First day of spring.
The snow has been slowly disappearing. It has stayed cool enough to keep it all from rapidly melting and quickly flooding the basement or cause too many problems for area people. So that has been nice. I was very concerned we'd be really bailing out the basement if the weather had warmed up fast like it used to in California. Winters there were more often than not a long fall, a few weeks of 'winter' like weather followed by a month or so of spring before going to blazin' hot by May.
For our area here the first day of spring meant morning temps of upper 20's around 5:30 am followed by about an hour of heavy snow at 8:30 am. This afternoon it became windy, partially sunny, but still cold and only about 44 for the high. Stacy is winding up her first week of her two week stint at the Juvenile Probation Officer (JPO) P.O.S.T. Academy near Boise. Because of the distance, about 500 miles, she's going to stay down there for the weekend. Plan is next Thursday afternoon I'll fly down to the Boise airport to be there next Friday 3/28, for her mid day graduation and ceremony. Then we'll drive back together from there.
Stacy had a lot of weather going down a week ago Saturday. She was delayed mid state for about an hour due to golf ball sized hail that caused the highway to be closed ahead. Then she went through pockets of heavy snow and some rain. She had thought it would be considerably warmer down in the south end of the state, however she's told me that its remained windy and cold so far.
The Academy itself turned out to be quite a challenge for her physically as well as mentally. It has turned out to be, by her description, much like the police academies we'd had experience with in California when we worked for the county. Everything is very regimented. 45 minute meal breaks. Sir yes sirs, snap to attentions and such in class, every attendee there has a task job to perform. Lots of physical training including an hour after the dinner meal every day. Then an hour or two for class home work, then sleep until 6 am and start it all over again.
Stacy told me the way it apparently is broken down at the Academy for the training lengths for the different types of law enforcement positions. 4 days for a dispatcher, two weeks for her classification, 5 weeks for detention deputies, and 10 weeks for patrol personnel.
Stacy has always done exceptionally well with tests and learning modules like these are. We both had quite a few in our Animal Control experience. So I certain she'll do well. The course is ultimately a pass or fail proposition however. She was told a person could pass all the tests, the mid-term they were supposed to have taken today, yet still fail if they don't get the grade on the final next week. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed also!
I've been driving all week and will be next week also until Thursday. So with the am/pm school thing there isn't actually a whole lot of 'in between' time to get to much done. I had recently discovered that most all of our photo albums we have been keeping in storage out back had begun to mold and basically decay from all the humidity in this area. So I pulled all the pictures out of them and have started to scan them all into the computer and store the photos after scanning in sealed bags inside. I've done a lot with a lot still to do! Scanning sure can bring new life to those old pictures! Its so easy to fix that picture that's too much sky or to far away from the subject, just crop it! And they seem to look so much better on the computer monitor than in the albums. I remember the "olden days" when you'd wait until night then get out the slide projector see the better look of the slide shots.
I however also gave my Sony Vaio desktop a 'tune up' this week. That's my main computer and the one I'm using right now. It was a present from Stacy in 2005 so I could have a media center type for the photos and videos that I've been working on since even before then. The computer itself has plenty of fans and is even liquid cooled with a small radiator for the main component cooling. In fall of 2005 it was a high end model with a 250 GB hard drive and such. I thought since it will be literally ancient at 3 years old this June with its manufacturers date, it was time to help it out a bit. So after some Tiger Direct shopping I've installed another 250 GB hard drive with still a perfectly good open bay still available for a third hard drive if I want, and I'm thinking about it! Added another GB of ram so now I've got 2. And updated the optical drives by taking out the CD/DVD Rom and adding in its place a second DVD/CD writer drive that can also play back the DVD-Ram disks that the older Panasonic DVD recorder that we sometimes use in the TV room can use. It was well worth the about $140.00 total for the parts.
Oh yes, I have a recommendation! If any of those who read this don't have a DVD recorder yet for your TV viewing, look for the models by RCA or Magnavox that are DVD recorders with 80 GB hard drives. They seem to be only sold by Wal-Mart stores or on line at their site. They cost around two hundred dollars which while seemingly steep with seventy dollar DVD recorders now available, have the difference of the built in hard drives! It's Tivo without the subscription! If you're just going to use it like you would a VCR, we feel these can't be beat! The machines are different in how they record with the hard drive. The RCA is more user friendly in that regard. The unit is always buffering the picture so you can just press pause at anytime while watching TV and it will stop it right there. When you get back press play and it will pick up right where you left off. Fast forward through the commercials until you catch up on the show, or back you up to the start if you have the buffer length set. With the Magnavox, its a mode that has to selected. It doesn't buffer unless you set it to "Time Slip" mode. With the RCA you can't 'delete' commercials only fast forward through them. The Magnavox, if you've recorded a show, will divide a show much like a movie editor in your computer, to where you can divide around the commercial breaks and then watch the show or record the show onto a DVD and watch it commercial free! Unfortunately neither one can get rid of all the clutter they put on the screen during a lot of TV shows anymore!
We hope that all is well for all our family and friends that read these.
Type again soon, Tad
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