sarahmichelef

Good:
My inability to connect to the Internet earlier today had everything with the home network needing to be power cycled and nothing to do with a dead computer and/or wireless adapter.

Bad:
Warning lights galore going off in my car. They seem to be indicating that my backup indicator lights and my rear brake lights are out. We have visually verified the status of the backup lights (they don't work); we haven't verified the functionality of the brake lights. (*wonders* Maybe it's my LIDDY LIGHT that's causing the warnings...)

Good:
If the problem was simply that the bulbs needed to be changed, I now know that it'd be really easy to do.

Bad:
The problem is not the bulbs. I sat myself down in my trunk this morning and popped out the bulb assemblies for both sets of lights. (Yes, I was literally sitting IN the trunk of my car. It's the easiest way to get to the lights. No, the trunk wasn't closed at the time.) There are un-broken filaments galore - four of them, in fact. Which means that fixing the problem is now officially beyond the scope of my automotive repair capabilities.

Good:
I refilled my washer fluid. (Not as easy as you'd think since my car's hood no longer "pops" - you have to release it with the little lever, then wedge a key in the gap to force it up, then find the stupid latch, which more often than not sticks, etc...)

after my attacks of stupid and techno-hate...

• Left a message to set up TRex's first-ever dentist's appointment (won't that be fun!).
  
• Dudes are coming to (finally) change the locks on our house next Wednesday. We decided that we liked the original 1950 hardware on our front door more than we cared about it being on the same key as the back doors.
  
• Purchased plane tickets for TRex and me to go to OK for the first bit of spring break. They were remarkably reasonably priced, too! It's sad when tickets on United cost $250 less than Southwest AND have better flight times (though the latter of those is not all that surprising). My loyalty to Orbitz cost me a dollar - I could have had the same tickets from either Expedia or CheapTickets (which I think might have been swallowed by Orbitz - the site layouts are identical now). I'm sure we'll manage to amuse ourselves for 3 hours in O'Hare on the way there. It was that or be on a 6:30 am flight out, and I didn't want to mess with that.
  
• Read over the notes that I was mad about not being able to print. Percolating exactly how I'm going to write the theoretical section of the diss. *hate*
  
• M made the tactical error of sending me a link to a bunch of refurb stuff that Apple has on sale. *lust* Another low-end iBook (1.5 GHz, 512 MB, 60 GB, combo drive, airport extreme, etc.) would last me another 4 years (which is how long I've had X^2), I'm sure of it.
  

Thinking about the possibility of a new computer makes me wonder... Wherein lies the soul of a computer? When X's HD died in September 2004, I changed her name to X^2. Does the identity of the computer lie in the hard drive, as this would imply? Or is it somewhere else?

What does this tell us about the seat of human identity?

Damn... I didn't intend for this to get all philosophical. Back to your regularly-scheduled Friday afternoon.

Six weeks ago, I was proud of myself to run an 11:30 miles on the elliptical.

Four weeks ago, I accidentally ran a 10:30 mile and then got a stitch in my side.

Today, I ran a 10:10 mile (and two miles in 20:30) and it wasn't a big deal.

I had intended to go hard for the first mile and then back off the pace a bit for the rest of the workout (to more like a 10:30 or a 10:45 pace) but I wasn't really paying attention to my RPMs and lo and behold, they stayed at a pretty good clip without me even thinking about it.

In similar news, I lost 8 pounds in my first 11 days on weight watchers.

Go me, and stuff.

Class was. There are many of them; they displayed varying levels of live-ness today. Lots of tech stuff to sort out for my classroom, including the best place for me to stand... the projector is so far away that it shines on the ENTIRE SCREEN and I can't stand stage center without blocking it. Meh. Also, the VGA port is on one side of the screen and the ethernet port is on the other - how's that for brilliant? Fortunately the e'net cable that's in the room is super-duper long and so this semester may be the "watch Sarah try not to trip over the cables" show. Ah well... Gym was gym-y. I've decided the single best way to dry off after a shower is to go in the sauna for a couple of minutes. Mmmmmm... sauna. Nothing better when it's 40 degrees and raining out than going in the sauna.

Interesting thingy for the day: I did an internet use survey that we're going to talk about in class on Thursday. 4 people (myself included) indicated that they use the Internet 30 or more hours per week.

3/4 of them were female.

Found out on Wednesday that my class for next semester already has 35 people in it - and here I thought it was capped at 20! Good thing the bookstore keeps an eye on enrollment! I'm having to rethink some stuff about the class because of it, but that's ok.

Weatherstripped the doors in the entryway the other night. Much less cold in there now. 1950s-era weatherstripping is scary, scary stuff. Gotta get some housecaulk this weekend to try to seal up some other various leaks.

There's another itinerant sociology grad student in Buffalo. We're going to have a dissertation group starting next semester. Yay!

I feel like I have a bruise in the inside corner of my eye - clogged tear duct maybe? Just a random weirdness? I don't know. We were frenzied this morning anyway, so I didn't put in my contacts (plus! cute new glasses!). It only hurts when I poke at it.

We got crappy sleet yesterday afternoon with a couple of inches of snow dumped on top of it overnight. The lake effects snows are supposed to kick in this afternoon and give us several more inches, although it's nice and sunny now. I think every school in the entire area is closed today (but not the universities), but TRex's daycare is open so off we went this morning - I'm going to keep an eye on the weather and if it starts looking like I'd have trouble getting there to pick her up at the usual time, I'll just go early - that's the advantage of it being only 5 minutes away.

( wow, I didn't remember life being this interesting. But yay, legos! )

In other news, I'm back on the juice (aka, coffee). Why in the hell did I ever give up caffeine? Sweet sweet simulants.

In other other news, I have an eye exam and a gym orientation/fitness assessment today. I hopehopehope the gym has rowing machines. There's something lovely and hypnotic about rowing. I feel like the assessment is probably going to kick my ass, but in a good way. I need it. The plan for right now (until I start teaching in January) is to drop TRex of at daycare and then head to the gym three days a week.
( probably tmi for lots of folks. deal. )

One of those people who walk through the grocery store with their hands-free sets on. (Hey, at least it's not a wearable computer with heads-up display.) I had to run out to buy baking staples that I'd forgotten that I didn't have, (stupid moving) but I knew that M would probably call me to tell me that he and TRex had landed at BWI, so I popped it on before I left the house and didn't bother to take it off.

Is it slightly vindicating that I was right, and he called 2 minutes after I'd left the house?

Do an "I'm Feeling Lucky" search on "failure."

I've been meaning to get a firewire cable for our camcorder for almost four years (ever since I got my current computer). At one point I asked M for one for my birthday and he never got around to figuring out which cable we needed and buying it ("just do the research and order it for yourself!").

So, dammit, I just did. And I had eleven bucks of leftover gift certificate from Amazon from goodness-knows-what, so it's not even costing that much (not that it was even that expensive to begin with).

Now we just have to hope my poor computer can handle it. Otherwise, my next purchase might be RAM. :^D

But soon, I will be able to annoy the world with movies of my excessively cute child.