Rain Pain

It's raining today. It began sometime during the night while I was sleeping. Today my knee hurts like crazy. Its even got a little swelling. I didn't go running. I didn't do box jumps. I haven't been doing power cleans with Olympic weights. I haven't gone for a 50 mile walk. I haven't done a single physical thing that might contribute to this pain and swelling. It just is there. And so is the rain. Rain = knee pain. This isn't entirely new, but this is the worst it has ever been for me. I don't know what to make of this.

I passed my test. I needed an 83 in order to be considered passing for this particular certification. I scored a 92. I have no idea how their scoring system works. It makes no sense to me and they don't explain it. Their questions were intended to trip you up. They write them in such a way that it hardly makes any sense. Let me give you an example:

"If Sally, a cardiologist, has a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows 8 and all her PII files are encrypted using AES with a private key of A12Gfh7 which she uses to email prescription information to the Kroger pharmacy for a hormone replacement gel called Estrovan, what is the make and model of the car she drives?"

A) Ford Taurus
B) Estrovan
C) Fiat Vaio
D) none, she is clearly an environmentalist and rides a bicycle

See? Wasn't that fun? Yes, now imagine a test with 100 of those type questions and a timer and if you fail to score an 83.3 percent or better and qualify for the certification then you immediately lose your job. Yay! So much fun.

So its raining. I bought a big old chainsaw to help me finish clearing the dead trees from my woods and cut them up into firewood yesterday. But clearly with all this rain I'm not going to get to use it today.

The temperature has dropped considerably overnight. I can hear the wind outside ripping at the roof of my house, trying to tear the 'doghouse' windows off the upstairs office where I'm sitting. Downstairs I know one of my cats is curled up like a squirrel in her fluffy little bed with her tail covering her face to block out the light. And she's purring. She purrs for hours after climbing into that bed. She loves that bed more than a fat kid in LA loves cocaine and cake. The other cat, he got bored because I didn't pet him enough to satisfy him so he went outside to climb in bushes and crawl under things and generally get filthy and wet and bring home lots of twigs and leaves and insects trapped in his fur.

Today is sucking for me. Someone in my house threw a tantrum a few hours ago and kicked the crap out of a box of cups and containers before storming out and speeding away. I found the box, with half of the cups scattered around the floor. My Superbowl cup listing the Dallas Cowboys as national champions of 1993 was shattered into a zillion pieces. That cup can't be replaced. It was original. I didn't even realize it was in that box, but now that they've ruined it I do. 1993 was such a long time ago. I don't think the Cowboys will win anymore Superbowls for a very long time.

Other than my swollen, achy knee, the rain, and my ruined Cowboy Superbowl championship cup I don't really have much else to say.

Well, except one thing. I want to ask something of you. Do you ever visit any blogs where no matter how many comments you leave the person who writes the blog never acknowledges you at all? Does this bother you? Do you keep visiting or do you eventually just drop them and go elsewhere? Sometimes I feel like I'm just being ignored, like they don't care what I have to say or whether I say anything at all.  I'm just curious if anyone else is dealing with this and how you feel about it if so.