A Blog about Everything

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Ice Capades

I had become bored with my winter routine of work, doing laundry, and exercising in the gym. There was no snow for cross country skiing and it was much too cold for outdoor running. Then I remembered an activity that I had not participated in for a long time....ice skating. It had been four years since I had crammed my feet into a pair of ice skates. So I googled the local ice rink web page to find out when they had open skating, found the skates in the closet, and informed my husband we were going to have a Sunday Fun day.

We arrived a few minutes before the session started, paid our entry fees, and started lacing up. I was not worried by the large crowds arriving, toting hockey skates. I had my good ole figure skates from a by-gone era. Back in the day (10 years ago) when we went skating on a somewhat regular basis, I could hold my own in a crowded rink. I certainly would not have been mistaken for an Olympic hopeful, but I could confidently make hard turns and weave my way through the beginners.

Then I stepped out onto the ice.

Have you ever been in the video store and seen the cover picture on the DVD for the horror flick "Scanners"? That's what I felt like. I clutched the wall as little kids sailed past me. Guys wearing hockey skates and iPods used me a part of an obstacle course. Tentatively, gingerly, and carefully I eased out away from the wall. Every tiny muscle in my feet and ankles screamed at me. I inched around the rink in slow laps, making frequent stops at the trusty penalty box when my feet hurt too much. Of course, my husband took off confidently like we had never missed a day of skating. At least he didn't use me for an obstacle course as he zoomed past.

After an hour or so, I felt a little more relaxed. Now I can resume my former skating style, ( I thought) bold and confident, weaving and bobbing through the crowd, passing all the newbie skaters. That's when I fell down and ingloriously slid back to where I had started the day: the wall.

Later that night, it was Advil to the rescue. Perhaps it is my advanced age that made the day so challenging and my body so sore from what seemed like a very moderate level of exercise. At least I wasn't bored.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

be careful what you wish for...

On Sunday I went on a football-watching binge. Seven hours of high-def cable gridiron glory. Seven hours of rooting for my two favorite teams, the Bears and the Colts. And guess what? They both won. They are both in the Super Bowl. Should I develop a split personality on Super Sunday, so I can cheer for both teams? Will both personalities get equal dibs on the snacks and beverages? Perhaps a third personality would be useful; one to be alert and rested and go to work on Monday morning.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Word Imperfect

alternative title= a pointless rant

Where I work (Bizarro World), many of the reports I do are on existing templates and I just change the pertinent information. For some reason, these templates are all on an old word-processing program that I suspect is the spawn of the devil. Text shifts around for no reason. Fonts change mysteriously. What you see on the screen may or may not be what prints. There is a reason the rest of the world switched long ago to a much better word processing program. Long ago, when I was a Masters Degree student, I did my thesis on this frustrating program. Granted, this was in the Bad Old Days of DOS but it still had the same problems then of text being different on the screen as opposed to what printed out. When MS Word came to be popular, I thought I had seen the last of Word Imperfect. But, no.....

There, I feel better now.