The meaning of auspicious

aus·pi·cious/ôˈspiSHəs/Adjective

1. Conducive to success; favorable: "an auspicious moment to hold an election".

2. Giving or being a sign of future success

On the first of January I wrote of "The auspicious start of 2011."  The story was of a day of bad luck... seemingly the opposite of auspicious.  This morning I woke up at 3:30 and knew I wouldn't get back to sleep.  Five hours later only two people show up for my training session and when I tried to turn on my computer I got the blue screen of death.  Several more attempts and it just froze after several minutes.

Auspicious?  You betcha!

First, there's the German guilt I carry.  Bad things happening cheer me up.  When everything goes well I have more anxiety.  When things go bad I am often reminded of how much worse things could be and, well, it makes me happy.

The near panic attack I had on Saturday of all the work I had to do lit a fire under me and its been a productive 48 hours.  Wake up at 3:30?  I spent 3 hours finishing multiple versions of a final.  I sent it out to my colleagues at 6:30 just before I left to do the training.  Imagine how screwed I'd be if my computer crashed and I hadn't sent it out?  In the few minutes of life I was able to e-mail my spreadsheet of grades to myself so they haven't been lost.  Yep, feeling pretty lucky.

When I bought my $600 computer I paid something like $300 for a three year total replacement warranty.  I've only had it for 1.5 years so it should be good for the replacement.  I bought the warranty because I know how hard I am on my computer; 1.5 years is more than I was expecting.

Now I'm questioning if I should make a quick trip home in January to get the computer replaced.  A $1000 plane ticket for a $600 computer may not make a lot of sense, but hey, I could also see a few friends while I'm back.  Returning to freezing Iowa in January while it is 80 degrees and sunny here may not be quite so auspicious.