Googled

Just for fun sometime you should try googleing yourself. Just put your full name in quotes, "Granola girl" and see what comes back. Then, read every result that you think is about you. Consider the accuracy of the statement, and the source. Then, consider if you think the person writing about you is right.

Tonight I learned that I'm, apparently, a purple. All this time I thought I was a strong red. Having never taken the color personality tests I just assumed. Well, according to this particular school of thought, it appears that I am. Funny. Who knew. The more interesting part of this is that my name bore mentioning on the blog of someone I hardly remember knowing a little over a year ago. Be careful of who you're mean to, for one day they shall blog about you.

Also, this is a great way to learn about people you're thinking of dating. Bwahahaha.

P.S. This is really only a fun exercise if you don't suck as a human being. I promise.

Accuracy in Reporting, or, Lack Thereof

Mumsy told Pops that I have a new boyfriend. What she should have told him was I have a new Secret Boyfriend, or, even, a crush. Instead, she gave him inaccurate information. Now, when I finally start dating him it's going to be all awkwardness, because you just know that this story is going to come up!

As long as they don't mention my blog we're good.

A New Boy, and in my WARD!

There is this guy in my ward. He's really cute. He's super short, though.

So, here's the deal:
I noticed him sitting in my Sunday School class and thought to myself, "Self, he's really cute! I bet he's not a member."

As it turns out he is! Whoo hoo!

Monday night we had a service project for Family Home Evening and he was there. We all met at the Church and were going to carpool. I was planning on driving, but when it became apparent that I didn't need to I went to jump into my friend's car. There were already 2 other people in the back seat, so it was going to be cozy when I heard Entrepreneur say, "Ride in my car, girl." Well, I didn't need to be asked twice! I hopped into his car and away we went. After the event the Bishop took us for ice cream. Since Granola can't eat ice cream I wasn't going to get anything, then someone mentioned that they had sorbet. In I went. I got my sorbet and went outside to hang out with my friends. After about 3 or 4 licks my sorbet fell off the cone. It was like one of those sad moments in movies where the cute kid looses his ice cream, totally tragic. I went inside to get some napkins to clean up the mess. On my way out Entrepreneur asked what I had, I told him, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him explain to the girl behind the counter what had happened.

A few minutes later he reappeared, sorbet in hand! It was so sweet!! I smiled and thanked him profusely. The Bishop said, "Who says chivalry is dead?!"

I don't know if Entrepreneur had to pay for the second cone, and I wasn't going to ask. Either way it was super sweet.

Afterwards a few of us were hanging out at the church chatting. He went to leave, but got out of his car and gave those of us who were standing around hugs. It was a good hug.

So, now I have a crush on a good Mormon (temple-worthy, even, Mumsy) boy. Whodda thunk?

[FREE] Rhubarb

Here in Seattle we have a community of farmers who put together a basket full of fresh produce every week throughout the summer. You sign up and pay for it, then the basket is delivered weekly to your place of work. Since I eat mostly vegetables I was excited to learn about this. What I wasn't so excited to learn, however, was that my basket contained rhubarb. Last week I decided to try rhubarb pie. It's still sitting in my fridge. When I got my basket today I was sad to see that the rhubarb had made a reappearance.

So, I decided to post it on the company-wide for-sale email list. I was plesantly surprised to see how many people were interested in it! Below you will find a short email exchange which contains the real reasons why I didn't want the rhubarb.

Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 10:58 AM
Subject: [FREE] Rhubarb

Seriously. I'm afraid of rhubarb (it's a vegetable, not a fruit, why do people insist on treating it as such?) and I got (even more) in my market basket today. Someone take it off my hands. Please!

4 or so ribs. I didn't really count. I was just sad to see it there.

You pick up from my office today.

Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 11:02 AM
Subject: RE: [FREE] Rhubarb

Who knew, there's a demand for rhubarb! Keep your eyes open next week, if I get any more I'll post it again.

Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 11:33 AM
Subject: RE: [FREE] Rhubarb

sorry but I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the fact that seeing a vegetable made you sad :)
what's wrong with rhubarb?

Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 12:03 PM
Subject: RE: [FREE] Rhubarb

I was sad because I don't want to waste food, and I paid for it, and wasting food that you pay for is even worse than just throwing your money away. I toyed with the notion (briefly) of giving it to a homeless shelter or something, but it's not one of those vegetables that is easily added to whatever happens to be boiling away. It requires more preparation and thought.

As for what's wrong with rhubarb: let's approach this logically

1. It is a plant.
   
2. It is a vegetable.
   
3. Given (1) and (2) it is not a fruit.
   
4. It looks like red celery.
   
5. The only way I know to turn celery red is to soak it in a cup full of red food coloring.
   
6. Red food coloring is usually made from bugs (not even making this one up).
   
7. I do not eat bugs.
   
8. Given (6) and (7) I do not eat red food coloring.
   
9. Given (5) and (8) I do not eat red celery.
   
10. The only thing I know to do with rhubarb is put it in a pie.
    
11. Pies are generally made from fruit or some sort of dairy-based product (allowing for cheesecake and chocolate mousse, etc)
    
12. I can't think of a single real pie made from vegetables.
    
13. Shepard's pie is not real pie.
    
14. Even if I could think of a pie made from a vegetable I can't think of a vegetable that I would want to eat in pie form.
    
15. Given (11, 12, 13, and 14) vegetables do not belong in pie.
    
16. Given (2 and 15) rhubarb does not belong in pie.
    
17. I am a logical being.
    
18. Given (10) and (16) we must logically conclude that people who eat rhubarb are not logical beings, as these are contradictory.
    
19. Given (4 and 9) and (17 and 18) I cannot eat rhubarb.
    

Other than that, ain't nothing wrong with rhubarb. ;)


Interestingly, later someone posted this to the for-sale list:
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 3:18 PM
Subject: [FREE] More Rhubarb

Since Granola had so much luck with her rhubarb I thought I would post mine here.

Pick up from my office.

Stretch

I'm not sure if I have mentioned it before, but I have taken up stretching my own canvas for this ginormous project I have under development. Basically, I'm taking one wall of my living room and painting canvases of all sorts of different dimensions and placing them together haphazardly to form one big three-dimensional painting. Like I said: ginormous.

Now, before this one is even finished, I have concocted a second equally massive project: on the opposing wall, above my bookshelf, I want to build canvases that are not symmetric in shape (or, rather, puzzle-piece-shaped) and piece them together, with an inch between each canvas. The whole thing will start about 6" tall in the middle and increase in height until the end pieces are 14". Oh, and unlike the miss-match of the current project, the whole set will be one (very obvious) scene. Maybe a sunset or something like that. I hope it will be as cool as I'm envisioning. (cross your fingers for me!)

JavaScript

I have decided that I want to write a snippet of something that I can envoke via a Firefox shortcut that will take a space delimited string and break it up and replace variables in the snippet with those values such that given the following as input in the address bar:

tr en fr

the output will be:

javascript:(function() {document.forms[1][1].value = "en|fr";})();

where the key word is "tr" and the location field in my shortcut was originally:

javascript:(function(){document.forms[1][1].value = "%s|%s";})();

One problem here, however, is the double %s isn't working as I hoped. %s1 doesn't work either, nor does %w. Which is odd, since I got %w's to work in a url replacement, but not in a JavaScript replacement.

Yes, I know I could make my life easier by passing the string "en|fr", but that won't work since this is only a small portion of my master plan.

I'm thinking I may have to use a regexp, but I want to avoid that for readability issues.

So, dear wonderful net-surfers, any brilliant suggestions? Let me know! Please!!

P.S. Sorry, Mumsy, these can't all make sense to you. That's just the way life goes.

Food Snobbery

Tomorrow night my ward is going to feed the homeless in downtown Seattle. I'm taking peach cobbler (the recipe will be posted on my culinary genius blog). I was talking to my sister about how I had to run to the store to buy peaches, "I have egg replacement, powdered soy milk, but I ran out of margarine and I don't have any peaches! How annoying."

"Wait" she ordered, "egg replacement and powdered soy milk?"

"Yup."

"Sick. It sounded good until you got there. Now, almond milk I can see, but powdered soy milk, and egg replacement, that's just sick. I hope you don't kill any of the poor homeless people!"

She didn't stick around to hear that the egg replacement is also powdered! And they call me a snob!

Interviews?

My lovely co-worker has been out "sick" since last Wednesday. That plus the fact that he's been in an increasingly I-don't-want-to-be-here spirit as of late, I say, he's probably interviewing. I hope he gets his dream job. We're all sick of his crap anyway.

What will this mean? It will mean that baring CubeBuddy (and her glaring levels of inability to actually grasp what, exactly, our job is) I shall have the highest level of seniority on the team. Which isn't a bad thing, since I do have the second highest level of competence on the team as things currently stand. I'm thinking, though, if my favorite co-worker does chose to leave us, our boss will most likely assign me to the group on our team that is responsible for the development of our internal tools.

Here's hoping he finds something great. And soon.

Coffee

Being the good little Mormon girl that I am, I don't drink coffee. My maternal grandmother, however, was a number of things two of which were: (1) Not Mormon, and (2) the kind of woman who always had a pot brewing.

I grew up loving the smell of coffee. It meant "grandparents" to me. I might have even tried it, had my sister not accidentally tricked me into trying it. How can one "accidentally trick" someone else? Simple.

Allow me...

There we were, two high school sisters, different as apples and oranges, yet we made a great fruit bowl. We had many mutual friends, one of who (I later learned) had a massive thing for me. This could have been promising, or, at the very least, flattering, had she not been a she; but I digress.

The three of us were at the local coffee shop one night (of which there was only one), our friend had her coffee, my sister had hers — dark roast, black., and I had my very conservative herbal tea. We talked and talked and drained more than one cup of each beverage. At one point, I picked up my glass and swirled my tea around. I remember thinking that I had finished it, but apparently I had one more swallow left. Thirst I picked it up, put it to my lips and just about knocked it back as my sister - in shock - said, "Wait! Gorp! That's my coffee!" It was the nastiest thing I have ever tasted. Thus, any desire I may have later gained in life for coffee was nipped in the bud.

Over the years, however, I have still loved the smell.

Until, that is, I started working at InternetCompany. CubeBuddy is a coffee drinker. She drinks it like I drink water — constantly. I don't know what she does to it, but it is quite possibly the worst smelling coffee to which I have ever had the displeasure of being exposed. I don't know what she does to it, but <gah!> sick!

You'll be pleased to note, then, that I think I solved the mystery of her additives: as I walked by her desk this morning I noticed sitting next to her coffee cup an open can of V-8. Now, I hope it's not what I think it is. If it is — well, I really don't know what to say about that.

Pseudo-Drama Queen

I'm dramatic. One might even call me a 'Drama Queen.' I, however, would disagree. Why would I not call myself a Drama Queen? Well, let's look at the definition thereof:
Main Entry: drama queen
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: any person who overreacts to a minor problem or situation (dictionary.com)

Ok... overreacts... do I overreact? Well, yes. But only on the positive side of things. I seldom think the sky is falling and the world is coming to a close.

So, let's turn to Urban Dictionary and see what they have to say:
<flip. flip. flip./>
Someone who turns something unimportant into a major deal. Someone who blows things way out of proportion when ever [sic] the chance is given.

Ah, that's more like it. Someone who overreacts and blows things way out of proportion whenever the chance is given. If you happen to glance through Urban Dictionary you will notice the negative vibe their definitions give off.

So... back to me: Yes. I'm dramatic. I like being the center of attention. I'm good at it. I also like to be over-the-top in funny reactions, for the humor side of things. However (and, I think this is a biggie) I know what I'm doing and can control my reactions. Also, I hate people who overreact to the negative side of things. So There.

Ok, now you're asking yourself what this all has to do with the price of tea in China. Well, let me tell you.

We have this mailing list at work (which is super cool, actually) and last week someone posted wondering if anyone had the entire season 2 of Lost recorded to DVD. I didn't, but I happen to be a huge fan of the show (no T.V. ergo, I haven't seen a single episode this season). I replied to her and indicated that I don't have a copy, but if she happened to get a hold of it I'd be more than interested in borrowing or buying it from her. She replied Friday and asked me if I was still interested. I told her yes and how excited I was to see it! She told me that she should be finished with it by today, and if that were the case she'd inter-office mail it to me. I looked her up and discovered that we're in the same building, and was so excited that I almost suggested that I just run up to her office and get it from her, but I didn't want to appear too desperate, so I simply said "Ok." Well, she noticed that we're in the same building and so made that suggestion. I replied by telling her how glad I was she suggested it!

Today I sent her an email asking if she had finished it. Then, I left for lunch (ah, the joys of the break room). Well, she tried emailing and calling me to see if I was in. I wasn't, so she headed down to leave the discs on my desk. She came in the wrong door (which always happens) and found me in the break room. She gave me the disks and said (now, this is the important part) "There's someone else who wants to borrow them after you, but you seemed way more excited than he did, so I put you in the front of the line." I thanked her profusely. See, sometimes it Does pay to be a little dramatic.

Back to the Basics

Sometimes what you need to hear most are the basics.

Lately I've been contemplating life, and the meaning thereof. Is there really something more out there? What if this life is it? What if I gave up the love of my life, thinking there is something more, and at the end, just when I think I'm going to be standing at those Pearly Gates, it all turns out to be a horrible hoax, and I spend the rest of forever a rotting corpse pushing up daisies? What a gyp that would be!

Today in Sunday School we were discussing prayer and answers to prayer (ironic, if you consider that I had prayed this morning for a much-needed spiritual boost). As I sat there thinking about the last truly meaningful prayer I had uttered (this morning's aside) I reflected on the night ExOfNote decided to try to end his life. Oh, how I had prayed then. I had prayed that someone would be able to intervene. I had prayed that he would pass out from the alcohol before he could stumble over the balcony. I had pleaded with the Lord to let me be calm enough to give the police accurate information. I had begged Him to keep him safe.

Then, I thought of the last conversation ExOfNote's mother and I had. She called me to let me know he was going to be ok. She thanked me, from a place I hope to never visit, for those life-saving phone calls. Then, she told me how fervently she had prayed. I told her of my prayers. Together, we expressed gratitude for a God who answers prayers.

God does answer our prayers. Sometimes His answers seem to take forever, and sometimes His answers are instantaneous; but, he always answers. How could I question the existence of a God who so lovingly helped me in my most desperate time of need?

Esoteric doctrine is great, the deep theology is wonderful, but in the end, it's the basics that remind us of God's greatness, mercy, and love. I'm just so thankful that I was attentive to that Spirit and lesson today.

Big Trouble

One of my co-workers and I were assigned a task. It had a firm deadline. I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I put in 4-6 hours out of the office to ensure that I met my deadline.

My coworker, on the other hand, didn't. In fact, he is more than a week and a half behind. As I watch the email traffic in regards to this issue I see people getting less and less patient with his behavior. If he's not careful he's going to find himself in some hot water, soon.

Ironically, he made some comments to me about a month ago that had me questioning my professionalism. At least I get my job done, and on time. Oh, and he gripes and whines so much that it has more than gotten on my nerves.

I hope he realizes where this is headed before it actually gets there.

I've Got Your Back

One of my (numerous) assignments at work is part of a team of developers. This particular team met a huge milestone, and so they threw us a shin-dig, at a local bar. Seems that every place is a bar around here. One of the guys on said team also happens to have graduated from BYU around the same time as I, and he is (in case you had any doubts) also Mormon. Woo hoo. Actually, it's kind of nice to know that there is another Mormon hanging around, just in case.

So, back to this party. We were all invited, and I was hesitant, but in the end I decided to go. When we got there someone was handing out "drink tickets." Two for each person, good for a drink under $4.50. As he was giving me mine I said, "Actually, I don't drink, so... is this good for anything?" I just wanted to make sure! My boss replied, "No. You're here, so you have to drink." The ticket-dude, on the other hand, said, "Sure. It's good for whatever."

I thanked him as I took my tickets. Three people later my fellow BYU alum says, "Yeah, actually, I'm in the same boat — I don't drink, either." Uh, thanks dude. It was kind of sweet. I think he thought that he had to say something, so I wouldn't be left hanging there — the lone non-drinker in the mix. Frankly, I didn't care, but it was cool to know that he felt obliged to let me know that he had my back.

On a side note: I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that bars have the worst orange juice in the world. To that end, my lovely sister says, "Well, duh, Gorp-y. It's not like they ever have to worry about people drinking it straight!"

Wedding

I attended a wedding reception for a girl at church last night. Despite the fact that her new family has a big gorgeous house the chose to have it at the chapel. In the cultural hall. Why do people do that to themselves when other options are present? Also, they splurged on other things (she had two photographers, for heaven sake!), perhaps they could have tightened the belt and opted for some place else.

She did try to hide the fact that it was the gym, but there is only so much one can do. Worse even, was it was one of those wedding receptions they show in movies when they are trying to instill a feeling of pity for those involved. The toasts were halting, jerky, and completely ineloquent. I sat there thinking that perhaps I should get up and say something, just so they didn't remember the horrible toasts given. Her father's wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything to write home about. The bouquet and garter toss were horrible events of boredom and cat herding. And, no one was paying attention to the cutting of the cake.

If I ever get married I hope, hope, hope, that I am able to have my reception somewhere other than the cultural hall. Oh, and that it doesn't suck as much. Poor girl.

Surprise

I sat there, talking to a coworker, when the allure of my pen called to me. I picked it up and started drawing on my ankle. She laughed, "Your tattoo?!"

"Yup, and the only one I've got!" I replied with a smile.

"Really? I would have thought you would have had at least one."

"Nope. Why?"

"Well, look at your nose!"

Interesting, no? Somehow a small hole in my nose leads people to assume that I must have other "body art". Never mind the fact that in every other thing I'm the model of conservative. Who knows, really.

BBQ

A friend and I decided that we should have a BBQ for Memorial Day. This was a great plan, except, we decided this 6:30 Monday night. We called all sorts of people, but no one could make it. That's really too bad, it could have rocked. Oh well, we'll have to try it again sometime.

All that aside, the whole point of this post was to relay the following:
Upon hearing my plans my sister exclaimed, "What the Hell is a vegan doing having a bar-b-que?!"

She does have a point...