Hee hee hee

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Yeah, I'm a geek.

How To Look Good Naked

Posted on my LJ on January 19th, 2008 at 11:54 PM

This show is a lot better than I thought it would be. I actually like it. I would never do it, because being in my underwear on national cable TV is something I just can't fathom. But it's a great concept and done in a sensitive way.

I also saw Don't Forget The Lyrics this week. I am like MADE for that show. You sing the beginning of a song and then have to fill in lyrics when the music stops. Usually about 5-7 words. I know the lyrics to SO MANY songs. I wonder if anyone has done a study to see how the pressure of being on a game show affects people. I mean, the armchair contestant can always think of the answers, right? But you are home, in your comfort zone, without cameras and lights and an audience and millions of viewers watching you and dramatic music and a host pressuring you about what you could lose if you don't get the answer. I have to imagine that affects how well you can answer questions and such.

Anyway, not like I am going to be on TV or anything. Just thinking about it.

Now I am watching Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. Love him! This show is serious shit. I like it. Off to watch some more.

T-TPTB-IF

I am very happy it is the weekend finally. I get to sleep in with my puppies tomorrow - woot!

I have a ton of stuff on my mind. Everything is floating around, driving me a little nuts. I am feeling a little overwhelmed this week. More than a little. But I am working on it.

WELL! After thinking about what more to write for about 15 minutes, I got nothing.

So there it is.

back at sucktastic work

Yes, here I am. Back in the bowels of hell. Okay, I am exaggerating. However, my supervisor just decided to change names of active e-mail folders that I MANAGE, not him. AND he decided to add folders to assign things in, one for me, one for my co-worker and one for him. So since I am the person that manages the inbox, am I now supposed to police those folders as well and move stuff to them and from them to completed when stuff is done?! What the fuck?! I love how he decides to change my workflow WITHOUT TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT! And yes, I wrote an e-mail back asking why the change and why can't we discuss these things before making changes. I did not write, but will say if I am asked, that we are not functioning as a team working together. That this is turning into boss->underlings and I don't like that one bit.

*insert whiny frustrated tone here* Why does this keep happening to me?! Fucking fuck!

Snow and more snow

Posted to my LJ on January 15th, 2008 at 11:54 PM

Fortunately, it did not stick that well. But well enough in the morning that I stayed home and worked from here. We did get a lot, about 5-6 inches of heavy wet stuff. It stuck to everything and I have to say when it looks like this is when I love it the most. I love when there is snow all over everything, the trees, the bushes, the houses and roofs...everything. It looks so pretty.

I stayed in though. Did my work like a good girl and then saw 3:10 to Yuma which my sweetie rented. I liked it. A little depressing, but a good western and I liked the characters.

And today, I was home sick. My sinuses were doing something awful to my head and so I stayed in bed all day. Blah. I hope the week gets better.

The Sexy Pandas!!!!!!! \m/ Wooo!

Posted to my LJ on January 13th, 2008 at 11:27 PM

So in addition to our Saturday exploits, Louli brought up ROCK BAND!! We rocked out all weekend, unlocking over 35 of the 58 songs in the game, at least on EASY. I mostly sang and she played guitar and drums. We ROCKED!!! We got 5 stars on all but about 8 songs. I tried guitar on a few and then drums on a few. She tried singing on a few too. We had a rockin' time and spent many hours this weekend playing. She got it for Christmas from her brother and we had a ton of fun with it! WOO! My sweetie came up and watched for a while. The puppies barked at the drums. We had fun.

And The Sexy Pandas are on the road!!!!

Beads and corsets

Posted to my LJ on January 12th, 2008 at 9:33 PM

Louli came up this weekend and we had some stuff to do. 1) Go to Beadworks in Providence to get her some matching stuff so that she could use some of her beads; 2) See about finding a leather corset for her for EOS costuming. Mission #1 - sort of accomplished. She bought some beads, but all stuff that went with each other to make earrings. She didn't get more stuff to go with what she has since she has mostly red and black and has about 20 black and red pieces already. So, no more worrying about using up everything she has. :-) Mission #2 - Not accomplished, but leads were gathered. We went to a shop in Providence called Miko. An adult paraphernalia shop geared towards women. They had nothing in stock, but told us about a lovely little event at the convention center called the Fetish Flea Market. A nice lady named Kat told us that there would be several corset vendors there. We had a hell of a time while she was looking up that information. Some nice boys came into the shop and asked about a special order. There was a conversation about Spring Peepers and driving over them and how they eat each other for no apparent reason. There was discussion of furries and plushies and infant play fetishes. It was probably the most animated conversation I have ever had with a virtual stranger. And ironically, she is a former rennie, 17th and 18th Century re-enactor and knows a long time friend of mine. Heh.

Well, we got some website links and Lou is on the road to owning her very own corset and was able to get a line on replacement pvc pants as well. Woot!

I'm gonna cry and you can't stop me...

Posted to my LJ on January 11th, 2008 at 6:33 PM

So I am driving to work this morning and I had to put the milk for my cereal in a car coffee cup because I forgot my tupperware one at work. I am less than a mile from my home and the cup tips over, the top comes off and *SPLOOSH* there goes the milk all over the floor! yay. So I stop at the mini mart and get a roll of paper towels and some milk. Try to sop up the mess and continue on to work. This is not a good omen for a good day.

totally cheesing out today

Sorry, bone tired and worn out from my work week. More tomorrow, because it's TGIF!!! WOOT!

In need of sleep - still

Last night sleeping was a bitch and a half! I came home and crawled into bed around 6:30 because I was feeling lightheaded and weird. Fell asleep for 3 hours or so and then got up and logged into work for half an hour. then went back to bed around midnight. But I was up like every hour! It totally sucked. Right about now I am crazy tired. I think it will take into Saturday to make up this sleep craziness.

Oh, and my system administrator pissed me off today, big time. The Director guy left at 3pm because of his kid's sports. Well, everyone knows when the boss leaves early, everyone tries to leave early too. However, the system administrator is a boss too - MY boss. He was constantly hounding me and my co-worker today about the 8 people for which e-mail migration was not yet completed. Like every half hour, he was asking status and when we would get out to do those people. So I am migrating one of the last two people of my day, both of whom get in after 3pm. I get done with one and decide that it's close enough to quitting time that I will pack up my stuff and take it with me while I hit the remote site where my last person of the day is. Part of this process involves deleting the old e-mail account and changing the login name. These things are done by sysadmin guy. Well, I get back upstairs to my desk...and he's gone for the day. Almost half an hour early! I was so pissed off I just packed my shit and left early myself. Fuck it. If he can do it, I am leaving too. Oh, I was so pissed off because he was hounding us to get shit done and then when he is needed, he went home. Whatever.

Off I go to sleepy-sleep!

E-mail migration - Day 1: successful

Posted to my LJ on January 7th, 2008 at 10:26 PM

Due, in no small part, to weeks of intensive planning, our e-mail migration at work went very well today. I was as surprised as anyone.

Now I am going to bed so that I can get up at 5:00 AM to complete the off-hours shift guys.

Yay. Fun. Not!

no post today - too tired!!!

I got up at 5:00 am to go to work to complete the e-mail migration today. I am wiped out now and have to try and sleep more. I got home and went to bed around 6:30 pm and have to try and balance out the sleep now. Hate schedule fluctuations like this!

Barbershop music is cool!!

Posted to LJ on January 6th, 2008 at 11:47 PM

My parents came up to visit me this weekend and stayed over before going to an annual Wine, Cheese and singing party thrown by a Barbershopping friend who lives in Jamestown, RI. As usual, they had an award winning Quartet there to sing and they were really fantastic. They are called Showcase. They are part of a womens Barbershop organization called Harmony Incorporated. Barbershop music is how my parents met. I grew up with it in my house; both of my parents directed choruses for years. So I love it and have heard all the songs for years. I like going to events with them from time to time and letting them introduce me and show me off a little. Of course, all the ladies ask me if I sing. I tell them yes, in a game. I briefly explain larping and most of them get it. The bottom line is that it's like improvisational theatre, except we are our own audience. And I play(ed) a performer. So that fills my music niche very well. :-)

I had a nice time. It was good to see them and we had a nice time together.

More about Barbershop music another time.

CANDLES!!!

Posted to LJ on January 6th, 2008 at 12:02 AM

My real score this Christmas was candles! My sweetie got me a bunch of candles. A box of scented votives, red, green and white. Three exotic scented pillar candles - Autumn Leaves, Maple Butter Crunch and one that has three scents - the top is Gingerbread, middle is Vanilla Bean and the bottom is Autumn Pear.

If I didn't think that was enough, we went on a surprise trip to the Yankee Candle HQ Store in West Deerfield, MA! Wooo! We walked around the whole place. It is one of their two annual HUGE sales, where everything is like half off! I got a dozen scented votives - Patchouli, Vanilla Oak, Sandalwood, Frankinscence and Myrrh and Fresh Cut Herbs. Mmmmmm!! The store was SO cool! Tons of neat stuff to look at and buy. They had a big display of windchimes, one of which was a really neat oriental style gong. Pretty and pretty sounding. Candles galore! The jar candles were half off, which is a great price! I pretty much only got the votives, but love them and I had a great time! It was a nice day trip and we hit Ruby Tuesday's on the way home. Yay!

So, there will be no complaining that I am out of candles for some time. :-)

Short post today

Posted to LJ on January 5th, 2008 at 12:13 AM

Today...I had to tell my SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR supervisor why it was not appropriate for all users on the network to have local Administrator rights on ALL PC's.

Today...when my DIRECTOR OF IT was running a meeting reviewing the checklist on how we will migrate over to a different e-mail server, he said one of the steps was to check where the user's archive file is presently located (if it is not in the default location that Outlook uses) so we can open it again after we migrate their account. Then I followed up by saying that we will have to re-point the auto archive settings to that location, rather than the default. He didn't understand what I meant. I had to break it down to elementary terms for him. And even then, he still had that spacey look in his eyes like he only half understood.

All I can do is shake my head.

Catching up, continued...

Posted on LJ on January 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 PM

Christmas Eve/Day. My sweetie had to work Christmas Eve, but got out surprisingly early. Ironically, we could have had more time with the family in NJ, but had already gone and come back. Gas prices prevent even the thought of doing that twice in a week! He got home, I went out to get his final gift, and we had good old Macaroni & Cheese for dinner! We did our normal stuff and went to bed.

In the morning, he let me sleep in and was going to let me sleep in longer if I hadn't gotten up. I got up around 10:30 and came upstairs and had some cereal and we began the present opening. I felt a little inferior, as I do inescapably ever Christmas, thinking what I got him is not enough or not GOOD enough (his pile for me was bigger than my pile for him.) But I swallowed it best I could (I hope someday to overcome this evil curse...) and we exchanged and opened gifts. I had yummies in my stocking, "coal" popcorn (cocoa flavored), and the silicone case for my Sony MP3 player that I had ASKED for months ago. He had to remind me of this - for me, it was as if he got it for me unsolicited when I first opened it! Heh, my awful memory! I got a package of those yummy Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates. I got a super fantastic calendar of my puppies that he made for me. I got a large sized picture of Storm (similar to the one of Rogue he gave me last year.) He gave me a weather center!! Squee! It has sensors you put outside - a wind gauge and another one that measures temp, barometer and other stuff. And the main unit communicates with those sensors wirelessly and the readout has a TON of information - the temperature, the humidity, the time and date, the cycle of the moon and you can even use it as an alarm clock! It is extremely cool! He gave me a CD I wanted as well. Woot!! I had gotten him a PSP game he wanted - Dungeons & Dragons-Tactics, which he has been playing since he got it. I also gave him some chocolates in his stocking and a 4 pack of those special holiday mocha-peppermint Frappucinos they had out. The best gift I gave him was glass shelves for his display cases. Let me explain...

We have these display cases we got for great prices at IKEA (on of our favorite places) and we installed lights in them and everything. But they only come with two glass shelves. EVERY TIME we visit IKEA, we check the "AS IS..." section of floor model, used, broken and piecemeal stuff for sale, but we have not found any shelves of that size at all. One day I was at this hardware store near my work and I was looking for pipe insulation (some of you know why...) and while I was there at the back counter, I saw someone get glass cut to order. Immediately, I knew what I was getting him for Christmas. Added bonus - they have double thickness glass! So I didn't have to get the single thickness like you would have in a picture frame, with things stacked on it. The glass that comes with the cases is tempered. I KNEW I would not be able to find that. But the double thick is just as good since we are not placing seriously heavy objects on them.

Anyway, he was excited and surprised! Both very good things, because he is hard to put one over on. Just a couple of weeks ago 'Battlestar Galactica: Razor' came out on DVD. So the day it comes out, he gets home and says he wants to go buy it. I immediately rolled my eyes (to myself) because damn if I did not just hear about it that week and think it would be a great Christmas present! Argh!

Well, anyway, we had a nice time giving each other stuff. :-)

We had a movie we hadn't watched - Mystic River (Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Laura Linney, Marcia Gay Harden, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne.) It is not a happy movie. This is the movie for which Sean Penn (deservedly!) finally won an Oscar for in 2003. So, we watched it, ate mexican appetizers and laid around all day, napping with puppies and watching TV after the movie was done. I called both brothers and my parents to see how their day had gone. Got some nice stories of gift opening and dinners and stuff.

That was about it. I was very, very lucky to get the entire week off from work. Off meaning they closed down for the week. I mean, it's not like the kids are there right now. But they don't always do it. Under the present president (say that five times fast!) the decision has been made for three years running now to give that week off to the entire Staff and Faculty. So I took full advantage of the time off to laze around and do a lot of TV watching - Damn you, Discovery Channel, and your 'Mythbusters' and 'Dirty Jobs' marathons! I had lots of quality time with my pups and with my sweetie as I was HOME when he got home, rather than an hour or more later.

Nothing else really to tell. The week was quiet and TV filled, the weekend was quiet and not as TV filled. I had Monday and Tuesday off, and my sweetie did not. So we did not go partying anywhere, but spent a quiet New Years Eve at home watching the ball drop on TV. I can't watch Dick Clark anymore because it makes me so sad. After he had the stroke 3+ years ago, he can't speak as well and he LOOKS so much older than he did just a couple of years ago. I feel so sad for him. But then I feel so happy for him that he has recovered as much as he has! Two years ago he could barely speak when he made his appearance on New Years Rockin' Eve. Last year he was better, but still not as good as now. It's just sad to see him getting old, when for years there was the running joke about the deals he must have made with the devil to stay looking exactly the same age year after year after year.

So, ball dropped, I watched until the wee hours. Fergie is a pretty good host. And she has some PIPES, man! I may not like everything she does, but I think she has one of the best voices out there right now.

That pretty much brings me current. I will be getting to the reflections and wishes for the new year over the next couple of days.

Ciao!

Playing catch up - old posts unposted...

Because I want this blog to match my LJ for those who like one format over another....I wanted to make sure I am cross posting. I neglected to do so for my December posts, so here they are.
*****************
This is for Louli!
Dec. 20th, 2007 at 3:38 PM

This is like what we saw the other day, though the kid we saw was not NEARLY as perfect as the kid this guy saw. I thought you would appreciate it.

Article on 'Guitar Hero 3' impossible song!

And by the way, it is a REAL SONG by a real band, not just written for the game. :-)

Love you Louli, you're my Guitar Hero!
=====================================

I hate being a girl
Dec. 17th, 2007 at 9:26 AM

Really, there's nothing else to say about that. Even only every three months, it still SUCKS!!!!!!!!!
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Each Day Is Stupider Than The Last
Dec. 12th, 2007 at 3:12 PM

I didn't think it was possible. But it is. The lack of skill being displayed by a person hired as a System Administrator is just amazing to me. The guy is not even FAKING it. He just bumbles through one task, taking hours to troubleshoot the problems he creates by making some change on the Exchange, Domain or File Servers, and then moves on to the next fuck up.

And because his boss (my other boss) is not technically adept either, he DOESN'T KNOW THE GUY IS A BUMBLING IDIOT WHO IS SCREWING THINGS UP!!!!! The two of them know enough to take this network DOWN. And frankly, I hope they do. It would make my life SO much easier. But that won't happen. Bumbler will screw things up here and there, small enough that he can cover them or explain them away as a "necessary change", and things will continue status quo.

This job has become crappy really fast.
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Parties!
Dec. 3rd, 2007 at 2:37 PM

Okay, I have taken two weeks for this one, but here is the link to my pics of Caleb's fun filled Wild West party!! Yeee-haw!!

My Flickr set of Caleb's party pics

More pics to come. Next it will be Marcy's birthday! Woo!

Sadly I have no pictures from the annual Boston outing because I broke the LCD screen on my camera and I don't know if it is actually taking pictures now. Grumble. *feels stupid*
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Belated Friday Post
Dec. 3rd, 2007 at 2:13 PM

I was going to write about this Friday night, but I think I just needed to shut off the week and be done with it.

So my co-worker and I were asked to come in on a Saturday to "clean up" our area and the front room of the server rooms (sort of an ante-room, or could be a test station area if set up correctly.) We agreed and made arrangements between the two of us for a day and how long we would work, etc. So Friday, we go to our stupid "refresher" session on Outlook and how to archive (I learned exactly one thing) and at the end of the meeting, which ran long - past my co-worker's 4pm leave time - boss guy talks briefly about us coming in the next day. I joked that my co-worker said he would see me at 6:00 am, and that my response was, hope you like working alone! Then boss guy says, well, we'll see the progress Monday then. Just as I was about to agree and get out of there, he says, "I took pictures."

Me: "..."

I just stood there looking at him for a moment. I asked, "You took pictures?" with a look of disbelief, and a slight smile on my face. Smiling, he said, "Yeah! So we will be able to see the Before and After and how they look." He mentioned something about having to report to someone on it, blah blah. But at that point I just walked out, still with the dumb smile on my face. Because at this point in the week, I was just going to fall on the floor laughing hysterically. I just couldn't fathom his ridiculousness anymore.

I walked down the hall and spoke to my co-worker. "He took pictures?!" And he said yes. That he had seen boss guy come around with a camera and take pictures of the area next to our cubicles during the week. Also, that boss guy had come into the server room and started to tell my co-worker HOW to clean up in that room earlier in the week. Not what he wanted where, but how - in terms of method - to clean up. At that point I just had to stop talking about it.

He took pictures of the area we were cleaning up this weekend. This guy is unbelievable.

New England Weather

Just to prove the volatile nature of New England weather, I was POSITIVE when we got the snow on Dec 13th and 16th, about a foot between both storms, that it would stay around all winter. I told my family that, I expressed that opinion to my sweetie...all of it.

I drive to work today and there are only traces that there was even snow on the ground. Two weeks ago it was hard to drive or park on any local street here.

So goes the saying, "If you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes."

New Year - New Post

(Posted to LiveJournal - 2008-01-01 22:11:00 forgot to cross post to blogger)
Happy blah blah!

I haven't been on in a while. A stark contrast from November when I was participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month.) I don't think I got burnt out, I just slacked off. work became more of a pain in the ass and so I slacked.

This is something I want to change. I am participating in Blog365, which is a group of folks that are trying to extend NaBloPoMo to a full year. Info here. In the meantime, I have some catchup to do.

So...past few weeks...

Friday Dec 14th - I had a date with my girlies in Boston that turned into my own personal hell. Having just come off the snowstorm the day before that caused monumental driving delays in RI, CT and MA (it took me THREE HOURS to drive home from work - a FIFTEEN mile drive) I hit traffic when I left work on the way to Boston. It was smooth sailing from Providence to the 93/95 split when it screeched to a crawl. I didn't get over about 30 miles an hour all the way into Boston. Then when I got there, there was no parking anywhere. So I parked in a $25 dollar lot just because I needed to goddamn park. I was extremely late (the ladies had gotten to the restaurant where we met around 5:00 pm) and extremely cranky by the time I got there. I knew I was late and was ready to forgo eating because of it. Thankfully, my fantastic, wonderful, tolerant, beautiful, merciful friends insisted that I eat (and tolerated my crankiness the whole night.) I did and that probably saved me from leaving before the first half. We went to see Mamma Mia. It was interesting. Fun - yes. Weird - DEFINITELY! For whatever reason, I thought it was a musical about Abba. I knew it had the Abba songs, so I just assumed it was ABOUT Abba. I never thought twice that the posters had a chick in a wedding dress on them. Duh. Well, it was a love story about a wedding and a mom and her past loves. It was clever and most of the performers were really good. The lead adult guy was kind of schmaltzy. But then again, he was singing Abba songs. And I have one last thing to say about this. TERRIFYING CODPIECE!!! (Sorry, Anya, that ain't a dance belt!)

December 15th - FINALLY got to attend the annual Christmas party thrown by Kara, Ben, Gene and Shell!! Woooooo! It was a LOT of fun! It was at Gene and Shell's house, which is the house he grew up in actually. Their house is nice and I liked it a lot! Lots of great food, my first sampling of Wassail (YUM!) and caroling around the neighborhood (so what if only one house had people awake?!?!) Had a significantly better time than the night before, not for want of good company either night, I might add!!

December 20th - My sweetie and I went to see A Christmas Carol at Trinity Repertory Company - something we have never done. It was nice. Some of the acting was somewhat amateurish (spoken by me, not a professional actor.) But that's just me being a theatre snob. :-) The singing was all very good, nice songs that I think they wrote for the play. Apparently they put a different spin on it every year, while keeping it period and traditional. Some of the accents were overdone which made them hard to understand. I would rather people with bad British accents just speak without one and enunciate well (case in point Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.) It's amazing how much precise enunciation can SOUND like a British accent sometimes. Anyway, it was fun and we were able to get a great parking spot, despite the fact that it was the same night as Hannah Montana! If you are not aware, this is the biggest phenomenon since Britney first came out. Tickets were going on eBay for several hundred dollars because they were sold out everywhere. This is the same show for which a little girl and her mother made up a fake story about her father dying in Iraq to win tickets. Anyway, we had a nice time.

December 22nd - After my bake-fest (a day and a half, solid, of baking) we began the Christmas trip to NJ by driving to Fishkill, NY, to attend, at least for a short time, the annual Christmas get together of some friends from Lione. We got there to some shocked faces, some not so shocked. We could only really stay an hour. We got there at 10:30 and left at 11:30. We still had almost a two hour drive to my brother's house. We had a nice time, got some grab bag gifts and some (WOOT!) Starbucks gift cards from Louli-rabbit (did I mention WOOT!), did some chatting and then had to leave. We finally got to see Greg's bar, which was cool. For whatever reason, we both thought it would be bigger. But it was pretty cool, nonetheless. It's pretty neat to know someone who owns a bar! If only it were closer...

Got to NJ and my sister-in-law was up with the baby, who was on a nursing strike and also refusing to sleep. She went off to bed pretty quick, as did we. Got up the next morning to my niece and nephew making happy noises downstairs as he chased her around. My parents got there a short time later and we hung out, I made some french toast when someone said something about breakfast, which it turned out everyone had already eaten. It got eaten anyway and then we exchanged gifts with my parents. In our annual grab bag (for the adults - kids all get gifts) my dad had picked me. He got me a fantastic bowl off of eBay. It is enameled metal and made by a company named Finel. The same company made a bowl that has been in my parents house since they got married (40 years ago this past year!) We used this red bowl just about every night for dinner. For Macaroni & Cheese, for pasta, for anything. I always liked the bowl and I am sure I mentioned something about it to my parents a while ago. So my dad found one like it online and got it for me. Very cool! My parents also gave me the messenger bag I had really wanted (but was sure I would not get, kind of pricey.) Rock! I also got A towel. One. I had put on my wish list that I wanted some Bath Sheet type towels. The REALLY BIG ones. I put down four (4) thinking that my sweetie and I would each have one and one for the laundry. Two would have been great, because we would each have one. But my mother got me...one. I shall say no more about that. I think it speaks for itself. My sis-in-law got me a funnel cake kit. Mmmmmm!!

We left our gifts for my niece and nephews and my sweetie left his for my sis-in-law, whom he had picked. My sweetie also got a gift card for my mother in a cool gift card presenter thingy. You slide the gift card inside, and when they press the button, it pops out the side and plays a little "da da da da daaaaahhh" music fanfare. Totally my mother. And, as if there were any doubt, she clicked the button like 10 times immediately after receiving it. Heh.

We headed home Sunday night because my sweetie had to work Christmas Eve.

Continued tomorrow...

More fun...

I am a Help Desk IT Tech. My job description includes Desktop computer support of all types - Operating System, Application/Program Support, Network issues, Hardware issues - you name it and if it happens to a computer, I resolve it. I have been at this job for a year and have been providing technical level customer support for almost ten years.

As a side note, no, I do not have a degree or certifications (yet.) But in every office job I have held, I have ALWAYS become the "go-to" person for the computer. How do I print this, how do I use my e-mail, how do I change this setting, how do I make this program do this random thing. I help my friends and family with their computers (except my dad and brothers, who are also tech geek folks.)

Next week we are migrating our Exchange e-mail server to the Main I.T. Dept e-mail server. So we have to help our users clean out their e-mail boxes and archive stuff so the mailboxes are as small as possible for the migration.

So, I get an e-mail today from boss guy saying that the e-mail "guru" from the Main I.T. Department "has graciously agreed to review the email archiving features of Outlook with us (the IT staff) so we will be prepared for our information sessions next week."

I nearly fell off my chair. I was so insulted that my boss actually thought I needed a refresher course, in E-mail management and archiving. And I was offended for my co-worker because he is quite knowledgeable as well. I sat with my head in my hands for several minutes and then decided I needed to try and say something about it.

So I wrote back, "Do you really think this is necessary? I mean, this is something (my co-worker) and I do every day with people. I have a thorough understanding of using archiving and personal folder files (.pst files). Just asking." Mind you, I ACCEPTED the meeting request, even though I did not agree it was even necessary.

So I get back, "I believe there are multiple ways to achieve the same results, so Id like to use this session to understand each method and to collectively select one method that we can all use. In addition, he will review the utility that copies archives from the local drive to the network so we can decide if we want to implement this feature."

The utility review was actually going to be helpful, but he didn't bother to mention that the first time around.

So, in essence, this is what he was saying to me:
"I don't care if you think you know about archiving. I don't and since I have never asked you to provide me with a full explanation of archiving, I don't believe you know what you think you know about it. The Main I.T. Dept is god, so we should learn from them. Plus I don't know anything about it, so I am hiding behind you guys to learn from someone professional instead of asking my underlings to teach me something. Plus we will actually learn something that we need to know (archive copy to network for backing up), which I failed to mention in the meeting request. Thanks for remaining the peon that you are, Boss Guy."

Yeah, banner week for me here at work.

Are we there yet?

Weeks like this make me want to a) curl up in a ball and just cry; b) get in my car and drive far, far away from everything and everyone and find a small town somewhere that I can just work in the local hardware store; c) go all clocktower on everyone's asses.

Yet another day of the fun game of "fix other people's mistakes", also known as "I have no foresight, do you?" And I got to also include the bonus side game of "please the unpleaseable control freak." If these were REAL games, they would have PRIZES, or at least cool parting gifts. Those fuckers.

I wish I had more positive things to write about today. But it just isn't there. The weekend has to happen SOON!!!

Sounds like fun...

Let's have a network, where people log in using applications over the DNS servers, and connect to other applications through the main campus firewall. Then....lets reconfigure the DNS server settings and where they point to and redirect to. But let's do that during the day, when everyone is in the office and we can immediately know that no one can get into these applications and they can call us and get angry and complain. But let's not tell the IT Tech what we're doing, let's let her find out when 10 people all call and e-mail her within a 3 minute span of time and she comes over asking what we did.

That sounds like a truckload of fun. Don't you think?

Catching up

It's been a couple of days, I know. I totally did NOT make NaBloPoMo. I missed 4 days now. Not in a row, but still. But let's not count our chicks yet.

Turkey day was yummy and good times. Spent with sister-in-law's family, my brother, my parents and my sweetie. Friday was the annual trek by my sweetie and my sis-in-law out into the Black Friday ridiculously early morning madness. They had a good time, as usual. There was talk of someone among us going and waiting outside Best Buy at midnight to try and get a good spot in line for a $200 computer or a $400 laptop, but that never happened.

My nephew is getting bigger by the minute it seems. He is a cutie for sure though. Very smiley and responsive for 3 months old!

And on the way home we stopped in CT for a special girl's birthday party at Molly Darcy's in Danbury. It was great fun, as usual. Part of the funny was that homestarwannab just turned 21, and made the HUGE mistake of challenging a friend of ours that just cannot be matched for alcohol consumption. We headed home at about 18 shots. We actually haven't heard from him yet, so we are wondering how he fared the rest of the night. I am betting he had THE hangover of his life the next day. Or maybe today, that's how much he was drinking!

Sunday was quiet. Today was back to work - yuk. I hope the week flies by. I am already tired of work!

Good Times

I am having a great weekend, and it's not even over. I am having good family time with my brother and sister-in-law and my niece and nephews.

My sweetie and sister-in-law got up at 4:30am and did their annual Black Friday shopping excursion. Many bargains were gotten and many purchases were made. The employees at Toys'r'us were the most organized, the employees at Best Buy were the nicest and Staples was a nightmare with pushing shoving and rudeness.

I stayed home and slept until they pulled into the garage at 10:30 am. Woo!! And tonight we girls went to the movies and saw Enchanted. A very good choice, I must say. Cute, romantic, FUNNY and good music. Worth seeing.

Today was sort of a musical kind of day actually. We watched Legally Blonde, the musical. They had it on their DVR from an MTV performance of it. VERY funny and catchy. I think I need the soundtrack now. (oh. my. god. ohmygod you guys!) Sounds like a Christmas gift to me....

Anyway, tomorrow I see friends for a birthday night out and then head home at some ungodly late hour (because the ride is 3 hours from Danbury, so any way we do it, we will get home after midnight.) Should be fun!!

Thankful

I am thankful for:
-being alive
-my sweetie, 'nuff said
-my family, even with all their problems
-my bestest friends who stick by me even when I am bitchy to them and ignore them and push back when they try to help and don't spend enough time with them, etc., etc.
-my pups
-advancements in pharmaceuticals
-having health insurance
-living in a free society
-the internets and computers
-my mother's chocolate mousse pie

I am not thankful for:
-this sinus headache

That's my list at this time. The sinus headache really needs to hit the road and go. This is the third day I have had it. It sucks.

FOUR DAYS OFF!!

Woo to the motherfucking hoo!

Me and my guy so need this long weekend. And - earth shattering - he gets the whole weekend off!

Thanksgiving in New Jersey at my brother's and his in-laws house. Lots of people, lots of food, and Hershey the dog. Woo!

Another day and a half of family hanging out and then a birthday party with friends on the way home. Then Sunday to chill out at home.

More on the final season tomorrow or Friday.

Happy Thankgiving all!

Seasons - cont'd

Everything is green at last. Days are longer, warmer. The spring bulbs have all but faded, some of the late tulips are still out. The storm windows go up. The sound of lawnmowers can be heard any given day at any given time. You almost always smell freshly cut grass. I get out my sandals and they become my only pair of shoes. Then the real hot days come. The lilacs bloom. Even if you can't see them, you can smell them as you drive around. The sun is incredible. How does the same sun allow it to be so cold just a few months ago, yet now it's so hot. The windows in my house are opened and stay open until autumn. Summer is: the beach, warm winds swishing green trees around, sunglasses, pedicures, trips to the dog park, 4-65 Air Conditioning (4 windows open at 65MPH), Tevas or Birkenstocks, dog days of summer, tiger lilies, August thundershowers. Everything comes alive, people are out and active, it's hard not to be happy during summer. Days start to grow shorter just minutes at a time. Subtle changes start happening. Nights are cooler instead of so hot you can't sleep. Even the latest blooming lilies are dropping their petals. Back-to-school talk is unavoidable; grade school, high school or college. If you're not going back to school, you know someone who is or who has a child who is going back. The days are cooler - it's sweatshirt and shorts time. I wear my sandals as long as I possibly can. As the shorter, cooler days fall to darker, chilly nights you know Summer fades.

STOOOOOOPID!

This place is so stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
We have a help desk e-mail account. It is shared. We do not get that e-mail on our handy little blackberries. New SysAdmin says, when asked about Thanksgiving coverage, that he would rather that users send in an e-mail and then call him if he does not respond within 15 minutes. FUCKING DUH YOU ASS HEAD. We wouldn't SEE the e-mail since it doesn't COME to our BLACKBERRIES, unless you plan on sitting in front of your computer for 4 days monitoring the Help Desk e-mail, because I ain't unless I get PAID! It's called coverage for a reason, because there's someone to CALL in case of emergencies.

I am a quick learner. Show me something once, maybe twice, especially with computers, and I get it. Done, snap, I'm all over it. That's what makes me good at what I do. I have quick comprehension of what's going on, I problem solve through logical process of elimination, and I find a resolution by whatever means I need to. Help Desk, PC, network, application and server support. It's what I do! This fucking guy is like molasses. He stares at event logs that are 2 lines long for like 5 minutes. Like some magical solution is going to pop out at you the longer you stare at it. He looks at the running processes and then looks at them again a different way. What are you DOING?!?!?!

It's sad and frustrating when I know more than my boss and I could do his job better than him.

party time...excellent

Last night I spent some time with my girlies and went to a friend's birthday party. Every year there is a theme and this year was no different. It was Wild West! There were some great costumes there! There was the saloon whore with the shiner that she got from the priest, the miner, the cowgirl in her union suit gun slung low on her hips, the undertaker, the Indian running the craps table, lots of reg'ler cowboys, a burlesque dancer, a bible thumpin' mormon, and lots of others.

There were two contest, the first to figger out some cowboy talk and the second to answer questions about the host. Everything you got right got you more chips for gamblin'. There was craps, blackjack and roulette. There were shootin' duels out on the porch. Later in the night there was dancin' too. And of course there was liquor, and lots of it.

A very fun night with some people I haven't seen for a while! Yee-haw!!

one day break from the seasons

I am sort of wimping out on this post. I will continue my diatribe on the seasons tomorrow.
In the meantime, how cute are these pups?!

Spring

Winter breaks and spring begins peeking its head out. Little by little at first. There is that time at the end of winter, before spring really starts, when it's hard to tell what season it is. It's not really winter, it's not really spring. That time is this great time of anticipation for me. I check the tree branches every day for the reddish buds that precede the green leaf buds. I check out the trees on my drive to work, and anywhere else I might travel during that time. I look at the bare flower beds. I check for tiny little green stuff poking through the dirt. The first time it gets warm, not chilly anymore, but warm, I know that the next few days will bring growing things and that always makes me feel good. One of my all time favorite things to see are the Crocuses and early Tulips coming out. I love the color, I love that they look like they are getting out of bed after sleeping all winter. Brushing the dirt off themselves and standing up tall. Then the leaves bud and all the branches take on a green hue. They leave fully only after some good rain and a few nice sunny days. I love spring rain because I always know that the flowers are going to bloom and the trees are going to blossom and fill out with their leaves. I truly love watching everything grow back after sleeping through the Autumn and Winter. And even though Cardinals are all season birds, for me, they are my harbingers of Spring. I always see a pair just before spring really breaks. Ever since I was living at home. I see them, their bright red feathers standing out against the dark brown tree branches, and they are gathering new nesting supplies so they can make some new Cardinals to come back and greet me next spring. I stop noticing the people when Spring comes, because for me, Spring is all about Nature taking over from us and doing her thing. As Spring progresses, everything is green and grown and full and lush and warm and colorful. It gets warmer and the rains let up. Before you know it, it's too warm for Spring......

Seasons

I love the seasons. Always have. I don't have a favorite season. I love them all for different reasons and for their individual beauty and the unique traits they each have. I have thought about this for a while and wanted to blog about it. I am going to do one season a day so I will hit them all.

I will start with Winter.

I am a little sad when it gets so cold, because I am a wimp in the cold. But once I acclimate, around the beginning of January, I am okay with it (given a little leeway to whine just a bit.) I love how you can see so much more because the trees have dropped their leaves. You can see people's houses back in the woods, their yards, their hidden treasures (pile of wood, car on blocks, yard full of dogs, etc.) The landscape changes without leaves on the trees. It's sort of like a big ol' head with thinning hair. You can see lakes you never saw before and the old stone walls that used to deliniate the property lines. I love seeing dogs walking with their owners, puffing steam out of their mouths. I like noticing how different people bundle up, or don't as the case may be. You see people who just wear the same windbreaker all year, even on the coldest days. And then you see people who wear coats over sweaters over shirts with hats and scarves and mittens and warm-looking boots. And I love when it snows. I love being out as it starts snowing. Snow makes a sound when it hits the ground. It makes almost a hissing sound when it's warm enough that the first flakes melt when they hit the ground. It does that for a while and then as it gets colder, it gets quieter. I love when the snow makes EVERYTHING white - ground, trees, telephone poles, wires, houses, grass, cars, streets...everything. Going out after a big snowstorm is one of my favorite things too. Seeing what nature has done to make us all slow down and take a break for a few minutes is amazing. It's quiet like the whole world is covered with down comforters. Trucks don't make the same sounds, the ambient highway noise is all but inaudible, even your speaking voice doesn't carry the same way with all that snow absorbing all the sound. And, of course, I love seeing animal prints in the snow. Dogs, cats, birds, deer....ANY animal prints. Just knowing that they were here and passed by is somehow awe inspiring. I love when the snow stays around for a while on the local streets and neighborhoods. I love noticing the houses that shovel and the ones that have that sharp edge to their driveways - you KNOW they have a snowblower. I love seeing Christmas and holiday decorations covered with snow. The lights and the bushes and the new blow up ones that wave a little with their blowers keeping them up and standing. I love small town squares at the holidays with their small town looking decorations all covered with snow too. The end of winter is always welcome, because I can only take so much cold and ice before I get really whiny. I never like the time late in winter when the snow that lingers gets dirty and dingy looking. But then it all melts, slow or fast. The trees look wet and bare. Everything starts to look like it's waiting for something. The days begin to be chilly rather than cold. Winter breaks.

More tomorrow.

Highlights

So, to hit on some points from today:

* I become very focused at work and forget pretty much anything else - including doctor appointments (not to worry, I went later in the day)

* I like Taco Bell a lot

* I like my doctor, but she is an unfortunate victim of HMO Syndrome, aka. the 3 minute exam

* I suck at asking for help

* I am afraid of letting my friends down

* I have increased my reliance on modern pharmaceuticals

That's about it for today. I am really not in the mood to write more about it at the moment. I had a thought this morning on the way to work for some good blog topics, something about pet peeves. But the thought flew right out of my mind a second later and I could not, for the life of me, remember the great idea I had. Oh well.

Figures...

You gotta love it when you come to work, all worried that you should get there on time, only to find that not only is the Director out on a vacation day, but the new SysAdmin is also out of the office today. Our guess was that SysAdmin thought it was a vacation day and just didn't even think to come in. I really hope that is the case - it would be nice to see him squirm a little. We did not have Veteran's Day off. Apparently a few years ago, the non-union employees made a deal that we get the day after Thanksgiving off and trade off Veteran's day, which the Union shops have off. Nice trade, I like it.

Murphy's Law dictated that since BOTH bosses were out, we would have some huge problem, which we did. A whole block of 5 servers went down over the weekend. Seemingly a power interruption, since they were all on the same UPS. But the Electrical division has denied that so far. We shall see. The UPS was suspect, meaning we were not sure it would support all 5 servers for any length of time. But I don't believe a UPS failing would actually cause those servers to lose power. That is the one variable I have to look into. So anyway, our FTP service, a database server, printing in the whole building and an inventory ordering system were all down due to this outage. Yeah! So we scrambled to get it all up and running and had to also troubleshoot another seemingly unrelated problem. Coincidence? I think not.

So, that was my day. Then when everything was back up and running, it was totally dead the rest of the day. Which was just fine by me. I could screw off a little and there was no boss to breathe down my neck. I looked through the software box and tried to make a software binder that made sense. We shall see if that worked.

That's it for me today. Just more fuel for the work frustration. :-)

Uncasville, baby!

I got up earlier than I do during the week to go meet Buffy and Anya at Mohegan Sun yesterday. A girls day of brunch and gambling (well, WATCHING gambling for me.) I was surprised that Faith was not there, but she was doing something else more important than spending money she didn't have.

So I got there, the place is huge! I walked through two casinos to get to the Casino of the Sky, which was where the ladies were playing some Spanish 21. We went to get some yummy brunch and then headed back to the floor. They played some more and then we hit the craps tables for a little while. Then the most fun part of the day started. We went to a different Spanish 21 table with a female dealer and a little oriental lady. Shortly after Buffy and Anya joined the action, two black ladies also joined. One of them was Bonnie. Loud and lively Bonnie. Things definitely became more exciting after she came. At one point she got two pink chips on a hand and proceeded to place them strategically on each of her...attributes, and celebrate that she got them. She got to cut the deck at one point and rubbed the cut card all over herself first to give it good mojo. The poor dealer, now Mike, just stood there waiting for her to be done and cut the deck. She was a hoot though, throwing a bunch of $5 chips Buffy's way to match the dealer's up card. Between her and the little oriental lady getting a suited dealer match at least 5 times, it was a whole lot of fun to watch.

All in all, a nice day out with the girls!!! Thanks Anya!!

Crap crap crap!!!!! Forgot to post yesterday!

I even predicted I might forget in my head Thursday because of the day I knew I would have Friday.

I had a doctor apppontment at 9:30 am (which ended up getting cancelled) and then went to work. I left the office for the work event with my dogs at about 11:15 am. I stayed there until 1:00 pm and then my honey and I ate lunch and I went over to where I was to take a one hour seminar on Information Security. I was meeting my boss and co-worker there, which I did. My co-worker and I went back to the office, got there around 2:45. So that was when my work day actually started. I was having dinner with my honey and two friends that night, and I didn't know whether we would be meeting in Providence or if I would be going home first. Being that my day was shortened, I was pretty busy. It turned out that I was meeting everyone for dinner rather than going home. Which offered me extra time to reboot two servers, which I needed to do. We went to Fire & Ice in Providence and ate dinner, and then we wandered around the mall for probably a little over an hour. Then we all went back to our house and hung out upstairs talking for a while. I got kind of tired and headed to bed because I had to get up early again today to go meet my girlys at Mohegan Sun for some brunch and Blackjack.

The kicker is that I went to bed around 11:15 pm. So I still had PLENTY of time to write an entry about my day - THIS entry. But I totally spaced on it and went to sleep. D'oh!!!!

Crap. So if I get picked for any prizes from NaBloPoMo I will sadly not win anything. Crud!

Whoops! Wednesday's post!!

Proof that this was really posted Wednesday is on my LiveJournal.

Titled: Why I hate blood work

This is from Tuesday. I didn't even know I had bruised this badly until that night when I went to put on my jammies and scared myself with this beaut.

anticipation......

Tomorrow promises to be quite a day. Doc appointment to possibly change meds first thing. Then to work. Then probably less than an hour later, my other half comes up to my work with the puppies and we go to "Heavy Petting", an event by the psychology department at Brown to encourage relaxation and stress free living. The other offering during the school year is they offer free chair massages every other Wednesday. For this event, they ask staff and faculty to offer to bring in their friendly dogs and bring them to the college green for an hour and a half so that anyone who wants to can get a "dog break" as Charlie Brown so wisely put it for many years in 'Peanuts'. So that should be tons of fun as there will be like 20 dogs there and who knows how many students will come! After that, I have a one hour security seminar on campus to talk about sensitive information handling procedures, specifically geared towards the IT end of things.

So I should be working for approximately 97 minutes total tomorrow. Woot!

christmas music hell

I am in hell. Christmas music hell.

My co-worker, who every day states the number of days until Christmas (all year!) began yesterday playing Christmas music in his cubicle through a radio station on his computer. He sits RIGHT NEXT TO ME and we have low cube walls and he is old and deaf so it is loud enough for me to hear clearly.

Come on. It's not even past Thanksgiving yet! I love Christmas and Christmas music too, but two months is TOO MUCH!!!!!

operation blood work: Complete!

Finally! I went on Saturday to try and get this done, even in the shitty weather, and the damn place was closed! When the website said they would be open!

So I went this morning before work. Got there and realized.....I was at the wrong building! All the medical schtuff I had to do in July when I had my gall bladder out got me all confused as to where the lab actually was. Duh. So this time I went to the REAL lab (which was probably actually open Saturday - I tried to save face and didn't ask) and gave them the slip, they had me in and out in less than 10 minutes!

I told the lady I had crappy, uncooperative veins and she asked what arm they usually get. I said it was a crap shoot, which it is. I have never successfully been drawn from the same place twice. So...she tourniquet-ed (?) my dominant right arm, felt around for a juicy vein, found one, grabbed the butterfly (I advised her that was SOP with me) and drew two big ol vials from me. Lickety split! WOOO HOOO! I never thought I would be so happy about getting blood drawn! I complimented her and said I liked her a lot. I told her about the heat packs, the water drinking, the pediatric vials with the butterfly. She nodded and understood. It made me happy that she commiserated with me. Yay!

Anyway, that is done and DONE!!! They should have the results to my doc for my appointment Friday and we shall see what comes from that.

Whew!

Sunday

Today was a nice day. Nice not in the weather sense, but nice in the me sense. I felt okay, I relaxed with my pups, I watched some Miami Ink, went in the hot tub, took a shower. Felt okay. I had minor aspirations to work on my desk area tonight, but no biggie. I have some new ideas in mind for organization and more specifically, purging. I want to make a list of what I save and WHY. And then I want to list what is reasonable to save for how long (like bills or other papers) and what is not reasonable to save or keep for any length of time. I think if I have that information handy, on a nice large print cheat sheet, then I will be better equipped to purge some shit. So this week, next weekend, I would like to do some of that.
Tomorrow morning, its getting up early to get the evil blood work.

Grumble.

Well, off to get this on blogger too before midnight!

not sad to be home

The weather SUCKS!!! We got the ass end of a hurricane up here in New England and the weather has sucked all day. High winds, rainy, and it was really cold earlier. Oddly, it has warmed up some. But then they say that if you don't like the weather here wait an hour and it will change. Alas, it has.

I went out to dinner tonight. Me. Alone. Went to Macaroni Grill and had me some Lobster Ravioli. I brought a book with me to read, which I did. I had a great time! No worries about what to order, or how fast the waitress was coming back. No feeling obligated to finish faster or feeling self-conscious about how much I was eating. I was not totally without some background mind noise. I was having a little dialog in my head wondering if people were thinking about the woman eating along on a Saturday night and why. Did they think I was a spinster (for lack of a better word), a writer taking a break for some inspiration (I wore my very writer-esque black turtleneck), just someone taking a break from her kids? I didn't harp on it, but I did think about it in the back of my mind.

Regardless, I had a nice time. It got me out of the house, for the second time today, the first being my unsuccessful attempt to get my bloodwork done. The damn lab was CLOSED!! They said they were open. Well, maybe they closed because of the weather or no one was showing up, I dunno. But I was annoyed.

That's about it today. Off I go to use my laptop in bed and try to organize my thoughts before trying to organize my desk!

Day 2

I should have done this hours ago when I had more interesting things to write about. At this point, I am just sort of 'stick-a-fork-in-me' done. Crappy commute, long day, flu shot, more repeated stories of the past from my co-worker, cake for someone retiring, setting up a user for the first time solo, politely chatting with a lonely old man, getting home, puppy cuddles, a good movie and bedtime. I am leaving out a glaring part in the middle of the evening which I just don't want to talk about. But other than that, that was my day.

And now I get to wipe that slate clean and start again tomorrow. Mostly clean. At least clean of work. Who am I kidding - there is no clean slate. Well, I get to sleep a lot without being woken up except by puppies. :-)

NaBloPoMo!!!

Good evening everyone!

Here is my official attempt to write a post every day for a month! Because it's National Blog Posting Month!!!!!

Brought to you as an alternative to NaNoWriMo for those of us who really don't have a novel inside quite yet. Thought up by the author of this blog. Last year, she hosted it on her website. But this year she made an official-ish site for it. I am not posting to that site, although I had to sign up there. I am posting to my Blogger blog and my LiveJournal page.

So there it is. I am going to try and write something every day. Not just crap like "Posted. I win." Something of some substance at least. We shall see how I do.

Wish me luck.

Work Hooky

I am playing hooky from work. While I am AT work. :-) Bad Linda.

I can't stand my supervisor, so I blog to thumb by nose at him. Of course, I am working. And I am doing what I need to get done. But I am taking a few minutes here and there to write this and fill in the free moments with bloggy goodness.

I have to take my puppy to the vet in the coming week to get her rabies shot. And to have her fangs looked at. She has lost most of her puppy teeth (for those who do not know, doggies lose their baby teeth too and grow a whole new set of adult teeth!) But three of her fangs have just sort of grown in right next to her puppy fangs and they have not pushed the baby teeth OUT. And the baby teeth don't seem to be loose either. So I am concerned that I will have to go to the puppy dentist to get them removed. Which I am sure will be expensive. I don't even know how expensive it will be to spay her and I know it will be too expensive.

I also have to go to the lab to get some bloodwork done. We are checking my thyroid levels again because my doc upped the thyroid hormones and we want to see if it is normal or over an ideal level. I am guessing over, because I have felt rather odd since I began taking the higher dosage a little over a month ago. But we shall see. I HATE going to the lab, but I will go this week. I think I will wear six sweaters and drink a gallon of water that morning!

I met my new nephew this weekend. He is a little cutie named Luke. I think I am sure that motherhood will be my downfall. It will drive me insane. Not the raising the kids part, just the not sleeping for the time between getting pregnant and anywhere from 3-5 years old. I get cranky and flighty when I get 5 hours of sleep for a week (like last week) and I don't even HAVE kids. I can't imagine having to take care of a fragile, impressionable life while being even crankier and flightier! I dunno, just makes you think.

One other thing. My local fabric store, "The Fabric Place" is CLOSING THEIR DOORS!! Waah! Sadness. I think that the Jo-Ann's fabrics that opened a mile down the road is killing their business. That sucks. They are a small chain and they are closing two of their four stores. Well, anyway, that means BIG SALES ON FABRIC. So ladies, if you are needing to go fabric shopping for anything - say, kimono fabric or medieval blouse fabric - you may want to schedule a visit over my place. I am going to watch the japanese printed cottons section to see how far the price drops while there is still a good selection. And the fancy fabrics too. If I can get some delicious silks for a bargain price, I am GOING for it!

Okay, I think I have killed enough time and bounced around enough for an afternoon. Happy hooky-ing to all!!

saddened by the passing of a personality

When I got to work Monday morning and checked on LJ, as I normally do, I read a post from a friend who mentioned that she had read in someone else's LJ that Perry DeAngelis had passed away. I looked around and found it, though there was not more information. I checked with Lou as she is a longtime friend of the family and she had also heard about it from another friend.

I am so sad about this.

Perry was one of the founding board members of LIONE Rampant along with 6 other guys from NH and MA. They decided to start their own game after playing the only other one around at the time, NERO. They had their own ideas, each of them, and wanted to put their creative minds together and make their own game.

He wrote and played some of the most memorable events/characters/creatures/modules in my LARPing career. To this day, his penchant for making up the most bizarre, poorly-statted, late-night micro is infamous! At the final event of the LIONE 3 campaign this July, I gave one of the present board members a brick together with a roll of duct tape and called it "The Honorary Perry DeAngelis Award" - because this board member (Lee) always played the most evil, most conniving, most surprising characters in that campaign. I thought of it off-the-cuff the day before, and now I am so glad I did it. It's just a testament to the contribution that Perry made to that game and to the lives of the people who played it.

I was not in contact with Perry for the last few years. But when I searched Google on his name I found a lot of people who were. He was active in the New England Skeptics Society. I remember when he and Steve founded that and it was just them. There were a lot of listeners and members of the group that have been touched by his death, even though they never met him.

Skeptics Guide to the Universe-Main Page
Skeptics Guide Message Boards

Steve Novella's Blog and comments

One of the posts was from Perry's close friend Evan:

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:31 am Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey all,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but unlike Rebecca and Steve, I don't have blog or another place to type a few words.

I am going to save my deepest thoughts and recollections about Perry for the next show that we record. But I must say that reading all the posts here, at Steve and Rebecca's blogs, and the SGU fans site today has been both amazing and very difficult at the same time. Your words of kindness and expressions of heart-felt grief has brought me to tears several times today.

I just got home from an impromptu gathering at Steve's house with about a dozen of Perry's closest friends along with his sister Celeste. We hugged, laughed, told story after story over a delicious beef dinner that my wife prepared in Perry's honor (thank you Jen, my soulmate forever!), drank a little wine, laughed some more, told more stories .... you get the idea. It was a little strange, but there seemed to be no time for our tears of sorrow - we just wanted to talk about Perry as much as we possibly could, and we did so for hours on end.

It's here at my computer that I find myself wet around the eyes as I read every word that has been typed. Its kind of surreal. I can't say that I can't believe Perry is gone, only because he suffered for many many years with multiple diseases, and we knew that this unbearably sad day would have to occur. But what I can say is that your outpouring of raw emotion, kindness, and love is heart-felt, warming beyond words, and incredibly astute. I met Perry in 1986, and I admired him within about 2 minutes of talking to him. A life-long friendship was born. As I read all that you have written, I think back to my first moments of being in Perry's company and I say to myself "Yes, I know exactly what they are talking about and how they feel."

I can't thank you all enough for your words and thoughts. You're the ones that are helping make this agonizing pain bearable. Please continue to express your thoughts and feelings. This is extrememly theraputic for Steve, Bob, Jay, Rebecca, myself, and Perry's closest family and friends. I'm off to find a fresh box of tissues.

Evan
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And words from someone else who knew him as well:
John's post

Perry will be missed by a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You don't have to be a close friend to miss someone when they are gone.

belly troubles

So here I am again, with belly issues.

Awful cramping, so bad it made me cry. Started Tuesday. Brought on and exacerbated by eating - ANYTHING. Doing the broth thing didn't set it off. Chewed a few Immodium Advanced (will wonders never cease!) and that "seemed" to have relieved the cramping/pain. Or time did. I am not really sure. Happened after eating just a bagel with a little butter on Wednesday and Thursday after chicken noodle soup. This morning, I called truce and went to my doctor's office. Didn't even make an appointment, just showed up, because I knew calling when they opened would get me a later appointment.

Last night, the pain was so bad, my other half sat with me on the bed and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. It was about 10pm, and I thought I about it and decided no, because if I went, I would wait and wait and wait and they would run a test and then send me to my own doctor in the morning anyway. So I decided to try and tough it out until morning. The belly pain subsided. For a while anyway. Then it came back around 12:30-ish. It would not go away for hours. I went to my computer and went onto WebMD to see what I could find out. Ulcers, kidney stones, gallbladder attack, irritable bowel syndrome, lactose intolerance and the pesky bacteria I was inflicted with in march - C. Diff. I looked them all up. The one that seems most likely to me seems to be gall bladder. After the web search and still not enough pain subsiding to sleep, I took a shower. At 3:00 am. It helped, at least to relax me. And the hot water felt good on my back, which was also very achy, mostly on the right side.

Went back to bed around 4:00 am. Yeah! Had already told my boss I was going to see my doc in the morning because the cramping was too bad. So I got up with my other half, we took care of the pups and I headed out.

She sent me for blood work, which I STILL had not gotten done from December. And she scheduled me for an ultrasound of my gallbladder and pancreas on Monday. And I have another test to take (for that funky bacteria) that involves 'samples' - I will say no more. And since I told her I was afraid to eat, because it brought on the pain, she gave me an anti-spasmodic med to take if that happens.

I went to the lab that my fiance told me to go to that was great with him and 1-2-3, they had the butterfly in and took 4 big ol' vials of my blood. She checked both arms and took a little time picking the vein, but she did it on the first try. I love her!!! Sort of hurts, because she used an arm vein rather than my tiny collapsible elbow veins. But no bruising and she was great! They are testing for regular stuff like infection and cholesterol, but also testing for Celiac Disease, which is basically an allergy to gluten. That would totally suck, like a whole lot, but I am pretty confident that is not my problem.

My bet is on infection of some sort, ulcer or gall bladder. My father and all his siblings have all had theirs out, I would not be surprised if it happens to me too.

I have the pills in case the pain begins and I have had a small bowl of cheerios. So we'll see what happens. I don't care about treatment or anything, but that pain is not something I want to experience again. It was AW-FUL!!!

Mostly now, I am just tired and listless (because of the not eating-hello?) I want to go home and crawl into my bed again and put the heating pad on my belly or my back and just sleep.
I will stay at work today though because, so Murphy's Law, we have a big server cut-over today at 4:00 pm. Yay. Just the thing to make my week complete. By the way, this is probably going to be a big disaster, but that's just my speculation. I would bet money that by Monday at 12:00 noon we will be back on the old server.

Love to all my chiquitas, especially ones dealing with loss (of all sorts) right now. Maybe my belly is just being testy and this will all go away. R-i-i-ight.

New Puppy!!

I am hereby announcing the arrival of a teeny addition to our family. We finally have puppy # 2!

We have named her Storm (the first one is Rogue, now we have Storm - it's an X-Men theme) and she may well live up to that name. She is another Chi-weenie, that is, a Dachshund/Chihuahua mix. She will be smaller than Rogue since the daddy Chihuahua is about 4 pounds and mother Dachshund is about 12-13 pounds. We looked around at rescues from Alabama to Maine and ran into several snags along the way - most of which were that the places would only adopt out locally, that is, within 60 miles or so. We wanted another Dachshund mix, preferably another Chi-weenie, so I began searching Google for "breeders". It's not a purebred AKC style dog, but there are a few breeders of these out there. Not wanting topatronize a puppy mill type of situation, I picked one that is a farm, breeds a few kinds of dogs, doesn't produce tons of litters a year and has humane values for breeding and owning dogs. We chose THIS PLACE. They are very "crunchy" and really have a shelter-feel to them. The woman who sold us Storm was wonderful and nice and also, as it happens, hooked us up with another person from RI who was buying one of the Chi-weenies, so we coordinated the pick-up with them and didn't have to drive to Georgia to pick her up (although we were prepared to do so.) The breeder was not charging "premium" price for the puppies, which also reflected well on the breeder, I thought. They were $100.00 each. So with what we chipped in for pick-up, it was about the same as what we paid to adopt Rogue from rescue.

Without further ado, you can see Storm on the Flickr site!
She is under the 'New Puppy!' section that I made the other day.

She arrived at our house on Sunday, April 29th by way of my friend Wendy's house. The guys picking up their puppies arrived back in town much earlier than we had expected and we weren't home from a LARP event yet. So I arranged to have them drop off the tiny pup at Wendy's house, which is only 2 1/2 miles away from mine. So she had the little girl for a couple of hours and then we went to pick her up. She is the tiniest little puppy I have ever owned. The only other 8 week old puppy I had was Kya (the Malamute) and she was probably at least 10 pounds already at 8 weeks old. This little girl is only about 2 pounds. I havenothing to weigh her with and I don't want to put her on the scale at Petco yet until she has had all her vaccinations in a couple of months. I was telling my parents that she is honestly the size of a little kitten, big head and all. She was born on March 5th, so she is now 10 weeks old.

She and Rogue get along very well and have already grown fond of each other. There is some jealousy for attention on Rogue's part, having been the only spoiled puppy in the house until that day. But we think things are progressing well. Rogue is 17 pounds now, so she gets a little rough for the tiny one at times, stepping or chomping a little too hard. So they play for a while and then the "grrr"'s and the squeaks get a little loud and we pull them apart. But if early indications hold true, we think that Storm may just grow up to be agood contender for Rogue. As you will see from one of the pictures (titled, "Nganga!") she will growl and bark and bite back at Rogue when she gets in her face. We'll be working on controlling that type of play so that our house is not just a mess of broken furniture and destroyed floors and rugs when the little one is grown. It's funny, even though the jealousy is there, Rogue gets up in the morning, shakes her head and wakes up Storm, waiting for us to take her out so they can play. Also funny is that no matter what toy one of themhas, the other one wants it. I can put a toy in front of each one of them and they will play with it for 8.3 seconds before realizing, hey, that other pup has something WAY more interesting than this! and wandering over to get it. It is very cute. And, of course, she sleeps a LOT! She loves sleeping ON us, either high on the chest on the neck area, or in the crook of an arm. And of course, there is Rogue jealousy about this too, as she loves to nap on us as well. One of the reasons it took me so long to get this out is because I have spent several evenings after dinner with two pups nestled comfortably on my chest/belly with a blanket over them, watching TV on my computer screen. It's a productivity buster, for sure. But the insecure napping on mom and the rough play will pass and we will be able to leave them to their devices more as time passes, so we just need to weather this part (it's SO tough to weather having to pay so much attention to two cute pups!!)

So, please welcome Storm to our family, go see the pics to get some cuteness into your day and I hope you will get to meet both of them one of these days!

Violinist plays to no one...

"If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?"

Article from the Washington Post on an experiment done in January. One of the foremost violinists in the world played at a metro station for 45 minutes during the morning rush hour commute. Guess how many people stopped to listen....

Read the article here

A more snooty take on the whole experiment

And an article on how classical music's audience is falling away due to age...

The quote from the article with which I opened this post is a paraphrase of the Welsh poet W.H. Davies. I firmly believe it. Everyone does it, and it is NOTHING to feel guilty about. It is, rather, something to be aware of and to try to overcome a little bit every day.

(from 4/13/07 LJ post)

Spring Peepers!!!

Last night I heard the Spring Peepers for the first time this season! That is one of my favorite things about Spring!

I love watching Crocus and Daffodils and Tulips poke their greens and little flower heads up out of the ground and seeing little patches of them here and there.

I love hearing the peepers and knowing that it is now really Spring.

I love seeing the Cardinals I always see that, for me, are the harbingers of Spring. I know they are all-season birds, but I never seen them until the end of Winter, when they are out gathering new nest supplies from around the neighborhood!

I love seeing the green buds on the trees waiting for a good few days of rain and then warm sun to get them to burst open.

I love seeing pairs of geese nesting in the oddest places, getting ready for their goslings to come.

I love the shallow little dug up holes in my yard where the squirrels have come to reclaim some of the acorns that they have hidden last fall and over the winter.

I do love all the seasons, and I think I will make a list like this for each season this year.

Yay, Spring! (Now, snow, you GO AWAY!!!)

(from 4/12/07 LJ post)

Blood from a....well, not from me!

I will never ever go to the lab upstairs from my doctor's office again. Not even for non-blood related testing. Never EVER!

I go for follow up with my doc today. She asks if I had my blood work done from our last well visit several months ago, I cringe and admit that I have not gotten it done. So she writes a prescription right there and tells me to go upstairs to the lab up there. I should not even have to wait because it's early.

I do this and get right in. Last time I was there for the TMI post a few weeks ago, I thought the attitude of the two people working there was pretty poor. They were complain-y and huffed a lot at people and phone calls. I get there today and the same two people are there. Older man and older woman, I will call them. Older woman appears to be the receptionist, takes my data and bloodwork order and passes me off to older man. I go into the room with The Chair (you know, the one with the big flat arm rests for them to do their dirty work) and sit down. It's cold in there. I pull up my sleeves. I don't realize until I am in The Chair that Older Man is actually going to be the one taking my blood. I am now nervous.

I warn him when he asks which arm that I do not have great veins. He says ok (obviously not realizing that I am not just a whiner) and wraps the tourniquet around my right arm, the dominant one. He pokes around and pokes around. Poke, poke, poke. Push, push, push. Poke, poke, poke. Finally he decides on a vein that he thinks will yield something. He takes the standard sized needle and collection tube and jabs me, semi-gently. He then proceeds to partially withdraw and jab me several times, very UN-Gently. He gives up on that arm and tourniquets the other. More poking and pushing, he seems to find something there. He goes directly into the crook of the elbow. Same jab and withdraw and jab again. He is not gently pulling the needle part of the way out and gently moving it and gently easing it back in. No. He is literally jabbing me again and again. As I watch this idiot ravage my poor arm, I am getting this very troubled look on my face, and starting to make "OW" noises. Just as I can't take it anymore, he stops and withdraws the needle, giving up. He seems frustrated, angry. At me??? What the fuck? I have no control over my fucking veins, what am I supposed to do about it?! He walks out of the room unceremoniously and I hear him mumble something to Older Woman.

A few minutes later, she comes in and tells me I have been handed off to her. She asks which arm is better. I tell her whichever you can get something from. I inform her that in the past most places have used a butterfly on me and have had trouble before. She tourniquets my left arm and has me make a fist and is SURE that there is a viable vein there. She goes to look for a butterfly. Can't find one. Um, hello? This is 2007 folks, does this lab take blood from kids??? You don't use the giant fat needle on them, you use a butterfly!

So she comes in and grabs the normal stuff and begins trying to extract my blood from this vein she KNOWS is there. Nothing. She, at the very least, was gently withdrawing and moving the needle around to find the vein. It still HURT, but a lot less and it was MUCH less disturbing than Older Man, Mr. Jabby McGee! Nothing, not a drop. She incredulously says aloud that she was SURE there was a nice fat vein there and she just couldn't get it.

She gives up on that arm and tourniquets the other one. She pokes around and doesn't even try it because there is even less on the right arm. We go for the last resort - the hand (sorry to all those who get squeamish about this stuff!) Still no butterfly, she looked again. So not only are we resorting to the hand, but she is using the fat needle to get in there. But again, she is confident there is a vein to be bled there. After a minimal amount of poking around, during which I cringed, "ouch"ed, tapped my feet and sucked my breath in several times, she finally stopped and gave up completely.

She was dumbfounded. She told me they had never had this happen before. She was not sure what to do. I remembered while sitting there being ravaged by these two numbskulls that when I had blood taken in the past for my thyroid testing (several times over a 6 month period) they had me drink lots of water in the morning before I came in to plump up the tissues around my veins (it really does work!) and also put heat packs on my arms when I got there for 20 minutes so things would be nice and prominent. Both of these things, combined with using a butterfly and pediatric needles and vials, worked great.

Older Woman suggested I could come back another time, they would take me right in. I could do the water thing, or heat pack thing. She could give me my slip back (the prescription for the bloodwork) and I could go somewhere else if I wanted, or something. I asked for the slip back and said I would, "figure it out", which really meant I would run from the office, never to return again! I went downstairs back to my doc's office to inform her that I had, in fact, NOT had a drop of blood taken from me because the phlebotomists upstairs were TERRIBLE and I would not be going back there. The medical assistants both gasped when I told them they tried three locations and could not get blood from me. They said that Mr. something-or-other would have been able to do it, but he was not there anymore. Oh well for me. So they suggested another lab down the street, knowing I would not be going today and said they would tell my doctor.

So, I have a growing purple spot on my inner left elbow, a surprisingly small pin prick on my right arm and a very hurty pin prick on my hand. I would have expected more bruising with all the poking that Mr. Jabby McGee did, but, well, he missed the veins entirely!!!

I hate blood work. I will NEVER EVER give blood because of this.

I don't get sick or nauseous from needles or blood or anything. But I was feeling woozy after this ordeal and thought I was going to puke! I went to panera bread, got me some OJ and splurged on a Venti Chai from Starbucks to nurse me through the day.

And I still have to go get blood taken. Rah.

(from 4/5/07 LJ post)

Tip # 36 on keeping friendly relations with your neighbors

When they drive past you as you are walking your dog, do NOT wave with the hand holding the poop baggie. No matter how awkward it is to free up your other hand, do not wave a bag of poop at your neighbors!

(from 3/21/07 LJ post)