March 14, 2010

Let March Madness begin. The NCAA posting are up, so it is basketball watching for the next few weeks. Unfortunately, only one of my two alma maters appears to have made the final 64.

We had quite the eventful week this week so it is hard to know where to start.  Last Sunday, after working in the garden Jo and I walked around the back 40 just to check on what winter did to our property.  While coming back in Jo spied a small bottle sticking out of the ground - a little digging later and you can see our treasure trove.  We have found lots of bottles over the years from where previous owners must have thrown their trash.  Always fun to see what you can dig up - especially since many of the bottle seem to date to the 1930's or so.  I'm not absolutely sure as yet, but I think the pistol looking thing is a toy cap gun.  Although it is awfully heavy for a toy.  Need to check some more on that. 

For work, the change in my position was finally announced this week. I'm moving into a new role in Pfizer.  in the "Technology and Sourcing" group.  This is a new group within my old organization so it will be exciting defining what we do for a living.  The only problem, my new boss has yet to be announced/decided.  So I'm in a bit of limbo until that little detail is worked out.  In the meantime, I'm getting my office and email all dealt with and cleaned out.  Nice to finally get to a some of the items that have been lagging for a while.  I must admit though I'm sad to be leaving the group I've worked with for over four years.  Jo was in town for much of the week, which is always a nice change, although that just makes up for her being gone all this week.  She is off to Beijing to meet with her Asian team along with visits to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. 

The other fun this week was that I finally got to start physical therapy.  Fortunately, my shoulder has healed quite smoothly so I'm much further along than would be normally anticipated.  This means that the initial round of physical therapy didn't really hurt too much - especially given some of the scare stories folks have been telling me around how much pain therapy can cause.  I'm still forbidden from lifting weights, but I also hit the road this week to get some running in.  I won't say my shoulder never hurt during the runs, but it was manageable and didn't seem to cause any lasting problems.  Plus the great stress relief running provides really helps me get through work - I hadn't appreciated how much I rely on my daily run to handle that.

The last piece of weekly excitement was the torrential rain storm we had on Saturday.  It rained all day and all night along with 60 mph winds.  Our little creek was a raging river this morning and there was a lovely waterfall cascading over the stonewall in the back.  During the course of the storm we experienced some small leaks into the living and dining rooms (the bay windows that are in each room appeared to be the culprit).  The fun thing is when it is the middle of the night, pouring down rain, and gusting with high winds - there isn't much you can do to fix a leak.  So I put out some towels and went to bed.  Fortunately the leaks stayed fairly minor, although some painting will be required inside and caulking on the outside.  Always something to fix on a house.