I can, and posting lots of pictures once the big event takes place.

So I went and got myself a new smart-phone recently. I had the BlackBerry Pearl, and was happy with it for the most part. I just wasn’t happy with AT&T. So I changed providers and got myself a new phone. The company I went with didn’t have a bulk of choices as far as smart-phones go. But the HTC P4300 looked like a good fit for me. I checked the reviews, etc.. before buying. For the first few days I was very happy with the phone. It worked great, good reception, all that stuff. However less than a week into having it, the battery stopped holding a charge. I called them up, and was told to bring it in, they’d give me a new battery, not to worry. The problem was that the day after the battery was replaced, it stopped accepting calls and text messages. I could get email just fine, call out, surf the web, but no incoming calls. I called their support, they had me swap my SIM card to another phone and low and behold, it got incoming calls just fine. So the next day I returned my now deemed “defective” handset to the store and left with a brand new one as a replacement. So far all has been good, with a few minor bugs here and there. Overall I do like the phone and it’s features, and I will continue to use it until I get the hankering for a new one. The nice part about the GSM company I am with is that they allow the use of any unlocked device on their network.                                                                                                                   

As for snow, we have gotten more of it. A while back I had posted how we seemed to have a snow storm every single Monday. Well we got a break from that, had warm temperatures for over a week (almost 60 one day, which is unheard of for January in New Hampshire). But starting this Monday we got back into the routine. We got a nice 14 inches of the white stuff. And as always it started early enough to effect both my morning, and evening commutes. The fun part is that while they aren’t predicting any snow for the coming Monday, we are looking at another storm dropping around the same amount we got Monday, to hit us Friday. Oh, and just for added enjoyment, it looks like the timing will be the same with this one too. Looks like it will be another day with two long commutes.
 

 For about the last month or so, every week we have been getting 1 or 2 snow storms. And for some reason one of them always falls on a Monday. Well today is no exception. I got up at 5am to walk the dogs and it was coming down hard and hasn’t let up yet. The weather forecast is calling for 10-12 inches of the white stuff. See I have a love/hate relationship with snow. I think that it is very beautiful and love to sit and watch it snow, love taking my dogs out in it so they can play (one of their favorite things to do). However there are also things I hate about it. Such as shoveling it and driving in it. Now don’t get me wrong I am in no way afraid of driving in the snow. I grew up in the snow. What I hate about driving in it are the idiots and morons you have to deal with. I live in New Hampshire, where most people are pretty good about it, but you still have the occasional moron who thinks that just because he/she has a 4 wheel drive vehicle they are invincible and takes way to many chances driving. But they pale in comparison to the total retards that come up here from Massachusetts. They either drive way to fast for the road conditions, or on the other hand way too slow. It’s having to deal with people like that, that makes me dread driving in bad weather. But alas, I have to work, have to get to the store, have to go somewhere, so I deal with it. On the bright side, I don’t have to today. The snow is falling and I am just enjoying watching it. My office is closed until Wednesday, so I didn’t have to get out there and commute this morning. I have some errands to run later today. But by then things will have either cleared up, or they will have taken better care of the roads. Either way, I’m sitting here typing this, drinking my coffee, and watching the storm. It really is a nice way to start the week. Especially since the holiday stress of Christmas is over. I busted ass at the office on Saturday making sure that we got the end of year inventory done, so that everyone could have a nice three days off for New Year’s. We will be having a quiet New Year’s this year. The wife and I are staying home, having a few friends over to watch the ball drop and celebrating quietly (although I did make a run for some champagne and liquor…gotta have something to toast the new year).