Heckuva New Year So Far

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The first 12 hours of the New Year - super!
The New Year started out well enough - M had a friend stay overnight on New Year's Eve, and K stayed over at a friend's house. M and his friend toasted 2011 with sparkling juice at midnight and I'm almost positive they got some sleep. K made it home under his own power, so he must have gotten some sleep or other. Maybe.

I'll just quickly mention the really, really, really, really bad showings in MSU's and U of M's bowl games. If I recall correctly, they lost by a combined total of 782-11. Ouch! I put up the MSU and UM flags on the porch for nothing, apparently.

South for the winter (figurative south, not the geographical kind)
Returning to work the first full week of the new year, I was told the project I've been working on was canceled. I've been on this project for almost three years, and it's really a great product. Unfortunately, the company wants to focus its efforts on other things in an attempt to help raise the stock price. Isn't working for a publicly-held company fun? (Answer: Not always.) I understand how the system works, though, and two weeks into 2011, I still have a job.

Blazing your own trail isn't always a good idea
The day after I learned my project was canceled, I was driving M home from school, and the car slid on some new snow while I was trying to turn a corner. I couldn't steer or brake - the antilock brakes made lots of rat-a-tat-tat noises, but were not slowing the car down. I went straight into the curb of the street I was trying to turn onto, and blew out the front passenger-side tire. Because I was only a few blocks from home, I just drove the car on the flat (very slowly) and took the tire in to be replaced. Because the tires have 21,000 miles on them I couldn't just replace one front tire without replacing the other, so the car now has two shiny new tires. Until the new snow today, you could see where the car went off the road and onto the grass at that intersection. I'm lucky the rim wasn't bent up or the suspension damaged. The more I think about it, the more I don't understand how only the tire was lost.

The ironic thing about the whole episode? M needed to be picked up from school because he was serving as a crossing guard for the school's Safety Patrol. He failed to warn me of the dangers of driving on the snow, so I think he needs more training.

Electronics wrap-up: Dealing with a virus, and bidding adieu
On Sunday, just to start with, I pulled a muscle in my back. Folding laundry. Yes. Folding laundry. Dangerous.

Later that day, the laptop that all of use on a regular basis started to pop up messages about having a virus. At first glance, the computer appeared to be trying to clean up the virus, but I carefully looked at the screen and the messages it was giving, and realized that the virus was pretending to be my anti-virus software. So I ignored what it was telling me to do, and tried to run my own anti-virus software. It didn't work, and neither did anything else. The only thing that DID work were some messages telling me to solve my problem by purchasing an online anti-virus program, which was certainly responsible for putting the virus there in the first place.

I started up the laptop with the "recovery" DVDs I made when we first bought it, and wiped out everything on the computer. After a few hours of working, the laptop was restored to exactly how it was when we first bought it.

I'm sure the virus came from one of the online game sites the kids like to go to. They trade website names at school, then try them out at home. They are no longer allowed to go to PlayHub.com, where I am pretty sure the virus originated.

(If you didn't make recovery CDs or DVDs of your computer system, you should - they can be really helpful.)

Nothing of note happened on Monday, you'll be happy to know, but today, Tuesday, we are saying our goodbyes to our HP all-in-one printer/copier/scanner, as it has jammed its paper for the last time. I honestly don't know how it ever lasted five years. For being almost free, it's certainly paid for itself over the years, although I think we've spent roughly $9000 on ink cartridges. Are they supposed to run out every fifty pages?

For 2011, therefore, I resolve to stay in bed for the rest of the year. Or until my $250-per-month Powerball lottery habit finally hits it big.