Recharging the batteries is good

I must be getting old. I passed up boarding tonight to spend a nice, mellow evening at home with the cat, the dog, a heating pad, warm blankies, and hot chocolate. Ahhhh.

I guess sometimes there are days where things are just off. Had a bit of a bummer climbing night and then burned myself with the stove. Boo. Maybe I need a recharge day...

Playing in the snow and witnessing Winter X Games type jumping = awesome birthday!!

Lessons learned today...

#1: Learned while climbing: most problems are only in your head.

#2: Learned after climbing: pumping out and then carrying a 50-lb bag of dog food is not a fun activity.

It's all about the positive...

Over the past few months I've been accumulating this never-ending list of crap that needs to be done: fix the clogged bathroom sink, work on the bikes, fix broken things on the car, adjust snowboard bindings, and the list goes on and on. Naturally, I keep putting this stuff off to go out and snowboard and do other more entertaining things. Then this morning I woke up and my car tire was completely pancake flat. Not that this was unexpected. I've been putting air in it at least once a week for the past two months and noticed it was deflating much more rapidly over the last few days. I figured if I ignored it, it might just go away. Don't argue with my philosophy. So I did the adult thing today and gave up boarding at Crystal to fix crap. Here's the sum of my day.....

Wake up to totally flat tire.
I used a freakin' hand pump to get enough air into the tire to drive to the tire store. It took me almost 45 minutes of swearing and a few curious looks from neighbors.

Time to fix: 2.5 hrs
Positive spin: I got a good workout and learned the importance of not neglecting your tires.

Unclog bathroom sink that has been unusable for over a month.
Basically I used the equivalent of a plastic Fisher Price plumbing tool kit to pull out what looked like the entire hide of a Woolly Mammoth from my sink. More swearing.

Time to fix: 1.5 hrs
Positive spin: I will never grow my hair long again because it has magical sink clogging abilities. And I need some real tools.

Replace burned out headlight in car.
VW has gone to great lengths to make this impossible. Only after removing the battery and other useless crap in the way did I find a bolt that only VW has the power to remove. This of course was holding a plastic cover in place over the headlight bulb. Naturally, in a rage, I broke it. Then found the same thing holding down yet another metal cover. It's like the VW headlight chastity belt. WTF. No replaced headlight and I might have exceeded my F-bomb limit for the year.

Time lost to VW hell: 3 hrs.
Positive spin: This is tough. I guess my Golf has one less piece of plastic shit that is now in millions of pieces.

Winterize the Jake the Snake.
Some tires just really suck to change. And not all fenders are created equal either.

Time to fix: 1 hr
Positive spin: I have more tire changing experience?? And yet again, I need more tools.

Adjust Snowboard Bindings.
Ok, this is like the only task today that just worked, so I guess the lesson is that working on the snowboard is easy :)

Fix burned out track lighting.
The bulbs that came out of my track lighting have no distinguishing features. So it took me three trips to Lowe's and much yelling at sales people to get these right. And, those f'in bulbs heat up fast. Believe it or not, it was the first injury of the day.

Time to fix: 2 hrs
Positive spin: I'm a walking encyclopedia of track lighting and I know where to find it all at Lowe's.

Getting rear-ended in the car.
I then completed my day by getting rear-ended by an idiot in a Lexus who didn't realize that your stopping distance is severely compromised in snow.

Time lost: 45 mins
Positive spin: My car was saved because my T2 rack doubles as a Lexus hood ornament.

All in all a pretty productive day, though I think I'm F-bombed out for the year :(