November 2006 Archives

• I just got the biggest craving for fried chicken.
• I was on board with my chiropractor(s) until yesterday when they told me I need to start coming in 3x/week. My insurance makes it quite affordable, and I'm willing to do some stretches and come in to the office every once in a while, but 3x/week? Pffft.
• I will definitely, however, be buying an exercise ball, and I kind of want one for my cube, too.
• Productivity is still down.
• High of 18° today. I hate Minnesota.
• They've started monitoring internet traffic at work. So far, I've not noticed any difficulties. *crossing fingers*

I'm so glad I took an extra day off to chill at home instead of coming back to work right away. I didn't actually chill much, but my brain had time to settle down.

I went and saw Body Worlds at the Science Museum of Minnesota. After being extended for three months, it's closing this weekend with round-the-clock showings Friday am through Sunday pm. Crazy. If this exhibit comes to a museum near you, you must go see it. It won't blow you away, exactly. I didn't come out of it all, "WOW!" But it will make you think.

Did a little shopping. Land's End has $24.50 down vests, so I picked one up because Fly Girl absconded ended up with my last one. Target. Grocery store.

Probably should have slept more, but oh well.

I'm gonna cheat for now and point you toward Bayou, who's got the gist of my Seattle trip in words and photos. (And isn't she a fucking fantastic photographer?)

Good eatin', good drinkin', good company, good scenery, plenty of sleep, and I finished the race (*grumble*). Perfect vacation.

I already knew that Lauren was the bomb, but I'll add this latest gem to the list of evidence. She's organizing a project called Help Us Help Ourselves:

This compilation of how-tos, written by you and me, aims to help people with little in the way of resources and expertise get through unfortunate situations relating to money, finances, and bureaucracy....

Not only do I want it to include our stories, but I want it to include details, specifics, the steps in the process, what one can expect, what hurdles one may come against, and suggestions for how to get around them. This should be a pragmatic resource that takes a person in need through all the steps and details of the situation at hand.

There will be a corresponding wiki and monthly carnival. There's currently an open call for tips and tricks and Tuesday is the last day to get those in.

Keep an eye on this folks, and help out if you can.

So, having driven around Seattle a bit over the last few days, I've been thinking, "You know... this is not as flat as I remember it...." Just checked the course elevation map, and it's really not so flat. I won't really be able to tell until I run it if it's San Francisco not-flat, but... yeah. Not gonna be a piece of cake. The forecast for 7am Sunday says 38° and light rain. Eek!

Oh, and did I mention I haven't run a step since last Saturday? Trust in your training. Trust in your training.

We're off to hit the expo to pick up my race packet and then do Pike Place Market. Bayou took some fantastic photos while we were out and about yesterday. They'll pop up somewhere for y'all to see. Rest assured that I am eating and drinking and sleeping well, thoroughly enjoying the company, and generally feeling fat and happy!

Not that I, you know, care.

(via lauren)

Tiffany had her baby! Congratulations, y'all!

Okay, watch this video and help me figure out what happens at the end. It's so darned cute, and yet... the ending. I'll just quote this disclaimer:

If you’re at that time in your cycle when you cry at banking commercials, please do not watch “Kiwi!”

Be patient and watch the whole thing.

(via Lach)

I made it! I'm chilling with Lachlan and Bayou, watching football and eating sausage balls. (Surprise! The Lions got their ass kicked.)

After I got in last night we went out for a fabulous dinner and beers (try the No Doubt Stout).

The agenda for the trip is to hang out with these lovely ladies (*pinch*their*cheeks*), catch up with my Roomdawg who moved out here a couple years ago, maybe see Heather who also moved out here from Minneapolis not too long ago, run the half marathon, and just generally relax and have a good time and not think about work.

Okay, that's at least three people I know (or know of) that moved to Seattle from the TC. Maybe it's a sign. I could totally live here.

I'm a slackass. I was productive around the house last night, but I totally skipped my last long run so I could sleep in and then socialize. Didn't run at all today. Probably not gonna get 12 miles in tomorrow. I could maybe on Wednesday before I fly out to Seattle, but that's getting close to race day when I'm supposed to be tapering.

After last week's mad rush to finish up some things at work, I'm not really looking forward to doing it again, as more things are due up in the very near future. But things have to get done. I purposely took next Tuesday off, even though I get back on Monday, but part of me thinks I should be doing some work on Tuesday....

I've now blown through the rest of my gift card. The Eddie Bauer outlet sent me a lovely postcard informing me that things are currently up to 70% off. So I trucked my ass all the way across the Twin Cities metro to go to the nearest outlet, and then stopped at TJ Maxx on the way back.

I got a new bag, a pair of pants, and yet another striped wrinkle-free shirt at EB. I can never have too many of those. And then I got a couple pairs of pants, a long sleeve tech shirt (I'm taking that back), and a jacket at TJM.

Whenever I shop (and quite often when I get dressed in the morning), I ask myself either what would Fly Girl wear or what would my sister wear. They'd probably both tell you that it frequently looks like I chose to ignore the answer.

Anyway, they are what inspired me to buy this jacket, although it's getting a little cold to wear it now. It's cordury, three-button, casual but not lumpy "functional" outerwear, and not black like the five other jackets I have. It's cute. And it makes me look like I'm 30. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was seeing myself through the eyes of my teenage self who would look at someone in their 30s and not really have any concept of how old that is. But that's okay. Maybe when I wear it people will stop thinking I'm 22.

I heard some queeny fashion designer on the radio the other day talking about fashion dos and don'ts. He was talking about how pear-shaped people always make the mistake of wearing khaki pants with dark tops. Because you should wear dark colors where you want to de-emphasize and light colors where you want to emphasize.

I'll never buy a pair of khaki pants again.

FG already, rightly, made me get rid of a couple pairs. Okay, I bought one new pair of khaki pants, but I checked them out thoroughly. They have strategically located back pockets. The other two pairs are black. Those are safe, but also with back pockets, just to be sure.

Back pockets are my friend.

I'm clearly having a hard time getting anything done around the house that needs to be done. So the plan for the rest of the night is to do what I can during the commercial breaks, and I'll just have to be done when Brothers & Sisters is over.

Yours truly was thrice-nominated for Employee of the Quarter (twice for Q2 and once for Q3).

Hoo boy, am I crabby this morning. Although a part of my chief source of stress was just alleviated.

I could go on. Not worth it. Head down. Plow through. Hope something goes right.

Okay, just a little: If I'm clearly working feverishly on something, and if I do not drop what I'm doing to turn around and give you my undivided attention, I probably do not have attention to give to you, so now is not the time to be making small talk. If you have an urgent business matter, go ahead, but I really don't care about your fucking weekend right now.

Alright, I'm done.

You know what would be good right now? Nutella on toast.

The making of the xmas list has commenced. It's silly. Because I don't usually end up telling anybody what I want for xmas. Because I don't typically have a lot to spend on folks and thus I don't want them to be spending on me.

But lately a number of things that I really want have caught my eye, and so maybe this is just a list of things that I want and the getting of them doesn't have to revolve around xmas or even involve anyone else.

But anyway. There's a list.

Also, The Things I Want is pretty neat. You can make a wishlist with anything from anywhere. I think I got that from Mel last year.

I love shit like this. As seen all over the place.

So, I'm pretty pleased with how things turned out.

Our incumbent Republican governor won, but Dems retained control of the State Senate and took over control of the State House. Out of 8 congressional districts, 2 Republican incumbents won, 1 was upset, Michele Bachmann (super right-wing religious conservative, known for hiding behind bushes spying on a gay rights rally at the capitol) unfortunately won, and the rest stayed Dem.

Amy Klobuchar became the first woman senator from Minnesota, kicking the ass of Mark Kennedy who I really wanted to see fail because Fly Girl's no-longer-friend Maestro worked for MK's campaign. Down in flames!

We passed an amendment to the Minnesota state constitution to dedicate motor vehicle sales taxes to transportation funding (it currently is divided between transportation and the general fund), with some caveats about roads/bridges vs. transit. Boo. Right idea, wrong method, and it makes it harder to balance the state budget.

As I already mentioned, IRV passed for Minneapolis city elections. Yay!

And there's a little bit of a scandal. There was a "parody" site up basically calling Tammy Lee, one of the Independent congressional candidates, a racist. Turns out the site is linked to Chris Stewart, a Minneapolis school board member. The Lee campaign sort of made it worse by accusing her Dem opponent (Keith Ellison, first Muslim in Congress, first black guy from MN) of being responsible for the site. Apparently Chris Stewart has quite a blogging history, but it hasn't been previously linked to his true identity.

And that was just here! Good job, Minnesota (except for y'all in the 6th district).

I'm (still) at work and it's one of those situations where the less I fart around, the sooner I can go home. But then, I've already been here this long. What's a few more minutes?

So, I had heard rumors about how my choir director likes to volunteer people for solos. You just kind of end up singing and you don't really realize what just happened until it's all over.

A few weeks ago I made a point to introduce myself to my director because I really wanted to express how much I was enjoying myself (and because it was polite). Wouldn't ya know it, as soon as she could remember my name, she started tossing my name out when looking for solos. I managed to duck it a few times, but I couldn't withstand it last night.

The only way I'm agreeing to it is because the "solo" is actually going to be sung by two or three of us. I get all anxious just thinking about it. But I felt a little better to know that my fellow not-soloist, who is my section leader and has done this before, still gets really nervous, even in rehearsal. Misery loves company, I guess.

I didn't sound too terrible (I don't think) and people were very encouraging and I didn't get swapped out like some other folks did. So I'm a little bit very pleased with myself, even though I'm nervous as hell.

Actually, this one comes up at least weekly for me.

Don't hand your shit to me on a Tuesday, and then harp on me about how I was supposed to have my part turned around by Friday because we have this huge hairy deadline. Because you were supposed to have your shit to me last Friday and had you done that, I would have taken time out of my precious weekend to have this done by Monday.

But you didn't, and now I have other completely unavoidable things going on that cannot give, even though this is the number one priority. So I will be taking time out of my precious weekend this weekend.

Instant-runoff voting is going to be handily approved by the citizens of Minneapolis. w00t!

So, I joined a choir. The Twin Cities Women's Choir. Best thing I've done in years!

!!!

Stanley Crouch in the New York Daily News:

So when black Americans refer to Obama as "one of us," I do not know what they are talking about. In his new book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama makes it clear that, while he has experienced some light versions of typical racial stereotypes, he cannot claim those problems as his own - nor has he lived the life of a black American....

I doubt Obama will share Powell's fate, but if he throws his hat in the ring, he will have to run as the son of a white woman and an African immigrant. If we then end up with him as our first black President, he will have come into the White House through a side door - which might, at this point, be the only one that's open.

Ri-damn-diculous.

I'm not quite sure what his point is, exactly. I mean, I get that he's saying that Barack Obama isn't your "typical" black person in America. But... why is he even bringing this up in the first place? Like he'd be our fake first black president?

I'd hardly say President Bush's life is representative of the typical American. Getting anyone who's not a white male into the Oval Office is (sadly) remarkable in and of itself, regardless of how they got there.

That "side door" comment is what really burns my ass. If Barack Obama gets to the White House, it's because he got elected. Hell, if anybody got in by the side door, it's GWB with all that questionable voting tabulation.

Whatever, Stanley Crouch. Pfffft.

• I got a text message from my little sister this morning. Totally made my day.
• This project that I'm babysitting that is running 24 hours and over the weekend doesn't actually need me to be here all the time.
• My Department of One™ will be a department of two as of Monday.
• Today is payday.
• 19 days to Seattle!
• Today's high in the TC is above freezing.
• I have not gotten my car towed this week.
• One of the QA folks said I performed well in our audit yesterday. *whew*

(Okay, one small gripe. If you're not available at some point during the day, your Outlook calendar should reflect that. Mr. Associate Director, I'm looking at you.)

Quote of the Day from my cube neighbor: "Everybody's got a thing. Mine just happens to be puffy vests." You might have had to be there.

So, I work for a drug company, and we're all FDA-regulated, so there's a very lengthy documentation process involved in everything. We have this system for electronic document routing. You upload your doc, fill out some things, and then everyone who needs to review it gets an email. They make notes and sign electronically. You manage those notes, fix your doc up all purty-like, and then it goes around again for e-sigs for approval.

When you log into the system, you have a list of all your docs that are in review or approval, and you have a list of everyone else's docs that you need to review or approve.

What I'm really really wishing for is an RSS feed for my list of docs, so that whenever someone leaves a note or signs off, I can aggregate that information somewhere, instead of having to go back to that list and refresh, refresh, refresh.

I'm going to email IT right now.

I don't know what this says about me, but I think it's a sweet idea.

I had planned on leaving work early because I have to go back in at, like, 4 a.m. I watched the clock, went to some meetings, popped out to the production line, came back and finally at about 3:40 I thought, "That's it. I'm not going to get any more done today." So I left. Got in my car, drove home, and was surprised by how light traffic was right before rush hour.

It wasn't until I got in the door and looked at the VCR and noticed that it said 4:15.

I was so sure it was 5:00. So my car needs updating. My microwave needs updating. And then I had thought that my computer at work was off, but it wasn't. I was just not paying attention. I don't know what I was thinking.

I'm all off.