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It’s funny how excited I still get about snow.  This winter has been a dream come true.  I have always loved going out into the snow.  When I was a kid in the late 70’s and we had a couple of big storms (okay, big then, but not 2010 standards,) I’d have to shovel the driveway and some of the grass so our schnauzer named Schnappes could go out to play and do his business.

I would often shovel our elderly neighbor’s driveway first because of the “payment” I would receive.  Fresh-baked, homemade gingerbread men.  Wow were they good.  They were usually done by the time I finished shoveling our driveway.  One time, my dad came home early and noticed I had done the neighbor’s driveway first and asked why.  I told him because he couldn’t bake.

This last week has been great.  Two huge storms with plenty of snow.  Jake, Jane, and I started shoveling Saturday around noon (I had shoveled once on Friday night while Eliz was picking up Jake from school after he attended the school play Little Shop of Horrors.)  The three of us shoveled for about an hour and then Jane had to go inside to get ready for a Bar Mitzvah which she was attending at 5:00pm.  Jake and I continued shoveling so Eliz could get out and get Jane to her friends house to carpool to the service (thankfully the party was postponed until noon the next day.)  Jake and I cleared enough snow so Eliz and Jane could get out and had the whole driveway clean by the time Eliz was ready to pull in after returning from dropping Jane off and looking for a new shovel.

With yesterday’s storm, Jane and I went out to shovel.  I did most of the shoveling while Jane did some, but concentrated on building a snowman.  We were outside for a little more than an hour and had cleared a good portion of the area of the driveway by the garage doors and a path to the street.  I intended to go back out, but our power had gone out.  After resting for 10 minutes or so, Eliz said we should play a game.  The choices were Life, Monopoly, and Risk.  I am not a fan of Life and we thought Risk would’ve been too hard without power and little outside light due to the dark gray clouds and heavy snow coming down.  Monopoly it was!

We had fun playing for over an hour.  We stopped for a tea and hot chocolate break and as we started to play again, the power came back on.  We took a few minutes to power up the computers in the office and check for any sales on ForYourSalon.com (we had some!)  We resumed playing around 4:00ish.  After another hour, Jake was broke.  He went and watched Ghostbusters that was playing on cable.  Eliz, Jane, and I played on.  Jane was just about broke, but then she landed on Free Parking, where we start off with $500 and then add all the fines and taxes to the pot.  She scored nearly $3000!  She was down to one monopoly, but now had cash.

At around 6:00pm, the power went out again.  We continued to play with flashlights and a candle providing us light.  Eliz took too many rides on the railroads (all owned by me) and was living it up in hotels on Boardwalk, Park Place, Oriental Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue (also owned by me,) so she went broke.  With Jane only having one monopoly, she wasn’t bringing in enough cash.  I believe a stop at my hotel on Boardwalk finished her off.  It was the longest I’ve ever played.  It was probably three to four hours long, not including breaks.  It was awesome.  Had the power not gone out, we probably wouldn’t have played (and even if we did, we definitely wouldn’t have played that long.)

Today we all went outside around 10:45am to clear the driveway.  The area we shoveled yesterday had about eight or nine inches on it and was much easier to shovel today since it was lighter.  The rest of the driveway, included the path to the street which was covered over and as high as the non-shoveled areas, wasn’t as easy.  Snow had drifted in some areas and yesterday’s snow was still heavy and much icier.  It was so tiring mainly because of piles of snow along the driveway that we had to throw the shovel-full of snow over were so tall.

While we shoveled, we joked around with one another and talked at times.  We finished off the driveway and the area in front of the mailbox (in time to get one check and a blizzard of bills today.)  We went inside to rest for a few minutes and decide on lunch.  We ended up at Five Guys in Lawrence Park.  Even the ride there was nice in the heated car.  The restaurant had the heat cranked and it felt great there too.

The power had come back on just before we left for lunch at 2:00pm (I had to open the garage door manually, but by the time Eliz backed out and I came in to close the door manually the power was on,) so when we returned, it was back to work.  It was nice to see we had a few more sales to acknowledge since the power had gone out.

All in all, it was a fantastic 24 hours.  Without the power, we spent more time together as a family.  We worked together to clear the driveway (even though Eliz shouldn’t have shoveled since she is still getting therapy for her arm.)  It felt good to be with the kids without them wanting to bolt for their computers or a video game and me not taking another call or updating the website.  I guess we probably wanted to do that, but we couldn’t.  No matter, I still enjoyed the time together.  I can’t wait for the next snow.

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My family gets pretty annoyed with me at this time of year.  They get tired or hearing “This is the last time in 2009 that I…”  So, to all my readers — yes, all three of you — this is the last time in 2009 that I’ll post in my blog.  Not to worry, I’m sure I’ll have a few things to say over on facebook throughout the day today as we try to get everything out of our petri dish of a building.  It is going to be a long day.

To prepare for our move out, we’ve been cleaning our home office.  That will become the center of our business.  Our plan is operate ForYourSalon.com and continue to serve our local customers (salons, barbershops, spas, senior care facilities, and individual stylists,) delivering their orders to them.  Delivering to our customers isn’t new, our top 10 customers never set foot into our building.  They would simply phone or fax their orders in.  Our challenge will be to convert those customers who would come into the store multiple times per week (some, multiple times per day) because we were close by.  It won’t be easy, but it is better than spending all day in that building with all the mold and mushrooms.

As were cleaning the office, we’re coming across things that we should have thrown out or recycled long ago.  Like tickets, with parking, to the 2003 NHL Eastern Conference Finals.  The Flyers were bounced in the semis by Ottawa.  I didn’t go to any of the playoffs that year, or since.  I had eye surgery in February that year and only went to one game after it as a season ticket holder (it was 1 April vs. Columbus — Jeremy Roenick bobble head night.  Eliz and I stayed until the end of the first period when it was clear I’d have a better chance at growing new hair on my bald head than I would seeing the game.)  Then there’s the Dreamweaver 2.0 guide, complete with a 3 1/2″ floppy disk!  You would have thought that I would have gotten rid of that after I purchase the Dreamweaver 3.0 Bible or the Dreamweaver MX 2004 book.  That scenario repeated over and over again with Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, and a few other programs.  Why I still have the box and manual to the Canon A40 I purchased in 2002 is beyond me.  I guess I wanted to take advantage of the whopping two megapixels.  It is amazing what we’ve saved over the years.

I’m looking forward to turning the page to 2010; I wish you a happy and healthy year.  Of course, I’ll be back with a post in a day or two.  That will be the first time in 2010 that I’ll post to my blog…

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I’ve been waiting for this appointment with my cornea specialist for weeks.  I have been having problems with my left eye since the middle of summer and both my local ophthalmologist and my glaucoma specialist noticed “folds” in my cornea.  Both thought that was the reason for my visual acuity dropping from 20/200 to 20/400 in my “good” eye.  My right eye has bothered me for the last day or two, so I wanted to have Dr. Ayers take a look there too.

I get called back and the “nurse” (she is more than a helper, but I doubt she is a nurse — please correct me if I’m wrong) puts up the eye chart.  I see the big E (20/400,) but not the SL (20/200.)  She drops the pinhole thingy over my eye and after some searching for the perfect pinhole, I see the SL line.  The OPLB line looks like some black blobs and I can’t make any of the letters out.  The “nurse” says, “Oh, that’s not so bad.  It’s only one line less.”  Really?  So if you are driving down the street, you don’t think seeing a sign with letters about 12 inches tall would be much easier to see than the sign with letters about six inches tall?  I’ve wasted a ton of money on signage then if it’s not that different.

After waiting an unusually long time to see Dr. Ayers (a total of about an hour fifteen minutes,) he finally came into the room.  We exchanged pleasantries and then discussed my eyes.  I told him about my left eye and not seeing as good as I had been and I am now having greater difficulty reading on the computer.  As I put my head into the applanation tonometer (the machine with the blue light on it,) I mention that my right eye is bothering me.  He took a look at the right eye and mentioned things like corneal edema, bullae, and some other things to the “nurse” who was writing everything in my chart.  I kind of knew that I had some bullae (small, fluid-filled blisters ,) because I’ve had sinusitis and been on antibiotics for the past two weeks.  (This is the third time I’ve had sinusitis in the last four months, could it be the mold at the store?)  The problem with the bullae now though is that when they pop, the pain isn’t going away and any kind of light brings additional pain.  I thought I might have an infection in the eye.  Doc said no and to use this stuff called Muro 128, which is basically a kicked up saline solution.  It also comes in a gel that I usually use.  I suppose I could also go to the kitchen and throw some salt in my eye…

As he checked out my left eye, he noticed the “folds” straight away.  He then said the “folds” are Haab Striae and I’ve had them for a long time.  He then (tried to) show me the sketches he’s done of my eye at every visit.  He realized I couldn’t see it and told me each one has them (the striae) there.  He said my eye looks good.  My IOP was eight in the left, 16 in the right.  Wow, so everything is good!  I am so relieved.  But wait, I can’t see as well.  There’s got to be something going on.  I do have a cataract in there, but the doc says he doesn’t think it is time to remove it.  Besides, by taking that out, it may wreck the endothelia that was transplanted in December.  Dr. Ayers says, “But we could just do another one.”  He said I might be able to 20/70 or 20/80!  Of course he said I’d get to 20/100 by doing the endothelial transplant.  I guess I’ve got to wait more than 42 weeks after the surgery to get there.  He doesn’t think the cataract is the problem though.  Dr. Ayers then adds, “Whatever it is, it’s not an easy fix.”  House!  HOUSE!  Where the hell is that guy…  Oh, he’s not real?  I thought that show was one of those reality shows.

Speaking to my dad about the appointment last night, he said, “What are they gonna tell you?  They can’t fix it, it is the way it is.”  I should have listened to him.  I’d have saved a few hours and the copay.  Not too bad for a guy that only spent two weeks in high school.

I’d like to thank Ken for transporting me to my appointment.  Since Ginny and Scott aren’t with us at the store, we don’t have coverage for Eliz and I both to leave store.  Between the mold, the economy, and my vision, it might be time to get into something else.

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