A well needed rest

I always disliked snow, but now I truly hate it. There are lots of people that love the snow, but those people are idiots. They enjoy snow because to them, it's a distraction...an opportunity for play. Those people probably live in an apartment and someone else shovels the snow for them. If you own a house, you are your own peon.

The blizzard that hit DC was the worst in recent memory. Almost 2 feet of snow. I have been in DC for almost a decade and whenever the weather man says 4-6 inches of snow, it usually means an inch of snow, so when they said 18-24 inches of snow were expected, I didn't believe it.
After shoveling snow for six hours, I was finally able to get my car back into the driveway. My back was killing me from being bent over for six hours ("that's what SHE said!!!"). So it's good to be in florida for a little bit to recharge my batteries.

I almost didn't get here since my original flight was cancelled and Delta (worst airline ever) re-booked me without consulting me (or using common sense). I don't know if you know about geography, but if you draw a line from DC to Miami, the shortest route does not involve going through New York City. And to top that off, they booked me a flight that would involve me flying into NY via JFK airport (in Queens) and flying out of Newark airport (about 1.5. hours away, if you don't hit traffic). I have no idea how I was supposed to get from one airport to other...maybe Delta has some kind of teleportation machine?

I spent the next 48 hours trying to call Delta and the line was always busy. Busy at 10 am, busy at 1opm, busy at 4 am. I got through 4 times and three of those times I was hung up on. I repeat DELTA IS THE WORST AIRLINE EVER!. When I finally spoke to a person (in Mumbai, of course), he assured me that there were no flights available to Florida before Christmas. Since this wasn't an acceptable option, I spoke to a supervisor who got me on a flight which magically appeared.

Florida has been relaxing so far, except for the family drama which changes every year, but never ends. It's like being in an episode of Lost except that the crazy people with hidden agendas are your family.

I did have a fun time yesterday though. I went to an alligator park in the everglades and learned the proper way to wrestle an alligator, and also how to survive in the swamp if you are stuck there without an airboat. If civilization collapses in 2012, these may be surprisingly useful skills to have.

I'll be back home on Tuesday, then I have to get my place ready for a new year's eve party. I am hoping all the snow is melted by then since I don't plan on doing any shovelling. Party because my back doesn't like shoveling snow and party because someone stole my snow shovel. Welcome to Columbia Heights!!!

Staph!

Blech! So the lab results came back and it turns out that I had a staph infection in my knee. Although it was really painful (and gross when they cut it open to get the nasty stuff out), I guess I should be happy because I've heard some horror stories about staph infections (including death).

Plus, in an odd way, I feel like this makes me a real jiu jitsu player. I don't think I would consider someone a real boxer if they've never had their nose broken, and in a strange way I don't think you've spent enough time on the mats to consider yourself serious about jits until you've caught some kind of nasty skin deasease (or torn an ACL). It's been about 3 weeks now, so I think I will try to go back next week and start to ease my way back into it.

In other news, I think next year I will test out my heating system BEFORE the first really cold day. As one of my summer projects, I changed the regular thermostat for a programmable one and never bothered to test it. When it wouldn't turn on yesterday I assumed the problem lay there ("that's what she said!"), but it turned out to be something completely unrelated. After a trip to home depot to find a voltage tester and a few hours of opening up walls, switchboxes and outlets, I found the problem. The switch for the emergency shut off was bad. So I was able to fix it pretty easily by installing a new switch. It was good that I found it in time, because I was freezing my butt off and I was about an hour away from rigging up a ghetto contraption straight to the furnace using an extension cord and some pliers if I couldn't get it going. There's 4 hours of my life that I won't get back. Grrrrr....which is better than Brrrrrrr...