Idaho Road Conditions

It's too cold and dangerous to go out and take beautiful pictures of the snow today. And I would have a really hard time taking some of the beautiful pictures you can see on the Idaho Road Conditions site. Of course, these pictures were saved at the time, and will not look like this if you go to look now. I love this site.


I love it because it is useful, I know exactly what to expect if I need to travel somewhere in Idaho. But I really love it for the cameras. Sometimes I will spend an hour just looking at the pictures.

During the day, I like to look at the pictures on Teton Pass (just past the Idaho/Wyoming border on the way to Jackson Hole - not pictured here because it was too dark when I posted this) and watch the skiers come and go. I wonder if they know they are being photographed?

Some of the pictures are updated every few minutes, others are not updated quite so frequently. I guess if the weather gets too bad, the camera goes down, but that is to be expected.

I don't know if other states have a system like this. If I find them all, I can imagine I will spend many hours touring the country on my laptop. It is a lot of fun.

3 As and an S means I have a BS

Ok, so there are a couple of -es after the As. I can't seem to get decent grades on finals. I don't know what it is, the final was no more difficult than any of the other tests (they rarely are), but I never do as well. I hope this doesn't transfer to the GRE. I wasn't nervous for this one. I did for this class what I do for all my other classes, and get good enough grades in the beginning to carry me through the final, and I knew I would pass. I just wasn't sure I would get the A. A - doesn't knock me out.

The theatre grade sucks. I'll have you know that up until Monday I had an A+. The teacher waited until Sunday to start grading our work. I don't know how he could have given a fair assessment of the work of 50 some people in one day. It would have been difficult. I don't know if it was the same for everyone else, but the grading included three essays, a group project, the assessment of our group, and several forums. So, in one day I went from A+ to A- and could do absolutely nothing about it. I will never take an online class again - especially not from that teacher.

So, that's it then. I worked hard and now I have a BS (I've always been full of BS, but now I have a degree to prove it!). Now, I need to find a job before they shut my power, water, and internet off. I have to have power for my computer and internet to work, but I might be able to live without water. (kidding)

I don't know how it is everywhere else, but here in Idaho, where the economy is supposed to still be strong, state taxes have been taking a dive, and, of course, the first programs to be cut are those that service poor and disabled people. Medicaid has been slashed. It's not pretty. I would be surprised if I will be able to find a decent job. I guess when you are down to $300, any job works.

So, there it is. I should celebrate.

It's too late to vent!

Last week seemed like a pretty good week. Things were falling into place and the end was in sight.

That was last week.

Friday night when I got home, I got an e-mail from the girl who runs the lab. Apparently, someone had shown up to participate in the study, and the girl assumed I had left too early giving her a penalty in the process. I checked my paper trail, and confirmed that I was in the lab until at least 11:46, at which time I tidied up the lab for the next research assistant, and left. There was no one in the hall. NO ONE! I walked over to the records office to pay my diploma document fee and was sent to the administration bldg to pay it (the records people had gone to lunch), and paid it. I have a receipt that shows I was there at 12:11 p.m. (It doesn't take an hour to get to the quad). I responded to the e-mail reporting as much, hoping that she would realize that she wasn't there until 12:00 and that whoever was waiting for the study wasn't there for an 11:00 appointment. That hasn't happened yet, so when I get up there tomorrow, I will have to straighten that all out.

Then, in theatre class, four of the five of us in the group had our parts done and sent to the web master, who submitted it at 11:00 p.m. Friday night. Saturday morning all of the other projects were up but ours. The web master sprang to action and managed to finally get ahold of the teacher, who had just failed to post it. That was cool. But the girl who didn't submit her part emailed me after 1:00 p.m. on Saturday wanting to know what she was supposed to do for her part and that she hadn't heard from any of us. LIER! I re-sent ALL of the emails I had sent to her (I didn't have access to those sent by the webmaster), and told her the project had been submitted the night before. Well, our project is up, and apparently, a couple of people hate what I did. Oh well.

Then, today, I was finishing up the final draft of my paper for Senior Seminar. I was very diligent in saving after every I finished editing each paragraph, and looked down to see that I had 20 pages of research paper! That was a lot more that I expected and almost twice as much as I had when I started the edits! But, it was finished! I looked at it, smiled and said to myself "one last save and printer, here I come!" and clicked on the save icon. I immediately got an alert telling me that that pathway was not found. Ok, I thought, I'll just save it to the computer and worry about why the jump drive failed later. So I okayed and cancelled out of that mess so I could save it to my laptop, when the whole works word processor shut down. Ok, I thought, I'll just get it going again and hope it kept track of the changes I made to the last paragraph, or redo the changes and print it out. No problem, right? WRONG! It was GONE! DISAPPEARED! GONE WITHOUT A TRACE! I was shocked, but kept hoping that maybe I could still find it. It wasn't on the jump drive. AT ALL. I put the jump drive in the desktop, and it wasn't there! AT ALL! I suppose if I knew how to reassemble computer memory traces, I could have retrieved it and all would be well, but I don't know how to do that. My "tears, they flowed away, like a rivulet at play, with a bubble rubble glubble o'er the ground ground ground." (I don't know who wrote the poem, I have asked for assistance in finding it on my Oral Traditions blog, but have not received any information yet)

The good news is that I had put the really hard edits on a powerpoint for a poster presentation I gave on Thursday (yeah, the one I got so nervous for I couln't remember how to say the word "the" or what it actually means - perhaps a shot of tequilla preceding the incident would have helped?). I remember thinking that I really should cut a lot of that information for the presentation, but I was lazy. I am so glad I'm lazy! All I had to do was go back and try to remember the edits I made to the lit review, and copy and paste the rest of it. It still took me an extra 5 hours, but I did get it done, and it is printed out, and I will have something to turn in. I have even e-mailed it to myself so that if my house burns down tonight, I will still have something to turn it.

Well, I have managed to get through the 3rd movement of this sonatina. Now I only have one left, and it's about as long as the rest of the three movements put together.

And I think I'll be able to get ready for the Physio psych final on Friday. I'll miss that class. It was fun. It's right up there with the Social Psychology class I took with Dr. Simonson, and the Cognitive Processes class I took with Dr. Turley-Ames.

You know, If I had to decide right this minute whether I would apply for more education, I'd say no way. But I know that this moment of stress and explosive crying will pass, and I will once again dream about the possibility of being more than I am. It always works out that way.

And Megan took Zach to the store to get grocieries, so even that turned out ok. It is now 7:10 and NCIS is on. I think I'll take a shower and see if I can do some laundry at Zach's new apartment. He is cooking a pork roast, and it should be getting done pretty soon! (The kid makes a fabulous pork roast!)

No more smoke and steam are pouring from my shattered mountain top. The mountain can be silent now, and rest up for the next explosion.

No free advertising

I just deleted another comment left by someone trying to direct people to his web site to get bailout money. I hate it when people google a word in blogs (recession in this case), then type in a comment without having read the blog post they are commenting on, then leave links to their scam site. I always delete them, and I always will.

Blogger doesn't remember me!

It could be because it has been so long since I last blogged, but still....I can't believe I actually had to type in my user name and password!

Where do I start? So much has happened!

Well, first of all, Zach turned 21. That's drinking age here in the states, and he has been counting the days. But I had to be in Pocatello on his birthday, and didn't get home until 11:30 pm. (I went to see a Shakespeare play-it was set in the early 1900s, and there were no fine young men wearing tights! bummer) Anyway, where was I, oh yeah. On the drive home I called Zach to see if he wanted to go somewhere when I got home and have a beer. He was game.

Apparently, my wonderful brother (said very sarcastically) told Zach that if he went to the Oasis, they would give him a free drink for his birthday. So Zach went. Alone. (aren't wonderful brothers the best? I haven't yet thanked him - I'm still trying to think of non-inflammatory words) Luckily, there was someone there that I have known for a long time. He actually was best friends with my brother growing up - and he was a good guy. He looked after Zach until I got there.

I tried to vary the types of drinks Zach was drinking, hoping he would get sick and get it all out of his system. No such luck. He felt better the next day than I did, and I didn't drink.

Megan decorated a cake for him. It was pretty. She is learning to decorate cakes, and wanted to do a pretty cake. Zach loved it - but we couldn't eat any of it because we went to our favorite all-you-can-eat buffet and ate as much as we could. And then some.

Then, last Monday, Zach was approved for his first apartment! He is all grown up now and out on his own! I Always thought than when he moved out I would have lots of time to myself. It isn't working out that way. He is more needy now than he has been in a long time. But, I think once he gets used to it he will be fine. It is really a cute little apartment. It has a dishwasher, which he really loves. It seems like a safe place to live, and there are several people with disabilities living in his building. They do background checks, so I can only assume he won't be encountering too many bad guys there.

I decided to start learning the rest of sonatina op 36 by clementi. It really wasn't the best idea I've had in a while. I have a poster presentation and paper to finish in senior seminar, a paper to read and write about in physio psych, a project to write in theatre and a presentation to give at this Friday's lab meeting. I have discovered that if I go somewhere else to work, I get something done.

But I usually sit in the living room to do my homework. The tv is usually on to keep me company, but I manage to tune it out most of the time when I'm working. The piano is in the living room, and I usually keep the book open to the page I am working on so I can find my place easy. The notes dance on the page. They beckon, tease and tempt me until I can no longer resist. I put down my homework and sit to learn the music. A puzzle that hasn't been finished. I can't stop thinking about it. The music I have learned swirls and hums in my head. Like a song you don't know the words to that plays over and over again until you learn he words - only then does it let you go. Maybe I'm just loosing it.

So, now it is time for my psychotic reading. Until recently, people in Idaho have been patting themselves on the back because we hadn't been touched by the recession thanks to the great (sarcasm) dairy industry and wise (more sarcasm) city planners who have developed loads of service industries in Twin. Well, the recession is hitting Idaho. Layoffs are happening and the state government is cutting services. I actually wrote about this earlier this year. And that prediction is taking place. No one will ever remember we weren't effected by the recession as early as the rest of the country. I still predict that everyone will want heads to roll when our economy is still in the crapper while the rest of the country is rebounding. For about a year anyway - then we'll catch up!

Well, I'm really tired now, and I hope this makes sense. I'm sure I will have to come back in and edit it a few times before it is right!