Gag Me with a Cue...

Well, pool has been pretty weird this week. On Tuesday's 8-ball league, I still only won 3 out of 5 games, but played well. I am over the sleeplessness of the beta blocker and can concentrate like my old self.

But, then last night's 9-ball league was just too weird. I was still playing well, but had some of the worst luck I have ever seen. In this league, each team has 3 players and each player plays each of the opponents twice, alternating breaks. So, each I had to rack once for each of the three opponent players. Well, all three of them made the 9-ball on the break, winning the game... I have never heard of that happening before, and could just scream - if I had a voice box...

The only good news was that I did get my balls polished while at the bar...

OK, I took my pool balls there with me and had them polish them in their machine. It only takes 10 minutes to do them all and it takes me 2 hours by hand. If you were thinking anything else, you have a nasty mind...

The Dell Diva Strikes Again...

Pam gets praises from her customers all the time. But, last week she got one from the Corporate Director of Dell Service. He said that he was at a large meeting of one of Dell's service vendors and their VP of sales brought up Pam as a Dell support person that they should model all their support after, and that he swore he would never buy another Dell PC until her call. Within one support call, she turned him around on his feelings about Dell and their products, and solved all his problems. I understand he talked about her for over 5 minutes in the large meeting.

So, then the Dell Service Director and the Dell VP and General Manager of Dell Americas, one of their key execs, both came to the Dell Twin Falls Facilities yesterday. Pam was invited to a large meeting of all the top local folks and the story was again told, and the Services Director said that this vendor company, that Pam helped, has since bought a lot more Dell systems and that it was all Pam's fault. She was called the best service tech in the area and they said they wished they could clone her... She has been walking around bent over from all the back pats...

And, this is annual performance review season, so we shall see how this all turns out in 'real life'... It doesn't get much better here in DaHo...

Cold and Snowy and Cold and...

The weather has been very cold and then it will snow and warm up until the snow melts. Then it will get cold again and (see Title above for more details)...

I have been rearranging some of the computer hardware around the house. My old HP photo printer croaked and the old LaserJet 4+ hadn't been relocated after the new Color LaserJet was installed. So, I moved some printers around and also installed the new little HP photo printer Pam got me for Christmas. I also installed a couple of USB hubs as the amount of USB stuff keeps growing in the house.

At Pam's recommendation, I installed a new wall of spice racks in the pantry, clearing up lots of prime kitchen cabinet space. I put all of her prized cook books in the newly opened up space so she can now get to them all. It also gives us much better access to all the spices and associated rubs and sauces. We got the 6' high spice rack/shelving unit on sale at Lowes for a great price. Using some of the new tools acquired at Christmas, I was able to add a two tiers to each shelf adding to the number of spices and their presentation.

I have recovered from my sleeplessness of the beta blocker meds and am once again getting reasonable sleep. Hooray! Nasty stuff.

Pool last week didn't go too well, AGAIN. I was still not getting much sleep and am blaming that for the problem. I didn't do horribly, but not up to my personal standards. But, it did bother me enough to start me on a newly inspired practice effort that should result in getting better - where have I heard that before...

Pam made some killer chicken noodle soup yesterday with my assistance. She has been having big fun with the new noodle maker attachment to her Kitchenaid mixer I got her for Christmas. A true win-win gift. Great stuff.

Ho Snow...

Sorry for not writing for a week or so. I have been on a new Beta Blocker med and haven't had a good nights sleep since my last post... I started out on a 50mg daily dose and then went down to a 25mg and then down to a 12.5mg and today I quit it all together. You can only have sooooo much fun... It can cause weird dreams and poor sleep and it sure did with me.

This Beta Blocker was to lower my blood pressure and general strain on my vascular system as we monitor my newly discovered aortic aneurysm. Its a bulge in the main blood artery that comes from the heart, down the adbomen, just before it splits out to the legs. This is what was discovered during my ultrasound scan I had a couple of months ago. Anyway, we don't know if this is a new thing or something that has been around for years. I am suppose to go back in 4 months to get it rescanned and the med was to be sure it didn't rupture during this time, so it wasn't something that was 'needed' - just a safeguard. Anyway, hopefully, I will be sleeping again real soon - enough of all that...

As a result of my sleep issues, I sucked at pool last Tuesday. I did win 3 of 5 games, but that was lucky. I hadn't slept at all and just couldn't play well. Then, on Thursday, I was able to sleep some and did win all 6 of my 9-ball games. We will see how it goes tonight...

O, yeah, Snow. When I finally got up this morning, it was snowing pretty hard. There is about 3" on the ground and it has been coming down all day. Its been about 34 deg so the snow is still here, but getting pretty sloppy. Its suppose to get cold tonight so it should all get icy and nasty out there pretty soon.

I just learned something new about dealing with snow. I had to wait about an hour before I could type because of this new 'experience'. I had purchased some Ice Melt stuff in a bag. I was spreading some out on the driveway top so it wouldn't get all slick and icy. Well, I ended up spilling a pile of it on the snow. I took off my new glove so I wouldn't get it all messy, and picked up handfuls of this Ice Melt and was throwing it all around on the snow. All of a sudden, my finger tips got very cold and turned white. It got worse quickly and they were completely numb and white. I went inside and put them under warm water and they really started stinging. Anyway, it took about an hour to get them feeling and looking 'normal' again. Nasty stuff on skin...

Done with the Holidays...

We are finally all done with the holidays. We have been taking down Christmas decorations for days. Then, last night, Storm and Jenny came over to help us pack up the tree and put all the boxes of decorations away in the garage. The Christmas tree box is probably 3' X 3' X 7', and weighs about 150lbs - BIG fun. Anyway, its all put away again until next year.

We have also 'resolved' most of the 'issues' with the Christmas gifts - whether that involves installing stuff or exchanging stuff for correct sizes or whatever. Well, there is still resolving the electrical problem with Pam's new built-in makeup mirror, but that should be done today...

Friday night we went over to Jenny's parents new pizza restaurant a couple of towns over. This is their third pizza restaurant. They had two other ones up in Alaska. They are nice folks and do really great pizza and assorted food. We will be back there again.

Our 9-ball league last Thursday didn't go that well. I ended up being pretty irritated by my performance. Enough to start another program of seriously working on
my game. We will see how this week goes.

We recovered from the flu and this weekend Pam has had some type of throat thing, but its starting to get better. Ho, Ho, Ho...

A Whole New View...

to the term “Pencil Neck Geek”…

Recovering...

Sorry for not 'reporting' for almost a week. We are finally recovering from the flu. We were down hard from Wednesday until Sunday, and improving on Monday. We missed the whole New Year's celebration, going to bed about 8pm...

During that time, it snowed a couple of times but the high temps and rain kept it washed away. It rained over 1 1/2" during the week. I heard an interesting statistic on TV - one half inch of rain on one acre of land equals over 6,700 gallons of water. At that rate, we have contributed about 20,000 gallons of water this week to the 'everlasting drought'. Today, more snow, but, again, it should be gone soon - adding yet more water to drought solution.

Last night was my first venture out playing pool, since my disastrous matches last Tuesday when I was coming down with the flu. We played the same team again - you play each team two weeks in a row - at each others home bar. Anyway, they were the first place team in the standings - slightly ahead of us based upon last weeks games. They have the best player, in the league standings, on their team at this point. I was still feeling poorly, but did ok. I won 3 of my 5 games, but the two I lost were good, just not wins. The highlight of the night was when I played their 'good' player. I broke, making 5 balls on the break, and ran the table. He was quite upset with the results. - he, he...

One of our players didn't show up again. We had this 'weird' local guy play as our substitute team member. He couldn't speak very well as he had been 'getting ready' most of the afternoon. He lives somewhere in the alley in back of the bar. He went 'home' and got his own cues and also brought a framed picture of someone to sit on the bar when he was playing. He ended up 'winning' two games but took forever to play. It drove everybody crazy, but those two games might come in very handy at the end of this league. We ended up winning 16 of the 25 games in the match, putting us in first place. We will have to see how it all turns out - We should come in first as a team and I am still hoping for a good personal result.

Pam has started going to a physical therapist, except during this flu thing, and is finally getting better with her back and neck issues. This is GREAT news! We are very happy that this is working. It has been driving me crazy to see her in so much pain and discomfort...