It must be a special day – two lovely people with the same birthdate!
Lori turns a milestone birthday today (true gentlemen never tell)
This is from one of the Zihuatanejo trips – She’s thinking…. muy guapo!
Emma turns the big TWO today as well.
This was a couple of weeks after she was born. Do you think that she’s admiring me or just already figured out that her favorite uncle with two eyes [long story] is a bit on the strange side?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Life: 
Work: N/A
Weight: 
Hours of Sleep: 
Yesterday ended up being relatively non-productive. Lots of phone calls – not enough going through all my old paperwork. I’m trying to prioritize my tasks so that I can get back into a relatively ‘normal’ workflow for the weeks. One of the phone calls was from a ‘Master Trainer’ from Home Depot. Ends up, when they got rid of all the Associate Trainers in January – this is the new incarnation. It’s still pretty messed up but may mean that some travel may be back in the works. I’m not sure how I feel about this right now…
I had a late night customer – from 5:15 to 7:40 – from Santa Fe last night. She’s looking for a dining set but really I feel was just lonely and trying to get of SFe. Lucky me.
Today I have to try to slog through some 2008 tax prep stuff. I’m still waiting for some K-1’s that I don’t expect to see until end of March. Grrrrr. Most corporations didn’t seem to have a good year last year and they are all trying to be creative with their end of year accounting. I should get most everything back, which is good – but bad that basically it’s a non-interest loan back to the government for a year. Double Grrrr.
A little bit of catch up in the yard, some computer work, and then off to Emma’s Second Birthday Bash. She’s still having a little problem with ‘Mark’ – but she calls me “Mowp”. That will work 🙂
Mick may be coming through town on his way towards home – still waiting to see what happens there as he may be staying here tonight.
Life: Work:
Weight: 
Hours of Sleep:
Yesterday almost ended up as a wash – not a whole lot of productivity. I made it to work, put out a couple of fires (NOT literally), and started going through all those papers that will make it onto my newly cleaned desk.
Before I knew it – it was 11:30 and Mick had arrived from Phoenix and Jennifer came and met us so we could all go to lunch. I think it’s been a little over a year since the three of us have been together. It was good to be together and to catch up on stories, lives, etc.
Came back and dealt with a couple more things and then it was 4:30 in no time at all. Time to ride the bike back home. Another nice ride.
After the ride I was all energized and wanting to do stuff but that slowly turned into sloth. Before I knew it – I was affixed to the old TV. I have been trying to cut expenses anywhere I can. Two weeks ago, I had made up my mind to drop satellite TV – with Boxee/Hulu on the AppleTV we had access to all the shows that we really care about and can watch when we want to (or at least the last five episodes). They have old movies and tv shows as well so there truly was always ‘something on’. Then last week, Hulu ordered Boxee to remove it’s content. I – LUCKILY – had not cancelled the satellite yet. They are working on other solutions and I’m sure something will pop up.
The satellite receiver was acting up – requiring me to do the online-chat thing with DishNetwork. It works quite well, but using Safari – sometimes the chat gets interrupted and kicks you out – causing you to have to re-start the process. I reset the whole thing and talked them into removing another $5/month charge. I was typing to them about how they nicely added $5 a month for the whole subscription thing. The person’s response was that their ‘content providers’ raised their prices to them 20% this year and they had to raise their prices. When you think that it seems that LOTS of people like Hulu.com:
I don’t mind watching those mini-commercials so you would think that everyone else could hop on this bandwagon. Everyone’s looking for a way to still make money for providing content and it seems that the success of hulu shows that people are not opposed to seeing ads.
While texting to the Dish people – I asked them if there was something I could do lessen my service to cover the added $60/year charge. The person ended up giving me credits that will save me $50 over the next four months! SCORE! I can keep satellite for at least four more months….
Lots of paper moving today – it’s also the last work day of the month so now I have to start closing out the month as well. I think that Feb ’09 will officially be the worst month – income-wise – in our company history. Ick. The only saving grace is all the changes that we have made will mean that it won’t be the worst month – profit-wise….
Distance: 14.86 miles Time: 1:10:00
Avg Speed: 12.8 mph Top Speed: ??
Calories Burned: ??
Not bad for the trip back. It’s a mostly flat trip save for the ugly ride up the hill from the bosque….
I made it home right before the sun went down so it was perfect timing. The weather is supposed to stay like this for a while longer so I plan on making this trip as many times as possible! LOVE IT!
Life: Work:
Weight: 
Hours of Sleep:
What started out as a wonderful day – with the bike ride and all – ended on a sour note. I completed a lot of work while there – even though I had to run errands for a bit. I would have needed to leave the factory around 4:30 to make it home before the sun goes down. It gets cooler but the larger danger is that people don’t pay much attention to bikes. My only portion of the trip that involves traffic is the last part, riding up Montano. People don’t pay enough attention and at dusk it’s even worse. I won’t risk that. They make some real bright ‘headlights’ for bikes, but they are around $300. Not in my budget 🙂
So… at 4:15 I was wrapping up all my stuff to leave and my brother decides to tell me that he needs to leave at 5 pm and ‘can I close up’. It’s for his wife’s birthday so it’s not like it wasn’t for a good reason. BUT…. how hard would it have been to let me know about that the night before? Truthfully, I would not have rode (ridden?) the bike if I had known that. When I reminded him that I was on the bike, he really didn’t register. If he was thinking about this earlier – like when I brought my bike into the building and was wearing shorts….. Hmmmm? How hard would it be to have mentioned it then? Luckily we have the runner van there so I had another option. Just kind of selfish in my view…
Today I’m going in early to get through a lot of stuff. Mick is coming through town around lunch so hopefully I get to see him as well. The ‘plan’ is for me to ride my bike home – we’ll see.
Distance: 14.3 miles Time: 1:02:00
Avg Speed:13.8 mph Top Speed: ??
Calories Burned: ??
It’s FEBRUARY and I’m riding my bike to work in the morning! For those of you back east where it’s yucky cold outside – know that it was 49 degrees when I left the house and 55 degrees when I made it to work. Wonderful ride. It seemed odd to have so much warmth yet totally bare trees.
Lots of roadrunners, bunnies, and crows/starlings (I get them confused). Lack of coyotes, didn’t see any beaver or raccoons. Maybe they are still thinking it’s winter?
I’m going to try to ride to work at least once a week – that’s my plan…
Life: Work:
Weight: 
Hours of Sleep:
I moved my office yesterday! I had my mom take a picture of the top of my desk seeing that it will NEVER be seen again after today… I’ll post the picture tonight.
Yesterday was one the nicest days we have had – mid 70’s, no wind – beautiful. I wanted to ride my bike to work yesterday but knew that I would be late moving and cleaning so I didn’t. Today is supposed to be similar – just with a bit o’ wind. I’ll have fun either way.
They just said on the radio that the firefighters put out an early morning fire on the bosque – I am throwing caution to the wind and am hoping that the trail will still be open. If it’s closed I will have to hit the streets – not my intention. We’ll see how it pans out…
I have caught up with several friends that I haven’t spoken to in quite a while. One over four years, the other two have been about four months. It’s sad that with things like facebook and twitter we think that ‘counts’ as communication – it doesn’t. With a phone call you can hear their voices – their happiness, their stress – actual emotion. Don’t forget to actually talk to your friends!
I’m outta here – wish me luck!
Life: 
Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
I am tired. I should have gone to bed but instead caught up on a couple of episodes of nip/tuck instead. Should have gone to bed. The wind was was blowing non-stop from about 9pm until I went to sleep. Our windows are not the best and let in all the blowing dust so my allergies were going crazy. Eyes watering. Sneezing. Runny nose. It made for a long night. This morning the wind isn’t blowing, but just being in the office is making the allergies start up. I need to get to work to get out of this…
Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
For the most part – a good weekend. A couple of bike rides, my 1,000th Blog Post, a little work around the house, nice weather, home-grilled burgers – all around a good time!
Hopefully I will get my office moved this week. That’s my goal to have the upstairs closed off by the end of the month so we can actually see what kind of an impact it makes on the utilities. I’m going to be major-ly p’d off if it doesn’t make a substantial difference.
Wish me luck!
New Mexico Events 