Adventures in Driving

If you are not aware, there is a blizzard warning for the northern suburbs of Indianapolis today. And did I go to work this morning? Yes. And just guess what I had to do at 5 o'clock. That's right, drive home in a blizzard. Here are the events that occurred on that lovely drive...

On the ramp from 70 east to 465 north, there were 4 disabled tractor trailers and several stuck cars in the span of about a quarter mile. Some people were waiting patiently for the road to clear and other where trying to maneuver around them. Me? I took the ramp to southbound 465, got off at the next exit and hopped back on north bound. Smart me.

About a mile from home, the roads looked pretty clear, so I sped up to go the speed limit. I'm tooling along, and then there is this truck/SUV thing behind me, following me pretty closely. Knowing that I would have to turn soon, and that my back turn signal lights are flaky, I sped up some more (about 5 mph over the limit) to give him adequate stopping distance. Yeah, I shouldn't have to do that for a tailgater, but in the end, I was looking out for my best interest. I start preparing to make my turn, and when I looking in my rear view mirror, I see cherries and berries. That's right, the tailgater was a cop. He pulled me over, and he just told me to slow down. I didn't tell him that he was the reason I sped up, but he didn't give me a ticket.

When I pull into the apartment complex, I find out pretty quickly that while they have plowed the road areas, there are not clear parking spaces. And it's not for a lack of free spaces, it's laziness from whom ever was in charge of plowing today. So I tried to pull into the short drive way behind our garage, and almost got stuck, so I backed out and pulled into a parking spot. I didn't get very far because my car got stuck in 8 inches of snow. Crap. I go inside and grab Andrew and we start shoveling the short driveway. About half way through, I notice that one of our neighbors are stuck, so Andrew and I go to help out. When we walked up, we soon found out why the 4-wheel drive vehicles wasn't able to move. They tried to drive through a 3 foot snow drift. I'm not even exaggerating. Who does that? So we help shovel them out. We went back to shoveling our drive way. As we finish, another neighbor comes home. The dude driving let his wife out so that she could clear him a spot to pull into. She was clearing it with a kitchen broom. What kind of man would make his wife clear a spot for him with a broom? I'll tell you what kind of man. A man that kept driving back and forth over the same spot in his Nissan Sentra, and when we asked him what he was doing, he said that he was "blazing a trail." There was maybe a half inch of snow on the ground. He was just packing it down so it could get icy over night.

Drivers amaze me.

Technologically advanced? Not so much...

This past weekend, Andrew and I attended a photography workshop weekend. It was 2 days of classes about taking pictures, from the basic building blocks, to cool techniques to try. One question that opened every class was, "How many are using digital?" and almost everyone raised their hand. Well, everyone but Andrew and I. We are still shooting in film. In fact, we are using completely manual cameras. Manual focus, manual f-stop, manual shutter speeds. I could use my camera without a battery, which is just used for the internal light meter. After one of the classes, I said to Andrew, "We have a robot to vacuum, and another to mop, but we don't shoot with digital cameras. Does that seem a little backwards?"

In related news, Andrew bought a Scooba from woot.com. It mops hard surface floors. Pretty cool.

Greenhouse Gas Emmisions

I read on cnn.com today that Prince Charles has canceled his annual skiing trip to the Swiss Alps in an effort to reduce his carbon footprint. I don't have exact numbers, but from my estimate, the trip would produce approximately 1,200 lbs of CO2. Also, CEOs are calling for action to create mandatory control of CO2 which has lead to the strange weather we've been having. Here's something to think about. First, just about everything that produces heat or energy emits CO2. It is a by-product of combustion and is exhaled from all aerobic beings. Think of that for a second. Any sort of combustion, think hot water, electricity, the backyard grill, all produce CO2. Your loved ones also produce CO2, sons, daughters, mom, dad, Fido too. So instead of Prince Charles canceling his trip to save 1,200 lbs one time, he could just die and save 74,840 lbs/yr. Yet another reason why stupid people shouldn't re-produce; they're using my allotment of CO2.

Looking...

I am looking for more links for my blog! If you would like to see something linked, let me know and I'll add it on!

Unrelated news... no house yet.

New Experience

Andrew and I have been trying to go out and see more of Indianapolis' night life recently. Because we live on the far northeast side, getting downtown can be a chore, and we've been home-bodies recently. Last night, Andrew found a cover band that he wanted to hear, so we headed down to the Tip Top Tavern on the corner of Capitol and 14th. As I always do when I walk into a bar, I focused on getting to an area that we would be comfortable. So with my eyes forward, we headed to the bar for some drinks. While Andrew ordered the drinks, I started looking around. My first thought was, "There are a lot of women with short haircuts." Then as I looked around some more, I realized that Andrew was one of maybe 6 or 7 males in the bar. Then it dawned on me. I was surrounded by lesbians. Andrew and I found seats, listened to the band, and discussed why there were so many lesbians at the bar. We decided that it wasn't actually a gay bar, but rather the band had a large lesbian following. That said, I'm not sure if Andrew would recommend going there again. He felt a touch out of place.

Up in the gym just working on her fitness

When I first moved to Indy, one of the first things I did was buy a bigger cage for Miss Chica. (For anyone who doesn't know, Miss Chica is my pet chinchilla). Her previous cage was ~36"x18"x24" which isn't bad for a smaller pet, but I could tell she just needed much more room. Her new cage is now ~36"x24"x48". Just to give you an idea of how big that really is, when I was putting the shelves in it, I had to get inside of it. Anyway, when I bought the new cage, I also bought her a wheel to run on since she doesn't get much exercise. But I was disappointed because she never ran in it. I could tell from the dust build-up on top. In fact I never saw her even get in it. That is, until last night. When Andrew and I came home from seeing "Happy Feet" at the IMAX, (good times!), I went in to give her a treat and there she was sitting in the wheel. When I reached in to give her the treat, she started running! I was the cutest thing! Maybe her New Year's resolution was to lose some ounces.

269999.9.....

My car turned over 270,000 miles yesterday. When I pulled into work, I was 1.63 miles away, and knowing that I would forget about it, I thought about driving around the parking lot until it turned. I didn't. But I am accepting gifts, preferably cash donations which will go toward my new car fund.

A Story

While this may not be as entertaining as Leyer's spider story, it is one that I experienced, and am now telling you...

One morning, a couple of months ago, I was getting ready for work when I heard a strange noise coming from the hall. I walked out of the bedroom and saw a cord plugged into an outlet, going down the hall, and then down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I see Andrew with the vacuum cleaner. I yell down to him, "What are you doing?" Turning off the vacuum he says, "I saw a spider! It was as big as my hand! I had to suck him up!" I reply, "What? A spider as big as your hand? Was it a tarantula? Did you just suck up someone's pet tarantula? Are you trying to clog the vacuum?" Then he carries the vacuum upstairs, and I ask him what he's going to do with it. He replies, "Flush him down the toilet," very matter-of-fact-ly. Peering through the clear plastic of the waste canister, I see a lot of cat hair and other dirt. "You can't flush all of that, it will clog the toilet," I reply. Then we stood there for a minute just looking at one another.
"Can we just dump it outside?" I ask.
"No, I saw this spider outside a few days ago, and it got in, so it will just get in again."

Curious as to what this spider looked like that would make it so memorable, I took the bagless canister out of the vacuum. Just then the spider made a dash for the rim! Startled, I dropped the canister. Thankfully, instead of making a run for it when it hit the ground, the spider stayed inside, and I quickly returned the canister to the vacuum. Then Andrew and I devised a plan. First, Andrew armed himself with a plastic bowl. Then, I removed the canister and dumped it on the floor. As the spider ran from the pile of cat hair, Andrew trapped him under the plastic bowl.


I then returned the plastic canister to the vacuum, and used the vacuum to suck up the spider again.
It was then disposed of via the sewage system.

Lack of Comments

So, I must have offended someone with my last post. Or something. There has been a significant lack of comments on the blog recently. No love being given. What's with that yo?

In unrelated news, I think I'm going to hold public viewings of me on the balance ball. We all know I'm probably going to fall off, and since I'm getting old, I'll probably break a hip or something. Tickets will be very cost-effective.

Oh hated thing!

One thing I will never understand are those hideous e-mails that say you have to pass them on or something terrible will happen to you. I just got one that said that one person deleted it and her boyfriend was killed in an accident and one person didn't send it out to enough people and was hit by a car. Why would you send that on to someone? Why wouldn't you just keep that to yourself? Why would you spread bad karma? It's kinda like telling the world about Jesus. Somewhere in the Bible, it says that those who have never heard the word of God will not be punished because they are ignorant. So why would you go to a small village in Africa, tell everyone, and then get upset when they don't latch on to your religion? You've just sentenced them to eternity in hell when previously they may have spent their afterlife elsewhere. I know people like to "spread the good word" and that they are "sent by God" but at the same time, they are sentencing people to hell, or in the e-mail case, bad luck. If they want good fortune, they can seek it out themselves. Don't spam me with that crap!

Christmas Oddities

Sitting at home wrapping presents with my mom, she asked me if I wanted to take my Christmas ornaments home with me. I replied, "Not this year, but as we take them off the tree, we can put them into a separate box for next year." That began a conversation on the ornaments. We usually get one every year from one of my crafty aunts. We open them on Christmas Eve, and put them on the tree. Sounds pretty normal, right? Well, when it is time to take the tree down, we remove the ornaments, and put them back into the box they came in. Sometimes we even re-wrap them with the wrapping paper that they came in. That's odd. Also, a few years ago, a friend of my dad gave my brother a lizard for Christmas because he thought my brother needed a friend. Also odd.

Big Weekend!

It's going to be a very eventful weekend! Today I'm going shopping with friends, and tonight may lead to lots of crafts. Then tomorrow, I have a full day of baking to be done with lots of fudge, cookies, breads and whatever else my heart desires, and probably some more crafting in there somewhere! Good times! I know you're jealous! :)

Perfect Placement

Today I realized that the vents on my car are in the perfect place. While driving straight, the vents blow out at the same spot that I hold my hands. YAY! It helps a lot when you forget your gloves, and it's like 5 degrees.

Season's Greetings!

Like every year before this one, I have started putting off my Christmas shopping. Determined not to wait until Christmas Eve, I am calling for gift ideas! Specifically for one boyfriend who has everything I would ever want him to have, a brother who has just moved out on his own, a mother who really doesn't need anything, and a sister with a baby boy on the way. Any ideas?

Dentist

Yesterday I went to the dentist for a cleaning and check-up. While I was sitting there, with torture tools in my mouth, I had a vision. It was one of the hygentist getting one of those silly picks stuck between my teeth. I would then have to walk around all day with the metal handle hanging out of my mouth. I was a scary thought. But, she was good, and I am not a metal mouth.

In related news, when the dentist was finished with the exam, I asked him, "Are you from Richmond?" and he said yes. Then I asked, "Is your mother's name Janet?" and with a really confused look, he said yes. I then spilled the beans to let him know that one of his cousins is my dad. It was a good time.

O-H-I-O

Blog Update

I think I have the calendar fixed. I'm not sure why it was showing that I was busy all the time, but it doesn't now. Also, I have started a web album and it's in the side bar, so go look at the pretty pictures!

More "Horner" Tots

Congrats to Liz and Scott!

Public Notice

Announcement:

I realize that I lost contact with a lot of people while I was living in Evansville, and working crazy hours. I am happy to announce that I no longer work crazy hours. More than likely, when you are home from work, so am I. My weekends are no longer devoted to traveling long distances to see my boyfriend. In fact, some weekends I would like to get away without him. So if you're thinking to yourself, "I haven't talked to Sara in a while." Maybe you should just call. You can stop avoiding me and blowing me off. Frankly, it's hurting my feelings.

Girl's Weekend

I want to have a destination Girl's Weekend. To just go some where warm and sunny for a weekend minus the boys. Any takers?