fun with spiders (ugh!)

After getting everything squared away on a new Sun E250 that, I believe, is ultimately my responsibility, I've now been told that the hard disks are to be ripped out and replaced.  Since it will be a different OS, I will have to re-install and recompile all the stuff I just compiled and installed over the last several work days.  Gah.

I still like my job and my employer though, and that's something.

The weekend was pretty nice this time.  Rob came out to help Tino with the Porsche, and I cooked and cleaned all day on Saturday.  For once, I didn't feel put upon or pressed into service.  I was actually happy to bake bread, do laundry, make breakfast, lunch and dinner and clean up after all three.  This is the first time in a long time that I felt like I was doing these things because I wanted to do them.

I'm such a ninny that I avoided using the front stairs whenever I could this weekend.  What has this to do with ninnydom?  At the bottom of the stairs is an enormous, well established spider dwelling with a spider[1] that has grown huge and fat since the beginning of August when we first noticed the web.  I realize that it's not going to jump off the web and eat me.  Of course I know that.

What really concerns me is that since new webs appear across the stair part of the stairwell, maybe some time that big ass spider will be on the new part of it's web (it has to weave the thing some time) and then I'll wind up with it on me.  This would be bad.  VERY BAD.

In spite of the fact that I backpack and all that, I'm still wigged out by gnarly spiders.  Smallish spiders I can handle.  I can handle any size daddy long legs (though I suspect they may not even be arachnids).  I wind up getting spider webbing on me all the time while hiking (especially if I'm the first one down the trail in the morning), but I've never wound up with an actual spider on me from that.  I expect it to happen any time now.  <shudder>

Speaking of hiking, my high summer hiatus is almost over.  Soon, I'll give myself leave to go play in the woods.  I'm looking forward to it, but I know that I haven't gotten much of any exercise during my two months off, so it will be painful.  It's still better than most things, even with the discomfort of being winded while climbing or sore the next day.

I suppose I should finish Shenandoah National Park.  It's the gaping hole in my AT mileage right now.

I feel like a great big lazy ass for not getting any exercise, but I don't like summer.  If I liked summer, I'd be out hiking in the heat, now wouldn't I?  The thing is, I really feel good when I get exercise.  I wish that were enough to motivate me, but it seems it is not.

I can't stay away from the freaking carbohydrates either.  I'm even thinking about going back to my old diet so that I will exercise and maybe lose a little more weight.  My weight has been quite stable since I called an end to my dieting early this spring, so I know that trying to get back into the losing-weight cycle will be really hard.  I'm also not sure that I want to be 20 lbs thinner[2], and there's no point in trying if I'm not sure.  I will not succeed unless I really want it.

I guess I'll just think about it some more for now, but fall is always a great time for me to start something new.  As the weather cools off and the trees turn, I get more motivated to do...well...anything.  

I've really fallen into the summer doldrums where going anywhere at all seems like too much trouble.  It's hot and sticky when you're not in the air conditioning and fucking freezing when one IS in the air conditioning (grocery stores are like meat lockers and thus hated most of all) , so I feel like I might as well just stay home, read a book and relax.