Recent news

Jim will be leaving the country next week Monday I believe. He will be away for at least 6 weeks, at which point he will hang out with family and have his formal engagement party. I am of course incredibly happy for him. However, on the other hand during this trip he will decide whether or not he will return to the US afterwords. So there is a chance he won't return. But I of course hope that he will. If you would like to wish him well on his trip before he leaves, let me know and I can give you his number if you so desire it.

In other news, starting next week Monday for me I will have a promotion. The way promotions work at my work, is that I get "promoted" and I do the same job, just more of it, but I get paid a bit more. But this promotion is pretty cool, its the GS12 promotion. Which is kinda like a the base level at work if that makes sense? Its the last promotion until I move towards signatory authority, where I would be able to officially send out my own cases, without my boss signing on them. Anyways, for anyone curious how much pay I will get, I will be a GS12 step 2. If you are savy enough with the internet you can figure out how much money I will be getting paid by looking it up on opm.gov website.

It's been too long.

I realized it had been a while since I've updated last so I thought I'd throw up a post here. Sadly not much has gone on since the snowstorm. About two weeks ago now I tested for my purple belt in Karate, that brings me up to the "intermediate" level. So that was exciting, but is probably the most exciting part of my life at least recently.

In other news my favorite author George R R Martin got the green light from HBO to produce a tv series based on my favorite books ever. So needless to say next spring I will be adding HBO to my cable lineup.

http://tv.ign.com/articles/107/1073428p1.html

Besides that I thought I'd post an article regarding the patent office here. Basicaly there is a lot going on in the whole patent world right now. Lots of political and other pressure to get through the backlog. Some friendly name calling, and mudslinging. And even some fairly decent pending legislation. Its all good stuff. If you are curious about some of the fun things I get to keep in mind at work this is a great article in that it is long, but has most everything interesting/relevent.

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/a_patent_on_problems

Snow Day!

Today is day 3.5 of snowday goodness this year. Ah, the dreams of me as a child are still just as true now that I'm an adult. The idea of the snowday has lost none of its appeal. And in many ways I feel again like a child, the only difference is that instead of waking up early and checking the television, I'm able to check online, thankfully the night before so I don't have to wake up.

Yesterday afternoon the second snowstorm in a week hit the East Coast. I do not envision this one to be quite as big as the one that hit us last week Friday/Saturday, but by the standards of DC, it will still be big. The key is that it will be another foot, to two feet of snow on top of the nearly three feet we already have. I am of course ecstatic.

So, one may wonder how do these snow storms compare to those is Michigan? I would say the one that hit last weekend would be considered a formidable storm no matter where you lived. The one today, probably more typical. Still lots of snow, but more along the lines of what you would expect should I be living in Michigan. That being said I do not believe the importance is in how fast it is falling, so much as in how fast it is disappearing. In other words, snow removal here is slooooow. On Saturday, only the main roads were really drivable. All the side roads were pretty bad I'd say. By Sunday, they were able to hit most of the main roads. Keep in mind though, there are no rules here to keep cars off the side of the roads during winter for the plows. It is actually quite amusing to see what happens when you combine the two. Its like snow channels where there were cars parked along the side of the road. But I digress. By Monday most of the roads around DC were starting to look pretty good. But the metro was still down. On Tuesday, they finally got around to clearing out the parking lot where my car was parked. Literally my car was snowed in up until yesterday. And even then I was afraid to drive it out (after I had the joy of digging it out) because of fear of losing my parking spot. I suppose I need a chair to put in it while I am gone.

I was actually surprised they still had the government closed on Tuesday. As most of the roads by that time (count them 4 days after the storm hit) were cleared. But I think the metro system was still down, and that being the lifeline of DC, the Government was closed. So now it is Wednesday, it is still snowing this morning, and is projected to do so for much of the day. There is actually quite a nice fall going outside my window at this very moment. This hints to me that tomorrow will once again be another snowday. So will I go to work on Friday? Ah yes, this is the question... will I get a full week off of work? Keeping in mind that Monday is a holiday..... Of course the downside is that I'm stuck in my apartment all week lol.

There is one thing I was not prepared for however. The running on the grocery stores. Last week Wednesday I did my normal grocery shopping. So I was more or less stocked for the weekend snow storm. The grocery store itself was closed on Saturday. But after work on Friday I stopped by to pick up some laundry detergent. And wow, people had made a run on the place lol. I've never seen anything quite like it before. The store was out of milk, eggs, and pretty much all of its frozen foods. There was a traffic jam to the grocery store, I'm told, later that day. And even when I went on Monday morning, the place still hadn't been able to restock fully. I suppose this is a good time to be a grocery store.

Anyways, I fear I have rambled on way past my normal. I must get back to my day of doing nothing, and yet getting paid. Ah yes, that has a very nice ring to it. But fear not, the patent office is fee funded, so none of your tax dollars are supporting me. However, I would like to take this time to speak for the rest of the government when I say Thank you for this paid week of vacation.

Snow and Taxes

I did my taxes yesterday. I hate taxes, I ended up paying around $1,800 and it hardly seems fair :-/. I mean didn't they manage to take enough from me during the year? Personally I think its a sort of cannibalism for the government to tax the same people it pays... but then that's just me. In the end of the day though, at least my taxes are done.....

And of course as seen above there is snow in DC! This part at least I'm happy about, I missed the last snow storm that hit on December 19, the day after I left to come home for Christmas (don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't have to deal with it when I was flying). But between this storm, next week it is supposed to be snowing some more, and the one in December, this has become, as people are telling me, the most snow this area has received in decades. Which is pretty cool. Go climate change/global warming. I'm having faint memories of El Nina.

Anyways, I'm told Karate class is still open, so I think I might end up trudging down there in a few hours. I wonder how the roads are?

Broken Toe

Bleh I think I broke my big toe. It was at Karate on Saturday. Now it is swollen and blue/black in areas. /sigh

If I'm supposed to do something other than stay off it, keep it elevated and take tylenol let me know. I don't think I have to go to the hospital or anything just for a broken toe. But let me know if I'm missing anything.

Christmas Pictures

I am finding out that I'm very lazy. Has it really been since Thanksgiving that I have last updated this blog? Ah well, I shall endeavor to update it more often perhaps.... No hard promises.... I will try lol.

Anyways, I figure I'd at least make sure to throw some of the Christmas Pictures I got. Not too surprising there were lots of random pictures all about. I blame the children... and Stephen. Some of my favorite ones I have posted below. If you would like a larger selection I can try to send out some more. I have pretty much everyone that was at the Christmas eve party lol "get a present get a picture".

Anyways, hope you like these :-).

Thanksgiving

Had Thanksgiving at my place, with the Parents, Bushia and Jamshaid. Was lots of fun, and if you look closely you can see our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone seemed to have a good time down here, I know I did at least.