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Winter Wonderland

Not sure if I am serious or sarcastic about the title tonight. We had a helluva snowstorm go over us yesterday and it dumped many, many inches of snow over the entire landscape. I must admit it is pretty. And, the snow warmed and moisturized the air a great deal so it is much more comfortable outside.

I had been lazy this year and had not tested nor tuned my snow blower for for function like is my normal practice. In typical years, I usually have the beast in the garage from where I store it in the pole barn by mid-October at the latest. And, usually by mid-October, I have it cleaned, lubed, filled with fresh gasoline, and test fired. Not this year. But, very fortunately, the beast fired up after only two attempts. I was able to finish the driveway (long) and the walkways in roughly 45 minutes.

One of the birthday gifts I received back around Thanksgiving was a DVD of the movie Ratatouille (note, there is a brief 10 second advertisement that plays before the trailer). One relative purchases almost anything she can find that is about rats for me, since I work with them. It was one of the few movies my wife and I watched this past Summer, but it has been fun to watch it again. The movie is about a rat who feels like an outsider in his family because he wants to eat and cook good food instead of eating cast offs and garbage. He becomes a chef in the process. It is very well done, quite humorous, and a delight for adults and children.

As you may likely presume, this person also purchased the "Stuart Little" series for me as well.

After about two weeks of lax attitude about exercise, I am gearing up to again do battle with myself in the morning to force myself to get up and exercise before I head off to class. Wish me luck.

PipeTobacco