Just trying out a new color scheme for my WordPress theme. It may not stay, but I just wanted to see something different on my web site for a change.

I don’t think anything is broken.

A middle manager goes ballooning, but a strong wind blows him far off course. As he’s floating over a meadow, he sees someone in the field below and yells down, “Hello, sir, could you tell me where I am?” The man yells back, “You’re about 50 feet off the ground over a meadow.”

The balloonist shouts back, “You’re an engineer, aren’t you? Because while you’re answer is technically correct, you haven’t addressed the actual problem.”

The engineer down below shouts back, “Why yes I am. And aren’t you a manager? Because I had nothing to do with you getting in your current predicament, yet, after 5 seconds of talking, somehow it’s my responsibility to get you out of it.”

About two weeks ago, I had a problem with the gas bill. I went to the web site, and I couldn’t log in. I know that when we first moved into the house I signed up for the web sites of all our utilities, so it was just a matter of remembering a pin or getting the account number right. After hours of messing with it, I gave up and called in to argue my bill and make the payment (a pleasure they charge extra for, mind you). I then sent an email to the tech support of the web site with the various error messages and other problems I had using the web site … and to tell them the phone service never verified that my payment went through (it said to check at the web site).

Today I finally get an email back from them. Yeah, so glad it wasn’t URGENT or anything.

End result? I had both the email and the PIN wrong. I forgot I had signed up with Lin’s email address, which was why it wasn’t sending me a new PIN at any of mine. Well, guess what? They sent my account number, my new PIN and all relevant information on how to log into the account to an email address that was not listed as belonging to us. It could have belonged to anyone, so anyone at all could go to the web site, try to log in to my account, not be able to, and then send an email to tech support using their email address and get the information to log in. Not that there’s much they could do (no stored credit card info) … other than pay the bill, turn off the gas account, and get all our personal phone numbers. Yeah, that’s real secure, isn’t it? I suppose I will have to email tech support again to complain about this. I think I’ll cc it to the local utility commission as well. I am highly annoyed.

I think I will test this at the other utility web sites just to see if they are any more secure. I certainly hope so.

I tortured the Iris for a while. By the time I am done with this one, I swear there’s going to be a hundred layers of paint on it.

It’s very, very cold.

I can’t decide whether to go crawl into bed with Lin or paint.

One of life’s big decisions.

Here’s today’s little painting project … a tiny little wooden box I am putting a landscape on. So far I have the sky, clouds and basic ground down. I might work on it some more, after the new episode of Dr. Who, of course. When I am done with the whole thing, I’m going to sand the edges, varnish it, and then line it with some fabric.

I’m really liking the set of detail brushes I bought last week. Now I can paint small things.

Well now I am totally depressed. I just found out that there are no more iMac G5 computers to be had, and we didn’t get the money together in time to get one. So close to having my dream computer, and yet so far. Dammit.

Color me almost suicidal.

I lurk around at several on line gathering places for the locals, just to hear them barking at the wind. The public opinion of my fellow Austinites always brings me such joy.

During the whole buildup to the ban on smoking in local bars and restaurants, the noise created by the denizens of Austin was nearly united … “bars are public places, and you shouldn’t be able to smoke in any public place!” The vote went through, and they got their wish: Bars were determined to be public places, and the right to determine what legal activities could happen within their walls was taken from the private business owner.

Flash forward to the current hot topic: TABC arresting and ticketing people for public intoxication inside of bars.
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Chinese micro-painter Jing Ying Hua has painted an image of a giant panda on a single human hair.

Everyone Lin works with thinks I am a wonderful wife for getting up at ungodly hours to grind coffee beans and make his coffee every weekday morning. Hearing that was a great way to start the morning. Now I’ll have to bake a huge batch of cookies for him to give to everyone and I will have successfully won over all these guys I haven’t met yet.

Not that I am not still cranky. The bed … oh gods, the bed is horrid without the egg crate foam on it. It’s cold and hard and just awful. I was less than amused when I crawled into bed last night and Lin said the bed was terribly hard. No kidding? Really? I guess maybe that’s why I put the foam on it in the first place. As soon as we have the budget for it, I’m going to get a better foam thing for the bed (I myself was not thrilled with the egg crate stuff). If I keep sleeping on that mattress, my skeletal infrastructure is going to rebel in a big way.

This morning while I was reading Lin today’s weather report I noticed that it’s supposed to freeze tonight. Excuse me? Freezing weather in Texas during late March! Look here northern states, if you want to have late season snow storms and horribly severe cold fronts this late in the year, you just go right ahead, but could you please not send it this way? I’d just started getting used to the usual super-hot weather, and I am certain the colder temperatures are partly to blame for my recent bout of bitchiness. It just makes me ache all over. When I finished knitting that puffy and warm scarf last week, I didn’t expect to get to wear it until next winter. Surprise, surprise!

There are only four things on my list of tasks for the day … get cat food, clean the stove, clean the microwave, and do some painting. I officially have two canvases started (the iris which needs more detail and the sheep that is still in under painting stage), and today I may start on the third (not telling you what it’s going to be yet). I found another canvas panel in a closet, so I can put off buying any more for at least a few more days. In fact, I think I’ll force myself to wait until at least one of the ones I have started can be officially declared finished. Unfinished canvas panels are beginning to take over the kitchen. This is not a good thing.

I’d like to wait until it gets warmer outside to run to the store, but I’d also like to get it over with as soon as possible. It pains me that I have to go to the store for just cat food. I probably should have bought some when I was there the other day, but we are having a little cash flow problem, and I didn’t want to spend the entire grocery budget on one trip … just in case something else came up, you know. All I can say is, the cash better start flowing before this weekend, or it’s going to get ugly.

Time to get dressed and get moving on things. The way this week has been going, I can expect at least a few distractions and minor crisis events to be tossed at me at some point. Next week just better be a little more low-stress. In fact, it would be perfectly fine with me if the rest of this week wanted to go better than the first half went.