I know that I said that as I completed content for the new redesign I’d make it live and update you all. And I totally lied. I have been testing a bunch of really cool new content on a test subdirectory. I just ask all my adoring fans (HAR!) to sit tight and deal with this half done, rather bland looking layout and lack of regular updates while I finish up.

As I started working on content I had the usual thoughts of “I wish I could do this with my site” and “Someday I should do that” and “If only it weren’t so much work I’d totally add something like this”. Well, that time has come. Gone are the days of simply changing the layout around and putting off the content. I need more. And this time when I say overhaul I am pretty serious.

In other news I’ve hit a 10 pound wall. I’ve lost 10 pounds and I haven’t seemed to move on past that point. So last night I really stepped the workout up and set higher goals for myself for the next two weeks in order to knock the wall down. I’m still pretty shocked when I look at the progress I’ve made in my general fitness. A new comparison:

I think I could push harder. And I HAVE to start weight training, too. I keep saying I’m going to and it’s really just a confidence thing. It’s a bit scarry to walk over to that part of the gym and start pumping iron around all the ‘fabulous people’. I need to get over that. Arg.

Okay, I guess I’ve wasted enough time. It’s hard to motivate yourself to get anything done when The Boss is out on jury duty for the next 6-7 days. *dances*

And I’ll leave you with an image. This is what happens when a box of pick up sitck and a bored seven year old join forces…

This post is going to be all over and around the corner and up the hill and back again. Stick with me.

*puts the post in gear*

I’ve started to add the finishing touches to the layout. The site section is up and running. I’m adding content slowly and as it’s completed. I feel good about how organized and pretty all the site info looks. Well, now that I look…. there should be bullets in front of the “Software” list. Dammit. Ah well, work in progress!!

I also have started the color change (links, title, etc.) Menu looks different. Still working. Might be finished tomorrow (yeah right), or next week, or next month (which also happens to be…. NEXT WEEK. HA!). The good thing is that I’m coming up on the one month mark and I’m still head over heals in love with kiwi. If it could snuggle with me at night to keep me warm Ben might find himself out of a job.

Kidding!!!

*shifts into second*

The New Girl became and American citizen yesterday. I decorated her desk with red, white and blue streamers and starts and balloons. It was cute and she was really surprised. I’m so happy for her. She really is my favorite co-worker. What’s amazing to me is that I can talk to her about current events. All the American born people there are clueless about politics. I’d bet over half of them didn’t even vote in the last presidential election. *shakes head* AND! She makes lumpia. So she wins COOLEST CO-WORKER EVER by default.

*shifts into third*

I’ve lost an additional two pounds. That’s 8 total so far. I feel better and better every day. I think I’m going on a week+ with no ‘Attack of the Killer Stomach’.

People are commenting now. Like, seeing the difference. It might be that since I’ve started shedding the pounds I’ve become somewhat obsessive about skincare again. Working out will really play hell on your complexion! I have some Mary Kay Day and Night solution on the way. That stuff is fucking fantastic.

*slams it into fourth*

Tonight Cassidy made this face and I had to capture it. This is the face she makes instead of saying ‘You adults are out of your minds.’ She’s starting to master the art of saying such things with body language.

I need to start taking more pictures again. I was obsessed for awhile but I kinda got sidetracked. I’m ready to start the obsession again. One part of it, I’m sure, was that I tend to… take pictures of myself (shut up, Ben) and I was just not happy with what I was seeing. I’m feeing better and better about that now.

*finds fifth*

Ben’s recovery is going quite well. He’s getting around sans crutches and the flexibility is getting better and better every day. He has aches and pains here and there but that’s to be expected when you don’t really use your leg at all for a week straight.

He was able to get into the M3 tonight. So for him at least, all is right with the world.

*engages cruise control*

I don’t usually do this because I find “plugging” people and site’s kinda… trendy-ish but what the hell, right? I can jump on the bandwagon for one post.

If you haven’t already, go check out becca. I’ve become a daily stalker of hers. Sooner or later I’m gonna have to start commenting. Well, commenting more. I’ve gone off track…

She makes me literally laugh out loud and it’s refreshing to see another young mother who’s so real, and a geek, and who takes lots of pictures, and plays video games, and is such a fantastic writer, and has a secret shrine set up to worship her skinny jeans. Okay, maybe that last part isn’t true but since we have so many other things in common I figured I’d throw that in there to make myself feel more non-lunatic-ish. Plus, she has some of the cutest little rugrats ever!!

I wrote this post up last week and never finished it. But after the conversation I just listened to it has to be done… Now hopefully you all understand what I deal with. EVERY DAY!

First, the week old post:

I tried all morning to figure out a way to inject coffee directly into my bloodstream. It really doesn’t have to be coffee. Any substance that contains large amounts of caffeine would work. So I’m open to chocolate, also.

The Avon Lady has not been feeling the season. At all. She grumbled through our entire Christmas party. She said she didn’t want to particiate in the elephant gift tradition (because it was ’stupid’) then decided last minute she would and complained the rest of the afternoon about ending up with denture glue. She’s said at least 434158434 times that nobody got her anything for Christmas. She’s just been a major buzzkill. So I’ve taken to doing what I always do in these situations. Plug both my ears with NPR and hide behind my monitor.

She’s also started this annoying TSK *sigh* habit.

*phone rings*
Avon Lady(AL): TSK *sigh* *phone greeting*
AL: Conversation
*hangs up*
AL: TSK *sigh*

SHE JUST DID IT RIGHT NOW FOR NO REASON! TSK *sigh*

Our printer has been slowly dying. The four of us on the credit balance team share one industrial size printer that spits out 35 pages a minute. We’ve had it worked on three times in the last few months because tray three keeps getting paper jams.

The New Girl(TNG): AAAAAaaaaannnnnnnaaaaaa. Can we just take the paper out of drawer three? Will it still work?
Me: Is it jammed again?
TNG: Yeah! For like the third time this morning.
Me: Yeah, just pull out the paper and give IT a call.
AL: TSK *sigh*
AL: *jumps out of chair*
AL: It SHOULDN’T be getting stuck. It’s been WORKED on THREE times.
AL: TSK *sigh*
TNG: I’ll call IT.
AL: *starts opening drawers and slamming them closed over and over and over and making all kinds of noise and shaking my cube walls since the printer sits against the outside of my cube.*
AL: TSK *sigh*
AL: I can tell you why this is happening. It’s because somebody isn’t putting the FULL ream of paper in there. They just put in PART of it and set the REST of it beside the printer and it’s causing AIR to get in the paper and it’s making it jam. I don’t know who is doing that but that’s why the paper keeps jamming.

(Sidenote: We all know it’s The New Girl doing this. I know The Avon Lady knows this because she’s mentioned it to me at least three times. I told the New Girl once to just put the whole ream in but she still doesn’t. It’s no big deal. And it’s NOT causing the paper to jam!! When I see it I take the whole .25 seconds to throw the rest of the paper in there. Whenever the Avon Lady notices it… you guess it! TSK *sigh* *slam paper into drawer* *slam drawer closed* *entire cube shakes*)

Me: *Good. Lord.*
TNG: Really?
TNG: That seems kind of odd.
AL: TSK *sigh* It’s the paper. It’s bad paper. And it’s being left out. And that’s causing it to jam.
AL: Just leave the paper out of it and call IT.
Me: Good idea!
AL: TSK *sigh*

In the 20 or so minutes it took me to write this between phone calls and other unavoidable work I counted 7 TSK *sighs*’s while doing nothing but sitting at her desk working and 4 TSK *sighs*’s while answering the phone and hanging it up and 3 TSK *sighs* after people greeted her.

TSK *sigh*

_______________________________________________

Now today:

Set up: Nobody ever called IT about the printer. If it’s jammed when I go to pick up prints I just pull drawer three out an inch and let it go. When I’m done I push it back in. The humor of watching the other three girls freak out is far too enjoyable for me to want to have it fixed.

*printer has jammed about 10 times in the last hour*
New Girl: Whoah! The printer just spit out half a page. I wonder where the other half is!?
Me: I’m going to make a very uneducated guess and say.. somewhere in the printer!
NG: *laughs*
Avon Lady (TAL): TSK *sigh* I’m so SICK of people leaving the paper out and not putting it all in! If people would just do that this would stop happening.
NG: *slowly backs off and retreats to desk, snickering*

(Side note: A lady from another dept occasionally uses our printer if she’s printing out big projects because ours goes much faster. We’ll call her Poor Unsuspecting Lady, or PUL for short. PUL walked up as NG was making her retreat.)

AL: *to PUL* If you’re putting paper in here you need to put the WHOLE ream in and not leave the rest sitting out because then the paper gets saturated with air and the computer senses that it’s a different type of paper and makes it jam.

(Sidenote: I swear that’s word for word what was said. I started to type it out immediately because I knew this would have to be posted. Yes, she said “saturated with air”. And yes, she said “computer”, not “printer”.)

ME: *I actually laughed out loud when she said this. I had my headphones on though and I often laugh at talk radio so I think it went unnoticed*
PUL: Really? I’d never heard that. I’m really glad you told me.
AL: Yes. So put the whole ream in there, please.
PUL: Okay!!
AL: TSK *sigh*

Ah, the comedy.

P.S. - I really need to get some stock post banners made.
P.S.S - Site update post is 99% done so it will probably be posted sometime in the next… month? HA!

The Avon Lady has on a bracelet with jingle bells. Like 142,000 bells that jingle every time she moves any part of her body. When she wiggles her toes, her bells ring.

I’m talking the kind of bells you see on those cute little sweaters with a big Santa face and twinkling red and green lights for eyes. The kind of sweater a kindergarten teacher wears the entire month of December annoying the sanity right out of every one of her students with the flashing eyes and the jingling bells…

It started getting annoying at about 8:00AM. Right now I’m counting the seconds till the jingle stops. If she has them on tomorrow morning there’s a good chance she’ll be passing them by bowel movement tomorrow night. And I might be looking for a new job. Or in jail. One of the two.

Imagine…

There is a turkey feast being held at your work today and you can smell the turkey and gravy and the mashed taters and the gravy and the stuffing and the gravy and you know that if you eat it you are going to be physically ill for hours and hours and hours afterwards. So you aren’t going to eat it. Instead you are going to eat your plain chicken broth rice. The same chicken broth rice you’ve eaten for the last two days. (Minus the steak you ate last night and ended up regretting it… 5 times.)

Now imagine there is a 300 pound mouthy woman sitting two cubicles away from you smacking and chewing and popping her gum over and over and over and so loud that you can hear it like she’s sitting NEXT TO YOU and you secretly hope for just a second that maybe it’s Bertie Bott’s Disappearing Gum and in a poof of yellow smoke she will vanish and never be heard from again.

Welcome to my morning. I’m really trying to not let the negative energy in but GODDAMN WOMAN CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!!

Our company recently started monitoring even our AOL instant Messenger Chats using a new service called “Akonix L7″ (feel free to google). It basically logs everything you and your chat partner say. On the first outbound message to someone, they’ll receive a notice as described below. Some may say, well, that’s infringing on our personal privacy!!! But, this is company equipment, and as such, company internet, so, they have every right to do what they are doing. However, this email exchange below HAD to be posted (grin)…

One of my coworkers recently posted this to our group about it:
“…..I’m sure we have had possible email and IM monitoring for some time now but just recently others are getting messages about it when talking to me on various IM programs. The standard message says something like: “Administrator: Your communications are being monitored by the Akonix L7 system managing the person with whom you are connected.” Just a friendly FYI for those who discuss personal things over IM. I would be careful about what you share over IM if you don’t want others to possibly know :)….”

To which my boss responded:
“….Yes, we’ve been monitoring all of your communications for a couple of years. Managers get logs of every IM, chat or e-mail conversation you have on company equipment. But since you guys are spending most of your time chatting online, there is no way for me to sift throught he thousands of logs I get each day on you all. So I have to filter the logs for key words or phrases. Right now I only look for a few things. If the communication contains any of the following, the system flags them for me so I can investigate:

“I am giving this information to ATI”
“I hate my boss”
“I am going to come in on Sunday night and change all of the picks on the board” (*)
“How much can I make at your company”
“?????? is gay, not that there is anything wrong with that”
“I’m going to call in sick tomorrow so I can take my car to the track”
“I am going to go postal”
“George W. Bush is the best thing that ever happened to this country”
“How do I get to the next level in WoW?”

Even with this limited number of phrases, I can’t keep up with all the logs that get flagged, so you all my be safe for now.

:^)…..”

* Some lab folks exchange opinions and money on sports events

Three of the of the folks in the lab take their cars to the track, some are really into Seinfeld, some play World of Warcraft…, he truly is… the coolest boss ever.

I really, really, really tried. I kept my mouth closed all week last week. I tried to be nice. I tried to keep the peace. This morning I was just Not. In. The. Mood.

First push of the button:
*Freddy Cougar walks by*
Kat: I should have brought a camera today.
Me: I have one.
Kat: *attitude already* I KNOW. I meant MY OWN.
Me: *just not going to deal with it*
New Girl: Anna’s is digital. Very nice.
Kat: So?
New Girl: It’s digital. She can send you all the pictures or burn them to disk.
Kat: So? I’ll just drive to the store to get one later.
New Girl: *confused sounding* Okay.

Pushed again 10 minutes later:
*the new girl and I talk about dressing our kids up*
Me: I have a picture. I’ll send it to you.
Kat and The Avon Lady: I want to see.
Me: *sends it to all three*
New Girl: How cool! That came out really cool!
The Avon Lady: *laughing* She looks scarry but still cute!
Kat: That’s gross. I never let my kids dress up like that. That’s why I hate Halloween. People think vampires and demons are okay.
Me: *She just called Cassidy gross. Don’t over react. Just stay calm.* No, people relax and have fun and dress up and eat sweets and decorate and interact with each other.
Kat: Well, whatever. I would not let my kids dress up. We stay home and watch movies on Halloween.
Me: Your kids are 16 and 18.
Kat: I stopped taking them trick-or-treating when they were 5.
Me: *gives up*
New Girl: What?! I’ll take my kids trick-or-treating till they move out so I can get candy!
Me: *laughs* Ditto.

Last push of the button I was willing to deal with today:
*Freddy Cougar walk by again and Kat and she talk*
Freddy: You all decorated really cute! I love it.
Kat: Thanks!
Kat: *loudly* I TIRED to get everybody to wear orange pants and black shirts but I guess they didn’t want to. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to look cute all by myself.
Me: *bolts up in my chair knocking it back almost out of my cubicle*
Me: I am wearing a shirt with skulls and cross bones on it. Carolyn is in a PURPLE TAFFETA DRESS with white gloves and a freaking tiara. Michelle is wearing a sequined mask with gigantic purple feathers. And you are going to say YOU ARE THE ONLY CUTE ONE HERE because you are in pants and a shirt you’ve worn 100 times before!?!? Seriously, you’ve been telling us all week how much you hate Halloween and how you don’t want to decorate and you don’t want fake spiders around your cubicle and you don’t want to see any fake mice and refuse to help pay for any of it and, frankly, it’s getting pretty old and I’m tired of hearing it and I’d like you to decide if you are going to PARTICIPATE or NOT.
Kat: What’s your problem?
Me: *pops a gasket* I’m going to go get a drink.
New Girl: I’ll go with you.

She went outside with me. I had reached a boiling point that I didn’t want to cross inside in front or my co-workers. When I got back inside I told my boss I needed to talk to him alone and NOW. I’ve come to him with her attitude and snide comments before and he had a talk with her and things improved drastically for about two months. Over the last week however, it has declined to the point that I won’t even discuss work issues with her because she is too hard to deal with. This happens when her boyfriend or her husband or one of their lovers cause her drama. *rolls eyes 360 degrees*

This woman is 43 years old. 43!! And I’m not kidding when I say she has the social grace and skills of a PMSing 15 year old.

Somebody just burnt popcorn in the breakroom. The microwave has a button on it that says: POPCORN. This button cooks the popcorn perfectly every time. Never overdone, never underdone. But there’s always that ONE idiot that doesn’t seem to believe in the POPCORN button that stinks the enitre floor to high hell.

Women! *rolls eyes*

I started at the big S last year on July 12th. It hasn’t even been a year yet! Sheesh.

I started out doing plain old secretarial stuff. It sucked and I knew that I could do twice as well as the girls who were working above me. All of them were doing SO MANY EXTRA steps for evey task they had.

Now, less than a year later when my boss leaves town for a few days I’m in charge of 80% of the tasks he normally does (the tasks he does for OUR department, he has a few) and 100% of the ones that are mandatory, time sensative and important. Kinda feels good that I’ve been there less than a year and I see so many of my suggestions being used by everybody. And knowing that by speaking up I’ve seen new processes in place that are saving all of us LOADS of time.

I’m so totally not a slacker!