Avoiding Baltimore, one trick pony birds, and other assorted randomness

I seem to have successfully managed to avoid being sent to a conference the gov't is having up in Baltimore near the airport the 2nd week of May. Aside from having to re-join an industry association in order to attend, those things are quite often rather boring and useless. It also would've ment spending the 7th through 9th up there. Someone high up originally felt someone from the company should go. Most of those who normally would've already had stuff scheduled, so it'd kinda flowed downhill til it got to me. Fortunately, it was decided that it's not important/useful enough for someone to have to go.

There's a mockingbird in the apartment complex that seems to only know one song so far. I noticed him the other day when I got home. He was in one of the trees at the end of a row of parking spaces. The lil guy was belting out a robin call at top volume. I looked over, expecting to see a robin, but saw him, instead. I rather like mockingbirds, so I paused a moment to hear his repetoire. All he did, though, was the robin song over 'n over. He's been out there the past couple afternoons, just doing the one song. I guess he's either young and hasn't learned any more, or he's just not the brightest bird in the neighborhood. I dount he's going to find himself many girlfriends with just one tune, unless he's got a thing for robin girls.

For the second time since I moved to VA, I've seen a wild turkey crossing the road when driving home from work. As I drove up the road to the complex, I spotted a female (I assume it was a female) walking up the slight hill to the trees on the other side of the road. I think it's kinda neat that there are still wild turkeys around here.

Somehow, some water got in under the left headlight lens of my car. It probably happened when I was driving to or from the barn in the torential downpour on Sunday. It's not affecting the lights in there, but there's condensation on the inside of the lens. Hopefully it'll dry out soon. I could probably take the lens off without too much hassle, but I'd rather avoid having to do that.

While I've not officially had a sit down review here at work, the pay increase from it has kicked in. There's still a long way to go to a six figure income, but I'm another inch closer.

Sometimes horses will surprise you. There was a break in the rain on Sunday and Sandy decided to risk letting the 2pm trail ride go out. Naturally the rain returned with a vengance while they were out there. It made me glad I usually have the hat with a full brim on it in the car. That helped a lot when I slogged down to the road to meet 'em when they returned. The barn's gutters must've been clogged because there was a waterfall of sorts coming down over the barn door the horses come into. Of the horses that were out there, I expected Firecracker to be the one who didn't want to walk through the wall of water. He, however, ambled right on in. Bandit, who I would've expected to not care in the least, had to be led through, and even then it took me 3 tries. Even after 12 years, some of the horses can still surprise me.

Looks like it's time for me to relieve someone who is watching a door. The building folks are apparently working on the fire alarm system without having announced it ahead of time. This means that some doors automatically unlock, so someone has to watch 'em to make sure nobody gets in who shouldn't. Now it's my turn to go sit up there and be bored for a bit. Whee!

Heavy metal

One of the folks here is going on some travel shortly and since I've nothing on my agenda that's too urgent, I've been helping him get some stuff done before he leaves. One of these is getting some items ready to be shipped out. In the course of doing this, I rolled one of the items - a fairly large thing in a custom made case with wheels 'n integral handles - to the mail room to weigh it.

There's nothing unusual that, except that the cord between the scale's sensor and its display apparently got broken sometime recently. The temporary replacement cord is a good bit shorter than the original. To deal with this, someone put the scale's sensor thingy up on a platform that's about 2' off the floor.

After having weighed the case, I now know that I can lift 4 foot tall object that weighs 203 pounds 2 feet without help. I wasn't exactly losing sleep over not knowing this information prior to today, but hey, now I know. I also know it's not something I want to do very often at all.