Soporific Day

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I am doing my best to stay awake. Not working really well, and the bed is looking better and better. Who knows, maybe I will take a nap in a bit. It’s been a long week and it is only Tuedsay.

Yesterday, we took care of all the business stuff. Dan went and helped John with a technical telephone conference and I tried to organize stuff here at the office. hahahaha! That didn’t go very far. I worked on my area a bit and that was all. I have to wait for Dan on the rest of it.

We spent the rest of the evening sort of in that numb zone. Lots of people sending condolences and “hopes” that things get better. Erin and Morgan came over with Logan and we had a late supper. Spaghetti.

We also learned yesterday that after Dan let Airspring know that he was no longer employed by RBT, that they told Karen she had to pay the whole bill now! Some $2200.00+. She paid it. Didn’t even touch what was in the bank account. This peeved me no end, that here we are struggling and being honest about where every penny went and ‘the money’ wouldn’t help us. However, the moment we quit, ‘the money’ is helping Karen. Oh well. We know we aren’t thieves. We know we did the best we could and just how hard the work really is. Too bad we weren’t appreciated. Oh well. Yeah, I’m a little bitter.

We were suppose to be up early so that Dan could go job hunting. Well,… We almost made it. He and Erin finally headed to Trinidad around noon. I’ve caught up on my computer stuff, moved email out from the rbwifi.net account and in general done a whole lot of sitting. I know I aught to go get the papers and start job hunting. Just don’t have the urge to do it. Yeah, I’m a little blue about the whole thing. Maybe I will take that nap.

The phones…. they won’t stop ringing…..

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You’d think I worked at a business or something! Gads! Today has been phone hell. They ring, they ring some more and sometimes there are 3 calls at once! Plus we have been having issues with Vonage and a mix up with our service. They connected the device to the wrong account numbers. What a cluster f*ck. However, I think that Dan finally got things worked out. Here’s hoping!

Stefan called and I had to put him on hold three separate times in less than 5 minutes. Wow! Poor guy, he was just trying to tell me how life was going for him and Anabell, and he could barely get a word in edgewise. I kept having to interrupt him, put him on hold and answer the other phone. Twice it was my parents who arrived in town today.

Then there were the conversations. :> Geeze! Here we are a wireless internet service provider. A WISP. Better yet, we are providing free access to Aguilar government entities. So far, two of them don’t want it! What the hell? I sort of understand the fire department. They probably have some government based contract that they can’t get out of. However, the library is not.  They’ve gotten a grant with a company that is suppose to give them WiFi. It’s been promised service, but as far as I understand it, they aren’t actually connected yet. Instead, they are costing the town money for a satellite that has been their connection for a while. I talked to the city manager, and he wasn’t sure if they were connected and didn’t understand why they didn’t want free service. Sigh….

The rest of the phone calls were about service. When would it be turned on? (it is) How long will it be free? (until the end of the week) How much? What do I need? What’s a WISP? and When are you coming to our area? (as soon as possible) Oh, and the software company called me because Dan forgot to give them his cell phone number. Wheee….

My parents arrived amidst all the phone calls. They are here for the rest of the week to work on their house. Dan was a tad crabby, so I took Mom with me to go pick up the kids. I told her all about the shopping trips. I thought she was going to laugh herself silly. Especially over the ear piercing.

Now I get to have a quiet evening. The kids are home, work is mostly done and now all I need to do is return the DVD we forgot for the last 4 days and head to Safeway for some milk. Tomorrow looks like it will be just as busy, so I think I will head to bed early again.

Windy yet again!

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I know it is suppose to be in like a Lion, out like a Lamb or visa versa for March, but… It was leonine weather at the start of the month and today too! In fact, the wind woke me up at around 4am.

Yesterday was a busy one. Tried to sleep in, but the phone kept ringing! Phonus Interupticus too! sigh…Oh well. 😛 Finally got up, bathed and cooked breakfast. Made cheesy scones. Yummm….

Finally got Dan moving and we headed to Aguilar town hall to finish up the wiring job there. Jimmer was in and we had some fine giggles. Got everything done except the meeting room cable and the final linkage to the T-1. Hopefully, that will be done today or tomorrow.

Dragged home late and cooked up lambchops and ratatoulli. It came out heavenly. While I cooked, Dan worked on the phone system. It is having hickups. sigh.. Even though it was late, we watched Man of the Year. Wonderful movie and it was worth staying up late to watch it. I am just glad that we have Spring Break this week and I didn’t have to get up and take the kids to school. Got to sleep in till 7am! Wheeee….

Today it is a semi-busy day at the office. Dan is working with the software vendor, Karen is repairing Pc’s and I’m answering phones and trying to gird up my courage to tackle makeing work forms. yawn…. I really don’t want to, but the alternative is going home and doing laundry. Hmm…. Maybe forms isn’t so bad….

School carnivals, drives in the country and Snow….

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Friday night was the Gardner school carnival. Morgan had spent the night with a girlfriend and so Dan and I picked up Matt and headed up to the school. Now imagine 75 of your closest friends, their families and all the siblings that ever graduated coming to a huge dinner and then playing games for 3 hours. Everyone knows each other, inspects the latest boy/girlfriend, new baby(ies), new tattoos, etc. They catch up on all the gossip, tell all the latest grandbaby/kid stories and pet/livestock stories. This is Gardner school carnival.

Dinner was pizza, salad and cheesecake. Dan was happy. I’m allergic to milk, so I didn’t eat. Then it was off to the gym and the games. Ball toss basket ball, airzooka blasts with teacher targets, basket ball shoots, face painting, car racing, darts, bean bag toss, and the pistol range shoot. We walked around, chatted with friends and watched Matt and Morgan do their thing. Then I gave the kids and Dan more tickets and went to chat with my friend Jolene. She was running the table sale. Lots of junk for a donation. Meanwhile, Dan went to the pistol shoot. He took his turn, then took over the booth while the teacher took a break. Fun bit was that he stood behind the smaller kids with another pistol and was hitting the targets when they couldn’t! What a riot! Then he went over to talk to Bruce, who is also the local sheriff and Jolene’s hubby. We finally headed home around 8pm.

I got about 8 miles down the road when the headlights from another car clipped me just wrong and zapped me. I get migraines almost instantly when this happens. Luckily, I could see enough to drive to a safe place to stop. The road is very narrow at that point. Dan drove home, and I went to bed. Awwwggghh…… Of course ten minutes after I got home, I tried to go to sleep. Not that anyone could keep quiet. Just what I needed with a headache that was light, scent and sound sensitive! I nearly threw up. So, while I went to bed by 9pm and didn’t get up till nearly 7:45am, I think I only really slept about 6 hours.

Got up Saturday morning and felt a bit better. Sort of wrapped in cotton wool. After I took Daniel out to Pauline’s so that he could house sit, I planned to take a nap. Reason being that in the afternoon, I was suppose to play friendly native guide to our business partner Carlos. Wheee…. However, the work on the Aguilar NOC took longer than we thought. Plus, the phone kept ringing! So, I got no nap and the drive got postponed until Sunday.

Sunday we got rolling about 11am. We drove up HWY 12 from La Veta to Trinidad. Then out to Hoehne, up to Gardner, Redwing and past up the Huerfano Valley. Then out to Wolf Springs Ranch. It was about a 200+ mile drive. I had fun, and Carlos got to see where we want to put in WISP service. After we got back, I picked up Daniel from Pauline’s, did a bit of laundry and then went to bed after watching HellBoy. Odd movie, but funny too.

Today, we woke to about 4 inches of snow. It was still snowing hard at school time and I decided that it was better to not drive in the snow. We probably would have been fine, but I decided to play safe. The kids aren’t going to keel over for missing one day of school. Dan, Karen and Carlos headed off to Colorado Springs and Pueblo for the day. They are going to the big gun store up in the Springs. I’d have gone too, but I have two meetings tonight and don’t want to miss them. If I had gone, there is no way I’d have been home in time. I’ll get to hear all of their adventures when they get back. Wheee……

Meanwhile, I’m catching up on paperwork, writing things for the meeting and taking it easy for a bit. Oh, and it is still snowing… Gads!

Sunshine!!!

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    Wow it was wonderful! I actually went somewhere without 3 layers of clothing and a coat! I think it got up to about 60 today. Happy dance!

The day started out a bit hectic. After my car being “ill” for the last 10 days, Dan finally got it working enough for me to drive it. There are still some issues, but… I can drive. So, I took the kids to school, went to the office and promptly got sent to bed. I had a headache, and Dan recognized it. So, I got aspirin stuffed in me, and me stuffed in bed so that I could sleep it off. I managed 3 hours before the phones just kept waking me up. Ah well…

My parents got here yesterday to work on their house some more. John and I had lunch with them at the Huerfano Cafe. It’s a nice little hole in the wall greasy spoon. Decent food. After lunch, Mom and I went to the local healthfood store. I got some things I needed and Mom got Wasabi peas. :>  Then we headed to the office where I did a bit of paperwork and got my new phone all set up. I finally traded mine in as the battery wouldn’t hold a charge. This one is an i710. Very sleek.

We headed over to Mom’s house and I helped her put shelf paper in her cupboards. Then it was off to pick up the kids and take Mom to the bank. Right now, I’m catching up on all the bits I missed earlier and waiting on an ebay bid. Wheee…..

Imbolc!

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Ah, only 6 more weeks of winter, and I will be so glad when it is over! It is a delirious 57 degrees in my office at the moment. And that’s with the heater going.

It has been a busy few weeks. Karen was here and got her house as well as did some work on it. Then she had to go down to New Orleans to finish up things there. In the meantime, we all worked as hard as we could between being cold and sick.

Plus, the kids have been whingy or fighting. I had the urge to knock their heads together, but realized that would probably just knock the one brain cell they were sharing out of their wee heads. Not really, but it seems like it at the moment. Matt is 14 and Morgan 11. Too many hormones! Oh, and add in Daniel at nearly 18.

Dan is off today to test and get his FCC license. It will be my turn soon, but I can wait a bit. Can’t get enthused about it. Too much else on my plate to be honest. HTML, CSS, office stuff, tech stuff and wanting to knit and write. Oh, and don’t forget the genealogy!

I also have my taxes to do. Should have done them today, but to be honest, I’m tired. Tired enough that I don’t want to make a mistake and totally mess up our return. So, I’ll do it tomorrow or Monday.

Plus, today is Imbolc. I changed over my two private altars and have yet to do the one in the living room. Logan is such a pest that I am nervous about putting nice things out at a height he can reach.

Dan and I celebrated the cross quarter day which was nice although it turned out to be a very busy day. We had a job down at the Walsenburg Housing Authority. Originally a wiring job, but it became a wireless setup and Network revamp. Funny bit was when we went in, Dan went first and I followed with some of the stuff. Dave, the manager there pulled Dan aside and whispered to him that “it looks like you have an elf following you about… But don’t tell her that!” Dave meant me, and Dan laughed. Dave and I were on the School Board together. It cracked me up.

One thing I am glad of is that we are finally getting over the series of colds/flu/sinus crud that has been plaguing both the office and home. Huzzah!!!

Cold and tired

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    The last few days have been long and cold. We have been trying to get the Budget Host hotel wifi network up and running. One problem is that the average temperature while we’ve been working has been about 20 degrees. After you are out in that for 5-6 hours, you just are too cold and tired to think.

I’m also muscle sore. Dan is worse off, as he still has the hacking cough. Karen has stayed a few extra days to try and help us get things up, and between the three of us we are still barely getting things done. I’m also coming up with a loooong list of things to do “pre-installation. I’m going to have a book about 2 inches thick by the time we are done with Aguilar. sigh… Not exactly the kind of writing I expected to be doing.

However, on other fronts… We got the Tatra emergency vehicle pamphlet written. We had to edit Karen’s prose and then mine to get it to fit and meet everyone’s approval. Carlos presented it on Friday and the guy really liked it. Liked it enough that he told Carlos about another project that might see us wiring 300+ towers for communications down South. Now the “sit and wait” time to see if we get contract offers.

Today we are writing up the weekly article for the Huerfano Journal and then going back out in the cold to fix the wiring faults we had yesterday. gads…  I think I want a nap!

Finished!!!

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    At long last, I have finished a major bit of writing. I started this story, Sheeple, about 2 years and 3 offices ago. It took over my life for a brief bit, and I actually had time to let it do so. Granted, it shoved another story, SweetWater, to one side, but… This one had a bit more Ummph behind it. Ok, a real shove via my Muse. I wrote a ton of pages and then hit a resounding halt. Life got in the way and I didn’t write on it for nearly 5-6 months. I started to edit it and work on it a bit more and then life intruded again. However, last week I got tired of that Muse of mine hammering my brainpan. Dan had also dropped a not so subtle hint or two that he’d like to see the finished story. I can understand that as I used him as “technical adviser” a time or six.

However, I knew it had to finish soon. The hardest part about writing isn’t the idea, or dialog. It’s rounding up all the characters and making them shut up long enough to bring the story to a close. Or, at least to the end of the first volume.  I know I could have written 15-20 more chapters of Sheeple, but that isn’t where the story was. This ending is short and sweet. It wraps it up and tucks it in nice and neatly, which is where the first chapter tried to contain it. Now, if I write Sheeple II, I may elaborate more. I don’t know. However, the story is finished. Huzzah! Now once Dan finishes giggling and drooling on the keyboard, we will tidy up any little edits and call it done. What I do after that, I’m not sure. Part of me wants to just share it with friends. Other bits of me wants to find a way to publish it. I’ll see where I am in a bit.

The other thing that I have finally (?) finished is this bout with the flu. I have been sick for a week. Today is the first time I have gotten dressed since I got sick. Gads! Dan is still rather phlegmmy, but I think he is on the mend as well. Regardless of that though, we have to get back to work. I turned the phones on for the first time and was hit with a barrage of calls. We also have one appointment today. Between the phone and that, I’ve cleaned up the bedroom a bit so that it is loosing that sick room smell, changed sheets and have dumped the dirty laundry. I’m going to have a ton of it. Oh well.

Another bit of good news is that I have a story up on Literotica. Fruit Salad. :> Teeheehee! I doubt that the Muse will let me rest, so….  on to SweetWater!

Heat at last!

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    Woo!!! It is a balmy 63 degrees outside! Windy, but oh my gods warm. I am so glad to see some change in temperature. IT was unseasonably cold for a bit there. Highs of 12 or 9 were not the way I like to spend the winter.  Especially when it freezes pipes and makes changing clothes a torture. (cold as a witches…….) I’m also still dealing with the pain in my arms, hands and shoulders from working on the ditch. sigh.

Yesterday was a bit of an adventure. Night before, Gretchen called as they were having trouble with the Huerfano Journal website. From what we could tell, the French were maybe doing maintenance. Reality was that their site was down. We checked it a few hours later and there was no site. Aieeee! Especially bad as the paper was due out Thursday morning.  So, we got up yesterday and did some revisions on our website contract to reflect the discounts that we give the paper, printed up a copy along with their bill for previous updates and headed down to talk with them.

Stopped at Computer Troubleshooters first as he is their webhosting service. The French were still down and Dan and John V. talked about it and the mess. Later we went over and talked to Gretchen and Brian. Dan explained what we were willing to do and also discussed the bill still owed. He was really uncomfy having to do that when they were in a no win situation, but didn’t have much choice. Dan had delayed talking with Brian about it and now it was biting them both in the arse. sigh…  Gretchen was upset and felt like she was hemorrhaging money. Granted, they have paid out a lot of dosh, but so have we as a business. Worse yet, we have had very little return for our various investments because we are waiting for Qwest to pull a T-1 out of it’s arse and connect it where we need it for the various WiFi projects. Worse yet, we have the issue whereby the small jobs we able to accomplish don’t bring in a lot of money. sigh…

So, Gretchen paid us and we came back to the office. Dan had to run off to the hotel job for a bit and then we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the office. 5 hours later, we had the Huerfano Journal site up and running complete with all the articles.  Fell into bed and slept like the proverbial dead.

Today, we have a server to build and some other small jobs to get done. Life nailed both Dan and I with sore arms. His shoulder and my elbow are acting up making life interesting. Without my backspace key, this post would be nothing but sduutobpieh routhnne typinmg.

Flying lessons

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    Well, nearly. Today we had to go down to the Huerfano Journal and move the banner sign that we mounted to the wall. We were suppose to put it on the north side of the building, but it was way too cold and windy. We parked the bucket truck up against the curb as tight as we could and then we started to try and take the sign down. The wind buffeted Dan all over the place and when he started to hand down the banner, the wind caught it and whipped it all over the place. I caught it and held on for dear life as the wind picked it and me up! I could feel myself sliding back and forth on the ice. I grabbed the corner of the building and held tight.  Dan took out the last screw that was holding the banner and then I worked my way into the building. I felt like I was part of a mime performance! Brian Orr and I rolled up the banner and then I went back out and helped Dan bring down the banner frame. Once we got that in place, we decided that we would wait for a much less windy day to do that part of the job. Have to admit that I didn’t envy the canopy people who had to do their work later in the day. We did drive by and see the finished job. The canopy is beautiful.

After that job, we headed to Aguilar where we shoveled snow out of the NOC building that we will be putting the network services equipment in for Aguilar. There is no glass in the window, so the snow blew in. Then we went to see Carl. He is one of our older customers and although a sweet man, he loves to visit. Granted, when he and Dan get together, they talk for hours. We had a short visit today though as we had to go pick up the kids. With the wind, ice and snow blowing, Dan didn’t want me driving.

We grabbed lunch at A&W and then headed out to pick up the kids. The normal 17 minute trip took 35 minutes. A harried 35 minutes on icey roads with heavy winds. I was very glad that Dan was driving. It took about the same amount of time to drive home.  We took Little Morgan to the Family Dollar so that she could get her Yule gift for her secret pal at school. I got Matt a pair of polar fleece gloves for $2. He’s been borrowing L.Morgan’s extra pair.

Tonight I am reading through Acceptable Use Policies for RBT. Yawn….. Maybe I’ll just give up for the night. The office is a balmy 54 and it’s 9 outside with 20 mph winds. Brrrr!