BowerBlog

Hi All!
It’s Friday night and I’m sitting at home in front of my computers (where I’m usually at when I’m at home).

Actually, I’m printing up Xmas cards to mail. I don’t very often mail out greeting cards, but I just felt like doing this year. Being somewhat of an e-card freak, I have subscriptions to MSN Greetings, Yahoo Greetings, and Blue Mountain. Yeah, I know, it seems a little redundant to have subs to three different e-card sites, all of which are powered (one way or another) by the American Greetings Corporation. However, each one of them have slightly different content. I prefer the MSN version for printing out cards; the content is good and the interface is slick as hell. I prefer the Yahoo version for e-cards; the content is more varied and they even have a few gay e-cards. Last, but not least, I have Blue Mountain for homey-type e-cards and their other printables like calendars and such.

To be honest, I’m not much of a Xmas person. (I gotta quit using that phrase “to be honest”; it makes it sound like everything else I say is a lie.) Somehow the Xmas season has always put me in kind of a funk. Kinda like I’m disconnected from it. It’s been a little different the past few years, though. Maybe it’s because of SR. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older. I dunno. But I’m getting so I really like this holiday. It takes a lot of work to ignore the massive influx of commercialism during the holidays and I’m learning to do that. If I tune it out, it seems to be a really nice thing. Celebrating the birth of a religious icon (if you’re of that religious persuasion, which I am), treating the people you love to gifts that they probably wouldn’t buy for themselves, and just generally showing people that you care. It’s kind of cool, all told.

So here I sit, printing out Xmas cards for my friends and acquaintances, running addresses through SwtichBoard to make sure I have them right, and writing this post. I’ve got a beer in front of me, a fire going in the fireplace, and (of all things), the uncut version of Porky’s playing on my DVD player. Ya know, if this keeps up, I might lose my status as a real sourpuss

Yack at ya’ll later, I’ve got some more cards to print.

Good morning all!
Dang it’s cold here today! I got up early to take the snowblower into the shop to get it tuned-up for the year. I thought it felt crunchy-cold out. I checked the local weather station and it’s 9 friggin’ degrees!

Man, it’s gonna be a long day today. I just know we’ll get a bunch of no-starts towed in today. This kind of weather will make any border-line starting and charging system fail. Not to mention all the vehicles that are thousands of miles overdue for a tune-up. I can hear the phone calls now: “But I need my car right away!”, “What do you mean you’ll get to it as soon as you can?”, and so on. Oh well, we’ll do what we can do; what gets done gets done and what doesn’t will have to wait. As I always say: “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”.

I suppose I’d better get at it. I want to get this snowblower ready to go and then I’ve got a couple of diagnostic jobs to get done this morning. In the meantime, stay warm and take care!

As Always,
Chris

Hi all!

So I stay at SR’s last night and what do I find when I get up this morning? White stuff all over the place! Crap, it snowed last night! Of course, I’m not prepared; I don’t have the snowblower ready to go. I should have but I can be a really bad procrastinator at times. Oh well, not much I can do but deal with it. It could be worse, I only have to drive a few blocks to get to work. Truth be told, it is kinda pretty out, but a few months of this stuff and I’m sure I’m going to find it pretty damn ugly.

It’s still snowing as I’m writing this from the shop. Here’s a shot outside in front of the bays:

The one thing I really, really hate about this time of year is getting sopping wet at work; every vehicle I bring in today will be dripping water for hours when I have it on the lift. I’ve actually considered wearing a raincoat when I have to lift a snowy vehicle up. But, I can bitch all I want and the weather is still not gonna change just for me. As all of us have to do, I’ll just have to deal with it.

I think I’ll run over to SR’s after work to shovel the walks if the snow is still here and tomorrow morning I’ll bring the snowblower into the shop and get it tuned-up for the season. Truth be told, if it wasn’t for this kind of weather, we wouldn’t appriciate the warm, sunny weather. I’d best get to work; everyone have a good day and make the best fo the snow.

As Always,
Chris