Technology: Not for the Naturally Shy

A lot of you have already heard this story but I wouldn't want the rest of you to miss out. Tuesday night at Enrichment meeting we got bonus bucks for the service auction if we would tell our most embarrassing moment story. I gamely told about handing Terry Wright's dad the chewed gum right out of my mouth. Since it had been 26 years I didn't supposed I would ever get another story to replace it. That wasn't actually an active thought until the next day.

We use an instant messenger system to take care of some of the communications at Decagon. It took me a while to get used to it but it has grown on me over time. Finally I had grown quite comfortable using it--maybe a little too comfortable for someone who did not grow up in the technology era.

I needed to send a note to Reid because I was going over the budget and found an invoice I thought he would know more specifics on. The invoice was from 401 (k) Pro, Inc. for $500. (Note: I am trying to distract you with the $ amount!) So I wrote to Reid giving him all the details so he would have the best chance possible to find the invoice. Then I hit "ENTER". The message was gone--off to Reid and as it posted, right where I had typed (k) was a big pair of red lips. It looks so innocent as I have typed it here but believe me when I say that the shock value of having just sent a male co-worker not named David big red lips was high. I sat there for a moment while the situation sank in and then I decided I had better go explain to Reid. When I opened his door I could see he had his face in his hands and was laughing.

Next time it is time to get bonus bucks for telling your most embarrassing moment...I will have a new one!

The million to one shot

I go so long between posts that I forget how to actually make a post and it takes all the time I have allotted for writing to figure out how to start a new post.

I know many of you will be shocked to find a new post from me but we actually got high speed internet out at the Ponderosa (David's fine spread in the Palouse hills) and we don't have any TV. It is amazing what happens when TV isn't taking up your time--I've been reading books too!

The Ponderosa has many advantages but we found a major disadvantage this winter when all snow and winds hit. (If you find any of my words run together you can blame one of the twins who forcefully removed the space bar on my laptop on one of their visits! Though I believe it was a small price to pay to experience all their cuteness!) January 29th was one of the worst days and David and I had quite an adventure that Mom wouldn't write about in her letter because she thought it was scandalous. We knew that the weather was going to be bad so we left right at 5:00pm and headed out. There are two ways to get to the Ponderosa, one from the Albion highway and the other from the sewage treatment road. The Albion highway is the fastest from the North side of town so we tried that first but there is a big hill right off the highway that looked quite treacherous so we decided to try the other way (we have done this on a few occasions. David was driving his car and I was driving mine so I could drive back to Pullman when our evening was over. The driving was an adventure but we actually made it quite far. David was in front. At one point a man stopped me to say there were 4 foot drifts by Armstrong Rd. (The Ponderosa is just past that road) but David just thought he was being friendly when he waved at him and so he was way ahead of me when I got this news so I kept going. We were able to go quite fast which allowed us to make it a lot further than we should have but we finally got to the point where we decided to turn around. Now, however, we were without the essential speed. David's car got stuck and we managed to free it but conditions were worsening all time. The wind made it very cold. We found a good spot to get it off the main part of the road and decided to take my car back to town. I should have let David drive because he knew how much speed we needed and I wimped out. We did get two tries to get up the little hill but the deep snow pulled the car right into a huge drift and we were stuck for good. We decided to warm up in the car a little before trying to get the car going again but things looked pretty bad. David had run on that road many times and knew that we were only about a 1/2 mile from his house so we decided to head for warmth and safety. We had not gone far when we found ourselves in snow up to our thighs. The bottom of my pants were frozen by this time and every time I took another step into the drift the bootcut bottoms would lift to my knees. The going was very hard, I really wanted David to just get me out of the drift but his going was not any easier than mine. It took a lot of work to get the legs high enough to take the next step. We found some less deep snow on our trek but getting through all of it was quite exhausting even for just that half mile. Since then we have alternately called it the "adventure" and the "ordeal", never quite sure which it was. I'm sure by the time we have grandkids, the drift will be 20 feet deep. Anyway, that is how I spent my first night at the Ponderosa (IN THE SPARE BEDROOM, the only thing missing was a chaperone.) The next morning dawned beautiful and we ate our breakfast at a table in front of the big picture windows while waiting for the plow. It was VERY lucky that both our cars were off the road so the plow could get through. Dad and Mom came out when it was clear and gave us each a tug so we were on our way.

Actually the title of the blog comes from the tagline of the original Rocky movie. David and I watched Rocky Balboa this past weekend (stop laughing Nige & Scott). If he was a million to one shot when he was in his prime, this was more like a billion to one but I liked the movie, it had a very good message about how you don't just talk about things you do them.