"SAT words"?

I've started thinking that the reason why some of our younger staff don't follow my direction is because they don't understand the meaning of the words I use.

here are two that have come up recently:

nuance
status quo

Saving Daylight: for what?!

I hate daylight savings.

Mostly because we don't do it here in Arizona.

What that used to mean is that 1/2 the year I was 2 hours behind at work, and then the other 1/2 I was 3 hours behind.

There is a big difference between 2 and 3.

Being 3 hours behind (I get to work at 9, its now Noon in DC) means that the people I work with/for are going to LUNCH when I get to work.

At this point, they are frustrated that the emails and phone-calls they left for me all morning are still not answered.

When its 2 hours, its still "morning" when I return the messages. Not as frustrating.

Frustration number 2: Most people don't realize that AZ doesn't change time. So, I get phone calls at 6am (oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was 7!); those meetings that I said I could get up for at 6am so that they could do them first thing in the morning? now I have to be awake and alert at 5; all that traveling I do? now my body has another hour to go before its awake while I sit in meetings wishing I drank coffee.

Our lovely President went and changed the daylight savings months last year.

Instead of it being 6 and 6, now its NINE and 3... I ask you, what is the point?! 

If the time is saving daylight for more months a year than its not, why don't we just permanently change it!! and stop all this nonsense!

Maybe Max isn't so dumb

He just smelled the milk in a little jug but it was too low for him to reach it to have a taste, so he dipped his paw in and licked it.

Now, in some contexts, that could be considered a "tool".

Maybe I'm watching evolution in action, and the next thing you know he'll be walking upright on his back legs!

need . more . seconds

every morning as I drive to work, I think of profound things to muse upon here for your enjoyment. By the time I get to work, I've forgotten... and I don't have time to post anyway...

There was a profound thought about John McCain, something moaning about men and dishwashers... oh, I remember that one!

The other day, instead of unloading the dishwasher, Greg put DIRTY dishes IN it.
I asked myself... how can you not think to look at the FULL dishwasher to see if maybe the dishes are clean? How can you not notice that there is no food or beverage on the inside of the tank? Am I asking too much of you?
And so I ran it again!

Work = busy
Life = low-key

we have some events coming up... autox this weekend; Greg's 24 hour bike race next; so mayhaps there will be some photos a-posting.

The news, and why I ignore it

I don't watch TV news. ever.
I don't read the newspaper - the ink makes me sneeze
I get my news from the 30 mins or so of NPR in the morning
and listening to Slate Magazine daily podcasts
I give my attention to these sources because I generally feel that they are unbiased and present just the news.
Well, I know that they are biased. And most of the time, I don't notice the colorings and opinions of the presenter woven into the general text of the presentation.

The other day I did.
There was a story about the bombing of a compound in Afghanistan where an alqaida leader was killed.
And the announcer phrased the sentence like this:
...bombing of a compound where 21 people were killed including an alqaida leader. This is great news 'cause this guy was high up in the chain and having him dead is good for the WORLD...

of course, a bunch of people died in Iraq too, so a couple sentences later we had:
...over 15 people were killed in a suicide bombing, this brings the death toll this morning to 20..

or something like that.
Anyway... the gist is that when a guy "we" think is bad gets killed, doesn't matter how many innocent bystanders are also gone.

Dead people are dead people... it doesn't matter who did the killing or what the reasoning was. Don't pretend its otherwise.

What I did on my summer vacation!

no, wait, that was actually the middle of winter... here. But in the tropics! its never winter.

We stared at a lot of this:


and this:


we stayed here:


we saw lots of these:


and these:


we did some of this:


and even got to satisfy our professional cravings:


and of course,
Sunset on our Farm:

Accolades

This was an eventful weekend for me and Greg...

I got an award...










and he got a medal...









I received my award for coming first in the Novice Ladies division of the AZ Solo II Fall Series.
And Greg ran the PF Chang's Rock-n-Roll marathon in 3 hours and 45 mins.

news!

it is RAINING! seriously, like nonstop.... and everywhere...

 

and when you live in AZ, that is NEWS!

 

also - gotta take the cats to the vet for their annuals today; lordy, they don't like that!

Holidays - a short Recap

So here we are in 2008.
I really like the whole Xmas on Tues, NYE on Tues thing... psychologically, its nicer to have days off AFTER the weekend rather than before.
So what did we do?

Small - family friendly present exchange on Tues


A delicious M&M dinner


A post-dinner gift exchange with friends
Cocktail party at friends on Friday
Chilling on Sat
Cocktail party at our house on Sun...


And chilling at home on NYE.


and back to work.
I spent most of the first week back (all 3 days of it) with a headache 'cause I was not ready for the pace!

Is the problem Tivo or Best Buy?!

I meant to post about this, but forgot...

A couple weeks ago, we lost the PC, DVR, and cable box all in one weekend; well, the PC and DVR had been slowly dying and it just got to the point where I had to do something about it.

I went to Apple and got a MacMINI.
I went to best buy and got an HD Tivo with dual receivers.

I plugged it all in, and made an appointment for the cable company to come over and install cable cards.

NONE of this process was easy. I came home from work every night for a week and spent at least 4 hours with one of these two machines trying to get it to work. Maybe one day, I'll talk about the MacMINI; but today... I am PISSED OFF about the Tivo.

That first one that I bought, on Sunday... got the cable card installed on Wed; that night, recorded Countdown and when we watched it the video would fast-forward randomly leaving the sound behind. Called Tivo... after an hour, the guy says: that's a problem with the harddrive - return it.
So the Friday BEFORE Xmas; I'm at the Best Buy at the mall, exchanging the Tivo!

Get the new one installed; cable doesn't work... company sends a guy out on Sunday to install new cards. Cool. Looks like everthing will be ok. and it was... for a week.
Here we are trying to watch the Patriots game; and guess what?! New Tivo has the SAME problem as the LAST one! Video randomly freezing, sound left behind... and now we are watching NFL on the antenna!!!! I cannot BELIEVE this BS! Having lived with an original first gen Panasonic ReplayTV that gave us NO; that's ABSOLUTELY NO problems for TEN years!!!!! until it just got old... I CANNOT believe that this Tivo company can have such a hold on the market when their product ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!

What are you supposed to do?
Get a dish with their DVR? rent a DVR from the cable company?
Panasonic, what the hell!! Where did you go?!

or is it the palette of Tivo's that Best Buy has... ?
do I risk a third from this location? or go somewhere else?

argh!
pisses me off

Lamborghini Gallardo

A land shark! I spent some time watching cones on Sunday and had the experience of this car coming at me less than 6 feet away; top speed into a corner. I was scared!

Kitties

The cats love when I work at home!



Max all curled up on the blankie like a baby...



Molly right next to me....


Me and my kitties!

Cookies - a retrospective reposted

2003
A couple years ago, my friend's mom got really sick, and she decided that she needed a holiday tradition to substitute for the family ones that she knew would be going away. Beth joined us for a little bit that year.


2004
So we decided to bake Holiday Cookies! The next year, she was pregnant and I was sick, but we decided to do it anyway; because you can't have a tradition if you don't actually do it every year. I don't think Beth made it this year, but she can correct me if I'm wrong.


2005
Her son was nearly a year, and so well behaved that he just sat on the carpet all day and played while we baked. Beth also started to join us full force!


2006
At over 1, the little guy needed a babysitter!


and so she made it into the photo with my mom (who is always a HUGE help with washing up)


2007
And this year! 100% me and the girls!

I had to repost this because Blogger messed up the photos; and I couldn't fix it!

community and ethnicity

I left the house less than 5 mins after Greg this morning.

Him on his BIKE (that's a human-powered one) and me in my car.

We travel in generally the same direction, a little northwest for about 4 miles, to cross (him) and get on (me) the highway; but using different routes - because he chooses ones with bike lanes and I choose ones with fewer traffic lights and stops.

 

Today, he crossed in front of me about 1/2 mile from the highway.

 

I think its ridiculous that the traffic I had to sit in between my house and that street was so bad that he, on his route with more lights and stops, got there at the same time. Ridiculous, I say!

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I don't think about this too often, because its just normal at this point; but today something happened that startled me into the reality.

 

My office is EXTREMELY diverse! We have people from all over the world of all different races and ethnicities: Chinese, Indian, Native American, white, black, African-American (me and this guy from Kenya), Mexican, Peruvian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Bangladeshi, and I'm sure I'm missing someone...

We joke about it in my department because there are probably only 2 people who were actually born in America working in the department (ok, that might be an exageration, but its enough that they are always in the minority at meetings).

Most of the time, I don't really think about it...

But today, as I was walking down the hall, the guy from Peru was giving comments to a guy from Mexico on his engineering design, in Spanish!

 

It was pretty cool.

Have you seen this?

A refreshing change from the usual young women writhing on the screen. I saw this at my gym and had a good laugh with the woman on the trainer next to me.
Kudos to Ben Kweller for tacking a risk and doing something out of the ordinary.
(Ben Kweller - Penny On The Train Track)

AAAAAAAAHHH!!!

I just cleaned out my sockdrawer.

The ultimate form of procrastination!


(I should be writing my chapter!)

How to Build Community

The coffee shop in Park City, UT has instructions:

Technically, my first time

This weekend was the first time that I went out on the autoX track alone in my car.
I have done performance driving and autoX three times, and have had someone in my car all the time.

I'm glad I'm over that!

I had always wanted someone in the car with me because I know that my limitations are me and not the car's. When you have a ride-along, they will say to you "gas" "Gas" "GAAAS", and you push through your limitations to get closer to understanding the car.

All week, and all morning, I was really scared about having to push myself. I gave myself all the peptalks I could think of:
you need to be MOVING around in the car
you need to hear your wheels squeal
the car can do more than you!
I gave myself 5 instructions to memorize on the course so that I felt like I had a pattern.

And after all that, I'd have to say, its far more fulfilling to speed up on every run because its you doing the pushing; than it is when there is someone in the car taking responsibility for you.

Now I am excited about practicing more, pushing my limits out, and getting closer to understanding the car.

I've signed up for a 2 day event in December, and I'm hoping that having 2 full days will give me some serious seat time to break through my limitations and really get the most out of my car.




there should only be THREE wheels touching the ground here...


Coming in to the finish

ho hum technology

My computer hates iTunes.

 

the internet connection works fine; and then you open itunes and try to go to the store, or download podcasts, or god-forbid: buy music!

and suddenly - all traffic stops.

 

I've taken to running a "ping" all the time... and you can see the Request Timed Out lines multiply while you do anything in iTunes.

 

Grrr.

 

and, no, I don't have a MAC!

Ah, Marathons.

So, that marathon of last weekend, eh?!
Greg had a mind slip.
Reno was COLD! it SNOWED.
reluctantly, we left the warm hotel room and drove to Susanville, CA - through the SNOW.
We went to check into the hotel - sorry, have to wait until 3pm; sorry, no late checkout because we're fully booked for the marathon.
I said to Greg, isn't that weird that they are fully booked the night AFTER the marathon? People must stay an extra day.
We went to pick up his number and packet - sorry, don't open until 3pm
We went to find a place for lunch - after 2 failed attempts, ended up at a bakery deli which, seriously, seemed like the only place to eat in town.

In trying to waste time, we thought we'd drive down and find the route (this is a trail marathon on a "rails to trails" route so you can't drive on it... just close). Greg went running down the trail to check it out and started having a chat with another guy - who told him: dun dun daaa!!!

The marathon is on Sunday!

There was nowhere in Susanville with availability, we didn't want to deal with fees to change flights; I hadn't been home since Tues and didn't want to be gone another day. So Greg decided to run the 1/2 on Sat. The race director was not happy about the request and went on about not enough space on buses, and no guarantees, etc.
Anyway - long story short - there was conniving, early arrivals, scheming, watching, pacing, planning, and in the end, too many buses! and Greg ran.
He had fun, and decided we would get it right next year and he'd run the whole thing.