i love nebraska weather!

last week: 17" of snow brought two days off from work and more off more many schools

this week: lots of puddles and 70-degree weather with thunderstorms on the way

pics from saturday (after 4 days of melting):








today:

(this is all that's left from the drifts in the top picture)

i got the call at 6.20 this morning that the courthouse was closed today. i was so excited that i didn't fall back asleep for 30-45 minutes!

all of nebraska is in a winter storm warning and we're supposed to get 10 inches of snow today along with lots of wind.

i've spent the day reading and watching the snow from my couch (see pic). quite a bit of snow is falling and sometimes the wind is strong enough that it looks like the snow is blowing upwards! it's so cool!

i have all the gear to play in it, except for boots. i don't need them for skiing, so i didn't think to buy any. my sister has some really nice ones, but she's stuck with them at a friend's house a mile or two away. it doesn't look like she'll be able to come home until tomorrow morning. so i'll probably just go out in my tennis shoes.

other pics from today:

i don't want to write much about my all-nighter, so i'll just give a quick summary. i got home from skiing at around 9.00p sunday night, unpacked the car, and spent the night at work. i caught a few cat-naps on the server room floor and took a nap over lunch. everything was back up by 8.00a on monday without any data loss!

but by tuesday it felt like it should be saturday already. i worked long hours all week and struggled the whole time with motivation. here's hoping that next week will go better!

Becky was at my place from late on friday night until this morning. we didn't have near enough time together (just like every other weekend we see each other), but we'll see each other again soon. we ate lunch at the restaurant my sister works at, developed some skiing pics at walmart, talked some, and saw a really good hockey game. snow moved in last night and will continue falling and blowing until tuesday morning. so she left an hour or so ago to make it home before it gets much worse. i love the winters here, but sometimes they are a big pain!

the tri-city storm played ok in the 1st period. Becky and i sat in the 3rd row and there were two significant checks on one of the panes directly in front of us. on the second one, one side of the pane came loose and after a few seconds, it teetered and shattered onto the first row. play continued even though the goalie and many of the players tried to get the ref's attention to stop. i had visions of a puck flying at me with absolutely nothing to stop it before hitting my face! or of a check in the opening and both players landing right in front of or on me with sticks and skates flailing!

the staff cleaned up the mess, replaced the pane, and play resumed. in the 2nd period, it looked like we had lost our legs. we were always a few steps behind our opponents and didn't have any significant checks. there were a few skirmishes, but nothing significant. in the 3rd, it was 1-2 and we still weren't looking good until they shoved one of our players head-first into the boards right in front of us. it looked like our guy could have broken his neck on the play, but he popped up fast and started throwing punches. after it was all over, 4 players were ejected, a few were given 10-minute penalties, and a few more got 2-minute penalties. when the ref's are letting the game get out of hand, i believe some fights were necessary. this was one of those, but it didn't need to go on as long as it did to get the point across.

but as with most fights, the players gained lots of energy and the fans got riled up (i'm sure the consumption of alcohol helped with this!). we scored two quick goals. the 5-minutes sudden-death overtime period was scoreless and we went on to win the game in a shootout!

it's amazing how a fight can completely change the momentum of the game. midway through the 3rd period, i didn't think there was any hope that we would score even one more goal (it was 1-2 then). but we were a completely different team after the fight.

on friday after work, my sister and i drove to Becky's for the weekend. Kendra was there too, which was great! on saturday we left at 6.30 for copper mountain, so we finally beat the weekend traffic! (last time i went was over super bowl weekend and it took ~4.25 hours to drive the 1.25 hour trip.)

skiing was amazing! the weather was perfect. the company was perfect. the snow was perfect. twas a wonderful way to end my skiing experience! (next year i'm going to try snowboarding)

i don't mind going on lifts with people i don't know, but i had never gone up with a young kid. once Allison and i were at the front of the line to get on the lift and there was a ski school leader who asked if we could take one of her kids up. then she said, "oh, wait, how old are you?" "twenty...uh...five" came my response in a question combined with a statement tone. "are you sure?" "yes."

so this little tyke joined us. he was from denver and was there with some friends. we kept asking him his age, but all we could get was that his birthday was september 20-something. (i'm guessing he was 4 or 5.) when we got to about the 1/2-way point on the lift, he said i needed to help him off at the top and he quickly grabbed my hand. we were still a few hundred feet from the top, so i just held my hand there while he tightly gripped mine. he said i should just pull him off the lift, which brought on mental pictures of me pulling this poor kid's arm out of its socket and he crying and screaming for me to let go. i was thankful that the worker at the top was glad to help him off.

Becky and Kendra had made pb&j and ham and cheese sandwiches for our lunch. we were all hyper from the wonderful morning, but when that first bite of food was consumed, all was quiet. we were all amazed at how delicious the sandwiches were. then Allison and i realized that we use the same bread at my place. the other ingredients were also very similar. i also ate 1/2 of a banana with the sandwich. even that tasted really good, despite me not liking bananas too much.

later in the afternoon, i was going through a tree trail and panicked because i thought i was going too fast. so i crashed right in front of a tree. the rest of the way down, i saw a few wonderful tree trails, but had lost my nerve. luckily it came back the next time down. skiing wouldn't be near as fun for me w/o tree trails! it was then that i realized how fine the line between an absolute thrill and serious injury is becoming! :)

the rest of the weekend consisted of more hanging out and driving home...and then i pulled my first post-collegiate all-nighter. :-\ more on that to come.

right now it is raining, sleeting, and snowing at the same time. yayyyy! :)

i'm not a fan of older cars, yet here i am in a '66 something-or-other. :)

Banning golf could fix D.C.'s problems
by Jim Shea, The Hardford Courant

While members of Congress work on new rules to help keep themselves out of lobbyists' pockets, they are failing to address the real root of all the evil in Washington.

It's not the campaign money. It's not the pay-to-play rules. It's not the phony nonprofits. It's not the fancy meals, the gifts, the corporate jets.

It's golf.

Golf, as anyone who swings a club knows, is not a game. It is a condition. You don't play golf, you suffer from golf. And once you come down with golf, nothing else matters.

Golfers will do anything to golf. They will re-arrange their lives, lie to their employers, abandon their families, sell their shriveled little souls to lobbyists, all for a chance to chase the little white ball around the right course.

GOP-lobbyist-turned-prosecution-witness Jack Abramoff reportedly spent $70,000 on one occasion to take then-House Majority Leader Ton DeLay and his Republican posse to play the historic St. Andrews course in Scotland.

Another time, Abramoff anted up $100,000 for the opportunity to squire a different group of connected Republicans around the same links.

Make no mistake: Golf corrupts, and free golf corrupts absolutely.

At the risk of overreacting to what may be a record-breaking congressional corruption scandal, I think what needs to be done is obvious.

Laws must be enacted making it illegal for members of Congress and the White House to engage in golf while in office, as well as for two years after leaving public service.

This ban would include all forms of golf, including miniature golf, chip-and-putt golf, hitting golf balls at a driving range, taking golf lessons, watching golf on television and reading golf magazines.

It also would prohibit office holders from associating with known golfers and bar them from wearing golf pants, a stipulation necessitated by the failure of the fashion police to protect the nongolfing public from this disturbing visage.

Regardless of ideology, I think everyone can agree that a golf club in the hands of a politician is a threat to our way of life.

I don't think there is any question that if golf had been around when the Bill of Rights was drafted, it would have warranted an amendment: "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of golf."

Congress has the opportunity to take golf out of government and restore a modicum of integrity to the legislative process. The failure to do so will have dire consequences.

This country can survive being run by the current triumvirate of neocons, big-business acolytes and religious extremists. Being governed by golfers is quite another matter.

Fore! warned is Fore! armed.

MIT's $100 laptop

MIT has working on a $100 laptop for the poor, complete with a hand-crank and lots of other cool features. i have been hearing about it for at least a few months, but hadn't seen any pictures until now. this product is pretty cool!