I’m tired from standing on my feet all day and smiling. The smiling is almost worst than the feet; the corners of my mouth actually ache. I’m here in Madison for the winter career fair & I’m heading back tomorrow morning. I talked to a lot of good or fair people today but nobody that I thought was super fantastic. I can remember different people but the resumes all kind of blend together. I told several people that they should start learning c++ if they want to get jobs in industry. People these days graduate without having any sort of a handle on memory management, or even the basics of pointers and it is no good.

I don’t understand why you’d want to wear your sunglasses on the back of your head.

Please, have a mint before going and talking to strangers.

Do you think it’s better to make no impression or a bad impression?

We ended up with around a foot of snow from the storm so today we went snowshoeing! Jeremie, Eric, Beckett and I went to Devil’s Den. The roads were surprisingly clear and very few people were out so it was very pleasant. I didn’t bring my camera but Eric and Beckett brought theirs so hopefull I’ll be able to link you in some pictures soon. I found the whole snowshoeing experience very enjoyable.

I’m mostly packed for my trip to Madison tomorrow. Northwest had cancelled all of their LGA->DTW flights today up until 6p so I expect that it will be a bit of a zoo there tomorrow. I’m trying to fit everything into a small backpack so that I don’t have to worry about space or checking. Hopefully I can do it.

The wind is pretty crazy. I think I hear it knocking around the trash cans in the back yard.

Yeah, the iPod Shuffle totally rocks. I love it. I didn’t think I’d like the ‘shuffle’ aspect of it. I pretty much planned on always using the ordered-play mode but I tried the shuffle mode and I am hooked. It really makes the setting up of a playlist much less stressful when you don’t worry about the order things will play in.

Did I mention that it’s insanely light?

Hogs and quiches leetle shuffle!

The shuffle is here! Thank you, FedEx! Now I can play with it all weekend and take it with me to Madison. We are scheduled to get a whopper of a snowstorm tomorrow and I’m so excited! Hopefully that will lead to some Sunday snowshoeing! Yay! It’s shaping up to be a fantastic weekend.

If I squint real hard I can pretend that this sugar-free hot chocolate that I’m drinking is the real deal. Sort of.

Last night we got about an inch of super fluffy fake-o Xmas-movie-style snow. It’s actually sticking around today thanks to the arctic winds blowing through. Supposedly it’s going to be 10 below tonight, which is rare around here. I’d better make sure that the heat is on in the basement. I’ll be exercising from home tonight if it’s that cold.

Speaking of exercising, I’m taking it up to a new level of science. Last week I tried spinning with Jeremie’s heart rate monitor and since I could monitor myself and stop before I got sick, it was a much more pleasant experience. I discovered, to my surprise, that it’s really easy to go way above my target heart rate while spinning. So, I ordered the Polar m32 monitor and it arrived today. It looks pretty cool and it came with a free bike mount for the monitor watch. I am very excited to try it.

Even more exciting .. my iPod Shuffle has left Ontario, CA and is now in Memphis. Scheduled delivery is Monday evening (after I’ve left for Madison) but I have hope that it will be here tomorrow. Puh-leez FedEx, I beg you.

There’s a noisy car honking outside my office window. Beep beep beep.

Rain, snow, back to rain. All in a few hours. Bizarre weather.

I would like to go to a coffee spot and have some nice coffee and write some cards. Perhaps even read a book. Maybe tonight. Then again, probably not.

It took almost an hour to get the order through, but I successfully ordered the shiny new Apple iPod Shuffle. 1GB, of course. I am so excited. I hope it comes before I leave for Madison. Given that my trip is just less than 2 weeks away, I have my doubts. I really hope that the Shuffle kicks the pants off of my 128 mb Rio. I expect it will.

When I woke up this morning, it was raining.
On the way to work it had changed over to little ice pellets. I would call it hail, but I think they were a little small to be considered hail.
Now, magic window shows snowflakes. Too bad it won’t stick. We’re having crap for winter because I bought snowshoes. My parents are getting 12 inches today.

Wintry mix indeed

Why do I do this to myself? A few days ago I got a message from my host that I should upgrade my install of WordPress. I knew this would not be problem-free (oh ho ho) so I put it off until today. I’m so perceptive I should charge people for my brilliant insight. Seriously, I thought I was going to throw up this morning after about an hour of working on this stuff and convincing myself that I broke it beyond repair. The new Kubrick code is a lot easier to install on a clean install and a little bit of a bitch to upgrade, especially since i was a wee 5 iterations behind the times. You won’t notice anything different, I think, but if you find anything broken or acting strange please let me know.

I think I’m going to go out and look for some winter boots I can use for snowshoeing. Even though we’re still in a state of no snow. Global warming, my left foot!

Heat wave on the East coast! The high today in Stamford was a whopping 58 F, so Jeremie and I decided to go hiking at the Devil’s Den preserve in Weston, CT. When we got there the small parking lot was packed to the gills but the preserve is big enough that once you start hiking you only come across other people every once in awhile. There was quite a bit of mud but that was greatly overweighed by the no-bugs factor.

The temperature made it very hard to believe that it is January and not April. So far, not looking good for the snowshoeing.