RedJen's Rearview Mirror

I won't pretend that I'll be consistent in keeping this part up to date, but I'll try and update it when things catch my eye.

Like I mentioned before, I'm not sure how well I'll be at keeping this up to date. My friend has used the The Friday Five site, so I'm going to follow her lead and see if this keeps me a little more up to date.

Do you like talking on the phone? Why or why not?
Sometimes. When I'm really close to someone and unable to spend time with them, it can be a nice connection. If I can have the same conversation in person, I'd rather do that. If it is something important, where I want to be sure to use exactly the right words, I'd rather write them out first.

Who is the last person you talked to on the phone?
Mark, a customer service supervisor from www.admission.com. I ordered tickets to Cirque du Soleil, but they canceled my order, so I had to call and get it fixed.

About how many telephones do you have at home?
Three plus my mobile phone.

Have you encountered anyone who has really bad phone manners? What happened?
Telemarketers how argue with me after I politely say "No, thank you." It is my opinion that telemarketers are people doing jobs, so as long as they follow the rules, I'm not going to be mean to them just because of their job is annoying to me. When they don't respect that I have the right to politely say "No", I want to scream at them and call their parentage into question...

Would you rather pick up the phone and call someone or write them an e-mail or a letter? Why or why not?
Usually I would rather write an email or IM the person. If I miss hearing their voice, I'd rather call and "feel" the connection. If I want to really express myself, I'll usually write or type out what I want to talk about in the form of an email, whether I would then call or send the email depends on the situation.

Well, I didn't actually sleep in on Friday morning, I went to the gym instead, but I really did take the day off and didn't do any work. I did manage to get into the day spa for a personal treat. I caught up with a few friends Friday night and was pleasantly surprised that the "manly men" actually wanted to see Chicago. I didn't even suggest it, because I assumed they would balk at the idea. Of course neither of them wanted it said too loud what we were going to see, they managed to get into the theater, even if they wouldn't sit by each other. I can think of worse ways to spend an evening...

I did something this weekend that I don't remember doing in years. I spent Saturday evening with friends and some of us ended up at an all night restaurant talking and laughing until we noticed that the sky was getting lighter and dawn was on the way. I've come to the conclusion that being too serious can make you crazy. It is having fun that makes things work. I need to remember more often that I work to support the rest of my life, instead of life being work.

This year I am going to have more fun and let my hair down more often. I used to look for ways to have fun and I'm going to remember how to do that again.

Saw my favorite little person last night. Her mother (Necess1ty) and I work together. We used to live together while she and her Hubby worked things out. I miss getting to see Invention everyday. She's like a niece to me. Part of the people I think of as my family away from family. Anyway, her mom is in a deadline crunch and her dad was off to a concert so Invention and I went off to catch a movie. She's such a bundle of pure kid. Plus as an added bonus I got to tuck her in when we I dropped her back off at home. A nice way to end the day...

For 40 days every Spring, my friends are reminded that I’m Catholic. Not because I talk about God or try and entice them to join me for Mass, rather because on Fridays I have an added dietary restriction. No meat on Fridays… It’s not that big of a deal and since seafood isn’t considered “meat”, it’s relatively easy to find something that is acceptable. After living down here for more than five years, it almost seems like an afterthought once I request cheese pizza or that we go somewhere that has fish on the menu. Almost like they are thinking, “Oh, is it Lent again?”

This year for Lent, I didn’t give anything up. This year I’m trying to work on me. Last year was really hard and it turns out the last part of the year was spent fighting with myself. I’ve known for a while that I was susceptible to season depressions. It took me until college to finally realize that when the skies were gray in Ohio, I would have a harder time concentrating and as a result, my Winter quarters weren’t my best times as far as grades were concerned. It is no longer a question of whether or not I am susceptible to depression. I am. So I am dealing with coming to terms with that as my exercise during Lent. Today is Good Friday and I am aware that I have only just begun to learn what is ahead for me to do. This has become my self-improvement project for the year.

Today is Easter. A day for new beginnings. The sun is out after a rather dull and drizzly couple of days. It is nice a rather peaceful sitting out on my porch. Brewser and Neko are out here with me. The breeze is light. Birds are singing. There is either a toad or a frog hanging around here who is occasionally adding his voice to the sounds around us. A nice and relaxing time.

This weekend was fun. My arm is sore from helping to paint for two days, but it was nice to hang out with friends and create. Not that we did anything fancy, but with four adults, two smaller helpers and a tiny little dog named Sophie, we were able to redecorate the hall railing, refinish a set of furniture, add a chair rail to the master bedroom and paint the room. It looks very nice and it was fun to work with my hands. I don't think I'm ready to give up my day job, but it was a nice change of pace. Top that off with hanging out with some new friends until all hours of the morning and you have a rather pleasant and relaxing weekend.

I was reminded last night (technically this morning), that my personality appears to be a rather weird mix. When I first meet people, I am extremely reserved. Once I get to know them, I tend to relax and allow myself to show through. Apparently upon reflection, it is almost like meeting two different people. I'm hoping that by continuing to use my journal here that I will be able to bring those two people closer together.

I'm finding the exercise of writing here to be an adventure. I realized this morning that by putting my thoughts in this format that I have removed one of the biggest issues that I've always had with opening up to people. If you (the reader) don't want to read something, you have complete control over whether or not you finish and I'll never know. Okay so if someone feels strongly about something I've written, my email address is right there for you to send me an email. Guess what, in the same way that you can close your browser if you no longer, I have control over my inbox. I can delete things that I am not interested in reading or keeping. The theme: I control my inbox and you control your browser, so we both win. Plus I find I am less sensitive to what people say about what I write then I am when trying to speak openly with people I am not completely comfortable around. I'm okay getting feedback, I just prefer to be able to digest it on my own time and then decide what to do with it, without being watched.

Now that I've typed my lunch hour away, I think I can focus on getting back to work...

Why is it that when I need to be super productive, my body says nap time? Two projects with milestones due on Wednesday, I’ll be coding this weekend to get them done on time. No date slipping allowed for either of these, so sleep may have to be sacrificed for a time.

I feel like I’ve accepted an exchange student for the summer. As of last night, I offered to let a co-op from Arizona come and rent out my second bedroom while she’s here in Raleigh. She’ll be working with my team, so it makes some sort of sense and without a car of her own, as long as I go into the office she can go too without any problems. There are some rather bizarre similarities between the two of us so far. We are both the oldest of five kids, we have two brothers and two sisters in the same order (girl, boy, boy, girl, girl), Catholic, youngest sister is 12, and Mathematics majors in college. Really crazy and it all happened yesterday.

That’s about all I know at this point, my former manager has met her and says she is great. Tall and Hawaiian is my working description at this point. She’s about the same age as my middle sister, so we should be fine. Worst-case scenario, it is only for three months. Best-case I have a ready-made beach buddy for the summer.

What is it about rainy Saturday’s that makes you want to curl up in bed and read all day? I didn’t, but that’s about all I can claim so far for the day. If I’m going to be done by the time my summer roommate gets here, I need to get started sorting and empting out the closest in my guest room. It needs to be done anyway, but I just don’t want to do it. This is procrastination at its best.

I did manage to finish moving my old site to this new format. When I replaced my journal format, little did I realize that rewriting my site would become a crusade. I had a scare this morning when I was looking for some of the poetry I had on the old site. I feared that I had lost two rather large poems and I wasn’t sure if I still knew where the tablets I had originally written them were stored. Not to worry, I found a backup copy of the files.

Tomorrow looks to be a fun day; the weather is supposed to be partly cloudy and 75 degrees. I’m going to Chapel Hill’s Apple Chill with Necess1ty, Invention and Hubby.

After so long, I was reminded today of what it feels like to simply feel happy for no particular reason. Spring shouted, “I’m here!” and I heard all the way to my toes. My projects aren’t done, so it wasn’t relief in being finished. I didn’t go to sleep feeling joy. I didn’t wake up feeling particularly happy. Nothing I can control changed from yesterday, but as soon as I went outside and felt the wind and sun against my face, my mood lifted and I laughed in pure joy.

With that thought, I’m going to sleep.

I was awake this morning to greet the beginning of May. It was by choice, if slightly under duress. Work has been crazy for the last few days. I’ve really gotten into this project and I’m fighting an internal battle of when is good enough, good enough to stop. I’m too much of a perfectionist to be happy delivering sloppy or half done work. I know that I can deliver a fully coded solution, but since I was given the project late, I don’t have as much time as I would like to architect the solution and as a result, I have to code it on the fly. Granted it’s fun to be coding, but the debug process takes a lot longer to complete and correct.

The good news is that my requirement is to have a 90% automated verification rate, with the other 10% being flagged as needing manual verification. I’ve hit that point, but I know I can get it closer to 95%. It is just a matter of tweaking the code, so I’m not satisfied with 90%. I guess technically it is good enough for the requirement, but it isn’t yet good enough for me to be happy with the results.

Given that my life since Sunday has been sleep, short trip to the gym, work, repeat, I’m really looking forward to the weekend. Friday and Saturday night, I’ll be out with friends. Saturday and Sunday, I’ll be continuing the phased cleaning in preparation for my roommate’s arrival, but then I have a date with a book and some sunshine.

I’m trying to decide if I’m going to drive up to Ohio next weekend or fly. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that fly or drive, it will take up about as much time with all the hassle of the airports, plus having to either get picked up or rent a car for the weekend. I’m seriously leaning toward driving up. The weather should be pleasant and since I just had my car tuned up, it should be up to the task. I’ll have to make sure to pack some music for the trip.

At noon tomorrow, I am officially clocking out, not working again until Monday and completely without guilt. Our offices are being moved tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, so I need to get my office packed up. The rate I’m going now, sorting will have to wait until the next move because I’m not going to try and sort things out after my self-imposed end of the week.

TGIF!!! Work is done for the week. I just got home from the spa. I’m meeting some friends in a few hours. Tomorrow morning, I have a date to write an email to someone who deserves for me to spend some time writing back. I’ve felt a little guilty about not writing back sooner, but I didn’t want to just give them surface smiles instead of a thought out response. Then I need to do a little cleaning, followed by some sunshine and a book. No work until Monday!

Last week I spent the coding like crazy to meet work deadlines. This week I get to spend my off hours cleaning like crazy to get my spare room ready for its new owner. I’m still at work and it’s time to go home if I hope to get any cleaning done tonight before I pass out from exhaustion.

Note: The movie X2 – rocks!

"If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

If I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

If my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

If I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offsping, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right -- for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences."

Excerpted from Please Understand Me II
Copyright © 1998 by David Keirsey

"Did you think that I would let you forget me?
Did you think that I would just lie on the floor?
As you walked into you future did you think I
would give you control?
Well, you don't know me
Did you think that I would simply forgive you?
Maybe you think I'd just lay down and die
As you walked away, didn't you think I'd survive?
Well, you don't know me"
- Meredith Brooks, 'You don't know me'

I missed getting to see the Lunar Eclipse the other night. We were having an impressive thunderstorm, so the sky wasn’t clear.

Either I had a crazy dream this morning about posting concerning my site accidentally being blocked by the Websense filtering software or the post I made is now missing. I’m going to assume it was a dream at this point, but if this one disappears, then I’m going to be pissed.

The issue: My site somehow got blocked as containing Adult Content. (Sites that display full or partial nudity in a sexual context, but not sexual activity; erotica; sexual paraphernalia; sex-oriented businesses as clubs, nightclubs, escort services; and sites supporting online purchase of such goods and services.)

My response: I sent an email to their tech support asking that my site’s restriction be lifted.

The resolution: I received a very polite email in just over 3 hours (very nice response time in my opinion) saying that because my site has a virtual host and the IP address is shared by a site that does qualify, my site was inadvertently blocked in what they called an “unintended overblock”. I was also told that my site has been added to their database as a personal website and the update will be included in the next release of the database.

I’m ready for the weather to make up its mind and get warm. I’m ready for this week to fly by, but only to seem to, so I can get everything done at work. I’m ready for my favorite long weekend of the year. If the weather stays nice, I’ll be heading to the beach on Monday. The best thing being that the schools around here are all in school, so the beaches should be fairly deserted.

I have a feeling that this week and the coming weekend will be filled with interesting thoughts running loose through my head. I’m not yet sure how I feel about this birthday. I should probably figure that out soon, it’ll be here before I know it.

Work – too much paper pushing (okay so it is electronic paper), the minute we get close to being able to meet our deadlines, someone heaps something new on top of what we’re already doing to expands the scope to include another site to bring up to speed. Let’s not mention that the new sites are about 3 months behind where we are now and have no idea what is going on. Let see, three months behind us, we weren’t sure we would be done on time, deadline of June 30, 2003. Three months behind, one and a half months to deadline, yeah, looks like we’re screwed.

It wouldn’t be so bad if this happened occasionally, but this describes my last two projects. Okay, so the one last year about broke my sanity, but I’d really like to have the chance to succeed once in a while. I’m a perfectionist. This type of non-direction doesn’t work for me. I’m going to have to start seriously looking for that next position before I get pulled into any more of these crazy-go-nuts projects just because I’m good under pressure and I make sure things get done.

That’s it, so what do you think? Should I…

1. Join the circus
   
2. Reactivate my Lifeguard certification and move to the beach
   
3. Hide under the covers in my room and hope no one notices
   
4. Move to Mexico
   
5. Become a professional Mime
   

There are days when I find my instincts to be scarily accurate. This is one of them. I told something to a friend about a week and a half ago. She received the same message from another source this morning. Maybe someday I’ll understand what it is…

I’ve added a wish list link to my site. This is in no way a solicitation, but my friends and family may find it of use, random people may find it interesting and if I keep it up to date, I won’t have to make a new list of suggested Christmas presents for my Mom to give to my family members every year.

So the weekend begins. I’ve a little bit of coding to get done today, but even that will be nice to do, as I’m hiding out and working from home, rather than the office.

As much as I bemoan my job at times, it really has some nice perks and I really do get a kick out of it. I have a hard time imagining working somewhere else and being able to do the things I do. I don’t work with external customers, but some of my projects have thousands of users around the world. I get to talk to people all over and introduce them to different techniques to enhance how they approach their jobs. It is a really neat feeling to realize that while I may not personally touch each product that the company creates, the work that I do has a very small part of making that product happen. Explaining what I do comes close to needing a slide presentation. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing my job done well and contributing.

The biggest perk for me is flexibility. In order to make sure that I can get my workouts in, I go to the gym in the morning before work. I am NOT a morning person and I don’t go to the gym at 5:00 AM. I head to the gym about 7:00 AM and then start my workday between 9:30 AM and 10:00 AM. Most Fridays, I work from home. This is really a small part of fact that while my job is important and I need to be able to meet my deadlines, I get to work around my life. If something big is happening in my life, I am supported.

So the bottom line is I really do like my job, even if it drives me crazy at times.

Birthdays should start early and end late. It was a really nice weekend. I have some new pictures to add to the photo album, but I haven’t put the new pages together yet.

I think my favorite things this weekend all happened on my birthday.
- A long talk with a friend in the morning
- Playing Frisbee and laughing freely in the afternoon
- A walk outside, while reconnecting with an old friend in the evening
- Laughing and talking with friends into the early hours of the morning
- Getting email from a friend and laughing before going off to bed

Laughter

...it may drown out everyones' voices, but I've been home for over four hours and it is still drowning in my head. Time to remember to take the advil into work...

...and determination lead to results.

There's something about laughter, it may even substitute for sleep to an extent. I've been laughing for the past 6 and a half hours and I feel good. Okay, it's 4:30 AM and I'm getting tired, but I feel good. So far being 31 feels a lot better than being 30 ever did. I'm not sure I'm ready for a purple hat yet, but I may be getting there.

I'm not feeling really creative this morning. For some reason, I feel strangely motivated to clean things up. Usually cleaning is almost therapeutic for me. I've had roommates run away before when I hit a cleaning frenzy. And frenzy pretty much describes what happens. Furniture all but flying around, no talking, just move, scrub, dust, clean and repeat until the negative energy has spent itself on an otherwise dreaded chore.

So, I'm not throwing furniture, I did clean up my Wish List and put it into what I see as a more logical order. I also added some birthday weekend pictures to the photo album. I think next I'll tackle the kitchen before taking a nap.

"There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest." - Anaïs Nin

"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book(Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom(when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this(or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death." - Anaïs Nin

There are good things going on at work. I had a couple of great conversations concerning work over the last week. I have reached a point where I’m busy but bored most of the time and I feel like I need to stretch. Of course it is hard to stretch when you are in the middle of sprinting. It is probably a good thing that I don’t fight forest fires, I’m much more suited for strategic planning. I’m a capable fire fighter, but I get more out of helping to prevent the fires in the first place.

Because I have been bored and we don’t have a direct manager right now, I tracked down one of my previous managers and had a talk with him about what I can do to figure out what type of opportunities exist for me in the area I am currently working. He brought up a lot of things I hadn’t heard before and gave me some really good advice. I took his advice and had what will be one of multiple conversations to make sure that people know what I want to do. *Smile* He reminded me of something that I like remind people: If you don’t have something and you ask for it, you either get what you ask for or you have what you started with.

The second conversation I had wasn’t as enlightening, but I think it was a start in laying the groundwork for a next step later. In the past I had had a difficult time talking to this person, but this time and using some good advice, by the time we were finished, we were exchanging humorous articles that we had seen over the weekend.

It looks like good things are ahead, I just need to keep from getting mired up in the chaos of the moment.

Closing my eyes
Tensing each then relaxing
Slow, even, controlled breathing
Reach out and connect
Exhale to release and inhale to refill

Clouds in the sky
Full wings in flight
The silhouette of a woman
A stream between two hills
A soft breeze stirs my brow

Slipping gently into sleep

This comes close to being a list of the top ten things you can do to avoid driving me crazy.

Dealing with INTJs
1. Be willing to back up your statements with facts - or at least some pretty sound reasoning.
2. Don't expect them to respect you or your viewpoints just because you say so. INTJ respect must be earned.
3. Be willing to concede when you are wrong. The average INTJ respects the truth over being "right". Withdraw your erroneous comment and admit your mistake and they will see you as a very reasonable person. Stick to erroneous comments and they will think you are an irrational idiot and treat everything you say as being questionable.
4. Try not to be repetitive. It annoys them.
5. Do not feed them a line of bull.
6. Expect debate. INTJs like to tear ideas apart and prove their worthiness. They will even argue a point they don't actually support for the sake of argument.
7. Do not mistake the strength of your conviction with the strength of your argument. INTJs do not need to believe in a position to argue it or argue it well. Therefore, it will take more than fervor to sway them.
8. Do not be surprised at sarcasm.
9. Remember that INTJs believe in workable solutions. They are extremely open-minded to possibilities, but they will quickly discard any idea that is unfeasible. INTJ open-mindedness means that they are willing to have a go at an idea by trying to pull it apart. This horrifies people who expect oohs and ahhs and reverence. The ultimate INTJ insult to an idea is to ignore it, because that means it's not even interesting enough to deconstruct.
This also means that they will not just accept any viewpoint that is presented to them. The bottom line is "Does it work?" - end discussion.
10. Do not expect INTJs to actually care about how you view them. They already know that they are arrogant bastards with a morbid sense of humor. Telling them the obvious accomplishes nothing.

Work: that which is broken must be fixed or else the people are going to break and that is much worse than any project schedule. Since I’ve been put off for a good month by the person who should be trying hard to fix it, I’m going to either have to try and ignore it (which goes completely against my nature) or find a way to effect some positive changes. In my opinion, things have been left unaddressed for too long. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable, but I don’t know how much longer I will be able to stand certain things. I’ve raised some of the issues through the proper channels, but due to other things going on around us, the issues I’m seeing are not of a high enough priority to garner action through those channels. I almost feel like I’m deciding whether or not to be an activist on an issue.

What this situation really hammers home to me the appropriateness for me the following statement really is: “… not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead.” Another analysis that I have read says that my personality cannot stand nonproductive chaos, when it negatively affects my ability to be productive. Check and check…

And it isn’t just because work has been crazy, I need a vacation so I can go to the beach and read for a week straight. As of today, I have 19 real books on my to read list. In a really strange turn of events for me, only 5 of the books are fiction. Add to those that I’ll probably read some “candy” books and I’ll either be reading these well into July or I won’t be doing much between now and when I finish…

Good news this week: I have a short week and I’m going to be meeting my parents to pick up my sister for this summer’s extended visit.

As crazy as work has been, life outside of work has been really great as of late. I’ve been very lucky to be having a new level of openness with friends as we all strive to become more than we are right now. I’ve had a lot of fun with friends. I’ve reconnected in an amazing way with a completely amazing woman that I am lucky to call my friend. Since my birthday I’ve felt freer than I have in a long time, almost like a weight has been lifted. A new year, a new focus…

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, regardless of the number of hours, so I should get some sleep.

Well, that didn’t work. I shouldn’t be surprised since it didn’t work in grade school either.

* Flashback *

Now since you can’t seem to pay attention to what is going on in the front on the class, you can stay inside and write 100 times “I will not talk during class.” instead of going out for recess.

* Return to now *

It’s really bad when the person most willing to try and be positive is also the one on anti-depressants. I’ve come to realize today that the rest of my department is now going through something very similar to what I was dealing with last year. To be honest, I’m dealing with it too, but at this point, I’ve developed some coping mechanisms that they haven’t.

How much longer will things go on before our society (department) breaks down and resembles the boys from the Lord of the Flies? Shall we stalk our prey and fall into a primitive society among the cubicles? Only time will tell.

Time to go make a sharp stick...

I walked, laughed, skipped and played in a thunderstorm today. My heart was light and the breeze was energizing. I didn’t run from the rain, I purposely stayed out where I could feel it. I went outside after the rain had started to jump a brook and climb the hill on the other side.

I didn’t jump in any puddles. Maybe next time…

... but I’m not…

Later today I’m meeting my parents and sister halfway between my home and theirs to bring my sister back to stay with me for a month. I guess if I were to sleep time would pass by more quickly.

Off to bed with me…

I started writing with the intention of posting yesterday afternoon. I got as far as “Tired” and fell asleep with my hands on the keyboard. It didn’t really hit me how tired I was until Sunday, when I was talking to my dad on the phone. In my own defense, there’s little wonder why I was tired and for once, it didn’t have anything to do with work.

Thursday night - A friend got me a ticket to see Pilobolus, a modern dance troupe, perform during the American Dance Festival at Duke. It was a great show, but it ran late and we ended up talking a while afterwards, which led to me not getting to sleep until about 1:00 AM.

Friday - I got up and went to the gym as usual from 7:30 – 8:30. A quick trip through the shower, a quick packing of stuff for overnight, one last stop for gas and I was on my way to West Virginia. Yucky driving weather, some fog, some rain, luckily no really snarled traffic, but when I stopped at McD’s for a caffeine jolt of Coke (no ice please, I need my caffeine straight), I ended up with half a glass of ice. Okay, so I had to go through another McD’s later for more caffeine, but I managed to make the entire trip within 5 minutes of what I had planned, which isn’t bad by any stretch. Meet up with my parents and sister in the hotel’s parking garage, sort out the rooms and then go walk in the mall to get some kinks out of our legs. Dinner at the hotel restaurant, a quick swim, that mostly ended up being a soak in the hot tub, followed by watching VH1 with my sister. Deep sleep.

Saturday – Everyone up dressed, repacked, and checked out, then over to the mall to grab some breakfast before heading back home. We’re on our way back to North Carolina. I realized once we got home that I drive faster when I’m awake and after getting a good nine hours sleep Friday night, I was awake. A quick change, get my sister to her sleepover, meet up with my pre-engagement dinner partners, dinner, run home to get something I forgot, run to meet up with everyone, pretend to be awake for multiple hours, sleep/crash.

Sunday – Fall out of bed, shower, go pick up Rugrat, call my parents back, go buy camp lunch supplies, fall asleep trying to type. Nap good…

Wow, completely worn out and it had nothing to do with work. I think I’m still in the recovery phase, but this one I’m sure will work itself out.

My car is now MINE! Today marked the last payment to the bank and this is the first BIG thing that I have bought and paid for completely (I see furniture as big, not BIG). Granted, I needed help to get the loan, but I am the only one who made the payments. Wow, adulthood sneaks up on you occasionally. Car paid for, college credit cards paid off, I guess I’m running out of reasons to put off the search for a house…

Okay, I’m feeling better now. Still frustrated with the work situation, but as it has been pointed out, there is always a need for Math teachers. I’ve given some serious thought about going into teaching at some point, but so far that has been a future thing, not anything immediate. Call me materialistic, but I like the things that having a well paying job can provide. Once I get settled into a house where I won’t be moving every 12-24 months, I’m hoping to get the opportunity to volunteer tutor or teach in one of the schools around here.

Yeah! I figured out how to put pictures into my posts. I forgot that the journal is one more directory from my image directory. Duh! Oh well, it’s been a while since I’ve done any html, so I figure I’m doing okay.

Discover the role of left-brain/right-brain plays in your personality. The Brainworks program is an online application. Do you use your left or right hemisphere more?

Another rather accurate test. Someone may figure me out yet...

When March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb… Wait a minute, where did April, May and June go?

The trip to the loan counselor appears to have gone really well. I’ll officially hear back from her on Monday, but it looks like I’m going to be house shopping. It’s exciting, scary and a bit overwhelming all at the same time.

Vacation Day 1: slept in, went to the pool, had a picnic, got a slight sunburn, finished reading Harry Potter, played with sparklers, watched a movie, read another short book

Got a full eight hours sleep, woke up long enough to feed the critters, went back to sleep for a couple hours, read a little, surfed the net a bit, chatted with a few friends, took Rugrat, Invention and another friend to see Legally Blonde 2, dinner out with the girls and Invention’s parents, slumber party at my place, added 3 books to the Book Reviews page, reformatted the Haiku page, caught up on some email

Went to sleep around 3:30 AM, when the girls finally started to slow down, woke up at 8:00 with a request from Omega to feed the critters, quickly went back to sleep, hid from the girls in my room until about 12:30, took the girls swimming, dinner and book club meeting at Bogarts

Water Park – Sun, fun and temporary tattoos

Sleep in late, an afternoon bubble bath, mac & cheese, followed by lazar tag, go-carts and put-put.

Think? On vacation, I don’t think so…

Work:
I am persona evil at work today. Security rules for applications are getting tightened up and I am one of the lucky people who get to badger people to fill out the surveys on the applications they own. I sent a TON of email yesterday and today to about 1000 people to either follow the rules by Friday or I’d delete their applications on Monday. I haven’t answered my phone since before noon. The last time I checked my messages I had 15 pieces of phone mail and about 50 emails from people going, “Yikes, don’t take my stuff away!”

Most people have been nice about it, but I can only answer the same question so many times with "the answers to all the questions are in the screen shots in the email you received" before I start to be convinced that people no longer know how to read. There are people with real questions, which I don't mind, but I have very little tolerance for people who can't help themselves out of a wet paper bag when they have been given a flashlight and map.

House
Inspection for the soon to be my house is tomorrow morning. I’m going to take my camera with me and get some pictures of it. I’ve had a lot of people ask to see pictures, but so far I haven’t gotten off of work in time to get there before dark this week.

Website
I added a "Contact RedJen" link to the main page of this site. I was told the one I had on the Disclaimer page was a little too hidden. So I'm not hiding, here I am. I also fixed the graphics on the Interests page. I had deleted a directory that was left over from an old layout, but I'd forgotten that I had used one of the gifs.

Today I’ll be taking my sister back home to our parents. I’ll either get to meet my new nephew or hug his mom if he hasn’t decided to arrive yet. I’m also expecting to get the details from the home inspection that was done yesterday on the house I’m looking to buy. I don’t think the kid is packed yet. Getting to the airport should be interesting today. When my parents brought her down, they drove, so they didn’t worry about how many bags she brought with her. I’ll probably end up getting out all of my suitcases and packing her bags into them in order to avoid paying extra fees for too many checked bags at the airport.

Back to work, I need to finish a report and get packed myself for the trip. Hopefully I’ll be able to get all my stuff in a single gym bag.

After a short, but nice visit north, I’ve returned home. I didn’t get to see my one sister, who was in a play over the weekend, but I did get to see the rest of my siblings. My nephew hasn’t decided to make his appearance as of yet. I did manage to leave Rugrat with our parents, so I am no longer playing single parent.

Now I look around and see my apartment and everything that needs straightened up. It would appear that when working a “normal” week, I don’t have enough drive to stay on top of the cleaning for a teenager and myself. Time to make a list in order to get back on top of things.

The Good
We now have a manager.
He understands why I am currently frustrated.
He appears open to helping to untangle the mess surrounding my project.
He didn’t try to blow smoke up my butt.
He made time to meet with me when I needed his assistance, instead of putting my off until it was convenient.
Stress level slipping…
I should be an aunt tomorrow.

The Bad
“Official” Team Lead on vacation
He didn’t get the information to our 2nd line manager that he was supposed to.
Apparently I am his de facto backup, but he didn’t let me know about any meetings that I need to attend.
The original project schedule we agreed upon will not happen, due to circumstances, we are not as far along as we wanted to be at this point and a key resource is going to be on vacation for 2 weeks.

I’ve been awake all week, today I’ve just wanted to sleep. I been working from home and I kept nodding off over my computer. Its like my brain was used up the first four days of the week and now it is rebelling. Come to think of it, that’s how it used to be before the darkness came into things. Work is crazy, but that’s okay. I was going to take a nap this morning, but that was foiled by pesky work and the telephone. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I’ll get to sleep in before anything else happens. I think my cats have the right idea, they are all stretched out enjoying sunbeams.

Shall I be less than the woman I am to make another happy? It is almost comical at this point to realize that is exactly what someone has asked of me. My eyes are open to the barbs that are being covered in rose petals and handed to me. I’ve heard too many different versions of the same events from him at this point to doubt that he is deliberately withholding information from me in an effort to make it impossible for me to be effective.

I have fought long and hard (often internally with my own demons) to gain the skills that I have learned. I can now see that many of the frustrating things I have seen recently encountered have been a result of his insecurities.

I suppose that he has reason to fear that his skills are in doubt. I’m not the only one who has been brought in to ensure that things happen. The amount of things I was able to move forward while he was out of the office and unable to withhold information was actually quite impressive. Funny, I was able to move 3 projects significantly forward when I was privy to all the information, not just the watered down and altered information he usually feeds me. So now I’ll be double-checking my information and using all my sources, since I can’t trust him to be forthcoming with me.

I won’t be put into his comfortable box and he’s going to find that out one way or the other. If he would like to insist on trying to put me there, he’ll find that I do have claws. I’m not afraid of his bluster, he can try and puff himself up all he likes, but he’s still a little man afraid that I will surpass him. According to him, he’s getting older and doesn’t want to be a worker-bee for the rest of his career. That’s not my problem and it’s not my job to make his career easy for him. It’s a little late to begin trying to start leading a charge when the rest of the cavalry has already passed you on the way to the objective.

Sorry, I’m not willing to go back to being just a worker-bee, content to accept someone else’s view of the world around me and take orders without question any longer. I’m too good at influencing the big picture to shut up and take orders. I’ve had my hand the helm of the ship. I don’t have to be the captain of the ship, but I’m too valuable to be put below deck and forced to control the rat population. I’m sure there is something up on deck that can be improved by leveraging the power of the rats rather than killing them outright.

I’ve lost my white flag, so if he would like to try and force me back into grunt work because he’s afraid of me, he can try. He may be afraid of my strength, but I’m not, it’s mine and I’m no longer afraid to use it. I may not like conflict, but I’m not afraid of it and I don’t play to lose.

I've been set free to go to work. What kind of an oxymoron is that?

If only birds with nice voices were permitted to sing in the forrest,
it would be a quiet place.

Tonight, I am going to leave the electronics behind and read. Maybe I'll go out on the porch with the kitties. Maybe I'll stretch out on the couch or in my room. Tonight, I will be quiet.

Earlier, I had a moment of realization. The fact that I’m moving in less than a month isn’t anything unusual. I’ve pretty much moved once a year for the last 13 years. Later this month, I’m moving into my own house. It’ll be my place, my walls, my stuff.

I’m not sure how I will end up decorating the interior yet. I have a tendency toward jewel tones and geometric designs.

17 days and counting…

It would appear that I’m all typed out after yesterday. So today, stretch, reach, yawn and repeat.

I did get some new baby pictures of my nephew, so hopefully, I’ll get those up later this week.

So it’s been a pleasant day for me. Granted I had to get up extra early to make my gym appointment, but it turned out to be fun anyway. Tomorrow, I may find out it wasn’t fun and I was just asleep the entire time. I’ll know more in the morning when I wake up.

So I did do work today, although most of it centered on unpacking my office into my new space. Hopefully we’ll stay where we are now and avoid another move for a while. I’d like to just settle in and get working rather than worry about when the next time I’m going to have to take a day and a half to pack, move and unpack in the game of ring around the offices.

So off I’m going to head home now, play with the kitties and get some dinner. I’m starving!

Some days I have to look back and say “I did good today.” This was one of those days. I was able to help a friend out, surprised another and had a great talk with a third. As an ironic balance, I managed to accidentally delete my email file from the server at work. On the upside, I didn’t get any new work email the rest of the day. On the downside, I didn’t get any of the email people sent me at work.

Work: Getting inspired at work to create something that will help get us to the certification point that we need. I’m working on internalizing a coaching session that I had earlier today with my manager. It is hard for a perfectionist (even if they are trying to recover) to listen to constructive advice. I have a feeling that it will get easier, the things he wants to deal with are parallel with my own. I just have to get beyond the near gut twisting reaction to a more objective point. I think it will happen. I appreciate his frank and straightforward approach. It is what I’ve been asking for, now I have to school my reactions. I’m not sure how some people will see this, but I’ll have a chance to work on further mastery of my emotions. The good news is I don’t feel threatened by what he has expressed and I trust that he is working for a win-win situation. He seems to be taking a very pragmatic approach in his actions.

House: Not all the repairs that were supposed to take place actually did. The seller gave the list to someone else with the instructions to fix everything, but apparently the people who were doing the fixing didn’t all have the same view on what fixing it entailed. For example, in order to fix a crack in the chimney, the back of the house was obviously jacked up and the main foundation supports were replaced in the back of the house. In contrast, there is a board in the front of the house’s foundation that has water damage. In this case, the person pushed insulation against it, so you couldn’t see it any longer. We sent the seller the revised list of things that need fixed and so far I’m hoping that everything will be done in time to close as scheduled. So I’m attached to my cell phone in case my agent needs to get in touch with me.

Cleaning and Packing: What packing? So far I’ve managed to mostly throw things away. Envelopes and magazines that don’t need to be kept, junk mail that didn’t get junked right away. My parents and Rugrat are coming to visit for a few days either Friday or Saturday. So I’m trying to clean, organize, sort and trash all at the same time. I was seriously considering hiring someone to clean my apartment when I get everything out of it and into the house. The only thing is if I hire someone, they will charge me the higher 1st time cleaning charge and if I’m cleaning for visitors, there is no point in having someone in to clean the apartment. All the major stuff will be done, it’ll just be vacuuming and doing some spot cleaning before I turn in the keys.

I think once I get into the house, I’m going to have to take a few days and just sleep.

The listing agent called yesterday telling my agent that the seller will have everything fixed in time for closing. They have 3 whole days to get this done!

My parents and sister should be on the road by now, on their way to visit. Clean sheets and towels are in the guest room. I still need to vacuum the whole place. I did get to the store to pick up enough food for breakfast and at least one other meal.

I continued with the sort and release program today. This morning, I gave the local library 180 books (yes, I really gave them 180 books) and dropped off three boxes of clothes at GCF. I may not have anything packed for the move, but 5 fewer boxes of stuff are going to the new house. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the Crimson Petal and the White with me to the library, I'll have to drop that off the next time. Then I may stop attacking the book whenever anyone asks about it.

Pythagorean theorem: 24 Words

The Lord's Prayer: 66 Words

Archimedes' Principle: 67 Words

The 10 Commandments: 179 Words

The Gettysburg Address: 286 Words

The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 Words

The U. S. Government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 Words

There seems to be a trend here and I’m fairly certain that it isn’t the right one. The more that is legislated, the less people are forced to draw upon their common sense.

As requested, I’ve sent email to your home account. In case you didn’t already know this, you can check your email at https://webmail.nc.rr.com/ or http://www.e-mailanywhere.com/

RJ

Because of the type of entry, I've included an update the Entry: Untruth from 08/24/03

"For the love of carnage and discord, I feel like chicken tonight!"

What is yours?

It has been brought to my attention that while the traditional Triple Threat Birthday Party is held to celebrate the birthdays of three Virgos, this year we have a new addition, which brings the preliminary total to four. Since four and triple do not go together and “Quadruple Threat” doesn’t have the same alliterative ring that “Triple Threat” does, one of the Virgos is going to have to be voted off the island.

Our contestants:
Miss Kati – The newest Virgo addition, recently earned immunity via a packing, stacking, navigation, unpacking, stacking and pizza-eating contest (also known as helping me move). On top of everything else, we can’t keep her from celebrating her 21st birthday.
ShaeSin – I don’t recommend anyone suggesting she be voted off. She’s on a hair trigger and I don’t want to be around if someone sets her off. In fact, using my ultimate veto power, I hereby preemptively veto any votes for ShaeSin. Enough has been going on in her life that it would be cruel to force her to worry about whether or not she gets to keep her birthday and Sun Sign.
Dominion – The eldest of the Virgos, he’ll be taking a short vacation soon, will it be enough for him to gather his strength? We’ll find out.
Desufnoc – Currently convalescing in Florida, will he make it back in time to defend his birthday? Can he take a rested Dominion? Can he take a tired Dominion?

Will Dominion be rested? Will youth or age win out? Will they be forced into a Jell-O wrestling contest to decide who wins? Will I vote Dominion out to save my new house?

Stay tuned; we’ll have more on the fate of our contestants and their quest to retain their claim to the Triple Threat birthday.

I agreed to go out with a couple and their friend from out of town. He falls under the “Not my type” category, but he seems nice. It was a fun dinner with lots of laughter. So not so bad as an overall experience. Not really someone I’m interested in dating, but it was not a horrible time.

I found this picture titled "Special Clif" on a friend's site. I'm not sure if the term "Special" should refer to the look on Clif's face or to his shirt. I'm hoping that the shirt spontaneously combusted in reaction to the flash from the camera, but the world couldn't be that lucky.

Does anyone have a bucket of water? I think the Wicked Witch of the West's twin brother has been spotted in North Raleigh...

(Hugs babe!)

So how long does it take to get the smell of bleach off your hands? The old apartment is clean and I’ve given them back the keys, now I need to somehow get rid of the bleach smell that I seem to be steeped in. Maybe a shower will help, I’m not sure, but it’s worth a try.

It’s been an interesting weekend so far. I’m actually really tired. Friday night was stressful, meeting new people is always a bit stressing. The blind date felt a lot like being in a hothouse environment. The couple we were with just seemed to be pushing things a bit to hard and that doesn’t work well with me. The “we must be having fun” environment puts me into friend/buddy mode, which doesn’t work well with their agenda.

Saturday morning was spent deep cleaning my old apartment. As a point of pride, I’d like to get my security deposit back, but at this point, I really don’t care. I actually found myself considering just emptying the place out and letting them clean it regardless of whether or not they’d keep the money. Realizing that I could just about make half a house payment with the deposit made me reconsider and keep cleaning.

Drama has again approached my peripheral. I’m not involved in this, except as an emotional backup, but just knowing that it is going on is enough to have me putting energy into being available. That and taking action to identify some things I can do to keep other things from adding stress to an already stressful situation.
- Check - Write Triple Threat invitation
- In process – Triple Threat guest list
- To do – Entertainment

It’s a good thing that tomorrow is a holiday, I’m not ready to go back to work just yet.

And thus concludes the extended weekend. Looking back, I did manage to arrange or take care of quite a bit. I found a dining room table and sideboard, which is supposed to be delivered next Saturday. The sectional for the family room was delivered on Friday. Saturday I cleaned the old apartment and took care of turning that back over to the complex, updated most of my magazine subscriptions with the new address, set the Triple Threat party work into motion and watch the Buckeye’s start their season with a win over Washington. Sunday I bought something I needed (lawn mower) and something I’ve been putting off but wanted (speaker system), spent a decent amount of time putting the speaker system together and getting that set up, had a nice talk with a ailing friend and a good sleep on the couch. Monday found me not being able to meet with my friend who is trying to shake her ailment so that she can get a fresh start tomorrow, spending the day instead with two others at the mall and except for a slight (cough) spree in an art store, spending very little. It was a fun time at the mall and I was able to gauge some of the likes of a friend who is new to our circle. Wrap the weekend up by gathering friends over to relax and watch a movie, not a bad way to wrap things up. There is only one thing really missing and that was seeing my friend who is fighting off the ailment. If I’m lucky, I may be able to catch her on the way home from work one night this week, since I’m almost on her way home.

Now if the rain holds off, I’ll have to get out and trim the small jungle that is forming as my lawn gets out of control.

Dominion is also known as Virgo contestant number one.

(Okay, so this was just under the wire, but I made it ON your birthday.)

I think I figured out why I’m not writing quite as much lately. Most of my free brain cycles are being used to try and figure out what to do with furniture and other random things in the house. Answering the questions concerning things like what type of rug I’d like to see where, where to put random things until I get around to them, figuring out exactly what the schedule is for garbage collection on a holiday week, planning the Triple Threat Birthday and Housewarming Party.

I’m not sure who is more entertained by the bird and squirrel feeders, the cats or me. From the selection of birds that have been visiting, I’m guessing that people have been feeding birds in my neighborhood for a while now. I’m seeing cardinals, blue jays and tiny little birds that I’m not sure what they are. As long as it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I really need to mow the lawn. I read the lawn mover directions today. As far as I can tell, all I need now is to go and get a portable container and gasoline (that and a machete to chop my way through the lawn).

I have successfully mowed the lawn and survived. I need to go over it again soon and pick up the random weird things that I uncovered as a result of mowing. I also learned that there are two early high school aged boys about 3 doors down who mow lawns for extra spending money. I’ll see how things go mowing myself. In one of those weird things, I kind of miss the smell of fresh cut grass, so for now I’m going to do it myself while it has a novelty factor. I’m sure that eventually I’ll tire of mowing and enlist one of the boys to handle the lawn for me.

Tonight, I’m leaving the computer at work. I think I’ll be able to survive without it at home. Maybe I'll read or talk to someone on the phone...

Day two in the quest to be more of a human... I will forego immediately returning to the safety of home in order to venture out ON A SCHOOL NIGHT!

I’m not sure why you’ve become attached to the name “Old Scratch” and I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know why…

Umm, why do you always look like you’ve just been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing?

...how about going down to Mexico… Doesn’t sound too bad to me. I’m getting tired out again. I get up and I’m wide-awake. I go to the gym and I’m fine. I go home to get ready for work and I fall asleep getting ready to take shower. I finally get into work, where I fight to keep from nodding off, while listening to white noise that is trying to put me to sleep. Lather, rinse and repeat.

I don’t want to go to the area fun day today, so I’m not going to go. I’ll get some lunch, do some work and take a nap instead.

So this morning, I wrote my first mortgage check. This is also the first time I made a serious dent in the mail that I’ve gotten in the last few weeks. I need to kick into gear and finish putting things in place before next weekend. I can handle having something not quite set, but I think I should be able to get the bookcases filled and the boxes out of the living room.

I’m thinking I may want to start locking the cats out of my room when I get in late. The 8 am wakeup call wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. I was hoping to sleep until 10 am, but they had other plans. It’s not as if there were hungry, I put their food out before I went to sleep.

Well, Ohio State is leading NCSU 14-0 in the second quarter. Halftime will be used cleaning up my mail debris and working on the bookcases. Off to work…

Happy Birthday lady! Hope you have fun today with the girls, your family and everyone else!

I’ve been slowly going downhill for about a week, but last night I crashed. On the up side, my new couch is very comfortable for sleeping. Note to self: Do not let friends talk you into leaving the house when you can’t think straight. Let’s see if my foggy brain can articulate (wow, big word).

Saturday: I did bills, sorted through all the mail, cleaned the kitchen, watched the football game, met with some friends to give a joint birthday present, called a different friend from planned evening activity and canceled, had pizza with birthday friends, gathered strength and went home. Just after walking through the door and taking Nyquil, another friend from the evening activity calls, arranges for someone to pick me up and manages to convince me to participate anyway. Did I mention I have a fever? In everyone’s defense, I did have fun last night, although I was definitely not a shiny happy person. I was a tired droopy person with a very foggy brain. (Aside: car windows rolled down and racing seats feel good when you back aches and you have a slight sweat.) What’s funny is that the time yesterday when I was most comfortable was sitting in the passenger seat and being driven around. The breeze felt incredible.

So I got home late, took more Nyquil and couldn’t fall sleep, too much congestion, I can’t stop coughing. The solution is a long hot shower in the middle of the night. Congestion breaks up a bit, but laying flat sucks. Time to grab my favorite soft blanket and move downstairs to the couch. Couch soft, kitty soft, crickets funny, sleep good...

Sunday: The fever seems to be down a bit and I’m a little less achy. I think I’ll lay here for a little bit longer, then see how my balance is doing today.

"Chance bad!"

Most of the time I really don’t mind being single. I realize that I am missing some things, but planning things with friends can substitute for doing the same with someone special. When it really hits home that something is missing are times like right now. Strong fingers rubbing the back of my neck or circling my back would feel beyond good at this point. I don’t necessarily want someone to talk to right now, but having someone to lean on would be nice. Before anyone starts heading over here, I’m okay. I have plenty of Orange Juice, tissues, Jell-O, Nyquil, Dayquil, etc. What I don’t have is that tender underlying relationship that I require before I can completely allow myself to dissolve and completely surrender. Hot showers are nice and all to ease achy muscles, but it really isn’t the same as the light caress of someone special.

Now I need to get some work done that I couldn’t do earlier. Of course I don’t know if I’ll be able to do a very good job of it now, but I need to have something working by tomorrow morning. Then I’m going to come back home, be grumpy with the kitties and hopefully go visit my Doctor.

Fuzzy and cotton headed, when my sinuses are messed up, it has such a completely different effect on my state of mind than an upset stomach. I realize that my sinuses are right up there by my brain and as a result if they are swollen, things get a little crowded in there. Good thing I don’t have a multiple personality disorder. (Smirk) I'd hate to get into a wrestling match for elbowroom with myself, because I'd be guaranteed to lose.

I’ve been instructed to lay low and rest a lot. This also explains why I couldn’t breathe the other night around anything that smelled like smoke. Cross your fingers that Isabel doesn’t come this far into North Carolina, I’m not sure I’ll be up to dealing with a full-fledged hurricane this week.

All around, the area is bracing for Isabel’s arrival. She isn’t supposed to hit the coast for a few more hours, but the winds are picking up here a bit. Unless things change, tomorrow will be the real dance.

I’m still coughing, only now, it actually seems to be doing some work. The low activity, frequent naps course of treatment seems to be helping. I did run out to the store today and pick up more 7-Up and batteries. Since when did they start to put caffeine into 7-Up? You order a caffeine free cola as caffeine free. How do you order an original 7-Up? You don’t call a regular Pepsi, an original Pepsi. Like there isn’t enough caffeine in the current carbonated beverages, why does someone feel like adding caffeine to one of the few drinks you can order and not worry about caffeine.

A quote from my doctor on Monday: “You don’t have to eat, but force yourself to drink as much as possible.”

Somehow I need to break this habit of sleeping until 9 AM on the weekend and then getting up regardless of what else is going on. Last night I was out with friends and didn’t get in until late last night (early this morning). It is going to be a very long day with the Triple Threat going on tonight and hopefully I’ll be able to catch a nap between now and then. I keep falling asleep with my fingers on the keyboard, which leaves some interesting letter patterns on the screen. I need to be awake tonight, there are going to be too many people here for me to be “checking-out” early.

Off to take care of some last boxes, then maybe a nap before the Ohio State game.

For the record, six weeks of seeing someone in group-settings only, where they NEVER manage to visit you, do NOT make a grand relationship. This is especially true in the case where they are the one who choose to discontinue contact in order to play with strippers and other similarly employed women. No matter what anyone says, I haven’t been in a “Relationship” since breaking things off with my ex-fiancé. I have gone out with a few people since, but I have yet to get into the next “Relationship”. Also, going to the same High School does not automatically make you friends from High School. It makes you people who went to the same High School that may have been aware of each other’s existence. It also makes you people who come from a common area and who may have a common upbringing as a result of geographical tendencies. For crying out loud, even in High School, I didn’t claim to be friends with a ton of people. I knew a lot of people, but I didn’t claim to be friends with them.

Yes, I was faced with an intoxicated person during the party that claimed to want to be in a serious relationship with me. This person has the misconception (see yesterday) that we had a serious relationship about 3 years ago. I will admit that we “made-out” a few times (twice if I remember correctly), but that was it. We didn’t do anything as a couple. He dropped off the face of the earth and ignored my last phone calls and emails. It wasn’t like we had a screaming fight. I wasn’t crushed that things didn’t work out. I didn’t really have an emotional investment going on yet at that point. Yes, there were plenty of things about me that he didn’t know about yet. I’m not an easy person to get to know, people tend to get to know me slowly and over time. My closest friends still find me a bit of a mystery, for someone who saw me about once a week for six weeks to be surprised that there are things about me that they were not privy to is not unusual as far as I go. It is really not unusual when you consider that we never alone to have a real conversation and I don’t go around telling everyone my business. For the record, unless I am comfortable with the whole group, I’m not going to be at my most open.

Things that do not impress me:

1. Dropping off the face of the earth for no given reason. If you aren’t interested, tell me. I’m a big girl and I’ll respect you more.


2. Showing up after three years of no contact and then calling for five days straight, without any response back. For crying out loud, give me a chance to get back to you. I’m not sitting around my house waiting on people to call me.


3. Calling me on Saturday morning to ask me to drive two hours to visit that day. Again, I’m not sitting around my house waiting on people to call. A visit that requires that type of drive also needs a bit more planning than a phone call three hours prior. Doing this every week for a month isn’t a big points grabber either.


4. People over the age of thirty who think the perfect weekend includes going out and heavily drinking every night of the weekend.


5. Constantly referring to your ex-spouse in conversations with people you are trying to have a relationship with.


6. Constantly referring to the fact that your children really love the person you are trying to have a relationship with.


7. Telling me that you aren’t ready to settle down, but that you may be getting to that point and don’t want to burn bridges.


8. Telling anyone who will listen that we were friends in High School and that we have this huge Relationship going on. If I’m in a relationship, there’s no need to convince everyone that it exists. Trying to convince people that I’m taken isn’t going to get any points either. The people who know me aren’t going to buy it and it will only make you look ridiculous.


9. Calling me “Babe” is a definite points loser! Calling me “Babe” and giving me orders at the same time will earn you a swift kick in the butt.


10. Looking at what I have and deciding that would be good for your kid. I am not looking to support anyone else. If I have something you like, find a way to earn it. I’m way beyond being flattered by someone who likes my dowry.


11. Publicly working up the nerve to tell me that you want to jump from just talking into a committed relationship. People who know me know I don’t jump into things like that.


12. Assuming that we can skip the get to know you phase just because it doesn’t fit your time table. When you have to leave on assignment doesn’t have anything do with me. I’m not going to skip steps to give you a warm fuzzy when I really don’t have any reason to trust you at this point. We are not anywhere near a point where you have any basis to ask me to be exclusive with you, just because you will be out of the country. We’ve never been out on a date. Why would you think I’d agree to see you exclusively? This sounds like something you’d do in grade school, where seeing someone doesn’t really mean anything. Can I get a Happy Meal before we’re all but engaged? Not going to happen.


13. Acting jealous when I’m affectionate with friends.


14. Giving me the 3rd degree about why I’m laughing my head off with friends as we fall to the floor in a heap.


15. Talking down about my friends, when you’ve barely met them. When you’re the one who was drunk at the time, you don’t have any room to talk. It is your own responsibility to make a good impression with them. It is not their fault if they want more for me than you show them.

I’m trying to be open about meeting new people and dating. The problem I keep running into is that even with that mindset, I’m meeting people who just don’t get it. I want to be wanted for me. I want to find someone who is strong and secure in who they are. I don’t want to replace someone’s mom. I want an adult. I have a lot to offer someone and I think I have the right to decide whether or not someone has enough to offer me.

Must be: Single, intelligent, confident, secure, straight, self-supporting, able to live alone, able to laugh at himself, willing to have fun and employed.
Prefer: Tall (6’ or taller), athletic, non-smoker, articulate, educated and never been married.
Nice to have common likes: Cats, the ocean, beaches, heights, reading, exercise, outdoor sports and trying new things.
Ideal age: 26 – 39 (others considered)

Tomorrow I begin working to clear out the last of the things from my room. I’m not sure what to call it, because it isn’t my bedroom. It is the room that I’ve decided will be the one where I’ll lock the out the world. I could have used it tonight, although the cats didn’t seem to mind sharing the living room with me too much.

I’m dizzy, giddy and content. Maybe I should have gotten more than shear curtains for the windows. I have so many songs running through my mind: Stay in the Moment, Precious Pain, It’s My Life, Beautiful Goodbye and The Lucky One.

Tonight I’m one of the lucky ones.
Wind to your wings

So until earlier, I didn’t realize just how much bronchitis sucked. For some reason I was under the impression that once you figured out what it was and went through the course of treatment, that it would run its course and I could go on with my life. Unfortunately, it appears to be less like having strep throat and more like recovering from mono. A single course of antibiotics does not solve this one, as it is one of those nice, long and slow recoveries.

I realize that there is a ton of evidence out there that we may be over medicated and that the use of antibiotics is weakening out immune systems, but it’s not fair to put us out cold turkey. My doctor told me that before they’d give me anything for a sinus infection, I’d have to try and kick it myself for at least 7 days. Great, so this last time I’m feeling like I have a sinus infection, but now knowing that they’ll make me wait an extra week, I put off going to the doctor and hope that I can actually kick it myself. Good news, I do manage to kick the sinus infection bug. Unfortunately, in the process of kicking the sinus infection, I’ve managed to develop bronchitis. That really sucks! Now instead of having something that a 10-day course of antibiotics will completely wipe out and I’ll be okay to get back into things, I have to recover my lung capacity.

I’m not really good for a straight 8-hour workday right now. I’m falling asleep on my keyboard in the afternoon. I’m falling asleep and it isn’t due to being bored. I’ll be working on something and the next thing I know, I’m looking at the computer screen and seeing complete gibberish. It’s a good thing that I can’t stretch out at work. Today I sat down on the couch with my computer in my lap, then started to work on answering emails. I think I finished one, but then I woke up 2 hours later. My laptop was still in my lap and the response I was working on was still on the screen, plus a few new lines of something crazy looking.

Anyway, now I know that it is going to take a decent amount of time to get over being sick this last time. It would appear that my lungs are only pulling in about 60% of the air that they were prior to being sick. Now I get to find a way to build them back up. The goal is 80% by the end of next week, but I’m going to have to get a lot of sleep for that to happen. I’m not doing a very good job on the sleep so far tonight, so I’m off to sleep.

Everything is fine now. My admirer is being deployed and I spent part of Sunday visiting with him before he leaves this weekend. Things weren’t weird or anything. I figure one of two things happened. Option 1 is that he was so drunk that he doesn’t remember anything. Option 2 is that he remembers our entire conversation and he’s okay with it. So bonus, I have a new pen pal.

And he didn’t call me “Babe” once.

So today I’m grateful to be breathing easier than I have in a while, literally. Today I’m grateful that when I cough, I don’t go into an uncontrollable spasm. Today when I cough, I can breathe in deeply and stop. Today when I cough, it has a purpose, because my body is expelling the “junk” it collected by getting sick. I have to say I’m glad that it’s finally breaking up, because I hate being sick and long recoveries just don’t sit well with me either. I’m bad at convalescing. Once I’ve caught up on my sleep I don’t want to lay around anymore.

Current to do list:
Unpack and arrange contents of the bookcases
Find a rug for the dining room
Get my cardio back up
Clean up the yard from Isabel
Halloween – 28 days and counting

So not to beat a dead horse, but could someone tell me why the clothing industry is making women’s sizes smaller? I was under the impression that Marilyn Monroe was a sex goddess to most of the male population. I’m sure if you got her BMI she’d be overweight as well. When did we go from women with curves to sticks?

I’ve gotten a lot of interesting email at work, but today I received one that threw me a little. It wasn’t rude or anything, just unexpected. I’ve always known that they way you speak can be a hint to the area you are from. I never realized the way you string words together could as well and in this case more accurately than some people have guessed from hearing me talk. So today I found an email thanking me for my help with something and for another email I sent out with more detailed information on a similar topic. At the bottom of the email was this: “Just curious - your grammar usage is similar to what I grew up with. Are you from the Pennsylvania/Ohio area?”

Why yes I am, in fact I’m from Central Ohio and lived there until I moved down here to North Carolina. The thing is, I didn’t use any colloquialisms in my email, I purposely avoid them and so I’m not sure how he managed to narrow me down to those two specific states. I’m rather curious at this point, so I’m probably going to have to ask him what tipped him off.

My Midwestern non-accent has been known to throw people, but I wouldn’t expect the way I string sentences together to do the same thing…

When work gets to be too much, you’ll know by the Stealth Disco.

I don’t know where this started or is going, but here it is anyway.

Is it really that we fall out of love or do we grow out of love instead? Could it be that when we meet someone and fall in love, it is because both people are on the same level and as such they are able to relate to each other and connect. As we go through a relationship, we are all bound to change as life happens. If these events create changes that are incompatible or to widely diverging, does this contribute to people who were once deeply in love looking at each other and wondering how they got where they are.

The type of person who was attractive in High School is not the same type who is attractive in college. I remember the day I realized that I was attracted to men around the age of 30, which was a bit of a shock. Granted I was around 28 at the time, but it was still weird to realize that the guys I used to see as attractive were no longer as appealing. As I’ve gotten further along in my life, I’m not content with the same type of person I once was. Now it is entirely possible that the guys I found attractive in High School have grown into men who would continue to be attractive to me, but they aren’t the same people they were then. I’m not the same person either.

Recently, I met back up with someone I dated in the past. Another friend who knew us both asked if I was still attracted to him. I had to honestly say, “No” to that question.

I spent last week on vacation and in Bartending School. Being on vacation was great, no work, late gym times, lots of laughing, good stuff. I am going to have to make time to get back to the Bartending School to take my test, as I was at the vet with Brewster on Friday when I was supposed to originally, but I should be able to do that in the evening this week. Friday night, ShaeSin and I were able to show off our new skills at our Halloween Party. The party wasn’t as wild as the Triple Threat Birthday party, but still much fun. I’ll be adding the pictures once I get them assembled. Now to finish the clean up and get some sleep. Monday morning is going to be early tomorrow.

I still haven’t received a response from the people hosting this site. Until mid last month, I hadn’t experienced any problems with this company, but lately I’m been highly dissatisfied with them. Unless something happens soon, I may be changing providers.

I’m heading off for Ohio. I’m not sure how much I’ll feel like writing while I’m gone, but I guess we’ll all find out soon enough. (laugh)

Now I remember why I prefer to drive long distances with someone else in the car. Driving in the rain still sucks, but the trip was pretty uneventful. I forgot how many nuns there are at the Mother House. I had no idea that I’d see so many familiar faces at the wake/calling hours. I even saw the teacher (singular) that I had for the 5th and 7th grades. I still wish I’d gotten to talk to Pat before she passed, but the last time I saw her she was smiling.

There’s nothing like being in Columbus on a football Saturday. Everyone’s favorite colors become a sea of Scarlet and Grey. It is almost like watching a pilgrimage as rivers of people flow into Ohio Stadium and become a single entity poised to raise their voices to support the Buckeyes.

The Good:
The energy of the crowd
The sound of the cheering
The crisp taste of the air

The Bad:
November in Ohio is COLD!

Go Buckeyes!

Going away really does make you appreciate coming back. So here I sit engulfed in cat fur as my cats remind me that petting them is much more important than any silly computer. All the cats are accounted for. Clif and I had an uneventful drive back from Ohio. Tomorrow begins a new week and a return back to day-to-day life. I still need to make arrangements to take my bartending test and catch up with some people that I dropped rather suddenly to travel to Ohio, but I’m okay and things will sort themselves out as needed.

The time is approximately 6:15 p.m. Two women and one man walk into a bar. The women order Coca-Cola and sandwiches. The man orders sweet tea. After enjoying dinner, at approximately 6:45 p.m. one woman begins feeling dizzy, having stomach pains and heads for the restroom. Suspecting that it is a new medication, the other woman and man, though concerned are not alarmed. At approximately 7:00 p.m. the second woman begins to feel dizzy and light headed.

After a time, the issues seem to pass, although both women now have a slightly sore throat. So what caused this weird coincidence? Was it a coincidence? Is it food poisoning? Is it the beginning of something even better and longer lasting?

Commonalities: Coca-Cola, female, baked sandwiches (though different kinds) and a rather common medication.

Tomorrow morning will lend to more information, hopefully good news.

Current state of things: Tired, but okay.

The short form is I'm going good. I had about as good a trip to see family as can be possible with a funeral involved. The funeral was an incredible letting go experience. My aunt was sick for about 3 years and in a lot of pain. It was good to be able to say goodbye to her. That and she made a point of writing us a letter that was read saying she still loved us and that she was happy where she was now. Very nice to get permission to be happy for her, even while missing her.

I would have expected the roles to be reversed, even had that been the case, I'm not sure I would be able to explain this...

There is a huge difference between forming an opinion and being judgmental. If I form an opinion of someone based on what I observe of his or her behavior, then my opinion has a basis in reality. If on the other hand, I choose to immediately classify people based solely on their outward appearance, ignoring their actions, is this not being judgmental?

My mom used to be fond of saying, “Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.” Rather than assuming that people must be classified immediately and risking being wrong, wouldn’t it be easier to just let people be themselves and judge them on their actions?

Judgment is exploring a topic from as many side as are available and then forming a conclusion based on the information discovered. Judgmental is ignoring the individual in lieu of some stereotype.

Sleepy

Note to self: Posting at midnight, after a drama incident and when you are falling asleep where you sit may lead to poorly phrased posts that may be misinterpreted.

So for the record, the “Judg- (-mental or -ment)” post had nothing to do with the evening’s drama event. I was reading something yesterday about INTJs and how they are known to make snap decisions that are judgments, but not judgmental. This action is often misunderstood and taken as being judgmental, because for all but one other type (INFJ) a similar reaction would most likely be a judgmental action.

I've actually been kicking around (be it rather ineffectively) in my head the difference between the two for most of the week and nothing that happened last night triggered it.

I'm trying to deal with if or how to broach the actions of someone that appears to be judgmental to me. I have a hard time respecting judgmental decisions, as they either ignore facts or are made prematurely. I have a hard time understanding why someone would want to continue to make those types of decisions. At the same time, I make very instinctive judgments myself, so for me to bring up the subject is awkward because it could lead to a situation that may come down to “I can make instinctive decisions, but you can’t.” That just won’t work.

There is a chance that it wouldn’t come down to such a double standard, as when I make an instinctive decision, I rarely express it until I some empirical data to back up my instincts. I think this is why the “give them enough rope” concept works for me. When I have negative instincts about something, most of the time I’m hoping that I’ll be proven wrong, so I’ll keep an eye on things, but I don’t want to influence anyone unduly incase I am wrong. Heck, I didn’t tell my parents when I started having serious doubts about my engagement for fear of setting up bad feelings between my parents and my fiancé should we work things out. Darn annoying principle to let people make up their own minds about things.

Three new pages of Halloween pictures have been added to the Halloween ablum. The Halloween ablum is on the Photo Album page. The new pictures start on page 5.

Sitting by the lake, soaking up the sun and talking with a friend. How often do you see a dragonfly in late November? I saw one Saturday morning, as I sat there in the sun.

Gemini: Stop trying to solve everyone's problems today Cappy. You'll only exhaust yourself in the end. Let it go. You don't have to save the day all the time. Besides, there are better things that you can do with your time.

Since my mom is going to ask, yes, the Wish List (to the side under Meet RedJen) is up to date in so much as I've removed anything that I've broken down and bought for myself.

The County of Los Angeles has taken a break from trying to regulate your bedroom and has instead moved inside your hardware.

Will there be a new Emancipation Proclamation?

A short and incomplete list of things I am thankful for:

• A loving family who miss me when I’m not around


• Loving friends who jump to adopt me when I will not be spending holidays with my family


• Living in a place where I have the freedom to be an independent woman, freedom of speech and the freedom to worship


• A relatively stable job that supports my habits and hobbies


• My home and my pets


• Access to medical attention (for me and my pets)


• Overall good health

After being gone for a month as a hiatus (dropout), I went back today to brush up on my drinks and get ready for the final written and practical exams. I was going to go back tomorrow and take the test, but after everyone else left and I found out the instructor would have to be there until 10:00 pm. I decided to go ahead and take the written test, figuring that if I didn’t pass, I could go back to my original plan. I passed the written test and completed my practical exam in the required time.

I now have an official certificate saying that I have graduated from Bartending School. Now the only question is should I have it framed and put up next to my OSU diploma at home or at work?

I really wanted to sit down during this holiday weekend, think about the things I’m thankful for and express them in a coherent entry. Unless something happens in the next 26 hours, that isn’t going to happen this weekend. I’ve had a pretty good extended weekend. It hasn’t been conducive to inspired writing. I’m functional again, just not quite inspired.

I had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner with a friend’s family. It was almost like being at Grandma S’ house for a holiday, only there weren’t as many people crammed into the house. We even watched the Lions play and win.

One thing I am thankful for currently is a lack of “high drama” in my immediate life. I have friends who are going through extreme drama in different areas of their lives and I don’t envy them the experience. Their drama makes my being unable to go up to Ohio for Christmas seem small in comparison. I can schedule an off holiday trip to Ohio to see my family, but their drama isn’t going to be handled by simply rescheduling a trip. So this year I’ll be mailing gifts to Ohio and ordering gifts online that will be sent directly to people. Sure I’m disappointed, but considering the reason I won’t be able to go to Ohio again so soon is that I just bought a house, I don’t think I’m doing too bad here.

I am the anti-drama queen, to the point where I’ve been told I tend to keep people calm around me. Am I boring or what? Not that boring is bad in this case.

Love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a tear.

Don't cry over anyone who won't cry over you.

Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and impossible to forget.

Don't let the past hold you back; you're missing the good stuff.

BEST FRIENDS are the siblings God forgot to give us.

When it hurts to look back, and you're scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your BEST FRIEND will be there.

Nobody is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I am so close to swearing off ever hosting a party ever again. Last year I was having people over for a Holiday get together the first Friday of December. Two days before, we had a wonderful ice storm that knocked down trees and power lines. This generally made a huge mess out of the area. I was lucky to get power back fairly quickly.

This past September, we planned my housewarming and the triple threat birthday for Saturday the 20th. What happens that week? We have a hurricane go through. Granted it wasn’t a huge hurricane here, but still!

Sunday I’m hosting a gift exchange for friends and now there is a winter weather warning going on for tomorrow. I’m going to have to either stop entertaining or let someone else start picking the dates.

What I said Wednesday about having parties, yeah, I’m thinking that may go for getting my hair done. Although in this case since there have been years where getting my hair done didn’t correspond with trauma. The last two times have been on the same day as major upheaval at a certain investigations firm. I refuse to stop having my hair fixed.

Mud Jumping Monkeys In New Capes

Is it something in the air or the pull of the moon? Is the joke on us all or is it just a chosen few?

Looking up tonight, the moon hangs like a plate in the sky. Driving home from a visit with a friend, I saw a falling star.

When dealing with someone who is trying to recover from a depression, making demands on their time is not a good thing, especially when the time you are trying to demand is the time they are spending with a doctor or therapist. Think of it as if they are recovering from mono or a really bad flu. The time that they are able focus and give you is precious, asking for more time will only make recovery harder or give you time that is unfocused and worthless.

Where did this come from? I got email today saying that my “in office” schedule this week wasn’t working. So what is my reaction? The truth is I politely told him that I was at the doctor. What I wanted to tell him was to take a flying leap and that he should be happy I was able to work at all. The thing is I have to concentrate twice as hard to get things done. It is hard to focus and stay on task. I wonder if this is anything like what ADD feels like…

Puzzle looking to be solved
A close friend has described me as an alien. While it may take while to figure me out, I’m looking for someone who isn’t afraid to be a partner. Personal responsibility is important to me and until there is a child in my life, I have no interest in being someone’s mommy. I firmly believe that we are defined by how we react to things around us, not the things that happen to us.

Most people are comfortable talking with me, I tend to avoid judging people and prefer to help people make up their own minds, regardless of what I think is best. I believe people need to make their own decisions and learn to think for themselves. I am also someone who does not escalate an emotional crisis.

The people I care about, I care about deeply and with quiet strength. I am the person who will arrange for you to have a favorite dinner alone if you need peace and quiet after a hard day. I am the person who stops by just for a hug and leaves. I am also the person who just likes to sit quietly barely touching in front of the fireplace. My promises are kept and I expect the same in return.

My life is fairly comfortable and I would like to share it with someone I can love without reservation.

I’m looking for someone who wants to be part of a larger whole.
I’m looking for someone who is independent and competent on their own, but who wants to give who they are to me and receive who I am in return.
I’m looking for someone to be the keeper of my trust, secrets and deepest fears.
I’m looking for someone to hold me for no reason at all and be there when I’m too tired to be strong.
I’m looking for someone who will lean on me when they are tired and in need of strength.
I’m looking for someone who I can laugh, cry, yell and be quiet with.

…my brain started functioning today. I may not be up to full speed, but I can see things again. No, I haven’t been blind, just hazy of late. This morning I was in a meeting and I knew the answers to things we hadn’t broached before and was able to help put teammates on the road to a creative solution that will help both them and our customers. I also managed to redesign the entire flow for one of my current applications to minimize the chance of end user problems and to make the use more intuitive. It wasn’t a bad start for the day. I stopped questioning and just said things. Mr. Mgr, I’ll have an analysis of why that happened and a better solution for you on Thursday. We can present it on Friday morning; since that is the first time the necessary people are available.

Let’s hope this isn’t a phase, cause I haven’t felt this good in while.

That much formatting takes a while to do. I’m tired. I’m going to take a break now, shower, eat and pretend like I didn’t just rip an emotional hole in my chest for a while.

Tonight we say goodbye to the Fall and welcome Winter. I find it a bit ironic that the longest night begins the season of Winter. Now the nights will grow shorter and the sun will spend more time lighting up our sky.

Unless you are a part of the couple, the wedding is NOT about you. If you care about the couple at all, you will make any judgment calls based on what is best for them. If two people can be in the same place peacefully, but someone bringing a specific guest makes it a circus, DON’T take the guest.

Nicholas, your friend may be nice, but she isn’t the one who was invited. This isn’t about you and it isn’t about your friend. If you want to introduce your friend to people, then plan something and invite the people over. Don’t use someone else’s wedding to make a point. I repeat, weddings are about the couple getting married. If you can’t put the couple’s best wishes in front of your own for that ONE day, I hope you enjoy the buffet.

Put yourself in the couple’s place and think how you would feel if someone decided to hijack your special day.

I woke up Christmas morning with a catch in my heart. Knowing it was Christmas morning, for a moment I was ready to greet the spoils of Santa.

Okay, I just shot off something that I’m not sure of its reception. I’m going without internet access for a few days, so I guess I’ll have to wonder about the response until I get back online.

I have hereby been convinced to venture forth from the house tonight. I haven’t felt like being in a crowd today, so I was going to just stay in and watch the ball drop from here. It turns out a few friends have got together, so I’m heading over there to ring in the New Year.

If you end a year in the same manner as it began, then I will be surrounded by close friends and I can’t think of anything better.

Seven years ago today, Omega and I arrived in North Carolina from Ohio.

In 1997…
…Everything I moved fit into the backs of a Jeep Comanche and a Jimmy.
…I lived alone for the first time in my life.
…I started my “career” as a software engineer.
…In 1997, I paid more in income taxes than I grossed in 1996. (What a difference a degree made.)
…I discovered the magic of the ocean.
…I bought my first car. (Bought being the operative word.)
…I adopted Brewster and Neko.
…I started paying my student loans.
…I started digging my way out of the credit card hole I created in college.
…I rented a car for the first time. We drove it to Colorado over Thanksgiving.

In 2003…
…I hired movers. Since 1997, I had acquired 2 bedroom suites, a living room suite, dining room suite, a set of bookcases, 2 TVs, a kitchen full of stuff and an entertainment center.
…I finished paying for my car.
…I paid off the last of my credit card debt from college.
…I bought my first house (and lawn mower).
…I continued paying on the student loans, although they should be more than halfway paid for at this point.
…I have been a software engineer for 7 years.
…I have lived in Raleigh, NC longer than I lived in Columbus, OH.
…I started blogging in February.
…I started www.redjenosu.com.

The full moon on a clear night gives off a lot of light. There is something wondrous to be able to sit in a moonbeam and gaze up at the sky.

Looks like Scooter (the golf cart driving officer) has moved from downtown Raleigh to Duke campus and the RDU airport. Police on Duke’s campus have been seen riding Segways. At RDU, officers are a little more low-tech on their traditional scooters.

I can understand using something in the airport, although apparently part of the reason for the scooters there is to give the appearance of more police than are actually present. Wonderful, we’re in a raised alert status and they are finding ways to keep the shift counts low.

What happened to the bike cops on campus? I sure hope no one catches a cop riding a Segway and eating a donut…

I’ve been craving home cooked food lately, Grandma’s noodles, which I (and everyone I know with the exception of one person) love and white bean soup. The noodles make sense, Grandma has made them for as long as I can remember and I’ve been planning to try making them since I was up in Ohio last month. Grandma always makes noodles for holidays and since I missed her Christmas gathering, I missed the noodles. The bean soup is another thing entirely. It isn’t something I ever craved, but with the weather getting cold, it has been on my mind.

Grandma’s noodles:
Score! This won’t mean much to anyone outside of my family, but I made Grandma’s noodles today and they turned out right! The only thing that needs worked on is I didn’t cut them quite as small, so the next time I’ll make them thinner and shorter.

Mom’s bean soup:
The jury is still out on this one as it is a work in progress. I’m playing this one by ear, but it looks right so far. Using the package the raw beans came in, I’m guessing about how long I’m supposed to soak the beans to soften them. I’m also guessing at the other ingredients, but the kitchen smells right so far. Of course when I finish the soup, I’ll be ruining it by putting catsup in it. That’s not my fault, I get it from my dad and considering some of the odd food combinations my parents eat, putting catsup in my bean soup doesn’t seem too bad.

I really have no idea why I like bean soup the way my Mom makes it. Now I just have to puzzle out the sloppy joes she used to make, rivvel soup, stuffed peppers and chicken sandwiches (kind of like sloppy joes with chicken in cream instead of tomato).

[As a side note: the soup tuned out right.]

A Dozen Little Known WINDOWS 2000 ERROR MESSAGES
1. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.
2. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.
3. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
4. Press any key except... no, No, NO, NOT THAT ONE!
5. Close your eyes and press escape three times.
6. Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.
7. Windows message: "Error saving file! Format drive now? (Y/Y)"
8. BREAKFAST.SYS halted... Cereal port not responding.
9. File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)
10. Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat? (Y/N)
11. Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)
12. User Error: Replace user.

... I may have to use this as a template for a lost pet flyer:

The picture is from Sluggy Freelance, a internet comic that I highly recommend. Click on the image itself to see the full comic from that day.

We have a deadline of 1/31 that our “customers” were refusing to either lessen the workload or push out the deadline. We never agreed to do the work on their timetable. As of Thursday, they still hadn’t closed on a plan for January. We figured out that if we got an extra person, refused to attend meetings AND worked 30% overtime, we would only be two weeks late for what they want us to do. I don’t know about anyone else on my team, but I can’t code for 10 hours straight 5 days a week for 3 weeks. I won’t even be walking at that point.

I was reminded last night that there has been a rather consistent theme to my work frustration. The common theme is people not delivering on their commitments. Because I have such an issue with being able to deliver what I’ve promised, it is amazing that I ever agree to depend on other people to meet my deadlines. Well, the 1/31 deadline is highly dependant on other people delivering information quickly and I’m not the only one nervous that quickly will be days instead of minutes. We’ve been asked to put ourselves on the line and burnout but we have no sense that anyone else is going to put forth any effort to make the deadline. Really makes you want to work yourself to death, when no one else is going to be held accountable.

This is no time to indulge in complaining. Valid objections have their place. Raise them to the right people.

(For anyone wondering why I don't put out the horoscopes for any other sign, I'm only sent my sign.)

Ever wonder what geeks do when their brains start to burn out? Luckily Drix challenged me to see who could club a penguin the farthest.

I started writing up something I had been planning on posting for a while, but I got distracted. I’m looking into getting a new kitten (or two), but this time I may actually purchase them rather than trying to get lucky and just finding great pets.

My office is closed again today. I wonder if this means that our deadlines will be extended, probably not. Of course I've gotten to a point where I need to meet with my team to go forward, so while the time off is nice, it I'm not making any additional progress.

The sun peeks and ascends above the horizon. Ice begins to melt and people begin to stir from within their homes.

Evidently I spoke too soon about melting ice. The ice may be melting elsewhere, but the ice on my driveway appears to be here to stay for a while. Who would have thought I’d arrange for a ride into work? If I’m lucky, when I get into the office, I’ll find that my furniture is rearranged. Reality seems to be slowly creeping into the minds of a few people at work. Suddenly it has dawned on people that unless certain people outside of my team deliver things, we can’t put our work into production on the demanded date.

Goodness, you mean if everyone doesn't make the date this whole push to get things done early isn't going to work? I wonder why that sounds familiar...

Winter has been wearing thin on everyone. We’ve all but thawed out from last week’s ice storm. While it might seem odd, it was warm enough today to go barefooted out on my deck long enough to refill the interactive cat entertainment center, which is also known as a bird feeder.

Today was the Super Bowl and while I had mentioned a few weeks ago that people were welcome to come over to my house, no one had said anything and I had assumed people were either not watching the game or had other plans. I was okay with that, ShaeSin’s been having a hectic time lately and if nothing else, she was coming over since we haven’t seen much of each other lately.

It turns out that I had a few surprise visitors. It was very nice evening and just what I’ve needed lately. Between being stranded by the weather, submerged in my own work and people being busy with new jobs, it has been easy to feel disconnected.

Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day and today is celebrated as Candlemas or Imbold. We start to look forward toward the coming of Spring. We recognize the changes of the season as the days become longer and start to come out of ourselves and noticing things that go on around us.

Things begin to stir within as we move forward.

I’ve decided to cave into the clock nazi and change my schedule. I’ve done it now for two days and so far I like it. I was thinking that I wouldn’t like getting to the gym after work, but I came to the realization that this may work out well for everyone. I’m going into work early, so my manager seems happy. I’m actually spending less time at work, since I have a reason to leave. If only everything were that easy, I’m there when he wants me there and I’m working less, so everyone wins. I’m looking forward to the end of tomorrow, when I can leave my computer alone for a few days.

Dance Fever Friday Night
Sometimes it is nice to go out to a club that isn’t necessarily “hopping”. The positives from this include having room to move without being trampled and getting to spend time with that people you came with. The negatives are more subtle, fewer people to see and flirt with. I guess it all depends on the mood you are in, which one is a better case. Friday night was a time were the less crowded club suited many moods. It had been a long time since we’d been out and just let go. I got home tired, but cheered. After taking a shower, I went straight to sleep. Wow, relaxed, how nice that felt.

Don’t get me wrong; a full and jumping club can be a blast if you start out with energy. I’ve been slowly getting my energy back, so I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t be as much fun where I’d be more on my guard. It is kind of hard to really let go and have fun when you are tired and having to protect your toes at all times. There is only so much energy a single person has and when your energy has to go toward survival, there isn’t much left to check for chemistry sparks and flirt.

Saturday Night Fever
Last night I was invited to share in celebrating the wedding of one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met. Neither the bride nor the groom is what I’d call typical people, because the word typical isn’t big enough to describe either of them. Having watched their relationship change over the past few years, I can’t say I envy them the journey they took to get to this point, but the people they have become together are amazing. What a eclectic group of people surround them and came together to celebrate with them. I cannot remember being at another wedding that was such a real celebration. I’ve never seen the bride smile so broadly or much. Seeing her kick of her heels and truly enjoying herself was a treat. The venue was gorgeous, the food wonderful and the guests were clearly having a wonderful time. Rarely have I seen such genuine fun in formal attire.

Two nights of dancing shoes, time to wear slippers today :)

Still up, it’s amazing how much work I’ve gotten done this evening. I’m all but done with the stuff I was trying to do at the office yesterday and what I had planned later today.

After all the panic about getting the code ready to be tested for today, now they are thinking about holding it back in order to add new requirements to it. Not that anything has changed from the original design I showed them, sent them and finalized with them. Nope, they’ve just decided that the pastel shades are a tad too vibrant and although they asked to send notification to anyone registered with a blue car, now they want to pick who the lucky people with blue cars are that get to “win”. The requirement included minimizing manual user interaction, now they want to be able to make the whole thing manual.

Maybe what they really want is a “do what I want” button, I should probably get on that now. Granted, they will probably want to discuss the exact dimensions of the button, exactly what verbiage to use to label the button and what font things should be in. That discussion should take at least a week to finalize. If I’m lucky, by the time they get that decided, I’ll have shown them the design for the actual function and coded everything as proposed, only to have them decide that something else is wrong with the way I coded things to their requested specifications.

Who'd have thought that South Park would be advocating people take personal responsibility for their own actions....

I had one of the most draining conversations today with my manager. We were originally supposed to meet for an hour, but we ended up talking for close to two and a half hours. I think the net result from the meeting was good. We talked about everything from my perception of things, how the events of the last two years of work had contributed to issues I was having, my perceptions of my manager specifically and our department in general.

I found out some of our customers were complaining that they weren’t shown my code early enough. Normally that may have been true, but this particular customer is known for changing requirements on the fly and then not taking any responsibility when delivery dates are missed, so before I did any coding, I showed them my design proposal to make sure it was what they were asking for. Once we had an agreement, I put together a HLD (High Level Design) document and sent that to them with a note asking them to let me know if any of the information was incorrect. I sent them the HLD on January 20th. They complained on Wednesday, February 11th that I hadn’t let them “see” what I was doing early enough. Funny, they had the HLD for three weeks and I never heard a peep from them saying that wasn’t what they wanted. So taking the extra time to put together the HLD has, if nothing else, given my manager leverage to go back and ask them what they needed that wasn’t in the HLD and it is kind of hard for them to say they didn’t know what they were getting when what I coded for them matched the HLD they’ve had for almost a month.

Maybe one day Friday afternoon at the office will go back to meaning a quiet day to catch up on paperwork and take care of little things. I’m getting a bit sick of 3-hour afternoon meetings when everyone wants to be somewhere else.

Someone should run for office to outlaw any meeting held after 3 pm on Fridays. They’d get my vote at this point.

I’m definitely not feeling well. My head feels fuzzy, I’m cranky, my temper is short, my patience is low, I frustrate easily and I’m more pessimistic than usual.

The Good – I think my sinuses are finally ready to start clearing up. I’m tired and having issues staying awake, but I can breathe and my teeth no longer ache 24 hours a day. My gym schedule is settling back down.

The Bad – I’ve been fighting off a sinus infection since at least Saturday. There has been a bunch of drama going on that I’ve observed. Say it with me: “Personal responsibility”.

The Boring (Work) - I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I really don’t need to think any longer. It doesn’t appear that anyone appreciates when I do think, so why bother. I hear a lot of lip service about wanting to be a high performance team. I’m finding a lot of humor in the ineptitude that I see. It has been made clear that I’m not welcome to make observations, so I just ask questions…

Once more into the breach, err office…
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead…
Do you think a call from my mom, will get me an excused absence from work?

Now I lay me down to sleep
A shot of Nyquil and I’m out deep
If I should die before I wake
That’s one last commute I’ll have to make

Here I am at work again. It is uncomfortably hot in here. Not I want to fan myself hot, but sweat dripping down my back under my clothes hot and the underside of my hair is wet. I don’t know if I’m sweating because I’m running a fever or because the temperature is too high in here. Either way, I think I’m doing pretty well so far, as I’ve only taken off my shoes and I’ve left the bra on.

I think that’s it for the work project, now all that is left is fixing bugs.

The Zan-SUCK campaign is picking up momentum (okay there are only 3 of us so far, but that’s a 200% growth since I started).

Zan-SUCK and the BBB

So now the week from hell is over. I was supposed to be on call this weekend while my project went into pilot mode, but the site was closed today because of the snow from last night. On the positive side, I didn’t have to explain why I didn’t want to drive in snow or ice conditions to get to work. (I learned to drive on ice, what I don’t like is dodging other drivers who don’t know how to drive on ice.) On the down side, I ended up on a conference call at 10:00 am dealing with the state of my project.

I have to say, the amount of whining being done by a certain person is not proportional to the issue he thinks he is raising. It doesn’t matter how much he WANTS something, there is a process that we are supposed to follow for ALL requests. In fact, we, the development team, are getting heat for not following the process. I don’t care that it would literally take me 5 minutes to give him exactly what he wants. I’m not going to acknowledge that he needs the design change until it goes through the process. No, explaining why this is the most important thing going on does not allow you to go outside the process. Sorry, if I’m going to be kicked by the process, you are going to use the damn thing and like it. What makes this specific case humorous to me is that when I read the requirement, I already knew that this exact issue would come up later. The requirement said the sync agent needed to work with the new classification system. When I said that based on the requirement, I was coding everything to support the new classifications ONLY, the response I got was “that’s okay, that’s what we want”. So I didn’t bother to add the extra one line it would take to support the old classifications at the same time (out of spite). Today he tried to say that the requirement said it had to support the old & new classifications, that may be true now, but that wasn’t the case when we agreed to do it. I’m not accepting add on requests as part of the original schedule. See, if I don’t get credit for doing anything extra as a favor, I’m not doing anything extra as favors.

The decision was made to postpone the actual pilot until Monday. So I don’t have to work this weekend, well that’s not really true, I should work on the one open coding issue. If I don’t, I’m sure someone will want to know why I wasn’t able to get it fixed since I’ve had it since Friday.

This weekend, I’m going to sleep. I haven’t been able to take my sleep aid for the last week, since I was taking a decongestant at night to fight off the cold/flu/sinus infection. Now that my head has pretty much cleared up, I’ll be sleeping.

With praise like this, is it any wonder I look forward to going home?

We were supposed to go into pilot at noon, only the people who were supposed to verify the Beta fixes couldn't be bothered to do that. I waited until 5:15, then decided I was tired of waiting and went to play volleyball.

Yep, boring and lacking in much time to do any musing worth reporting.

Although the foe threw everything except the kitchen sink at us, we have successfully sent out the first set of notifications. I no get longer to hear about how we are getting further beyond our deadline, because they won’t push the button.

These people are trying to drive me nuts. It doesn’t matter which ID we use to send the mail from. Bottom line, it just has to be sent. There is no reason to discuss for half an hour which of two IDs it should come from. Just make a damn decision and get on with it.

On a positive note, while I had to work until 9:30 tonight in order to wait for them to make up their minds, today was my night off from the gym and my volleyball game was cancelled, so I didn’t miss anything other than Tuesday night television.

(Why work sucks)
What follows, while not being the actual discussion that took place last night while I was stuck at work until almost 10:00 PM, makes about as much sense as the real reason. This is why work doesn't make sense to me.

(We fade into a dreamscape flashback...)

I saw something I found very funny today. While at work, I went with a friend to refill my water bottle. Since she wanted to get a cola, we went to the break room that has the snack machine and the Pepsi & Coke machines. While I was filling up my water bottle, the snack machine did that half-turn where it almost drops your snack, but doesn’t. The guy who had paid for it tried to shake the machine to get it to fall, only he couldn’t budge the machine. Granted none of them were body builders, but it ended up taking three guys to rock the machine enough to get the candy to fall. So now you’re asking yourself what’s funny about that, right? Yesterday I shook the same machine myself.

Now where’s my cape, I think someone needs saving…

I've taken a hard look at a few things and while not abandoned, the kitten plan is on hold. While I would LOVE to just go and add them to the house, that wouldn't be responsible at this point. Sometimes I really wish I could forget about this whole adult thing. Anyway, I really want the kittens, so I'm going to make the event of bringing them home contingent upon reaching a debt-minimizing goal. I can't really justify spending that much money on kittens when I have outstanding debt. Time to practice what I've thought. Designer pets are a luxury and right now I don't need another luxury item added to my bills. So much for instant gratification…

Today someone told me I was being really quiet. I just smiled a smile that didn't reach my eyes. I'm assuming they noticed, since they asked if everything was okay.

I'm trying to learn to balance the need to be in control at work with the need to stop keeping all my feelings inside. At home or with friends it is a lot easier to trust that I'm allowed to be human. At work I have a boss who thinks I get emotional over things that I don't care a bit about and pretty much doesn't want to hear my opinion ever.

I've pretty much stopped trying to pretend I'm okay when I'm not and I have a bit of trust for the person who asked, so I honestly answered, "no". The thing is, there isn't anything this person could do to make me any closer to okay, that is completely between me and someone else.

I've arranged to take tomorrow off from work. Not that it will give me much time to myself since I have a dentist appointment, a doctor's appointment and I need to get my oil changed, but I won't be in the office and since the source of my angst will be out on Thursday, I'll have two days free from that stressor.

It's ironic to me that when I supposedly missed a ship date, that I got 3 paragraphs detailing how I screwed up. When it came out that I had actually delivered everything on time and the owner had chosen to hold off until the following workday to deploy the function, the only thing I heard was, "I'm not going to spin this, we're just going to eat the negative press." Of course, we translated to you, meaning me. We just had another large deliverable go out yesterday and today we got an email from the same person that had two sentences. Those two sentences said you guys worked hard, but this is only the beginning on making the process work in the long term.

To me that's a backhanded slap disguised as praise. As we went through the post-mortem on the last delivery, my boss said, "We made progress, but it isn't going to get any easier soon and I’ve bought stock in Pharmaceuticals just in case." I know I'm being sensitive at this point, but that comment was WAY out of line.

The fact is that as a result of the BS that has been going on around here, we've all had to make adjustments. Of course now that we've managed to do "good" once, we can't screw up or we’ll be back at the bottom of the hill to catch all that rolls down it. Oh wait, we're still at the bottom of the hill. To make things easier to go forward, the team is being thrown into complete flux. We get to keep three real developers and a contractor. We're loosing two developers and gaining one, but how soon the new one will be able to make any contribution is unknown. If his last transition is anything to go by, check back in July.

Enough for now, I'm going to go take my angst out on a defenseless volleyball.

Game One: Lost (17-25)
Game Two: Won (25-15)
Game Three: Won (25-19)

Other things I discovered: I can do the splits and still stand back up.

For those who have had the experience of riding in my car lately:

I bought my car a new battery and an oil change for Saint Patrick's Day and it is much happier now.

For my mom:

I went to the dentist today and "Look ma, no cavities!"

StrongBad "Easter Egg":

Not the 100th email

March madness is upon us. We’ll see if I’ll be able to repeat picking the tournament winner again this year. Last year, I was trailing badly in all the bracket pools until the last round when Syracuse kept on winning. To be honest, if they hadn't won, I would have been near the bottom of the pools, but ended up winning the two I entered. For one I got a free Sprite and the other was worth bragging rights. This year I’ve picked Texas to win it all and face Kentucky in the final.

So this week, my accomplishments amount to helping a friend make his journal appear to be at a different web address and not seeing my boss for three days straight. I cheated and took Wednesday off when I heard he was going to be out on Thursday. It would appear that his shoot first (at your own people) and ask no questions ever was aimed in directions other than mine today.

I really don’t get this guy. All I hear from him is negative. I found out today that people have been amazed at how few support questions were generated by the application I wrote. To put it into perspective, over 5,000 brand new users, poor instructions were sent to the users and there have only been about 150 requests for help in two weeks time. The application that it replaced received about 150 help requests a day. Granted I didn’t hear this from my manager, he didn’t pass any of that on, I had to hear it by accident. I’d think that would be good news that should be shared, but we wouldn’t want me to get a swelled head or think I was doing anything right.

Zuma - Try not to get dizzy...

It’s going to take more than a single clue fairy to knock some sense into the head of the person who thinks I get too emotional at work. It has been supposed that he may just be completely baffled by me and that makes him uncomfortable. Given that he is so far off base about most of what he’s said, I tend to agree with that insightful observation. It explains a lot.

How many Clue Fairies does it take to wield a two-by-four?

I like lists. I don’t always write them down, but I’ll file things away for later. I make lists of things I need at the store, music, movies and books I’d like to acquire, things I need to do around the house, things to write about, people I need to call, cards I need to send, birthdays coming up… I’m guessing you get the point.

There’s been a topic that has been on my list to delve into for a while. I’ve been tempted a few times to try and write about it, but each time I’ve found myself discussing something else. It isn’t like I’m uncertain about this topic, in fact I’m quite certain that it plays a huge role in my life. (Can you see me hedging again here?)

Maybe I just need to rush though and write it down. The thing is no matter how long it takes me to do this, it isn’t going to be easy. So let me try and sneak up on it.

Most of the time, people do things for a reason. You may not know why, but there is a reason all the same. I have a friend who is hyper-vigilant. It isn’t by choice that their senses stay on high alert. In fact, not only is there a good reason for this autonomic response, there is little doubt that it has saved their life. So there I go, getting off subject again…

Whether it is because I think too much or spend too much time living in my head, most things come down to a common theme. I over prepare for just about everything and try to plan for every contingency. Add that to being an over achiever and perfectionist. Actually admitting that I can’t control all the important pieces in my world was really hard to me to acknowledge. My goal in all of this is to stack the deck in my favor for any situation, so I don’t have to face failure.

...not the job for me. Love my parents and I'm more than happy to help them out with anything, but blindly directing on OS install/upgrade/driver search and install is not my idea of fun.

Excerpts from Real Science Papers Written by Kids

* One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

* You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind.

* When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.

* While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.

* Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change into a sun in the daytime.

* The longer the title, the less important the job.

* Everything can be filed under 'miscellaneous.'

* Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.

* To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.

* Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.

* There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.

* If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

* If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

* At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.

* When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.

* No one gets sick on Wednesdays.

* Machines that have broken down will work perfectly when the repairman arrives.

* Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it, makes it worse.

Someone has secretly replaced the ogre who has been playing my boss with a human being. This makes me confused. I know that at least two people in management have spoken with him recently about me, but the person I spoke to today didn’t bear much resemblance to the one I’ve been dealing with for the last three months. I’m not going to start turning cartwheels or anything, but it was a pleasant exchange for a change. The person who has been hounding me for months about a piece of work that wasn’t possible to do until recently actually told me that he wasn’t hung up on getting it immediately. He actually said that I didn’t actually have to work this weekend. Really, did he get replaced or returned?

…only two left until the weekend. Did I mention I’m tired?

The theme of this week is finding things I enjoy at work and concentrating on them, mainly because I’m not at all comfortable with the idea of really trusting my boss. He’s playing like everything is nice. We’ve only had a temporary problem with communication. I’m not buying this, I’m kicking butt and taking names.

I have to wonder exactly why someone would think that putting a link to a site referring to adult content with juvenile males would be okay. That’s insane! I’m getting sick of all the stupid spam I’ve been getting in my email lately. Now I have to go through my blog and the blogs I host to clean out the smut links.

Thank you Feral Girl, I needed a laugh and I found this in my email from you.

Not Badger, Bunny: Easta' Bun

There's no getting around it - I'm a geek. Last week, I used a binder clip (fancy paper clip) to put my hair into a ponytail. Today, I was so caught up in editing code that when I left work and went to the gym, I didn't realize I had a pencil in my hair until after I was done working out and my trainer was helping me stretch. In fact, he's the one who found the pencil.

I am getting some of the most bizarre spam mail this week. It would appear that the new trend is moving away from s3xy and S*E*X*Y to random words pulled out of the dictionary. I don’t think I’ve seen the word bivalve in print since I briefly took Zoology in college. I guess they expect me to want to read an email with a subject of: “mead bivalve francoise penance dither exercisable row adiabatic circa left satyr haiti remington downcast eightfold berg auditor pearlite bechtel berry”. I suppose I could be concerned that someone lost their vocabulary list for the week.

When search engines first started to get popular, people would put a bunch of text on their pages that matched the background so that when you opened the page you didn’t see the words, but they were there and the search engines saw them. That started to be less useful as the search engines became more sophisticated and smarter. Now that junk mail filters have become smarter about catching garbage subject lines, it would appear that the next thing we’ll be searching for are vocabulary lists.

7:30 am – 4:45 pm working
4:45 pm – 6:10 pm drive to gym, workout, drive home
6:10 pm – 12:30 am working

Yeah, a week staring at the wall sounds good about now...

And I thought I left my brain under my pillow this morning…

I got an email this morning from a confused person who couldn’t figure out why the button she was told to push didn’t work and complaining that it should have been better tested. When I scrolled down, I found that she had been unable to get the image of the picture to work for her. The image is in the instructions that say, “1. Go to a specific view of the data. 2. Click the button at the top of the view.” Oops, there’s no code behind the picture in the directions, you actually have to do step one and go to the view to find a button that works…

I sacrificed too much in the month of April, I can’t do that in May.

…picture pages…

So something is up with the server and it isn’t playing nice with my photo album. I’m just going to leave it alone today, I’m tired and since I’m not going to add anything to it tonight, it can wait another day.

People are not possessions. Relationships with people are not static. If you don’t respect the people you have relationships with, you will eventually find yourself without the relationship.

Getting caught in a lie does more damage than telling a truth that paints you in a poor light.

When you are not in the room, the room is still there and life goes on for the people you can’t see. You can’t call dibs on someone and effectively ban everyone else from interacting with that person. When you attempt to force everyone other than yourself out of someone’s life, that’s a form of abuse. By the way, Single White Female isn’t just shorthand used in personal ads, it’s a movie everyone should see. Get control of your own life before you start trying to run anyone else’s.

In the USA, at the age of 18 you don’t get to blame your parents for your actions. You are responsible for your own actions, get used to it.

Once you get out of high school, the world doesn’t owe you a damn thing. If you want something, get off you ass and do something about it.

We’re having an audit right now. Thanks to the actions of my worthless, unmotivated, unwanted person, the area will be able to show compliance with one of their major audit challenges. Yeah, I’m finding this week interesting. It’s funny be told on one hand to get lost and other the other to be pulled in to explain how we’ve complied with our audit requirements.

After all the insanity, I have to wonder what people are thinking at work. I’m running into some serious déjà vu. In January, my biggest complaint was that no matter how urgent people needed tools built, they never got used. Now, five months later, it is imperative that everyone use the new tools to make sure that they are able to prove compliance with corporate requirements. I swear, I’ve been talking to walls.

I was told today that I should expect a lot of focus on one of the tools I worked on earlier in the year as soon as the audit is over. That makes me wonder if my boss has mentioned to his boss that I may not be around too much longer. If I find a new position, this could be an interesting transition. Now there are two tools that need major attention that I’ll be leaving behind…

I’m in a pretty good place right now. Once I get through three more days, I’m taking some time off for me. I think I’ll sleep a bunch. Maybe I’ll go get a massage, wash my car or finish a refurb on Annie’s computer.

As an aside, I really hate the way Compaq desktops are put together. You have to be a contortionist to get at the motherboard. I’m about ready to introduce her computer to my hammer. (Don’t panic Annie, I won’t kill it, although I may maim it.)

Look out world, I’ve had sleep, I’ve taken charge of changing my work environment and I’m getting ready to take some time off for myself as well. I’ve even managed to schedule time for my car to go into the shop for it’s yearly physical. I’m climbing back on top of things.

The audit at work is wrapping up. I got to play coder-monkey-in-the-corner for three different audits this afternoon. (This is where I sit in the corner and don’t say anything unless asked a specific question.) This week has almost gotten to the two down and two to go point. Once today finished up, I’ll only have two more days in the office this week and then I’ll be sleeping in.

I think I’m getting old. I had a softball game last night and today my shoulder is a bit sore. Let’s not get into the fact that I have a bum hamstring that likes to be a literal pain in the ass from time to time.

My new car is fun. I had originally planned to keep my old car for my sister, but with the transmission failure, it isn’t worth the cost to repair it. Today I’ll finish up taking care of car stuff. I need to transport my car from the auto shop to the dealership and get the good news from my insurance guy.

I haven't gotten around to taking pictures myself, but here's a picture from the dealer's site of the car:

And then there are times when life just seems upside down. I woke up this morning and actually debated between getting on the internet and reading a book. I absolutely LOVE to read. I can’t believe how much the need to be in constant contact with others has altered my habits. If I were not at home, I may be able to understand wanting to catch up on news, but I’m at home. Anyone who I care about can easily pick up the phone and get in touch with me.

The instant gratification of knowing someone is accessible is appealing and sterile at the same time. Being able to connect to someone with a quick double-click and a few keystrokes is very appealing. The fact that the person is online makes them interruptible by default. I remember driving an hour to visit relatives who didn’t know we were planning to visit, only to find them not home. Now I hope that people don’t think I’m stalking them if I show up unannounced or unplanned. If someone isn’t online and you call, does that mean you are chasing them down? Our modes of communication are changing. First we added cell phones, then caller-ID, next came Instant Messaging and now we have Instant messaging on our caller-ID mobile camera phones with GPS capabilities. We are in almost constant contact, but the contact is filtered though so many artificial buffers. Where is the human contact?

(Actually wrote this last night, then fell asleep on the keyboard and forgot to publish it...)

I spent the day in an odd place. The atmosphere was so different from where I’m moving from, that I had to stop and double check what I was seeing. Who would imagine a place where they have mandatory fun days once a month. You get an extra day off for your birthday,

Expanding the membership of our BookClub (sent invitations to four new people)
Being happy with work (I know, it’s crazy)
Volleyball tournament (we got beat in the semifinals by the team that won)
Softball – Monday night we won 25 – 2 and they called the game at the end of the 5th inning. It’s too bad I couldn’t hit like this when I was a pre-teen.
Reading
Sleep is good :)

I must be getting old, because I think I threw out my elbow. It hurts terribly! We won the softball game, which was mercifully cut short after the fifth inning.

I’ve seen some funny things in my new building at work. On Monday, I realized I was walking behind someone who was clipping their fingernails as they walked down the hall. Today I saw a woman wearing a color pallet straight out of 1986. She was wearing a florescent, lime green shirt and crazy patterned leggings in florescent swirls of pink, blue, yellow and green on a black background.

Well, I started to write a post, but I just erased it. You should thank me for that, I saved you from having to read the drivel I just wrote. So instead, here are a couple of amusing things that were on TV in the last hour.

From Without a Trace -
FBI Agent: What did you talk about?
Woman: Love, life, everything… It’s called friendship. It’s like therapy for poor people.

Kentucky Fried Chicken is running a special that features a "Collectible" bucket. From the video on the TV, it is just their regular bucket with a picture of Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the side.

We now have Collectible paper buckets. Who in their right mind collects greasy paper buckets?

And the cow was allowed to live another day.

I saw a reference to the Gender Genie on So Anyway today as I was doing my daily journal browsing. I was curious because it says that it can guess your gender based on how you write. There is more about this theory at nature.com.

I put all of my Musing entries though the Gender Genie individually and then as a single entry. Yeah, I’m an engineer and I need data. My results came back as follows:

Of 35 individual Musing entries: 7 female, 27 male and 1 unable to determine.

When I entered the text off all 35 entries at one time: Male

After seeing this, I remembered a comment ShaeSin made last summer after Desufnoc and I took an online quiz that is meant to determine how being Right/Left Brain dominant plays a roll in your personality. ShaeSin was commenting on our results and mentioned that if someone were to read our results, which we agreed were pretty accurate, it would be easy to think I was male and he was female. To see if Gender Genie would get the same impression, I had Desufnoc’s entry from yesterday analyzed.

Bottom line: Gender Genie thinks I’m a guy and Desufnoc is a girl.

I officially joined my new department on June 16th from another division. I have spent the majority of my time at with the company as the Team Lead for an internal tool used throughout the company to facilitate Test Management. Much of the work that is being done on Test Management by the product team is based on the work done by the TM Team. While working on TM, I was responsible for negotiating and gathering requirements from out customers throughout the company, defining development schedules, coordinating education sessions for users, polling the user community for customer satisfaction and the value of solutions provided, designing and developing new functions as solutions to our customers changing needs. I have had the opportunity to consult with test teams all around the world, on getting the most out of their test cycles and am familiar with the testing practices of many product groups within the company.

With the push to increase the robustness of the infrastructure and the introduction of the increased security requirements for systems and information management, I’ve spent the last year doing less work with testers and focusing on working to ensure that the division was able to comply with the increased corporate requirements.

Since joining my new department, I’m spending a lot of time learning a brand new language (hardware speak). For now I’m looking forward to learning more about the hardware side of the business and how things work here.

This site has some highly amusing stuff on it. If you have a blog, they are also offering a $2 coupon via email.

http://www.stampandshout.com

Thanks for signing up for the free sticker giveaway! And please feel free to let any other liberal-leaning bloggers know about this offer, since we have many coupons left to give out!

James

-----

Here is your coupon from www.stampandshout.com

Coupon details: Get $2 off a single order, with no minimum purchase! Shipping is free if the order total is under $2, otherwise the shipping fee will be calculated on the value of the order after the discount.

Jeff Foxworthy on Blue Collar TV - I believe that people with low enough SAT scores, should be able to park in handicap zones.

RedJen’s Corollary – Stupid is a extra special form of handicap.

The first Triple Treat Party Evites have been sent out. It usually takes me a few times to get Evites to everyone that should get them. If I haven't gotten you one, drop me an email with your email address in it. I probably just typed your email address wrong...

Other:
I have a few posts kicking around in my head, but haven’t reached my fingers (Escape from Mullet-hollow, Pictures from Ohio, a better mom update and something about being naked). Watch this space for more…

I had a couple of times yesterday when I thought of stuff I could post here, but the urge passed before I did anything about it. Here are some random updates…

Omega, Neko and Blue: As Blue tries to establish his place in the pecking order, I’m getting confused. When Brewster was here, it was clearly a case of Omega, Neko and then Brewster. Omega taught Neko how to whip Brewster’s butt and together the girls kept him in his place. With Blue, things have been thrown into a bit of a twist. Neko was always quicker than Omega to swat at anything and Blue is no exception. If there is something inborn that helps cats to know the pecking order, Blue has got to be confused. When Blue tried to show dominance to Neko, she kicked his little white butt and has since decided that a daily butt whipping is good for Blue’s soul. Omega on the other hand has yet to let Blue have it. She growls at him, but refuses to engage him. I’m not sure that this will be enough for him, I think she’s going to have to turn around and hand him his butt before he stops.

Work: Things are going good. If I could just move the time I get in up by about 20 minutes, I think that the last chink in my armor would be hidden. The person I’d been having such a hard time dealing with, has unbent quite a bit. I’m not sure if it was me laughing at myself or inviting her to commiserate on a common frustration, but her hostility level has dropped, which has lessened the undercurrent of tension between us.

Personal: Why is it that with me it is either famine or feast? Earlier this year, I was a magnet for guys who had sometime at least slightly “off” about them. None of them were happy where I called them on it and trust me, I wasn’t upset when they dropped off the face of the earth.

Guy one: This one who kept trying to get me to invite him to my house when we’d never met in public, who called me judgmental when I said no thank you; you’re giving me the creeps. He also happened to be divorced, have a psycho ex-wife, be unemployed and be into alternative fuel sources. (I threw the last one in to say something nice about him.)

Guy two: Had built this huge romance in his head, when we’d never been alone with each other and he continued to be surprised by things even my acquaintances already knew. He is also divorced, has a son, called me babe, was shorter than me, is way into strippers, wanted to give my lifestyle to his son and assumed a lot. (He can be an awesome guy for someone else, but he’s not for me.)

Guy three: Liked to discuss explicit things at all times. I’m not such a prude that I don’t enjoy a bit of banter, but this guy went from zero to 60 in one word. I’m skilled enough at bantering that I can deflect most things that I don’t want to discuss, but this guy didn’t push the limits of good taste, he ignored them. At first he was amusing, but that quickly faded when he couldn’t find another topic. He also didn’t seem to understand that when I said, I was at work and large purple font was highly noticeable on my screen, it meant tone down the flashy colors or the topic. It may have just been me, but when his font was twice the size of the one I was using and he was using purple to my minimalist black, the word anus just seems to jump off the screen and beg to make trouble while I’m at work. He never managed to send me a picture of himself, after promising to do so. Thus, he failed my number one trust test: doing what you say you are going to do. This one is also divorced and has a child.

For a while, I was considering dropping the never been married requirement from my list and even backed off on it, thinking that maybe it was keeping me from meeting a quality potential. Looking back at the last three in this category, I think it stays.

I was going to update this more, but I’ve gone off on a tangent that is turning into a Musing.

Back soon,

RJ

I was over checking out jBat's Cave, when I ran across her commentary on Pierce Brosnan and Die Another Day. I have to admit, I noticed the *gobble* first in the Thomas Crown Affair. While I’m not one to advocate for or against body augmentation, I have to say this is a case where I was tempted to write and plead with him to seriously consider it. Brosnan is still hot for a man his age, but honey get that lifted and you can remove the "for a man his age" qualifier.

Nothing big going on here, I've been playing Techi-Geek this week with the site. Cross you fingers, I'm hoping that I won't lose any more entries...

Maria Bamford – I’m not sure why she amuses me, I’d want to kill her if I had to listen to her voice every day.
Gabriel Iglesias – The five level of fat: healthy, large, substantial, fluffy and damn
Carlos Mencia – Includes the Prime Minister of Japan calling Osama Bin Ladin on September 12 th and informing Osama that he was screwed, look at what happened after they attacked Pearl Harbor.
Stephen Lynch – Folks songs with twisted lyrics.
Dane Cook – in my opinion the worst of tonight’s line-up.
Lewis Black – Spite in person.

My arms are so sore! I joined the same gym that ShaeSin has a membership at and I’ve been going to their group classes since last Wednesday. Well, when you join this gym, they give you three new member orientation sessions with one of their trainers. I had the first one on Sunday. The trainer I worked with talked with me for a bit, then showed me how their cardio equipment worked and followed that with putting me through a challenging biceps, triceps and abdominal workout. I’m fairly certain his favorite type of exercise is the superset. He had me doing four sets of every arm exercise, which translates into 144 bicep curls per arm and 96 tricep presses per arm. My arms hurt like hell! I knew it was bad when I almost yelped in pain as I reached across my body and felt a burning pain on the reaching arm. I can tell that I really worked my abs, but it is a dull ache and barely worth mentioning.

So after abusing my arms on Sunday, I got up this morning and went my gym appointment. I’m not sure if it was a smart move, but I worked up a good sweat while there. I followed all of that by taking a kickboxing class with ShaeSin tonight after work. I really enjoyed the class, the energy was great, damn it was hard. I think I lost half the water from my body during the class.

I’m taking Tuesday morning off, but ShaeSin and I are going to try the Hip-Hop class tomorrow night. Hopefully by then my arms won’t be quite so sore.

In case anyone is wondering, I really like working out so hard that I feel it the next day. I like to be challenged and pushed past my perceived limits.

ShaeSin is gathering ideas for Truth or Dare. If you have any, feel free to post them...

Umm...

"Blowjobs For Kerry is a grass-roots movement designed to entice swing voters"

http://blowjobsforkerry.blogspot.com/

Horoscope for Saturday, November 6:

The melodrama of past days is gone, but not without leaving behind a bit of leftover tension. Settle down and refuse to feed any more energy into this, and it will be over sooner than later.

ShaeSin found a hero image generator that I'd forgotten about. Since I already had a few of these worked up, I’ll post my three favorites. Don’t panic, I’m not going to make anyone download the images every time you come to my site. They’ll be behind the link below. None of them have names yet, I always have a hard time naming characters, so if you have suggestions, let me know.

Horoscope for Tuesday, November 9:

You're in the mood to compromise, cooperate and make things as easy as you can on everyone around you. Yes, even that certain coworker who really knows how to push your buttons. Smile. It'll just kill 'em.

This sounds like Standard Operating Procedure to me. I think my horoscope has been hit by Captain Obvious...

Time to head for home and do some more work from the couch…

The end of the world is nigh... I just saw a Parental Advisory for teens who are partying.

Today is the birthday of someone who I was very close to. This is the same someone that had I not relocated to North Carolina would quite probably have played a very large part in my life. As it stands; he played a very large part of my life while I was in college. It was from him that I learned that I need someone who is willing to put my needs at the forefront of their life or I stand the risk of feeling taken advantage of as time passes. He also taught me to play and just have fun. He taught me that I didn’t have to cringe when someone raised their voice at me. He taught me that sometimes love isn’t enough and when we finally broke things off, we told each other that we loved each other, knowing that we both meant it, not knowing why this had to happen. When we finally parted, I cried for over a week, because not only had my heart been broken, but I was losing one of the people who knew me best.

I still see things that I think would make him smile. The last time I was in New York, I couldn’t help myself; I picked up 2 very small frames at one of the museums and sent them to him on his birthday.

I guess the bottom line of this message is – I thought of you today, whether you realize it or not and it made me smile.

I finally gave in to my addiction. I've created a banner for Blog Explosion:

I was hoping that this week would be a bit easier on my to do list, but I only managed to cross one off my list today. To be fair to myself, I have two really big ones that are finished except for one email each and a third that I’m trying to finish before sending those emails. Is that vague enough?

Three items may sound good, until you see the size of my list. Granted not all the items on my list are very big and a good deal of them are more along the lines of notes on things to keep an eye on until resolved, but now that I have people looking to me to have my stuff together, I’m not about to let little things fall through the cracks if I can help it.

I realized today that we’ve reached the last part of November. That may not be so surprising to most people, but last November was really tough for me. To be brutally honest, last November was a numb blur. For the most part, I got up, ate, checked my work email to make sure people talked to the right other people and then slept.

Thursday starts the holiday rush for 2004. I’m not sure how I feel about it. In an odd twist of fate, I started picking up Christmas gifts earlier this year. Travel dates are set and vacation days recorded. If I’m lucky, I won’t be getting any new big items to add to my list with due dates before January.

Yep, I’m rambling, so I think it’s time to sign off and get some sleep. May your dreams be peaceful.

I’m sitting here trying to write an entry for today and so far I’m failing miserably, so I’m going to do what one of my teachers used to have us do and just write whatever comes to mind, regardless of how well it flows or makes sense.

Blue is two to three times the size he was when I brought him home in July. I should probably add Gema to my list of "people" to get Christmas presents for this year, since she took such good care of him before I was able to adopt him.

I’ll be spending today with ShaeSin, theDistracted, and the rest of ShaeSin’s family.

Here I lie with a kitten on my chest. To be honest this is my favorite type of holiday. I should get up and (insert list of chores that need done: vacuum the carpet, wash the hardwood floors, rake the lawn, fold laundry, sort through my closet for clothes to give to charity), but today on this day of insane shopping, I’m hanging out with my favorite little white kitten with R&B playing on the stereo and chilling out. The list of stuff to do will be there tomorrow. Today I’m keeping it simple and taking it slow. The only decision I’m worried about right now is whether to take a nap or read. I’m leaning toward reading, but there’s something about a sleeping kitten that is pulling my eyelids down.

Happy Simple Friday from me and Blue!

I just got a call from someone claiming to be calling about my mortgage. I'm not sure if they were legit or not, but here's a clue:

The reason for the call: He says there is a late fee on my mortgage from a late payment in March.

Okay, I won't dispute that I may have paid it late, but I have a few questions...

I just paid my mortgage earlier this week using their automated billing system and it didn't say anything about a late fee. In fact I've paid my mortgage several times since March using this system and I know for a fact that if I'm late, it will tell me about it and include that charge when I make the payment. So why didn't the system include this charge? An answer of "I don't know" isn't good enough.

If I owe a late fee, why isn't it showing up on my monthly statement? I get this every month and it clearly states who much I owe on the account. There is not outstanding balance listed on the statement. Again, an answer of "I don't know" isn't going to be good enough.

Let's add to this the fact that your phone number showed up on my Caller ID as "Private" and there's not a chance in hell that I'll be giving you any information over the phone.

When pressed, the caller suggested that I call customer service to confirm things. You know what, I don't believe a word you are saying, so goodbye.

Go call someone who won't call bullshit on you today. I'm not in the market for bridges or oceanfront property in Arizona.

With help from ShaeSin, Roar and Blue...

When they look this cute, you know you’re in trouble.

I have a feeling that this is going to be an interesting holiday season. I’m considering running a pool on how long the tree stays vertical. Anyone care to venture a guess?

More pictures of Blue and his new toy are in the photo gallery.

Make to do list
Identify and prioritize frogs to the top
Make progress on frogs until completed

F - Kitchen
R - Bathroom
O - Laundry
G - Floors upstairs
S - Closet
Double check christmas list
Check list for trip
Work on laptop install

It’ll be a white Christmas here this year. Santa may find the roofs a bit extra covered this year with the amount of snow that was dumped yesterday and this morning. There is currently a blizzard warning active and forecasts are calling for 10-14 inches, with isolated areas getting as much as 21 inches. It is time to roll over and snuggle in. I’m not going anywhere.

Sleepy time for me... Gotta get up in time to make my hair appointment in the morning...

I'm thinking these may be a bit too much when it comes USB attachments...

Dear Jennifer,
Here is your horoscope for Friday, March 18:

Shopping? Who, you? Yep, you're in the mood -- and you'll want company. Better take along some sensible company, too. Sensible enough to stop you from buying that motor home, or anything else bigger and more expensive than a toaster.

(ShaeSin and I have talked about shopping this weekend...)

Dear Jennifer,
Here is your horoscope for Monday, March 21:

Here we go again. One more day of trying to find a way around all kinds of obstacles that seem to come out of nowhere. Well, here's a news flash: Sometimes we all just need to sit still -- even when we really don't want to.

(So maybe taking the afternoon off today is an even better idea than the original reason I had...)

I'll be going cold turkey during rabbit season to prove to myself whether or not I can "handle" the madness that is online MMORPGing. Translation, I've decided to give up City of Heroes for the next week. So if you've been wondering what has been going on in my head lately, I suspect I'll be releasing the tell all updates over the next week.

Fear not Dom, my heroes will return to their CoH homes next weekend, this a reality check to let me take a step back and make sure important things are getting the focus they need. Things like sleep, bills and chores around the house.

So what have I been doing with my video game reprieve? Well, Thursday I was supposed to play volleyball, but by the time I got home and sat down I woke up at midnight long enough to stumble upstairs and fall back asleep. Oh what an exciting life I’m leading…

I’ve been pondering lifestyles lately.

This morning I got up early and did absolutely nothing. Well, if you count feeding the cats and myself while sitting down, as nothing. When did a quiet meal become a luxury? How much luxury is sitting down to a bowl of oatmeal? Are we so afraid of being without one thing that we completely sacrifice another?

Me time is over for right now, time to get ready to leave for work.

For the record nothing is "wrong". I’ve been very careful from the start of my online journal about discussing things here that could cross the line between exercising my freedom of speech and volunteering to have my income suddenly slashed. I’ve been under a confidentiality agreement since I started working in North Carolina. It turns out that this caution has been with merit as there is someone who has tried to stir up trouble for me based on the opinions and observations I’ve posted here. To be honest, the restrictions placed on me aren’t that restrictive. Most of the time, by removing names and certain details, I can write about anything I like. In this case, removing the names and details doesn’t leave much to write down.

After editing the details, here is the story: Work currently consists of lots of immediate deadlines and very little time to react. I’m working my ass off to be able to make the deadlines and as quickly as I make one, two more pop up. If I can make it through the next few weeks, things should settle back down to a more sustainable pace.

I’m looking forward to: Vacation in June
I’m supposed to be reading: Coyote Kings of the Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust
I’m actually reading: Not much
Watching: Numb3rs, Battlestar Galactica
Current health project: Revamping my diet to include less animal products
Pictures that need posted: Updated photos of Blue and Mya
Long overdue chore: Mowing the lawn

We can only change the things that we can affect. When I don't like how something is occurring, the best course of action is to identify the things I can influence and put my energy there.

I ran across this and for some reason thought of you: Click Here

This little guy is the son of one of the guys who work in my department. At our last department outing, he was my "secret helper". He was in charge of listening for the special jingle sound that would tell us that a Baseball Bingo number was about to show on the secondary score board at the stadium.

I absolutely love kids at his age. They are the coolest little people around. This is probably why I've always said if I adopt a child, I'll try to find one in the age range of 3-5. Of course if the whole wedding thing had worked out when it was originally planned, there would have been a better chance of having one of my own. So I've found the one downside to not going through with it. I suppose if I'm going to be a single mom, I'd rather do it on my terms than on someone else's whim.

Somehow yesterday turned into posting not only what was going on, but also the pictures of Blue in the box and my baseball pal.

Hey Mom, thanks for everything, although I still contest your statement that I was two days late in my initial arrival.

A warning to parents, if you insist on telling your children that they were born late, make sure that they can't count the days from your wedding and say, "Nope, I was right on time."

Good luck is not to be underestimated; you'll find yourself thanking your lucky stars on more than one occasion.
--
So far the day has been pleasant. Actually the whole extended weekend has been nice. I’ve gotten to sleep in late and do a lot of relaxing. I selfishly wish that Saturday could have been extended. While I will thoroughly enjoy the thoughtful gifts, I would easily trade them for a few more hours together with that group of people. It is so rare anymore to get almost all of my favorite people in a single place. It was that everyone made time at the same time, that I found most special. Having everyone together and laughing was the best part of my birthday lunch.

I loved the ecards and the package from my parents and Rugrat. The kid was right, the two Muppet Movies were a good call. I've even updated my list to take them off of the "Movies to get" list.

So far today I'm chilling on the deck, reading and just being. It is nice.

Craving chocolate & steak, draw your own conclusions...

I’m running on short sleep today. Yesterday was blah, it had nothing to do with the people around me, the weather, work, taxes or my car. Sometimes biology just kicks you in the teeth and you just have to get through it. Last night I was wired until after 2 AM and then slept through my alarm for close to 2 hours. If I’m a little bleary today, people are going to have to bear with me.

I may have been hallucinating, but I swear I saw a man in the hallway with duck-butt feathered grey hair. Excuse me, 1977 called and asked that if you want to wear the hair, it should be some color other than grey.

Maybe Shae & I should look into this line of work. I think we'd make great "Life Coaches".

... at work on Friday afternoon ... err ... evening. How come me taking 2 days off in the middle of the week fills my inbox full of URGENT email. You'd think some of these people couldn't make it to the restroom without directions.

This is me turning off the computer and going home...

Seeing as I just noticed that it is after midnight, I suppose I'll knock off for the night.

Random Weekend Stuff:

• My air conditioner/heater is going to need replaced in the next 6 months.
  
• Shae rocks for multiple reasons. This week she specifically rocks for keeping me company while I worked on cleaning the kitchen AND for shampooing my living room carpet!
  
• Installed MovableType 3.2 without trouble. I'm still working on how to use the style templates, but I really like the way this version lets you manage comment spam.
  
• Actually saw Dominion
  
• Enjoyed some girl time with Shae and some other women.
  
• Sophie was a sweet puppy, played a little with Blue, let the other cats alone and didn't leave any presents on the newly cleaned carpet.

I've heard good things about this service, the new iPod nano sounds cool, so I'll try this once.

I'll keep you updated as to whether or not it works for me. Wonder about whether or not you can get one free, try it yourself. -- http://ipodnanos.freepay.com/?r=22223163

4GB iPod nano (White) Flash-based iPod Only .27 inches thick and 1.5 ounces 1.5 inch color LCD display screen Holds up to 1,000 songs Familiar ClickWheel functionality 14 hours of use on a single battery charge Earbud headphones, USB cable and Dock adapter included

Really, really busy!

anyone reads this, I have nothing to do with Jamster. I've had more than one person send me email asking me to stop sending things to their phone.

See, when I say something sucks, you should listen and take note. If these people had paid attention they wouldn't be dealing with Spamster now.

Friday evening was interesting. I went with Shae to another girl's birthday dinner/outing. The overwhelming feeling for the night? "Oh my god, they are young!" The girl is sweet, but for someone turning 25, Rugrat and Sibling 2 act more mature than this one. Overall I had a lot of fun until about 2:00 am, when I was ready to be in bed fast asleep.

Note to self: Clubbing before you are scheduled to work a Saturday shift is probably not the best idea.

Tonight we "fall behind" so what did I do with my extra hour? See for yourself...

An extra hour and a new camera

If someone had told me before that a person could have so much adrenaline going through their system that they were drunk on it, I would have thought them delusional or a liar. I would have been dead wrong. I feel like I’ve been drinking for the last six hours straight, rather than that I had a daiquiri along with a steak dinner. I am now going to sleep before I fall over in a convincing impression of a sloppy drunk.

For the record, I talk much more than normal when I drink, but I really do love you ladies!

It was supposed to be published 4 years ago.

I ordered it 4 years and 8 months ago.

Today Amazon.com claims that it has shipped: A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin

I woke of Saturday morning and with the thought to drastically alter my hair color. It wasn’t a case of going blonde or brunette either. I already had an appointment scheduled later that morning to have my hair cut and colored. The timing of my appointment was what made my color choice a bit different from normal. Saturday was the big Ohio State-Michigan game and it doesn’t get any bigger.

So what did I want to have done to my hair? I decided it should be Scarlet with wide chunky Grey highlights (stripes). I guess you can take the girl out of the Buckeye State, but you can’t take the Buckeye out of the girl…

Junior quarterback Troy Smith and senior center Nick
Mangold celebrate the final touchdown in Saturday's
25-21 win against Michigan. (Jill Bonnough)

Tonight closes out another calendar year. It’s been a year full of drama, quiet times, questions and surprises. There have been highs and lows, joy and disappointment. So far it sounds pretty normal to me. Mya joined the menagerie in January. She and Blue had their first birthdays in May. Omega turned 11 in October.

work, drinks & finger food, work...

Lots of things are wrapping up for the year at work. There is still plenty to keep everyone busy, but my to do list has actually been shrinking.

There are a few emails that I've been needing to write for too long, which I buckled down and wrote. I had a realization the other morning that I need to explore. This probably won't make any sense now, but I really miss my grandfather.

May you live in times that are interesting enough to make you feel alive,
but also calm enough to allow you to take a real vacation!

Just forward all my mail to work, it looks like I'm moving in tonight...

Hopefully I'll be done before my eyes start bleeding...

I have a new battle cry for my CoV character: "I hereby void your warranty, and send you back to God!"

I wonder what would happen if I started using it as a tagline at work...

Note for those who matter:
If you ask me a question and I give you an answer, my answer won't change if you ask the same question again (and again). To change the answer, you have to either change the question or the circumstances. I'm way too stubborn and a bit too bright to fall for something so transparent.

I saw this today while doing some web surfing

Be easily amused but skeptically impressed.

• I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.
• I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
• I would have talked less and listened more.
• I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.
• I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
• I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
• I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.
• I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
• I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.
• I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.
• I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
• Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
• When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."
• There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm sorry's."
• But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it, live it and never give it back. Stop sweating the small stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

Let's think about what we have been blessed with. And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally. I hope you all have a glorious day.

Maybe we should all grab that purple hat.
Feel free to pass this on to five (or more) phenomenal women today.
If you do, something good will happen: you will boost another woman's self esteem.
In memory of Erma Bombeck, Patricia, Heather and all the incredible women who have touched my life on the way through their own.

The Leader:

Angel Dust People Iced: Twenty Car Bombs Planted: Ten Favorite Weapon Circular Saw Arms Broken: One Eyes Gouged: Eighteen Tongues Cut Off: Three Biggest Enemy: El Loco Get Your HITMAN Name

Still alive and kicking...

Your regularly scheduled program was cancelled for tonight, which was fortunate for me, in that I had some work I really wanted to get done before tomorrow and that I was around to talk (however briefly) with my mom when she called.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bedtime.

"Every now and then, we all need to let loose and have some fun. That's not an uncommon state of affairs for you -- after all, 'variety is the spice of life' is your sign's motto, and it didn't happen by accident. At the moment, however, you'll be even more freewheeling, optimistic and ready to play than you usually are. There's only one thing to do: Gather the troops around you and organize an absolutely unforgettable party."

Too bad I have no idea where the troops are. They seem to have all gone into hiding.

and so the seasons change around us. Another measure of time is renderd into the past, never to come again. The season will return again in time, but never again will it be during the same time of my life.

Dear Establishment,

If you advertise that your entire stock of a specific brand is on sale, there are people (me for instance) who will insist on the sale price for any item in the store that is of that brand.

This is especially true if the difference in price is more than 10 dollars.If any of the staff is rude, I'll fight overr 10 cents.