Past 24 Hours

No shit there I was:

I'm heading up to Huntington to see if I can get some help from Best Buy with the Iphone my mom got me for Christmas. Since it's my mother, it's not a new Iphone but nearly that. It's one of the original models that a friend of the family had purchased a while back and then replaced. Since they weren't using it - it seemed a logical gift for me since my old cellphone kept dying.

Well... that's how things started.

I'm still trying to get the PHONE part of the Iphone to work (all of the other features work fine), but for now it's not wanting to connect to AT&T's network; unless you're standing inside an AT&T wireless store.

So when I show up to talk to the people, the problem of it connecting to the network is gone and I'm proven to be just another one of the brainless, techno-boobs who don't know how to use the technology in their possessions. When I walk away from the store, however, it losses signal and eventually drops the connection all together.

Annoying.

Later that day I found out that my Josh's dad, Frank, was in a motorcycle accident and was life-flighted from South Shore, KY to Huntington. He's now suffering from STML (no, not a new form of web code, that's "Short Term Memory Loss" to those who have never taken my Psych class) but nothing was broken.

So while up in Huntington, I offered to swing by the Hospital and help drive people - like Josh - back home because I'm sure that everyone piled in whatever car was available and drove up to be with Frank. However, before I left Chris "The Paladin" Ramey's apartment, his dog decided to take a hunk out of my left calf. At first it was thought that I stepped on the dog's tail and he had bit me to get me off of him. And then it turns out that I may have just scared him so badly that he turned and attacked.

Yes. Dog realizes that a six-foot, Bastet-ish Book-lover, has somehow shadow-stepped behind him for the kill and decided to attack first.

So with bleeding dog-bite marks I head over to the Hospital to pick up Josh and say hi to the family for a bit.

The first thing that Frank says when he sees me is "Vas est loss" (or some eqivalent in German). Considering that he couldn't remember why he was in the hosptial for longer than a minute or two - or why all of his family was hovering around him - it was a display of long-term recall to pull off a German phrase. He knew what he asked, that I would understand him, and my response. He just didn't know how he knew.

Gotta love STML.

So I drove Josh home and realized that my Iphone was still not working and will probably either have to replace it with a new, Iphone 3G, or see if the local AT&T store can do something. I wasn't able to take all the time I needed up in the Huntington Mall because Chris was with me and he doesn't like crowds.

Yeah, I'll never figure that one out.

But anyway. I wanted to update this thing since I'm now on winter break for the next two weeks.

Blah

Weekends.

-Tom

Tseo says...

Tseo says:

"This time, I think she's serious."

It is only fitting that the first day of finals, the finals that I am giving, would be met with two inches of snow.

I have already received, before ten o'clock this morning, three emails from students stating that they can not make it in for the final tonight. Yes, tonight. The final is not scheduled until six o'clock this evening.

I'm sure that several students are simply treating this final exam much like they did High School. Generally speaking there are only a few times in the year where the University is serious about sticking to a deadline; finals week is one of them. Students, however, feel that if there is a reason, any reason, that they should not attend class - they won't.

Snowflake in the air? Cancel.
Relatives coming (the next day) for a Holiday meal? Cancel
Rain might (might) make the roads slick for driving? Cancel

The students are ready for this term to be done. Perhaps that's just how fall terms go. Since so many students are still trying to fight the reality that this is no longer their high school, they will take any chance for the proverbial "Five more Minutes."

So, since the snow fell in earnest last night, I took this time to shovel my sidewalk and throw down some rock salt which I kept by the front door. You would think that an old, oatmeal tube full of rock salt would have been the least interesting thing in my house. But simply by placing it near my front door there was some level of curiosity aroused.

"Why do you have salt next to your front door?" A friend asked this past fall.

"Because that's where it's needed." I responded.

No need for magical intervention or supernatural explanations for this one. Keep salt by your front door (especially in a house like mine that doesn't see a lot of front-door traffic) so that when it snows or is icy you don't have to hunt down the bag from last year. I know that there's a bag of salt =somewhere= in my basement and I'll eventually dig it out, but it's quite handy to have just enough to hit the sidewalk whenever needed.

It may be magical in some circles, but it's practical in mine.

-T