This week is off to a great start!

Okay, so Mr X did not come back from Vegas with loads of money on which we could enjoy an early retirement, but he didn't lose much either - he basically came back about even, so that's nice. Sadly enough, however, he returned with zero pictures of the weekend. Oh well. He did have a stellar time though, so that's good.

I didn't have to work this past weekend and that was really nice. Mr X took me shopping a bit on Saturday for new work clothes. He says mine are all tattered and worn looking. *blush* It's true. I was all excited to get up this morning and get ready for work with my new 'threads' until I actually had to get up and get ready. Turns out that new work clothes don't magically transform one's stressful job into one's dream-job.

Mr X and I also tried to finish painting our master bedroom. We had previously painted it a baby blue and it turned out perfect. Our next and final step was to paint the trim a chocolate brown. We carefully (or so we thought) laid down drop-cloths and taped in preparation. Then we lovingly and slowly painted. The outcome? It looks terrible and I'm really annoyed about it all so I'm done talking about it now. (We already bought the paint for two other rooms and I'm pretty sure we'll never open those dumb cans now.)

My alarm to get up for work goes off at 4:55 AM every morning. When it went off this morning Mr X was already wide awake. I asked him why he was up so early and he replied, "I heard knocking on our front door about a half hour ago." Okay so sometime between 4 and 4:30 AM Mr X heard someone banging on our door downstairs (They would have to have been banging pretty hard for us to hear it all the way upstairs on the other end of our house, right?) What baffles me, besides the obvious of why was someone doing that at that awful time, is why they didn't just use the doorbell. Regardless, I'm totally creeped out by this.

After this, on my way to work I heard on the radio that a giant sink hole just swallowed a section out of a major road in Albuquerque and traffic was a mess as a result. Then Mr X calls me after I got to work to tell me that they found a dead body in the Rio Grande a few miles from our house.

This week is starting off with a jolt.

Vegas baby, Vegas

Yesterday I dropped Mr X off at the airport so he could catch a flight to Phoenix. There he met up with his brother, Mr T, and they waited for 2 more of their brothers to show up. Then they all headed off to have some raucous family fun, eating real Mexican food followed by go-cart racing, barbecuing and devouring large amounts of meat, and sneaking into a local hotel/resort to use their pool with slides and such. I'm sure there was more mischief going on to which I was not privy, and that's okay with me. Today the four of them have all squeezed into a Dodge Neon and they are driving to Vegas to meet up with yet another brother for some gambling and rabble-rousing. The levels of toxic gas in that Neon right now are probably so intense that the inside of the car is slowly dissolving away.

What I'm hoping to reap from this reunion of the brothers is: 1) Mr X will have such a great time that nothing can dampen his spirits for years to come. (okay I'll settle for weeks) 2) Mr X will win big enough that we can retire immediately upon his return home. (okay I'll settle for him just not losing any money at all) 3) Mr X will bring me home lots of quality pictures of the weekend so I can live vicariously through him.(okay I might be running low on pictures of Mr T and his famous face)

Hmmm...I might be a tad bit lonely. (No, I have no friends here. Really.)

High Altitude Connectivity

Have you heard about this? Probably. I'm curious to hear your opinion about it. For the most part, I think it will be great to have the Internet available on flights. I mean, other than watching movies, is there a better way to kill time while stuck in a *relatively uncomfortable* chair? Plus it's a pretty quiet activity for the most part so it's not likely to be much of a bother those around. I suppose the article has a point in that it would be really annoying to be sitting next to some tactless perv that feels it's his (or her) right to browse the latest porn sites. But really, that's a simple solution: the airlines can just block offensive sites like that.

The only part of this article that I'm not thrilled about is the bit about cell phones... There are a lot of loud-cell-phone-talkers out there and a lot of incessant-cell-phone-talkers as well, neither of which do I want to be seated anywhere near on a 3 hour (or more) flight. In fact, after an hour of that I probably wouldn't be able to refrain from reaching over, ripping the cell phone from the person's face and violently flinging it toward the other end of the plane...after I removed the battery of course. This type of behavior would probably quickly escalate into a gruesome fist fight which, no matter the size and strength of the other person, I would undoubtedly win due to my superior speed and intelligence and my fierce left hook.

Ummm...back to my point - I'm down with the Internet on planes but not with the cell phone use. So what do you think? Are you ready to embrace high-altitude connectivity or no? What are the reasons behind your opinion?

On a side note the article didn't mention anything about how much the airlines are going to charge for their passengers to use this service. They charge for everything these days so I cannot believe that it will be free to passengers. (Though I would be ecstatic if this were the case.)

The Decline of Good Blog Content

Well I'm really doing a terrible job giving good blog this month. I guess I'm just going to have to get creative with my material because I don't want to dole out mundane work bits day after day - I mean am a developer (of sorts) of revenue software and I'm fully aware that when people hear that they think, "computers and accounting" and then their eyes glaze over and they have to slap themselves to stay awake. (Don't feel bad, sometimes it happens to me too.)

So I promise that I will get some good stuff up here asap. I guess it's just been a bit of a rough comeback into the 'real world'. In the meantime, ponder this:
If you had to choose between cheese and chocolate for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

(This is a serious question - your answer swill really tell me a lot about where your culinary priorities lie, and that is important! At least to me...)

Days like this...

It is 6:10 am on a Sunday and I'm still at work. (Since 2:30ish pm saturday...) My eyes are burning and my head is spinning a bit. Do you think that will affect the quality of my work? Probably not...

Strange things that happen in ABQ

I had forgotten about the strange things that happen when re-acclimatizing in New Mexico. Since I am going through them right now, allow me to share.

First on the list? Static electricity. When I first moved here nearly two years ago (yikes!) both Mr X and I noticed that simply going about our daily activities, specifically walking here and there, generates so much static electricity that every time we touch something we zap. This occurred when we first moved here and now, after being gone for only 3 months, it is happening again. Apparently after a few weeks this subsides - I don't know exactly why but if you do, feel free to enlighten me.

Second: The inevitable dry cracking and generally uncomfortable skin. Normally when I go somewhere with a arid climate, my lips crack. Sometimes they actually crack and bleed. But upon arrival here not only do my lips crack, but the skin on my entire body cracks and itches like mad. It's a strange feeling to squat down to tie my shoes only to feel as though the skin covering my shins and thighs has just split. Lotion helps for a few hours but eventually the air sucks that dry as well and the cracking ensues. Even my eyeballs are dry. I wear contacts and normally I can wear them all day but here my eye's ability to stay lubricated is severely hampered and after half a day of wearing contacts my eyes are completely bloodshot and the contacts might as well be sandpaper.

Third, the elevation. No matter how physically fit I might be at a lower elevation, as soon as I get back here I feel as though I haven't worked out in months. Never mind that I can run for miles at a lower altitude without getting too winded, but as soon as I show up for work in Santa Fe and climb a mere 3 flights of stairs to my office, I'm wheezing like a smoker.

And last but not least but most gross, the bloody noses. You know that drying out and cracking stuff that happens all over one's skin here? Ya, well that happens inside one's nose too and it sometimes has the effect of causing bloody noses. Anything that comes out of noses gives me dry heaves so this one really bothers me. Ick.

All of this stuff goes away after a while here for the most part. (The eye thing is continuous and my skin is always dry but not quite as bad as when I first get here.)

The Holidays Part 3

The day after Christmas Mr X and I convinced most of my family to head up to Soldier Mountain to go snowboarding. I was pretty excited for everybody to go and I had a really wonderful time. (So thanks to everybody that went!) Hopefully they did too. One of my SIL's took a hard fall on the rear and bruised her tailbone pretty badly so she was hurting but luckily that wasn't too early on in the day. The conditions at Soldier were perfect: sunny, clear, not too windy, and good powder. Oh yeah, and the parking lot wasn't even half full so they mountain was pretty empty. So even though it is a pretty small ski resort it was fabulous time. Here are some pictures from that day:

Mr X and I left to come back home to ABQ the Thursday after Christmas and we stopped in SLC (Thanks Don!) so we could snowboard at Snowbird for a day. That was fun too and really challenging but the conditions weren't quite as great. It snowed all day and visibility was poor. Plus it was really cold and windy. And of course it was far more crowded than Soldier. But we still had a good time there as well.

The Holidays Part 2

So Christmas morning at home was fun, as usual. It was my first Christmas with all my siblings together and their kids, so it was fun to see all the babies going crazy from the excitement and sugar highs. My nephew, Sam, bravely gave an account of the Christmas story in front of everyone. The fact that his volume control switch seemed to be broken just made the story that much more entertaining. I also now know that Jesus wasn't "born" - he was "borin"...

Mr X and I didn't give gifts to each other since we decided that our experiences in Europe served as gift enough. We simply did a few stocking stuffers for each other. I got Mr X set up with the whole straight razor package, complete with a strop. Mr X hooked me up with some watercolor paints and some knitting needles. I was pretty happy about them because I had been wanting to dabble in the arts and crafts a bit. (On that note, I've nearly completed a very lopsided and goofy looking scarf that I was making for Mr X which he has very gracefully decided to allow me to keep (or just hide). And I have a couple of terrible painting attempts that don't quite deserve to grace a wall. Mr X has a few scrapes and cuts gracing his scruff-free face.)

Mr X and I also were tasked with preparing Christmas dinner for all the people at my parents house. That totalled 20 people. I found this experience to be more stressful than I had anticipated. Next time I will just order pizza. Mr X was a champ though - he helped me immensely and, more importantly, he calmed me down when my rolls didn't turn out just right.

The Holidays Part 1

After Mr X and I returned from Europe we proceeded on a slow and icy trip in our trusted (knocking on wood) Subaru up to my parents house in Idaho. We made it safely but our poor mud-encrusted car suffered a nasty crack in the windshield.That Monday we all went sledding and then played on some snowmobiles for a bit. Mr X really enjoyed the snowmobiles - I don't think I've ever heard him laugh so hard. Later that night during dinner, my little brother and his wife and new baby surprised everybody by showing up earlier than expected, which is always nice. Here are a few pictures from Christmas Eve Day for your amusement:

On a side note, after being assured that I wouldn't have to work extra tonight, turns out they were just kidding. Now I have to work quite enough extra that waking up at 5 am to catch my bus will be a miracle. (Oh ya, and today was the first day I've managed to get up in time to catch my bus to work but it seems my luck is holding for the year -the bus broke down on the freeway.)

Getting caught up

So sorry for not posting for a while again! Here's what happened:

Mr X and I were going to go snowboarding on Saturday to take advantage of my rare weekend day without work. So we went and he got a bit of an injury. He hurt his left shoulder/arm... I took him in and it appears nothing is broken but he most likely tore a muscle. He's hurting right now but hopefully it heals up quickly.

Anyway, I still promise that at some point within the next week I will post some about Christmas with the fam.

My life of leisure

Okay so it's been way too long since I've posted and all 3 of my readers have probably given up checking my blog - but I swear, I'm back and ready to be my regularly posting self again. Of course since I'm home now, my posts will probably be a bit less exciting (I realize that descriptor may be debatable) than those I posted during my travels last year, but I promise I will do my best to jazz up my mundane existence until the next trip.

That being said, being back at work after 3 months away has been a slap in the face. I was shocked and dismayed to discover that it felt as if I had never been away at all. I was immediately given 5 projects to work on (one of which is due to be implemented this Sunday), 4 major rollouts have been scheduled for this month (which essentially means that other than this weekend, I get no weekends), and 2 major system upgrades (for which my team is responsible to make them a flawless success) are set to be started and completed in the next 6 months. All this means that my life outside of work will simply be a life of more work. Mr X and I will have to readjust to a life of few precious moments of leisure and fun together once again. *sigh*

My FIL just sent out an email in which he mentions he'll be retiring in something like 50 weeks. I reflected on the fact that I have about 35+ years left until I retire, which is something like 1820+ weeks... so depressing. In my delusional mind I truly believe I was meant to live a life of leisure.

PS - I will be posting details soon about the holidays and all the fun family goodness that goes with it. I'm sure you cannot wait! (It might sound like I'm being sarcastic but I really did have a nice time and it was great to see my family again.)