The stress is reducing slowly but surely.  My computer is fixed!  I have a brand new hard drive and everything works perfectly! And I didn't have to get a whole new computer. I'm so happy about that.

I also want to show you my new ottoman.  It's the coolest!

Sorry my last posts were a bit of a downer.  I'm in a sort of better mood now.  I'm kind of nervous because I lost a whole stack of aerial photos.  Absolutely no clue where they are.  Hopefully they're in my apartment somewhere...

I've been busy doing a lot of stuff lately.  Last weekend, my parents came to visit.  It was fun.  We went to see the Petroglyphs and to the Balloon Museum.  My dad took some pictures but he has them on his phone which means I will likely never see them.  He doesn't really understand the phone picture to computer image relationship.  Oh well.  My mom made some really good tilapia, which was on sale for $2.97/lb.  That's a pretty fantastic deal.  Matt came over and we watched Family Guy.  My mom thought the talking baby and dog were weird.  Haha.  She also cleaned out my refrigerator, took out the garbage and dusted everything.

On Tuesday morning I drove them to the airport and life returned to normal.  I went to work.  Not extremely noteworthy.  I took a quiz at school and got my midterm.  It's midterm already.  That means it's getting closer to field season.  Hmmm...  Still not sure how I feel about that.  I think the thing is that I used to like summer a lot because it felt free, but now it doesn't feel that way.  It sort of feels less free, if that makes sense.  But I like that I get to be outside.

This weekend will be pretty busy too, but I think it will be good.  I'm picking up my new ottoman, which my parents bought me as an early birthday present.  It's really cool.  I'm excited.  I'll probably go to the bank to cash some checks.  Always a good thing.  And I'm pretty sure my computer will finally get fixed this weekend.  Hooray Hooray.  Plus Matt's sister will be in town and that is always fun.  Good things.  Thinking good thoughts.

It seems like forever since I've written anything in here.  I'm having a hard time focusing.  Since I came back to town and started up work again in January, this year has been the most stressful year in a long time, possibly ever.  I don't know.  Everything keeps going wrong.  The past few weeks I've felt like I was drowning.  I think it might calm down soon but who knows?  All I know is I'm not ready for field work.  I'm actually kind of not looking forward to it.  I went to dinner with some coworkers tonight.  A bunch of them are in town for a computer training that we're having this week.  Matt is home with bad allergies, and I am sad for him.  I hope he feels better soon.  His birthday is coming up. 

I'm in a grumpy mood right now and am starting to think about all the things I don't like about my life, past and present.  So I'm just going to vent for a while about the crappy parts of my trip to Silver City.

At the end of last year, my boss decided I should go to Silver City every month to meet with my coworkers down there.  This annoyed me.  How come I have to go down there and they don't ever have to come up here?  That's what I thought.  It's not entirely true, because they do have to come up here in two weeks.  Not to meet with me, though.  We're all having a training that they have to go to.  I'm just a secondary thought.  So I didn't go last month because I had other stuff to do but I went this week. 

On the way down, I went through Hatch (famous for green chile growing) to avoid the snow in the mountains.  From Hatch, I was going to go to Deming but there was a grass fire and the road was closed.  So I had to go all the way down to Las Cruces and then back to Deming that way.  After I got to Deming, it took another hour to get to Silver.  So I was on the road for over 6 hours.  It was really great.  Lots of fun. 

Luckily, there was a still a little bit of light left by the time I got to my hotel, and it wasn't cold, so I walked to Wendy's to get a salad for dinner.  My hotel was nice, but the whirlpool that I had been looking forward to was broken.  Very disappointing. 

That night, I took out my contacts and there was a huge rip down the middle of the right one.  And I, being a genius, did not bring an extra pair or my glasses.  I had a really hard time seeing the next two days and I was really nervous about being able to get back to Albuquerque. 

On Wednesday, one of my coworkers suggested I call my eye doctor to give me my prescription, and then I could pick it up at Wal-Mart.  But my stupid eye doctor would not give me my prescription because it had been over a year since my last eye appointment.  I begged with them, trying to explain my situation to make it seem as pitiful as possible.  But no luck.  They would not give in.

I decided to schedule an appointment with the Wal-Mart eye doctor.  Lucky for me, she was in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Unlucky for me, the first open appointment was February 28.  That just would not do.  I told the receptionist it had to be tomorrow or nothing.  She said there might be a cancellation.  And sure enough, there was.  By 6pm the next day, I had a new prescription, and more importantly, a new pair of contacts.  So at least one good thing happened to me.

Honestly, my whole trip wasn't that bad.  I had some good food, went out for drinks, and I really think we got a lot accomplished while I was down there.  Sometimes I think I'd enjoy my job more and have a better social life if I was down in Silver City.  But on the other hand, I'd be in Silver City.

I just wish some people would realize how inconsiderate they are being.  I know that's random, but it's what I'm thinking about right now.

One of the best things about Albuquerque is that it has a very diverse range of food types and restaurants.  In other ways, it can become a challenge to decide where to eat.  Matt and I often resort to listing them, "Okay, do you want Mexican, Italian, Asian, American, Mediterranean....?" And so forth.  But since I don't have all the time and space in the world to list all of our favorite restaurants, I am limiting it to our top 3 Mexican/New Mexican places, which we recently decided upon one day.  So without further ado...

The main reason we like Monroe's is because it has a beautiful patio with a fountain and birds fluttering around here and there, so we usually go when the weather is warmer.  Their food is good, but there isn't that one thing on the menu that really makes it stand out from other Mexican restaurants.  One thing I really like is that they have rotating specials, but they don't post them to their website so it's always a gamble as to what they are, although they're usually good.  The service is kind of interesting.  Waiters aren't assigned to a specific table; instead, they all go around finding out who needs refills, their check, etc.  It's a pretty good system because it means there's usually someone around to help you.  The owner is sometimes around as well.  He's really friendly and it's easy to tell he really cares about his restaurant.  During busy times, you can often find him out in the parking lot directing traffic.  He's cool.  The service is usually pretty consistent, especially when he's around, but sometimes it's slacking a little.  If you order Mexican food (they have some other things too), you get complimentary chips and salsa.  It's usually freshly made, but occasionally we've gotten cold chips and salsa that's close to going bad.  Altogether, though, it's pretty good.  Oh, and there's also a fish tank that we like to look at after we pay our bill.  It's always fun to see if there are any new babies swimming around.


We had a tie for second runner up, the first is La Salita

La Salita is actually more New Mexican than Mexican.  Everything is always covered with cheese and it always tastes good.  We've ordered in and to-go and it is consistently good quality.  Everything on the menu is great, but the two things that stand out most to me are their tacos and chile rellenos.  The taco meat is seasoned perfectly to give it a distinct flavor, the taco shells are always fresh and crispy, and it's covered in delicious shredded cheddar cheese. MMMMM!!!  So good.  The rellenos are authentic New Mexican style and they're the best of their kind that I've had.  The batter is perfectly crispy and the cheese is oozy gooey goodness.  They also give out complimentary chips and salsa.  Their salsa is served warm and is a mixture of their signature red and green chiles.  This is probably the place we go most often, since it's the closest to where we live.  The manager knows our names.  Haha.

The second, second runner up is Los Cuates

Of all the places mentioned so far, Los Cuates has the best green chile, hands down.  What makes it so good is that it is roasted instead of steamed.  It tastes the best this way and is classic New Mexico.  Roasting green chiles is one of the best smells ever.  Their carne adovada is also really good because it is served in chunks rather than shredded, which is how La Salita does it. (However, their tacos have nothing on La Salita)  They are also the only place I know to get a really good Navajo Taco.  The service is pretty spotty, and it takes a long time to get refills, boxes, and the check.  The last couple times I went there, I was with Matt and his sister and they put us on a high top table, which is small and doesn't have much room for three people to spread out.  It's also a little cold in there.  But we really like the food, which is enough incentive for us to keep coming back. 
Number 1

And the winner is....

The snow arrived in Albuquerque around 4pm last evening.  I got out of school, made a quick run to the grocery store, and hid in my apartment for the rest of the night, in hopes of a snow day sleep-in the next morning.

No such luck.  The weather hotline informed me that there would be no closures or delays, (but drive carefully!) so I gave myself some extra time and headed out into the snowy world.  It took about 45 minutes to get to work.  It usually takes 25.  Not horrible, but still.  When I arrived at 7:45 am, hardly anyone was there.  My boss was, though. He's always such a go-getter. 

I spent the morning un-installing ArcGIS 9.2 and all its extensions in preparation for installation of ArcGIS 9.3 so that I can actually use the new O Drive (see earlier post for that info).  Apparently, an old PLTS extension compatibility problem was causing all the to-do with that issue.  I'm not even really sure what PLTS does, though I feel like I should know (?)  Anyway, so, I'm in the middle of un-installing crap when the office manager comes by and says the office closed at 11.  It was 11:30 at that point and I couldn't really stop what I was doing so I stayed there until noon to finish up, then went home (or to Matt's house, rather, because it was closer and he had food). 

I don't really understand the point.  What exactly was accomplished by having people come in for 3 hours and then letting them go back out into the snowy madness.  I could have woken up late, brewed some tea, and baked blueberry muffins all day.  But no.  I am living the American dream.

Granted, we don't have A LOT of snow.  But we have enough wind and ice to cause some damage.  And man, is it COLD!

The broken crap theme of 2011 continues.  My computer is still not working but I have located the recovery disks (yay!  thanks to cleaning out my closet) and can now attempt to fix it.

At work, we are transferring all our shared drives over to one single drive called the O drive, powered by Oracle.  Coincidentally, I am learning all about Oracle in school, where I'm taking Database Design.  I liken Oracle to ESRI in terms of propaganda and cornering the market, but they work well enough (although I still curse Jack Dangermond from time to time).  Anyway, guess whose computer the new drive does not work on?  Yep.  Apparently, some other program I have and the new program do not like each other and it was messing up my desktop and some internet things.  A tech guy came and tried to help me but all that ended up happening was him uninstalling the program and telling me that I'd have to access the drive through the internet server instead.  Not a huge deal, just annoying.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, I was sitting on the couch and noticed that the clock on my cable box was turned off.  Thinking that was odd, I tried turning it on, and hey, guess what!  That doesn't work either.  I called Comcast and they will be arriving with a new box on Sunday. 

Whenever I close my eyes, all I see is my map that I've been working on for the past week.  I am so sick of that map.  I want to punch it in the face.  And I only have to do like 6 more.  Ugh.  Friday could not have come any sooner. 

I should probably talk about something more upbeat.  Um, two weekends ago, my friend Erica came to visit.  It was fun.  Today she posted a picture of us hiking in the mountains by Travertine Falls.  So I am stealing it.

I thought I'd start this up again.  And yes, I am most definitely going out of order and skipping things, but, eh... I feel like it. 

There are two supercool animals I would love to have as pets.  They are:

1) The miniature giraffe from the DirecTV commercial

2) A really sweet, really expensive ($35,950) cat, called the Ashera

It's hypoallergenic

But seriously, the pet I most want, and have always wanted, is a dog.  I want to rescue one and give it a good home.  I think I could be a really good dog owner.  I would be really motivated to go out hiking if I had a dog.  I wish I could have one now, but with my schedule it just wouldn't work.  Someday, though...

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how to manage my finances and invest my money in a beneficial and meaningful way.  While I was going through my mail this morning, I found that I had received a few things that made me begin to consider these options a little more.  First of all, I got my income tax forms.  Exciting.  It's interesting to see the difference between how much money I "made" and how much I actually got to keep.    Next, I got two letters from two wildlife foundations asking me for money.  One is the National Wildlife Foundation, which I have given to in the past, and the other was the World Wildlife Foundation.  I'm considering giving to one of them, since I do like animals a lot (I mean, who doesn't?) and I got really upset the other night watching a show about two moose babies whose mother got shot and there was no place to put them so they had to be killed.  Matt turned it off before they got to that part though.  He's nice like that.  And also?  Donations = tax deductible.  I don't know how much it really amounts to in the end, but it would be an interesting experiment.  I should just ask my dad.

Ok, so far, I've gotten stuff telling me how much money I make and how much I give to the government and some places asking me to give them money.  Wouldn't it be nice if someone gave me some money in the mail?  Well, the stars must have been aligned correctly today, because this was the next thing I opened.

yup.

Now, let's backtrack a little bit to last summer, when I received a mysterious survey in the mail with two crisp dollar bills inside.  The letter attached said, "Here, have $2, and if you fill out this survey you will get $10."  At first I thought, yeah, right.  I didn't even think the money was real at first, so I asked Matt to check.  After it was confirmed that the money was, in fact, real, I decided, what the heck?  I'll give it a shot.  They said it would be about 6 months, so of course I had forgotten all about it until just now.  But they kept their promise and I now have $10.  Woo-hoo!

So now that I am super rich (haha) I really do want to give back.  I'm thinking I'll go with one wildlife foundation and one nature-type foundation.  So who should I give to?  The Nation or the World?  The world is a big place and can use help from everyone, for sure, but there's a lot going on right here at home too.  I'm also seriously considering donating a case of food to our local food bank, maybe a couple times a year.  It's a better alternative to giving those bums at the intersection a dollar toward their beer/drug fund.  These are things I need to consider, along with some other investments I need to make (again, need to ask my dad) and just keeping better track of my day to day spending, which I will start doing once my computer gets fixed and I can make myself a little spreadsheet.  This year will be the year I stop just spending money, and actually figure out what I do with it. 

Oh yeah, and I'm participating in Saturday Steals.  You should too!

Hello there.  I'm back.  Did you miss me?  I've been having issues with my computer and haven't been able to go online or open any files or do anything, really. It's very sad.  The worst part about it is my computer isn't even that old.  I got it a year ago for Christmas and the warranty just expired.  Actually, that is the saddest part.  Stupid one year warranty.  Right now I'm at Matt's house and we're running diagnostics on it to give some info to HP, and even that is causing some trouble.  That has been our project for this weekend so far.

Last weekend, I arrived back in Albuquerque and began to deal with my other problem.  The day before I left for Michigan, my car battery died.  I didn't have time to do much about it at that point, so I put it off until I got back.  There was a lot of corrosion so at first we thought that might be the problem.  We took out the battery and cleaned the terminals with water, baking soda and a toothbrush.  I was the flashlight holder. We also took the battery in to be tested, and the voltage looked good.  So we put the battery in and it still didn't start, so it was back to AutoZone.  They are super helpful there.  I've been there for other problems and they are honest and never try to scam you into buying things you don't need.  We tested the battery again, and in this case, decided that I did need a new battery because the charge was low.  We installed the new battery and the car started up right away.  Yay!  The entire process took about 4 hours.

So far, 2011 has been the year of technical difficulties.

On a happier note, today was a really nice day so we decided to take Matt's dogs for a walk in the foothills.  They loved it!  Star was super excited, as you can see here.

At first, they had lots of energy and took off ahead of us up the trail, chasing rabbits and bicyclists and rolling around in the little patches of snow.


Toby mostly just wanted to eat the snow.

After a while, though, they began to get tired out so we finished our loop around the trail and headed home where both dogs proceeded to pass out on their "beds."  They had a fun day!