December 9, 2004

Sometimes, when the shit hits the fan, it evenly distributes across your entire spectrum of life.

Like last Monday. I awoke to find 2 inches of fresh snow had fallen during the night. Peanuts, I thought. Mother Nature thought the same. So she decided to dump another foot in La Pine over the course of the day. I'll be damned, I thought. Mother Nature nodded in agreement.

Another piece from the shitfan hit my beautiful Sony Trinitron computer monitor - which picked this very day to bite the dust. It's little green light in the lower right corner taunted me with false hope, but the blank screen staring back at me made it clear that I shouldn't even *think* about keeping my hopes up. And of course it all came just in time for a pile of work I needed to get done. Naturally.

So here I was - no screen, no way to get any work done, and with the choice of either risking my neck driving an hour each way into town to pick up a new monitor, or taking the day off. I opted for the second.

Instead, I decided to fight back and take it out on the snow. On Monday, I shoveled for roughly 2 hours. On Tuesday, I got on a roll and only stopped after 3 hours. Who needs to pay to go work out, I ask? Those 5 hours of cardio this week should make up plenty for the home-made brownies I ate on Sunday ...

Tuesday morning then the sun came out for a brief period. So in between shoveling sessions, I strapped on my snowshoes and headed down to the Little Deschutes. And Mother Nature said: See? Didn't I tell you? I can create beauty out of just about anything. I nodded in wonder and amazement.

Later that day, I braved the icy and perilous road to La Pine to go check my email at the library. But oh, look - the library was closed "Due to the adverse weather conditions". So another piece of crap from the fan got stuck there.

Tuesday night it finally seemed that the road was passable enough to make it into Bend and get a new monitor. I bought the cheapest I could find - a 17" CRT "Envision" at Costco for $99.99. Back at home, it readily sprung to life, but oh my, how crappy those non-Sony monitors are. I silently wept for my Trinitron.

The last piece of excrement then stuck on my Direcway dish all day yesterday - where the dense snowfall and rain prevented me from getting a satellite signal and going online all day. So no chance to shop for a new, classier monitor. I jutted down on my notepad though to check again with BendCable on whether they deliver service to my road...

But today, things look up. The snow is melting all around, rain is pouring out of the boundless gray sky, pounding the cold white - and it has already turned my entire driveway into something resembling the mosh pit at Woodstock - except with slush rather than mud. Consequently, I don't plan on shoveling slush today.

Maybe tomorrow.