Here we are now in January and the crazy holiday life that was December has now morphed into the crazy life that is the beginning of tax season. God, how I hate that phrase.
My day job for the past ten-plus years has been at an accounting firm, and I am the IT/Computer person. When I first started here, it was chaos in the computer department: servers with issues, lots programs that didn't work very well, rampant virus problems, and a hodge-podge of desktop computers that worked (or didn't) on a whim. Over the course of my time at this job, and working with my outside computer tech guru, we completely upgraded all the servers, network hardware, cabling, and staff computers into a well-oiled machine with a standard business approach. It took a few years, but we have a really good setup and almost no down-time EVER. Sad to say that I don't get any credit for it, because as is often the case, if you make the job look easy, people think you're not working very hard and that the network maintains itself.
January is always the beginning of the busiest and craziest time in my office. Most of the employees work hundreds of extra hours over the course of tax season, and it's like watching a bunch of monkeys loose in the library by the time it's over. No one has any patience and tempers are short. May 1 is the Holy Grail, as most of the staff takes a lot of time off after that date, and the office is a lot more pleasant. My job during tax season is usually less busy, as my main focus is just making sure the network is up and running, and people's computers work like they're supposed to. It's still a crazy time and hard on everyone. It's only just beginning and already I want it to be over...
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Feast and Famine at the IEL Horse Show on January 9th, or How Horse Shows Give You an Unparalleled Opportunity to Shine and Fall on Your Face at the Same Time
Got some bragging to do on my kid E and her horse at the IEL show, and then there was the "fall on your face" part--literally.
E entered two timed jumpers classes at the show, one an Optimum Time class and the other a regular 2b jumpers class with a jump off at the end. In the Optimum Time round, you have a certain amount of time allowed to do the course (in this case 68 seconds) and a time they would like you to do it in (the Optimum Time, 64 seconds for this class). The object is to go around the course and not knock any rails down and then get as close to over 64 seconds as possible, but not over 68 seconds--a four second "best window". We watched and studied a bunch of riders who went before E, and figured out where she had to be at what time in order to get close to the mark. She did her ride like a champ, and went for a clean round in 65.120 seconds--an unbelieveably precise ride. We were screaming our excitement when she went through the final timers, and she ended up in third place in the class that had over 40 riders. All the hard work she's done culminated in this glorious ride.
Then we get to the 2b class. E and her horse were doing a great job at the beginning of the ride, but then they came up to a combination and at the second part, he swerved out and away at the very last nano-second and she fell off and into the jump, taking it down to the ground with her. After a quick bout of heart-failure on my part, she looked up and gave everyone the "thumbs up, I'm OK" look, and then asked the closest spectators to remove the jump parts from on top of her so she could go and kill her horse. Unfortunately the fall disqualified her from that class, but she still had the glory of the first class to make her day.
And that, my friends, is what horse showing is all about...
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I hope the new year holds better things for you than last year. We certainly had a very trying 2009 and hope that 2010 puts us on the path to good weather, healthy families, and great rides.
