It’s a winter wonderland, you guys. The sunshine on the snow this morning makes it look like everything is covered with pixie dust!
Jackson County, Indiana is “red” this morning — emergency travel only. Most factories are closed along with banks. Even the local urgent care and veterinary offices aren’t open. The roads are pretty rough. But Perry is so dedicated (or bat shit crazy) he headed off to work. I’ll betcha he figured braving the elements in the car was better than me asking him to shovel the front porch and sidewalk. Either that or he thinks it makes him look macho. Either way… he made it. 🙂
It’s supposed to hit 20° Fahrenheit later today, but right now it’s 14°. Brrr!
The hounds have paths in the backyard and the only time they deviate from the path is when they encounter poop. They bypass each other’s biological necessities MOST of the time. Merida did bring in a poopscicle yesterday and was tossing it in the air before I figured out what it was.
And if the forecast is accurate, we’re supposed to get even more of this stuff tomorrow. That means I’ll have plenty of time to paint more watercolor portraits!
How severe the pandemic is in the places where people I care about are located…
Daily NEW COVID-19 cases (7 day moving average): Indiana-19.5 (down); Jackson Co – 28.4 (down but one of the higher counties in the state); Florida 32.9 (down but now highest…again); Nevada – 17.5 (down)
TIL (Today I Learned): Hasbro (the toy company behind My Little Pony and Furby) owns Death Row Records, which includes the rights to records by Tupac, Dr. Dre, and Snoop Dogg.
Snow fell in southern Indiana last night and today. Although not as much as originally predicted, it was a measurable amount and for that, I’m happy!
I love a big snow and think it’s beautiful. Just as beautiful in its own right as any beach. (Please note I’m not saying I want to look at it all the time — or even as often as I’d be happy looking at a beach someplace tropical.) The bad news is… it’s freaking FOURTEEN degrees as I type this. It’s frigid, you guys.
And, if that’s not bad enough, it was breezy too. Good thing we didn’t get the forecasted amounts PLUS the wind!
Perry made it from Madison back to Seymour by around 7:00 PM and although he HATES cold weather, he didn’t complain all that much. That’s good, right? The other good thing about snow?
Here in Southern Indiana the forecast for the coming week is pretty darned nasty. If you believe meteorologists, our future holds “significant” snowfall and it’s going to be really cold. From what I understand, there are two waves coming with the first one starting late tomorrow night/early Monday morning.
I hit everyone up for ‘last call’ on groceries since I’m the major grocery hub. I order and everyone picks up here. What is important to have on hand when you might be snowed in for a few days is different for everyone — and it says a lot about the person.
For example… Perry wanted waffles, cereal, (no milk mentioned!) and ramen noodles. All Ben cared about was bottles of iced tea, and the peskies emphasized an immediate need for bars of soap. Me… I’m after the staples plus crackers. And gasoline!
If the power goes out, I want to make sure we have plenty of fuel for the generator. I’m pretty sure the last time we used the thing was late 2018 when an ice storm hit and took out the electric for a LONG time. I don’t know how to start it myself, but when there’s no power, I can count on Ben and Perry. They will be wherever there’s heat, working TV, and toilets that flush. 🙂
C’mon snow! Hit me with your best shot!
And finally, if you haven’t tried Coke with coffee, you’re missing out. Yes, their energy drinks are nasty… but this? This is yummy, you guys. And I NEVER drink soda. I still don’t very often, but when I do it’s this…
TIL (Today I Learned): Kraft Foods introduced boxed macaroni and cheese in 1937 during the Great Depression. They promised buyers could feed a family of four for 19 cents and sold 8 million boxes of the first year.
My fitbit challenge still tops the list (so far) of bad customer experiences for 2021, but what happened yesterday wasn’t great either…
I ordered popcorn tins for my son and granddaughter for Valentine’s day from The Popcorn Factory. Their product is certainly not cheap — especially considering it’s freaking popcorn — but it is tasty and it’s not like shopping is a great COVID activity. Both tins were set for delivery on the 10th. Ben got his, but Coco’s shipment was delayed until AFTER Valentine’s Day!
So my ‘big kid’ got a Valentine’s gift and my 10 year-old granddaughter didn’t. Rather than look like a poopy Nana, I told Ben what happened and he pretended the one received was for them both. No reason to explain to a child why a business doesn’t deliver a purchased product WHEN they promised they would. Heck, I can’t understand it myself. Stop promising what you can’t deliver!
Snow delivers without promising anything. It comes when it comes and there’s not a thing we can do about it.
My favorite brother’s wife sent me a photo of what she was cooking for dinner last night. She was so proud of her gluten-free homemade chicken noodle soup and mashed cauliflower posing as mashed potatoes! I replied with, “we’re both having chicken,” and sent her a photo of what I made for dinner. That’s the last I heard from her.
Just watched a Facebook live weather update from a Louisville meteorologist who is predicting next week the weather will produce something “we’ll talk about for years to come.” In the spirit of ‘don’t promise what you can’t deliver,’ I’m trusting Mother Nature will live up to my expectations based upon his predictions. Bring it! 🙂
TIL (Today I Learned): Paul McCartney let a stranger claiming to be Jesus Christ sit in on a Beatles recording session in 1967. McCartney explained, “Well, it probably isn’t. But if he is, I’m not going to be the one to turn him away.”
I’ve talked before how different my job is today than it was pre-pandemic. The cost of our service is about 30% of what it was before — and it’s 10 times harder to facilitate. Here’s how it worked before…
Client wants speaker at event. Speaker is booked, contract is created. Pre-event requests consist of a headshot, marketing bio, presentation overview, and sometimes a 1-minute pre-event video to post on the client’s website. Logistics — hotel, ground, flights — are confirmed and info provided to the meeting planner. We get paid 7 days before the speaker gets on the plane. Speaker checks in hotel and goes downstairs for a 5-minute tech check with the hotel’s production team and delivers the presentation 30-minutes later. Here’s how it works now…
Client wants speaker at event but wants to pay a minimal amount of money since it’s not an in-person event. (I get that.) Speaker is booked, contract is created… and recreated over and over because there may or may not be a separate technical producer. The expertise of presenters at virtual events is so varied, clients feel the need to stress horizontal capture using a “light ring” and external mic. (In other words, speakers don’t know they can’t just talk for 90 minutes into their iPhone. My speaker has studio lighting, a switcher, a document camera and more.) Next, because it’s virtual, the client wants to just send the presentation out to everyone — or post it on their public website — without consideration of copyrighted material. I could go on and on…
What used to take a phone call and maybe 5 email exchanges has evolved into multiple calls and email conversations. For example, there’s a March 16th event where I’ve already exchanged over 50 emails with the meeting planner. And then… rather than manage everything through our speaker calendar, the client and/or meeting planner/speaker bureau wants to send out meeting invites for every single thing. This translates to multiple instances of the exact same event or call within our system and multiple emails regarding that. (Latest tech call resulted in 22 ‘accepted’ response emails.) Hey… if it’s a “meeting” everyone gets a “meeting invite.” It’s a cluster!
But we got snow yesterday — and that was awesome!
A snow day locally even though we didn’t get nearly as much white stuff as I’d hoped for. Still, it was just enough to keep me from losing my ever lovin’ mind! No school means you don’t have to brush your hair before visiting your Nana. Coco the Hobo. 🙂
The good news it is FRIDAY! The bad news is this morning it’s 19 degrees at just after 10:00 AM. Brrrr!
