Showing posts with label Friday the 13th. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friday the 13th. Show all posts

13 June 2008

Another Friday the 13th

Happy bad luck day everyone! Most of you probably don't know, but our little slice of Americana was ravaged by storms last evening. The fam was at a restaurant called "El Mezcal" when the tornado sirens began to blast. Making their annoying-but-attention-getting warble ring and echo through out the city. It was just after we had finished and paid and were ready to leave they began. I ran through the downpour to get the family truckster. Just as I got in, the hail hit, and hit hard. As the hail pummeled the roof of the van, I thought it sounded an awful lot like I would imagine an army of squirrels throwing acorns at the van would sound.

By the time we got home, the weather was beginning to clear, and the sirens had abated. The tornado warning was over. There was a report of one just southeast of town, near a little burg called Berryton. But we managed to remain unscathed...relatively. We had already lost a tree in our front yard in Sunday's storm - mostly anyway. It was a nice redbud tree when we moved in. But over the last 7 years, it has taken a real beating. After Sunday's damage, there were only three branches left on it. It looked anemic. So I cut them down. While I was cutting the second branch, it was so rotted the thing just fell, nearly hitting my intrepid helper, No. 2 Son. We had a good laugh at that.

Last night, however, our satellite TV went kaput. This is not unusual during heavy storms (or even light ones at that). But when it didn't come back this morning, the 5/8 called the Dish folks. Who promptly put us on the schedule...for 2 July. Yes, that is not a misprint. Three weeks sans television. We are seriously considering switching back to cable TV. The problem is, that we pay more for cable, for less. Sure, cable has the local channels in HD, which we don't get with the satellite, but then again, the satellite has the Kung Fu Movie Channel and the Monsters Channel, both in HD. Which cable doesn't offer. Not that we have watched either of those channels hardly at all. But I look at it like a V-8 engine. You probably seldom use it to its potential, but it is nice to know its there.

At any rate. A decision has to be made whether to wait out the three weeks without the idiot box, or make the switch back to Cox cable, and pay more for less. Probably, because I'm such a cheapskate, I'll just wait it out. Besides, when the TV is out, more stuff seems to get done around the house. Or, I could attempt to reset the angle and azimuth of the thing myself. It is worth a try. After all, what am I going to do; make it not work?

13 April 2007

Friday the 13th...

I'm going to keep a type of 'running total' for today...Friday the 13th (dum-dum-dummmmm).

08:00
So far, not a terrible day. Sure it's raining, but I did get to meet with a fellow Topeka blogger this morning. It seems that I won a contest on his site for a copy of the book "Good Debt, Bad Debt" by Jon Hanson. Well, okay, I was the runner up, but the original winner didn't claim their prize so I won (w00t!).

And...I made it to my desk without having to be nice to the little dictator that sits in the corner office (double w00t!).

10:41
Everything seems to be coming up roses. No complaints about the the module I delivered at close of business yesterday (I am awesome!). I finished up the bug I was working on - and was expected to take the rest of the day fixing. I mean sure, the weather stinks, but other than that....
17:57
I made it through the day with nary anything bad happening. I even made it home through the freezing rain without incident. When I got home, the 5/8th had cooked a delicious chicken and noodles -all that while the kids were home sick. So it is my observation that Friday the 13th is not necessarily an unlucky day. I also would not classify it as a lucky day since I did not find any money just laying on the ground, I did not receive an unexpected pay raise or bonus, and generally, nothing lucky really happened - but then, neither did anything unlucky.





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