Too Darn Hot!

I always feel guilty complaining about hot weather when I live in an area where it's usually colder than hell. Tomorrow Syracuse is actually going to have a "heat emergency!" The local television meteorologist said tomorrow's high temperature should be somewhere around 98. I also saw a news story on the national news about global warming and how the world's climate is getting warmer. My husband and I have been spending a lot of time recently talking about moving out of the area, but perhaps we should stay put. By the time we're seventy (if we're still around by then) upstate New York's climate might be pretty similar to what North Carolina's climate is now.

Despite the weather I'm already beginning to think about the fall. I e-mailed my professor to check with him regarding the texts for his class. I'm going to shop around and see if I can pick them up used online.

Stuff Always Takes Longer Than You Think

Why is it that I'm so bad at estimating how long a particular job will take, especially if it involves home upkeep? Yesterday, I had to stain two garden fences, each about six feet high an ten feet long. I figured one morning, tops. Well, got up late then realized I had no paint thinner; the stain is oil based. I had to run to the hardware store buy thinner and gloves. According to the warnings on the stain can, this stuff is almost as carcinogenic as radioactive uranium.

After I finally got started, I made good fairly good progress until I reached the part of the fence behind the giant hosta, which is in full bloom. I should have cut that stuff back BEFORE I started. It took a great deal of maneuvering, around them and finally the bumblebees drove me away from the area. I had no idea how popular those plants are with bumblebees. So I now have both fences stained except for the two and a half feet behind the hosta. I'm hoping most of the flowers will be dead by next weekend, so I can cut them down and finish the job. All in all, bumblebees not withstanding, it took me three and a half hours to stain, 17 1/2 feet of fence.

Of course, I was so exhausted from the staining job, I was no good for anything else for the rest of the evening. We had planned to go to the SkyChiefs'game. B had given us his tickets, but it was raining at game time. Hubby tells me they did eventually get the game in, but start time was postponed two hours. We'd already spent 2 hours hanging around the stadium in the rain waiting for the game to start on Tuesday night.

Judy

Wednesday a friend of mine lost her battle with cancer. She was gracious, considerate, selfless and intelligent,and she had a terrific sense of humor as well. We met through the Arts and Crafts Society. Both of our spouses were board members. Judy served for a time as the Membership Secretary, a position I has also held. I know what a thankless detail-oriented and time-consuming volunteer job that is.

I will remember Judy most for her undying optimism. When things got shaky with the Society, she always said we'd get through it, and she was right. Every time I saw her, while she was fighting her cancer, she'd tell me she was doing much better than the day before and, "I'm going to lick this thing." Sadly, this time she wasn't right.

I'll miss you, Judy. You were a great person to work with and even greater person to know

I'm Marge!

Last month Deathlok asked me to post my TV meme. I answered that I was Lisa Simpson, but image my surprise to discover that I'm actually Marge!

You Are Marge Simpson

You're a devoted family member who loves unconditionally. Sometimes, though, you dream about living a wild secret life! You will be remembered for: your good cooking and evading the police Your life philosophy: "You should listen to your heart, and not the voices in your head."

The Simpsons Personality Test

They're sure right about the good cooking and evading the police. (That's for another post.) I'd guess that a lot of the guys will end up as Homer. He seems to personify every bad trait in all the men I've known.

Two Little Stuffed Mushrooms

Alright maybe the stuffed mushrooms I had at Francesca's Cuccina last night weren't that little. It's amazing that something as innocuous as stuffed mushrooms can totally derail your diet. A few days ago I read a comment to one of Wombat-Socho's posts. Willow_one had suggested an online diet journal, fitday.com. I started using it and found it to be very easy to you and informative. They track your recent foods, so you don't have to do searches on foods you eat regularly. I like the custom foods feature. I occasionally buy a mocha flavored milk drink from a deli near my office. I just plugged in all the nutrient information off the drink's label, now it's in my database for the next time I drink it. FitDay will also track my activities (if I ever get around to doing any.) It's raining this morning so no walk at the lake. I like FitDay's graphic reports too. They really can tell you if you're keeping your diet on track. If you're trying to lose weight definitely check it out. If you're not I'd check it out anyway, you might be surprised the impact certain foods, like little stuffed mushrooms may be having on your diet.

I'm not beating myself up about last night's dinner. Hubby and I were celebrating sixteen years of wedded bliss. Hugs and smoochies out to the best husband on earth!Looking forward to many more years together.

On the baseball front, Yankees go down in defeat yet again to the Toronto Blue Jays. Kudos to A.J. Burnett for getting ten consecutive outs against the Yanks. This puts the Boston Red Sox 3 1/2 games in first.

Ok I know, I know

I've been remiss at keeping up with my blog. This is my first post in over a week. Sorry. My friends, Token Asian aka 80sGirl and Deathlok have very good reasons for not posting. They are going through some emotional days right now and my thoughts and heart goes out to them. Me, I have no good excuse except for the nice summer weather here and my general laziness. Who was it who wanted to start her own tech blog, anyway? The net has enough tech blogs as it is. I think I'll just try concentrating on this one for the time being.

Who says there's no good news? I read one of the crawls on CNN yesterday that said that Justin Timberlake told a reporter that would never run for President. Now I can sleep nights with one less thing to worry about. (I tried to google this story but couldn't find it. If one of my readers finds it please e-mail me.)

I need to run. I didn't realize it was getting so late. We have an overnight freeloader..umm, I mean guest tonight, he's supposed to show in a few minutes. I'd better go be on the lookout for him.

The Halfway Point

It's that time of the year when some of the world's most overpaid athletes converge in one place to smack little white balls with big wooden sticks. I'm referring to Major League Baseball's All-Star Game that takes place in Pittsburgh tomorrow night. Although it seems to me that the main event is beginning to get eclipsed by the bashfest going on tonight in PNC Park, The Century 21 Home Run Derby. I don't know who thought this up but what a genius! Let's get people to pay to watch batting practice. For those of you like my pal Deathlok who are unfamiliar with the game, in a real game the opposing pitcher tries to throw balls that the batter can't hit. In batting practice they throw balls that should be easy for the batters to hit. Don't get me wrong, watching major league players in batting practice can be pretty thrilling but to turn it into a "event" is pretty damn savvy. I guess the draw is that they take the hottest hitters in all of baseball put them all in and one place then let them all hit home runs all night. While it is fun I rather lose interest after the first hour or so. David "Big Papi" Ortiz hit four balls out into the River. OK the first one was exciting, the fourth one? Well you get the picture. They're going into the second round as I write up this post. David Wright, of the New York Mets is leading with 16 runs. Ortiz is in second with 10 and the Florida Marlins' Miguel Cabrera is in third with nine.

In other baseball news, "The Career That Wouldn't Die" looks like it's finally over. The Minnesota Twins released Ruben Sierra today. Notice I didn't say it WAS OVER. Knowing how desperate the New York Yankees are they just may sign him up...AGAIN.

Blogging and Chatting

Friday night and my husband's already crapped out, but then the guy does get up at 4:30 am on Fridays to get to work so I can't blame him. I usually spend Fridays on my laptop chatting with friends on a sort of an online Happy Hour. We've been doing this for about the past 2 months on and off. K is in online with me now. I'm hoping R will show. She mentioned something about chatting with me to firm up plans for when she visits the east coast in September. I doubt Dlok will make it. I read his blog, it sounds like his father-in-law is gravely ill. My heart really goes out to him and his family.

It's Friday and I need to concentrate on more positive thoughts. Not too much going on this weekend. I need to make a trip to get my hair colored and cut. Then this weekend hubby and I have to start moving stuff out of the living room and dining room since the carpet cleaners are coming this week. Hopefully I'll have time to weed the garden and make it out to the lake for a nice long walk.

One more thing, the final totals from Relay for Life are in. We raised over $47,000! There's a wrap up meeting on Monday night.

D'oh!

Yesterday I couldn't log into my cpanel account and then to my horror found an error page where my web site should have been. Several hours after placing a support ticket this e-mail message appeared:

Hello,

We are currently experiencing an issue with the Jefferson server which our technicians are looking at now. We have posted a NEWS item on our website concerning this and will update it as soon as we have more from out technicians.

"Jefferson server"? When the hell did get it moved there? The last time I checked it was on the MacDonald server. Thanks for the big heads up on the move. So I go to their web site and here's the announcement:

Tuesday July 4 2006 - 12:30PM - Jefferson.genwebhost.com - Connectivity Issues

Our datacenter technicians have traced the source of the recent issues to a faulty hard drive in the server. The technicians have reinstalled Cpanel on a brand drive and have begun to copy the backup data to the new drive. The account restoration process has already begun and we will be updating this thread with the progress to ensure clients are updated.

What they're backing it up NOW to another server? You mean it wasn't already backed up on another server? I'll have to remember to place yet another support ticket in order to find out what the name of new mystery server is. And don't ask me to cut them slack because it was the 4th of July. This is a Canadian company and for all I know their datacenter technicians are in Bangalore!

Good thing it's only a portfolio site. God forbid I was dependent on this site for my liveihood. Although all my e-mail accounts on that server are all messed up. I'm not happy at all.

How American am I?

I did take this completely objective quiz How American Are You? Here's my results:

You Are 59% American

Most times you are proud to be an American. Though sometimes the good ole US of A makes you cringe Still, you know there's no place better suited to be your home. You love your freedom and no one's going to take it away from you!

How American Are You?

I'm so relieved. All this time I thought I was an heinous bleeding heart America hating liberal. I'm not so bad after all. Of course, I'm sure would have scored much lower if I had chosen Carter for the best president of the late twentieth century, and fortunately, there weren't any questions concerning Michael Moore.

But then of course, I'm not as bad as these guys!

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Must Look Away...

Must not watch "Law and Order" marathon, must look away, must read web marketing book, must not watch "Law and Order." Ok, I'll admit I already sat through two episodes before tearing myself away to sit in front of the computer. I did, however, put in almost 5 miles walking by the lake early this morning, before the rains came. I have such good intentions to get things done, and then I get sucked into an episode of "Law and Order" which I've already seen about a half dozen times. Why does that happen?

Zippy's TV Meme

Sorry this post is over two weeks late. Please cut me some slack as I am just getting my life back. I just saw radio gnome's response to Deathlok's original post. There's no question that my TV meme would have to be Lisa Simpson. Although we'd all like to believe that if Lisa grew up she'd become President but more likely she'd end up as a frustrated grad student.

No Joy in Mudville

I know I promised to write more entries in my blog after I quit my other job, but the New York Mets were playing the Boston Red Sox this week. The Mets were swept by the Red Sox and then went on to get beat by the Jankies (also known as the New York Yankees) after a lengthy rain delay at Yankee Stadium last night.

My husband happens to be the biggest Red Sox fan I know. Much to my father's dismay I grew up a Mets fan while my sister, was the big Jankie fan. (That's probably why she was his favorite.) While I can't say I was happy about the Mets four recent losses, all that winning, winning, winning was getting slightly boring. Which brings me to ... "What the heck is WRONG with the National League East?" Mets are in first place by ten games followed by the Florida Marlins? The Florida Marlins? Yes, the same team that ended the Boston Red Sox's 12 game winning streak. What is this a sign of Armegeddon? I don't know, it just feels so wrong.

As I write this the Mets are leading the Jankies 2-0 in the third inning. What the heck am I doing here behind by computer? I know I can follow the game on the internet, but that's for work. (Oops! Is Doug reading this?) If I can't be at the stadium, watching on television is the only way for me to follow the game. so I'm outta here.

The Story of L

Saturday was my last day at the department store. I'm looking forward to getting my life back. I'm sure it will finally hit me when I leave work tomorrow and can go home instead of rushing over to the mall. L finally told me the entire story that she had been feeding me in dribs and drabs over the past month. She and the boyfriend had a huge blow-up last week but as of Saturday they had called a truce provided they quit their jobs and go work for different concerns.

I don't know if I mentioned that the boyfriend works security at the store. The whole story concerns L and one of the boyfriend's co-workers in security, K. Apparently L and K had some hot action and the boyfriend is totally in the dark about it. He thinks that K and L are flirting with each other but that is sooo over. For some reason, K walks over to the kids' department when L's working to insult her. The thing is the boyfriend sees them talking on the security camera and assumes it the exact opposite of what's really going on since he has no idea what's ALREADY gone down (pardon my pun). On one hand I'm sorry I'm not going to find out how this all turns out, but on the other I'd rather not be around for the fallout. L really in't a bad kid afterall. She's just young, I don't think she knows the differnce yet between making love and really loving somebody. I hope someday she can figure it all out.

Drive-by Post

I've still got 3 more shifts left at the department store from Hell. (Hey, do I have to credit Richard Lewis for the "form Hell" thing?) Anyway, I probably won't be posting again until early next week. And I'm still waiting to find out how much money was raised at Relay.

In other news, I'll be moving into my new office tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll post photos on my server. My niece turns eight on Monday. Where does the time go? Note to self: return G's birthday gift, the overpriced DVD I bought from amazon then I found the same thing $10 cheaper at the local Borders, and order a Judybats CD. Toodles til next time.

Relay for Life 2006

I had put off posting the results of this past weekend's Relay for Life until I had heard how much money we raised. I couldn't stay all night; I had to put in a full shift on Saturday. I missed closing ceremonies when they announce how much was raised. I hoped someone would have e-mailed me the results by now, but they must all still be snoozing.

Our Relay was held at Onondaga Lake Park. The participants' campsites were located right on the shore. The weather was fantastic, just the opposite of last year's cold rainy evening. I missed helping to set up since I worked until 4pm. My boss let me leave early. I stopped by the supermarket for ice, went home, and changed loaded the car up with my junk then headed to the lake. I did get put to work as soon as I arrived. I worked the Relay store. Pins with blinking lights and baseball caps sold very well. I also helped out putting names on luminaries and filling them up with sand. I escorted a reporter from a local paper to interview on of our team captains who's also a survivor.

Later in the evening I hung out with K and her husband. I found out that both of her parents had died of cancer within two years of each other.

The only negative thing was that 2 local radio personalities had committed to EMCEE some of the festivities. We put their names in the program thanking them and they stiffed us. I'm certainly glad that I didn't include them in the press releases. If my memory is correct, I think Kel warned me not to anyway.

Before I forget, kudos to the Washington Nationals for taking two out of three games in their series against the Yankees. In both games the Senators came from behind to prevail. And a huge congratulations goes out to Ryan Zimmerman for his exciting walk off home run to end Sunday's game!

Adventures in Retail: Game Over

To quote one of my cyber pals, Wombat-Socho, "I'm not dead yet." I only look and feel that way. After sacrificing all my free personal time and what little sanity I have left to the retail gods,
I decided to pack it in. Yesterday's 9 hour shift with the schedule change that no one bothered to tell me about was pretty much the kicker. Some manager I had never heard of called my house to ask me Iwhy I wasn't already at work! Then there were 2 DIFFERENT $10 off discount coupons and a special 20% discount AFTER 4pm ONLY on already marked dowm items that were the last straw. I swear the March Hare from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is the marketing director for this chain. It's not as if anyone explains any of these discounts to the sales staff, oh God, no. Then guess who gets the brunt of the customers' wrath when we try our best to explain these convulted promotions to them. Oh, and did I mention the dozen or so returns from hell I had to issue yesterday and that 2 out of the 4 cash registers in our area are broken, along with the store's elevator which has been out of commisssion for the past week? We've having to send parents with strollers and folks in wheelchairs over to our competititor across the hall to use their elevator. I'll bet their cash registers work, too.

In the 3 weeks since my last post, L broken up and reconciled with her boyfriend twice. Lucky me, I even got to hear all the details of his recent drunken molestation of her. Then there was the fight between the 2 white trash women swearing at the tops of their lungs at each other in the pre-teen girls' section. They continued their heated disageement all the way to the 2 operating cash registers and guess which associate got to cash them out? I was just thrilled to see them leave without coming to blows.

I was supposed to work a 5 hour shift today but woke up with the nastiest sinus infection and a low grade fever. I figured that going to work in the children's department with a fever was definitely not a good idea. I doubt my supervisor would agree with that notion but screw her.

I just submitted my resignation on the company site, which my the way, does work. I'm foolishly planning to serve out the rest of my sentence, I mean finish my scheduled shifts, as long as one one changes them without telling me. This Saturday will be my last day. I can't wait to get my life back. I will NEVER set foot in that store again.

Adventures in Retail: The Saga Begins

I've been trained on the cash register, taken the store tour and watched all the training videos. Now I'm out on the floor as associate #435. I worked Thursday night and survived my first weekend. Saturday was very busy but Sunday was rather quiet. The weather on Sunday was gorgeous. I'm sure most people were probably out enjoying the day.

Surprisingly, I found that many of the customers were friendly and patient. I hope I projected those characteristics back to them. I did overhear two people I had helped tell the big manager what a wonderful sales clerk she had. Alrighty. On the other hand, it's my co-workers who leave much to be desired. One in particular, who was supposed to act as my "buddy" and help me out on the floor. Sure she helped, when she'd bother to be around. L is the stupidest, most self absorbed person I've ever met. Of course she thinks nothing of talking incessantly about herself, herself and herself. She's around twenty years old and has an eighteen month old baby girl. I'd think she'd might occasionally bore me to death talking about her daughter -- but no. She hardly ever mentions the poor little thing.

On morning Sunday L and I were scheduled to open. I knew I'd have to get the cash bags and open the registers, even though I'd never done it before on my own. I didn't figure I'd have to be there for a whole 45 minutes on my own. I did run into a small problem that I didn't know how to deal with so had to call for a manager. K, the store assistant GM who hired me showed up. She helped me on the registers until L showed up at 11:45. I did cover a bit for L (which I really shouldn't have). We were both originally scheduled to start the shift at noon but our supervisor changed it on Saturday. (The supervisor forgot that the store was opening early on Sunday when she made out the original schedule.) I told K that maybe L had forgotten the shift start time had been moved up an hour, or maybe our supervisor neglected to tell L.

Then, once L was on the floor with me I was subjected to hearing all the details of her breakup with her boyfriend (who by the way IS not the same guy who fathered her baby). Apparently his friends were talking trash about her, and he wouldn't defend her. Incidentally, he also hits her. I got the impression thought that the punch fests might have been permissible if he would just stick up for her. Either way, she dumped him. There might be a bright side to this. The boyfriend also works in the store, so L is considering quitting to avoid constantly running into him. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I opened two new credit applications over the weekend (that's two extra dollars in the old paycheck for each). They were also handing out candy bars for each application. I left mine in my locker for those evening shifts I have to go to directly from the software company to the mall.

I did have today off so I was able to catch up on house cleaning and laundry. I got out to buy some flowers for the flower boxes and a decent hanging plant for the porch despite that most of plants were fairly picked over by this afternoon. I'm hoping to put the flowers in the box tomorrow night. I wrote up the Relay press release. Those will have to wait until the ACS office approves it before I can send them out later this week.

Hello I Must Be Going

I would have had more time to write tonight if I hadn't gone to the lake for a walk after work. It's a gorgeous day, and I haven't been able to get out to the lake for about a month. I noticed all the trees have leaves on them and there are boats in the marina now!

I met with the head of my department yesterday. Dr. H encouraged me to apply for the master's program. I'm going to wait until the end of next year and see where I am. He told me not to worry about money. He'd help find aid for me and all but assured me of a Graduate Assistantship. It would be great to have school paid for but where the funds for food and shelter would come from is the big question. There's always loans and hubby says if that's what I really want to do, he'll sell some stock.

Wish I could write a bit more to tell you how my adventures in retail is going. Classroom training is over. Tomorrow they put me on the floor. Should be interesting. I'll try to post again over the weekend.

My Last Weekend

I think this is the last weekend I can call my own for some time to come. I started my adventures in retail Thursday night. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have to go back again until Monday night. Apparently they don't want to let you loose on the selling floor until you've mastered the cash register. Cash register! I had enough problems with the combination lock on my locker! Tomorrow should be interesting, especially seeing that I'm going straight from eight hours at the software company right to the mall.

With most of my future weekends spoken for I used this one to finish up some household chores. I did finish painting the porch floor. It looks great. Hubby can start getting it ready for the summer next weekend. I also cleaned and straightened up my studio. It's still a mess but it's a less dusty mess. I just finished putting away my winter clothes -- at least the really heavy stuff that I'm not still wearing. I was standing the my attic freezing my butt off while taking my shorts out of storage. I know didn't make much sense, but it's supposed to get very warm next week. I'll be too busy then to do anything, and yes they want me in for forty hours at the software company.

I have to ask D for extended lunch on Tuesday. I have to meet with my department head at school. Nothing serious, he was responsible for hooking me up with D and this job. He wanted to know how it was going. I also think I should touch base with him on how my studies are progressing. He e-mailed me a few weeks ago to ask if I were interested in a GA position. If I didn't have the software firm gig, I might have gone for it. I would have had to commit to the degree program; I'm only working on an advanced certificate right now. At this point, I'm still not sure I want to continue on for a full degree. It's good to know though that if I keep up my grades that possibility could be there.