onlyaymie
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
This weekend...
Saturday we finally got our track lighting up. Yay! It looks great. Makes me want to do the whole house with track. That is, unfortunately, prohibitively expensive. I have basically decided that when we sell the house (unless I am feeling lazy about it by then) we will take all the kitchen lights with us, and just buy cheap lights to put up. I want to keep the pretty ones. Plus, most people replace lights anyway, when you think about it.
That reminds me, I need to get glass put in the cabinet door. I was waiting until the track was up so the glass would not have the chance to be shattered during track installation. Wow. I can't believe it.
Just when I thought we were done searching for furniture, we are at it again. I may not have mentioned the sofa quest. It was long and arduous and finally ended in the purchase of a chofa and love seat last weekend. The chofa idea is just too too clever.
Anyway, we were going to continue using our occasional tables we had for the living room (our $35 specials). But I was putting felt on the bottom of the legs of my favorite, and got to looking at it. To my great sadness, I saw what looked like powder post beetle holes. After that, I couldn't bear to keep it. Sigh. That is the second thing from the auction that had the symptoms too - the first was a pair of chairs. And on the chairs, we didn't notice it until I had done all the work of taking the upholstery off the first one. That sucked. Anyway, so now we are on the quest for occasional tables. I may have to give in to my husband's desire for a cocktail table. I hate cocktail tables.
I am totally slammed at work right now. This was my 5 o'clock break. Back to the salt mines for me!
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Willy Wonka
So, I thought I had this original thought - I've been seeing the previews and interviews for the upcoming Willy Wonka release. And I thought, "am I the only one who notices that Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka has a resemblance to Michael Jackson?"
Apparently I am not the only one, as I found several articles saying the same thing when I googled willy wonka, johnny depp, michael jackson.
Oh well.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Sad today
Today is one of those days when I just feel very sad, but for no particular reason. I know there are people with real problems in the world who have much more reason to feel sad than I do, but since sad has an inexaustible supply, I don't worry too much about hogging someone else's share of sad. When I was younger, I fancied I was the only one with occasional unexplained sadness. Now I am older and realize that I am not special - there are plenty of other sad people too. So now I can also be sad about being not particularly special. Ok, that last sentence was a joke. Sad days for me seem to correlate highly with how much I liked what I ate. Today for lunch I had yogurt. I am currently having a snack on Reduced Fat Toastchee. I didn't have the yogurt so much for diet purposes as because there was nothing at home to bring and I didn't want to buy something. The Toastchee is for fun - I love Toastchee. When I was on Weight Watchers, losing weight also had some correlation to less sad days. Weight Watchers is hard work. It was at least easy to go to the meetings when I worked at a place that had meetings at work. After leaving, I just couldn't make it to meetings anymore.
It looks like it may rain again. Geez. I remember when summers used to be dry for weeks. I know the rain is better, but I feel like I should start building a boat.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Back to the mechanic...again
Funny how the world moves so quickly...until you have car trouble, that is. This morning I went out to go to work, and the Explorer wouldn't start. It wouldn't even really make any noise. Having just got a new battery 2 weeks ago, I was dumbfounded. And being that it was 9 AM on a weekday morning, I was dumbfounded. There is no one around to jump you off at that time of day, and it is hard to flag someone down when your car is sitting in your driveway. I think I weirded one guy in a jeep out, he was driving by, and I was standing outside looking at him wondering if I could get him to stop - he waved at me. It was then I realized how obviously I was looking at him. I called the shop I go to, which is only like a mile away, but they couldn't spare someone to come jump me off. So I called AAA. They recommended a tow truck, since the Explorer didn't show any signs of starting.
The truck took over an hour to arrive, which I guess isn't too bad. I got to ride in the cab to the shop. By that time it was 11. They had to push it into the garage at the shop because they couldn't start it. Turns out my starter is bad. Yay.
Now it is fixed, but I am at home. I could walk over there, but it is hot outside. I am not going in to work anyway now, I'm working from home. So better to wait, I think.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Husband at Six Flags...
So my husband is at Six Flags with two other people from his work. I am pouty. I want to slack off and go to Six Flags! Apparently there was some dumb "contest" and this is the dumb "prize". Which sucks - at our old company the prizes involved sig figs - like one time we got a dinner out at Chops. That was an excellent prize. This prize sucks for the sig fig (me). I don't think it is appropriate for them to go there alone, in their skin-baring clothes, and experience the romance of an amusement park together. That's right, ROMANCE. All that standing together, pushed closer by the crowd. Riding side by side, screaming in unison. Going through Thunder River, all hot and wet. It isn't right! And don't get me started on Monster Mansion. They might as well go freaking park. That is not an appropriate coworker activity. Nor an appropriate activity for a married person, doing that with someone else. Argh! I am angst ridden.
In other news, IKEA is opening today. YAY!!!! Could H&M be far behind? I hope not. The TV news said there are some fools that have been camping out there for days. That is just crazy. Sure, the first 100 people get a free arm chair, but what if you don't even like the arm chair after sitting there for a week. Must be nice to have so much free time. I am going today after work to give IKEA all my money. I actually had a hair appointment tonight, but I rescheduled it to be able to go bask in inexpensive household goods.
We watched Ocean's 12 last night - between the mumbling and the dark sets, I am still not completely sure what was going on. Geez.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Most annoying interview ever
I was thinking about this last night, for some reason. This particular interview still just eats me up. I looked back to make sure I hadn't written about this before and didn't see it, so forgive me if I am repeating myself.
Let me preface this with some background. I started college in 1995 - it was there, probably the first week, that I first met the internet. As well as the www, gopher (sweet gopher), ftp, telnet, newsgroups, etc. Those first few months, my hallmates and I were on all the time, we would go hang out in labs (no ethernet in the dormrooms yet) for hours, looking people and information up online. Although it had been around some years before, those were still the early days of the www, and I was there to see it grow and change over the next 4 years of college... My dorm had ethernet starting in 1996, and my computer stayed on, online, all day and night from then on whether I was in front of it or not. While we had a library, I don't remember ever checking a book out in four years, though I did occasionally make copies of some for papers. Most research I did online. Probably because I am lazy. Nonetheless, I was online probably 3 hours a day mininum in college. (Sadly enough, it is 8 minimum now, but what is a knowledge worker to do?)
Alrighty. It was probably the fall of 1998 still, my senior year of college, and I was doing the interview rounds trying to get a job for after graduation. I had a second round interview at CSC, which involved going into the office, taking a test, and being interviewed by 2-3 people. So I was being interviewed by this one guy, I wish I could remember his name so I could publicly shame him. We were talking about this project I did in one of my accounting classes where we picked a company and did research on it and profiled it, reviewed financials and did analysis on its growth prospects. He asked me about where I got the information. Annual reports. Him: Where else? SEC filings Him: Where else? (etc.) I don't remember all the places now, but I went through probably 5 different sources of information. I couldn't come up with anything else at this point - there are only so many places. So he takes a notepad, writes something in big letters on it, underlines it, and shows it to me. Guess what this word of wisdom said? INTERNET At the time I was mostly flustered, and said something to the effect of, "But that is where I was looking at all that stuff." I was honestly just so shocked. And it still just eats me up what a ass this guy was, and how behind the curve. Looking back, it was probably a generational difference. But ack! - it still just eats me up. Anyway, they didn't offer me a job. Big loss.
Another funny interview/job thing that happened - Microstrategy sent me a rejection letter in a Word document via email. It had a virus. Braniacs.
Thursday, June 23, 2005
AARGH!
Feeling overwhelmed with:
1. work
2. school
3. everything else as usual
Haven't even been able to come up w/ anything interesting to say in 2 weeks. Whah!
Thursday, June 09, 2005
N64
So, with the new projector, I have decided that I need more than one game for the Nintendo 64. What is my one game, you ask? The New Tetris. Which rocks, but does not inspire my husband to spend much time playing too. So I have been trolling ebay for about a week trying to buy up games. It is nice, because they are much cheaper than they were when new, but I wish I had thought to troll the rental places when they were selling the rental games instead, b/c shipping certainly adds to the cost.
Anyway, so far I have bought: Waieleau (sp?) Golf, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, and Extreme G. I really want Harvest Moon and Worms Armageddon. Of course, so does everyone else so they go crazy expensive (for a 6+ year old game). One funny thing I have noticed - looks like people can't give Perfect Dark away. I played it once, but kept getting disoriented. If anyone out there wanted to give me their old N64 games, that would be nice too!
This ebaying really is a crazy drain on time. I had forgotten how obsessive it can be since the last time I was actively buying was during my Viewmaster collecting frenzy a few years ago. And most of the auctions end at night, not during the middle of the day when I am online. Crikey.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
basement
Spent many hours yesterday looking for seating for the basement. We just got a projector for down there, so the issue of seating has risen in importance since there now will be something to actually do in the basement. For some strange reason, my husband is nearly obsessed with getting a sectional. I don't understand it. They are big and not very versatile. Bleh. We found one that was a good candidate. I really want a chaise somewhere in there too. We couldn't pull the trigger though. Which was probably for the best. After we got home and I hooked the projector up, we changed our minds about the wall we wanted to project onto. Which makes the measurements rather different.
The projector is awesome. Better than I had hoped. On a light green wall, the picture was still great. Just damn impressive.
