When I Rule the World, Friday the 13th will be considered a National Holiday. Thus the National Holiday policy will be in effect.

So.

Why didn’t somebody tell me it was Friday the 13th? I laid in bed this morning and seriously considered calling in sick and I didn’t really have a reason other than I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed. But my conscious (and my stupid anal PTO militant side) forced my feet to hit the floor exactly 15 minutes before the time I normally leave the house.

I’ve gone into this before but I REALLY don’t like Friday the 13th’s. I didn’t know it was the 13th when I laid there in bed but HAD I, it would have been enough reason to pull the blankets up over my head to hide from the world for the rest of the day.

Did I ever tell you all about that time in Maui when Ben tried to kill me? I’m not sure if after proposing the first day he had a sudden thought of ‘What the hell did I do? Maybe I made a mistake. How can I get myself out of this? I know! I’ll kiiiiilll her. MWHAHAAHAHAH’.

Or maybe he just wanted to hike.

Ben likes to hike. He’s even been known to do crazy shit like climb Half-Dome in Yosemite. When he’d first talk about hiking I was like, PFFT! I can WALK, dude. Anybody can WALK! Just because you’re walking 8.5 miles straight up the side of a mountain to 8,836 feet then 8.5 miles back down in ONE DAY doesn’t mean you are some BAD ASS. Okay, so I didn’t really think that but I had absolutely no appreciation for just how taxing walking uphill can be. Or how beautiful 10,000 feet really is. Or just how QUIET 10,000 feet can be. I found out when we hiked Haleakala.

We brought a few bottles of water and some fruit and after exploring around the visitor’s center a bit, started down the trail towards Ka Lu’u o ka O’o Vent. We didn’t really have a destination in mind. Ben figured we’d walk as far in as possible while leaving enough time to walk back up before it got dark and cold and we died of hypothermia and were never found again because we were eaten by nocturnal volcano creatures. What? Don’t look at me like that! Thin air will lead to crazy thoughts!

I remember a few times saying that maybe we had gone far enough and should start back but Ben was really encouraging and I was feeling really good (THIN AIR!) and was kind of proud of the fact that the altitude was not effecting me AT ALL. I was practially running down that trail and felt fantastic.

When we reached the Ka Lu’u o ka O’o Vent we took some time to rest and really take in the enormity of it. There’s just no way the pictures can do it any justice at all. The way the ground changed from one color to another with no real pattern is crazy. At one point Ben said, “Do you hear that?” And I listened to NOTHING. Truly what nothing sounds like… except a slight ringing in my ears. I bet I have that ALL the time but when we were there it was like a sound vacuum and it was so quiet that I could almost hear the liquid sloshing around in my eardrum.

So. Then we started to head back up.

“Walk slow”, Ben said. I was like, “Dude! I OWNED the volcano. I am the OWNER OF THIS VOLCANO.. I will kick…” *breath* “this volca…” *deeper breath* “volcano’s…” *lung explodes* “Can we take a break?”

The walk back up was painful. It bordered on excruciating. The air was like… fast! It would fill up my lungs in less than half the time a normal breath takes but no matter how fast and hard I sucked it in, it just wasn’t enough. My legs started to cramp and my lungs were on FIRE and about 3/4 of the way up I really felt like I was going to DIE RIGHT THERE. I welcomed the volcano creatures. I started to lather myself with butter so they could get a nice brown to my skin on the spit fire. I was D.O.N.E.

But Ben was SO encouraging. He never once lost his cool. He never once got visibly frustrated with me. He’d stop when I needed to and talk me through the pain and misery till we were at the top. And when we got there I stopped and looked down to where we had been and I was SO PROUD that I was standing where I was. At the top.

5 miles round trip. 1697 foot elevation difference. It kicked my ass. And I’d do it again tomorrow if I had the chance.

So I got home and fell asleep. Only after Ben kicked me off the big couch so he could lay down. Totally over that though. Let it go when he bought me a steak dinner I’ve been craving since Saturday.

So when we got home from dinner I downloaded and installed Joost and BAM! I get an ‘Unable to connect error’. Quite a few people have suddenly started getting the same error today. They do mention on the Joost blog that they are expanding beta testing by “many thousands of viewers” and have been experiencing some back end server issues but after five pages of people reporting the same “Unable to connect error” there hasn’t been a single response by anybody at Joost. That is kind of disappointing. We all love that you are willing to open the beta up to new people, but in order to MAKE the beta work and for us to be encouraged and open to helping you better develop YOUR SOFTWARE, some kind of acknowledgement would be nice. Anything. A simple, “Sorry guys! We’re working on it!”

What I don’t want? Another rendition of the WordPress support forum. But I mean, I don’t want to go all Sam Fisher on anybody over at Joost yet so they haven’t reached that level of suckage, but still… Give us SOMETHING.

Anyway, I do have to give props to whoever created the error which popped up at exactly 800X600 resolution. Well played, Joost. Just when I’m starting to hate you up pops something like THAT to ruin my bad impression. From what I can tell so far, the actual interface and attention to detail and design has been fantastic. Very web2.0 and very eye candy. For now I’ll just have to sit and wait and look at more screen shots to see what I’m missing.

WEEEEEEEEE!!! I just FINALLY(!!) got a Joost invite and now I’m too excited to get any work done because I want to try it out. I will as soon as I get home and let you all know how much it rocks. Out of curisoty I checked the Joost Invite DIGG out to see how many people were still waiting for invites and now I feel really special. 3127 comments and counting… And to think I got mine from a flickerite.

Lesson: Seek alternatives to the mainstrean. And Flickr ROCKS!

This reminds me of an email we got at work yesterday. Very long and very wordy and as usual the most important point was wrapped up in once sentence somewhere in the middle:

Downloading your favorite song or new video file onto your Major Medical University workstation becomes a legal liability for the hospital.

I’m sure this email was sent out as a direct response to somebody doing something stupid. It’s also probably why the IT guys were here for an entire 48 hours trying to wipe out a worm that somebody let in about a week ago that stopped one of our most important systems from functioning.

I don’t understand why they don’t just walk around slapping The Stupid One’s with a large Trout. I’d think it would get the point across much more effectively.

Cassidy left to spend the week with her father this morning. They got into town at 7:30AM so I had to be up early to get her ready to send off.

‘And now I’m so tired, can’t even think straight. The title should explain. heh

Happy Easter, everybody!

Wish I had more to say, maybe tomorrow when my eyes can focus and my mind isn’t COMPLETELY BLANK.