Friday, Spring, and Capital Q

A nice sunny day ... so off we went for lunch at the Capital Q. The BBQ was great, as it typically is. There was a different guy behind the counter, and he was much more efficient than the last guy we had a couple weeks ago. We ate outside on the picnic table, very nice indeed!

I asked directly about layoffs ... and I was told that there would be NO layoffs at Central Office, and not to worry. Most feel that it's a political move by the governor to try and back the unions into some concessions, but who knows? Everything about the NYS budget is so secretive, all done beyond closed doors and then suddenly there will be this budget before the legislature.

Wii Fit ... I have to admit that it's addictive. I've skipped it on some weekends and I've actually felt guilty about doing that! Usually I've skipped it because we've been doing something else during the day as a substitute. And that tune from the step program, it just sticks in your head.

Facebook. I've been able to connect with several people from high school days, and that's kinda wild. And wow, have some people changed. Some people I don't really know, although they seem to know who I am ... I was in a pretty small circle of friends in high school, and some of these folks were the "popular" ones, ones who wouldn't have given me the time of day back then. Again, go figure. And there are a few who seem to be pretty computer challenged, and that surprises me. Next year will actually be the 40th anniversary of high school graduation, and that seems so far away, so long ago, and not all that memorable either.

Tomorrow we might go hiking. Maybe up near Lake George. I think there will still be snow on some of the trails, especially on the shaded, northern sides of the mountains. We shall see. Sunday is supposedly a rainy day, so maybe it's movie time again.

The volcano is still erupting in Alaska ... this time ash is falling on the Kenai instead of being blown further north and west.

that's it for today!

time to worry?

Well, the good governor has announced that he's going to have to lay off nearly 9000 state employees in July because the unions won't agree to concessions. True, the unions have said no deal to his proposals. But then the governor stated that the unions haven't offered any other suggestions to help close the budget deficit ... and that is pure political BS. Is the governor deaf? Or perhaps the unions' proposals weren't written in braille? To the unions' credit, they have suggested several proposals for helping out, and they've done so since the day the governor began talking about union concessions. (The concessions include a 5 day payroll lag, forgoing the 3% COLA that's due in April, instituting another pension tier, and increasing the retirement vesting to 10 yrs) So, what's gonna happen? The online version of the Albany newspaper is full of reader comments with lots of suggestions, and it seems that one of the most popular ones is a move to offer early retirement incentives to current employees. Many school districts are doing just that right now, and that's reducing their payroll costs immensely. Makes sense to me ... you'd cut down on pension payments (most of those close to retirement are tier 1 or tier 2, with loads of pension bennies), reduce healthcare contributions by the state, and lower the average wage across the state employee system. Of course the governor hasn't done himself any favors by buying all sorts of goodies for himself at the executive mansion, hiring a bunch of his cronies at pretty high wages, and then giving raises to lots of his staff. NYS still has a lt. governor's staff on the payroll, even though there hasn't been a lt. gov. in office since Paterson took over for Spitzer! Go figure.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see what the deal is.
The sun is shining once again, and it's slightly warmer today ... maybe spring is really here.

It has been several days since my last post on the blog ... probably because there hasn't been all that much to write about.
Spring is definitely "in the air" ... most of the snow in our yard has melted, and we've been able to get out most evenings for a nice walk with the dogs. But it's like one of those "limbo times", where you really can't do anything with the lawn or the garden because it's too wet, or a bit too chilly, or whatever. Soon enough though! I'd like to plant more veggies this season but I'm not sure where to expand the garden (my idea of planting veggies by the deck instead of geraniums was shot down the other day).
This weekend ... an anniversary party, which we're not thrilled about attending, but it's family so we're pretty much obligated to go. Sunday should be a birthday dinner for son #2, but he hasn't told us which restaurant he'd like to go to. He probably has a lot of other things on his plate right now (school, work, buying a house, all those grown up issues!).
Our friends have accepted our invitation to join us for a mini getaway over the Memorial Day weekend down to Lake Hartwell in South Carolina ... visiting my sister. We really didn't think they'd accept the invitation ... but I suppose we really shouldn't be surprised because we have been able to talk them into some other getaways over the past few years ... and they've all been lots of fun.

One Year Old Today!!

Today is TWild's 1st birthday ... wow, how time has flown by.

So many things happening, and your kids are no longer kids, they're parents, homeowners, and carving out their own paths in life.

Wow.

Spring is in the air?

Warmer today ... in the 40s much of the day ... started out sunny, cloudy by 2pm, raining by 5:30pm. Rained hard for a while too. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the 50s. We saw two relatively large flocks of geese this morning on our way to Troy, and several hawks, including one that flew right overhead as we were traveling down I-90 in Albany.
We visited the indoor Farmer's Market in Troy today ... quite a number of vendors with a few familiar ones from the Schenectady market. Bought some bread, pork chops, and goat cheese spread. There was one vendor with a live rooster who perched on their sign while customers flocked (hahahaha) all around him.
We visited the outlet stores in Lake George after that ... bought some TWild stuff along with some shirts and shoes.
Met S, C, and C's mom for dinner after all of that and heard all about their house hunting adventures. Dinner was great!
Hard to believe that at this time last week I was in the shower, warming up after the 11 1/2 hour snowshoeing adventure in the high peaks.
Gotta turn the clocks ahead tonight!

Thursday already ... seems like it was only yesterday that I was standing on Pyramid and Gothics in the sunshine, soaking in the views.
We received our Wii on Monday ... couldn't set it up on our living room television (no matter how I tried to configure everything, it never worked), so it's in our bedroom. Temporarily. Our plan is to purchase a new television for the LR and move the Wii into one of the spare bedrooms along with the older television.
Anyhow, the Wii. We bought it specifically for the Wii Fit program. And so we've both started exercising, using Wii Fit as our guide. Some of the exercises are not easy, especially some of the balance ones. Others are fun, and actually make you sweat! But we definitely need to move everything to a more open space than our bedroom; it's just too confined an area for any real exercise.
Another sunny but cold morning today ... but it's supposed to get warmer by this afternoon, and potentially be in the 50s by Saturday. I love the snow but I hate it when it starts to melt and get all dirty and yucky in March ... sometimes I wish it would just magically vanish overnight & then have warm temperatures. And the kids are supposed to get some snow up in Fairbanks over the next couple of days ... their winter drags on forever!

13 miles, 5000 total vertical feet, make for sore legs the next day

It was a beautiful winter day in the high peaks ... blue sky, almost no wind, temps in the mid-teens ... we met at the Ausable Club parking lot and began our trek around 7:45am. We were able to follow a fairly good snowshoe track up to the col between Sawteeth and Pyramid/Gothics ... after that the track wasn't all that good. We got off trail once but the GPS tracklog got us on the right path, and we were soon enjoying some snacks along with the views on Pyramid. Then we dropped down a couple hundred feet and then back up onto Gothics. More awesome views. The picture posted here shows the ridgeline trail as it goes down off of Gothics ... we estimated the snowdrift to be about 12 or 13 feet deep ... the trail was firm and that made for a much more comfortable trip off from the mountain. Once into the woods it was steep until we got to the Armstrong trail junction ... then it was off into some fairly thick spruce (thick only because of the snow depth which made the branches face level), with some icy ups and downs. That lasted about 1/2 mile or so, and then we were into open woods, steep again, and down the mountain. The last 30 yards, at the bottom, were very dicey, with lots of ice. I went off trail and butt slid, or crab walked down to the bottom. Beaver Meadow Falls were all frozen over. We made it back to the cars by 7pm, and I was home by 9pm. My thighs were very sore today ... walking on level ground is fine, but going up and down the stairs is another story!

More snow forecast for tonight ... maybe up to 4 inches around here, more in Albany. This almost looks like the winter that just won't quit.

That's it for today!