Moving?

CubeBuddy asked our executive assistant today about the possibility of moving into a private cube. The executive assistant wasn't sure that was possible, but mentioned she'd look into it. We all chatted briefly before the executive assistant walked off to finish what she was doing. About 10 minutes later I went to find her. I told her, quite honestly, that if she determined it was ok for CubeBuddy to move it would be great if she could let us know fairly quickly.

"Oh, do you two not get along?" She asked, concerned.

"No, it's not that. We just get on each others nerves sometimes. I mean, it's not bad enough that it effects our work, I just think we would both be happier if we had separate cubes."

She promised me she'd look into it, and get back to us. Then she thanked me for letting her know. The funny thing is, earlier this week or late last week I was contemplating how I could politely move cubes. This solved the problem for me. That's nice.

Black

One of my coworkers with whom I have just recently really started working seems to always wear black. That's it. Black. Black shoes, black jeans, black shirt, black undershirt, black.

Yesterday I noticed that he was wearing a grey shirt. In the course of our conversation I said, "So, grey shirt? Laundry day?"

He glanced down, picked at his shirt and said, "Actually, yeah. It's just one of those days, you know?" Then he blushed. I can't believe I embarrassed him with that comment! How funny is that?

Callings

My aunt and uncle that I went to visit in Jerusalem were supposed to be released in November. They will be, instead, released in August or September, because they have just been called to serve as the first President and Matron of the Helsinki, Finland Temple! Wow!

The really neat thing about this is: She's from Helsinki, he served his (first) mission there, then, got his Master's Degree in linguistics with a Finnish emphasis (I could be wrong, but I know he went back to Finland to complete some work on either his Masters of Ph.D., which is when they met); later, they served as mission presidents in the Finland Mission. So, wow. In a way, they have been prepared for this for a long time. As a fun aside, when they were released as mission presidents the members asked when they would return to Finland. Kind of off-the-cuff Uncle prophetically remarked, "When Helsinki has a temple." Guess so. Welcome home, Aunt and Uncle.

Friend Stuff

Nanny asked the boy she likes to go on a date with her on Saturday. He said yes. She's ecstatic! I'm thrilled! At least, now, he'll know he likes her, thus placing me, squarely, off limits, so that little pain is alleviated for now. Whew!

In other news, Nanny and I had decided to go to this fireside after church. It was supposed to start at 5, and since our ward gets out at 4 we decided to return to my place where we could get some food before heading over there. As it happens, there is this girl in the ward who we both think is a total sweetheart. She's so cute, but she's also shy and quiet. Long ago we determined that she doesn't have much of a self-esteem, which is sad, because she's such a dear. Anyway, while we were discussing our plans in the foyer of the church she was there and I really wanted to invite her to come over, but there is this other girl who is a little on the annoying side who was also standing around. The second girl probably would have invited herself over without really realizing what she was doing. So, we didn't ask Sweetheart to come.

As we drove to my place Nanny told me all about how she asked the boy out, then I commented that I wanted to invite Sweetheart to join us, but didn't. Nanny agreed that we should invite her to do more things with us. Incidentally, we invited her to come bowling with us last Thursday, and I was thrilled when she showed up! I think she had a great time, which is wonderful!

Dinner was quick (sauteed veggies), then out to the car we went and over to the Stake Center. Which was completely empty. It was a sad sight, actually. We quickly made a few phone calls to see if people knew where it was supposed to be, and when we finally got an answer we were told it was where we were. We opted to leave. As we were pulling out we saw Sweetheart pulling in, so we turned around to talk to her. We sat in our cars briefly talking, when I announced that we weren't going to the fireside, and so that meant we were going back to someone's house. Nanny vetoed mine, since I still don't have a couch, and offered hers up. Sweetheart accepted our invite, and followed us there.

We then sat around for almost 4 hours just talking and laughing and getting to know each other better. When she first got there Sweetheart told us, "This is so exciting! I've never had friends before! So, if I act a little awkward, that's why." I couldn't believe it! She's such an amazing girl! It was so cute, but tragic at the same time. I'm glad we invited her.

The really neat thing is, I'm thrilled that we now have a threesome. Hopefully we can help her develop the self-confidence she is lacking, and help her see that she is truly a beautiful woman. I hope I can learn the valuable lessons she has to teach me.

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave

Nanny likes one of the new boys in our ward, MapGuy (he works on maps). Tonight Nanny and I organized a group of people to go bowling, and I had strict instructions to invite him along. So, I did. No problem.

He totally wanted to come. He also wanted to car pool. With me. I said, sure, no problem.

Well, the car pooling was no problem, everything went well, except one little thing that was not on either of Nanny's nor my contingency plans — I think he may like me. :( (I haven't told her that. I don't think I will either.)

Why do I think this? Well, on the ride back a friend of his had called, so he called her back. I gave him a hard time about her being his girlfriend. He was insistent that, no, she's just a friend. Ok, no problem. But, the thing that really made me wonder was a comment that I made and his reaction to it.

See, I was talking about a guy I know who lives in the same city that MapGuy used to live in (this came up because we were talking about how MapGuy used to live in that city and I mentioned the only fact I know about the area, and how I know it). He asked what this guy does and I said, "I don't know. Some job where he's helping people, but he'll never make any money."

MapGuy's reaction? "Well, I don't make very much money at my job, but..."

"No, no, no. I didn't mean it like that. I'm not like that! I mean he's in the Peace Corpse and they told him to sign up for food stamps, since they don't pay that well..."

The conversation continued that way, but the interesting thing was that he was defending the guy for not making any money, but telling me that he wasn't sitting all that pretty, either, so if that was important to me, I would know right away. Anyway, I hope he doesn't like me, since I have my eye on someone else in the ward. Who knows‽ Life's just full of craziness.

Ticky-Ticky

As Mumsy used to say, "Ticky-Ticky". I got me TWO tickets today. One to London! (as in England) and one to Athens (as in Greece) (oh, both are round trip!). Yay! I'm really going! I'm so excited!

I'm going to be broke next month.

Last Nerve

CubeBuddy knows just the right way to step on my last nerve. She must spend countless hours plotting it.

Today's went down like this:

Here's Granola: Super stressed out, since we were supposed to take our product beta on Friday, and missed it, and so we were aiming for tonight. (Uh, we missed it)

Here's CubeBuddy: No out-of-the-ordinary stress is going on for her, as I'm the sde-t on the project, and this is our only one, currently. What is she doing? Beats me.

Now, imagine, if you will this:
We were supposed to do something to the Japanese Web site this morning, but due to all the fixes, etc, it didn't get dealt with until 12:30 this afternoon. I had to coordinate my efforts with three different teams, and four different people. Finally, things were going well, and I was able to do what I was supposed to do. Except, it failed. Well, when things like that fail, the system automatically pages the on-call person. Who do you think that is today? Correct: CubeBuddy. So, predictably, she reacts by freaking out in my general direction.

Since I knew that was going to happen as soon as it failed, and I knew it was going to fail, I did the most logical thing to delay having to deal with her general freaking-out-ness: I turned up my music on my headphones. Then, I proceeded to deal with the problem at hand. Sure enough, as soon as it failed I heard her pager go off. Then, less than a minute later, she asked me about it. I was in the middle of thinking about how to fix the problem, so I rocked out to my music and ignored her. Finally, she realized that I was ignoring her, and she said, "Granola." loudly enough for me to have to respond. I took out the headphones and turned around to face her (our backs are towards each other) to deal with her problem. She asked about it, I explained what was going on, and what had to happen. She asked me if I knew how to unbreak what was broken, and I told her I wasn't sure if that's what we needed to do. Eventually, I made a decision and initiated that process, then I went back to doing the other two things on which I was supposed to be working. But, not before we had a discussion on how we both had to leave at 4:30, and I wouldn't be available to do anything about it until 6:30, and how she wouldn't be home until 6. My 6:30 trumps your 6, sorry chicky.

In the middle of doing task 1 (the Japan stuff was task 3) CubeBuddy decided that she had to talk to me. Right. Now. Without looking away from my screen or taking out my earphones I told her to wait 5 minutes (really, I did), and kept right on working (in my defense, it was concentration intensive). Then, one of my favorite developers (who I was coordinating with on the Japanese stuff) came up to me to talk about his stuff. He kind of invaded my personal space, and so I took out my earphones to listen to what he was saying. Turns out, he was trying to see where I was looking, since I was typing and he couldn't see where I was typing (I was copying something off of one monitor onto another, and so it looked really odd). While I was answering his question CubeBuddy started talking to me. I can really carry on only one thought-process intensive conversation at once, so I ignored her, since his problem was more pressing.

When I was finished talking to the developer I turned to her to give her my undivided attention. She was just trying to tell me that if I did what I was in the middle of doing to solve the problem and it didn't fix it that she would deal with it when she got home. I thanked her. It really was nice of her, though, technically, she was responsible for dealing with the whole thing anyway.

Then, I put my earphones back in, turned the music up a notch or two and went back to the task (1) at hand. At 4:30 she, again, felt the need to interrupt me to let me know that it was almost 4:30, so I should hurry up. Duh. You think I didn't know that? All-in-all I would say it's a minor miracle she left the office with all limbs, and her head, attached to her body in the same manner in which she arrived.

Good News! W00t!

I've got good news coming out the ears tonight! I could relate it all in story form, but I've decided a pseudo list is the winner. In no particular order, here's the good news of the day:

• My boss who is currently working in the UK office approved BritishGirl and me going on holiday together.
  
• He also approved me working in the UK office for 5 days (as long as I pay all of my expenses, since I'm really just trying to combine holiday with work. I fully agree.).
  
• My boss here in Seattle, Hunter, told me that I could go to a conference that I really want to go to, and while InternetCompany is not going to pay for it, I don't have to take the day off as holiday or sick. I can just not show up.
  
• I found roommates for said conference.
  
• I just bought my ticket for the conference which is coming up the beginning of August.
  
• BritishGirl and I are looking to book our trip to Greece (!AHHH!) this week.
  
• I didn't kill CubeBuddy. This might just be the best news of all.
  
• I got a massage today, and I feel gooood
  

Expletives

I had a massage appointment right after work tonight, so I had to drive to the park and ride, rather than catch my normal shuttle (so, uh, I could drive, rather than walk, home afterwards). As I was leaving the parking lot behind my apartment some idiot decided it might be a good idea to back out. I saw the movement of his car (not even the lights), and swerved just in time to be missed (He would have collided squarely with my sliding door). Now, while I don't object to the idea of him buying me a new car, I strongly object to the being hit part. Mid-swerve I found myself cursing at him. The exact sequence of thought was this: "Oh no! Stupid aphid! (pause) 'aphid?' Where the freak did that come from?" It is at moments like that when you have to pause and wonder if you really do have an over-developed vocabulary.

Ultimate Destiny

In case you didn't know, this is the funniest Web site. Ever.

Ultimate Showdown

Oh, and your speakers have to work or else I'm sure it will suck.

Frolf

Tonight at Family Home Evening we played frolf (frisbee-golf) at a park on the island. It was a really good activity! In fact, as we were returning to the church for a closing prayer and refreshments someone commented that he was up for another 18 holes! I'm glad that everyone had a great time, especially considering that it was a last minute activity. So last minute, actually, that I was 10 minutes late 'cause I had to buy fisbees! Ahh... good times were had by all.

Yo-Yo Ma

I've found a cello teacher, I think. He's an odd fellow with no front teeth and a house that smells of cat. But, I'm desperate, and I have a feeling he's going to treat me well, for a little while.

This afternoon following church I came home and practiced, then turned on some Yo-Yo Ma. I was listening to his beautiful music when Mumsy called. We chatted for a long while, then, out of the blue she asked, "Are we practicing?"

"Now? No! That's Yo-Yo Ma! I wish that were me! If I sounded like that I'd quit my job tomorrow!"

She laughed. Apparently all she could hear were occasional notes. For the curious I was listening to Appalachia Waltz, Fairy Dancer Reel. Yeah, if I could play like that after 2 years... no need to ever program another line of code! I'd be a bajillionare by the time I hit 30.

1000!

Stat counters are a very (un)scientific thing. How they determine how many people have looked at a given page, the duration that someone visits your site, etc, are all (relatively) subjective things. One would think they wouldn't be, but trust me on this one, they are.

So, today I have reached 1000 hits according to my lovely stat-counter. Not all that impressive (and, undoubtedly wrong, since the counter I use is frequently broken), but 1000 nonetheless. Since you're all dying to know who is lucky number 1000, drum roll please blogpatrol has determined that our winner of no prize hails from New Zealand (well, their dsl carrier has a .nz address...) and uses IE6. Pardon me for a moment while I congratulate our winner...

Congratulations number 1000! I'm so proud of you! I wish I knew who you were, but you're a lurker, so I can't even congratulate you by name. Maybe you want to leave a comment sometime so I know who you are. Hey, this might be an opportune post to leave one on. How fun! A new fan! Well, not new, but maybe I get to learn who you are. Oh, and one more thing: IE6. Seriously? Try firefox, it'll rock your socks! The secret to what makes it so great? I don't know, but tabs! Oh, bless-ed tabs! At first you might feel like you're cheating on Microsoft, but, trust me on this one, Micro$oft is a lousy lover. What Mozilla lacks in age she makes up for in eagerness to please. Try it. Trust me. Once you go OpenSource you never go back.

Oh, and ironically, lucky number 1001 was the result of a google search on "Slidell Baptist Seminary". Not surprisingly, they landed on this post. Hehe, just knowing that putting this in here is going to throw off search results makes me maniacally happy! Bwahahhahahah! (P.S. Googling it myself indicates that my blog is on page 22 of 25 search result pages. Someone had way to much time on his/her hands. Sheesh).

Oh, and Mumsy, you'll be proud to know that you come it at number 1002. :)

Rice

I was starving.
Nanny wanted rice.
I have been craving Indian food for the last 3 weeks.
The only Indian restaurant I know in the state of Washington is in downtown Seattle.
We were in Bellevue (across the lake).
She had never had Indian food.
We went.
We'll be going again. mmmmmmmmmmmm

Highlights

You know those days where the highlight of the entire day was being an uber-wench to someone who has stepped on the wrong nerve one too many times? That was me, today.

I'm on call this week, which really has only served to add to the stress I'm currently facing as we madly dash towards our current deadline (which we didn't make, by the way). Around 12:30 I realized that something I had to do (because I am on call) was dependent upon someone else in another team doing their job. I also realized that this other person had not done his job. So, I sent an email to the standard email list asking if someone was planning on doing it. Then I ran down to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich to bring back to my desk since I would be working through lunch.

At 1 CubeBuddy saw my email and started quizzing me about it. I was tired, stressed, and frustrated. She wanted to know who was responsible for the missing information I needed. I told her that I didn't know, but, clearly, I had emailed the whole list, so someone should be dealing with it. She asked me what if no one dealt with it and it had to be dealt with on Sunday. I informed her that I sincerely doubted that it would be a problem on Sunday. If anything, I told her, it would be a problem for me, tonight. She pushed and pushed and pushed — not satisfied with my 99.99999% probability that it wouldn't effect her in any way, shape, or form. Finally, tired of this line of conversation, I told her that if she was so worried about it she could follow up with the other team. She asked me who the other team was, and who I thought was responsible for the items that weren't done. I told her that as far as I could tell it was the group that I had cc'ed in the email. She didn't like that answer, but I was really snippy so she just went to researching the information herself. Five minutes later, having no success, she turned to me and announced that she had decided to not worry about it.

At 2:30 I asked her if she had heard back from anyone on the other team. "No, I told you I wasn't going to worry about it, I thought you heard me." came the reply.

"Oh, I don't remember. Sorry. Thanks."

At 3 I emailed the team responsible directly (rather than via the mailing list) and informed them that it looks like they forgot to do the stuff we needed, and the person I think may be responsible seems to be on vacation for the next week, so they need to have someone else do it while he's gone. I received and email 2 minutes later asking if that was supposed to be done today. Who was that email from? My old team member who recently (last month) moved to another team. Apparently, he was responsible for giving us the information we needed. Ironic, since he used to be the one who did the check off I was currently doing. It didn't get done.

The take away message for today is: sometimes, when your coworker is just get too stressed out to function, jumping all over that last nerve is not the way to endear yourself to them. And, as predicted, it wasn't a problem with anyone. I hope she gets paged for a completely unrelated issue, anyway.

Darn that Google

I just checked my super-secret who's-looking-at-my-blog report and discovered: I've been caught! A friend from ConsultingShop was on the ball enough to do just the right searches and he's found my blog! Alas! What to do? Well, frankly, nothing. I guess if he really wants to read the gripes and complaints that I spew forth he's more than welcome. Oh, and, yeah, I've talked about you a bit in here, dude. Just search for 'ConsultingShop', you'll find loads of interesting tid-bits of joy. Now, leave me a note and quit the lurking, it's so passe!

Panties

I think 'panties' is a funny word. Not the immature funny, I just think it sounds funny. It's like fuchsia, a completely unrelated, but funny sounding word.

Today my friend, Nanny, brought the twins she Nannies to church with her. After church we were standing in the foyer talking while one of the girls was playing with the excessive flounce I happen to have on my floor-length skirt. Out of nowhere this darling of a child cautioned me: "Don't show your panties! There are boys around!"

"Yes, dear, you're right. There are boys around, and no, I won't show my panties!" I replied, turning a lovely shade of pink.

Patriotism

Sometimes I forget my sense of patriotism. I forget the sacrifices those soldiers have made and will continue to make. I forget that I love my country, that I'm have civil rights so many others don't. I forget to be thankful for all of that.

Today a bunch of friends and I went to watch the fireworks display at Gas Works Park in Seattle. The display started with a rousing chorus of The Star Spangled Banner. Right after the song a military helicopter flew over us, the flag proudly flying below. The helicopter circled the cheering crowd, once. twice. As I stood on that hill, neglected feelings welled up inside me. I am "Proud to be American." As much as I forget, I truly am a Patriot.

I am thankful for the sacrifices of so many men and women. For as many wars I feel our country enters into illegally there is at least one other where our liberty was, or will be, truly threatened. This has long been, and will continue to be, the case. The members of our armed services deserve not our contempt, but our respect. They are willing to sacrifice everything, not just their lives, on the off chance that this one, this war, is the one that we cannot lose, or we lose it all.

On this July 4th I not only celebrate my freedom, but the freedom of all Americans. I salute the men and women of the armed forces with a mightily thank you. No caveat, no "too bad yours was one of the illegal ones," no whispering behind the back. A simple, and heartfelt thank you. For the willing sacrifice you make for those of us unwilling or unable to.

Worth Your Weight

You know the old saying "worth his weight in gold"? Well, I wondered exactly how much that really adds up to. Since I'm so nice I decided to share my findings with you. Clicky-clicky (Oh, and don't worry, I don't really care how much you weigh, so I'm not saving anything you enter, promise). Now, get on with it already!

Worth your weight in:
Gold
Pennies
Water
Gasoline
Maple
Dollars (bills)
pounds

Un-American

Friday my boss took our team out for lunch. While we sat there hanging out and chatting I slurped to the bottom of my strawberry-lemonade. Most everybody had hardly put a dent in their drinks, and I was looking for the waitress for a water refill. One of the girls looked at my glass and exclaimed, "OH!" while pointing.

I laughed, "Yeah, I've got a drinking problem. Good thing I don't drink alcohol."

"Ever?" came the question.

"Not ever. In fact, I've never drunk any alcohol."

"That's rather un-American," my boss declared.

"Yeah, it is," I half laughed.

Someone asked what he meant, and he backed it up with the fact that drinking culture in American teenagers-early 20's is such that you hardly see someone who hasn't participated in drinking/parties, etc at some point in their formative years. Personally, I think he's right.

I laughed, then said, "Yeah, I was a boring high schooler."

You know, that was the first time someone has ever accused me of being un-American. In that sense, he's very right.