Archive for Random Babble
Mystery lists
I cleaned today. Went through piles and piles of things. I’ve got scads of notebooks, and it’s bizarre to see what kind of random crap shows up in said notebooks from eons ago, things that I can’t even begin to interpret.
I found this list, which appears to be in Drew’s handwriting, and neither of us has a clue as to what the heck it could possibly mean.
Hung Kawk* – 52
Hastings – 50
Bai Bai Ho – 44
Hung Long – 42
Oxford – 44
Brighton – 48
Norwich – 57
Rik E Balls – 42
Invaes Place – 40
London – 42
Long Duck Dong – 52
No clue. No clue at all.
Poor little Nanowrimo and other babble
I should be going to bed right now, but instead I will type. I should be working on Nanowrimo, but unfortunately I have 25.5 hours to write 15,000 words. I won the last two years, so on some level I’ve decided it’s OK to lose this year.
It’s weird, too – I stalled out earlier this month at around 15,000 words, stopped writing for 4 days, and then in a glorious burst of the English language tapped out a bunch and leapt ahead. And, uh, then Thanksgiving vacation happened. And working full-time (I was fortunate (?) to be underemployed these 2 years past). I am sorry, snarky vampire story, you will have to stay at 35,000 words for the time being. It’s been fun to write, and I’d like to keep going with it, but not at the crankin’ nano pace, I’m afraid. I’ve also spend the last month itching to finish a painting, but not feeling justified in spending the time to work on it when I have all this writing to do. D’oh!
I really do like Nanowrimo, though. The write-ins are great, they make me almost feel like I have a social life! I feel like a lot of the people that go to them are of the “creative and weird people who Get Stuff Done” types, who I need more of in my life. I also think Nanowrimo as an exercise is really useful and productive as well. It helps to blast away that idea that there’s something wrong with writing crap, or something wrong with trying to write without the inspiration. If nothing else, it teaches you that one’s writing muse is most likely to visit when one is *gasp* writing! I know I had plenty of times when I sat down and had a hard time getting into what I was working on, and so my characters just chatted trivially back and forth and did trivial things, and then all of the sudden these things were leading to plot-affecting things that were interesting and tied into other things and ultimately felt like quality writing. And there’s also the fact that even if no quality writing occurs, crap writing does, and crap writing is so much better then no writing. It’s a whole lot easier to edit an awful novel then no novel at all. And even if it is a giant pile of dung, who’s to say it can’t be sculpted into an adorable poo-pet and sold for millions?
Hmm, other things going on…I decorated for Xmas! Woo! As I continue to rock the purple $1 Target tree. I’d like to find some caroling to do this year, as I am a sucker for singing badly. I’ve got shopping about 1/2 done at this point, was hoping to be done by now but that would require more effort than I am capable of. I’m super tired lately, but I’ll just blame that on my mild tendencies toward seasonal affective disorder. Must remember to make more attempts to go hike and walk and stuff on the weekends, so I can absorb sweet delicious sunlight.
Oh yeah, we went to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving break. It was dry and fabulous and we looked at art and ate things and hiked and I rocked the continental breakfast waffle machine and such.
And I am super tired, I hear beds are all the rage for sleeping now.
Chipotle, why hast thou forsaken me?
For the past few years, Drew & I have participated in Chipotle’s “Dress up as a burrito to get a free burrito” on Halloween dealio. Pretty sweet, considering all you need to do is have some tin foil on your body to be considered dressing like a burrito. We heard recently that they were going to start charging $2 this year, but we figured that’s still worth it . Albeit, we’d only be hitting one Chipotle, rather then trying to do 4 like in years past. Mind you, their burritos don’t work nearly as well for leftovers, especially when it’s 3-4 days afterwards and you’re still trying to crank through that last burrito.
Anyhow, I decided to look up more about the different promotion they were doing this year, only to be surprised that you’re not supposed to dress like a burrito this year, but instead as a processed food, in order to get your $2 “Boorito.”
First, I’m very curious to see how many people unknowingly show up dressed in their tin foil and are quite disappointed to not be getting a free burrito! Albeit, Chipotle has no obligation to do the same promotion year after year, but it seems to have gone on enough years to be a bit of a tradition, so it’s surprising that they’re changing it now.
I’m also not a fan of how “processed food” has become a catch-all phrase for all that is unhealthy. Technically, any food that isn’t eaten completely raw has been processed. Meaning: the cheese, meat, and tortillas used in making Chipotle burritos are processed, so technically I could still wear tin foil and be a processed food and get me a $2 burrito. Hmm…
Then again, I’m still sick, and may be too much of a bum to leave the house, even for a $2 burrito. I’ll just convince Drew to bring 2 costumes and go through the line twice!
I be illin’, etc.
I hate being sick. Then again, I doubt anyone actually enjoys it. There are all different tiers to being sick, and much like Dante’s Inferno, each has it’s own sort of misery attached to it. I’m not even that sick, just the standard sore throat/stuffy nose/headache/fatigue. And I’m *hungry*. I’m never hungry when I’m sick, it’s really weird. In fact, the return of my appetite is generally the sign that I’m getting healthier. No such indicator this time around, I guess. I already missed a shopping date with a friend yesterday, and by the looks of it I’ll be missing a super sweet Halloween party tonight. Tomorrow is another super sweet Halloween party + Nanowrimo launch party, and as much as I’d like to go, unless I have a sudden recovery, the fact that it starts at 10 pm might inhibit that from happening too.
I’m doing Nanowrimo again this year (whereupon I try to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days). This is my 3rd year – the first was successful, and the second still sits untouched since Dec 1st. That fact that I churned out 50,000 words doesn’t matter so much if the vast majority of it is pure drivel! Anyhow, I’ve got a vague idea for this year, was hoping to get an outline done but we’ll see about my level of ambition.
You know what makes me super sad? The fact that there are no Lindt stores out here. Even when the one in Richmond disappeared, I could still head to DC or Charlottesville to get my fix. But alas, no such solution here. On a related note, I’ve been trying to get all my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. Last year, we wound up at a mall the day before Xmas, and it was seriously traumatizing, so I’m trying desperately to make sure that never happens again!
And on a final note, I have a super sweet new phone! I’ve had one of those “Upgrade your phone for free!” coupons from AT&T for awhile, and decided that, rather then get one of the free phones, I’d throw in some money and get an Iphone. Was gonna just get an Iphone 3 at first, but then I got swayed by the fact that I could get a refurbished Iphone 4 for $150. After doing some research and discovering that there’s not difference between new and refurbished Apple products (and the fact that 4 hasn’t been out that long anyhow), I got it, and it is shiny indeed! At this point, it’s functioning mostly as a game system for me. Angry Birds and Plants VS Zombies are helping me through my period of sickness! And I love the fact that there are so many games for just $.99. My next step will be to figure out how I can make some Iphone apps. This is mostly because I want to get my first Nanowrimo novel, a Choose Your Own Adventure type book, playable on an Iphone. I am a sucker for having as many markets for my products as possible!
Oh yeah, and on a final note, this is me as a zombie in the Denver Zombie Crawl this year!
Attack of the Wandering Salesman
So it was about 4:30 or so, and I was sitting at my computer at my new job doing whatever work I happened to be doing at the time. The door opens to the right of me, and a preppily-dressed guy walks in. This is abnormal. Firstly, because no one at this job dresses close to preppy – thus far, it’s jeans-casual unless there’s a client coming in. Also, the sign outside of this door informs whoever is at the door that the entrance to the office is down the hall. In fact, this sign is probably there to keep people like this out.
Anyhow, he starts talking to me, and at first I’m waiting for him to mention being lost, so I can give him directions. Soon enough, however, it becomes quite clear that he’s quite intent on selling me coupons for some car wash down the street. He’s on a roll, and I’m just sitting there being confused that I’m sitting at my desk at work being harassed by a car wash salesman.
He ends his shpiel, and I inform him that I usually just wash my own car. He then informs me that I’m a “strong independent woman” and asks if there’s anyone else in the office who might be interested. I explain to him that there isn’t, and he looks about ready to disagree with me when my project manager comes out and boots the guy away with a firm “No Solicitors.”
What I don’t get is the “strong independent woman” comment. I mean, I’m too cheap to take the car through a carwash, and I know how to operate a hose. I don’t get the gender stereotyping of washing cars – if anything, when I think of “people washing cars”, I just think of all those random groups of kids at the side of the road selling car washes to raise money for their school or church or whatever. And for that matter, to continue down that fuzzy gender path, wouldn’t washing a car be pretty similar to me washing some gigantic pan or tupperware dish or something?
Then again, maybe I’m missing the point altogether. Obviously I was meant to be super complimented by his comment and immediately start flinging dollars at him to get those precious car wash coupons. D’oh!
Why it’s best to delete all Craigslist-related emails with poor grammar
So I found a lot of sushi plates on Craigslist for $35. Twenty single serving roll plates in three different styles, plus a bunch of bowls for soup, salad, and sauces. For $35! I’ve been wanting to have something more appropriate for serving sushi, so I emailed the person. I get a one sentence response. Or rather, a one line response, containing 2-3 sentences, nothing punctuated or capitalized. The post in Craigslist was written just fine, strangely enough. I’m generally wary of dealing with people that can’t write a decent email, but I really wanted the sushi set. So I wrote back, suggesting we meet at 10:30 today, and she writes back giving me her phone number and the intersection to meet her at. I still wasn’t sure *who*, given the only thing besides the intersection and the phone number in the email was this chunk of text: “should be fine, i’ll have somer meet you”. Somer? Is that a person? Is that “someone” typed incorrectly?
So I get there just before 10:30. Glad to make it on time as it’s a 45 minute drive from where I live up to Boulder, where this person is. I park semi-illegally at the intersection – poor parking options as the intersection is just on the edge of a campus, and there are students everywhere. I don’t see a person obviously standing around with a box of dishes, and she never gave me a description of her car (I did give her a description of mine, though), so I call her number at 10:35. No answer, no indication of who the phone number even belongs to in the voicemail (which is a default voicemail that just repeats the phone number). I say I’m at the intersection, leave my number, tell her to call me. After 10 more minutes of sitting there, I give up and go home. It’s been several hours since that point, and still no word from her. So much for my sushi plates.
Apparently I need to remember the lesson of “Never deal with illiterate people on Craigslist.” I can handle semi-literate – a few misspellings happen (myself included here), and some people really do type like they talk – but in general, I have the best luck with people that type like me. I was once getting rid of some aloe plants, got a bunch of responses, and picked the one who wrote her email pretty much how I write emails. She was prompt, nice, and I ended up having a several minute conversation about plants with her. Also useful is people with emails that are job related. If they use a work email, it means they’re capable of showing up on time for a job, meaning they’re capable of showing up on time for you. Maybe the fact that my sushi person was using an AOL email address should have also clued me in, oh well.
My search for cheap and fabulous sushi plates continues on, I suppose.
Just a quick update, mostly about work
I have no time for anything (except this brief post, apparently). Went on a 1.5 week trip, a vacation & funeral combo, to FL and VA and NC, got to see lots of people, make/eat lots of sushi, splish around in lots of water, and a good time was had by all.
My recruiter had an interview lined up for me when I got back, and it turned out that it was less of an interview and more of the guy having already decided he was interested in me based on my website, and just wanted to see if I was interested in the project. This still confirms in my head that I am bad at interviewing, since I didn’t really have an interview for this position. Also, there are other people working there who do both design and dev, so I was saved from the hated question of “which I like doing more”, which I think is only given by people who only do one or the other. Anyhow, it lasts a few weeks, since it’s just for a project, but assuming all goes well, it will make me more employable and give me money and all that good stuff.
I’m also in the middle of the DMS website (and by “in the middle” I mean, “busy hacking up Drupal and making a big ole mess”). Sometimes I’m uninspired for design, and I have that problem right now. So this is what I work on when I get home from the other job, since they want it done soon as well. I could also have a census job, the next round of followups, with training starting this Thursday, but I’m gonna have to call and cancel because I have no time. It’s like I went from famine to feast here. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, work is a good thing, it’s just exhausting when that’s all you do.
Also, this weekend I went to Drupalcamp Colorado, which was neat. I’ve got some fun ideas for new projects, once I have to time to get around to them, that is.
The Census, Bras, Too Much TV, and Insane Colorado Weather
The Census hasn’t changed much as the last time I wrote. Or rather, things change constantly, but in minor ways and at a pretty constant rate. Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking to two people who a.) refused to answer some information and were b.) polite and respectful. I was getting afraid that either people would be polite and respectful, or would refuse information and be rather cranky about it, as that has more or less been my experience up to recently. I guess it makes me feel a little happier with humanity knowing that there are people who don’t agree with everything the Census is doing, but don’t feel like they need to take out their negative emotions about it on me.
So a little more then a month ago, I got back on the Pill. I just have some severe pain issues I’m dealing with, and as it’s been about 8 years since I’ve taken hormones, I’ve been hoping that some of the problems I had with it then would not be a problem now. Seems OK so far, and has helped with pain a bit, though not as much as I’ve been hoping admittedly, but in time hopefully that will improve. The only side effect I’ve really been noticing this time around is that whole “breast size increasing” thing. It got pretty drastic just before my period, then calmed down a bit, but I’m still at a point where I can’t wear some of my smaller bras, and I think it’s just going to stay like this. Losing weight isn’t an option – if I were meant to be any smaller, it would have happened back when I was dancing outside for 12-16 hours a week at Liberty. In any case, my BMI is quite normal and I eat my veggies and all that, so weight loss just to get into some bras seems a bit dumb. Thus, time to buy some new bras. Which is a pain, as I’m lucky to get bras as cheap as $40-$50 apiece because your standard American bra manufacturers don’t feel the need to manufacture bra sizes outside of the median range. British bras are much better with this, but they don’t exactly run cheap. So, time to scour the internet searching for deals.
One reason that I can get through some of the more unfortunate/stressful parts of being an enumerator is because I am currently obsessed with Babylon 5. We just started watching Season 4, and all I can think about all day is what’s gonna happen to all the poor Narns? And is the Captain OK? And why did Vir lose all that weight anyhow? Last Sunday we watched 9 episodes in a row, it was insane. I need to stretch this out more, because my mind is waay too absorbed in this TV show. I remember the crash I experienced after watching Seasons 1-3 of The Office in about a 3 day timespan, and I think the post Babylon 5 crash will be much worse then that. It’s an amazing show, though, and I wish more TV programs were written this thoughtfully.
Oh, and we’re supposed to get up to 4 inches of snow here tonight. In the middle of May. Yup, apparently Colorado springs are completely insane. Rumor has it that Richmond is sweating to death on and off in the 90s these days. I, uh, think I prefer the random snow. I really like how out here, even when it is really hot out, it’s not dripping. If anything, you have to keep drinking lots of water because of the dryness. “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” always seemed like a dumb phrase, but it seems to be true. Well, to an extent, as I’m sure anyone living in Southern Arizona or New Mexico or Texas in July might disagree with me.
Today’s Random Update
Andrew has finally seen The Wedding Singer, which is one of those movies that I like despite not caring for either of the lead people. I am a sucker for the 80′s. There’s also the fact that the only Adam Sandler movies I tend to enjoy are the ones where he doesn’t act like Adam Sandler.
We’ve been watching Babylon 5, which I am totally obsessed with. Interesting plots that totally carry over from episode to episode, hooray!
I finished reading “Characters and Viewpoint” by Orson Scott Card, which is an amazing book to read if you want to write good fiction, as well as get a better understand of human psychology and perspective.
We got on a bike path this weekend and tried to ride all the way out to Golden. Alas, we didn’t make it. I was stubborn about biking and, despite the fact that it was the first day in over a week that called for rain, I insisted we had to go. Meaning that we got drenched and had to turn around at some point. Oops!
I start the Census job in a week. This is good, as despite the fact that I have a gazillion personal projects to work on, I have a hard time getting motivated when faced with an expanse of free time. I am super productive when I have something else important that needs to get done, however! So, hopefully returning to a 40 hour workweek will help me organize my other time more efficiently.
I wish I could figure out what GS level a Census enumerator is. As this is a temporary position, I’ll be looking for a job to take on once I’m done with the Census. Having a govt. job can make it easier to get another govt. job, and if I already knew my GS level, that would be pretty useful. I’ll assume it’s either a.) something I’ll learn once I start the position, or that b.) as this is a temporary position, maybe GS levels don’t apply for it.
Drew’s job is doing well, he’s about to shift from temp status to being a part of the company – no pay raise, unfortunately, but he’ll be eligible for benefits and such.
And, that’s about all that’s been going on lately here. Oh, I did add a new fishie to my collection, as fishies are very important.
TV, wanderings, and worky work
So first off, we finished watching the first season of the Sarah Conner Chronicles. It’s pretty good! Second season will hopefully be waiting at the library for us in the very near future.
We finally got to wander around downtown on Saturday. My google-fu found free parking at a giant REI store, and from there we wandered through a park and along 16th street. Not as many wacky shops as I was hoping for, plus a Chick-fil-a that was astoundingly closed on Saturday, but the area was still interesting. We then wandered over to a park whereupon we were surrounded by pigeons waiting for bread. Not that we had any bread, but then they’re not exactly the brightest of birds.
These guys were super tame. Super cute, too! Anyhow, after that we stared at the Mint and then headed back over to 16th street where I spent entirely too much money on chocolate that should have tasted better based on it’s price. Then we went back to the park by the river, where we ate said chocolate and a few geese decided we were planning on feeding them. Then we returned to our abode.
HONK!
Also, work is working. As I may have already mentioned, I picked up the Census job, which I start in a month. Also, I’m finally getting paid for the project I’m just finishing up, and am going to an hourly rate for further work. I also continue to stand around outside holding a sign. I suppose I’ve technically been fulfilling what I for awhile considered the ideal job situation: a part-time white-collar job and a part-time blue-collar job. I get physical AND mental exertion, the best of both worlds!
It is good to not be paranoid about monetary situations anymore. Albeit, I’ve been almost on the verge of finishing the redo on my professional website for almost 2 weeks now. One of these days, when I’m not staring at geese or writing these blasted blog entries, one day I shall finish it.
