Blue Screen of Death!

So I've been a little silent lately for a few reasons. One, I just haven't had all that much to say. I'm swamped with work and haven't had much time to think about anything else. Two, my personal home computer has crashed and is more or less dead. I noticed some odd things earlier this week, but on Tuesday night, it froze when I was browsing the web and brought up the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. After some research online (while at work), I discovered that several people were having the same problem and apparently a Microsoft security update was the main cause, or at least they were part of the cause. Microsoft, however, claims that it wasn't their fault per se. They say that their patch update simply unleashed some malware on several computers. I've tried multiple solutions, and so far I've been unsuccessful. I'm pretty savvy as a user, but when it comes to the guts of the computer and the technical code, well, that's just beyond me. So I've been without a home computer for most of the week, and I'm hoping that one of the IT guys in the office can help me fix it. I really only care about somehow saving or recovering my personal things, like files, pictures, and music. We'll see... 

More Economic Frustrations

Beginning in June my company decided to readjust its payment schedules for our pay checks. Instead of getting paid a set amount on the 1st and 15th of every month, we're getting paid every two weeks. This is causing a lot of problems for a lot of reasons. Somehow this translates to us getting paid about $200 less per paycheck until July. June happens to be the end of of our fiscal year, so I will not go into my conspiracy theory about how much money this is saving the company and how this will probably make the books and budget look better. But with the current paychecks, it almost feels like we are on furlough again. Sure, we'll get an "extra" paycheck in July, but that doesn't help me with my bills now. Another thing that is affected is that now the pay dates aren't on a set date every month. I, and many of my co-workers, have everything budgeted down to the day and penny. Now it is harder to manage all of this, and so far a lot of people have said that they have come close to overdrawing their accounts. And I won't even go into the fact that the cost of living raise we get this year will probably be minimal, if we even get anything at all.

Because of all of this, lately I've been reevaluating my living situation. I just moved into a wonderful new apartment, but it's also on the expensive side. If I can't be guaranteed a reasonable raise, then I have to seriously consider if I can continue living here. There are places in nearby cities that are cheaper by about $200 or $300. Some of these places are only a little bit smaller than my current place, but also in some of these washers and dryers are included. It wouldn't be Boulder anymore, but that might be the price I have to pay just to survive.

So once again, I've been frustrated with budgets and finances. I think about my education, all my degrees, all my work experience, and I can't help but think how grossly underpaid I am. Even when I go online to find competitive salaries for other people in my position, I'm still about $10,000 to $20,000 under what is considered average. Sad!

What I really need is a generous person to make an anonymous donation of about $5,000 to my bank account, or pay my rent for the next four months. Or I need all of my universities to pay me back for all of the outstanding work I've done. If the alumni associations can ask me for money, why can't I ask them for money? Maybe I need to play the lottery. Or maybe I need to sell an egg or a kidney...

Sorry, all, I just had to vent. Typing quickly and angrily, so forgive any spelling or grammatical errors.

Current mood: stressed and frustrated

Delay

Even though the Winter Olympics are on the west coast of Canada this year, NBC has decided to do a tape delay for people in the mountain and pacific time zones. Last night as the games were on, I made the mistake of going online to read some other news of the day. And, naturally, all of the results of the events were already posted. On most of these sites there wasn't even a warning; the headline screamed the winners' names. I knew the outcomes before the events even "started" where I am living. Tape delays make sense if the games are held on a different continent. But if the games are held on the same continent where the time difference is a matter of only a few hours, what's the point? The Super Bowl and World Series are never on tape delays, so why delay the Olympics.

Between about 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. NBC showed nothing but "paid programming," as it is called in the TV guide. Paid programming is another phrase for infomercials. They showed a few hours of the Olympics, then news, then Entertainment Tonight before going back to the Olympics. Who cares about fad diets, exercise equipment that is supposed to take the effort out of working out, or make up that is supposed to make you young and beautiful? And, yes, I know that some people might really enjoy Entertainment Tonight. I personally don't watch it, because I don't care that much about the trashy, tabloid stories about celebrities and politicians. No wonder NBC is such a disaster. It seems like they wasted so many hours that could have been better used for the games.

Current mood: annoyed with Olympic coverage, but good in general
Current drink: coffee

Priorities

It has been snowing here in Colorado for the past two days. The snow was supposed to stop at about 10:00 a.m. this morning. It snowed all day and, at times, got worse throughout the day. The drive to work was slow going. In some places the roads were plowed, but in other places the trucks simply dropped the chemical to melt the snow and ice and left behind them a mess of slush. Eventually I made it into the office.

I have a huge window in my cubicle so I could watch the snow fall all day. I was often looking down into the back parking lot and was amused and annoyed that I never saw anyone come by to plow our lot. Our lot already has a bad history. One of our employees slipped on the ice in the parking lot and broke her elbow. A few weeks ago another employee slipped on the ice in the parking lot. She didn't break anything and she was fine, and she's lucky because she is pregnant. So after a pregnant woman slips and falls on the ice, you'd think that the building managers would be better about keeping the snow and ice cleared from the parking lot. Apparently that's not the case. When I left the office this evening, the sidewalks were barely shoveled and the lot was covered with snow and ice. Ironically, a small patch of sidewalk surrounding the bike racks was shoveled recently. So, in spite of a huge parking lot and several walkways, they decided to clear the area around the bike racks. There were no bikes attached to the bike racks and I wonder how many people would actually ride their bike through 4 or 5 inches of snow while it was still snowing. And at time the snow was falling sideways! Apparently walking across the parking lot and getting in and out of it isn't as important as keeping the area near the bike racks clear.