It Just Keeps Getting Better

The initial plan was that we would be heading back to Colorado sometime on Thursday, and arriving late Friday. We didn't need to rush too much, but Mike was going back to work Saturday night.

As typical whenever Mike and I are in Michigan, we were recruited to take a look at my Mom's and also my sister's computers.

My brother-in-law John bought Mom a decent Dell laptop and got her hooked up with DSL and a wireless router after we moved her there last Spring. When we got there Mom was complaining about how slow it was. Mike and I was both puzzled since she was used to dial up on a relatively slow computer we built for her. Our initial assumption was that it was probably because of some malware of some sort. What we actually found was that this laptop was seriously lacking memory. It only had 256MB. We ordered some memory from Crucial to be over-nighted, but even with that it wouldn't get there until Tuesday or possibly Wednesday.

As for my sister's computer it was more for her husband Bruce, who can be such a pain. We build them this computer a year or so ago, and it sounded from the description like the DVD burner we installed was not working properly. After I ran some tests it was confirmed. The drive had gone bad.

We had shopped around a bit for a cheap replacement. I ended up buying one at CompUSA in Ann Arbor on Tuesday evening. I decided to pay for it because the last thing I wanted was for him to bitch about our quality of work. I wouldn't get a chance to install it until Wednesday or possibly Thursday.

So we had been enjoying a few days in south central and southeastern Michigan and then the news came Wednesday morning. Another large storm is heading for Colorado. All I could say was "FUCK!". I think my mom is finally giving up on trying to get us to clean up our language.

Mike and I decided to head back that day as soon as we could get ready. I jumped in the shower, and right then FedEx arrived with Mom's laptop memory. Mike had it rolling within minutes. I took care of some stuff with the car and Mike and Mom told the rest of the family what was going on.

I got the oil changed in my car and picked up some things at the grocery store for the road when I ran into Bruce and my nephew. He heard we were heading out and was thinking we wouldn't get a chance to install that drive. I told him we would come by when we were ready to leave town.

We loaded up the car and headed over to my sister's house. It took me a whole 10 minutes to install the drive. I know I could have walked him through it over the phone, but that can be very aggravating.

Off we went at around 4 p.m Michigan time. I started off again, and drove for about 3 hours before wanting a break. Mike took over, but that only lasted about 2 hours and he was having trouble staying awake, so I did another longer run, but I took some Vivarin to keep me awake. Mike took a shot at a driving again in the early morning, but could only take it for about 90 minutes. I was hardly getting any real sleep since Mike needed the volume up so loud to help him stay awake.

We debated about crashing there for a bit, but I decided I was alert enough to take another run. Surprisingly I had enough to get us well into Kansas. That was about a 4 hour run. I pulled into a rest area and we crashed for a bit just past 5 a.m. After an hour of trying to sleep and actually only sleeping for about 30 minutes max, Mike was awake. The sun was going to be coming up and he thought he could drive, so off we went. We took a short breakfast break in Goodland Kansas and continued on into Colorado.

The further west we went the thicker the clouds got. We did not see any new snow falling until we got to Limon, and that was very light flurries. We gassed up for the last time and Mike continued driving because he felt bad for making me drive almost all night. We were on the outskirts of Colorado Springs when the snow finally started. A few minutes more and the flakes were getting big. I kept thinking to myself how lucky we were to have left when we did.

We got home around 10:30... and really tired. Mike headed to his house and I rested a bit before getting in the shower and eventually taking a nap. By the time I woke 3 hours later about 4 inches had fallen. I got dressed and picked up my kids. We went to dinner, and then picked up some groceries for the next few days. I had no idea what I needed, but I figured it doesn't hurt to stock up if the storm is going to be bad.

My stomach is not feeling too good, which is probably from all of the caffeine. Something is keeping me awake... I wonder what it is?