June 2006 Archives

American Laser Centers had a booth at the Pride festival. They had a drawing going on for discounts on their services. I entered because what the hell, ya know? And after Sherri's positive experience, I'm all about the laser hair removal. Burn it off!

And while I had it in the back of my head, it probably would have stayed there indefinitely on account of the cost and the relatively low priority of laser hair removal over, say, my credit card debt.

Wouldn't you know I won third prize! $300 off the service of my choice. And I believe there's another coupon or discount in there somewhere as well. So I'm going in for a consultation next week.

Hey, KathyHowe! I tried a Lipton Green Tea. It is pretty tasty.

I had the most delicious iced chai while at the coffee shop the other day. It was just standard Oregon Chai mix with soy milk, on ice. But damn it was good and refreshing. So I replenished my soy milk and ice supply. Iced chai at home! As soon as I finish my green tea.

I'll just go on record as saying that this is horseshit and a colossal waste of time.

That's a vague shitty Eric Cartman reference. Anyway.

My fucking internet at home is still fucked up. My rental company has an in-house group that takes care of all our internet/tv stuff. They've been out twice, gotten about as far as acknowledging that there's a problem, and best I can tell not actually done much of anything to fix it.

They said they fixed the wall jack, but I later found out from the technician it was because he accidentally knocked a wire out of place himself. He also recommended I try repairing the IP address every time I can't get on. Okay, well, that's ALL THE TIME, and the shit ain't supposed to work that way.

I haven't changed a damn thing in our setup, so I know it ain't the router or either of our laptops. But it's been screwy since we lost our power in a storm a couple weeks ago. Two weeks!

Their business hours are something like 9am to 4pm. You know, I'm at work from at least 7:30 to 5:30 every day. Can you at least accommodate me by being in at, say 8:00 so I can only be a little late for work? Hell, your office is in the building next door to mine.

It's pissing me off. Seriously.

People in cars who put their feet up on the dash, or out the window. Especially if they're not wearing shoes. Even more especially if they're barefoot.

Grody!

Okay, that's mine for the day. Gimme one of yours.

I found out, while out at lunch the other day with some co-workers (my first ever trip to Culver's!), that most of them voted for George Bush. (Not that there's anything wrong with it.)

*sigh*

It's not really a surprise. I mean, if I had to guess, I would have guessed that most of them did. But I had hope for a couple of them. They are all from Iowa or similarly-terrained parts of Illinois. Not exactly hotbeds of liberal activity (uh, whatever "liberal activity" might be).

To top it off, they told stories of one hapless fellow who is an avowed Democrat, but also a little weird in a number of ways. Oh, how they ridiculed the poor guy. Actually, they didn't do the ridiculing so much as recount stories of another quite Republican guy who is very much frustrated/amused by the hapless Democrat.

I'm sure, were I to announce it, that no one would be at all surprised by my more liberal leanings. At least with these folks, their opinions are more well thought out than with a certain someone at work I've had discussions with in the past who went all "love the sinner, hate the sin" on me.

From Sherri, courtesy of schmims.

1. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? It used to be chocolate chip cookie dough, but now it's Haagen-Dazs Bailey's, followed by Haagen-Dazs Rum Raisin.
2. What was the last thing you purchased on the internet and what site did you purchase it from? I purchased two University of Michigan license plate frames for my new (damaged *sniff*) car. The old ones are a rusty mess and barely readable. Gotta represent 'round hyeah.
3. What are the top five most common items on your grocery list? Ooh. That's a good question. Ice cream, half and half, oranges, roast beef, cheese.
4. What are you plans after work this evening? I'm here until about 10:00 tonight, I have to be back in at 8:00 tomorrow a.m., and I've already got my run in, so I'll probably check to make sure the internet is working, and then read.
5. Do you have any weird dating hang ups? I don't do a whole lot of dating, so I'm not sure.
6. When was the last time you went to a park, which park was it, and what did you do there? On Sunday I went to Loring Park (adjacent to downtown Minneapolis) for the Pride festival.
7. What was your first job? A slave for my mom's home daycare.
8. Did you sleep in your own bed last night? Did anyone sleep with you? Just checking. Yes and yes.
9. What is your biggest traffic pet peeve? And you can only pick one. Only one?! But there are so many. I guess I'll go with people who get in the left lane and mosey because they think it's their right to force everyone to do the speed limit.
10. Are you a recycler? Yes, when the city I happen to be living in conveniently provides the bins and such for me. But I'm not hardcore about it.
11. Oh yeah, ask Sherri something. Are you as excited for BlogHer as I am?!

I want my internet back, wah!

I think (hope) my internet is fixed at home. The technician guy came back this morning and seemed a little perplexed. He did verify that the problem is occurring before it gets to my router. So that means it's not anything I did to it. Although I didn't change anything.

He plugged the ethernet cable directly into his laptop and couldn't get an IP address. Or something like that. So he reset it, and showed me how to reset it on my iBook (System Prefs > Network > Airport > TCP/IP > Renew DHCP Lease).

I would think that there would be something you could fix so I wouldn't have to do that in the first place everytime I want to use the internet, but whatever.

I also think the iBook is on its last legs. Mail.app itself is doing something strange that I thought might have been related to the internet funkiness but might not be. I could probably stand to remove a lot of miscellaneous crap. Programs I don't use, whatnot. The HD periodically does the "click of death" thing, so I've been backing up more frequently. And I noticed a crack in the case that I hadn't seen before. I'm not really looking to drop ching on a new laptop, but a MacBook (with an upgrade to Tiger!) looks mighty tasty.

While I'm complaining, I will also insert here that Marketplace Takeout needs to fix their iTunes podcast feed, because I haven't been able to connect to the server to download in about six weeks.

The Good:

• The weather today is gorgeous. 75° and sunny.
• Pride was this weekend. I saw the woman that sold me my Saturn driving in the Parade. (She's not gay, but it's cool that Saturn has such a presence and it's cool that she was there.) The Pride Parade was good.
• Work is still going well.

The Bad:

• The L-y-n-x lost a game they really should have won yesterday.
• Our internet at home has been intermittent at best since last weekend's thunderstorms and power outage. Some guy came out to look at it on Friday and declared it fixed, but I haven't been able to get on for more than a minute at a time since Friday afternoon. NO INTERNET IS NOT OKAY.

The Ugly:

• My car. My new car that I bought two weeks ago. Got SCRATCHAFRICKIN' REAR-ENDED on Friday afternoon. My bumper is scratched and dented. The other guy jacked up the front of his rental car. I don't know if going through the rental company is going to make it easier or harder. I'm fine, by the way. But I can't help but think had I been driving the Jeep, he would have hit the hitch and probably still jacked up his front end, but I would have come through unscathed. (I've been rear-ended in the Jeep a few times. Never any damage.)

Etc.

• I think I want a new digital camera.
• My mom sent me a guilting and shaming email imploring me to call my grandmother because she's dying to know how I'm doing, which I did (even though grandma never calls me). I hope Grandma feels better for my having called, because I don't. Meh.

Mel totally made my week by passing this along....

On Monday, I think. It's called Ganging Up on the Sun. In the midst of all my many trips to Target, I have not gone out and purchased it just yet. Guster.com has been relaunched, they'll be playing Jay Leno on Tuesday, 6/27 (I've already set reminders and my VCR), and they'll be on Day to Day on Friday, 6/30.

I just had my 1:1 with my director. Last time he handed me a not very large but certainly very expensive book on validation principles. He's also been looking into conferences and/or workshops for the both of us to attend. He already nixed one to Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio). We might end up in Indianapolis instead. I am to do some more research on that subject.

He also handed me an article he ran into while out and about on the web. The source of the article: Wikipedia!

Cool.

I park the Ion in the same places that I parked the Jeep, and I never got so much bird shit on the Jeep as I have on the Ion. On every single window. On the rear bumper on the hood. On one of the headlights. Bird shit everywhere. WTF?

Of pharmaceuticals. Is paying for my health insurance. I have great insurance. I feel a little guilty about that. Especially since I have far better insurance than people who, I don't know, work for health care providers. My premium is $1/person/pay period. And it's just little ol' me.

That trip I made to Urgent Care to get my ears power washed? Co-pay: $35. Total actual cost: $111. $111! For a giant syringe full of water. And to find out my blood pressure is still normal.

!!!

I haven't been to the dentist in about 4.5 years and I'm starting to feel shamed about that. I know it's gonna be kind of a mess. But at least for that first trip for cleaning I'll only have my $25 deductible and 0% coinsurance. For everything else, which I hope to gawd doesn't go beyond "Basic Restorative," I have 20% coinsurance. "Major Restorative" and "Orthodontic" are 40%. Crikey.

I also have yet to submit a claim form for my therapy bills. Purely out of laziness. I can afford it out-of-pocket, but why should I keep paying for it if I don't have to, ya know? Those ought to be subject to a $10 office visit co-pay and no more. I think. Guess I'll find out.

Hawt!

(via back in skinny jeans, via Healthacker, via loribraunblog)

So, I returned some stuff. Partly out of necessity, partly out of guilt.

The headphones I got were too big for my ears, so I returned those, but I purchased another, more expensive pair ($20, vs $10). But, hey, if they work out, they'll definitely be a worthwhile purchase.

I returned the red running shirt, since I already have three red running shirts. I wore the blue one on Sunday and it was awesome. Very comfy. It wicked fairly well, and didn't hold the stink, like many shirts do. Haven't worn any of the new shorts yet, but I will tonight when I run.

The audio cable is serving its purpose well. The socks are enjoyable. I'm really sensitive about foot sweat. So far they've been very comfy.

The jury's still out on the polo shirts, the swimsuit, the spandex shorts, and the one pair of duplicate running shorts. I'll see how I like the first (gray) pair. I really don't go through them frequently enough to warrant the second (black) pair, and I already have several pairs of black shorts. But if they're good shorts....

And then, of course, I offset my "savings" with impulse purchases of PopTarts, Reese's Miniatures, and another pack of Orbit gum.

Comes from KathyHowe and her daughter:

My daughter recently borrowed a children's bible from one of her gal pals. When I asked her what she thinks of the book she replied:

"It's not bad if you like fantasy."

*ba DUM bum*

From Sherri, by way of Ms. Writes and Snaps.

1. Would you rather eat ONLY Syrian food or ONLY Mexican food for the rest of your life? Oh, that's a tough one. Mexican wins by a nose, only because it's easier to make/obtain.
2. What's the meanest thing you've ever done? I'm kinda conflict-avoidant, so I don't have a whole lot of items to choose from in this category. In 7th grade I blatantly cheated on my spelling homework and then blamed it on a "bad" kid (and got away with it). More recently, I cut off a toxic person. Others thought this was more mean than I did.
3. Did you see a movie this weekend? If so, what? No movies. I watched the new Jeff Dunham DVD. On a stick!
4. What's the most recent CD you purchased? Coleman Lindberg's latest EP, Making My Name.
5. If 12 hot Blogger girls put their heads together and made a calendar, would you buy it? Not likely.
6. Where did you go on your last vacation? Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Mexico. That's halfway between Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
7. What defines summer in your world? Shorts weather, green grass, the smell of burning charcoal, running and biking around the lakes.
8. What time did you get up this morning? I was kind of awake starting about 6:20. Alarms went off at 6:45 and 6:50. Got out of bed at 7:00.
9. If you could be interviewed on any talk show, which one would you want to be on? Maybe ac 360°. Or Oprah.
10. How many hours a day are you actually WORKING at work? Varies widely from day to day. While I certainly have eight hours worth of work to do, today I'm going to aim for four.

My legs are dead.

Ran late Friday night. Ran my long run early Saturday. That right there was ill-advised. Went for a 19-mile bike ride this morning with Fly Girl. A hilly one. And then played two hours of sand volleyball.

But my friend Girl Talker and his fiancee did a triathlon yesterday, so I feel lame complaining.

We had thunderstorms Friday and Saturday, so both those runs were in real humid conditions. Felt gross. I was slow. I was sopping wet at the end of each one. Took a nap Saturday afternoon. Today was gorgeous. 70s, sunny, and with a light breeze. Great for a bike ride and for volleyball. Took a nap this afternoon, too.

Can't wait to take tomorrow off.

Alternate title: Baby did a bad bad thing.

I went to Target. Shopping list: Paper towel, toilet paper, a water pitcher, and an audio cable.

You know how Target is and how you always spend more than you expect to and you often forget one thing that you meant to get in the first place. I did not get toilet paper. At that point I didn't feel like carrying it. Because my arm's were full of other stuff.

This is so perfect. If Bayou were to have her wedding sponsored, this is how she would do it:

I’m thinking... private party for our closest 10,000 friends with the Olivia Cruise Lines, AfterEllen can cover the media, the Erotic Bakery for an explicitly delicious cake, REI, Subaru & Jeep (every lesbian couple needs at least one!), Stella Artois, Rainbow Ridge Winery, Toys in Babeland… that would be a good start. Oh, yeah, and I almost forgot- Apple just to nudge Lach’s dad real good.

I'm not sure I could choose much better. I'd add Eddie Bauer, Birkenstock, Asics, Terry Bikes, Purple Roofs, and some fine purveyor of silver jewelry.

Ignoring the discussion of whether or not you would actually get married and the ethics and whatnot of having your wedding sponsored, who would you have sponsor your "special day"?

I really need to have more confidence in my abilities.

So, I'm a little stressed out about work, what with me being new and with all these folks quitting. I'm muddling my way through some projects that have long histories that I know nothing about.

I just came out of a meeting about the validation plan for a new product of ours. I was all worried because the meeting is ABOUT validation, and everyone else at this meeting is some sort of manager or director or senior something-or-other.

These guys weren't even all that sure about what was going on. Some basic common sense was all I needed to get up to speed and have an adequate opinion on what's happening. I've certainly learned that in these meetings, it's more than fair to ask the "dumb" questions if you don't know what's going on, because chances are someone else doesn't either.

Add to that, I spent a big chunk of last week working on a software validation that was kind of a mess, and the IT guy I was working with was very complimentary. He took it upon himself to say so to me AND to my director.

I'm doing okay.

One of my cube neighbors has the same phone as I do, and he noted that we have it set to the same disco ringer. He was talking about some dancing guy, and I was all, "My phone doesn't do that."

Apparently if the phone is flipped open while it's ringing, an animation comes up. For the disco ringer, a disco ball drops down and a couple of 70s folks with 'fros and bell bottoms start rocking out. I love it! Except that my phone is never open when it rings, and the animation doesn't play on the outside display. Oh well.

The phrase for today is "Easily Amused."

I ran the Easy Does It 5-Miler last week.

I felt like I was off the whole week before. But, yet again, I took it easy a couple days before and, yet again, was fine come race day. I really ought to quit worrying about these things. I've not just been pleasantly surprised, but personally blown away by my finish times in almost every race I've run. It's one thing to manage my expectations and it's another to just be way the hell off.

A while back I saw a sign up in the lunch room at work about the company sand volleyball team. I was all excited, because I loves me some volleyball. Most of the players work at our other building, so I thought it'd also be neat to meet some of them.

A few of the other enginerds here got word that I was playing with them and warned me that the team is not very good. They started to play with them last year and stopped going because it just wasn't fun, they sucked so bad.

I showed up last week for the first match. The team captain made a comment that they had some people quit last year because they weren't all that competitive. And I thought, "Oh no..."

I was all excited because Guster is playing Basilica Block Party. For all the touring Guster does, they don't come to the TC very often.

Come to find out that Guster plays the Block Party on the same night as I'm going to see the Shock/L-y-n-x game with Sunshine Sinatra. A game we already have tickets for. I had to talk SS into this game, and he actually got excited about it.

I'm gonna wait and see if there are some times posted for the concerts and maybe I can swing both. Since I'll be in the neighborhood and all.

We went to the Chinese buffet for lunch. I feel ill.

UPDATE: Okay, we ate at, like, 11:30. It's 7:20, I already went for my run, and I'm still feeling full. I felt awful during my run, thank you very much.

I know what you really want to see is the pictures, so have a look see, then read the story if you're interested.

I don't think I've mentioned my car issues of late. Nothing major. I mean, the Jeep didn't break down on me or anything. I was just told that it needed about $1500 worth of maintenance.

Most of that I've been putting off since last fall, and it really couldn't be put off anymore. A bunch of leaky seals in various places. The kind of thing that will cost three times as much if it actually breaks. The parts weren't expensive, but the labor was killer. They would have to take the entire ass end of the Jeep apart. Plus there were a couple other things on top of that that I have let go for a few years, like my busted driver door handle from when it got broken into in my parents' backyard 3.5 years ago. And all this after my mother so generously ponied up for $2000 worth of repair 1.5 years ago.

Sunshine Sinatra is my car maintenance sherpa, and he's been suggesting that maybe it's time to stop dropping all this ching on repairs and think about getting a new(er) vehicle. Which made sense. I'm not really looking to spend $1000/year on non-routine maintenance.

A new car!

I bought one over the weekend. Picking it up in about an hour.

Meme! Via Tiffany.

5 things in my fridge:

1. milk
2. orange juice
3. apple juice
4. Slim-Fast
5. homebrewed beer

1. dirty laundry
2. shoes
3. linens that don't fit in the linen closet
4. bathrobe I don't wear
5. my entire wardrobe

1. phone
2. wallet
3. chapstick (Burt's Bees, of course)
4. iPod mini
5. digital camera

1. a bicycle that I want to get rid of
2. motorcycle helmet
3. giant Maglite
4. old license plates from two states
5. extra wiper fluid that I've never had to use

Someone in my apartment building is rocking out to the RENT soundtrack. It's coming in the window, so it's somewhere across the courtyard. I lurves me some RENT, but I prefer to listen to it on my own terms, ya know?

We got a memo yesterday that a new smoking policy will go into effect at work in a couple months. There’s already no smoking inside the building. The new policy says that not only can you not smoke inside the building, you cannot…

...smoke in the parking lot.
...smoke in your personal vehicle.
...smoke on adjacent properties and roadways (I believe they use the word "tresspass" in there).
...leave the property while in your uniform (which means production folks can’t just hop in their cars and drive down the road to smoke).

Selfishly, as a non-smoker, I’m fine with it. I think it’s a little overkill, though. Instituting a no-smoking zone within X number of feet of the entrances/exits would have been sufficient. Personally, I hate having to pass through the hazy clouds to get in and out. Not allowing folks to smoke in their cars is silly, since technically that’s their personal property. But then, if you’re allowed to smoke in your car but not in the parking lot, does that mean you’re required to keep your windows rolled up?

Anyway, come August, there’s gonna be a lot of cranky folks. I suspect no one’s gonna bother trying to quit now. Besides, the evidence suggests that unplanned quitting is more effective than planned quitting anyway.

When I moved into my group, there were four of us. Me, another associate engineer, a senior engineer, and our manager (holding an associate director title). The senior engineer was clearly bitter about the fact that he thought he was doing the manager/AssDir's job. The story on the Manager/AssDir was that he was bitter because his career derailed when the VP who was fast-tracking him got axed when the company was acquired, and now he's reporting to a director who used to be his peer.

So last Tuesday we get word that the SrEng's last day would be Friday. Today we got word that the AssDir put in his two weeks yesterday. End of day yesterday, me and the other AssEng were told we'd be meeting with the Director this morning. We had just barely gotten back from that meeting when AssDir announced he was taking off. Never gonna see that guy again.

Guest poller today.

1. What childhood vacation do you remember the most fondly? I don't have any childhood vacations that I remember fondly. We didn't really vacation. I can really only remember two trips from my pre-high school years. One was to Wheels Inn in Toronto. I'm sure we saw other things in Toronto, but I mostly just remember that there was a pool and a water slide at Wheels Inn. The other was to the west coast of Michigan, to see the sand dunes. I got a tank top from Grand Haven that I really liked until I outgrew it. Then there was the summer of 1993 in which we wedged in a trip to Seaworld of Ohio in between a Monday and Wednesday that I had to work at Arby's. I think that's the extent of our family vacations.
2. How many colors has your hair been? Just the one I was born with.
3. Would you rather be placed in a tub filled with water snakes or covered with ants? OMG. I guess I'd rather be in the tub filled with snakes, assuming they're not actually poisonous or prone to biting.
4. Are you camp Jessica or camp Nick? (heh) Camp Puke.
5. Do you have a swimming pool? Can we come over? No pool, but you're certainly welcome to come over.
6. Salty or sweet? Sweet, generally.
7. When did you last get a kiss? Yesterday.
8. Do you play a musical instrument? Nope.
9. What's your favorite kind of weather? Fall. Sun. 60-ish. Where it's cool enough to run without being all bundled up but without getting all sweaty. And where you can be perfectly comfortable in either pants or shorts, long sleeves or short sleeves.
10. What are you wearing right now? A hunter green ribbed tank top, some black and white board-esque shorts (my new favorites), and some flip-flops. See for yourself.

For years I've had problems with my ears. Get water in 'em, can't hear. Lay down, can't hear. Most of the time, they're mostly clear, but I do spend a lot of time tugging on them. Last couple of trips to the doctor, I was just told to use the drops. Drops haven't been working.

Today I got out of the shower and couldn't hear for shit out of either ear. Fly Girl told me to quit being a martyr and just go to urgent care. So I go to urgent care. The doctor takes one look, confirms that I ought to be growing potatoes in there, and sends a nurse to flush them out.

The nurse filled up a bucket with warm water, grabbed a giant syringe, told me to let her know if I felt any dizziness, and then went to town. I used to get this done a lot when I was a kid. It kind of tickles. Feels like you're trying to flush something out from between the folds of your brain.

(I was also thinking of Lachlan the whole time. I think she told me once about being a med tech in a past life and having to flush out ears and guys have much waxier ears than girls do. Or something.)

I had no idea that ears could hold so much crap. She showed me all the wax that came out. There was a freaking lot of it. I said that while I felt much better for me, I felt badly for her. She assured me she'd seen much worse. I got three syringes full of water in each ear, and she rooted around some with a little stick.

An hour and a half and $35 later, I feel like I have super bat hearing. I told the nurse she was my favorite person this week. Seriously, I thought the sound of my keys jangling was gonna blow my head open.

So, while I've had a built in pair of earplugs for years, I can't wait to go to bed and not have everything automatically tune out as soon as I go horizontal.

I highly recommend it to everyone.

WHY did I not go to this game? The L-y-n-x have a team- and WNBA-record-setting win AND Lisa Leslie plays like total shit.

The final score? 114-71, people.

More over here.

UPDATE: League president Donna Orender was in the house. Here are the records that were set: