it was julie who reminded me last week that quarterly taxes were due. i would've completely forgotten otherwise, since i haven't been paying them at all this year. but now that i have some money in the bank, i figured i should make some sort of contribution to the IRS otherwise i'll get penalized come tax time in april. a review of my checkbook records revealed that i did the exact same thing last january, paying the exact amount as well.

it was snowing this morning. i figured just a dusting, but we actually got about 4" worth of powder. i shoveled twice, once while it was still snow, the second time when it began to rain. i thought it'd be smart to clear the sidewalk of slush before everything froze again. i also put down some salt as a preventative measure.

for lunch i ate a pulled pork sandwich. from my mother i learned to toast the onion bun and heat up the pork in the microwave. up until now i'd been eating these sandwiches cold; what a difference some toasting and heating can make!

it was a great day to be working from home and not have to go outside. the doppler radar at one point reminded me of neapolitan ice cream, with its different colored bands representing snow, sleet, and rain. watching the news, a reporter was asking boston commuters how they felt about the weather. the patriots sunday night loss was still weighing heavily on the mind of the locals, as evidenced by some of the snarky comments: "[weather's] bad, but not as bad the pats," or "[weather] looks sad, but not as sad as the patriots." ouch!

i worked until dark, which now is close to 5pm (the days are slowly getting longer). in the background i also did some data consolidation, copying files from one hard drive to another. i'm trying to free up a 300gb drive for a backup for when i eventually upgrade to system 10.6.

it rained into the evening. while taking out the trash i saw my neighbor franz (his jacket completely soaked) digging out a trench to the sewer grate so all that rain would have a place to go. melting snow from neighboring roofs kept on crashing into the sides of the house.

if i can't get to the supermarket because of the impending icy roads, i won't be lacking for food. there's plenty to eat in the house. i ended up heating some chicken strips in the toaster oven for dinner. later i played around with the test copy of OS 10.6 i'd installed on the 80gb drive. i successfully installed all the applications i use and they work without any problems.

last night i began reading a kindle copy of the blue tattoo: the life of olive oatman by margot mifflin (actually a pdf version). in 1851, oatman was a teenage girl traveling with her family out west when they were attacked by indians. everyone was murdered except for her and her sister. the indians took them back to their camp and used them as slaves. she lived with her captives for a time before finally returning to society. it's really interesting, especially the interactions between settlers and indians.