Winter Fun

With a full foot of snow on the ground (it just tonight became perfect packing snow, too), the radiator in my room quit. No heat all weekend, but luckily the physical plant sent a guy over when I called, and now my room is a comfortable 80 degrees. There's no balance here.

Went snowshoeing on Sunday, and will be going again next Sunday. It's a great way to take advantage of the snow, and a lot of fun to boot. On Sunday the temp was below ten; it's warmed up since then (actually, it's above freezing as I type this), but the cold should set in by Thursday or Friday. At least I've got a working radiator now.

In other news related to me, the department production of Much Ado About Nothing is progressing nicely; I have the role of Don Pedro, played by Denzel Washington in the Kenneth Branagh version of the play. The Branagh version, incidentally, is fantastic, and deserves a viewing.

Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame; this almost makes up for the Giants' loss in the playoffs, but it was tough to see another team go down in the second round of playoffs. Hopefully the Red Sox will have a good season; the lineup and pitching rotation should combine to produce lots of wins. Hopefully.

Anyway, just a quick update. More when I'm bored at 2 AM again.

First day of classes

And once more, I actually follow up a title with a related blog post. See, much as I hate to acknowledge it, today was really the first day of regular classes since the beginning of December. My schedule is horrendous on certain days of the week: Mondays are a solid block, nine to six. Tuesdays have two classes, at nine and then again at noon, and work at the bookstore in the afternoon. Wednesdays are solid nine to four. Thursdays are completely free, but I'll be working in the bookstore pretty much all afternoon until chorale at four. Fridays are nine to one, and then bookstore after lunch. Today was slightly improved, as there was no lab to tie up my lunch hour.

What are these classes, you ask? Well, even if you weren't asking, I'll tell you anyway. They're remarkably similar to those I took last semester: biology, chemistry, Italian, and multi-variable calculus. Buckets and buckets of fun, indeed. Tomorrow's looking up, though, something like four packages should be arriving in the mail. One of those should bear a Giants logo, but that's not headed for my mailbox. No, that's headed straight to the one who foolishly bet against the Giants and is now going to wear a hat commemorating the Superbowl victory for the next month or so.

Although classes partially blocked my enjoyment of this, today was just about the first real packing snow that's fallen this winter. A snowball fight is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon...yes, it is scheduled...otherwise people can't be there. I personally vote for spontaneous, mostly because I can't resist pegging people in the back on the way to the dining hall. It's things like that that enamor me to people...anyway, to bed. I have to be up and ready to work at the bookstore at eight, and that translates to bed now. Although I really don't think I'll get to sleep until at least midnight...nevertheless, even lying in bed reading is better than staring at the computer screen.

A quick note: Firefox has a wonderful (though questionable) add-on that lets you download streamed content. So if you're listening to, say, Seeqpod, and you want to get a track that you could burn to CD, or listen to without internet access at places like the airport, the add-on lets you do that. Beautiful...

I'm flattered

Cash Advance Loans

By the way, there's a foot and a half of snow in the forecast for Sunday and Sunday night. Yay?

More Snow Photos...can't get enough

The winter is upon us

And I have lots of pictures, complimentary of friends. Seeing as I don't have my own digital camera (hint hint).

There is joy

Snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow
Lovely snow! Wonderful snow!
Snow snow snow snow...etc

It's finally decided to be winter here in Maine (or at least the nice part of winter, with pretty snow to accompany the bitter cold). So far there's about four inches on the ground, with another six or so predicted to fall. Two of my four classes today were canceled. Unfortunately, I still have a chem exam at 5:30. Studying commences...now!

You know, just because

It'd be nice if my dorm room was warmer than 50 degrees all the time. I have found that shivering is not conducive to doing work. I'm wearing my coat all the time, and I try as much as possible to work in places where their heaters either a.) work, or b.) are not counteracted upon by a large window that serves to suck all the warmth out of the room.

Cold is good. I like cold. Walked four miles to and from Wal-mart yesterday in the sub freezing weather. I can deal with cold in places where I should have to. But is my room really one of those places? Is it really necessary that I should have trouble bending my fingers after spending an hour working at my desk? Note to self: space heater. Yesterday I had boiling tea in the morning to help me wake up/warm me up. I left it sitting for ten minutes while I write some emails. I then take a sip - cold as ice. It's currently about 20 degrees outside. That's fine. I'm inside. Unfortunately, inside is about 45 degrees. That's just not cool.

I don't want to whine too long...you get it, I'm cold. Get over it, I will be told, I who willingly went to the frozen north, submitting myself to four years of snow and temperatures better dealt with by running south. On a lighter, brighter note, some amount of snow will fall tonight and tomorrow. Projected accumulation is anywhere from six to twenty inches. Did I hear somebody say snowball fight?

I'm going to go stick my fingers in the microwave to warm them up. Until I write again, Ciao!

Google Analytics...cool...

So now I know that my blog does indeed get viewed occasionally. This is evidenced not only by the posting of calen, but also by google analytics. With thanks to phschemguy for the tip, I used my Gmail account to open up an account with Google Analytics. A tweak to the blog HTML, and my tracker was up and running. And today I'm fascinated by page views not only from numerous places in Ohio, and several from here in Maine, but also by a visit from Portugal and one from Stockholm, Sweden. I think I'm going to enjoy monitoring my site traffic.

On a separate note, snow is in the forecast for Friday late morning. Fingers are crossed and pajamas are inside out, which gets strange looks in the dorm.