Tag: Bad Karma

Bad Karma

So, you are probably wondering why the long delay since the last post.  All I can say is I’ve had some serious bad luck during the last week or so.  Let me itemize a few lowlights:

  1. For no apparent reason, my home network starting blocking my brother’s website
  2. After numerous attempts to resolve the situation, I ended up trying to upgrade to IE7 only to have it fail in mid-install which then completely trashed my OS and caused a complete rebuild
  3. I finally go the chance to take a mini snowboard vacation only to have the room above us filled with 8 children that apparently enjoyed running around their room with their ski boots on
  4. I crashed off a rail in the terrain park and must have fallen 4 or so feet horizontally straight onto my back, unfortunately catching my wrist underneath and doing some serious damage to it.
  5. While completing the rebuild of my computer the case fan literally caught fire (flames it all) and nearly torched the inside of the case.  In fact, this is so spectacular, I thought I would include a small picture – notice the melted wire casing and the exposed wires sticking out
    Antec Case Fan Fire
  6. One of my favorite singers passed away today (Jeff Healey).  His Angel Eyes remake was actually our wedding song.

 I was starting to get pretty upset when I decided to look at the week from a different perspective.  As it turns out, these were just a few bad notes in an otherwise good symphony.  In reality, there were a number of positive outcomes from these down moments.

  1. I now know just about everything there is to know about the internal workings of XP networking (hint, be sure and flush the DNS)
  2. I have a completey fresh install of windows which is lean and efficient.  No clutter from forgotten installs and detailed restore points for all major phases of the install
  3. I was up a lot earlier than usual and was able to get some excellent carves in the new powder (4 inches the night before and another 4 inches that day)
  4. Okay, the wrist is still damaged, but I had zero falls on any of the slope runs even though I was pushing it and I was actually able to stick a number of rails and jumps before that incident that had eluded me in previous outings.
  5. The fire actually ocurred when I was home and now I know what case fan to NOT put in my brand new computer which I will begin building tomorrow.
  6. Jeff actually completed a new album before passing away and we are eagerly awaiting its release.  He has left us early, but we will forever enjoy the products of his talents

I am not sure why it is so easy to overlook the brightspots in a given week.  It just might be the bad points tend to sting a little longer and rack up the medical bills.  I’ll be nursing the wrist for awhile longer, but the picture my wife took while successfully doing an earlier rail is already my background picture. 

Next time we’ll just be more selective in our room accommodations and I’ll tighten down the wristguards before catching the rail.