Domestic Geek

I'm going to be taking somewhat of a pseudo hiatus from blogging. Actually, I'm trying to restrict my time on the Internet overall. It dawned on me the other day that I've become an Internet addict. I used to get so many other things like crafting, cleaning and gardening done before I had access to a computer. I knew it had become a problem when I was seriously thinking about getting online at work one day last week to read my forums (a big no-no there). Also, I'm a little burned out in general and I am falling into my normal seasonal pattern of depression and moodiness. Then there is the carpal tunnel to deal with...

Since I haven't brought in squat lately with paid blogging (I've only got 3 pending posts to be paid for), I'm more than likely going to have to find a part-time job if I want Christmas money. We're also going to get busier at work in the next month, so I'll be putting in some OT, too (I hope).

I have some things I really need to tackle that I've been putting off as well as some online classes I need to finish before they expire. I'll post if I feel the need to, but if I disappear for awhile, nothing bad has happened, I'm just tending to higher priorities.

I wrote almost a year ago that I wished that the Tootsie Roll company would put out packages of only Vanilla Tootsie Rolls.


Well, a voice mail on my phone from my friend Nina (Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!) alerted me to the fact that I have gotten my wish! Target is carrying limited edition bags of Vanilla Tootsie Rolls for only $1.99 each! I picked up two today and will probably grab a couple more later this week. I'm going to be good and ration them, though. Don't want too much of a good thing.

Edit: I just found that you can get the Vanilla Tootsie Rolls at Amazon.com for $2.99 a bag if you want some and can't get them near you.

Now bear in mind that I am not a baseball fan (though my Dad is a HUGE fan) and the only game I've ever attended in my whole life is the one my father and I went to in April when I got free tickets from work.

It's still pretty cool our Denver ball team had to go to a wildcard playoff with the San Diego Padres yesterday to determine which team would go to the playoffs. Imagine my surprise when I went to the web site last night about 9:45 pm to get the results of the game only to find the game that started at 5:30 still going in OT extra innings (there, is that better, Ash?) with the score tied at 6! Ultimately the game went 13 innings with the Rockies finally pulling it out 9-8. How's that for excitement for Denver's Rockies Fans?

Now the team is in the playoffs for the first time in many years. Go Rockies!

Just a heads up that things are going to be wonky as I get my Pink October theme back up. Silly me thought I had backed up my theme right before I changed it for Blogathon, but I neglected to grab the style sheet. D'oh. Fortunately, I have a backup from last April, I just need to mesh the right hex color codes in. Be patient. I also promise this theme will not be here for the whole next year.

UPDATE: OK, we are officially PINK for October! The only problems remaining are those that I've always been too lazy to fix (like my comments sidebar). The whole purpose obviously is to bring awareness that October is National Breast Cancer month and to promote education about the disease itself. Head over to the Pink for October site for details and to sign up (once they fix the submission form). Of course, you can still go pink without signing up for the site.

I don't know if I've written this before, but Marcus and I work at a 24/7 print house. It's staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week and we're almost always busy, especially at the end of the month.

Well, while Marcus was out mountain biking today, he started getting calls on his work phone and emails forwarded to his personal phone. I knew something must be up. Sure enough, the power went out at 1:30ish and all of the company's servers and presses went down hard. We got there about 4:30 and there was still no power. After about 15 minutes, though, the power was finally restored and Marcus set about restarting the massive amounts of servers while I took care of restarting my DVD archiving in prepress. It took over an hour to get everything back up and running. That sucks because I didn't eat lunch and was really hoping to go get an early dinner.

Well, about a half hour ago Marcus got a call that power was out again. They're going to call him when it comes back on, but he'll have to drive out there and do it all over again. Thankfully, my archiving should've been completed by that time as there was only six more discs to burn.

What slays me is that, with as critical as it is to keep the presses running at all times, we have very little backup power. We have a big power supply that keeps a key piece of equipment running long enough to finish what it's doing. The main servers have batteries that will keep them going for 20-30 minutes so that they can be shut down properly. Not useful when Marcus lives so far away and he's not called until power has already been out over 15 minutes.

When all is said and done, the plant is going to have lost almost an entire shift worth of productivity today, even though they have to pay everyone that sat there in the dark. That's huge.

UPDATE: Someone just called and told Marcus that the power is not supposed to be back on until at least 1:30 am. At least this fiasco won't interfere with his Saturday night gaming.