I was hoping for a snowmobile

I did a small amount of snowmobiling 20 years ago. Loved it.

I love to buy stuff off season.
This has been a terrible terrible year for snow in the lovely northwest.

I've seen a couple of amazing deals on older snowmobiles this year, I was thinking hey maybe.
well, here is what I just spent my snowmobile savings on. Being, or more precisely trying to act like a grownup really has it's disadvantages.

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It works great.  It will get used year round.  It matches the washer we bought thanksgiving weekend.

now that's how to hold a christmas party

At the end of january when no one is expecting it.   Brilliant! 

Good Food, ***** very low carb friendly. I think there may have even been some vegetables there. There were some leftovers but only because there was plenty of food.    There was no ahi left over, perfect.    Whoever planned that, take a bow.  A little bow,  it was catered and I am sure it was $$$, but wow I felt special. </Slobbering>.

I didn't try the tiramisu.  A number of people said it was good, we can just go with that.  Not my kind of dessert, perfect thing to make when you are trying to loose waist.  If the dessert was good, have to give lots of credit to emily whose years as a professional baker kept the custard from being sugary scrambled eggs.  Emily has her own famous tiramisu, that recipe has perfect directions.   If you are not lucky to have emily come to the kitchen in your office and help you, I would suggest you check out her directions before you try any of the dozens we have at that place we all work.

UPDATE: so I guess the tiramisu was not all eaten at the party, but it did not hold up very well so the people at the party tossed it away.   Whatever.

good party at our ISP

A fine party celebrating the completion of the server room build-out.  I am very happy there will no longer be men walking around the facility with wire cutters.

This build out adds about 250 cabinets, which is good, we need 2 more.

It was nice to hear some of the more technical part of the sales presentation. 100meter Ethernet limitations, copper hand-offs, isolated circuit testing made most of the audience yawn but really got my attention.

the sound of packet loss - silence

Not too bad,  I managed a big pile of posts about nothing before anything technical.

I promise this will be very light on the tech talk. 

This post if for anyone who wondered why they could not get recipes from our site last friday from about 3:20 pm to 4 pm pacific time.  The problem was very simple.  Some human, not I, hit the EPO (Emergency Power Off) button.  That very special button, near the door of the server co-location facility is for EMERGENCIES only.   

Any reasonable person should suspect that this button should not be pressed.  It is 1) a big red button 2) inside a plastic protective case 3) there are words near the button explaining not to press it.

Ok, so I really should not be all that upset.   But this is not the first time this has happened.    The last time it happened, they put up the little plastic protective thing, which seems to keep people away from it.   The thing that has me steamed, is our ISP's plan to keep it from happening again. 

The following measures are being taken by OURPROVIDER in order to prevent asimilar outage in the future:

1. Security cameras will be added and/or repositioned so that all EPOswitches are under video surveillance at all time.

2. An alarm system will be installed on all EPO switches, which willalert the facility when the cover to an EPO switch is compromised in any way.

3. Tamper indicators will be installed on all EPO switch covers, which will allow for Internap to recognize when a cover has been tampered with.

Am I missing something.  Do they understand prevent is different from document.    I think our ISP does an overall fine job,  If 40 minutes of trouble every couple of years is all I have to complain about my life if pretty good.       

diet plateau

For me, the first week is always so easy.    There is a little progress on the scale.  You tell yourself this is no big deal.

The second week, less progress,  less fun, why am I doing this?

Third week, I want fritos and more fritos.  Maybe a side order of rice, with some fries.    I am going to go to the store for salad now.    I'm going to look for some meat for my salad, and some cheese, maybe some nuts.    I will pass on the fresh bread.   

overheard at kindergarten

I'm the dad of a kindergartner, public school, in a very affluent neighborhood. 

While dropping off this morning, I heard a teacher ask a child if they had a good weekend, and the child rejoiced "we got a new Lexus!" like it was a puppy.   

Yikes.    .   

 

Grocery Shopping while on diet

Good thing I got back on the scale today.  Even better that a fast on monday and tuesday brought me back to where I ended last week.  Otherwise, I would have had a cart full of comfort food.   The fritos were calling me.  The Doritos were on sale.   The box of frozen cheese cake made me so hungry I would consider eating the box.

OK, I did break down and buy some frosted blueberry pop tarts, My local grocery store does not stock chocolate any more.   There is no late night snack like a chocolate pop tart, warmed in the package, on a 19" monitor.  Yum.

dieting on weekends is hard

A perfect weekend for me is not usually filled with exercise.  Chasing the kids around and picking up toys is not quite the same as time on the stairmaster.   Does that tell you how long it has been since I was on the inside of a health club.  Stairmasters were all the rage in the early90's.

And we eat really well at my house when we have a little time to cook.  Last night was roasted pork loin, potatoes and stir fry greens.  I was thinking about taking a picture of it, but It looked too good to let it get cold.   

later that day, snow gone

Good thing I we got out to play for a little while.    This is taken about 2pm.  The earlier picture was 9 or 10 this morning.

snow is a big deal here

We get snow on average once a year.   The city of seattle takes the approach of just closing down the city instead of trying to clean it up.

Here is a snapshot looking out the front door this morning.