Having to communicate my real feelings was scary.  It’s not something I do lightly or regularly.  But, as that person was, at one point, a very good friend of mine, I felt they deserved to know what happened.   It had been a year of ignoring their attempts at communication.   These attempts were inadvertently reminders of my pain, and I needed to deal with the situation instead of ignoring it.  So I did.

I can’t repair the friendship, but I’m pleased that I was at least able to take the step to repairing myself, if even just a little.

Now I can let it go and move forward.

Well!  If you’re interested in the recipes, you can find them on Allrecipes.com or you can just keep reading.

First you make the basic biscuit mix:

Easy Biscuit Mix:

Yield: 12 Cups

10 C  all-purpose flour

1/2 C  baking powder

1/4 C  white sugar (I subbed honey)

2 tsp  salt

2 C  shortening (subbed olive oil)

1.  Mix dry ingredients.  Cut with shortening until coarse crumbs.

2.  Done.  Whatever is left over you can put in a container and stick it in the fridge the next time you get a wild hair to make biscuits.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits (or Cheesy Garlic Biscuits of Delicious Doom)

Yield:  20 small biscuits (or about 10 fist sized biscuits)

Oven: 375F

Bake time:  10-15 minutes

4 C  Easy Biscuit Mix

3 oz.  cheddar, shredded

1 & 1/3 C  water

1/2 C  butter, melted

1 tsp  garlic powder

1/4 tsp  salt

1/8 tsp  onion powder

1/8 tsp  dried parsley

1.  Preheat oven to 375F.

2.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

3.  Combine biscuit mix, cheese, and water.  Mix until firm.

4.  Either:  make small rolls and put them on the parchment paper; or (if your dough turned out like mine, all sticky and fluffy) grab a small handful and drop it into a blob on the parchment paper/foil (I used foil since I didn’t have parchment paper. It worked fine.)

5.  Bake until golden brown.  That’ll be about 10-15 minutes. (Maybe twenty if you get distracted watching Arsenic and Old Lace and forget about them.  Priscilla Lane is a cutie.)

6.  While they’re baking combine the butter, garlic powder, salt, onion powder (I didn’t have any. It was fine.), and dried parsley.  When you pull your little steaming mounds of deliciousness out of the oven, brush this buttery mixture of tastiness all over your biscuits.  Wait about five minutes (or two) to remove them from the paper/foil and pop one in your mouth.

7.  Bask in the glory of your biscuits.

I was not disappointed with them. The only things I might do differently:

1.  I really like garlic.  I’d chop some up and put it in the actual biscuits.  I chopped some and put it in the butter mixture along with the powdered garlic/parsley, but still.  More garlic.  Keep those vamps at bay.

2.  I didn’t measure my cheese.  I should have put more in.  I know that now.  You can never have too much cheese.

3.  Sift.  I would like to have had a sifter for the biscuit mix.  I ended up with small clumps of biscuit mix that didn’t get combined as well as I would have liked.  Tragic.  Not terribly noticeable though.  But I see it!!

4.  1/2 C  butter?? Really?  No way.  I used maaybe 3 Tbsp.  No need to waste that butter.  Paula Deen would be mad.  I ended up with just enough butter to lightly dust these puppies with greasy, garlic-y goodness.

End result:  Two Thumbs Up.

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@aeleitch How lucky for me. #

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I arrived there yesterday evening, earlier than I had thought I’d get there.  My GPS said I was 8 hours away around noon.  I missed my exit due to the engaging nature of my audio book.  The reroute took me a path that cut off three hours.  I don’t understand that in the slightest, but okay.  I’m pretty sure my GPS is set to the fastest route, so why it would have taken an extra three hours if I’d taken the original route didn’t make sense to me.

Kevin’s mom is a very nice lady.  I had to get used to her Southern hospitality; I’m not used to someone trying to make me feel welcome.  I got a little overwhelmed.  We settled in, watched some PBS nature shows (hummingbirds and monkeys!), and ate some of her delicious, home-cooked food.  On top of that greatness, all the pets decided I was awesome, so I got cuddles from their beagle puppy, Artemis, and the three cats, Kizzie, Zara, and Billy.

I had planned to leave the following evening, but she was worried about me driving at night and all the Southern weirdos.

“Have you seen Deliverance?!”

“No, but I’m familiar with the reference..”

“Those people really exist!”

I stayed until this morning.  She sent me on my way with some of the cornbread she’d made for dinner the night before.  It was so Tasty!

She ended up going to bed with a migraine, so her hubby and I stayed up talking about fishing, hunting, and trucks – and all the adventures in between.  It was a good night.

I got on the road around 7:30-8am and headed out into the humid doom.  It’s only gotten worse as I’ve gone east.

I’m sitting in a DQ in Louisiana at the moment.  I was going to stop at a gas station to relieve myself, but couldn’t pass up the chance for ice cream.  It’s not exactly hot outside, it’s just dang humid.

I’m almost done with my Blizzard and want to get back on the road.  Might get to see my Auntie Pam tonight!

My friend Kevin offered to ask his mom if I could stay over a night because she’s in the Austin area.  She agreed to meeting me, so I made my way up to her house.

I realized yesterday that I get so engrossed with my audio books that I forget to check the GPS to see my exit.

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The drive so far has been good, no problems.  My load is as secure as I could’ve asked for.  I rock.

The weather through AZ to here (west Texas) was abysmal during the day.  I saw it posted as 99F somewhere in a town I passed through.  It felt it.  I woke up sweating terribly yesterday.  I had sun shades up in all the windows to provide reflection and insulation, but haven’t yet put the silver tarp on top of the truck yet as another sun blocker.  If it’s really hot tonight when I stop I’ll consider it.  This morning was lovely.  The night even got cool enough that I grabbed my sweater and threw it over my arms.  I was the last one to wake at the picnic grounds (rest stop without bathrooms. ugh.), but I slept through all but the last two truckers heading out.  I was tuckered.  I woke today with a slight headache, like yesterday.  I think it’s a combination of slight dehydration from the night and not eating enough.  The heat makes eating a chore and when I’m driving all night I don’t think to stop and eat.  I want to use the night hours to my advantage – it’s cooler.

The one thing I remember about driving through Texas two years ago is the deer, lots of them, smattered all over the highways.  I haven’t seen that this time, but the huge buck I saw grazing on the side of the highway last night made me nervous.  It was 1:30AM.  Other interesting wildlife: I think I saw a badger run across the road!  Cute, little waddling thing.

I need to remember to get out of the truck and walk around a while before I go to sleep.  I’m sitting all day/night getting cramps in my legs/butt/neck.  Then I go to sleep curled up, unable to stretch out.  I woke up sometime last night with a cramp in my glutes.  I stretched my feet out the window to ease it.

Alright, time to get back on it.

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The 166 was joyfully void of traffic and construction, save a couple truckers going through Maricopa.  I wasn’t trying to go faster than them with the speed limit of 55, so their adherence to that speed wasn’t a nuisance like it might normally be.  I stopped in Arvin for gas and realized I was getting as good, if not slightly better, gas mileage as usual.  We’ll see if that keeps up.

As I was driving I realized I was tense; I was worried about the load and how well my truck would handle it.  With a tarp, netting, and tie-down straps holding everything in place I don’t think I really needed to worry.  It’s as secure as I could make it and I got creative with the tarp to cup down on flapping.  I hate it when tarps flap.  I was determined not to let that happen.  As I had strapped it down, it wasn’t going anywhere.  A couple times I took a second to take a deep breath then shake it out.  It reminded me of what birds do to release tension in their bodies.  They shake and fluff up then chill out and let their feathers settle back down.  Percival the Pelican might be rubbing off on me.

Cheese puffing up and settling down on my shoulder

Oh, my traveling companions!  Percival the Pelican: A stuffed animal I got when I was a kid and have been carting around with me everywhere.  Paloma: The little, white bird of a truck that is going to fly me across the country.

Not wanting to be clock-watching constantly, I turned on the first audio book in the Dresden Files series.  So far it’s rather enjoyable!  I like the main character and the man reading the story, James Marsters, has a good voice. (In case you’re unaware of who that is: James plays Spike on the Buffy the Vampire series. hubba hubba.)  At the moment I’m sitting here wishing it were a paperback so I could be reading it instead of having to wait.

I just woke up from a nap a little while ago.  I’m trying to keep my body to a nightowl schedule.  It’s easier for traffic, heat, and avoiding everything this side of Austin, TX.  I’ve seen enough desert.  I’ll be driving across it for the next couple of days.  Ugh.  If I can avoid seeing it and feeling the heat of the day, maybe it won’t be so bad and will fly by like it doesn’t really exist.

Going to go check the map to get back on course and get a shower.  Who knows when my next one will be.  Muhahha..

I have a feeling tweeting might fill up my blog while I’m out and about, but oh well. If I find it insufferable while I’m testing it out I’ll change it so it stays only in the widget on the sidebar instead of actually making new posts.

This post is mostly a test to be sure it updates my Facebook accordingly.   Here goes nothin’.

The Wacom Inkling. Whoa.  I am in awe.  And drooling.

I started writing a post about Burning Man last year, but got fed up trying to upload all the pictures into WordPress that I lost interest in that post.  I obviously haven’t tried to post anything since then. And yet so much has gone on!

Waiting in line at Burning Man after a rainstorm.

I was going to try to think of all the neat things and give you a full run down, but that’s not going to happen.  I’ll give you the quick and dirty.

The ranch was a beautiful place to live.  At some point in March or April I decided to raise five Rhode Island Red chickens.  I <3′d them.  After all was said and done (months later), I had three left.  There was a hungry mountain lion that saw my poor babies as lunch.  One Saturday afternoon I was walking up to give them some cuttings from my herb/veggie garden and what did I see?  A friggen’ mountain lion trying to decide who next to pick off!  Nooooh!  I picked up a rock and threw it at the big cat.  It took one look at me and took off.  I took off in the other direction to grab my gun and go after it.  I was upset.  I didn’t, however, find the lion.  I hiked up into the hills, found a pile of feathers that once was one of my girls, but lost the trail near the edge of the property.  I shook my fist.  I sat up on the side of that mountain and cried. The three left weren’t ever quite the same.  They kept better watch over each other though.

The Three Musketeers!

At some point while I lived there three people moved into the trailer that was on the property.  Having other humans living out there defeated the purpose of living in the middle of nowhere, so I moved back into the city shortly thereafter.  My peace had been disturbed.

Then Burning Man happened.  It’s currently happening again, but I’m not there, obviously.  It was nifty.  I mean, it sucks.  Don’t go.

A dandelion by day. A flaming dandelion by night.

The rest of the year was fairly uneventful as far as this blog goes.

This year has been mildly uneventful.  I take that back.  I’ve been traveling a lot again, so it’s been a whirlwind.

In April I went to visit my friend, Fro, in Florida.  We were talking online about how I hadn’t yet come to visit him out there when he’d come to visit out here a few times.  I told him to set a date and I’d fly over.  I needed a break.  We figured it out and I flew over and hung out for a couple days.  In that time we went to a birthday party for one of his coworkers.  His boss was also at this party.  I ended up sitting next to his boss talking about their job, life, etc.  They work at the nuclear power plant there.  The college has a program where you take classes directly related to working at the plant, then after you finish the program you apply for a job at the plant.  It sounded simple enough.  After talking to me for about an hour or so his boss told me I should consider the program.  I guess they have some older folk who should be retiring soonish and will need fresh meat to fill the spots.   I spoke with Fro about it briefly to get a bit more information about it.  On the flights home, I considered it more.  On the drive home I mulled it over.  I think I called him the next day and spoke with him at length about it.  All of this thinking and mulling is leading up to the fact that I’m moving to Florida to do this school program so I can get this job.  Whee!

You know I had to.

Nowadays I’ve been running around like a crazy person trying to get all my stuff shipped and the rest of it crammed into my truck so I can drive it over there.  My truck and I will have quite a journey ahead of us.  The move date is about as solid as cottage cheese, so I’m not even going to give one to anyone anymore.  Plans have been changing as things come up, so I’ve been adjusting.  My Grams reminded me that it’s okay for plans to change.  It’ll all get done.  Take a breather and go with the flow.  Yes, ma’am.  <3

After Burning Man is over and my roommate comes home I’m going to drive up to visit her before I leave, then be on my way.  This new chapter is going to start, sooner or later.

Take a breath and enjoy the life you're creating.

Banana Bread recipe (for cooking conversions, click here)

1 stick + 1 tablespoon butter (125g)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

4-5 ripe bananas

1tsp vanilla essence

1/2 teaspoon of Salt

(Bake using a 9×5×3 or 8×4×4 loaf pan)

—

Beat butter and sugar until creamy

Add eggs

Add dry ingredients (including salt)

Add mushed up bananas and vanilla essence

Bake at 350F/180°C for 1 hour.

Now, I didn’t have regular flour, so I used 100% whole wheat flour, raw sugar, and just kinda guessed at the salt since I didn’t write down how much on the scrap of paper.  I also added a big dash of cinnamon (since I can’t bake much without adding it).  Pretty friggen delicious.  I highly recommend it.  Tomorrow I will take over a couple slices to my best friend and his girlfriend and see if it passes.  I have high hopes!

Bake on, people!

Forgive the camera phone pic. I couldn’t find my other camera in time..

…in time to take a picture that wasn’t half a loaf or less.. muhahaha..

The move into a new place went well, though I dragged my feet a bit in getting everything moved over.  It’s hard to motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning when you have nothing substantial for which to get out of bed.  Regardless, I am now settled and living a quiet, solitary life out on a ranch in the country.  I’m ever so fond of it.  There’s a ranch cat who will occasionally grace me with its presence.  A Great Pyrenees lives out there as well, and she, Regret, will on occasion stop in to check on me.  The mule and horse that live there pretend that I don’t exist, but I think in the end we’ll become friends.  I might just have to make it my mission.  The other four horses that are staying there now know me fairly well and we’re all on good terms.  I end up feeding them more often than not, so what’s not to love about me?  So let’s see… quiet place to live? Check.  Acreage to roam and hike around?  Check.  Animals to befriend and converse with?  Check.  As few people as possible?  Check.  Gosh, it might just be ideal.  The biggest downside?  No internet.  Yes, dear Reader, I have no internet out there, hence my lack of timely updates.  It was called to my attention recently that I left you hanging with the depression that dripped from the last posting.  My apologies.

The job situation has been handled.  I am now working for a friend, or for someone who has now become my friend, and am enjoying it rather well.  I can only hope that I can maintain such positivity for long periods of time.  I do enjoy how resourceful I can be when I put my mind to it and am quite glad I was blessed with such will power.  I am also glad to have wonderful friends with whom I can share my life and my skills with in order to benefit them as well.  I never exactly expected all my random skills to come in handy, but I tend to surprise myself with how forward thinking some part of my brain is, however hidden from the forefront it may be.

I spoke with Linda a week or so ago to keep in contact.  She decided to quit after all.  They had continually disrespected her and she felt no need to keep herself in such a situation.  It was affecting her health, her mental state, and her life; it wasn’t worth it.  Too often people will sacrifice themselves for money and wonder why their life isn’t as satisfying as they think it should be.  She wasn’t one of those people, but it is a common thread I see among most people.  I am only glad that her integrity was able to withstand the poison and allowed her to free herself and move on, hopefully, to better things.

Say what you want and keep moving forward.

This year was the year for traveling.  I got to see Grand Cayman Island.  Quite a lot of fun there.  I flew out to Chicago to visit with my sister and then drove over to Indianapolis to see my friend graduate from Purdue.  Both wonderful trips.

This year has left me with a nice sense of peace about myself.  Sometimes it takes our whole lives to feel comfortable within our own skin.  My skin is finally starting to feel comfortable around me.  I’m a fan.

This year has also been a bit painful.  My cat, my furry daughter, died a couple weeks ago, which is quite devastating.  It’s not something I can really explain to anyone.  No one would take it seriously if I said it was like losing a child, but that’s exactly how it feels to me.  After 15 years together, she was my child, my partner, my gypsy companion.  She grew up with me through the tail end of my childhood, into my teen years, and then my adulthood.  I felt more closely bonded with her than I have felt about anything or anyone else in my life.   She will be sorely missed.

This year has been difficult at my job as well.  There were moments where I couldn’t see the reason to stay working at that place anymore, then I would have days and moments with the boys where I couldn’t imagine a cooler place.  I made a lot of friends there, had a good time working with the menfolk, and toward the end, met and worked with Linda, a wonderful woman that I can’t possibly say enough good things about.  Earlier this week I was ‘let go’, so I suppose now I don’t have to worry about experiencing the bad days with the evil woman at the top of the hill.  While not having a job is a bit unsettling at the moment, it’s also a refreshing feeling.  The past couple months have been tense and unnecessarily hard at work and I can’t say I’m not a bit relieved to have been let go.  I am resourceful and intelligent; I see this as a starting block, not a stumbling point.  I have been called by a couple people at the company to be reassured of how much they appreciated me, and told that I will be greatly missed, but not forgotten.

I am also in the middle, or at the tail end, of moving, so between the work stress, holiday stress, and moving stress, I’ve been rather quiet and reserved, trying to keep my sanity and my head above water.  Now with the addition of not having a job, I might lose my mind while I try to figure out the money situation, but I have luckily been squirreling away as much as I can the past couple months, so I should be able to keep paddling for a while.  My feelers are already out for a new job or opportunity, and I have a couple ideas already brewing in my head.  The next couple weeks should give me a good indication of what options might actually be realistic.  When I find out, so will you, dear Reader.

The next adventure is around the bend and I will greet it with open arms and an eager mind.  Keep moving forward.

Child of my heart, I miss you.

As it has been a couple months, things seem to have settled into the concrete blocks.

Bucket of Tears has taken back her “lost” fiance.  Though now he is just her “boyfriend”.  As far as I know, anyway.  I haven’t spoken with her about life lately.  This is me washing my hands of that whole situation.  It caused far too much drama and financial strain for me to want to maintain it in my life.  There comes a time when you realize you can’t help someone anymore.  You can give them all the good advice in the world, but when they continue to bang their head on the wall after you’ve shown them countless medical research documents about the detrimental effects of banging one’s head against a wall, you reach a point that you soon realize is the End Point.  I reached that and have moved on.

Colorado was a fun trip, as much fun as driving 32 hours in three days can be.  The wedding was simple and lovely.  The DJ was horrible.  The weather was perfect.  The backdrop was the Rocky Mountains with lovely, humidity-filled clouds lounging above enjoying the procession.  Luckily it didn’t rain.  There was an awe-inspiring (why can’t people say “awesome” anymore without sounding childish?) lightning storm just over the ridge that, as we drove to the wedding, we hoped would stay over the ridge. It did.  After the wedding was much dancing and merriment.  We left early the next morning before the sun whispered it’s wakeful light on the mountains.

At work things went from normal and boring to odd and tense.  One morning I get a visit from the Purchasing/Asset/Inventory Manager (PM).  She’s an older lady, early 50′s, polite and clean-cut.  I have never had any issues with her and haven’t heard too much ill spoken of her.  I wish I could say the same for my supervisor in the Accounting Department. The PM asks if I’ve heard any talk of being moved to her department, and her assistant being traded to my current spot.  I hadn’t.  She asks me what I think of the proposal.  I let her know I think it would be a great switch.  I confess to her my occasional slacking off because of my incredible boredom from a job lacking in rocket science.  She is surprised and amused, but heartened to hear that it wouldn’t be against me to have such a move take place.  After this surreptitious meeting I spend the day imagining the joys of being out of the accounting department and instead being dirty and busy in the pipe  yard with the PM.  I imagine, if this were to ever happen, that it would take months to come to fruition.  Things don’t work in my favor up there.  Around 3pm, close to the time I’m wrapping up my day, my AD supervisor comes in and tells me to come to her office for a talk.  Great.  What have I done now?  I walk in to an office full of women.  The AD Sup (ADS), her sister (the other AD lady), the PM, and her assistant are all present.  o.O  The ADS tells us that we’re going to be “cross-training” and that she is going to take the PM’s assistant and put me in her place for a while.

I’ll give you a peek between the lines on that whole encounter and what she means by “cross-training”.  The assistant is the ADS’s stepson’s girlfriend.  So now the Accounting Department consists of the supervisor, her sister, and her stepson’s girlfriend.  She also gets rid of me, the bane of her existence since I don’t bend to her feminine wiles and catty backstabbing.  In other words, I think for myself.  So, in one foul swoop she gets the Accounting Department full of women she can control, and gets rid of the one she can’t.  Win-win.

What she doesn’t realize is that it was a huge win for me as well.

1. I now have a supervisor I can respect.  The PM is full of integrity.  So full of integrity it would shame the ADS if she only knew.  Instead the ADS just lords over the PM and treats her like crap (the ADS treats everyone with enormous disrespect, except when she wants something.. and she always wants something).
2. Since I have aligned myself with the men in the field at the first show of the true nature of the ADS and her sister, I can now speak freely without fear of eavesdroppers since she has put me directly in their midst.  She could not have known what this means.
3. I am no longer bored with my job.  It is that simple.

Background for hierarchy of supervisors.  It goes Superintendent (SI) – Field Foreman (FF) – PM – Me.  Superintendent – ADS – her sister – new lackey.

Now, the first week I was down in the pipe yard (PY), the PM tells me the FF was pulled into a conversation with the SI.  The SI was asking him what he thought of me.  What prompted this?  The ADS’s new lackey couldn’t get my old computer to work right; she couldn’t log into the accounting system.  The ADS told the SI that I “sabotaged” the computer.  I was livid.  The FF, however, stuck up for me and told the SI of my greatness, and told him to consider the source.

There is speculation.  The SI and the ADS.  If you bring up the ADS in unflattering light to the SI, he’ll jump on you about it and tell you not to speak of it.  Touchy.  Over-protective.  I’m not the only one with a raised eyebrow about that.

Last week of October.  The PM has a sinus infection and has lost her voice.  She hands me her work cell phone and has me make a couple calls on her behalf, and tells me to answer it if necessary.  She walks out to the PY to go put parts away and organize.  I sit inside and decide to have lunch before I get back to my work.  The cellphone rings.  It’s the ADs.  This begins a big long ordeal in which she feels I’m rude, and in which I get yelled at.  She then berates me to the PM as well, which appalled the PM since she’s quite fond of me.  When the PM tried to bring it up in a private meeting with the Superintendent, he shut her down and told her, “That wasn’t the way I heard it.”  Indicating that the ADS had gone up there, slandered me to him, and turned him to stone.  Crazy medusa-lady.

For about a week or two after that she was after me.  She tried to get me fired.  The Foreman was called in again and again he spoke of my good-nature and great work ethic.  “She’s replaceable,” was the response.   Yeah, we’re all replaceable, but that’s not the point.

Well, we have week-long shifts called “hitches” up there.  Mid-week the hitch changes and the other group of guys come on to relieve.  One of the Lead Operators (SI – FF – LO) was just coming back from vacation and was filled in on what was going down.  Here’s the part where the ADS couldn’t have the forethought to realize.

Since I’ve aligned myself with all the men in the field, I have a better ratio.  It’s about 30:1 men to women.  I’m nice, friendly, helpful, and intelligent.  Things the Accounting Department girls have to actually make a mental effort toward.  Asking nicely for things goes a long way, but only if it’s an honest, consistent sort of niceness.  I’ve been there a year and a half.  My “nice” hasn’t faltered, no matter how bad of a day or how crappy things are in my personal life.  Now, by putting me in the pipe yard I have more access to more men to befriend and be helpful toward, which is exactly what has happened.  Also, the PM allows me, without any insecurity or loathing, to help them to my full potential and actually appreciates it when I do.  (She and I have conversations in which we tell each other how much we appreciate how awesome the other person is.  I kid you not.)

Back to my story.  The Lead that came back heard of my plight and imminent dismissal and was very upset (I’m using light language).  He was so upset he told the Foreman he was going to talk to the SI about it and “go up to bat” for me.  The Foreman advised him against it because of whatever  else was going on that week.  The Lead was determined.   He took the SI out back and talked with him for about 45 minutes about the whole thing.

The result?  The ADS was told that she can’t fire someone just because she doesn’t like them.  “As a supervisor, [she] needs to learn to control [her] emotions.”  Hah!

A year or so ago my Grandpa told me I’d be running the place in a year.  The day I heard that result, I told a friend of mine about it.  He told me “one day you’ll be running the place.”  I replied, “What makes you think I’m not already?  I don’t have to be on top to be in control.”  That was said somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

The moral of the story:  Be good to people and you will reap what you sow.  It’s true.

While I don’t really celebrate holidays, I’m taking today to recognize my thankfulness for other good people.  People that stand up for what is right.  My PM told me, her husband, and her supervisor that she had every intention of putting in her Notice if they fired me.  How can I not respect this woman?  She would rather leave her job than stand around and accept injustice.  Right now, above everyone else in my life, I’m thankful for her.  She’s someone I can respect, admire, and embodies a standard of human I hope to achieve.

Colorado, 2009

Week 1:

At the beginning of the month a good friend of mine lost her fiance.  By ‘lost’ I don’t mean misplaced.  I mean he ran off and decided he didn’t want to get married… two months before the wedding.  How tragic.  I moved in with her to help alleviate some of her costs and get her life back in order.  Yep, you read that right.  My life is more stable than someone else’s.  I know, crazy, right?  Either way, she’s back on her feet to some degree.  It’s causing a bit of an issue in my own life because I now have to figure out what I’m going to do after the end of next month.  Y’know, besides try to recoup some of my lost savings from this whole debacle.  Eh, we’ll see.

The thing to take away from this is the following:

• Men:  Don’t leave your bride after she and her bridesmaids have bought their dresses.  Not cool.  They will all inadvertently hate you for this.
• Women:  Don’t take him back.  Unless he has some really good reason, and I doubt it’s really that good.

Week 2:  A friend from Indiana came to visit!  He’s pushing up that 30 hill and wanted to check stuff off his ‘things to do before I turn 30′ list.  Take a bus across country?  Check.  Go to California?  Check.  Stay with some strange girl and help her entertain her distraught best friend/new roommate?  Check.  I doubt that last one was on his list, but he did it anyways.  What a trooper.

Indiana’s major requirement was to go to the beach.  Well, shucks, that was easy.  I took him to my favorite beach in the area – the Guadalupe Dunes.  It’s quiet, pretty, and doesn’t have good ‘playing’ waves.  In other words, it’s not a beach for families to let their children play in the water.  Awesome!  I used to go there and just sit.  The beach for me has always been a spot of contemplation.  If I’m having relationship issues I go to the beach.  If my best friend is having relationship issues, I take her to the beach.  Though this last time the beach was out of the question because that’s where he used to take her.  The creep.  How dare you taint our beach-going activities with your ineptitude!  Anyways, Indiana and I had a good time lounging about and generally burning the crap out of our skin [read: my skin].  Yeah, I’m from California, but I apparently had a brain fart and forgot to put sunscreen on.  I could barely bend my legs from the pain behind my knees.  Yep, I burned the back of my legs.  Ugh, hooorrriiibllleee..

Other than beaches we went out to some nice restaurants that I never get to go to.  I took him to my favorite Mexican food place for fish tacos.  He ended up eating a 35oz. steak at another place.  Holy crap, right?!  He felt maybe it wasn’t the best idea about 3/4 of the way through, but then they brought out the snazzy t-shirt he would get if he finished it.  That sealed the deal.  He took home a giant t-shirt that was at least three sizes too big.  The waitress told him they’re used to “bigger” guys usually taking on the task.  They didn’t have a “medium”.  Hah.  Us little people can put it away when we set our minds to it.

Trying to come up with ideas to keep Bucket o’ Tears occupied, we all decided to go bowling.  Indiana, BoT, Hardcore and I all graced the bowling alley with our presence.  We were thence known as Hat Sass, Pretty Princess, Fuzzy Panda, and yours truly, Mushy Wonton.  (I figured “Bucket of Tears” wasn’t a good nick name to come up every time she went to bowl, so I settled on Pretty Princess.)

Oh, and I introduced him to the wonders of frozen yogurt (fro yo) in every town.  We finally figured out the best concoctions and pranced up and down the streets nom’ing on our fro yo.  Success!

His last day in town he was flying out of Santa Barbara, so we decided to just spend the day there.  More beaching and wandering around ensued.  We walked out to the end of the wharf and ogled at the beauty of SB.  Having enough ogling, I located a fro yo shop in town via my snazzy GPS thingy (yeah, technical, I know) and we traipsed into town to enjoy the sights and feast, once again, on delicious yogurt.  We decided it was probably time to walk back and find the truck eventually so we headed back.  Wanting to be sure we could actually find the airport, we drove to it and checked him and his luggage in.  Having still nearly two and a half hours before his flight, we decided to go find food.  Freebird’s!  Sally, my GPS, took us to Freebird’s, but what was it I saw in my rear view mirror when we pulled in?  That’s right, a police car!  Zoh Noes!  Begin adventure:

Wait, backstory:  The registration on my truck has been expired since last August since I’ve failed to get a smog check until very recently.  I needed a couple parts under the hood and it took a while to locate them.  Mind you, it did not take a full year, but I wasn’t exactly working very hard to find them.  After getting a parking ticket for god knows what, probably my registration, I decided I needed to get those parts.  I got them… and they sat in the back seat of my truck for a while [read: two months].  About a month ago I got pulled over by a real police person and he gave me a ticket for my registration and gave me a very stern look to go with it.  Shucks.  I then hired a lackey for a day to take my truck, put the parts on her, get her oil changed, and get her smogged.  My lackey was successful, so all I had left to do was go do the registration thing.  Back to the adventure!

Cop lady walks up to my window and gives me a very curious look because my registration is so very out of date and I’m driving my truck around so very illegally.  She at one point makes a comment that my truck is “golden” to be towed.  I show her the smog paperwork and that I’m actively trying to get this whole thing taken care of.  She writes me another ticket and advises me that I need to go to the DMV asap and get this taken care of.  She even tells me where the nearest DMV is and again tells me to get on it.  I thank her profusely for not towing my truck and for not being a big meanie.  She leaves satisfied that she’s done good by me and that I’ll be the responsible young person I so very much haven’t been.

Indiana and I get out to get our tasty burritos from Freebird’s and eat them while discussing what just happened.  I ask him if he’d mind much if we stop by the DMV for a bit to see if I can get this handled right away.  “If there’s a line, we’ll bail, but otherwise.. would you mind?”  “No prob.”  What’d I say?  A Trooper!

We head over to the DMV and are in and out of there in 12 minutes.  Unheard of in California, lemme tell ya.  I’d just like to take this moment to thank the Goleta DMV for not being a cluster F like the rest of the DMVs in California.  You’ve made me proud.

After I stuck my new registration and we loaded up in my truck, I turned the key aaaannndd.. nothin’.  The lights came on, but no vroom vroom.  *facepalm*  Really?!  Indiana looks at me anxiously.  I apologize profusely, pop the hood, then jump out to make sure nothing looks amiss.  Nothing looks amiss, so I jump back in and try to start her again.  No dice.  Angry mumbling.  (Mine, not his).  I see a young lady sitting in her car two stalls over, so I walk over to her and ask her for a jump.  Sometimes my truck just likes getting shocked.  I dunno.  Maybe it was an EMT in a past life.  Who knows.  Clear!!  And voila, she starts right up.  I thank the young lady heartily and jump back in to see a somewhat relieved young man anxiously waiting to get back to the airport and end this rather unpleasant adventure.  We got to the airport without a problem and with at least a half hour before he had to board.  Plenty of time.  Yay!

All in all I think it was a successful trip for him.  He flew back home to safety and showed off his new tan at a “White Party” – a party wherein all it’s attendees wear white.

Week 3:

Since I moved in with BoT, I need to pack up my stuff at my old place and put it somewhere.  I was planning on doing that the third weekend, but decided to spend it finishing the Harry Potter series.  I needed the mental break, honestly.  Haven’t been getting much sleep and haven’t felt rested in longer than I can remember.

Week 4:

This weekend is my company’s picnic!  Most of the supervisors and uppity ups have been absent this week, so while it’s been kinda hectic here in the accounting department, it’s been quiet on the hill in general.  Politics and tempers have made this week (year) frustrating, honestly.  I just try to keep my head down and plow through the stacks of papers that find their way to my desk.  I think there’s a homing beacon or something that calls to all of them.  I might need to get an EMP or something to knock that thing out.  Hmm..

This coming weekend includes a long drive across the states to sunny Colorado for a wedding.  I’m taking BoT and Fuzzy Panda with me as well.  BoT is a bridesmaid (who else foresees her living up to my horrible nickname for her?), and FP used to be really good friends with the Bride.  The Bride is the little sister of a good buddy of mine from high school.  He moved over there for a better paying job as a Petroleum Engineer.  As if making 80k a year at 20-something is a bad living.  Yeaaah.  I made him a beanie for Christmas last year, but finally finished it sometime in April.  I’ll be delivering that to him, as well as trying to take him up on his plan of fishing the morning of the wedding.  I may be in that boat with a full head of curlers, but dangit, I wanna go fishing!  Maybe I’ll wear his beanie.  It’s huge.  He has a gigantic head, so beanies don’t usually fit him – hence me making him one.  The thing nearly goes down to my chin and could probably fit another half a head in there with me.  It’s Large.

It’ll be nice to visit with him again and hang out with some friends.  I know there are a couple friends from here that are also going over for the wedding, so I’m sure we’ll all have a fabulous time.  I’ll be sure to take my camera and capture the whole debacle.  If I get any good ones I’ll be sure to post them up on Flickr.

My Flickr has been quiet for quite a while now because my computer has been down.  I think Windows SP3 didn’t agree with the drivers or something so it wouldn’t even boot up for a while there.  I nearly cried.  My poor baby.  Now that I got it functioning again, however, everything should be fine and I can start up with picture taking and such once again.  I’m debating whether I want to bring it over to BoT’s apartment or not.  We’ll see.  I think I’ll wait til the last minute and take it over after I get back from the wedding.  I don’t want to lose my dual monitor setup just yet (I’ll be putting one of them in storage).  I’ve spoiled myself, but I’m quite okay with this.  I figure no one else is going to.  *shrug*  I am my own sugar mama.  Whee!

Okay, that’s enough for now.  I also updated the site, so if you see anything wonky, let me know and I’ll see what I can do about fixing it.  All seems well.. but who knows.

A nice barn in Illinois.  *happy sigh*

The thing in question is the Address Bar in Firefox 3.  A good friend of mine is solidly against it.  I’ve been beta testing 3.x as they roll out the new betas, so I’ve just put up with it for the time being, but it is annoying.  I don’t need it to find absolutely every single link/bookmark/history/tab/wtfe.   I just want it to figure out what site I want because I’m probably typing the beginning letters of the site.

For example, I want to go to mail.yahoo.com.  I start typing m… and immediately the address bar will bring up any site in the arsenal that has a “m” in it.  And, it doesn’t even bring up “mail.whatever” as the first thing.  It may pull up “LOLcats.gov/archive/deceMber…” or it’ll search the titles of the websites in your history and pull up stuff like “The Psychological Effects of Winter: What Really Causes Moping” whaaat?!  Exactly.

Instead of wanting to deal with it, and after extensively searching for another way, my friend decided best course of action was to roll back to FF2.  Smart.

I, on the other hand…Noo.. I went on a mission.  I think he and I had this discussion a while back and I came up empty-handed.  Today, however, I have come to a good place – a balance, dare I say – where my FF3 address bar functions quite a bit better.  Since it took me nearly three hours of scouring and testing to find it all, I figured I’d post it here in case anyone else wants all the info of what to do in one place.  But Wait!  This does not change the algorithm back to FF2, it only makes the address bar act similarly to FF2. I’m not going to go indepth into the ‘this is what this function does’.  I’m just going to tell you the values to change.  If you want function information, check the Knowledge Base.  Onward!

First things first:  If you mess up your FF3 by doing anything I say, it’s not my fault.  You’re doing all this at your own risk. But I can tell you that this is how mine is set up, and it hasn’t broken yet, so carry on with your changes!

Okay, start off by downloading this Old Location Bar extension.  It makes the address bar look like FF2.  It doesn’t change the algorithm or the search functions, so that’s what we’re doing next. Don’t bother restarting FF after you install this.  One foul swoop, people.

Now, we’re going to be editing the config file for FF, so if you’re uncomfortable, call someone else to do this.  It’s really not that hard though.  Some of the things I do here may replicate or be double work to what the extension is also doing.  True.  I just want to make sure the values are what I want them to be.  Here we go.

In the address bar type “about:config” without quotes.  You now see all the config options for FF.  There will be a search bar at the top of the screen.  Type “browser.urlbar” without quotes.  You will now only see values that match what you typed.

• browser.urlbar.matchBehavior – double click this and set the value to 2
• browser.urlbar.matchRichResults – double click and set to some low number like 5.  That seems  to be plenty.

Alright.  Done with the “browser.urlbar”, so go ahead and erase that from the search bar.  Now type “frecency” (portmanteau word of “frequency” and “recent”).  You will now see the weirdness that is the new searching utility of the FF3 address bar.  I’m not even going to try to explain this madness.

• Find all the values that end with “Bonus“.  Change all their values to 0 (zero).
• Now find the following: .linkVisitBonus, .typedVisitBonus and .unvisitedVisitBonus.  Change all their values to 1.

I know, why’d I make you change all the ones with Bonus to 0, then change a couple to 1?  It’s easier to do that way.  Trust me.  It’s at least easier to explain that way.

Now you can restart Firefox (or just close it and reopen it, whatever).

You should now have a sensible address bar at the top of your screen.  It isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t get around the weird algorithm FF3 implemented, but it’s somewhat better.  And, as always, make note of the changes you’ve made.  You’ll want to know what you changed later when you break something and try to blame me.  I want proof that you did it exactly how I told you to.  

Friday I stayed home to get some things done and recover from my rather tumultuous middle of the night fainting adventures.  I had posted on Freecycle that I wanted some herbs, and one of the ladies in the group had a couple!  I drove over to her house around noonish to pick those up.  Mint and thyme and chives, oh my!  I had picked up some basil at Trader Joe’s the other day on a whim and these are adding to my plant fervor.  Specifically, herb fervor.

I realized I would need to have pots to plant these in, so I called up mah good buddy Poppy and asked him if  it’d be cool if I picked up some of the pots I left at his house.  He said it was, so I drove over.  Little did I know that he was sick with a brutal cold.  He blamed me.  I denied it, then went to the store to pick up some odds and ends to make him feel better.  Someone’s gotta take care of these poor boys.  That done, I loaded my truck with a couple pots and headed home.

Shortly after arriving home who should be knocking on my door but the UPS guy!  Oh, UPS Santa, what did you bring me?!  Why it’s the monitor and SATA drive I ordered!  Joy!  I am now the proud owner of a very sexy 22″ monitor.  I realized that if I wanted one, I’d just have to break down and get it.  My dual monitor set up at work was getting to me.  I’d come home to a puny little 15″ and cry myself to sleep at night.  That’s no way to live.  A solution was at hand, and now it is on my desk.  Brilliance.

But that’s not all.  No siree, Bob, that is not all.  I had contacted a fellow about a desk/table on craigslist that I thought showed promise.  I’m trying to figure out a better computer desk situation here.  The drawing table I’ve been using as a desk these past couple years has begun to annoy me.  It might have something to do with me living on the Lifehacker site and seeing everyone makeover their office space.  It probably has everything to do with that.  Regardless, my roommate and I ran up the coast to acquire this awesome new piece of furniture.  So far it’s proven quite useful.  I wish it were just a bit taller, but if I were to use it for it’s real function, then it’d be perfect.  I’ll either adapt it, or figure something else out.  In the mean while, it’s a snazzy new thing that I’m pretty stoked about.

Saturday was nice because my roommate and I went to a bbq one of his friends was throwing.  The weather was lovely, the food was delicious, the music was very chill, and there were at least 5-8 dogs running around at all times.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  That was probably the best bbq I’ve been to in a long time.  Granted, I didn’t know very many people at all there and was a bit shy, but I think the dogs helped me out with that.  At the end, it was a beautiful day and we all had a good time.

Today has been technically productive.  I’ve been playing with my Gmail filters and labels to create some awesome hierarchical structures in my label list.  If you’re not at all sure what I’m talking about, check out the following articles:

Gmail Labs Feature: Filter Import/Export – This is the idea we’re starting with.  Importing.  Well, export your current list of filters first as a backup.   Then we import.

Ten Must-Have Gmail Filters – This is Lifehacker’s list of some pretty cool/productive filters.  I find them to be a smart group.

Maintaining Gmail Filters with XML – In case you’re a bit more savvy, you can load up an XML Editor and play around with these.  I ended up doing that to fix the labels and other randomness.

Better Gmail 2 – This is a FireFox plugin for your Gmail.  It’s rad.  One of the cool things you can do that Lifehacker’s filters nod at is the ability to have hierarchical label lists.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve got a crapload of labels that I have to scroll for days to see all of them.  This way you can change the labels to have hierarchy.  It’s a brilliant system.

Gmail Advanced Search – Operators that might give you an idea of how to arrange your XML filters.

So, all in all, good weekend.  Hopefully you’re having one as brilliantly lovely as mine.  Ta ta!

Friday I got into O’hare a little early, so I wandered around until I found the rental car shuttle.  That took me about ten minutes away to the rental car location.  Kinda odd, but okay.  Here’s the part where I wished I either had a GPS unit or someone that lived there telling me where to go.  It didn’t really occur to me that I was going to be in some strange state far, far away from everything familiar.  The VW Rabbit and I were in for some adventures.  We hopped off in search of the freeway, and hopefully in the direction of Chicago.

Now, the night before I realized that I had neither printed directions to my sister’s house, to my friend’s house, or really anywhere.  It occurred to me that I might want to.  So I wrote down rough directions to all of these places, and also to the Shedd Aquarium because I was told it was amazing and that I had to go there and possibly the Natural History Museum.  Armed with a paper full of chicken scratch, I set off in search of the Shedd.

I didn’t get far.  Not because I got lost though.  No, it was because there was stop and go traffic all the way from where I got on 1.5mi from the rental car place to exit 55 – the exit I gave up and took instead.  Kate and I were going to meet at a certain parking lot before the Sox game, and after going about 15mi over nearly 2 hours, I figured I might as well say goodbye to the Shedd and Natural History Museum.  There was no way I’d make it in and out of the city in the time I had left.  Instead, I parked in the agreed upon lot, then wandered across the street to the hot dog stand to eat the most delicious french fries and sip on some Sprite.  I hadn’t eaten much all day and was pretty dehydrated.  After that, I snuggled up with the Rabbit and took a nap.  I had an hour to kill, so why not, right?  It was marvelous.  Shortly after I woke Kate called and we played the find-me-in-a-huge-parking-lot game.  Her boyfriend figured it out for us, otherwise I’m sure I would have been wandering around the lot with the phone pressed to my ear saying, “Yeah, I see the red car. Wait, what kind of car?  Okay yeah, which little red car?  There are a million parked next to silver cars.  Okay, wait, which building?  With what on top? No seriously, I can’t understand you. Yeah I see a building. With what on top??” or something similar.

The game wasn’t that great.  Kate and the rest of the fans booed the first pitcher off the field.  I felt kinda bad for him, but he wasn’t pitching well at all, so I guess that’s what he gets.  The rest of the pitchers didn’t do much better in the long run.  The Rangers shut them out, 6-0.  Ouch.  I took a break from vegetarianism long enough to have a beer with my polish sausage hotdog covered with grilled onions and mustard.  Mmm.  I hadn’t had a polish dog in years. Good times.

I did avoid running straight up to Kate’s belly though.  It’s hard to miss, but I didn’t want to intrude on her by busting through her personal space and accosting her stomach.  I imagine pregnant girls tire of random people touching their bellies without asking.  Kate had mentioned that a couple times, so I tried to avoid doing that.  While we were at the game she started prodding at her tummy, so I asked what was going on in there.  The baby was shifting around and kicking out the front of her stomach.  She moved her hand so I could see and it was really trippy!  It was like in Aliens (Spaceballs) when that thing pops out of that guy’s stomach.  Except, y’know, the baby didn’t bust through Kate’s stomach.  But I could see feet or whatever making her skin rise and fall and that looked so amazing.  I put my hand over it and could feel the same thing.  Then I started poking at it.  She laughed because her boyfriend makes fun of her for doing the same thing.  I was hoping that when I poked, it would kick back or something.  I think Kate would have gotten annoyed with me if I’d kept that up, so after not getting a response after the first couple pokes, I gave up.  Babies inside of stomachs = weird but cool!

Right about now you can tell I don’t hang out with pregnant girls very often, nor have I had many pregnant friends/acquaintances.  It’s still fascinating.

The next day we met up with our mother and her friend, had lunch, then went to Kate’s baby shower.  It was a really nice party.  Her friend Mel had made all sorts of food goodies, put together games for it, and even had prizes!  What an awesome friend.  Kate got quite a few presents that will hopefully get her started with whatever she needs for the baby.  Seeing as how I haven’t been to  baby shower.. well.. ever.. I wasn’t entirely sure what to get her.  She wasn’t registered since she didn’t know what she was having til about 2 weeks prior, so I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t get her something that someone else already had gotten her.  Double gifts.  It’s the shame of all parties.  So, I drew and painted her a picture.

Because, as I mentioned, she didn’t know what sex the baby was going to be she would call it a Seamonkey.  I thought this was really cute.  Really cute.  So cute, in fact, that I did an illustration of a seamonkey.  Now, if you know anything about seamonkeys, you’ll know they look more like a paramecium than anything cute and cuddly.  And, if you happen to look them up online, the things that people call a “seamonkey” look more like a really tall Lorax or some other kind of critter out of Dr. Seuss, but creepy.  Deciding that I didn’t want to draw her something creepy, I opted for cute.

Kate and I had a good time hanging out after not seeing each other for a few years, so I say the trip to the Chicago area was a success.  It was good to see her and meet her new boyfriend.  And when things have settled after the baby is born, I’ll ask Kate when the best time is to come back and see my new niece.

Kate actually lives in a really beautiful area outside of Chicago.  Imagine green, grassy fields interspersed with forests and rivers.  Yeah, it’s gorgeous.  Now put cute little mid-western towns in there with awesome brick architecture and adorable little farm houses.  Yep.  I dug it.  Kate’s a lucky girl.

Side note: Why do they call the middle of our country the ‘Mid-West’? If it’s the middle, why don’t they just call it Mid-US? It’s actually closer to the East, I think, so I would consider it more the Mid-East.  *shrug* Just a thought.

The trip was exciting.  I met some interesting [read: weird] people, I met some really great people, and generally enjoyed my stay.  I helped do a bit of work on the house there, which was a really nice break from sitting at a computer day after day.  I realized, however, that given the climate there, I’m not inclined to want to work with my hands nearly as much as I might otherwise be.  I like manual labor.  I don’t like manual labor when it’s 80+ degrees with 80ish% humidity.  No thanks.

The benefits of the humidity and weather were that my skin glowed with warmth, moisture and vitality, my hair felt amazingly soft and healthy, and I slept like a friggen rock.  As much as I’ve bemoaned humidity in the past, I think there might be something to it.  I’d even be inclined to moving somewhere that has, dare I say it, a bit more humidity than my current habitat.  o.O  whoa.  Yeah.  I said it.

Next up is Chicago.  I fly in, maybe hit a museum or two, hang out with Kate and her boyfriend, then go to her baby shower the following day.  That evening I drive over to Indy to meet up with a friend and party it up.  The next day we go to his graduation, then continue partying it up til I leave Monday night.  By party it up I mean go have a beer, call it a night, then go see Star Trek at IMAX on Monday.  Sweet!  We’re such geeks, but man.. the new ST movie looks sexy.  (Maybe it’s just Spock’s ears..)

Besides gallivanting around the world, I’ve also just moved again.  I wasn’t really diggin’ the place I was living, so I decided to move out.  Got everything packed up and moved over in a week.  Well, actually closer to three days.  I’m getting good at this moving thing.  I think it helps that I’ve been whittling down all the stuff I have.  Less crap to move = awesome.

I have a bunch of pictures of random places that I need to sort through and post up on Flickr.  A friend and I went hiking a couple weeks back and I took a few pictures as we went along.  Grand Cayman, obviously.  I’m going to a show tonight where I think I’ll take my camera and maybe shoot a few.  Odds and ends.  I might post up a couple from my niece’s wedding as well.  We’ll see though.

My roommate and I were talking last night about relationships.  He’s giving up on the internet dating thing for a while.  Or at least finding someone via the internet to date.  I told him I hadn’t even bothered with it for a while now.  I have enough people in my life that I don’t feel like spreading myself out anymore.  If anything, I’ve reeled myself in quite a bit in the past couple months.  My past couple nights have been spent curled up on the couch watching How I Met Your Mother with my roommate.  We’re a bunch of old ladies.  Both curled up on the couch with our blankies and cats watching sitcoms.  My hiking friend told me I need to hop to processing my pictures, so I suppose I’ll get to that this weekend.  That and finish putting my room in order.  It’s nearly there.

“Guess I’ve got that old travelin’ bone.”  I’m waiting for life to settle back down though.  It’s funny though.  No matter how many times I go through airports, security, customs, whatever, I still get that feeling that I’m a little kid wandering through an airport.  I feel like I’m 14 and want someone to tell me where I need to be going.  I ask a lot of questions when I feel like that at an airport.  Or I just wander around lost for a while.  They’re not places I feel like I’ve conquered yet, though.  You go through places enough times and you feel like you know what you’re doing, like you have a handle on it.  Airports, eh, not so much yet.  Well, the Miami airport isn’t bad, and riding the tram thingy there is pretty fun and easy to figure out.  I guess I just still get the feeling that everything is bigger than me and I don’t always shake it off as much as I could.  I’m probably one of the more low key fliers though, so I’m amicable to my fellow travelers when everyone around them is crazy and frazzled.  Even when I’m having slight mental breakdowns because of all the people around me, I try not to lose the ideas of common courtesy and smiling.  Smiles make the world go round.  Believe it.  That and listening.  I heard more life stories between here and the islands than I would have ever thought I’d hear in such a relatively short amount of time.  People like talking to me.  Maybe it’s all the smiling I do.  I dunno.  I’m still trying to figure out how to relate to people half the time.  A smile and a closed mouth gets you all sorts of places though.  Weird as that may sound.

Besides all that, I have two projects in mind that I will hopefully get done before the weekend is over, and another that I think I’m going to start the week after next if I can get my rear in gear.  Time limits are amazing motivators.

Okay, lunch time.  Adieu, fellow travelers of life!

Oh, P.S.  I did get an A in English.  I rock!

But!  No longer do I have this skeleton skulking in my closet.  No, dear readers, the skeleton is out of the closet and has found a nice plot of land to reside in.  Yep, this means I finally finished this dreaded class and can move on.  I’m pretty sure with the average I had throughout the class that I even managed to get an A.  I wouldn’t expect anything less of myself, really, but knowing my history, it’s still nice to see that letter reassuring me that I’m not a complete failure at things.  I think I might even have a celebratory cerveza.  Watch out.

Onward!

He wrote, “It’s just that if you see the universe inside of yourself then maybe it could be different. In that way it would be lacking certain elements that are beyond it. Sound confusing?”

I replied, “Expand upon the idea of seeing the universe inside yourself. I can imagine that you would lack certain elements if you just focused on one thing instead of the whole thing, but I’m curious as to what you’re referring.”

He wrote back, “The universe inside. That might be a never ending discussion, but I will add on a bit more. Everyone has the entire universe inside of themselves. Time and space are illusions. I guess a good example would be with the ocean. A drop of water is part of the ocean, yet that drop helps make up the whole and thereby becomes it.”

This idea that the one is part of the whole. It’s a recurring theme as of late.  I let him know that: “It’s interesting you bring up this concept. I think it’s the third time in a week or so that it’s been brought to my attention. The first time was an interview with a monk on NPR who was talking about this book he wrote about the ways to enlightenment. One of his comments was on compassion. If you think of compassion as something you do, instead of something you are, you’re separating yourself from it and aren’t really displaying compassion. You have to be the compassion. There is no duality; there is only one. When you realize that everything is this way with yourself, or that you are everything, then enlightenment comes. The second was earlier today while I was reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The narrator was talking about this same concept. “In all of Oriental religions great value is placed on the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat tvam asi, “Thou art that,” which asserts that everything you think you are and everything you think you perceive are undivided. To realize fully this lack of division is to become enlightened.” I think my universe is trying to tell me something.”

Do you listen to your Universe?

–

Now that I think about it further, I wonder if he’s perhaps referring to the idea of a priori knowledge.  Time and space are things that exist, that are a priori, and we don’t have to prove they’re there, they just are.  They continue whether we sense them or not.  They are not manifestations of our senses.. hmm.

—

The interview was with Za Rinpoche, and his book was The Backdoor to Enlightenment: Eight Steps to Living Your Dreams and Changing Your World. An excerpt:

“When you are being in the moment, you will realize that you are just one piece of one whole truth. And not only you, but you will see every other being, every other thing, is also part of this one whole thing. So you will lose the sense of ego, but you will get a sense of wholeness. And when you get this sense of unity, that interconnection, you don’t have to do things to become a loving person.

You will be a very caring, compassionate, loving person just by realizing that unity. That is the perfection of unity.”

Apparently it came from the heavens, alighted on one of the fellas in the field, and he brought it into her office.  She wasn’t too keen on keeping it.  The nervous look on her face whenever it flew to her shoulder kind of gave it away.   I sat there considering the bird, not being a huge fan of birds as pets, but waited to hear what was going to happen with it.  A couple of the guys that are familiar with pet birds were called, but one in particular was mentioned that brought a bit of a grimace from my supervisor and her sister.  After sitting there for fifteen minutes, this pretty little thing had grown on me.  Why?  I don’t know.  I’m a sucker for animals.  I’m even more of a sucker for lost/abandoned animals.  This was obviously someone’s pet.  He’s in great shape, looks healthy, has great feathers and coloring, and is incredibly tame.  I spoke up, “Well, if you don’t want [him] to have it, I’d take the bird, I guess..”  They got excited.  I immediately went through the list of things that I had to do that day, which now included stopping quickly by the pet store and buying a cage and setup for my new, feathery friend.

We drove down the hill from work, him sitting on my shoulder, and stopped at the pet store.  I walked right into the whole “Oh this cage is better, here’s why. And it needs toys.  And this.  And that.”  Granted, after looking at numerous sites on the internet about this little guy, it seems the young lady at the store was not wrong, but she certainly profited from his arrival.  Let me just say, this bird is spoiled, or if it isn’t already, it probably will be.  Jungle Gym?  Why yes, thank you, I think I will buy one of those.  That’s next on the list anyway.  The cage I bought is rather snazzy, as it should be for what it cost me, and I’m happy with it.  If/when I get a new place, I will probably invest in a bigger cage, although if the current trend persists, I think all this bird needs is a stable shoulder to sit on.

Now that we are home and getting accustomed to each other, I’ve realized a couple things.  Not all birds suck.  This one happens to be incredibly friendly, and has adopted me I think, instead of the other way around.  I can’t leave the room without him flying to catch up with me.  “Don’t leave me, mommeh!”  Oh my.  Once he’s on my shoulder, it takes an act of god to get him down.

After extensive reading, however, I’ve learned a couple funny thing about them.  The best one was that they like head scratches.  What?  Really?  Yeah, head scratches.  This bird and I have something in common.  We like head scratches.  “If your cockatiel bows his head before your fingers, it might mean that he wants his head to be scratched.”  Really?  It’s true.  I have quickly endeared myself to my new friend by giving him head scratches.   What a weird way for a bird to show trust.  “I demand head scratches!”  “Um, kay.. *scratch scratch* ok done.”  “Silly huuuman, you will never be done.  Continue with the head scratching!”

Another funny thing is that cockatiels are insanely curious.  Mostly about your food.  You pick up something, it wants to know what that thing is, whether it’s tasty, and if it’s light enough to steal and retreat to your shoulder with it.  He has claimed my pita.  I picked up a coupon as I was cleaning my room and he immediately climbed down my arm to my hand, grabbed the paper, then shimmied back up to my shoulder to check this thing out.  So bizarre.

Crackers, my cat, has decided that this new bird is a fiend and a thief.  How dare such a small little creature steal her momma’s attention.  And food!  Oh, the horror.  She eyes him intently, waiting for my attention to lapse so she can enjoy a tasty cockatiel meal.

To save this poor bird from kitteh harassment during the day, he’ll be traveling to and from work with me.  My supervisor said it would be funny and okay for him to hang out in my office all day.  This is a good thing because otherwise, after all my research, it seems I’d end up with an ill-behaved bird at the end of all this.  They’re very social, so they either need a lot of human attention (since I am now this bird’s “flock”), or they need another birdy companion.  One bird is plenty.  He can come to work with me.

And, to be amusing, and since nobody else seemed to like the name Harvey for the bird, his name is Cheese.  Cheese and Crackers.  Oh, what a horrible pun.

Cheese the Cockatiel

The longboard is in the near completion stage of being painted. “Painted?” Yes, painted. Remember I was talking about putting a design on the underside of it?  Well, I drew up the design and painted it on.  Dick Blick supplied me with some fancy oil paint pens, and voila, awesomeness.

This is the original design.

Here it is painted.  With tape.  Classy, classy tape.

I decided against the white outlining because it felt like it restricted the design when it was actually on the board.  Also, I noticed bleeding between colors when they overlapped or touched, so unless I had been totally neurotic about keeping the colors equidistant from each other, they would have bled into the white and looked like crap.  I really enjoy how the tree flows into the rest of the board as well though.  I didn’t want to break that line.   If you’re wondering what that brown mark on the tree green is, have no fear. I didn’t miss a spot, it’s just a heart.  Why?  ‘Cause I’m a girl, and I love trees, and sunshine, and blue skies, and my awesome longboard.

I was laughing with a friend and telling him that I like the invisible line of the circle, like it’s the force that holds the universe together.  (I think that’s gravity, but whatever.)

The brown just needs a couple touch-ups on the edges, but otherwise, I’m leaving the rest of it Alone.  I need to stop touching it.  I notice something and think ‘Oh no, that line isn’t perfect!  Goodness! *paints paints* Oh no, now that one looks off! *paint paint*’  It’s a vicious cycle.  I’ll just pop some OCD pills* and call it good.  After I finish the brown.

After that, I just need to varnish it, then get those trucks and wheels sent this-a-way and I’ll be ready to roll.  Literally.  Ah haha.. I crack myself up.  If you’re so inclined, you can check out the Flickr gallery I made for this project.

I’m sore.  I worked out yesterday, then tried to conquer a large ball of clay on the wheel, and I must say… I hurt.  I think it’s mostly due to the gym workout, but still.  Soreness.. owww.  I’m eating bananas and drinking water like they’re going out of style.  Oh, and I finished (sorta) the journal I was talking about.  I had it all glued together, then realized that it sucked, so I cut it all apart and redid it properly.  Or at least more properly than I had the first time.  Now I just need to find some gaffer’s tape to line the edges.  I decided against the fabric idea.  While it was a nifty idea, it was time consuming, and I don’t have that much time.  I could always do it later, and I may still.

*OCD pills was a joke.  I let my neuroses run wild.

“But I’ll miss you when you’re gone, that is what I do.” [cranberries]

I like to be able to look back on my life and feel no regret toward situations.  Granted, there were a couple situations with a few lovers that I could have handled better than I did, but on the whole, I think I’d do it all over again.  I feel that even if things ended badly with someone, the good time spent was worth having the experience.  Of course if things could always work out between people, then that would be ideal, but there are two people, two vantage points, two perspectives, two people afraid of being vulnerable, two sets of vocal chords, two people hurting themselves.  I’d like to think I’m getting better with this thing called communication.  I’m getting better with knowing what I want, what I don’t want, and what I’m willing or not willing to put up with in my life.  I’m feeling less like I have to compromise myself for other people.

I overheard a conversation last night between a couple people in the art lab.  They were talking about how as an artist, you have to build a system of support around you and your art.  There’s no point in fraternizing with people that are against who you are and what you’re trying to do.  You end up feeling like you constantly have to prove yourself to them, and that’s not who you have to prove yourself to at all.  You find your niche, surround yourself with people who will support you as a person and as an artist, then do your thing.  Who wants a bunch of negativity and naysayers around?  Certainly not any sane person.  I mean, yes, there are times when it’s good to have the devil’s advocate saying, ‘Okay, so you want to weld a cage around yourself and see how long you can last in there..?’  A voice of reason is necessary.  Those people that you’ve surrounded yourself with should be able to do that though.  They have the outside perspective.  They should be able to step back from everything and say, ‘Whoa, I think that might be too much.  Here’s why I think that.’  And they can be wrong, but don’t assume they are just because they’re questioning what you’re doing.  Feedback is essential.  Constructive criticism is essential.  While you don’t want a bunch of naysayers, you also don’t want a bunch of Yes Men sitting around telling you your poop doesn’t stink and that it’s fabulous.  Balance.  You want to find balance.

My professor let us know that we need to have a journal to turn in at the end of the semester.  It should show the process, our process, the inner workings of our Mind.  I think that’s scary, but whatever.  Not really.  I started writing notes in a spiral bound, but realized that my drawings would all have lines through them.  So then I moved to one of my sketchbooks that I hadn’t used in a while and that wasn’t full.  Then realized that I’d have to turn this thing in, and I don’t know that he’d understand why I have a bunch of Korean comic strips and news clippings pasted into one side of it, so I thought of a third option.  I had to drop off some stuff at my storage unit the other day and while in there noticed the big pile of computer paper that I’m not using, and haven’t used for as long as I can remember.  I grabbed a half-used stack and threw that into my truck.  Continuing the load things into the unit, I noticed that under that paper I’d just grabbed was a box of ‘business paper.’  Fancy shmancy!  I grabbed that box, threw it into my truck, then put the other paper back in the unit.  ‘Loose leaf paper?’ you ask.  No, dear readers.  I’m going to make a journal.  Book bindery has interested me for some time now.  I haven’t ever gotten into the Japanese styles or bindings with string/thread/etc., but I did play with the gluing style for a while a couple years ago.  Sooo.. I figure with all the boxes I have in my room that are pressed between things and up against the walls, I could cut one up, use it for a cover, then glue the pages in.  It’s right about now you wonder how I have so much free time to think all these things up.  I just do.  I’ve been quite the recluse lately, which leads to projects in various stages of un/finished-ment.  This one I’ve been working on little-by-little each night this week, so it’s got a good progression going so far.  At this point I just need to glue the pages in to the cover.  I think I’m going to cut up a spare pair of pants that was donated to me, but which are way too big, and use that material as the journal cover, then sew it through the cardboard.  I think it’d be interesting.  I’ll letcha know how it goes when/if it happens.

Totally random other topic.  I don’t think that people are all that different from one another.  Studying other people gives you insight to yourself.  I heard once that people tend to dislike certain people because they see qualities in that person that they know are within themselves.  I thought about that a long time ago.  There was a girl that I wasn’t fond of, so I tried to pinpoint why it was I didn’t like her.  Besides being painfully insecure, she was opinionated, kinda coarse, and a bit rude when it came to dealing with people.  I laughed later about all this because I think that in a parallel dimension, given different circumstances upon our meeting, she and I might have been good friends.  We’re similar.  She’s just a bit more outspoken about her opinions than I am.  Maybe a little more bitter.  Now she’s even dating an ex of mine. Who didn’t see that coming?  These days I question why I have issues with certain ladies in my life, the ones I see on an everyday level.  One thing I came up with is that they’re moody.  I see moodiness, when put upon other people, to be a weakness.  Now, I am not above this weakness.  Some of the close friends in my lifetime have been subjected to my psychotic mood swings.  I don’t really display these things in a professional situation though, usually.  The workplace is no place for your moody issues, and nobody should have to deal with it.  When I get home, my cat deals with my moods, friends that I occasionally talk to hear my moods a little, but for the most part, I try to keep them to myself.  It’s rare when I let everything like that show to someone.  Though, they sometimes feel insulted for having to be the brunt of my moods unfortunately.  We hurt the ones we love the most, right?

I’ve been listening to talk radio lately.  I never thought I’d be one of those people.  For the longest time I hated talk radio, mostly because I had to listen to it every night when I slept over at one of my boyfriend’s houses.  He would be up late working on the computer or something that involved ignoring me, and I’d have to fall asleep listening to stupid conspiracy theories.  I hated it.  I realized lately that avoiding knowing what was going on in the world didn’t make me someone that was.. hmm.. above it? but really just made me ignorant.  I stopped listening to the news back when I was in high school.  Hearing all the horrible things that go on really hurt.  It’s hard not to feel upset about people dying in wars, politicians lying about whatever, people in general just not doing right by their fellow man.  For a long time I turned away, apathetic, not wanting to listen.  I feel though that there is something to learn in all of it.  I’m still trying to figure out what it is.

“I caught my stride. I flew and flied.  I know if destiny’s kind, I’ve got the rest of my mind.  But my heart, it don’t beat, it don’t beat the way it used to.  And my eyes, they don’t see you no more.  And my lips, they don’t kiss, They don’t kiss the way they used to, And my eyes don’t recognize you no more.
For reasons unknown.”  [the killers]

Freecycling, as I’ve come to understand it, is when you post up on the freecycling board that you either have something you don’t want, or want something you don’t have.  For example, say I have a printer that I haven’t touched in about three years, besides to pack and move the 15 times in between.  I can post up there: Offer: Printer – HP Whatever it is.  Someone else who is in need or want of a printer can send me an email and say, ‘Hey, I want that, is it still available?!’  and, first come first serve, I say, ‘Yes! Come get it!’  That person will then arrange a time to come and pick it up from me, or I’ll deliver it to them, depending on the situation.  Most of the time they expect to have to come pick it up, which is nice because it saves me gas, but sometimes it’s just easier for me to deliver the thing to them.

Yesterday, I delivered two bags and a box full of clothing and random whatnot to a lady on the other side of town.  She was quite appreciative as her car had just broken down the day before and had no real way to come get it.  Not a problem.  It gets two trash bags full of clothes and a pretty good sized box out of my bedroom and storage unit.  I’m all for that.  It was a bunch of clothes that I had sitting around that I barely ever wore and probably wasn’t going to start wearing again any time soon.  I have no need to keep that kind of stuff around.  Voila.  Someone else wants it?  Awesome, take it.  Saves me from having to fight with the people at Goodwill to take the bags.

Then later in the evening while I was munchin’ on my tasty sandwich, another lady stopped by to pick up the aforementioned printer.  I honestly haven’t used that printer in ages.  I figure if I need to print anything, I can do it with the shiny new PSC my supervisor bought me for my office, and I really don’t think she’d mind me using it for that.  I don’t print stuff out for myself very often.  If it’s anything, it’s return labels for stuff I’ve ordered and decided I didn’t want so I’m sending them back.

The trend here is getting rid of things.  Being less of a pack rat for pack ratting’s sake.  I don’t need stuff that I’m not going to ever use but once.  If it’s just a one-time thing, I’ll borrow it from a friend and return it in the shape I received it.  Otherwise, I can do without.  There’s also the feeling you get from giving someone something they have a need for.  It feels good.

Look around your house/apartment/dwelling.  Do you see things that you don’t use and probably aren’t ever going to?  Maybe there’s a Freecycle group in your area.

Now, I dunno about you, but I get a bit bent when people tell me my decisions are stupid.  In essence, they’re telling me that I’m stupid, or at least that’s how I break it down.  Whether they are or aren’t, I don’t know if they’d considered this perception before the words came out of their mouth.  In fact, I’m pretty certain they didn’t even take note of the words before they let them loose.  That whole think before you speak thing was defenestrated (heh) without a second thought.  This lack of thinking seems to be a trend.

It seems to me that people like to impose their own opinions on your actions, whether you asked for them or not.  For example, if I were to quit my job and run off to work in a Renaissance Faire, I might incur the naysaying of pretty much everyone I know.  And I did.  But let me tell you one thing:  It was probably one of the best times in my life, and I don’t regret it one bit.  Not the poverty I endured, the tent-living style I adopted, or the well-paying job I forewent.  I learned more about myself, my friends, and my family by taking that course of action than I ever might have had I stayed at home and continued living as per suggested.

My point is this:  You are really the only one that knows what is best for you at any given moment.  You can make this decision and feel okay with it.  If you’ve really sat down, thought it out, and decided upon one course of action, own it.  Feel it.  Hold on to your strength.  You’re going to need it.  As long as you’re doing the best you can, who can tell you you’re wrong?   But don’t lie to yourself and say you’re doing the best when you and I both know you’re not.  Do your best.  Live with passion.  Live with strength.  Nobody can fault you for any of that, and if they do, you can nod and smile with the rest of us.  We know what’s within us.  (Even if it is madness.)

This weekend was probably the most productive weekend I’ve had in… I can’t remember how long.  A couple months at least.  It’s probably due to the odd mood I’ve been in.  I couldn’t sleep one night last week, so I jumped out of bed and put two trash bag’s worth of clothes together to take to Goodwill.  I just suddenly tired of having stuff in my room.  There just seems to be too much stuff that I’m carting around, and there’s no need for it.  I don’t need to have that one thing that someone might need someday.  I don’t need to be that person.  I’ll probably end up bagging up more stuff as it strikes me.  I have a box of similar stuff sitting in my storage unit taking up space as well.  It’s ridiculous.

Moving on to the positive things.  My friend Clint and I tackled a couple projects that I had in the wings.

1. Mail packages – I’ve had a box of goodness in my truck for a friend for at least 7 months now.  On top of that, I’ve had random who knows what else lingering around in my room, truck, and in my head that just needed to get sent off.  I did that!  Mailed off four different packages to all corners of the country.
2. Backseat Shelf – I made a shelf for the backseat of my truck years ago to hold my speakers on.  It was made out of MDF, which doesn’t hold up well with any sort of moisture or weight, so it sagged, looked like crap and eventually fell apart.  No dice.  This time?  This time we grabbed some pine and fir.  This should hold up considerably better.  Longer screws, more screws, and more awesomeness = sturdy.  In case you were wondering.    Looks great and smells like Christmas in my truck now, and we can rock out!
3. Clean Truck – With the addition of the shelf, I was able to straighten up and rearrange my truck.  It got vaccuumed and reorganized.  She’s not quite sure what to do with herself.  I recommended that she just continue running well and lookin’ purdy.
4. Desk Foot Spacer – I needed to raise my desk [read: drawing table] about two inches so that I could tuck my computer chair under it . The leftover 2×4 from the shelving project proved to be a perfect solution!
5. Longboard – Prior to living in the garage, my friend Chris and I had to clean it out.  When we did that, I found a longboard (skateboard) deck without trucks/wheels.  He had no idea whose it was, so he gave it to me to play with.  I’ve been scheming about it for a while now, but hadn’t put forth too much effort toward it.  Sometime while living in the garage I removed the old, grungy grip tape and sanded down the board with the intention of staining it.  Sometime after I moved out, I stained a coat on the underside at Mark’s.  It sat dejectedly behind my bedroom door waiting for attention.  Having issues with finding the correct size grip tape (width) for the deck, I saw that I needed to stain a stripe on the top of the deck that would then turn into a ‘racing stripe’ of sorts.  While I was at it, I put another coat on the underside of the deck again and wow.. it looks really lovely.  It’s a luscious red.  It also now has grip tape on the top since I took it into one of the shops here in town and they gripped it for me.  Yay!   Now I just need to paint a pretty picture on the bottom of the board, seal it, and get trucks and wheels.  Oh, and then teach myself to ride it.. o.O    Excitement mounts.

If I think about it, I’ll take pictures of the projects (minus the desk thing, because who really cares to see that?) so you guys can see the results of awesomness in action.  Until then.. be Good. 

There are the conversations you don’t have because you’re rather fond of someone.  You may even love this person.  Above all things though, you don’t want to hurt their feelings or jeopardize the relationship, so you let things slide.  They might say things you don’t like, speak in ways that you’re uncomfortable with because it’s rude or elitist, or voice opinions that you’re quite against and can’t believe they’ve actually spoken.  These aren’t things to hide within yourself.

Recently I’ve had a couple friends tell me that the way I speak is bothersome.  Two different complaints though.  The one didn’t really give me an indication of what exactly I’d said wrong, only that it was rude, so I can only sit here wondering.  Yes, I did ask and wasn’t told anything with any specificity.  The other has lately taken to telling me all sorts of things that they’re unfond of about me.  I don’t have a problem with people criticizing me (usually).  I have a problem with the fact that these people have been friends of mine for a while (one a couple years, the other months) and both have decided to tell me these things only after it has either become apparent that nothing personal is going to happen between us, or because they’ve reached the last straw (though I never saw the bale forming) and can’t deal with it anymore.  Their omission of this information only weakens (or destroys) our friendship when it’s finally brought to light.

But so this all makes me consider the things we don’t tell people when we’re in a relationship with them.  The character flaws that we see in our partners but keep to ourselves instead of perhaps letting them know of them (if they were unaware) and trying to help that person overcome them.  Sometimes people don’t want to work on their issues, or perhaps they are and it’s just not apparent, who knows.  In those instances, just mentioning it is probably better than trying to push yourself into helper mode with them.  Offer support.  Stand back and let them walk on their own.  If they ask you to keep them within the lines, do so nicely and consistently, but back off when necessary as well.

I used to date someone who was brutally honest about things, especially my flaws.  I don’t agree with all of what he said, as I think some of them were personal opinions, but that’s my own opinion.  Over the years other people have also given insight to my character flaws.

Here, so that we’re all on the same page:

uncommunicative, emotionally erratic, lack of direction, procrastinator, elitist, rude, holds grudges, trust issues, passive aggressive, inconsistent, lack of follow-through, beats dead horses, flighty

That’s all I can think of at the moment.  I’m sitting here trying to finish updating a database at work (well, not really trying, ’cause if I were really trying, I’d be doing the database stuff), so I can’t remember everything, but if you know me and would like to add anything to that list, feel free to comment and I’ll update it accordingly.

Some of those things I’ve been working on.  They’ve lessened over the years.  Others are a part of me in so much that I’m unsure how to extricate myself or them from myself.  Instead I’ve tried to just lessen their impact or work around them as much as possible.  Others I’m unaware of unless someone says something.  *shrug*

On the other side of that, however, are the conversations I do try to have with my friends.  I recently had the ‘your flaws are’ conversation with a friend of mine.  You don’t know how others perceive you unless one of them tells you.  So I told him.  It was done in the most polite way I could muster – it wasn’t nice, it wasn’t sugar-coated,  but it was honest and I think that’s what mattered.  That being said, it went over relatively well and didn’t hurt the relationship.  If anything he appreciated the honesty and perspective because none of his other friends will be so frank with him.  I’ll be Frank, you be Earnest.

I’m not saying to go around announcing people’s flaws left and right.  If the conversation warrants it, however, or if someone does something that you’re terribly adverse to, pull them aside in a dark alley somewhere and let them know, quietly and politely, that it’s an issue.  The dark alley isn’t necessary, it just adds to the mood.

Be well.

I retook my motorcycle test and passed it!    Yay, excitement.  And this morning I got my letter in the mail that has my ‘She passed her test’ certificate and such that I can take to the DMV and WHABAM, get my M1.  *squee*  My friends have been scouring the interwebs for bikes for me and being a bit overzealous about it, but it’s appreciated.  Bikes are cheaper in the winter.  It’s true.    (Mostly just because I said it is.)

School and finals are over, thank god.  I hadn’t realized just how much it affected me to be in school and how much free time I didn’t have.  I made some, but after work yesterday I was able to run errands, watch a movie, and generally just be quite low key and relax a bit.  Awesomesauce.  I watched Southland Tales, a sci-fi/dark comedy/drama.  I must say, it’s the type of movie you’ll want to watch a couple times.  Or at least I want to watch it a couple times to get a real idea of what exactly was going on.  To me, it’s a cross between Donnie Darko and the Big Lebowski.  Both great flicks.  Both kinda strange in their own right.  Who knows, I may sit and watch it all over again tonight after I get home from work!    Because I can.

I don’t remember if I had mentioned Christmas plans, but if I didn’t, that works.  There were plans, but then I could probably safely assume there aren’t anymore, so yeah.  That’s my bad.  Now, I’ll be driving down to visit with a friend in LA, then picking up my special someone from the airport, and driving back to his place to make something tasty to eat and watch old Christmas specials.  Sounds relaxing and festive, both of which I support.     I support low-key festivities.

And… *drumroll* my sister is pregnant!  Wheee… how exciting!  I’m glad to hear that people are being supportive instead of berating her for it.  Yes, I had that worry.  I was excited to hear about it a while back, and am glad for her.  She does need all the support she can get right now, mostly emotional support, because of the crazy, prego mood swings she’s dealing with.  I can only imagine what those must be like.  When I was taking injections for birth control, I got a bit nutty [read:disturbed] mentally because of the hormones.  They make your body think you’re constantly pregnant, etc. etc. and I went slightly north of crazy.   If I ever get pregnant, jeebus help my poor partner.  That person better have lots of love for me and nerves of steel.  Of course, I think given a better situation than the one I was in at the time I was on those meds, things wouldn’t be nearly as bad.  Still, nerves of steel and patience of a saint.  So, Kate’s boyfriend: You need patience of a saint and nerves of steel.  And give lots of hugs, because we need those as well.

And on that note, have a good Holiday, people.  Cuddle up and keep warm!

Someone asked me the other day what I wanted for my birthday.  I’d completely forgotten about it, honestly, so it hadn’t even occurred to me to consider what I might want for it.  I also don’t ever expect presents on holidays/birthdays, so the concept to me just seems weird.  Plan for what people can buy you.. whaaat?  My mind doesn’t work that way.  Oh don’t get me wrong, I enjoy receiving gifts and won’t turn people down if they want to give them to me.  Sometimes I might even hint about something I like, hoping the tooth fairy or some magical creature makes it show up on my doorstep. But to sit and plan what someone is going to buy for you when they feel obligated because of some seasonal capitalistic ploy… it just seems wrong.  That being said, my response to my friend that asked about my birthday was something to the effect of, ‘How about a pretty card that says Happy Birfday on it.. with some nice sentiments written inside.’  I am that easy.  I figure if someone wants to buy me something, they should know me well enough to have an idea of what I might need.  I can want the world, but if it’s not utilitarian, I don’t really need it.

Enough about that.   Back to my original point.  It was, I think I’m going to start buying books again to read.  I stopped for a long time because of a couple reasons, most of the having to do with my propensity for moving around, and boxes of books are heavy.  Usually too heavy for a nice, young lady like me to be straining herself over.  Hahah.. I’m kidding.  No but really, they’re heavy, and I have a lot of boxes of stuff as it is, so I stopped getting books because they’re hard to lug around.  As I’ve moved, I tend to weed out books that I could always pick back up another time.  Some other time when I have more room and less stuff.   The ones I’ve kept have some intrinsic value to them for me, and I just couldn’t part with them.  But, I think I’m going to start in with the book buying again and get back to reading for fun.  Reading for school has killed a lot of my free time, as it is wont to do, so I haven’t been able to just read for enjoyment.  Not to say that learning how to do VLSM isn’t enjoyable.. o.O  it’s just not light reading.  At all.

So, if you have recommendations for reading, preferably something light and enjoyable, then feel free to let me know what it is.  I have a list going somewhere in my head (I really should write it down), but it can always get longer!

Also, if you’re capitalistically inclined and feel the want to procure some book for me, please request a current address for me, as you all know, it changes with the wind.

I did, however, reschedule and am taking it again next month.  Get back up on the horse, girl!  Or the bike, as it may be.  And I am.  I called bright and early yesterday morning and set that up.  The lady on the phone said something to the effect of, ‘Oh, you’re the person I heard about..’  then followed quickly with, ‘Oh, nothing bad, just that they called in that they’d had an..’  ‘An incident?  Yeah.  That was me.  *sigh*’  Then she told me some story about some guy that’s taken the whole course twice, paid twice.  He does really well during the course, then takes the test and fails miserably.  I’m wondering if that was a pep talk story or a real story, but that’s besides the point.  She was glad and surprised to hear that I wanted to take it again so soon.  I was enthusiastic, as I am, about taking it again.  I want this feeling of disappointment to go away.  :\

In happier news, my friends and I were talking about a 76 Honda mr175 that’s for sale around here for relatively cheap.  It needs a few things, but nothing we can’t handle.  I’ll probably try to take a look at it sometime this week or maybe next week, just depending on when I find time.  Chris took a look at it yesterday after work and said that it would probably work for me and be a good starter bike.  Another friend asked if it’s what I wanted.  I told him I don’t want to want my first bike.  I don’t want to feel parts of myself dying inside when I hurt it.  I want it to be a starter bike that I learn on and don’t care too much about.  Knowing me I’ll get too attached and have it still when I’m 80.  *sigh* 

Everyone, or at least those I’ve told, have said something to the effect that ‘You go down on a bike at least once.  After that, you’re usually pretty good.’  And it’s true, I want to believe.  At least it was in a controlled environment, I didn’t get run over by some big semi behind me, and I wasn’t too badly hurt.  Scraped up knee and some sore muscles.  Nothing I can’t handle.  So, karma allowing, I think I’ve fulfilled my quotient of falling off bike and can live the rest of my life riding without the worry of dying in a scary motorcycle accident. 

I get to watch EnduroCross this weekend in Vegas!  Woot!  Talk about hardcore motorcycling.  Whew.  Good times!

Lately I’ve re/discovered a couple bands I hadn’t heard in a while.

Lamb - likened to the Portishead style – came out about the same time.  I think they classify it similarly as trip-hop.  It’s an interesting style.  Not as moany as Portishead.  A little more schizophrenic.  Still good though.

TV on the Radio – a band Mark shared with me.  I’m digging it.  It’s like Modest Mouse meets Built to Spill meets a dive bar.  I’m not sure how to describe it better than that, especially since most of you are lost on the bands so far anyways.

Regina Spektor – came onto my Pandora radio and I’ve been into her ever since.  I like her singing cadence and she has a sweet, perky voice and an interesting style.  I’d recommend her to the average person.

My Brightest Diamond – lovely singer, a bit melancholy, but not in the Fiona Apple kind of melancholy.  Sweet melancholy.  Like you’re watching a butterfly die or something.   Sarah McLachlan without the angst.

Schiller - ambient German techno.  Kinda.  And then there are some songs that are more your regular German melodic electronic music.  Not bad and their Voyage album is a nice.. voyage.. through their style. 

Radiohead - this one I’m going to get album specific and say In Rainbows.  Mark gave me this album a while back, and as he didn’t label the disc itself, I had no idea where it went when I moved.  I was flipping through my cd case the other day while I was driving and came across some blank disc.  It wasn’t in it’s proper place alphabetically, so I was confused when it started playing, but was pleasantly surprised.  I really dig 90% of this album, as opposed to my normal 2 or so songs per album of theirs.  (While the album as a whole is good, there are really only about two songs on it that I’m very fond of on it.  By very fond, I mean I play them a couple times in a row when the disc comes to them.)

That’s good enough for now.  I just wanted to share a bit with you guys for now.  If I think of it, I’ll update musical obsessions more often.

1. Sending blank emails.  If you’re at all like me, you occasionally (or somewhat often) will send emails without body, but just have the subject tell the person what’s going on.  I’ll usually do this when I’m sending a picture to myself, or a few others.  It prompts you ‘Do you want to send this without any info in the body’ or whatever the prompt is, and you say yes or no.  Well, if you add EOM (End Of Message) to the end of your subject (ie. Pic of Cat EOM), it will forego prompting you and will send it as is.  It does, however, leave the EOM in the subject, but I don’t care, and after telling said friends to disregard it as code, they won’t care either.
2. Two hidden ways to get more from your Gmail account.  We’ll use smith@gmail.com for an example.  Did you know you can add periods anywhere in the email user name (ie.  sm.i.th@gmail.com, s.m.i.t.h@gmail.com, sm.ith@gmail.com) and still get to the same user?  Also, you can add a plus sign (+) and some identifier (ie. smith+bank@gmail.com, smith+flickr@gmail.com, smith+work@gmail.com) and all those email addresses will resolve to the original smith@gmail.com address?  Very cool.

These are just a couple of the nifty things I’ve found so far.  I’ll be sure to update with more for future reference.

Sunday morning Clint and I headed up to have breakfast with some of his family.  It was a fun time with lots of talking over each other.  I’m sure there were at least three conversations going on, over, and about each other at all times.   I’m pretty sure I could go through most prepositions and it would be a pretty good description of what was going on.    Good times.  Afterward we went hunting for new shocks for the front of my truck.  I’ve been driving around on blown shocks for a couple months now and lemme tell ya – it sucks.  Clint and I finally located a pair, but they were in SLO, so we cruised up there, nabbed em, and headed back to town so I could get ready for another day of riding.  He suggested I take his car and he take my truck so that he could put the new shocks on while I was at class.  Cooool!  He’s got a bitchin TC that I’m in love with.  In. Love. With.  So I am never one to turn down his offers of allowing me to borrow his car.  Yus, moar pwease.  Yeah.  So while I was at class, voila, he fixed my shocks.  And, yes, it gets better, he also replaced my passenger mirror, as I’ve been driving around for about two years without one of those as well.  Luckily I’m a good ‘look over your shoulder’ driver, fairly aware, so I wasn’t too disturbed to not have one.  After all, my previous car didn’t have one at all, ever, so I’d kinda grown accustomed to not having it anyway.  Also, since he got bored, he played with my turn signal switch and got those working as well.  I’m not gonna tell you how long it’s been since I’ve had turn signals because I know I’ll catch a ration for it, but let’s just say, it’s been a while.  I use hand signals like a pro.  Now we just need to find a relay for her and I’ll be signaling via lights like the rest of you cool cats.  Indeed.  After I came back to his house with his car, he and his roommate invited me to stay for dinner.  A bunch of their Sunday-night regulars came over and we all laughed merrily over a really delicious dinner.

So, busy busy weekend, but it ended really well.  It had been a bit of a rough week, so this weekend really made up for it.  I hope you’re all doing just as well.

If you’ve dropped by my Flickr lately, you’ll have seen some changes.  I finally broke down and purchased a Pro account for myself so I could organize my photos better.  Having only three sets to work with is just inane.  I can see why it would bother people and make them break down and get a Pro account.  So, I set out organizing and rearranging them as I saw fit.  Hopefully, it looks a lot better than it used to.  I also uploaded some of the pictures from my road trip back in June.  Nothing like procrastination to make old things new again!    I had a fantastic time taking pictures of water towers as we crossed the country, so if you’re inclined, you too can enjoy their elusive nature.  More recently, I took some pictures a couple weekends ago at the Pismo Clam Festival while Mark and I were there wandering around harassing people with our cameras.  Not really.  We went to wander and take photos.  It had little to do with the other people there.  There are only a couple images in that set because I didn’t think there needed to be five shots of the sunset.  Let’s talk about overkill, right?  Right.

Besides working my butt off and snapping pictures here and there, I’ve been trying to get back into working out to some degree.  This weekend had nothing to do with working out.  In fact, it was quite the opposite.  My friend Clint and I sat around all weekend watching The Last Exile and generally just being lazy house cats.  It was a nice break.  But when I’m not being a lazy house cat, I get home from work and school, and run along the river berm.  I found that I prefer the darker times to the lighter times.  I can look ahead of myself, as much as the darkness permits, while running in the evening, more than I can when it’s light out.  When it’s bright, I end up staring at the ground the whole time, which doesn’t prove to be good for me when I’m trying to set goals by the sign posts along the way.  It usually ends up that I’m out for about 15-30 minutes at a time while I do this, so it’s my little way of taking back part of my day for myself.  I feel good when I get home and have to practically wring out my clothes from the sweat.  That’ta girl!  Now I just wish I had my big dog with me to run alongside.  I miss that big dork, but I know he’s doing well out on the ranch. 

Well, the pile of papers I’m using as my wrist support keep giving me the evil eye, so I should get back to it.

 Off the end of Pismo Pier

PS.  Knowing someone who works at Best Buy when you want to buy a new 8gb CF card that retails at 118$ is a good thing.  Think 60% discount.  Nice!

I’m using iGoogle.co.uk until further notice.

That is from the first night I took it home. I shot it a bit dark and at too high an iso, which explains the graininess since we were trying to get some detail out of it, but yep.. I took a shot of a chair yesterday that I’m rather fond of, so I’ll post that when I get a chance. Mark and I were amused at each other’s photographic preferences and the differences therein.  He’s always trying to get more detail out of everything, where I am always telling him to make things darker, more contrast.  Watching me shoot things yesterday amused him.  Also listening to me explain why I liked my chair picture apparently explained a lot about my personality to him.  When I get it, I’ll post it up with an explanation of why I enjoy it.

Next on my list of things to buy: Card reader.    High-speed card reader.

Mark received his print of Freedom from Fear today!  I didn’t want to talk about it yet because I was waiting for it to arrive before I talk about it’s beauty.  It’s his favorite painting of Norman Rockwell’s, and he wanted a print of it, so I got it.. and had it framed and matted.  It apparently looks as wonderful as I wanted it to.  I’ll see it later, I’m sure.    Hopefully already hung on his wall!

Things feel good.  I’m doing well in my classes.  I asked a question yesterday in Networking that prompted my teacher to say, ‘Man, I love your questions..’ before he launched into trying to avoid answering it because we aren’t addressing it yet in the curriculum, yet simultaneously wanting to give some sort of answer that gives an idea of how the two things were correlated.  It was cool.

Did I mention yet how awesome I think my new camera is?  ‘Cause it’s awesome.  Now I just need to get over that last bit of shyness and take it everywhere with me and harass people by taking pictures of them constantly.

Okay, I should get back to work..

Funny enough, the Tamrac bag came and wasn’t exactly what Mark wanted.  I think we’re equal on this one.  I relisted it on eBay so that someone else can buy it from me and have a small piece of luggage for their camera equipment.  Anyone need a Tamrac 613?   We’ll hopefully find something more to his liking and procure it for him.  That bag turned out to be a lot larger than either he or I thought it would be.

On a good note, my Tevas are awesome.    I received the pair of 4gb usb drives I ordered.. shortly before my old one broke.  Unfortunately, it broke before I thought to back it up.  I’ll just have to solder it back together!  ;D

Errands to run, worlds to conquer.  Adios!

I ordered a new pair of Tevas for myself that should be here tomorrow.  Whee!  New Shoes!  The flip flops I’ve been wearing for the past three years are wearing a bit thin, and my feet aren’t liking me as much as they used to so I figured I should invest in a pair of Tevas.  Next on my shoe buying list is that sexy pair of librarian pumps at Takkens.  Mmm..  I’ve been drooling over those shoes for.. geez, over 9 months now.  It’s hard to justify spending nearly 100$ on a pair of shoes I know I won’t wear very often.  The Tevas will be worn nearly daily.  Sexy librarian shoes, not so much.  An unfortunate thing, really..

My friend Mark invested in the camera of my heart and it will also be arriving tomorrow on his doorstep.  Why did he do that?  Because he believes that his close friends who are into photography should have a good, digital camera with which to express themselves.  I can’t even begin to express the glee on this one. *Mark, don’t read this!* As thanks and joy, I ordered him a new Tamrac bag for his cameras that should arrive sometime.. maybe this week, maybe next.  But shh.. don’t tell him.     People that don’t buy expensive toys for themselves, but instead buy expensive things for their friends, should have similar friends.    I’m kidding.  That kind of thing doesn’t need an implied reciprocation.  I know part of Mark hates the idea that someone’s buying him something really nice, just like I’m somewhat embarrassed that he decided to buy me that camera.  I think I’m just glad that I can actually afford to buy nice things for people I care about.

On a related note, I don’t know that I can show proper appreciation for some of the people I work with.  As I’m sure you’re aware, my truck isn’t always the most reliable girl.  Well, when she broke down again the week before last, two guys up here tried to get her running again.  She did for a couple minutes, then went right back to where they’d started.  Their hi-five was in vain.  The next day one of the gentlemen inquired after her because of her absence in front of my office.  I let him know that as amused as I was with the hi-five, that my truck is not nearly so kind to people, and that she had barely made it off the property.  This was an unacceptable answer to him, so he called one of our vendors and had them take my truck to their shop and fix it.  o.O  Really?  Yeah.  I spoke with one of the ladies I work with on Friday of last week and she mentioned to me how she and the gentleman had been talking about the truck and that I really just needed a break with it.  Even though she breaks down, I am always at work and am completely reliable.  So, they decided to help me out.  I am not at liberty to explain the particulars of the whole thing, but needless to say, I haven’t ever felt so appreciated as I did then.  Being a good, dependable employee has paid off, and I am so thankful.  And, my truck runs better than she has in months. 

It’s moments like these that I realize that I have some really awesome friends, and work in a place with sincere people.  I feel lucky.

And then, to top it off… I got a 93% on my last Networking test!  Woot!  I got an 85% on the first one and was quite disappointed.  It wasn’t an A.  My friend Clint who is taking the class with me got an A on the first one, and I felt shamed.  I decided that I need to get an A on all my subsequent tests.  Whether that will happen or not isn’t really the point.  The point is the focus, the determination, the follow-through.  Indeed.

Also, I learned to solder!  I can’t remember if I went off about this already or not, but yeaaahh.. soldering!  We got these little circuit board kits that we had to put together.  *nods* Okay, I can do that.  We watched nearly two hours of soldering info + how-to videos.  Okay, I can Totally do that.  And I did!  That was a Wednesday.  It took me.. eh.. maybe an hour or so of fiddling and soldering to get all the components on there.  The following Monday we were to take them all apart.  Most of my classmates didn’t intend to keep it, so my instructor let them know that a quick and easy way to desolder would be to clip the leads and then just zip off the solder quickly with the flux+wick.  Me being the quirky over-achiever that I am decided that I of course wanted to keep my circuit board, and was somewhat disappointed that we had to desolder them at all.  I wanted to be able to show people and say ‘Lookit!  Neat, huh?!’  So, I spent a painstakingly long time desoldering the silly thing with copper wick + flux.  I tried the vacuum pumps, but it just didn’t seem to get it as clean as my neurotic little brain wanted it to be.   As can then be expected, I was one of the last people sitting in lab.  The other was my lab partner, only because she wanted to sit there and write up the lab while it was fresh in her brain.  After taking it all apart, I showed it to my teacher, got his nod of approval, then set to soldering it back together.  It took me maybe ten minutes max.  And it looked better than it did the first time.  Brilliant!

I was later showing it to Clint the next day in our Networking lab.  I believe from his reaction that he’s familiar with soldering, but still gave me the ol’ pat on the back for a job well done.  Our teacher was walking by, so I went to put it away quickly so that he didn’t think we were fooling around completely, but he stopped me and asked to see it.  He admired my soldering skills and said, ‘Well hey, if I need anything soldered, I’ll know who to come to.’  I blushed and was all grins and thanked him.    Clint just laughed at me after our teacher walked away and said, ‘Aw, you got your moment in the sun. Good for you.  ;D  Dork.’

So!  What does this all mean?!  Well, camera of ultimate doom + soldered circuit board = pictures of my awesome skillz!  Yay!

I also deleted one of my sets from Flickr as I prepare for the onslaught of pictures I’m going to be taking, so I need to sift through this blog and make sure that I take care of the broken links I caused.  Toodles!

But then you Windows people ask, “Doesn’t that add one more thing on your task bar and clutter things up?”  Cue TrayIt!

TrayIt allows you to send any program to the SysTray.  How nifty is that?  Problem solved!

Classes are going relatively well.  I learned to solder a circuit board and it’s components together on Wednesday in my PC Care class.  Very cool.  Monday means that we desolder it.  I think after I’ve sufficiently desoldered it, I’ll try to solder it back together.  Maybe frame it or something.  “Jen’s First Circuit Board!”  A nice little shadow box on the wall.  It’d be quaint.  Geekily quaint.  ;D

My networking class is Intense.  Capital “I” intense.  It’s very concept-oriented.  If anyone thought they could get by just with rote memorization, they were sincerely wrong.  And you have to Completely understand the concepts.  Doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary as far as a class might go.  The tests are multiple choice, which is annoying, but better than having to fill in the blank with your brain wondering what exactly the answer should be.  I like it though.

I’ve been reading this blog called Freak Factor.  If MySpace was working, I’d x-post some of the relevant blogs I’ve posted over there and share them with you.  Dave Rendall, the gentleman that posts, likes to encourage people to work with their weaknesses instead of constantly trying to change them.  He posted a manifesto at ChangeThis that explained how people constantly try to change the parts of themselves that they view as a weakness.  ex. Someone has an addiction to cigarettes.  He wants to quit smoking.  He turns his addictive personality to working out at the gym instead of smoking.  Something as simple as that.  If people want to change their life, they can refocus their “weaknesses” to be strengths, or if not strengths, then something more positive.   I like that idea, of course, because I’m a bundle of freakish quirkyness.. ;D  Obsessive compulsive?  Nay!  I just have great attention to detail!  You get it.  Go read it.

I’m signed up for a motorcycle training course in November, which is awesome.  It’ll be nice to have a backup vehicle since my truck isn’t the most reliable beast these days.  Why can’t I just get a trained polar bear to take me to work?  Maybe a horse?  *shrug*  A friend and I are going car browsing this weekend.  I have to study hardcore for my networking test on Tuesday, but I think we can squeeze in a bit of car hunting.  I was reading some article yesterday that started me thinking of the reality of my truck.  I bought it because I lived in the desert, would go trekking out into the wilds, and needed a vehicle that could handle the rough environment.  This truck is perfect for that.  I don’t, however, still live there, nor do I need such a rugged vehicle anymore.  Hence, it’s time to find a reliable vehicle that fits more into the everyday city driving.  Am I sad to really, honestly consider getting rid of my truck?  Yes, of course.  I love my truck and everything that she stands for, but alas, sentimentality can’t pay my bills nor drive me to work.  It’s too bad really as I’m rather fond of her.

My buddy Mark and I have a project in the works.  It’s mainly dependent on me, so when I get my butt in gear, you’ll hear more about it.  We have quite a few different projects on the table, but there’s one that I’d actually like to see come to fruition sooner than later.  I’ll try to squeeze it in somewhere.  When I do, you’ll know.  It, like my truck, deals with sentimentality and it’s uselessness.  Do you realize how much crap you hang on to on account of sentimentality?  Stuff that has outlived it’s usefulness and no longer has a real purpose.  Stuff that’s living in your closets and acting as a magnet for similar stuff.  Something to think about.

That’s all for today, kids.  Happy breathing.

Initial issue was that I’ve grown a huge dependence on bookmarks in FireFox (hereafter known as FF).  I love FF.  It should have my babies.  That not being the point, I’ll move on.  It’s been a bit sluggish as of late, meaning that since I upgrade to 3.0, I’ve seen a bit of performance anxiety and it hasn’t been rising to the challenge as quickly as I would like.  Unfortunate as, like I said, I’m very fond of FF.

My friend Will messaged me and asked if I’d tried Chrome.  I hadn’t, but had heard it was pretty cool and simple.  He told me to go try it for myself, dangit, so I did.

Back to my initial problem: Importing Bookmarks.  Chrome doesn’t seem to import them correctly quite yet.  I checked the forums and, yep, there are quite a few other people having similar issues.  The capability of importing is there, but coming from FF 3.0, it’s not as well-supported as it ‘should’ be.  I immediately read through the threads to try to find a reasonable workaround.  I couldn’t find one that worked as ‘well’ as the people offering them said it would, so I wrote my own.  My way works quite well, though it takes a couple minutes and window flipping.  It’s worth it though, lemme tell ya.  :)

Other than that, Chrome is zippy and satisfactory.  As much as I don’t like changing browsers, or even upgrading to new versions of programs (because of the drastic changes sometimes implemented), I’m getting used to this one fairly quickly and am hoping that it is as fulfilling as I could possibly want it to be.

Check it out!

—

edit.

New issue:  When entering posts, Chrome does not keep the line break tags.  If I go to edit it, it’s all one paragraph.  I have to manually go into the code, add the breaks, and then save it.   And, with subsequent Edits, it still doesn’t save the breaks.  Quite annoying.

I decided three months was long enough to live in a garage like a vagrant.  It’s been fun, but the weather’s going to turn any day now, and I don’t want to still be in a garage when it happens.  I found a nice room in a huge house on the pretty side of town that I can live in for a fair amount of money and not be too bothered.  The house is clean, even.  Holy crap.  I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with myself.

Saturday I’ll spend putting the finishing touches on everything – meaning get everything I possibly can shoved into boxes and set aside, ready to be loaded onto the truck.  My boyfriend will be in town to help me move, and that’ll be delightful because I’m tired of trying to maneuver my bed and other large objects by myself whenever I move.  It boils down to the fact that I’m usually too proud to ask for help.  So I struggle.  Story of my life.    He offered help and I couldn’t turn him down, so he’ll be here to lend a hand and a healthy back.    I think we’ll load up the truck Sunday and take everything over, unload, then drop the truck off.  I figure one trip is better than five.  Fo sho.

Totally off topic:  I got a new office chair today!  It’s so pleasant and comfy.  Who knows what I saw in my old chair.  I think I might take it home and torture myself as I sit in front of my own computer.  We’ll see what the girls say about that.  They probably won’t have a problem with it.  Otherwise it’d just end up in the trash. *shrug*

That’s all for today!  Hope you’re doing well. 

Me using Edward as a hat.

The contrast is kinda such that it’s hard to make out, but he’s on top of my head as I lay on the floor.

I had low hopes for PC Care and Upgrade.  I figured it would be some cheeseball class for housewives and teeny boppers on how to keep your computer running well.  I was mistaken.  So mistaken.  The first day I learned binary, or at least how to convert simple-ish numbers into binary, and then from binary to hexadecimal, and back to binary, and back to decimal.  We’re apparently going to be getting into the depths of things!  I will learn how to dismantle and reassemble (why isn’t dismantle and remantle, or to mantle in use? *time elapse* oh, because ‘to mantle’ would be to cover with a mantle, an article of clothing. bah. how boring. moving on.) a computer and its components, solder and de-solder, AND go from DOS to XP.  I think that’s the most fun part that I’m looking forward to.  Why?  Because I haven’t used DOS in sooo long, and I like that I know it to some degree.  It pleases that geeky little part of my brain that knows that I’ve used every OS from DOS through XP, and can be pretty efficient on all of them (except for ME, because that version = fail, and not my failure, btw, but Microsoft’s.)  I think when ME came out that was about the time I rolled back to 98.  It was stable.  It was gooood.  Why mess with a good thing?  Except to improve it, like 2k.  I liked 2k.  It was also stable.  And then ME had to come along and destroy my faith in all that is human.  Nah, that’s a bit much, but I was terribly disappointed.  And XP I even avoided for a while with a wary eye.  I’d still rather operate on 2k if given the choice, but Adobe doesn’t play nice with 2k anymore.  [This is me making a scrunchy face of dislike.]  Long story short, I think this class will be cool in a very dry sort of way.  Hopefully my teacher calms down a bit and gets comfortable.  He was just handed this class a week ago.  Greaaat..

Networking I.  I can’t even begin to speak of the brilliance of this class yet.  It hasn’t started yet, which gives me all kinds of good things to say about it.  It’s always like, ‘Wow, this looks so cool!’  and then you get a little deeper and begin to sink in quicksand and you say, ‘Golly, I’m glad it looked cool, but damn, this isn’t the best thing in the world at all!‘   And then you drown.    Nah.  I’m way excited about it for a couple reasons:

1. You are automatically enrolled in Cisco’s learning academy.  Prestigious!
2. It is a long, hard road, but at the end is the chance to take the CCNA, CCNP, and then CCIE tests and get certified.  And it’s Cisco certified, and that’s classy. 
3. It’s so hard that if I don’t pass this semester, I can’t go on in the Networking classes.  This means I must be completely awesome in this class and rock the hell outta Cisco’s socks.
4. It’ll be hard.  It’ll be challenging.  It’ll kick my butt.  Those are all reasons to be enamored with a class.

This is a WaterBoy moment:  You can Do IT!

Indeed.

Did I mention I’m looking forward to this semester?  Yeah, ’cause I am.

I’d like to believe that my job has some overarching goodness about it and that I’m making a difference, but I know that I’d just be fooling myself, and I’m okay with it’s lack thereof.  I don’t sit up at night worried about that report that needs to be turned in by the buttcrack of dawn so that joe schmoe can do whatever it is he does and for which he gets paid ten times more, and I don’t want to.  Does my work challenge me?  Not really.  But it does free my mind to allow me to wander on the things that I do enjoy.

I have too many hobbies.  Too many obsessions.  But whose phrase is ‘too many’?  It isn’t really mine.  I enjoy the expanded skills and abilities my random obsessions grant me.  This weekend I helped Clint work on my truck, even though I’m sure he didn’t really need my help.  I also stained a skateboard deck that I hope to make into a usable, ridable board.  I may never ride on it as it’s more of an art project than a project of utilitarian design, but the project itself is important to me.  I’d never stained wood before this weekend.  Now I know I can.  (It wasn’t really a question in my mind.)  I’ve realized that until you do something, things seem to be so much bigger than they really are.  ‘Oh I couldn’t possibly!’ becomes ‘Of course I can, why not?’  I like to take the latter approach to projects.

His (Coyne’s) point was this:

I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.

And I totally agree with him.  I’ve often been chastised for the way I live my life:  close to poverty, rather whimsically, seemingly without direction.  I’ve never been fond of the ‘my direction should be your direction’ approach to life.  We’re all so different that I think we need to find what makes us happy in our own right, and then do that.  I mean happiness as contentedness.  I’m not advocating drugs, alcohol, or other vices, because that isn’t happiness, that’s escapism, and that’s never good.  I enjoy the random assortment of jobs I’ve had.  I think all the skills I’ve learned over the years add up to greatness, and if that’s disillusionment talking, then we’re best friends.

I’m tangenting off the topic that initially got me writing this post, although I do believe you should read Coyne’s essay, as well as Ruth Kamp’s.  Ruth talks about this tree that lives behind her house that she identifies with.  Now before you get the idea that she’s a tree-loving hippy, bear with me, because she doesn’t really strike me that way.  She, at one point in her life, lost her faith in God and the Devil: “I have lost most of my traditional heaven-and-hell beliefs, finding them used conveniently by good people.”  I can’t say I don’t feel similarly.  She identifies more with being spiritual than having a particular faith that others can dictate by interpretation.  I think that as humans, we need to find that answer within ourselves.  I think that for some people, religion is a good thing.  They need a path to follow.  They need the support of people that have the same beliefs who can tell them they’re doing a good job.  I think faith, like spirituality, should be a personal thing.  But unlike an organized faith, I don’t need the support of others that have the same spiritual ideas to tell me I’m on the ‘right’ path because spirituality is individualized, and it’s something we have to find for ourselves within ourselves.  And who knows better than you what’s inside?

I encourage you, if you have the time (make it), to go read some of the essays over there at NPR.  Or listen to them.   And, I just realized, you can go to This I Believe and read all of the series.

It’s really too bad I can’t get the page to display this image correctly.  Ah well.  I linked you to the original page it came from.  So much for fluidity of coding.  Possibly my only complaint about this layout.  I can’t have wide images.  >.<

Geeky Break-up Lines

Questionable Content.  Online comic.

G-mail.  I love my auto-updating Gmail account.  You should too.  If you need an invite, let me know.

Pandora Radio.  I have more than five stations on here.  You can go to my Pandora station list and see what I’m into, what I’m currently listening to, and artists/songs that I’m fond of.

Wesabe.  This is a new addition, but a definite addiction.  Wesabe is a financial management site.  I upload my bank account information, tag the entries accordingly, and check out my spending/earning habits.  I can even set Goals of what I’d like to save for, or pay off.  I don’t have anything I necessarily need to pay off, so that’s not one of my things, but that’s something other people might want to look into.  It also has spending targets, which I just realized the other day, and have employed excitedly.  I like knowing that I have $48.97 left in my budget to spend on frivolous Food expenses.  I like knowing that I have $160 left in my budget for Gas this month.  Oh, so I’ve also set up a budget that goes with it that can be downloaded.  It allows you to set up a budget and break it down however you want, download your Wesabe account activity into the spreadsheet, and see how much you have left to spend/save in the week/month.  Brilliant.  Besides that spreadsheet, I spend inordinate amounts of time on Wesabe’s community boards looking up different abilities of Wesabe, and helping people out whenever I get a chance.  It’s cathartic.

MySpace.  Wait, before you throw stones.  It’s a good social networking site.  That’s all I’m going to say about it.

Facebook.  Better (debatable) social networking site than MySpace, but not as widely used in my group of friends.

Bloglines.  Allows me to subscribe to the blogs that I’m into and read them at my leisure.  Very handy site.

Flickr.  I don’t frequent this as much as I used to, as you can tell by the age of my collections, but I’m fond of it nonetheless.  I more frequent it to check out my friend Mark’s photography.  And, leading off from him, his friend Neff.  Both good photographers, great artists, and, even more, amazing people.

GirlGenius.  The one online web-comic that I adore.  I think it’s the bees knees.  [Note:  I always used to think of the words 'bees knees' as one word, 'beeksnees'.  Slight dyslexia?]

Wikipedia.  I can spend hours here.  If I weren’t such a raccoon about things, I might be able to focus, but as it is, I find one shiny thing that spurns another shiny link, and so on.  I’m lost for hours.  Example thought train:  J. D. Salinger -> Avicenna -> The Canon of Medicine -> pulsology and sphygmology -> and so on.  See?  Go learn something.  Oh, before I move on: Dischordianism.  My friend Josh recommended me look into that at one point.

I think that’s enough for now.  I’m sure I have some filing or something terribly important to do.

Sometime yesterday it occurred to me that I don’t post here very often. I’m online 80% of my day, but I don’t have anything to say to you guys? Is there that little going on in my life? I’d like to think to the contrary. I find interesting things to look at on the interwebs. I don’t know that they would interest you at all, but they would give you some insight into my life.

I guess it occurred to me mostly just because I was reading Sarcasmo’s Corner and realized that she passed nearly two years ago. o.O It was baffling. I always wondered what became of people’s blogs when they passed. Whether they made such an impact that one of their friends decided to pick up the torch, or whether the blog sat in a timeless bubble, never changing, never evolving, never again. SC, however, has continued. Her mom invited Sarcasmo’s friends to speak about what they knew of her. To pick one of her ‘100 things about me‘ and write about it. They did that for a while, then Star, a friend of Sarcasmo, picked up the blog and has continued it. I think that speaks volumes about Sarcasmo and her friends. It makes me cry too. I never met the lady, but after having spent enormous amounts of time reading her Visible Invisible Girl blog, and now catching back up on SC, I wish I could have. At the same time, I feel like I knew her anyway.

And because of the idea of 100 things, I sat yesterday and wrote out 100 things about myself that I will probably make a tab for up at the top so you can all be a little more enlightened about me. That is, if you want to be. I don’t suggest it. I think I may even re-write some of them. The list is a bit dark at times, and someone once said that my blog tends to be dark, so I may try to find new, light-hearted things to replace the darker ones with.

I guess this is just my way of saying that I will endeavor to post more about random things, and not feel the need to ‘update’ all the time, if that makes any sense.

That being said, I’m going to end this post and start a new one with fresh information and dribble.

Adios!

On Thursday eve a person I’m terribly fond of is driving out to spend the weekend with me!  I surprised him on Monday by driving three hours to show up at his last softball game of the season.  Yeah I know, kinda out of character for me.  I think it’s a good change.

Friday I’m going apartment hunting, though I’m not sure he knows that yet.  It’s something I need to do, and we haven’t planned anything for Friday yet, so I think I’m gonna convince him to go around with me so I can find a new place to live.  Then, in the evening, I believe we’re going down to Santa Barbara for a end-of-summer party with some friends of his.  His friend is apparently a professional party planner (I think?) so that guy’s throwing the party in a huge house of some sort.  *shrug*  Should be fun!  I’ll try to remember to take pictures with either Todd’s cam or make my friend take pics.

Saturday is my company picnic, so I asked him if he wanted to go and sure enough, we’re on!  I also convinced Jenny to go.. convinced isn’t really the right word.  I told Jenny’s boyfriend that they were going to this picnic, and then let Jenny know as well.    Her dad works for the same company as I do – or I should say it the other way around since he’s been here considerably longer than I.  Anyway, the picnic starts in the morning, but depending on what time we get back from SB depends on when we roll out there.  Probably around noon.  Jenny has to work later that day, so we’ll see how long we stay.  Around 5 or so we’ll probably head home (if we haven’t already) because my friend Mark’s birthday is that evening (yay!) and we will be attending that as well.  I know, it’s a crazy-busy weekend.  Everything just seemed to fall on it.

Sunday?  Sleep.  ahha.. it’s the day of rest, after all.

I just think it’ll be a really fun weekend and thought you all might like to hear something a bit more upbeat than usual. 

This month is really looking up. Hind-sight is an interesting thing. I had a conversation over dinner with my most recent ex last week. He made some comment to the effect that things would only get better for me because that’s the direction I’m taking them. That my life has really only gotten better since I’ve moved out here. I moved out of the desert. I didn’t have a job, which was a bummer. Then I got a job, and another. Had to move out of that house, but moved in with him, which was good for a while. I moved out of our house and into the garage, which may not seem good, but has been really good in the grand scheme of things. Meanwhile I took CAD and it was awesome. Then I got a new job (I left out a couple, but whatevs.) that has made things a heck of a lot better in general, mostly monetarily. Things at home have been a bit shaky because of some odd moodiness on my part, but I’m looking toward getting a new place. In other words, I’ve been taking steps up toward better things. It was a nice realization for him to point out to me. heh.. And, after spending this weekend with a new friend, it looks like it’s just going to keep getting better.

I haven’t done anything with the pictures from Amber yet, I apologize. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with them anyway.. whether I’ll post them up on my Flickr, or make a new tab in here and post them as thumbs so you can click to see the big picture. Literally. I still need to mail off the ones I took to her.. such a slacker sometimes. I just forget to mail things. *shrug* I also have a package for my friend in Indiana as well, but haven’t gotten around to writing his address on it and posting it to him. It’s all packed up and taped in the backseat of my truck.. just waiting.

Had a great 4th of July weekend. The resort I went to with some friends was beautiful. I’d wake early, go sit in the sauna for a bit, swim in the pool, sit in the hot tub, y’know, the hard life. It was fabulous and much needed. I even got a chance to re-read a book, The Magician and the Fool, that I had previously read but got somewhat lost in.

Choke was purchased for me this weekend, so that is now on my list of books to read. I started it yesterday afternoon while waiting for my friend to turn in a paper for school. I’m enjoying the book so far. It’s very blunt and dark. Imagine Fight Club. Now imagine that it’s about sex addicts instead of people that fight. It’s like Chuck spent all his time going to recovery meetings. All sorts of recovery meetings. I’ve been to recovery meetings, but he gives the dirty details that one’s not really supposed to talk about. Now you raise an eyebrow and give me a quizzical look of, “Oh really, recovery meetings?” Being a young person with a car lends one to situations that one might not otherwise be involved in or exposed to, such as AA meetings, or AlaTeen meetings even. I’ve had two friends that I’ve taken to such meetings. The first I actually went to the meetings with instead of just dropping her off because we had to go out of town for them for some reason. The second I would just drop off for a while because the meeting places were in the same town. The people there had stories. Interesting stories. Sad stories. Stories that made me want to hurt the people that had hurt them. Stories that made me want to change the world so that no one else ever had to feel and experience the things these people went through. It was.. a time.

Lighter note! I went to a Demolition Derby this weekend that was totally rad. A friend from out of town stayed with me this weekend and accompanied me to the Derby and it was a crash-bang good time. There was talk of me driving in the Derby next year… o.O!

There were… technical difficulties with my Speech class, so that fell through, but Philosophy starts today, and I’m on the ball there. Looking forward to telling you guys how awesome-ly I’m doing in the class.

It’s the dawn of a new day.

Speech class starts today. I joined Philosophy into the fun this summer as well. That, however, doesn’t start until mid-July.

Ooh, my professor for Philosophy just emailed me the syllabus.  I missed orientation on Friday because of.. vehicular issues.  What’s new, right?  Nah, she’s been a good girl lately.  I’ve kinda been waiting for this to happen.  Hopefully we’ll get that sorted out this week.

Okay, work time. Hope you’re all having happy, perky lives.

*laughing..*

i thought it was astounding.

As an aside, things coming up next month:

• Speech class
• new laptop next month (hopefully, unless someone wants to get that for me..)
• move into the house and out of the garage
• road trip at the beginning of next month

 I put in my two weeks, and my bosses were very supportive and encouraging.   They understand that they pay little for as much as I give, so it wasn’t a huge surprise to them that I was leaving.   Not saying that I didn’t enjoy working for them because I really did, but they understand the economics of the situation, I guess would be the way I’d say it.  I was a bit apprehensive about quitting, but their attitude gave me new hope – hope that bosses can say, ‘Okay, I hope your new job will take you places we couldn’t.  Good luck!’  It was a refreshing breakup.  haha..

 How’s the new job going?  Well, I suppose.  I’m a clerk.  Imagine what clerks do.. (they file paperwork).. now imagine that times 10.    Is it boring?  Yeah, a bit.  Am I going to complain about it?  Nah, it’s a stable job that’s supporting me right now.  Who knows, I might want to become a petroleum engineer.    I had that conversation with one of the ladies I work with.  We went on a tour of the hill (I work on a hill) today in her new vehicle (Jeep Grand Cherokee?) and as we were going around, she was saying, ‘Well you never know, this job may lead to something for you.  Who knows, maybe you’ll find out you want to be a petroleum engineer.’  A good buddy of mine is a petroleum engineer.  He has more money than he knows what to do with, and he just moved to Colorado to take a better offer.  But he lives in a town with less than 20k people.  Hobbies of the people in the town?  Skiing through town.. y’know.. cross-country skiing.. through the park in town.  And if they get a good snow, they can use the little hill in the park for sleds.  I just found that amusing.  If you could see my expressions while I say it, you might find that nearly as amusing.  Or maybe you’d just be laughing at my face, which presents its own amusements, I’m sure.

Things are settling down.  Oh! I had my final last night in CAD.  On tuesday I had a pre-final.  One of the three tests in class.  I got a 415/400 on the pre-final.  The final consisted of eating pizza, drinking a soda (if we wanted one, which of course I didn’t), and watching My Cousin Vinny.  Then we had to answer five questions after the test about the movie.  The test ‘questions’ were very tongue in cheek.  The whole thing was, actually, but that’s one of the great things about that professor.  He doesn’t take himself too seriously.  All in All, I got an A in the class.  Whee! 

So now I can say, “Hey look, I finished something.”  Y’know, besides this post. 

p.s.  I leave in two weeks for Virginia.  Yay roadtrip!

Aw, I used to be cute. 

 Watched A Good Woman – Scarlett Johanssen (or however you spell her name), Helen Hunt, etc.  Pretty good movie.  Acting at points was kinda shoddy, but the lighting.. oh the lighting.. it was lovely.  Brilliant, even.  Y’know.. ’cause lights are brilliant.. and the way they lit the thing, brilliant.  Or I should say it was brilliantly lit.  I’m not sure.  I think I’m just babbling at this point, so on to the rest!

Thursday I was called by Jenny.  She wanted me to call her dad because he said he found a job for me.  I call her dad.  He says he found me a job, and to call this other lady.  I call the other lady and reach her on my second attempt and we set up an interview on Friday.  I go over Friday morning, looking “precious” (she said that when I was leaving.. “um, your outfit is precious, but jeans will do just fine..” haha..)  and met up with her.  Nice lady, southern accent, loves to talk.  Jenny’s dad, btw, told me to ask for $14/hr, to not sell myself short.  The lady and I have a nice talk, easy clerical paperwork type job, I tell her $14/hr.  She looks at me nicely and somewhat skeptically, but says that she’ll talk to her sup because he makes the final decisions.  I had a feeling that she was laughing on the inside when I said that, but nevertheless held a good face for me.  The interview went well.  I got a call from her today and voila, I got the job and they’re willing to do $14/hr.  O.o  wow.  Okay.  I’m giving two weeks tomorrow to my other two jobs and calling it good.  I’ll stay working for the radio station until I get full time with this position (oh, it’s part time to start and will work into full time).

Worked at the Strawberry Festival this weekend for the station.  Oye, it was nearly 90deg outside.  Was a good time.  Went to the Extreme Amped motocross show.  Guys doing flips and such on dirt bikes off a ramp into mid-air.  Pretty cool. 

 Finally got all my stuff moved out (by all I mean 98%) and into the garage.  Slept there the past two nights.  It’s not as bad as one might think.  Crackers and I are kickin’ it squatter style.    End of June will bring me into the house because our other roommate will be moving up to Portland.  And, with this new job, I’ll be able to easily afford it.  Yay.  Maybe I’ll even get my truck fixed up so that she runs better.  Wheee…

 Okay, need to get to workin on my AutoCAD stuff.  Still doing well in class.  Yay me.   

Oh yeah, I’ll have internet soon at home (probably tonight), so I’ll begin working on my other website with literature and such.  It’s not all PG, so I’m not going to hype it up to you guys too much, but I’m kinda excited to put it up.  I’m gonna run a drive recovery on a hard drive I have that holds all the files I want (docs and music!  curses!), and if it works out, I’ll post up those stories/poems as well.  We’ll see. 

I’m nearly moved out.  I just have my clothes and office eq to move over.  My friend is convinced that when I finally get all my stuff over that I’ll just be off on another adventure somewhere.  I dunno though.  I’ve been in this house for nearly a year (a month away), and in the area for over a year.. almost a year and a half.  My adventures are growing longer.  I stayed in the desert for five years longer than I ever planned on living in a desert.  I think since I don’t work at the radio or the other two shops that I’ll make a big push and get all my stuff out this weekend.  He wants a week left in the month so his friend has time to move in his stuff.  I told him that’s not how the real world works; that I’d have til midnight on the 31st to move out my stuff, and that his friend would have from then on to move in, but that I wasn’t required to move out, really, until then.  Am I going to abide by real-world rules?  Not in this case.  We’re on good terms right now.  It’s a good time to leave.  

 What’s on the schedule for this year?  Well, at the beginning of June I’m flying back to Virginia to meet up with a friend and drive her back to the desert.  We’ll be hitting all the lower states, so hopefully I’ll get to see my friend Eli, someone I haven’t seen since high school, but talk to on a semi-regular basis online.  He lives in Louisiana doing underwater diving on oil rigs.  What’s he do down there?  I dunno.  He’s told me, but I’m not always a good listener.  He might be moving back to the area to go back to school to do something else that I forget… I am such a horrible friend.  *looks through recent chat logs*  Oh yeah, architecture!  At a school in Columbia, no less.   How cool is that?    I figure I should see him again before he heads off to Columbia.  Louisiana is closer.  Anyway, she and I are having fun planning it.  I told her we have to find the weird things in the midwest – like the giant ball of rubber bands, or the largest frying pan.  Stuff like that.  But after looking at her driving itinerary, it doesn’t look like we’ll be going through the midwest, so no dice with those things.  But, if you know of weird things in the lower states, Texas and the like, let me know and I’ll go take a picture of them for you. 

In July I’m taking a trip up north with a couple people to a resort to hang out for a couple days and celebrate my friend’s birthday.  That should be very cool.  The resort has yurts!!    Stoked.

 Need to get back to my homework assignments, so that’s all for now.  Ta ta!

oh no, I forgot the Dinosaur comics.  This proves I have way too much free time.. and not enough internet access.  That, however, will change when I move!    But on to the comics!

Backstory:  My friend Turtle and I like odd things.. like Dinosaur comics.  The creator, Ryan North, has a lot of comics there, and even offers a blank for you to make your own.  Some are ridiculous, some are oddly brilliant.  Like people.  So, with my free time combined with my work environments, I bring you, My Life as Dinosaur Comics. Everyone has their own font so that it makes it easier to figure out who’s speaking. Y’know, if you couldn’t understand the lines drawn from the text to their body…

Computer Crash

 Respect the Man

Is there anything new going on? Nothing in particular. I give vague indications of job searches. I start training with the radio station on Saturday to be a street teamer. What is a street teamer in the context of what I’ll be doing? I’ll tell you. When radio stations set up remote locations, they have someone [street teamer] drive the station van to the site, set up the equipment, and make happy faces at the public as they stop by. What is a remote location? Ever listen to the radio and hear something like, ‘Hey! We’re broadcasting from the Bank of New Brunswick today! You should stop by, eh!’ That’s what a remote location is. The Bank of New Brunswick. Or really any location that isn’t the Main location for the station to be broadcasting from. Kind of like remotely tapping into your home computer from a computer café. Get it yet? I’m running out of explanations. But I can tell you what it’s not. A remote, in the context I’m using it, is not the following: the device used to turn on and off your television/dvd player/cd player/stereo receiver, the device used to turn on and increase the power of your personal massager/mattress heater/electric blanket. There ya have it.

Some girl at the pretzel store that my bosses own quit (or was let go, I’m not quite sure which), so I’ve also been picking up some extra hours over there. Hopefully my boss will make me work mornings. That’s the slowest time = less interaction with humans.

AutoCAD is still entertaining. I have a test tomorrow which I’m totally looking forward to. Until you’re tested in a class like this, you’re never quite sure where you stand in relation to everyone else. And I guess it doesn’t matter where I stand in relation to my classmates, but I’d like some indication by testing to figure out how well I actually know this program. I’m kinda slow with the drawings I do, but that’s mostly ’cause I’m anal about my lines. “Okay… go… here. No, damnit, you’re 1/32nd of an inch off. It looks weird. Damn! Have to start over. Argh.” Seriously. I was working on something in class and asked my teacher if there was another way to do what I was trying to do and he just looked at me funny and said, ‘You’re trying to make this more difficult than it really needs to be. Don’t give it so much thought.’ So I think in terms of being able to use the program and know a couple different ways of doing things I’m doing well, but in terms of speed, not so much. Sometimes I’ll sit (second row from the back) and watch other people in front of me working on their projects. Sometimes I have to restrain myself from getting up and walking over and saying, ‘Why don’t you just do it this way?! My god! You’ve spent ten minutes trying to cut that line off, and you decided not to in the end because you couldn’t figure it out?! Omg. Just type this.. and then click this.. and voila!’ Those moments reassure me that I’m doing okay in the class. Perhaps a bit more anal than necessary, but okay none the less.

I’m packing my bags and moving out of my current residence. Why? It is time. Moving in to a friend’s garage. Cheaper rent and isolation. It’ll be good for me.

It’s almost time to go home and I’ve a couple more things to finish, so I’m out.

Ian (a cousin) and I at Thanksgiving last year.

(a bit late in posting, perhaps.)

So how did my fasting go?  Horribly.  I got through about a week before I became really ill.  I’m blaming Edward and my roommate.  They were both sick and sneezing all over the place.  My roommate is perpetually sick, which I believe actually helps my immune system, but I think with the added contributor of Edward it pushed me over the limit.  Especially while fasting.  That being said, you can understand why I haven’t been able to continue my fast.  I was kinda upset by the whole thing.  I made bread.  I was prepared this year!  *sigh*  C’est la vie.  I decided that I will find another time period during this year to fast.  I’m determined.

AutoCAD is going well.  My teacher is quite knowledgeable, which makes class enjoyable and worthwhile.  I can’t handle it when I’m being taught stuff I don’t know by people that know it just barely more than I.

Work is still the same.  I’ve applied for a couple different jobs.  Went for an interview on Monday.  We’ll see what becomes of it all, if anything.

Weather’s turning beautiful around here again.  The scenery is green, flowers are blooming all over the place.  Can’t wait for my garden to explode. 

Christmas was fairly uneventful, as I wanted. I was working 12 hour days up until it, so things were busy. I got a couple cool birthday/xmas presents: stripey shirts, mortar & pestle, argyle socks, an art nouveau vector art book, and some other stuff. I think I had more fun coming up with presents for people this year. I’m not usually one to buy presents for people because I figure if I find something they like at any time of the year, I’ll probably get it for them. I don’t need a certain day to get them a nifty present. Christmas is usually just the time when other people tell you what they want, and out of the goodness of your heart (and pocketbook) you can get it for them and see the glee! Instead of buying a bunch of crap nobody wants, I made things. I crocheted a very soft, black beanie with ear flaps and tassles. Oh yes, it is awesome, and quite warm, from what I hear. And I’m not gonna get all into the stuff I made, but it was cool. Lemme tell ya.

The new year has proven to be somewhat of a disappointment on the work front, however. What’s new, right? I’ve been knocked down to 20-hour weeks at minimum wage. Can you live on that? Yeah, me either. So again I hike my skirts and trod out into the world looking for a new job. Feelers abound, something is going to turn up. Resumes have been strategically placed and will be noticed. Oh yes. Never doubt the power of the oddly-shaped resume. (No, they’re not oddly-shaped. It just sounded funny. But it might be a good idea…

Okay, I’m sure I have some work to do around here. Oh! This just in. Again, not really, I just happened to remember it right now. I’m creating a graphic (that I would show you if my thumb drive were acting correctly) for the front of my leather portfolio. In case you’re unaware what kind of leather portfolio I’m talking about… here ya go. I’ve been working on the image for a while now, mostly in my mind, but have also been trying to render it in my computer. Teaching oneself Illustrator is not easy. I’ve redone the drawing quite a few times now, but I think I have it to the point that I like it. Just need to find a good brush to stroke it with and I’ll be all set. (technobabble. I know. I’m sorry.) Long story short, it’s coming along well. I’m fairly happy with it, there are just a few things I’m kinda still tilting my head about. You know what I mean.. when you look at something, and you think, ‘hmm.. something’s just not right..’ and you tilt your head when you think that.. yeah. That’s what I’ve been doing. So, a couple more days on it and it should be completed.

Oh yes, and what is coming up next month? Lent. Yep. I have purchased a giant mixing bowl of doom with which I will mix up the ingredients and begin making my fasting bread. The theme of the year? Focus.

Oh yeah, and I start a new semester on Tuesday… AutoCAD, ftw.

To start, it’s been on my list for years, and I still haven’t been able to indulge myself, but I would like a Konica Minolta Dimage A2 (or whatever the upgrade from the A2 has progressed to, unless it’s the A200, in which case, don’t bother. I don’t like that model’s attributes nearly as much as the A2.) And, I’m partial to the Dimage series, so I will accept substitutes, but there’s definitely a sentimental thing with the Dimages – keep that in mind.

Next, and it was somewhat promised to me a year ago, but whatever. I’d like some really fancy MacBook.. like a MacBook Pro. If you’re going to indulge this insanity, I’ll give you some specs of the previous Book that I wanted that might have been upgraded in specs since then. (I don’t have the time these days to figure out specs for things I’ll never see, so if you’re that interested, the specs listed will give you an idea of what I was going for, and you can take it from there.)

17” MacBook Pro
• 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
• 2GB 667 DDR2 – 2x1GB SO-DIMMs
• 120GB Serial ATA drive @ 5400 rpm
• MacBook Pro 17-inch Widescreen Display (Yes, really. I like the big screen. I don’t care how unwieldly it is.)
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Backlit Keyboard/Mac OS – U.S. English
• iWork ’06 preinstalled
• AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Pro/PowerBook (w/or w/o Display) – Auto-enroll
• AirPort Extreme Card & Bluetooth
• 17-inch TFT Display
Subtotal $3,527.00

Software:

Adobe Web Bundle: Currently – US $1,899
Creative Suite Premium & Studio 8: (Update to CS3)Adobe Photoshop® CS2
Adobe Illustrator® CS2
Adobe InDesign® CS2
Adobe GoLive® CS2
Adobe Acrobat® 7.0 Professional
Version Cue® CS2
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Stock Photos
Dreamweaver® 8
Flash Professional 8
Fireworks® 8
Contribute™ 3
FlashPaper™ 2Q: Does Adobe offer education or government pricing for the new product bundles? (This was something I looked up way back when. At this point, it’s just fyi type stuff.)
A: For qualified education customers, education versions of the Adobe Bundles are available, and pricing is as follows:
• Education pricing for the Adobe Web Bundle is US$599 in North America. Additionally, this bundle is available through education licensing.

What’s next.. oh yes, a Helio Ocean. “Why a Helio?” you might ask. Well, I was sitting at Denny’s last night with some friends and one of them whipped his out and after inquiring about the specs, the availability of networks and service, I decided that the Helio is a heck of a lot better than what I’m paying for Cingular to bend me over, so it’s definitely one of the high points of my Wish List. A glorious highpoint, if you ask me. If it doesn’t come in my stocking, I’ll be half-inclined to go down to LA to buy it, or perhaps just order it online. I was told that if you get it in person, you end up with more goodies tho – free bluetooth headset, cables, SD card, etc. Note to self, and all you Christmas shoppers.

I’m sure there was more that I want, but I really can’t think of it. Perhaps a new car. Preferrably a Toyota. Maybe a Matrix. Something small with lots of gpm. Not a Corolla tho, I really don’t like the seats. Perhaps if you’re going to go all out, you could toss over a Subaru WR-X. That’d be spiffy.

Now, I understand that these things are a bit out of anyone’s price range, mostly mine. But, I just wanted to prove a point – at Christmas, we all make wishes for things that would be nice to have, but that we don’t necessarily expect to get. It’s a wish. It’s not a demand, it’s not begging, it’s just a wish. If someone wanted to send me a $10 giftcard to subway I’d be stoked because that’s food and that’s something that doesn’t always find it’s way into my house.. But that’s besides the point. Now, in all seriousness, if someone Did in fact want to get me something on this list, please feel absolutely free to do that. I would be forever grateful. But that’s not why we buy gifts, is it? We buy them so that someone can have something that they’d kinda like to have and that you were thoughtful enough to get, whether they asked for it or not.

So, in short, if you get a Christmas list from some kid telling you what he wants for Christmas, indulge your inner child and think of where he’s coming from. Kids aren’t usually greedy bastards (and forgive my language there.) They’re kids. They’re innocent in the grand scheme of corporate marketing and societal holiday guilt trips. They’d just like to have a new toy, just like you and I. Sometimes their toys are easy, like a Tickle Me Elmo… other times, they’d like something a bit more sophisticated, like an XBox 360 (god knows I wouldn’t mind one of those as well.) Some kids just have more expensive taste than others. This kid certainly does, but she’s also realistic, which is why she hasn’t bought these things for herself, nor does she really expect anyone else to ever shell out the money for them.

I hope you all see past the corporate marketing and guilt trips of the season and enjoy the cool weather and the changing of the season. If it’s anything like the area I’m at, it’s beautiful and worth sharing with people that you care about. Or, if you’re working ridiculous amounts of time like me, you’ll be lucky to get Christmas day off so that you can sleep in and perhaps wander around the house in yer pj’s.

Peace be with you. Enjoy your winter.

Walker’s Pass ’04

I listened to my bosses (they’re a couple) tell the story of how they first met.  It was cute, as stories like those tend to be.  It was, however, kind of painful on one level – the one where when the Short One walked up to her future husband and tapped him on the shoulder to see if it was indeed him that she was supposed to be meeting (blind date and all..), and his response to her later was that he knew from that moment that they were going to get married.  She doesn’t believe him, but he sticks by it even to this day, 16 years later.  I think a little part of her really does believe it, but that she’s just being stubborn like always.  A nice story.  That’s the short, short version.  The sad part is when I had to agree with Tami, the other lady I work with, that his feeling could have indeed been real and that the Short one not believing was just silly.  There are feelings like that that one can get when they meet someone, and in that instant, they know this is the person they want.  Some of us just deal with that realization better than others.  Some of us embrace it and can recount the story 16 years later.  Others run like mad, scared to death that this person might actually get in through the huge, huge walls we’ve put up to keep the world out.

 Moving right along…

All in one day, I got laid off from the Scrap Metal yard, and had a horrible argument at home that left me with the option of moving out sooner rather than later.  I tend not to deal too well with people telling me where I should be, or what I should be doing – essentially, being at someone’s beck and call – unless they’re paying me, like at work.  So, arguments arise, and we decided it was best that either I move out, or find a new roommate.  As I would like to have internet and other nice-ities, I’m looking to move out.  (Internet’s not available in our neck of the woods.)  Needless to say, it was a rough couple of days.  It’s gotten better though, so no worries.  The couple I’m working for wanted me to work more days, so it worked out fine, actually.  I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that they really, really appreciate having me around.  I show my boss techniques in our graphics programs that he’s unaware of, and he shows me how to use the nifty machines we have in the building.  It’s a love-love relationship.  heh..   We’re graphics nerds.. it’s awesome.  It’s also quite nice to work for a man that isn’t afraid to ask questions from a woman, or take tips/suggestions on how to do things better/differently.  Refreshing.

Okay, I’m nearly done with the project I’m working on here, so I’m gonna clean up and head on home.  Hope you’re all doing well and having a good year so far.  I’m hoping next year looks up a bit.  I made this one entirely too rough on myself.  I think I just like hitting my head on my desk/wall/etc.  *shrug*  Masochist.  Maybe if I find all the hard ways to do things, I’ll end up figuring out what the easy ones were…

Not too much has changed recently. I applied for a tech support job with a fairly new company here in town. They haven’t learned the whole no tats/piercings/etc rule… muhaha. Anyway, I applied for the job through a temp agency, so I had an interview with the agency yesterday. They loved me, as interviewers are wont to do, and set me up an interview with the tech company. I, however, had gone out to lunch with my buddy Chris, and was unable to meet with them at the set time, so we made it later and voila, it all worked out.

[aside: For lunch, I had Pescado de la Veracruzana. It is steamed catfish over veggies, with rice and beans, and corn tortillas. By steamed catfish I mean, they took a catfish, flayed it, then steamed it. I had a fish on my plate. A real one, with eyes, teeth, tongue.. the whole shabang. It was an odd first time for me. I kinda poked at it for a bit, apologized to it a couple times, then ate it. Very tasty. More work than I'd like to put forth in my lunch hour though.]

Interview with tech company went relatively well, I’d like to think. I had a couple bonding moments with my interviewer. It was fine. I’m waiting to hear back from my temp company today to receive the verdict. I’m hoping to get this job, not because I think I’ll love it, but for probably two or so reasons: 1.) financial stability. it’s unknown to me at the moment. 2.) skillz. i will once again be able to troubleshoot without having to call all my sys admin friends and harass them for tech support info. 3.) a regular work schedule. 40 hour weeks. $11something an hour. it equals out nicely. i think the shift i signed up for was something like 12p-9.30p, tues-sat. meh. It’s something. Now if I could only get my temp company to write up the contract so that I can do overtime. Squee!

I just realized that I’m constantly posting about my jobs. Wanna know why? Because they bore me. If I find one that I’m happy with, I’ll regale you, believe it. But until then, I’m going to be on the constant job search. And, it’s a pretty benign topic to constantly post about. I’m sure you don’t want to hear all the whiny arguments my roommate and I have, so I save that for my personal journal.

A look into my personal life right now: Edward is currently staying outside until I forgive him for eating the tail off one of my geckos. I checked in on them yesterday because the top of their tank was askew (which means, it was on the floor, along with everything else that was on top of it), and holy crap, I thought one of the geckos was missing her head. That threw me for a loop for a moment. But no, it was just her tail stump. I was pissed. I grabbed Edward (after chasing him around the house), shoved his face at the tank, and knocked him over the head a couple times. Tough love. My cats know it. I’m a nazi when it comes to training my animals – I don’t put up with bad behaviour. They know what I’m saying when I speak at them, they should acknowledge it and respect it. Mm hmm..

What else is fairly benign that I could ramble about? Oh, my house. It’s a lovely old place that was probably put together in the 70s.. or 60s.. I’m not sure. Someone before us decided to paint the whole thing salmon pink. The whole thing meaning the interior. The exterior is white. But inside, it’s salmon pink with dark burgundy carpet. It’s horrid really. (Except my room and the back bathroom which is attached to both back bedrooms. The two rooms, mine and the bathroom, are blue. With an ugly blue gray brown carpet. I dont really remember what color the carpet is. I want to say something like tan.) I was sitting on my toilet one morning, as I am wont to do in the mornings, and the salmon pink painted wall paper really started to bother me.. so I ripped at it until it was all gone. Then I realized that my bathroom was that fake wood siding so prevalent in mobile homes. This was not acceptable at all either, so I took a couple pints of spackle and textured the walls. Until recently, I hadn’t the tools to actually prime it so I could paint over it, but now I do, and one of these days, I’m going to. Probably some time before the exterminators come to inspect the house for termites. Oh yeah, we have termites. They crawl in my bed and when I wake up, they are chillin’ on the pillow next to me. Did I mention that I am so terribly fond of the place I live? Mostly just the yard. If I could make my room in the yard, I probably would. After all the landscaping time my roommate and I have put into it, it’s nice. I installed a drip system so I wouldn’t have to work so hard to make it look pretty. I planted a bunch of cast-offs from the flower shop I worked at. I lined all the beds with brick so the sand and other soil debris would stay in the beds. I fixed the brick path through the little garden area so it looked more level and even. There’s still a low spot in it that I need to fix, but that’s another day, another burst of angry energy. My porch is decorated with some of those cast-offs that I’ve revived enough to look nice and healthy. It’s all coming together. That’s my favorite part of the house, the yard. So let’s recap: 1.) termites, yay! 2.) mice under the kitchen (whee!), 3.) no real insulation (woo hoo!). Some nights, we all cuddle together for warmth, all four of us. It’s good times.

Let’s see.. what else. Oh, if you saw me at all around the end of last year, you’ll know I had dreads/braids. Those got cut off somewhere around late december, but before my birthday. Why do I remember it was before my birthday? Because on my birthday, I had a pompadour and a faux hawk. Two things you can’t really do with dreads/braids. But, some fit of emotional drama caused me to cut off my lovely braids.. again. My hair has since grown out since then and is around my chin in a semi A-line bob. Good ol’ standby. If I get that tech job, I’ll probably put braids back in again, this time will be better than the last, however. Every time I do it, I learn something new. I’ll be a pro soon enough. Oh yeah, and my hair’s a natural color – brown. With a couple little blond highlights (professionally done, mind you) near my face. Very benign. I’m sure countless people would be both shocked and pleased by my calm hair these days. Then there are some of my newer friends these days who recount the days when they first met me again near the end of last year, and I had dreads, and they thought it was so nifty because it reminded them of their dreads… ah.. dreaded reminiscing. So we both, my friend and I, decided to regain our missed hair styles – a mohawk and dreads. Me with the dreads, and him with the mohawk, because that’s what he sported when I first met him. It’ll be grand. His mohawk was only greater because it was sported with an Uncle Donaldesque beard, if you can imagine that. Or perhaps he’d gotten rid of the beard before the mohawk.. I don’t remember. But he’s constantly reminiscing about his missing beard. (My friend, not Uncle Donald.) And, as I am not in a relationship and don’t have to listen to my partner whining about my braided hair (“I like your long, pretty hair! why the dreads?”), I can do it and sleep with my cat, and she’ll love me just the way I am. Dreads and all. I will, however, have to increase the frequency of flea baths for her, which might cause a drop in love for me. But my scalp will thank me, and it will be joyous!

I’m sure I’ve rambled enough for one post. I’ll leave ya to it. Hope you’re all having a great day.

current quest: self-love. world-love. and letting go of things.

The premise is there’s this male comic book artist (Ben Affleck) who meets this fellow comic book artist (Joey Lauren Adams) at a convention, and falls for her. He later finds out she identifies as a lesbian. Blows him away. They later end up hanging out a lot and eventually start dating because he realizes that he loves her, and she loves him, and happily ever after, right?

No. Ben’s character can’t get over the fact that when she was younger, she was a very.. ah.. experimental young lady. The idea that she was with women didn’t bother him so much as the fact that she had been with other men. Her past sexual experiences made him feel on the low rung, as though he didn’t, or couldn’t, measure up to her. He comes up with a ‘solution’ that is a horrible idea, and she lets him know this both verbally and by a well-deserved slap across the face.

I bring up this movie because in it, Ben’s character, Holden, wants her to be normal, to apologize for her past. He wants her to be the nice, normal girl that he can settle down with. What he doesn’t realize is that she is that girl, and her past has made her who she is today, but that it’s the past, and she is ready to settle down with him. He has this huge inferiority complex and botches the whole thing. She goes back to women, and he’s left alone, writing a comic about their plight and a year later giving it to her at that year’s Con.

Watching this movie was painful. My last relationship was very similar to Joey’s character, minus the lesbian-identification. My partner wanted me to apologize for my past, change into the nice girl that he wanted to settle down with, and in essence, not be who I am. He liked me because I am different – I am not the nice, sweet, church girl you bring home to meet your parents. I’m more likely to meet them and have a beer later with your dad while he cleans his guns. *shrug* I don’t have an apron, I don’t wear a set of pearls, and I don’t vacuum if I can avoid it. I have parts of my past that I’m proud of, and parts that even I kind of wince at now that I look back. I will not, however, apologize for any of it, nor try to make excuses for why I did things. Especially not to someone who likes me for being different, but not why I’m different.

I just felt like ranting. You should go watch the movie. Here, read an explanation of the movie by Kevin Smith.

Me in a box.

In that light, a friend posted a bulletin today about possibly needing someone for part time clerical work.  Yes, I know, I hate clerical work.  But it’s part time, and I could probably work that job around my other two.  Three jobs?  Yes, three jobs.  So I’m going to toss my resume at my buddy and see if that goes anywhere.

My buddy Kevin and I have been on a movie watching rampage.  Well, more like a moving watching swell.  There aren’t a huge amount, but it’s been a lot considering how often I go out to the movies.  (never.)

So, we watched Rendition – Jake Gyllenhall, Reese Witherspoon, Meryll Streep, etc etc.  Premise:  Man gets kidnapped by the states, is a suspected terrorist, and is sent somewhere in the middle east to be tortured for information.  Creeepy.  Reese, the wife, goes on a rampage about where her husband is and how to get him back.  Jake saves the day.  Meryll streep gets pissed off in Wicked Witch of the Icy North fashion.  We all leave the theater thinking – wow, I hate my govt for doing such things.  At least I did.  It was a bit more than that, but that’s the general gist.

The other movie was Gone Baby Gone – directed/partially written by Ben Affleck, starring Casey Affleck, some girl I can’t remember her name, Morgan Freeman, and some trashy tramp-stamped white chick.  Oh yeah, and Ed Harris.  Premise – White girl’s baby is taken from the house, Casey and other girl get hired to find out what happened.  There are some really dark parts of this movie.  Well, actually, the whole movie’s point is pretty dark, similar to Rendition.  Now that I think about it, they’re very similar.  Both playing with the notion of right and wrong, if there is a right and wrong.  Ends to a means and such.  GBG was surprisingly well done, Casey rocked my socks, and I give it two thumbs up.  There were moments in it where I felt like it could have ended – kinda like the latest Bond movie.. is it over yet?  No?  Oh, okay.  There just felt to me that there were numerous ways it could have ended.  I liked how they ended it, and how it ‘got done.’

I recommend both of them to my friends that have thought processes.  The kind that go beyond what pair of shoes to wear with what dress.  Yeaahh…

willing:  to be in the process of asserting one’s will

willing:  to be able and available without coercion; at one’s desire

Now, the way I meant the title was the first.  Tuesday I said that I would get another job.  Yesterday I got dressed rather nicely, delivered one resume, then stopped in to deliver another and voila, got a job.  Did I mention that when I’m interviewing or job hunting, I am rather charismatic?  Well, either charismatic or timid.  But apparently yesterday, I was charismatic.  The lady I work with here at the yard said that a friend of hers might be hiring.  Theirs was the shop I stopped at yesterday.

They own two stores: 1.) a personalization store – laser printing, engraving, heat transfer, etc., and 2.) a pretzel shop.  I will be humbled in my life, and it begins on Saturday.  They are starting me at the pretzel shop, and as it gets closer to the holidays and more busy at the other shop, they’ll transfer me over there to learn the skillz necessary to run the machines and work with their graphic programs.  Oh, did I mention that I have a graphics background?  Yeah, ’cause I kinda do.  ‘But, making pretzels?’ you ask.  Yes, I know.  It isn’t my finest hour, but like I said, it will be humbling.  I did ask for something entertaining, right?  How much more entertaining can you get than working in a mall at a pretzel shop?  Maybe if there were a monkey dancing on the counter at the pretzel shop.  That would be more entertaining.  Or maybe a monkey making the pretzels and me dancing on the counter.  Whichever.  I just needed a change of scene and time to go do the Graphic Design program at the college here, and they’ll work with me for my school schedule.  And, the graphic store is only about two miles from my house, so I’d eventually like to ride my bike to work.  The mall is across town, which is fine because it’s not that far, but easily within closer driving distance than this yard.  And if it occurs to me, I might try to track down my copy of the bus times and see if I can get on with the city transportation route instead of polluting the atmosphere by driving an extra vehicle around.  We’ll see.  That might be pushing it a bit.

Here’s where I leave money and internet for mental happiness.  Well, leaving the internet won’t = mental happiness.  But, I think you can figure out what I mean.

Adieu!

I just need to get my buns in gear. I spent the last weekend moping and swimming in my little pity party pool. I think it’s time to get outta there and make things happen. Get things Done!

In other completely unrelated nonsense…

While shopping last Wednesday at the thrift store, I found a ‘new’ costume for my Halloween costume – Janine from Ghostbusters I. I found an awesome, long, gray skirt, a black polka dot silk blouse, and some low pumps. *squee!* I wore the skirt last night to dinner/coffee and have fallen in love with it all over again. It’s very.. something you might find your grandmother wearing. Nice high waist, satinish lining, dark gray tweed type material. Sturdy. I love it. I just figured you would all agree. I feel so chic and good lookin’ in it.

I have recently figured out by process of elimination that most of my pants don’t fit quite as well as they should [read: at all]. The rest, my ‘comfy’ [read: baggy and too big] clothes, have since begun to fit… This is upsetting. So I feel less than appealing in most of my clothes lately and have taken to wearing a pair of huge, baggy jeans until they nearly stand up on their own. It’s easier than replacing my wardrobe since I don’t plan on staying at this quite-healthy [read: curvy] physique. Hence, my glee with finding this skirt because it both fits and makes me look good. With a nice, loose fitting sweater, I might even pass for casually glamorous.

Did I mention that I’m trying to start running and doing some tummy crunches? Sitting around moping does nothing for a young lady’s figure.

Okay, I’m off to home to ready myself for my big day tomorrow of job hunting. I will get another job. I will it.

Went out to the winery Sunday to talk to the ‘men in charge’ and they gave me this sort of hem haw excuse that they needed to reassess their needs and figure out how many employees they actually need, etc. o.O Hmm, ok.

So, I spent Monday and Tuesday trying to Get Things Done around the house. I arranged my office a bit better, filed some paperwork that had been sitting around, organized a craft box of sorts, put together a sewing box/kit, and then made a mess of it all by doing some sewing later that night and leaving all my scraps and such strewn about the floor. I’m a messy kitten. But, it is my office, so I suppose I can leave it in any order I please. It just makes it harder to find the lizards Edward lets loose in the house if I’m having to move things around every five seconds… I don’t like having to chase lizards in the house. I was pulling the drapes back in the living room the other day and hit something with my hand. I looked up and there was this bitty lizard without a tail that was holding on for dear life. I rescued him and returned him to the great outdoors. Then later had the ordeal in the office with a lizard that was quite a bit bigger and much faster. Not fun.

Wednesday was spent out and about with my friend Kevin as we ran some errands and grabbed some lunch. Needless to say, I didn’t get too much done around the house Wednesday. I did, however, get my drip system installed on Sunday. I woke up in a very motivated mood around 10 and finished them up around 3pm. My yard is coming together and is lookin’ good.

Okay, I need to get back to work. Looking at my credit report.

I have a new fetish for PDF’s. I’m going to copy a bulletin I made for my MySpace friends:

I’m on a PDF frenzy of reading while pretending to be working.. at work. In light of some quite interesting sites/pdf’s I have come across, I decided that my friends need to read interesting stuff once in a while. I know, Britney Spears is coming back out, Angelina Jolie is really skinny, and Amy Winehouse is a heroin addict. That’s great, guys. But how about stuff that might actually matter – In Your World?

Ok. So if you have Adobe Reader/Acrobat, click the links and read away! If you don’t, go download it and catch up with the technological age. Here we go:

Dirty Words and Dick Jokes (pdf will open)

What the Romans Didn’t Know: Overcoming Personal Constraints to Achieve Higher Performance and Fulfillment (link)

Mind of the Innovator: Taming the Traps of Traditional Thinking (link)

10 Writing Tips to Make Your Mother Proud (pdf will open)

The Turnover Dilemma: A Question to Keep Employees (link)

The Happy at Work Manifesto (link)

And that’s just the beginning.

If you have time, go to Change This and read some of their manifestos. They’re quite interesting on a variety of topics.

If you have more time, go to tiny gigantic and look through their site. Quite amusing.

Since I’ve decided I want to feel more secure in my life, I’m quitting my two jobs and opting for a third option: the winery. It is harvest season. Harvest is a two-three month season wherein the grapes are gathered, pressed, and I believe bottled. I’ll become more familiar with all this when I start.. at the end of this month. As of Monday, I have two weeks left at my current jobs. I had considered staying where I was, gaining some valuable skills that can only come with Time Spent at a Job, and building up a bit of loyalty.

Then I decided my own sanity was much more important, and my jobs are neither mentally challenging, or lacking in loyalty between my bosses and my self, so it seemed like an opportune time to throw in the towel. Both have said that if when I am done I want to return, there will more than likely be a place for me to fall back in line. All is not lost. I have not severed the ties horribly painfully. I told them straight out what I wanted to go do, that there was a time limit, and that if they needed me when I was done, that I would probably come back to serve them once again. I perform valuable services at my jobs, and I know it.

The flower shop doesn’t depend on me nearly as much, I am just the grease that keeps the wheels running smoothly. I make everyone else’s job easier by having mine completed in a timely fashion, sometimes even sooner, which allows me to assist the rest of the ladies with anything they might need.

The yard depends on me more since from 10-5 I am the voice behind the phone, I am the face behind the counter, I am the person keeping the books in some semblance of order, and I try to sort out the random craziness that occurs pretty much every day. My boss appreciates me and lets me know that. However, no amount of money offered would quiet the feeling in my body that this job is not a ‘career’ that I want to pursue. It’s fine, it’s good experience, someday I could probably do my own books when I make my own business. Until then, I’d rather not sift through other people’s disorganized bookkeeping.

Now, keeping with the idea of careers, I read a very interesting PDF (the dirty words one ref earlier) that had a section that touched a big piece of my heart. Because I enjoyed it so thoroughly, I’m going to add that section here:

FINDING THE RIGHT
CAREER IS CRAP
Everyone, at one time or another, has asked this
question: What careers are there that can satisfy
my creative drive?
The problem is, this is a bullshit question that will
only hold you back. Careers are not something
you find waiting for you downtown or across the
ocean or in a cave like some sort of holy grail.

Careers are something you make. You make
them with decisions about how you spend your
time and effort: which jobs to take (and how
long to keep them), what you choose to learn
about, what kind of community you participate
in, what activities you pursue when not working,
and so on. All of these are career decisions.

The question is bullshit because it presupposes
that the perfect job for your specific interests
and talents is already out there. Not that the
question isn’t a legitimate and answerable one. It
is. Unfortunately, the answer is almost always no.

Still, there’s a big difference between a job and
a career.

Sometimes, your job won’t support your career
at all. But you can make a whole career in your
free time, and that’s a good start. It’ll be up to
you to support it, and you may even need to
devote all of your time to it, leaving no time to
do paying work. In those cases, you either need
to rethink your career, or you’re gonna have to
pay yourself out of whatever savings you’ve got.
It’s scary, but hiring yourself is sometimes the
only way to do the work that you think needs
to be done. Its value (or worthlessness) will be
proven in the practice, and that proof will turn it
into a livelihood (or a hobby). Either way, you’ll
have taken your career into your own hands.

I am tired of hearing that I have to “find the right career”. If you ever say that phrase to me, or any rendition of it, you will immediately see my eyes glaze over, hear the big metal doors of doom slam down in my head, and I will suddenly find something interesting to stare at far off into the distance. Refrain from asking me what I want to do for a career. I agree with them on this one, and excuse my French, but “finding the right career” is merde.

I feel I am walking on a path of my future, and I am doing it the best to my ability. Everyone else’s choices are not mine, and I will find mine one at a time. I will also have to live with them and see how well or horribly they work out. Clarity comes to me occasionally, please don’t mud it up with things you think I ‘should’ be doing with my life because you think it’s what is ‘best’ for me. I appreciate criticism. I appreciate input. I appreciate the occasional wake-up call. But please mind your phrasing.

Now that I’m done dancing on my soapbox for the moment.. Here, take a glimpse into my personal life:

The man I love(d) for the past nearly three years has just decided that we are, in fact, done. There was quite a bit of drama involved in that whole mess, but it’s over. We both had a hand in that one, and I’m trying to learn from it and move forward.

The man I live with is an awesome friend who has showed me many times that I deserve wonderfulness in my life and should accept nothing less. He also taught me that it’s nice to have someone to come home to and share life with. Too bad neither of us are good at finishing house beautifying projects… hahah..

I’m just trying to figure out what makes me feel happy and content inside so that I can apply that to the outside. If it means turning my world upside down and going to work for a job for a couple months, so be it. Just don’t expect updates during those months because my workplaces are the only internet connection I have.

The sun creeps over the mountains at the Eureka Dunes

Reminding you that the day may die, but another will be reborn on the solar winds of sunrise.

so you’re still here.  amazing. 

news on the front:  I obviously haven’t done anything about my header images as of yet.  Again, it’s one of those things I’d need internet at home for.. or lots of time to put the files on a disc, fix them, then upload them.  My boss might look at me funny as I traffic discs to and from home.  “What’s that for?”  “um, image editing?”  “Hrrmmm.. [insert diatribe about personal stuff on work computer..]“  “Blah.”  He messes up the work computer more than I ever could, and he does it in swift, foul strokes.  “Hi, um, it said something about reformatting..”  “*smacks forehead*  Ok.  I’ll see what I can do.”  seriously.

So, until internet arrives in the house, no fixy fixy.

My boss is back from his trip!  I’m torn about how I feel.  One part of me feels joy – less customer crap to deal with.  The other feels completely ragged as he runs around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to do a million things at the same time, and then dumping all the information on me.  o.O   At least when he was gone I could get some work done in a fairly contiguous fashion.  Now it’s pick up something, start it, get interrupted by customer.  Pick it back up, phone rings, deal with whatever, hang up.  Try to pick back up but forget where I was, spend five to ten minutes slowing my thought processes so I can sit still long enough to start working again.  Boss comes in with a whirlwind and puts me back at square one.  Damnit.  That’s my day at the yard.  Every day I work there.  Mm hmm.

My day at the shop goes something like start working on a project, get pulled off to do something else.  Start another project, get told we don’t have enough time for me to be doing that and to do something else.  Yeah.  What do these two places have in common?  Crazy owners.    Yep.  And this next week at the flower shop will be crazy because we’re working on a wedding this weekend (I’m not, luckily), and a friend of the shop is having her wedding next weekend.  So next week at the shop will be madness.  Weddings = crazy.  And this lady has so much little tiny detail crap that she wants in her wedding – it’s ridiculous.  So, madness at the flower shop.

Other than that, life is good.  Edward the kitten is doing well.  Crackers has become a manic itcher, so she’s losing patches of fur.  I think it’s bath time again.

Next weekend I go down to LA to see some friends and help Will’s gf put her dreads in.  I made synthetic dreads, then taught her how, so she wants them for Burning Man.    How fun!  And, while I was down there last weekend, she taught me how to make hula hoops.  Hopefully she’ll help me make a big one next weekend, and I’ll put all her dreads in.  Should be fairly eventful.  I don’t, however, get to go down til Saturday eve because of the lady’s wedding.  I have to work to set up and be somewhat a part of the audience.  She’s kinda nutty and I could care less, but it’s a political thing I think.  Society thing.  Perhaps I’ll look fabulous and someone will notice and say, “My, you look splendid!  You should come and work for me and make lots of money..”    Yeah right.  But a girl can dream, right? 

I  leave you with a picture of the Furnace Creek Gardens in Death Valley.  Enjoy!

Hopefully the site works well and none of you have had too many problems. I haven’t heard a bad report except for the headers, but I already addressed that in the last post. So, I’ll take the lack of complaints and such as a good sign and move forward.

Still waiting for my boss to get back in the country and take the business back over. Having to manage it has been a lesson in .. well, something. I realize that I don’t want to own a business like this one, or if I do, that I’d have a lot of capital before I open the business so that I can sit more comfortably in the bank each month. But really, I’d rather just not have a business like this one. I deal with entirely too many snarky people, and I’m just not in the mood for that type of thing. I’d rather own a dusty old bookshop that I could live above and have a little tea cafe in the back/front. Maybe tea and coffee, I haven’t decided yet. Tea’s better for you. I think I’d have loads of different teas, fresh, loose leaf types, and then just a couple types of coffee. I don’t want it to turn into one of those stuffy connoisseur shops where people that are entirely too educated about their coffees come in to whine to me about how Jamalamaka is so much better than Havana Noche because of the blah blah [insert raised nose and too much free time]. Just order a cup o something tasty, grab a book, and sit down. I’m trying to take the stress Out of life, not give you another outlet for unloading it. Maybe I’ll have a little workout center next door so that when you’re amped on coffee, you can wander next door and make use of that fat burning caffeine rush. Whee! I’ll get my exercise from walking my ridiculously large dog that I’ll have living with me in my little loft apartment. It’ll be fabulous. And sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, my dog and I will wander downstairs to the workout room, put a movie in the projector, and I’ll tucker myself out while he snoozes in the corner. And when someone decides that they like me and perhaps wants more from life with me, well, they’ll just have to be a boring book reader too that loves ridiculously large dogs in tiny loft apartments with flower pots on the window sills and bird seed on the fire escape.

Note: I’m not as much of a book reader as I should be. // My partner will be. // And my dog will be of some variety like Dane or Newfy, and it’ll like to cuddle in bed when I sleep in too late because that will be the only way to wake me so that I take it out for his morning constitutional. // They will love the cat I have at the time as well.

Anyone else need a daydream? I’m sure I could conjure one for you. Or, perhaps you should let me know what yours are! Yes, yes. Tell me your daydreams!

2. trying to ignore the conflict of having header images messing with the font/roll overs in the header. might try to code it to be different, but until i am that snazzy, no dice. so, depending on what image is up there, you may or may not see either the title or the rollover buttons. this is me shrugging. *shrug*

3. i think i’m going to stick with this layout/style until i find something better. i went through nearly 50 themes yesterday to see what i liked, but i didn’t find any that made me nearly as happy as this one. there was another one that i might use in the winter season, as it is wintery looking, but until then, i like the randomized header and the functionality of this theme.

4. as you can see, there are journal entries already here. i imported my Blogger journal into here since it is the nicest [in terms of language and content] journal i have online.

5. i have it set so that the page only shows five entries at a time so as not to make you have to scroll for days. if you want to see more entries you can either go to a specific day on the calendar to the right. the days that have entries are highlighted. otherwise, you can go to the archives tab and sift through those.

6. i went through all the entries and tagged them so they all fit into categories. so if you’re looking for a post about something in particular, try looking through the categories, and if you want to get more specific, i have the live search turned on and it will pull up entries with the keywords of your choice. if you have any problems with the functionality of something, let me know and i’ll see if i can fiddle with it to make it work.

i leave you with a picture from the fire escape on the Monarch hotel in SF. enjoy!

see? terribly boring.

Anyways.. haven’t heard back from the phlebotomy thing yet. they’ll call if they want to do an interview. still working at the yard and at the shop. might work at the Volk winery in september during harvest season. long hours, lots of overtime, and a short stint of madness. it’ll allow me to save up some money, which would be fantastic. dad’s in the hospital for his shoulder surgery. went in on monday, but is still there since he’s a bit disoriented. not good. trying to figure out what i can do about this.. we’ll see.

ok. back to work. i’m really hungry.

So that’s that. Otherwise, I’ve been keeping myself busy watching episodes of Avatar, making polymer clay figures (bears, penguins, etc), and spent a little time last night making dread extensions for when I feel the need to “destroy my beautiful hair” again.. Jenny always cries to me about my hair when I put dreads or braids in it. Right now it’s chin length (just about), and dark brown. It was a natural color from growing out when I cut my dreads off in January, and then Jenny convinced me to highlight it. But then after a while, I just couldn’t handle the color anymore. It was lighter than I like after a while, and just wouldn’t lay right. So I dyed it. What’s new, right?

And the boyfriend and I are no longer together after all this time, but we’re still living together. It’s a good arrangement for both of us, and we split on good terms, so it’s not a big deal at this time. A big reason for the split was because we both have a lot to work on, and we’re probably not matched entirely as well as we could be. We’re still fond of each other after having known each other for nearly 9 years, so we’ll probably remain friends no matter what.

Ok, I need to do some paperwork. Adios!

1. the winery job was given to some older (and by old i mean ancient) fellow.
2. i got a job at a recycling/scrap yard. we recycle metals, cans, bottles, cars, and whatever. well, not whatever, but you get the idea. i’m the office manager/clerk. i don’t like this job. it’s a desk job, primarily, and i’m not a desk job kind of girl. ugh.
3. i got a job at a florist. i work tues/thurs receiving shipments of flowers, maintaining the flowers and plants that we have in the shop, and generally just being a lackey. even tho i get paid just above minimum wage, i like this job. i come home happier on these days than the rest of the week.
4. i was house sitting until, abruptly, may 20th. the daughter of the parents was coming home from school, so the mother demanded that jenny (my friend that was also housesitting with me) and i move out, asap. that set the ball in motion.
5. i have a boyfriend that i’ve been dating for the past couple months. nice fella, hard worker, treats me well.
6. in light of being kicked out of the house i was supposed to house sit for until the end of June, my fella and i moved in together. we have a nice 3bd/2ba mobile out in the countryside. our nearest neighbors are about an acre away.

so.. i work at a recycle yard mwf (sometimes saturday), and work at the florist tues/thurs. because i now have a yard, i’ve begun straightening it up and have quite a bit of planting to do. a friend of mine with a nursery donated a bunch of plants to me! it was awesome of them. i offered my services to them whenever i’m free to help around the nursery if need be.

oh yeah, and we now have a new addition – a kitten. my bf’s brother’s girlfriend works at the fair park, and there were a litter of strays she found. being the cat lover that she is, she found homes for the kitties. they took the sickly little runt, who has blossomed into a very nice, healthy, little kitty, and we took the other they picked out for us. he’s a little black kitten with plenty of spunk. i would guess he’s about six weeks old. oh yeah, his name’s Edward. his favorite past times are: eating mommy’s house plants, torturing Crackers (the other cat), attacking daddy’s face, and hiding in the shadows of our dark carpet and getting tripped over/kicked by accident. he also likes lazing about on whosever’s stomach on a sunday afternoon as we kick back and watch a movie. i have a picture of him that i took two days ago.. i might go get that roll made into a cd.. it’s only 99c, this month only! heh..

ok, i have mail to open and Quickbooks to update. bleh. I hope you’re all doing well! I’ll try to update more often.. it’s just been a zoo lately.

still looking for a job. applied to a vet’s office, but the idea that i might leave in six months didn’t appeal to them apparently, so i don’t think i got the job. i also put in my resume at one of the wineries here.. still waiting to hear back on that. might give them a call later today or tomorrow morning.

nothing much of notice to update you about. *shrug* what a boring post.

oh. but wait.
i updated her hair color. i think i’ve even added more to her, but meh.. i dont have the current version on this computer. perhaps another time, kids.

I have moved, as many of you know. If I sent you my address, well then, you have it and I don’t need to post it here. [edit].

Living here, things are going relatively well. I haven’t found a job yet, but I’m lookin! Updated my resume yesterday, just need to find a printer and print that baby out. I don’t know that I have much to update right now, I just figured I’d try to. Oh, I suppose I could post some of the coloring I’ve done lately. Lemme go grab those links..

let’s see, where to start. faire was a lot of fun. i left there sometime around nov 13th.. Crackers (my cat) was staying with a friend up in SF, but she wasn’t doing too well up there (fleas, depression, etc), so i brought her down to live with me in my tent. yes, in a tent. my kitty and i were pretty content. at least, she was.. she got to run around all day wreaking havoc with the squirrels and sleeping in other people’s trailers. she’s such a hussy.

other than my cat making friendly with other people’s beds, i got to pile lumber, shovel dirt, fill holes, tear down burlap canopies, drove a flatbed truck, and learned to drive a big ol’ forklift. yay for weird work experience!

since then, i went back to the desert, moped around, and generally was annoyed with being back here. went to santa maria for thanksgiving, stayed for about a week or so. and now i’m in the midst of packing to leave this place. and, since i haven’t told many people, i’d appreciate it if it were kept somewhat under wraps. when i finally get an address, i’ll post it for ya. until then.. mums the word.

other than the slackish packing, i’ve watched the entire first season, and i’m halfway through the second season of House. Yay. i think i’ll get back to watching it now.. see ya guys!

2. …i’m not sure what the rest of my points were going to be. *shrug*

Faire so far is fun. last weekend was opening weekend. nobody did really well, tho we did (monetarily) better the second day than the first. the ponies, however, were a bit more crazy the second day, so we had to deal with that. i have two girls working on my crew, lindsay’s 16, meredith’s 13. both very nice girls. lindsay’s a bit boy crazy and very into the ENORMOUS problems that come with being 16 (haha), but she’s a good worker. meredith strikes me as a somewhat sheltered girl, odd since she’s at Faire and there’s quite the drama that goes on.

for the sake of privacy and legality, i’ll leave out one of the more dramatic stories that surrounded one of the other girls that Was going to work for me… *rolls eyes* I sometimes wonder what parents are thinking when they raise their children.. or forget to raise them, as the case may be. *sigh*

i met two very entertaining hippy folks up on the hill where i’m camped out. they fall into the whole anarchist activist hippy artist category.. if there is such a thing. the gentleman (and because of the nature of our conversations i’ll leave his name out) is very much a talker and i think i finally dragged myself away last night around 1130. he goes on about living in the wilderness, the psyche, the emotional connectivity of blah blah blah, the dialectic, politics, all sorts of stuff that would take me hours to recount. he reminds me of a more ‘out there’ david (ex). he and his partner (wife?) were talking to me about colloidal silver and going on about all the healing/preventative aspects of it. i raised my eyebrow at this since they were so highly touting it. hence the library. i wanted to research this silver stuff before ingesting it as happily and merrily. so far the only downsides is argyria (silver/blue skin – after years of large doses) and the possibility of intestinal ulcers. in large doses (and we’re talking about drowning rats intravenously), there is threat of coma, pleural edema, hemolysis, toxicity to bone marrow and the possibility of agranulocytosis. since i dont think i’ll be drowning myself in the stuff or shooting it up, i think i would be ok. the only slight drawback, which, to me, is a very curious thing, is the argyria. the gentleman i’ve been speaking with has very piercing blue eyes, but healthy-looking tan skin. (there are those older people with the tan skin that look like you could stretch their skin over about three people it’s so leathery and icky looking.) after researching the silver, i think that it has deposited somewhat in his eyes, which is not detrimental, which gives more of a silvery pierce to them. they both seem to be healthy and full of vitality. they’re traveling muralists, which i think she got him into, so they’ve traveled up and down california, into mexico, up the oregon coast, washington, and into montana. and i think they’ve also wandered over into new mexico and arizona, but i’m not sure.

as i only have an hour on this machine, i’ll have to cut it short for now. hopefully i’ll be able to talk more about the faire and less about the anarchist hippies that i’ve been hanging out with. lots of faire goers, people that are working at the faire. i think we had about 1500 people wander through, which isn’t a lot. hopefully as the faire picks up we’ll have more so i can make my boss better money. and hopefully the ponies will stop being crazy.

ok. ta ta! off to go run more errands.

I found out last week that my contract at work finishes at the end of this month. that means that unless my company found me something to do (that i wanted to do), that they’ll have to release me. i’m oddly ok with this. wanna know why?!

It’s Ren Faire Time! Yaay!

That’s right. I am going up north to Casa de Fruta to work the Ren Faire from Sept. 9th – Oct 15th. And if you’re cool at all, you’ll come up and visit! Or just come up to see what a Faire’s all about and hang out and ogle at all the interesting costumes/characters.

You’re asking what I’m going to do up there. Well, on Thursday of this week, I’m going to go meet up with my future bossman and go be the Pony Ride Manager. It’s such a ridiculous idea, I think it’ll be loads of fun. And those of you that know me well will shake your head and say, ‘Well, that’s Jen.’ Others will just stare at me like I’m insane.

They’re getting the wireless network set up there, so I should be able to keep this updated as the weeks progress. I think it’ll be a lot of fun. My friend Angie will be there working with me on the weekends, so I’ll try to snag her laptop and update this as time provides. During the week I’ll be doing whatever I can to keep myself out of trouble. >:D I’ll probably find some vendor that needs some help during the week and see if I can make some extra money. And since my laptop’s out of commission (unless of course someone wants to donate about $400 for a new motherboard.. or just a new laptop), I’ll be email and internet-less all week. I will, however, have electricity (crosses fingers) rigged to my tent, so my cell phone should be on and charged for the duration of my absence.

I’ve been having fun buying supplies for the trip up there. I bought a lil Weber grill for the campsite and random other fun things that I had until yet not purchased. Here’s a link to my Camping List. If you feel so inclined, you can look at it and make suggestions. I suppose I should check off all the things I have so far.. *time elapse* I bolded all the things I’ve taken care of or have on hand here somewhere. I also spent a couple moments this morning going over a short food list. And if I had brought it down the hill with me, I’d post it, but I forgot it, apparently. I’m thinking, easy to cook non-perishables. *nods* And with the fruit/veggie stand just next door, I can have all fresh fruits and veggies that I want. whee!

Okay, I’m off to get stuff done for the day. Adios!

–

Edit [a couple days later]:

Okay, foodstuffs:

Bisquick
muesli
dried fruits
grain cereals
cheerios
dry soy milk?
powdered coconut milk?
protein powder (i’m lazy and don’t always like making a real meal)
pasta
cous-cous
rice
tea
oatmeal
dry soups
instant pudding
granola bars
curry powder (y’know, for all that Indian food I’ll be making..)

[unfortunately, this image is no longer available at the site it was posted at. hence, it is lost.]

i think i’m going to do another version with an icy blue eye. i think that would flow better with the black/greys.

1. in the winter, my heater is useless. unless you live in the living room or the hallway. old houses have wall mounted heaters that are useless to anyone but the wall they’re installed in. needless to say, the heat does not reach the bedrooms, and when it’s 30ish outside, it becomes evident just How useless the heater really is.

2. i do not have central cooling either. i have a swamp cooler in the hallway, that luckily blows mostly into the two bedrooms (mine and my roommate’s). (i just decided that i should live in the hall closet.. that way i’d be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. yay.) but the rest of the house, the kitchen, living room, back bedroom, are rather toasty. quite toasty, in fact. nearing the 90s sort of toasty. it’s a bizarre little house i’ve got.

3. as mentioned before, the phone jacks don’t work. why? i’m not sure. they just don’t. and i don’t think we even have phone jacks in our bedrooms anyways. i’m pretty sure it’s just the living room that has a phone jack. and it’s behind the couch. the whole kitchen arrangement works out well though, so i don’t fret. only thing that might be somewhat of an inconvenience (to my roommate), is that the phone has to be in the kitchen as well, so if it rings and he doesn’t have it in his room, he has to get up and walk across the whole house to answer it. (i have a cell phone. i don’t bother with the house phone unless i lose my cell phone..)

4. half (or at least half) of the windows in the house wont open. or shut, once you do get them open.

5. we don’t have sprinklers (underground) to water the lawns, but my landlords keep looking at the lawns in a sad sort of way as they watch it kind of dwindle. what we do have is 90+ degree weather 7 days a week, full-time jobs, and an intrinsic distaste for standing outside watering the lawns by hand. if anyone has any constructive suggestions, it would be appreciated. i was considering designing an above-ground pvc sprinkler system with black pvc so that it wasn’t so ugly and obtrusive, but so it would be easier to get the lawns watered. it’s the desert. there aren’t supposed to be bright green lawns. xeriscape for heaven’s sake. it’s usually ugly, but efficient and environmentally friendly. (secretly, i’d love to have a luscious green yard like my neighbor, but he has trees and shade and all sorts of factors working in his favor.. darnit.)

ok. enough about my quirky house. it’s funny, i’ll just say that. oh yeah, and there’s no insulation in the ceiling. because i’m pretty sure the ceiling is directly under the roof.. as in inches, not feet.

but back to computers:

so i asked a friend if he still has the 50ft of ethernet cable i gave him so that i can hook up my comp to the router for a bit while i install some necessary progs to get Ubuntu to notice my wireless. silly thing.

other than that, my computery friend also gave me an enclosure for the hard drives from my other computer so i can hook it up externally and transfer info that way. woot! he totally hooked me up, and i’m stoked.

work:

still boring. waiting to hear back about my contract to see if i can get back on base. i guess they’re rewriting it. i don’t know what’s going on.

randomness:

i was talking to my friend jenny the other day, and normally i don’t really listen to her because it sounds something like ‘blah blah like totally blah blah like blah like blah blah blah..’ (you see now why i dont listen.) anyway, she actually said something that perked my attention in a roundabout way. it went something like this (in a very condensed version):

i was having a conversation with my mom and it went like this:

me: jen’s in town.
her: oh yeah? what’s new with her?
me: nothing, really..
her: whaat?! jen’s always doing something interesting. hasn’t she travelled lately?
me: no, actually.
her: well what’s she been doing? is her hair at least abnormal colours?
me: *laughs* yes, of course it is. but, she hasn’t been doing much of anything (outside of the norm of job and such).

and i realized, you haven’t been traveling at all lately! what’s going on with you? that’s what you do! you travel. you’re a gypsy.

and i have to say, it hit a chord with me. i, and everyone else, keep/s trying to put me in this degree/career/settledown box, and it chafes me. i think everyone has a role to play in life. there needs to be business people. there needs to be teachers. etc. i’m not entirely sure what my role is at the moment, but i dont feel especially compelled to go and get more education for degree’s sake, and settle into a career, and spend my life doing that one thing. i just don’t believe in that right now, and i balk at being pushed in that direction. i’ll figure it out, just give me time. i have my whole life. i’ll do something, don’t worry. just don’t push. i have to wander for a while.. and that’s what i’m doing.

my dinosaur pc has called it quits as well. it wont boot into normal mode. i can only get it to boot into safe.. and that doesn’t allow me online. if it’s not one thing it’s another, eh? my work computer, however, is now operational. i must’ve done something right because it is working just as it should.. and i finished my research and turned in my project. yay.

the thing i applied for? no dice. i didn’t get it. this is me shedding a tear. *tears fall* bummer!!

on other more interesting and happy news notes, a new friend is giving me a computer. yes, giving. i know, it’s crazy, right? i’m ecstatic. i’ll just have to connect my dinosaur and this new one together and see if i can get all the files to transfer over without a hitch. *crosses fingers*

gah i want a shower right now. my office’s a/c is out, so i sit here with a little fan blowing on me all day. it gets 90+ in here.. not cool. so at the end of the day i’m all sticky and smelly and not so cute. it’s great. :
anyways, just wanted to update the crowd on the goings on. if i think of anything else i’ll let you know.

new layout, with profile over there —>
and a new picture to boot. it’s oh so current, even. the other layout was just so… bland. although i’m not too fond of the green they use in the ‘about me’ section. and i could fix it.. but i’m not that energetic right now.

ok, back to fixing this computer.

Here’s everything that’s going on:

1. Tomorrow is the 30th. Tomorrow I find out about my secret squirrel mission. Remember that thing that I mentioned a while back ago that I applied for and was waiting to hear on? Yep. This is it. So, tomorrow, I’ll know.

2. Work: Ugh. I’ve been fighting my work computer’s viruses for almost a week now. Well, no, it has been a week. Double Ugh. Hopefully it should be sorted by the end of the day so I can get on with my research.
Oh, I’ve been working off-base in my company’s office doing salary level research for different positions within the company. It’s terribly interesting, I know.

3. My laptop hates me. I fear it has come to the end of it’s life. So soon. And at such a terribly inconvenient time. I’m sitting here trying to save money and here it is giving me all kinds of grief, like dying. If it’s not one thing it’s another, right? Anyone want to donate..oh.. $1500 for a new laptop? yeah.. i didn’t think so.

4. In light of my laptop kicking the bucket, my dinosaur of a PC has become my main computer. Here’s the really annoying part: I was going to get rid of my PC so that I could be fully mobile with my laptop, so when I bought a wireless card, I bought it for my laptop and then just networked the two together. With my laptop out of commission, I now have no internet connection for my PC. *le sigh* AND, I gave my 50ft. networking cable to a friend for some stuff, so it’s been traded away. Again with the saving money thing, I don’t want to have to buy a new networking card!! But my internet addiction is so strong, I will probably do that on Monday. (I’ll be gone all weekend, otherwise I’d do it tonight.) Anyways, all in all, laptop dying = inconvenience to my plans.

5. The ‘supposed’ website I’ve been working on: I haven’t had time. When I was on base I had much more time to uh.. nevermind. I just haven’t had time. Which is also why I haven’t updated here either. But now I am because I’m waiting for this computer to finish it’s virus scan.

6. If I don’t succeed in the endeavour that I applied for, I’m going to try to get a job as a maintenance person for cellphone/etc towers. It’s highly dangerous but pays really well. Hence, save money and travel. And work in horrible conditions: middle of desert in the hottest part of day (not uncommon to me), in any sort of storms, any time of day, really. Imagine a yucky weather scenario – I’ll be up 50ft fixing a tower. Sound joyous, eh? Honestly, it sounds a heck of a lot more interesting than desk jobs, so I’m all for it. I’ll keep you updated.

And, for now, that is all.

it’s a new layout only because i’m at work and this was the quickest way for me to fix it. probably only a few of you saw the mess that it was for the past few days, so the rest of you don’t know what i’m talking about. but for those of you that did see it, here’s what was going on:

the mess that you saw was the absence of a template, and was just pure entries. i was trying to publish this blog to my website so i could have all the entries archived. i will eventually (when my friend gets the database on the server up) move my blog to the server and have it on my web page, but until i get all that done, it’ll be here. if and when i move it, i’ll let you know the address so that you aren’t lost. if i can swing it, i might even figure out how to put a forwarding address or something.

for now, i need to get back to ‘working’. see ya!

so i left saturday morning and cruised down in the blustery mojave wind and arrived about three hours later at my destination. (my truck doesn’t like the wind. she gives me mean looks when i make her drive in it. i swear!)

it was a pirates of the caribbean theme, so everyone there had to have some sort of piratey gear on. (i forgot my eyepatch at home.) i didn’t, so I was thrown into the dungeon! oh noes! actually, it was fine because there was a bubblemaker next to me and the wind blew all the bubbles into the cage with me. so i stood around and popped soap bubbles for a while as they flew by. but then i was let out on bail, but warned that i needed to don some piratey gear or else i’d be thrown back into the clink! arrh! so i snagged some tickets from Gary and had a bright red anchor tattooed on my shoulder.. no, it wasn’t a Real tattoo.. just the kind that washes off when one jumps in a pool, or jacuzzi. and that is precisely what i did. jumped into the pool and jacuzzi all day long. it was a great time! saturday i successfully covered myself in spf 50 so as not to burn (i’m very white), but on sunday i decided that a bit of sun couldn’t hurt, so i laid out for a bit and you can ask my knees, a bit of sun really can hurt. *mournful nod*

after a bbq and jacuzzi time in the evening, i trekked back home and returned to civilization. *sigh* it was a Very relaxing weekend though.

oh, and on Monday i saw Da Vinci Code with my mom and jeff. it was pretty good. i was surprised, but also delighted. if you haven’t read the book, i’d suggest it, although they did a commendable adaptation. it’s been a couple years since i’ve actually read the book, so i don’t remember Everything they left out, and it seemed like they hit the main points, so i’m not going to complain.

and now, i think i’m going to go take a break and eat an orange. *wipes sweat off brow* work is sooo tough.. pff. yah right.

in other news, i’m having a fairly good time at work. i’m working on base now instead of a satellite office, so i am now officially a ‘baseroid’, tho still a contractor, so i haven’t completely gone over to the dark side. on the good side of things, my boss is an attractive, intelligent fellow who’s against ‘the man’, so to speak, which is a relief. if i had an android for a boss, i’d be a bit more than annoyed.

and on the side and completely hush hush, i just turned in an application for an internship with a school in vermont. the due date for it is june 1st, and i’ll know on the 30th if i got the internship. if i get it, i’ll fill you in. otherwise, we’re going to pretend that i never applied. this information is classified. you are the privileged few. don’t abuse that privilege.

ok, now, i sleep. see ya!

i figure, i travel around a lot and i hate paying rent for a place that usually is in major need of repair for one thing or another, but i end up living there because it’s cheap enough for me to afford. so i’ve been looking into yurts because they’re quick and easy to put up, they’re portable (if i want to move, i just pack it all up and either haul it or ship it to my new place), and for just me, i think it’s a reasonable housing option. i’ve been sitting here pricing them out, figuring what amenities, etc, that i’d want, and the best price i’ve come across is about $7,586 by a company called Colorado Yurts. And I’m gonna break it down for you so you can see what all I’m including in that:

• 16′ diameter yurt – includes latticing, center ring, rafters, etc.
• Extra durable outer covering – it’s the desert, I think it’s kinda necessary
• Roof Insulation – again, heat/cold – yes, please insulate.
• Wall Insulation – again, heat/cold
• Cistern System – catches water/run-off and deposits it in a cistern or some other sort of water holding container that I provide
• Stovepipe Outlet – I figure a potbelly stove or something of that effect for heating/cooking during winter (a hot plate for cooking during summer)
• Window Door – my front door would have a half-window
• Dome Lifter – makes opening the dome on the roof easy to open from floor level (instead of needing a ladder, etc)
• Tinted Dome – desert sun, bleh.
• Window Insulators – detachable, mostly for winter warming (like double-paning)
• Ceiling Fan Mount – essential during summer, and will push warm air down during winter

all that and a bag of chips. the only things i’d have to worry about would be making a platform for it, which, with all my mechanically inclined friends/engineers, i think wouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. i’d be able to set up water inside and have a kitcheny type area. since you’re not the only one wondering about toilets and showers, i’d probably build an outside bathroom area (yes, inconvenient, but that’s what being a weirdo’s all about) for the shower and toilet. i would try to hook up the shower to a grey water system for a garden out back (i plan ahead). i read this Wired article about this chick that had a ‘composting toilet.’ i’d never heard of one, but thought, “Wow, that’d be useful for the garden tooo!’ (i just found a site about composting toilets. if you’re so inclined, check it out! this page i linked is mostly the benefits and such.) here, in fact, is a great example!

anyways, this is something i’m toying with and mostly just wanted to post this for my own future reference (links and such). if you happen to have extra money lying around and feel like donating some toward a ‘jennifer’s yurt fund’, (haha), feel free. just comment or email and i’ll give you an address.

i am working on a website for myself. i finally figured out that my friend got my domain set up, so i’ve been industriously trying to make my layout kosher. it had a couple bugs (no doubt from my sloppy code editing), but as soon as i figure out what all i want on there, and actually get it all there, then i’ll open it up to you guys and you can say ‘wow jen, so industrious!’ and i’ll nod and smile, and you’ll all give me shiny gold star stickers.

oh yeah, and i got a new job. i’m a ‘document control clerk’. i’m a base-roid. well, not quite. i work for a company that contracts with the base here in town. i have my own lil office with a desk and computer and everythin’! i have the whole little office to myself, keys and all. first day on the job and he hands me keys to the office.. wowza. but yeah, all alone in the office all day doing inventory on random documentation. it’s oh so.. exciting. (not really the word i’d use, but i’m getting paid and it’s more than minimum wage, so i’m just gonna hush.) right now they have me as a temp employee, but i think if it continues to be a cake walk, i might just have them make me permanent and up my pay a bit. *shrug* sure, why not, right?

ok, back to coding. and in the mean time, here’s a funny picture of me.

oh, i also spent nearly 6 or so hours colouring this picture. no, i didn’t draw it, but the line art is there. i really enjoyed colouring this pic, and although i’m used to using CS, adobe Elements proved not to lack too much in necessary colouring tools.

oh yeah, and if you want to see a bigger version (click on the pic), with more detail, let me know and i’ll either email it to you or link you to where i have it posted on the web. enjoy!

just (literally) walked in the door from my trip back east. ‘trip back east?’ you say. yep, i went back east. new jersey to be exact. i don’t remember if i mentioned it at all before, but my most recent exbf (david) moved back east to work on his digital animation demo reel (peace and quiet) and to visit with his dad for a while since they haven’t seen each other in years. and seeing how i don’t much like living in the desert, it was a nice escape for a week. new jersey is beautiful.. in areas.. much to my surprise. i always hear people bemoaning new jersey for some reason, but i found it quite pleasant. perhaps it’s the old brick architecture, or just the fact that the architecture back east is a heck of a lot more interesting than it is out here. could be. anyway, had a lovely time. i took the nice weather with me, apparently, because it nearly 70 the whole time i was there. i called back here on friday and it was a bit blustery and cold and miserable. i giggled. but yeah, beautiful weather was a very nice addition.
we wandered through Philadelphia (briefly) and went to the Mutter Museum and saw all the babies and body parts in jars. it was terribly interesting. does it make me want to go into medicine? not if people are alive, no. i wouldn’t mind carving open dead people, but i don’t want to deal with the live ones. i think my favorite part was this dried corpse they had hanging behind glass – you could see all the main veins and just all sorts of creepiness. it was great. i also enjoyed seeing the baby skeletons from 2 months to birth. little creepy pygmy skeletons is what they looked like. spoooky.
we also went to the Reading Terminal Market which was oh so joyous. it’s this indoor marketplace with little nooks filled with restaurants, produce, teas, and all sorts of random other food type items. very pleasing! i went to the Spice Terminal and bought some teas since, well let’s face it, ridgecrest isn’t the hub of culinary genius, so getting fresh spices or teas is unheard of as far as i know. i mostly cared about the teas they had there – sow mee white tea, cherry blossom tea, and jasmine tea. *this is me doing a little excited tea dance – it’s complicated* needless to say i was thrilled.

other than that philly trip, we also went to see movies which will follow with reviews:

Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor) – A ‘fantasy thriller’ set in present day Moscow where the forces of Dark and Light battle and try to keep each other in line. It actually wasn’t a bad movie. I hadn’t heard much about it or anything at all, but it proved to be rather good. I wouldn’t go around recommending it to just anyone, however, since I’d get bad reviews back. If you like movies like Blade, Underworld, etc, it’s in that sort of vein (no vampiric pun intended – although there are vampires in this movie as well). It’s not Just about vampires, there are also changlings and other branches of creepy night people. One girl’s even an owl. Newayz, yeah, if you’re into the dark, fantasy type movies, then go see it. If not, don’t bother.

Ultraviolet – Milla Jovovich and special effects, ie guns, skinny model girl doing cool stunts and kicking ass, helicopters exploding, motorcycles driving on buildings, etc. Now, coming from a manga, I suppose I couldn’t expect much. It seems like they started making the movie and said ‘hey, let’s do cool special effects with colours and clothes and hair and stuff. yahh!’ and they did. and then toward the end of the movie they said ‘oh, uh, i think we’re running over our budget. let’s hire some lackey to finish these effects up so we can pay him less..’ and they did. david said that he could have probably done the fire and smoke and stuff in the last scene. i agreed and said he probably could have done better.. and he has fewer ‘cool’ options in his promgrams to work with. so yeah.. it definitely lacked. it’s a renter.

16 Blocks – Bruce Willis and Mos Def, an odd combo, i know. it turned out to be a pretty good movie. i say ‘really good’ rarely, so pretty good is as best as it’s going to get today. it’s not something i’d buy because it’s not really my genre of choice, but if it were, i’d buy it. Bruce acted well and looked like hell through the whole movie, and although Mos Def’s voice annoyed the hell outta me, he did really well also. (i also have a slight thing for mos def because i think he’s a cutie, but shh.. that didn’t tip my judgement). but yeah, two thumbs up and all that snazziness. i’d recommend it to the average person.

The Libertine – Johnny Depp.. i purr for you. this i would Definitely not recommend to the average person. i enjoyed it, but in a sort of ‘wow, did he really just say/do that?’ it’s vulgar, sexually explicit, and very dirty (in a sort of cleanliness sort of way, not bad school girl way). but i liked it, yes, and would at some point probably add it to my small movie collection. but for those of you who might be at all sexually inhibited, go see it and be indignant. for the rest of you, enjoy.

and now you’re wondering if all we did while i was there is watch movies. eh, not entirely. one day we watched UV and Lib one after the other with dinner in between. there were just movies he and i wanted to see and well, why not go see them together? so we did.

other than travel, i’ve just been working at painting houses again and taking ceramics. oh, and working out nearly every night. it’s a very calm, quiet, hermit sort of life and i enjoy it immensely. i’ve found that working out a lot has helped with mood elevation. also, i’ve limited my daily intake of human interaction to about 5 people a day. having so little to deal with or worry about also helps with mood elevation. life gets easier.

now, i am tired and want a nap.

updates? suree!

still living at the house i posted pictures for. cool cool. jarl moved out, my friend jared moved in this month, and it’s off to a good start.

school started up again in january. i’m taking intermediate ceramics and intermed. photo. as i take and print photos that i like, i’ll have jeff (my stepdad) scan them and i’ll post them here so you can all see what i’m up to. and, if i make some really incredible ceramic pieces, i’ll take some digital pics of them and post them as well. i’m not sure how into that sort of thing you guys are, but eh, i’m sure you’ll deal.

i made this really big ugly bowl today in ceramics. we watched an old video on korean potters and making … aw crap i forget what the name of the pot is called.. i want to say kichi.. it’s some kind of food they make at a certain time of year and put into these large pots. by large i mean at least 3 feet tall, if not as taller. newayz, they make a base for it then make coils (long ~4′, thick ~3″, spaghetti noodle type rolls) and make it into this huge pot in less than 15 minutes. it’s amazing to watch. it inspired me to do similarly, although not to such a degree in heighth or style of making (there’s a lot more to it than just making coils and voila, a pot).. so i hand made some coils, a base, and sat down and made it up and then tried to even it out, but i should have done that all along instead of after i put all the coils together.. so it was fighting me the whole time. i knew better.. and now i Really know better. anyways, i figure i’ll glaze it nicely and make it into a planter to put on the stump in my front yard. it needs colour out there.. quite drab.

other than that, i quit my job at the newspaper i was working at. now i’m painting houses again with jeff and his crew. we were talking to a lady the other day who was doing faux painting in a house we were working in, and she might be needing a crew or at least some help, so jeff offered me up to her and she threatened to take him up on it if she gets too busy to do the jobs by herself. i thought that’d be pretty neat. a bit more artistic and different than just throwing paint onto a wall day after day, y’know? i enjoy house painting though. i get a lot of quiet time while i’m painting and feel exhausted at the end of the day, but in a good way.

there isn’t much else i can think of.. boyfriend figure moved back to new jersey for a while, so that whole love life part is gone at the moment. oh, i made new years resolutions:

1.) stop smoking (should i even put this here? yes, i smoked occasionally, but no, wasn’t addicted. it was like social drinking, not a habit, just a convenience.)
2.) stop drinking (because smoking and drinking go hand in hand.)
3.) no dating for at least 3 months, if not 6 (it’s a good thing, i swear.)
4.) go back to being mostly vegetarian (i slacked.. i was mostly vegetarian a lot of the time, but not nearly as much as i should have been.. *shrug* but now i am.

and i’ve stuck to all of them. david, exbf, said that i shouldn’t make so many because if i lose one, i lose them all, but i disagreed. they all are so much more weighty with the others on their backs that i feel more compelled to keep them. and there have definitely been times when i’ve wanted to break them.. especially the first two, but eh, i’ve stuck to my guns.

on other notes, i’ve been reading Lao Tzu’s The Way of Life, which I’ve found to be a very fascinating book. if any of you are familiar with it, you’d understand why. but so in accordance with that book, i’ve been trying to change other things about myself to make me a better person. keep trying to shove the skeletons back into the closet.. and i wonder sometimes, ‘does everyone else have this many?!’

and on that note, i need to go watch a video for my photo class, so i’m off. have a great day/evening!

This is my dead, desert lawn. Feel the cold, bitter wind. Oh yeah, this is the backyard, on the left, you see a door with bricks next to it. That’s my shop behind the garage. If you follow that wall, you come to a door after a white fence, that’s the laundry room. Then the big window you see is in the ‘office,’ which connects to the rest of the house through french doors opposite to the laundry room. If you need more explanation, ask.

This is my house! It’s quirky, I know.

This is the walkway up to my front door..

yes, i realize it’s seemingly been forever since i’ve updated. here are the reasons:

school has been hectic. i’m was back to three jobs, now back down to two. school just ended, which is great. i moved out of the house i was staying and now have a house of my own which i share with my roommate. no, i didn’t buy it, i rent it. hence, no internet connection. when i do get internet up, i’ll post up pics of my new house because my roomie and i specifically took pics just for you guys..

other than that, i’m sitting here hanging out with my mom and jeff and aunt nancy and don. they’re all doing really well. nancy and i have spent the whole evening talking about eastern philosophy and religion. i feel great.

i guess my sister’s on vidchat in the other room (kate) so i’m going to go join them before i go off for the evening and run to the store to get more cheese for my friend to smoke. mm.. smoked cheese. you know you’re jealous. Oh yeah. i have my own personal smoked cheese supplier. muhahah.. and he makes wonderful candied tri tip. yes, i’m vegetarian, but i can still appreciate good meat. especially when it’s from a butcher and not from the grocery store.

oh, and no, gary, the fasting didn’t kill me. it didn’t last nearly as long as we were hoping. apparently jarl and i are bad fasting partners. i think the second or third night we decided that enchiladas would be a good idea, so we went and got enchiladas. *nods* we’re weak.

next on agenda: plan ascetic trip through central america to end in peru at macchu picchu. it’s time to check out the ruins.

ok, off to say hi to kate.

Oh, and Merry Christmas/Qwanza/Hannukah to every one! And have a great new year!

Starting on the 3rd of November my friend Jarl and I decided to fast until Thanksgiving. Instead of just fasting, we both decided to give something up for the duration of our fast as well. He gave up cigarettes. Then it was my turn to give something up but I don’t have many vices in that sort of manner, at least not something equal to the addiction of a cigarette. At least that’s what I thought.The Internet. He took the Internet away from me. I’m allowed to check my email, as long as it’s work/family emergency/school related, and I’m allowed to research as needed for school or work.

So, if you comment between here and Thanksgiving, or send me an email between here and there, likelihood is, I won’t reply. It’s not because I don’t have the time or don’t want it, it’s that I can’t.

And when this all is over, I’ll give updates. Luckily I set up my email box to be able to post to my blog. >:) Anyway, not really even supposed to be doing this either, so I’m gonna go drink some tea and read Frankenstein.

so for now, i’m staying in the desert. talked to a counselor the other day and she says i only have two more classes if i wanted to get a UC transferrable degree. two friends and i are trying to get a job (them) and a place to live and if it’s only one more class, well then, i think i can stay and do that.

more later, sleep now.

School’s going well. My Honors English class just finished reading Batman: The Dark Knight. It was enjoyable, and to all you kids at heart, you should read it. Good story of good vs. evil, old age vs. youth taking over, etc. My other class.. I dunno. I’m not even sure what the point of it is. I asked the teacher and he just kind of ranted off about stuff. *shrug* ah well.

some interesting news: i received a job offer from a friend in Santa Maria at the Times. i put in an application last week (actually got it to the HR person yesterday), and she emailed me today asking for an interview. i’m going to try to head over there sunday night to do an interview on monday. and after that, we’ll see what happens. i think it’s kind of in the bag, but who knows. i could throw up on the interviewer from being so nervous. *laughs* probably not.

in a way, the job offer was disappointing because David and i worked things out finally and are doing rather well. now this job comes up and it would be good for me for a couple reasons: stability in environment, stable better pay, nice climate, have a place to live and a room of my own.. and then the bad reasons: have to finish school via email with my instructors, couple of ppl in santa maria that i’m not terribly fond of (tho there are some here too.. so that’s an even scale on that point), have to leave my friends here, leaving david.

by stability in environment i mean that instead of working three jobs hectically and trying to do school, i’d have a regular, every day schedule that didn’t change. this three job thing is killing me. i’m so scatter-brained. i nearly burned the house down one night because i left my tea boiling in a pot on the stove. then last night i was cleaning and ended up exhausting myself. went to bed with the dishes soapy, half the living room vacuumed, half of the catboxes scooped… etc. lots of unfinished projects. woke this morning to finish them as quickly and thoroughly as an hour would give me before i rushed off to work.

and i’d ramble on, but i need to go read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I start tomorrow and will be working Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and some Mondays. Now, my time is filled. Three jobs, three classes, and all that homework time in between. Awesome.

Apparently she’d already hired someone but they didn’t work out so she was calling to see if perhaps I was still interested. After going through the conversation, we figured out I might have some time conflicts on Wednesdays, her busiest day. Well, she’d get back to me later and let me know if it’d be a terrible problem. About an hour or so later she called back and said that she wanted to meet with me on Monday. Set up a time, and voila, I have a meeting with her Monday. Nifty.

I’d only get two or three days a week, but it’d be a full day and I’d be getting paid slightly better than I do at school for the transfer center, so that would definitely be good. I’m excited.

Now, to go check on animals I’m pet sitting for. It’s kitty and puppy dinner time everywhere.

Do I have a street address? Yes, but there is no mail box here, hence the PO box. It’s just easier to run down the hill once a week and go check my mail. It isn’t like I get very much.

Am I in class this semester? Yes. I’m taking Honors English and another Honors seminar class. The latter is a class that one of my teachers randomly signed me and David up for. He (teacher) saw us sitting in the counseling area waiting to go chatter with one of the counselors and said ‘Ah! These two! They’re geniuses! Here! Sign up for my class. You have to, fill these add slips out and I’ll turn them in downstairs.’ And yes, he really does talk in exclamations. He’s a rather boisterous teacher, very eccentric, and tends to think very highly of us.
The Honors English class was taken on a whim, really. I have to take English to finish my Associates so I signed up for that. In the first class our teacher was telling us about the Honors section and how it’s only one more credit (5 total credits) and that there were only two more books we’d have to read in addition to the rest of the English books and they were The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (the graphic novel). Now, I don’t know of anyone else that gets to read graphic novels in their English classes, so this was a treat indeed. (Graphic novels, for those not knowing what I mean, are a series of comic books that have been collated into one book – graphic novel.) In light of hearing this, my friend Jon (also taking this English class) and I decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to join the Honors section so that we could read a graphic novel. And the entirely genius part of it is that there wasn’t enough room in the regular English class for Jon, but once you join the Honors section, you’re automatically added to Honors and dropped from English, which made it perfect for Jon to get into the class. If that didn’t make sense, just ask and I’ll try to be more clear.

Am I still working for Jeff (my stepdad) or do I have a different job now? I have a different job now. Spring semester and through the summer semester I worked for the California Virtual Campus, Rural district 4, up at the college. What is that? you ask. Well, the simplest description goes like this: We provided courses for educators of the surrounding district (4) so they could learn to utilize web tools in order to either make a hybrid class (web/classroom) or a purely web based class (online class). There were a lot of other things we did, but that was the main thing. But, the main CVC decided to pull back in for lack of funding and shut down the individual rural projects, so I was out a job mid summer.
You’re probably thinking ‘Why do I care about all of this? You’re not doing it now so why are you going through backstory?’ Well, my office manager for that project and I got along swimmingly, so when the project ended she touted my skills and wonderfulness to all the ladies in the main office/admin area and I got a job purely on her word. Now I work in the Transfer Center at the college in which I organize and am trying to get them put together as it just opened and became it’s own little place in the college. It’s mostly a lot of random running around and clerical stuff, organizing, whatnot, but eventually students will come in and need help with Something, so I’ll be assisting them in their transfering needs.
I am also doing modeling for the life drawing class at my college. When your bank account reads negative numbers, you’ll do anything for money. *nods* It’s really not so bad, either. I took the life drawing class as a student last year and realized that it wasn’t horrible, to be the model, that is. We did a two-day high school workshop in the spring and since our model that I had in my life drawing class was no longer doing the modeling, they needed one and I needed the cash, so I offered myself as the model. It went well, the kids didn’t laugh and point menacingly. During the summer I also did modeling for the regular class and wasn’t ridiculed, so I kept up with it and am doing it again this semester. They won’t be offering this class in the spring so I wanted to get my time in and their money out while I could.
On top of those, I want another job to fill my free time, so I have applied at a diner down the road and today I also called a lady at one of our local papers about a typist job. The school can only give me 15 hours in the transfer center and I would like to have a better income so that I can move out and get my own place again.
That might spur the question ‘Well, why did you move out in the first place from where you were living?’ and the answer is, ‘My roommate asked me to.’ He wanted more privacy for his personal relationships, and I’d been living there for the past two years free from rent and probably cramping his style, so it wasn’t really too much a problem for me to move out.
Right now I’m living with a retired Bio teacher (Janet) from the college who occasionally does field trips still for the college. When she’s not doing that, she runs off into the mountains to visit with her friend up there or do Search and Rescue stuff. She’s very involved with a lot of different things and is rarely home. When my roommate asked me to move out, I was supposed to start housesitting for her (she was travelling to Norway), so I asked her if it would be okay if I moved in with her. Now some of you are saying ‘that’s really weird, Jen. Do you often just randomly ask people if you can move in with them?’ Not usually, but it’s just her and two cats in this big house, she’s never home, and she had just recently had a man living here that was from Arizona but was working on the base building rockets(?) or something to that effect. He’s a professor, I believe, somewhere in AZ.. or else a rocket scientist.. I don’t remember. Anyways, it’s not uncommon for her to have random people living in her house, so I felt it wouldn’t be out of line to ask that. She had absolutely no problem with it, so here I am.

Do I have any pictures of my boyfriend and I? Well, at the moment, we’re not dating, but are still really good friends and at times it seems like we didn’t really break up at all. *shrug* There’s always this fine line with us. We had issues we both needed to work on in our own lives, so we’re doing that and working on our friendship so that when we get back together at a later date, our relationship will be better. (That’s the simplest way to put what’s going on.) So, no, I don’t have any pics of us, but I suppose I could probably have Jon take one of us so you can see him.

On top of all this, I’m also redoing the IWV chapter of the United Way’s website. The people that made it before used proprietary software and made it completely unable to be edited by the laypeople at UW, so I’m remaking it as user friendly and as easy to update as possible. These aren’t computer geniuses (and neither am I), so it has to be easy to update by anyone that comes into the organization. It’s coming along well, but I’m running up against some weird issues, which is making it take longer than expected. They, fortunately for me, are not in any sort of hurry to get this done, which leaves me as much time as I need to get this site finished. *cheers*

Also, I’m the Youth chairperson and also co-chairperson for the Visual Arts section of the Ridgecrest Arts Council that was started recently. I’ve found that it’s mostly a bunch of people that sit around talking about things they want to do and what might work to get it done, but haven’t seen anyone moving in any sort of direction. That’s really the problem with these sorts of organizations, but hopefully we’ll come to some sort of motivational point in the group and get Something done. I think we mostly just need to figure out what we want done and work on one thing at a time. Anything more than that and most people feel spread thin and nothing gets done. *shrug* We’ll see how it goes.

Now, to go get some homework done. Whee!

Sent out the email, let everyone know, etc. And this, my family and friends, is where I will try to keep you updated on the goings on of my life. And, there is an email address that is linked on this page to your right —>. It forwards to my main email address, so if you happen to use that link, have no fear. I’ll still get the email. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and I will address them in a succeeding blog post. It’s that easy.

But because of the late hour, I feel that any more rambling would be of no real use to anyone but myself (and not really even to myself, for that matter), so I will now end this before it gets to be exceedingly long.

Have a good day/evening/week and I hope to entertain you, at least on some level, as I go about my day.

Adieu.

newayz, i could go on and on about it, but you’d all get bored. so i’m done.

today was coool! went to math class, bleh, but it was actually a pretty entertaining class. my teacher got really tired of my class because they were so whiny. they’d complain to his boss about him. granted, he got a bit snippity for a while there, but not so much that you’d have to complain about him. i think people just don’t know how to deal with things, so they complain to the highest power.

anyways, so that class was exciting because it was over. and then i went home and lazed about all day in bed til my next class (digital imaging) since i’d finished the project last night in the lab. aw, the cute lab aide was there too. i kept asking him for criticism on my project. and i swoon. *swoon* ok i’m done. but so now that class is over toooo.. so tomorrow all i have to do is go to work then go to my art history class (bleh) and hope that i dont become terribly bored and fall asleep. hmm.. perhaps tonight i’ll go to denny’s and write the paper for it.

for now.. mum’s making cookies (JOY!) so i’m going to scamper off to the kitchen and see if i can steal some dough. mmm hmm.. fresh cookie dough.

okay! oh yah, i’m also going to be trying to find a more suitable layout for my blog.. not that this one isn’t suitable, but i want something a bit more user friendly. so, it might change here and there or all together. we’ll see.

ta ta!

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was an amusing movie. it was cheesy in a sort of playful way, but i think that’s how the book is. no, i’ve never read the book, but now that i’ve seen the movie i just might have to. david said i’d like the book because it’s ‘cute’. hmm.. well if it’s something like the movie, i’ll probably find the book amusing too. so he’ll probably be right. he’s more into the factual/conspiracy theory/random theory type stuff. Velikovsky and the like. which isn’t bad. i sat and got about halfway through Worlds in Collision by Velikovsky, but then just didn’t have time to continue with it so i gave it back to him. perhaps when finals are over i’ll pick it back up.

but so yah, dolphins singing ‘so long and thanks for all the fish!’ as a musical number in the beginning was really bizarre. (we’re back on the movie subject) and then, they flew into space. *nods* yes, i know. weird. gave a good intro to the movie though. set the mood and all.

too bad it didn’t get out til about 1130. it’s about two hours long, but didn’t feel that long, really. some movies you sit there, checking your watch ever five minutes or less because it really feels like a movie is dragging its feet. this one, not so much. it was entertaining. it just made for another long night and a morning where i just couldn’t keep my eyes open. i ended up turning on Brian Setzer Orchestra (it’s a band – swing dancing type music as a general categorization) to get myself a bit more uppity as i got ready. sleepy girl just wants to take a nap!

but luckily i got to class on time, even about five minutes early. he passed out our practice Exam for the final next week so we can practice and study. tomorrow we’ll go over it, so tonight i’ll probably sit and try to work on it after i leave the lab. didn’t get a chance to work on my poster project last night b/c of the movie, so i’ll finish that tonight and turn it in tomorrow. *nods* oh yah, then i have to give a presentation for my final on.. thursday? eh, i have the date written down somewhere. i think i have two finals on wednesday, one on thurs and one on friday. so monday and tuesday will be spent in feverish bouts of studying and paper writing. perhaps i’ll sit down and write my paper for my western art history class tomorrow after i get off work.. *shrug* we’ll see.

then woke bf an he ran out the door so he could go get ready and so i could get ready for school. we actually were going to go to the Spring Awards Luncheon because he got two awards (Pres. List for 4.0 for a year and a Media Arts student recognition or somethin). he’s so smart and cool! *said in cheesy voice* nah, he’s actually really awesome an i think he’s great.

Luncheon was fine.. boring, but fine. my butt starting hurting about halfway through from sitting there, so i became really anxious. bleh. but it ended on time at One, so i gave kisses and goodbyes and went to class.

i’ve been working on a Promo poster for a project in my Digital Imaging class. the project is:

find a client with a cultural community event going on and make a poster/flyer for it. it’s going to 11×14 at 300ppi and it has to look awesome.

yes, that’s a summary. anyways, i’ve been having a mental creativity block for this darned thing! but today i got it finished, well, good enough anyways. when i get home tonight i’ll probably finish tweakin’ it then go in tomorrow to the Lab and sit and play with it some more after i get off work.

Well, i just got a call from david (boyfriend) askin’ if i wanted to go to “some dumb movie” (haha) with him an carol because she’s whining to go see it.. blah blah.. so i’m goin. perhaps i’ll finish up with this tomorrow. for now, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

gnight!

this will be my blog that I can send out to the family and friends, ie. it’ll be fairly PG.

mind you, i don’t often even attempt correct capitalization, so don’t get all snippity about that at all. if you do have any comments, questions, etc, always feel free to comment and ask me. i’ll try to get back to you asap. i’ll even set this up to notify me when someone comments so that i can stay on top of things.