They said the storm would be over by 6:00 am this morning. They lied. But the horses were okay when I tossed them their breakfast, and not even as peevish as I would have expected.
I thought I would be able take some cool photos of drifts this morning, but the wind chill is about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and not conducive to fooling around outside with a camera.
The Worst Day of the Winter award goes to this morning with its blizzard conditions. Lily was visibly shivering and wet when I went out to the barn to feed. I felt more exasperation than pity since she was standing out in the storm, but had to find a wool cooler and blanket for her anyway after I chased Smoke out of her stall and put her in it. (The barn stalls are open except for when I actually feed the horses their concentrate.) She looked much more comfortable once I got her blanket on her, using the cooler as a liner.
The storm is blowing from the north, so Smoke’s stall in the old shed was useless as shelter. I ended by putting him in the hay aisle in the new barn to eat his pellets, but had to spend some time first arranging things so he couldn’t get into too much trouble. I left him with plenty of hay, even though he can’t really eat it, in hopes he will be entertained by the hay instead of getting bored and demolishing the hay aisle once he gets done with his concentrate. I decided not to blanket Smoke because, although he was plastered with snow, he looked comfortable and his coat is a lot denser than Lily’s.
It looks like the storm is due to last until tomorrow, unfortunately.
I’ve always thought that Jack had a good sense of direction, but this account of his drive to Texas this weekend makes me wonder.
The Writing Fix: Random Daily Prompt Generator not only has a random writing prompt generator, but has links to other daily writing prompts.
Everyone over the age of four or so knows how to tie shoes, right? However, a few days ago I learned about Bunny Lacing from Marn at Marn’s Big Adventure. This is a way of tieing the laces on athletic shoes so that the heel is better anchored within the shoe. I tried it, and it works. It isn’t even particularly difficult. (Read down a bit in the entry to find complete illustrated instructions.)
But she’s a girl reviews the new the new Dr. Who and it sounds promising. I was never a big fan, but have enjoyed the occasional episode. She warns that there are spoilers in the review, but I found them to be minor.
Guess what prompted me to look up the Google definition of thunder snow? Although Google defines it as a winter storm, we seem to encounter it most often in spring here in Colorado.
I’ve hankered after a DVD burner for some time. Sunday, Jack installed one in my PC that he had ordered for me as a surprise. I burned a CD using it right away, but had to wait to test out the DVD burning until I picked up some DVD-Rs, which I did yesterday.
Since I was already used to using the K3b application to burn CDs, I was pleased to find that the process was exactly the same to burn DVDs: it just took longer. I usually expect to burn a CD in four or five minutes, and the DVD took about fourteen minutes. What surprised me was how much stuff I have in my /home directory. (For non-Linux users, the /home directory is where all the user files go.) I had more than would fit in 4.2 Gigabytes, which is the amount a DVD will hold. After a little trimming, I was able to back up all my music and digital photo files, as well as my spreadsheets and text files. It just astonishes me that I need a DVD to back up my important files when I can remember the days when all of my data would fit on a 20 meg fixed drive. You know, back when we were using carrier pigeons to exchange email.
Since I am the Official Keeper of the Household Adhesives, I have a small stash of Crazy Glue in my office. I seem to be Crazy Glue Challenged, so I rarely use it. Jack doesn’t seem to have the problems that I do with it. Each time I try to crazy glue something, I end up with it all over my fingers, and frequently without even having fixed the item that I was attempting to repair.
This time, my goal was to stick a pin back to a pedometer since the clip had broken. The contents of the tube exploded as I punched a hole in the end. (This may have been a result of the altitude. A lot of things packaged at sea-level expand at 7200 feet.) I frantically wiped the glue off the items on my desk with a paper towel, and transferred a great deal of it to my hands. I then attempted to fix the pin back to the pedometer, and succeeded in gluing the item to the desktop instead. At that point, I gave up, and went and sat in the corner. I would have sucked on my thumb but it was covered with Crazy Glue.
I knew from past experience (lots) that Crazy Glue would wear off in a day or two, as the skin cells shed off my fingers, but decided to use Google and see if there was a quicker way to rid myself of it. At How to Clean Anything, I learned that Crazy Glue can be removed by finger nail polish remover or acetone, its active ingredient. I keep acetone on hand to transfer laser jet printing for my eraser carving, and sure enough, it works like a charm to get rid of that unique dead skin feeling.
I threw away the pedometer after I pried it off the desktop. I can’t face taking its mangled little corpse back for a refund at this point.
The Colorado Quarter is scheduled to be released in June 2006. I like all of the five finalist designs shown on this page, but “Colorful Colorado” is probably my favorite. (via Colorado Luis.)