We've lived here almost 11 years and Tiger just showed up shortly after we moved in and has never left since. He's never been in the house until last night. He's never even acted like he wanted to. But last night he just barged right on in as if to say, "I think I'm just gonna go in and have a look around."
He was checking out the office and I don't think the other cats ever knew he was in here. But with me running around trying to take pictures, I think he was ready to get the hell out. "Too cluttered in there anyway," he muttered to himself.
Heading for the exit.
This morning at work, Sissy decided she needed to see what was going on. This met with a quick disapproving eye from the office supervisor... the man in orange. And that DOS looking shit you see on the right is my work station...
Later on, I spotted a loaf in the den. Tot Loaf: It's What's for Dinner.
And speaking of dinner, how would you like to come home to this frenzy each and every day?
We had 1.4 inches of rain in the last 24 hours thanks to Hurricane Bertha (?) Betty (?) (where's Hurricane Bitty??) -- I've been too busy to pay much attention, but anyway, the snails have reappeared suddenly.
One question: How in the hell do these things maintain their moisture during the 2 months of drought we've had?
And it's raining again as I write this post.
Click this one to embiggen if you feel so inclined. (I know some of you do, Bob and Jennifer.)
txrad and I were out on the patio overlooking kona ranch and I noticed this snail. It's one of the bigger ones we've seen. I jokingly referred to it as a "large snot" to borrow from the late beloved George Carlin.
txrad wanted to vomit.
He was faking it. I know he loves these things as much as I do.
Day #4 of a new job has just ended. It was a better day than yesterday. It HAD to be. Otherwise I was on the verge of doing something which would probably have been a huge mistake.
I awoke around 1:30 this morning after horrible anxiety dreams involving media software and Excel (not uncommon for me) and then had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. When I did there were even more anxiety dreams. Horrible stuff.
It's probably natural to have anxiety when changing jobs, but I think it's probably more acute when you are leaving a job you love for something you think you'll just like, if you're lucky. But I'm coming around. I actually got a lot more comfortable today dealing with the subject matter of yesterday's post. It's just a matter of memorizing when to hit F4, F1, B for one function, R for another, and the all-important Q for Quit.
I was about ready hit Q when I rolled out of bed this morning. It's getting better though. And tomorrow is Friday.
The reality is that, despite the technology hurdles, there's a real opportunity in my new position for growth and that is something that isn't always guaranteed for someone who has been at it in the same industry for as long as I have. New learning experiences are also on the horizon.
I just need to calm the fuck down and get through the first week or two of adjustment. That's always hard and throwing in the towel seems like an easy way out. Last night I was so frustrated I was ready to waltz back into my old job. That would have been a mistake. And I've made enough of those already. It's not so much the job I miss as the software. (Yes, I'm a software snob!) I need to get over it. I'm among old friends and simply need to adapt.
I know there is some consternation among some of you (Bob) that I'm working from home and not posting enough. But you need to understand the full picture.
I have been transported back to an era similar to the dark ages 1980s technologically (anyone remember DOS????) and I just have to deal with it, despite the heart palpitations and carpel tunnel syndrome.
After a grueling day at work, I can hardly hold down my white wine while watching McCain talking about the pre-surge surge that worked before the so-called "surge" worked.
You know, I consider myself to be a busy person, especially these days with my new job. Hell, I was busy before I took this new job. But never, EVER, in my life have I been so busy that I needed a headset that worked at this speed:
Pardon the flash reflection, but you get the idea. This was included with the shipment of my new office phone and it makes me want to puke.
If you can't manage your time, then you have a problem.
If you have to run while talking on the phone, then you have a problem.
Deal with your problem FIRST, and then pick out your phone.
That's my suggestion. Fucking stupid ads.
As for me, I'll continue to work FAST, while sitting on my ass.
That's what I logged on my first day at the new jobbie. Hence, no posting. I don't even have a fucking clue what's going on out there in the world today.
What a relief it is to know I don't have to get dressed and drive to the office on Monday morning. The office is now here.
I got my work PC set up on Thursday evening and this afternoon I decided to set up the "all-in-one" printer, fax, scanner, copier.
Oops. I guess I won't be doing any scanning.
In fact, I won't be using the thing at all. There's probably bits of glass in the other operational mechanisms. I didn't break it. It obviously got some rough treatment during shipping.
Oh well. At least I have another all-in-one device here I can use in the meantime. Work shall commence on schedule Monday morning.
I can't imagine being cramped in a convention center all weekend attending the Netroots Nation conference. Here at the kona ranch we wish them all the best. However, we headed out at 9:00 this morning to attend a seminar at the Natural Gardener nursery on creating a backyard habitat for chickens.
It was very interesting and included tips for stealth chicken operations to help you avoid irking your neighbors, or offending local neighborhood regulations which often frown upon homeowners keeping backyard chickens. (Avoid owning roosters.) Such regulations are ridiculous anyway since I'm not aware of any regulations against keeping dogs which can be among the noisiest animals around. And we learned that dogs love to kill chickens unless they are trained to co-exist. Beasts!
The Natural Gardener is just a few minutes from our house and it's always a relaxing retreat. And I usually leave with some idea for a project I want to do to beautify our own place. Like this round elevated planter made of local stones.
There were probably 150-200 people attending this seminar which surprised me. I really wasn't close enough to see the speaker so I tended to wander around snapping pictures and listening. I heard some fowl activity in some nearby shrubs and found a rooster lurking.
There was also some clever marketing woven into the seminar. Someone builds and sells this chicken "stage coach" for housing your hens and protecting them from predators such as skunks, which apparently have a taste for chicken blood -- preferably after popping off their heads.
The stage coach has a built-in two-seater area where the hens can lay their eggs, and there's a door on the outside for reaching in and stealing the eggs. Clever.
Right behind the rooster's shurbery was a pen for these two goats.
There was also a patch of sunflowers that had a few giants. I was a few feet away from it and standing up, so the center of this shot is at my eye level.
After an hour I was getting tired of the hot morning sun and I went to view the little stream which was created using rainwater from a nearby collection tank.
Even though it was roped off to prevent people from getting close to it, I certainly was wanting to plant my ass on that rock and let the water run over my bare feet.
At the front of the nursery there is a huge fenced-in area housing two donkeys. They are brothers.
There were plenty of butterflies working over all the flowering plants and this one wasn't very skittish when I approached. I got several pictures but this is probably the best one.
I decided I couldn't take the lengthy question and answer portion of the seminar another minute. I had to sit down for a while and these beautiful Adirondack chairs were calling my name. I really would love to have a yellow one and a green one. They were on sale for $280 each but we'd need a truck to get them home. And I should probably find something less expensive.
But they were made of recycled plastic and had the look and feel of wood. They would last forever I'm sure.
I did my Rush post before Colbert did his exclusive. So I'm a day ahead of him on that one.
And I wish my eye doctor would examine my prostate since he expressed such an interest in the health of it.
And I sincerely hope everything is going to turn out OK for the nation. We're all feeling a bit Bushwhacked at the moment.
That's apparently not going to change during the next 6 months. But after that, the stupid fucker will be history, and history shall not judge him well.
I thought Colbert cut 'em a bit short. Rush I mean. Who gives a flying fuck about Bush?
This is getting ridiculous. I had to bring home the laptop today from the soon-to-be ex-job and do some work while waiting on the cable dude (gay! gay! GAY!) to come install the digital phone line I need for the new job. And while I was waiting and in between work, I set up the equipment for the new job. So here's the scene this afternoon:
Can you say "GEEK?"
Old job on the left, personal desktop in the middle, new job on the right, and old computer on a table I'm trying to get cleaned up for a charitable donation. Once that's done, I have another one waiting in the wings. And as if that's not enough, you can see txrad's desktop PC and monitor in the far upper right of this shot. That's five visible computers in one shot.
The phone guy was going to be here between 1 and 5 which is why I worked from home this afternoon and I joked that he'd probably get here at 4:55. Actual time of arrival was around 5:15. But I'm good to go now.
While I was sitting at my desk this afternoon alternating between the laptop on the left and the new work on the right, I was feeling like Rick Wakeman in concert, surrounded by an array of gadgets.
Miss Communication strikes again, like Miss USA tripping over her evening gown.
Even though my "exit interview" was today at 2:30, my last day is still Friday. The notice of the exit interview came with the proper protocol of "bring your badge, laptop" etc., which led me to believe I was outta there today.
Wrong ASSumption.
They were just getting a head start.
I had a 1 1/2 hour exit interview. Who among us has ever had one that long? Consider that to be the Question of the Day. I let it all hang out, as only a konagod would.
I also was rushing to get a 2nd opinion on my March eye exam so it would be covered under my current insurance plan. That was at 10:30 this morning. And I spent another $340 on a $900 pair of glasses -- state of the art progressive lenses with a pair of frames that were actually on sale today -- closeout style.
Insurance covered the rest, including the eye exam. And the eye doctor was HOT. Like Curt Cobain. Shit, that was worth $340 right there.
$600 is just for the lenses!
Anyhoo, I got back to the office by 12:00 and did a day's worth of work between then and 2:30 when I expected all my computer access would be shut off, before I knew I was good til Friday.
This is working out OK though because txrad has another round of dental work on Friday which was going to be over $600 out of pocket for us without insurance.
So, to cut a long story longer, I'm planning to work Thursday morning only and be home in the afternoon for equipment setup and any current work emergencies, and then go to the office again on Friday as a formality for a few hours and then get the hell out.
Nobody said this was going to be an easy transition. I worked my ass off today.
But workstuff arrived today, so this must be for real.
I'm feeling jazzed. So many people at work are jealous of my arrangement that I cannot not select this as the theme song of this post. And as I was previewing it, txrad came in and said, "that's the one."
Consider it done.
I was a DJ at a college radio station in Fayetteville, Arkansas when this album came out and I added it to my playlist immediately. I think that was 1979.
And the album graphic seems to fit the television test pattern theme I have in my sidebar.
This is currently the view I have from my (still cracked) bedroom window. The Texas sage in full bloom. The bees are loving it.
And it's helping to calm me down... a little bit. I'm ready to get that window replaced though. You can't see the crack because it's in the lower pane.
I hate to keep flogging a dead horse. I mean, I have resigned from my current job and have officially accepted a much higher-paying position working from home. Why so glum?
I'm not sure. Because I was motivated by money instead of happiness? Granted, I'm not the least bit concerned that I'm going to enjoy the new job, and I'm pretty excited about some of my responsibilities I've heard about. Buying national cable TV spots ain't bad; I could do a whole lot worse.
But I'm going to be very sad when I walk away from the current joint on Wednesday. Leaving behind some wonderful and fun people. But this is a strange industry. When you hook up with people, and it's meant to be, they don't easily leave your life.
Case in point: my immediate supervisor is someone I've known for 18 years and worked with at a number of other agencies. And I'm still friends with an ex-co-worker whom I've really only known for about 18 months (but feel as though I've known her my entire life) even though we had a brief encounter at the same agency about 11 years ago, and she's from the same town in Iowa as the agency which is hiring me. And so is my current supervisor. Small industry. Cosmic shit. Whatever.
I just don't want to be making very many more bad decisions at my age.
It doesn't help that Monday, July 14 marks the 4 year anniversary of me starting my own agency. And what a colossal disaster that has turned out to be. I keep putting off the obligatory visit for legal advice on that one.
Anyhow, another chapter in my book is about to unfold, and I just want to be sure it's a good one. I've had a string of not-so-good ones lately.
Working from home with a 33% pay increase is not a bad deal though, in and of itself. The rest I'll just have to get over.
Except "Grandma" is me. I have this old PC I want to donate to charity and I need to cleanse it of tax returns, personal data, porn, old business files, etc. I managed to get everything transferred to this PC today and I now need to find a disc-scrubbing utility so that everything is fine and dandy.
But, wow. What a treasure trove of data from the 1990s I found, including a lot of personal writings.
Nothing. Everything wasn’t, isn’t and never will be. Nothing was, is, and always will be. Everything is illusory. Nothing can be visualized. Nothing is God. Everything is nothing. Nothing isn’t everything. Nothing isn’t anything. Nothing isn’t. Nothing.
Seriously. Are there many people out there who need this product?
Holds up to 32 caps if you stack one on top the other. I'm a firm believer in getting the most bang for my buck.
I wonder if they have a shot glass rack on sale?
My guess is there's over 100 shot glasses in this cabinet. And I've given away about two dozen recently. Would Goodwill want those? I need to de-clutter. Hell, I've got some pretty decent wine & champagne glasses in there which I can't even access due to the shot glasses.
Those were a promotional gimmick for about a year with our favorite tequila. Buy a bottle and get two or three shot glasses. It was fun the first couple of times but then I was ready for that gimmick to run its course. Near the end I was even having the woman at the liquor store tear off the packaging which contained the glasses.
But how many people do you know who could have a crowd of maybe 110 over at their house and everyone simultaneously do a shot? That must count for something.
Money can't buy common sense. That's for damn sure.
This house is for sale.
By the time Stan and Dorothea Cheslock moved into their 26,000-square-foot dream house on 30 acres here, they were already dreaming of getting out.
“We kind of knew even before the house was finished that it was too much house for us,” Mr. Cheslock, who made (and lost some of) a fortune in finance, explained the other evening as he showed a visitor around.
Hey, the next time you aren't sure about something of this magnitude, give me a call and I'll advise you for about $150,000 and save you the hassle of realizing you made a multi-million dollar mistake.
The Cheslocks, who sold their previous home in Greenwich for $12 million, bought the property for $7 million in 2000, spent nearly $14 million and four years building the house, and put it on the market in 2006 for $31 million. No takers.
Here comes another konagod boo-hoo moment. Damn, where did I leave my compassion? It was here yesterday!
These people are emtpy-nesters -- the kids are grown. It's just them! The house has a terrace that's bigger than my entire house, and sometimes I think our house is a bit too big for two people. And their annual maintenance cost is more than we paid for our house.
And if you're thinking they learned a valuable lesson from this experience, think again.
They have not decided where to move next — just that it should be smaller.
“I would be happy with 3,500 square feet,” Mrs. Cheslock said.
“I would need 7,000 square feet,” said her husband.
There was a meeting at work this week in which an announcement was made about several people in upper management getting increased responsibilities (as well as keeping their current responsibilities) and getting longer job titles. And probably heftier salaries.
So there were a few of us laughing about this and making up our own job titles which went something like this:
Senior VP of After-Hours Community Affairs and Outreach
Then I came up with one of my own:
Senior VP of Premium Libations Development & Testing
I could sit and do this all day. I think a number of us just needed a humorous creative outlet after an insanely wild and exhausting week.
Question of the Day: What would you like to have for a job title if you could make up your own?
Oh, and one rule: If you incorporate the word "coordinator" or "assistant" into your job title, you're a loser.
I want to be among the elite who isn't tethered to a Blackberry. I'm not there yet. In fact, I'm not even among the elite who needs a Blackberry. I don't even want one, so can I just advance past that crowd and be among the elite who look down upon those who need them as people chained to a techno-tree?
I found out today the HR person doing my exit interview is off Thursday & Friday next week so my exit is around 10am Wednesday morning. And after the week I've had I can't say I'm sorry. What's worse than being pressured to juggle several projects at once, all of them urgent, and then be hit with some special request thing with an unreasonable deadline only to have them turn it back to you when you're done and say the classic words, "oh this isn't what we wanted. We weren't sure we were asking for the right thing until we saw the finished document, now we want THIS."
And "this" happens to be not only completely different from what you did, but growing in size exponentially.
Aside from that, I'm feeling a bit like someone in charge of delivering a pretty basic chocolate cake, and being assigned a fleet of people to be in charge of every ingredient in the recipe.
kona: "I am ready for the flour. Where's my flour coordinator?"
sugar coordinator: "Oh she's in a meeting with the icing manager."
kona: "Well, I can get the flour myself."
Senior Director of Cake Management: "No, we don't want you handling or measuring. That's the flour coordinator's job."
In comes the flour coordinator.
flour coordinator: "My measuring cups have disappeared."
kona: "You can use mine."
flour coordinator: "No, I'm not allowed to use yours. Let me go see if I can track down mine."
kona: "Sigh. This would happen so much easier and faster if I was just making the fucking cake myself."
Have I made it clear yet how frustrating this week has been?
So I'll be walking out before noon on Wednesday, and probably start setting up the equipment at home for my new job Wednesday afternoon and start my new position on Thursday. If I don't blow a fuse between now and then.
At one point this afternoon I would have been happy to go stretch out on the railroad track with a bottle of tequila and wait for a speeding freight to put me out of my misery.
This is why you don't and have never seen a graphic on my website supporting the Big O for President. I was supporting him (a couple of times actually) but never was able to fully commit myself to supporting him with a banner ad.
I still suppose he's better than the alternative, but at the rate he's going in helping to push through bills which President Bush is eager to sign, I'm beginning continuing to wonder.
This vote today is bullshit.
More than two and a half years after the disclosure of President’s Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program set off a furious national debate, the Senate gave final approval on Wednesday afternoon to broadening the government’s spy powers and providing legal immunity for the phone companies that took part in the wiretapping program.
The plan, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, marked one of Mr. Bush’s most hard-won legislative victories in a Democratic-led Congress where he has had little success of late.
[...]
The issue put Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. After long opposing the idea of immunity for the phone companies in the wiretapping operation, he voted for the plan on Wednesday.
[...]
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who was Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, voted against the bill.
I am not happy about this. Not at all. So once my trust has been eroded, how the fuck can I vote for the guy?
'Tis a pity. I wanted real change. If he does this shit during a campaign season, what can I expect once in office?
More of the same?
As txrad just pointed out to me, "but you voted for him." (In the Texas primary.)
I replied, "yes I did, and today I can barely stand to look at him."
Nice going, Obama. Looks like another 3rd party vote forthcoming for me in November. The country is fucked to hell anyway.
I haven't allowed a job offer paying 25% more than my current salary to go straight to my head. Times are tough and getting tougher. I seriously want to eliminate unnecessary things from my life which are a monthly drain on my wallet.
Now it's a fact that I have a lot of unnecessary expenses and I'm not going to cut everything. I can start by eliminating those things which can be easily replaced at no cost.
If I take this new job, it will include my internet access at home since I'll be working from home. So I'm no longer going to have a $46 monthly Time Warner Roadrunner bill. That's at least $552 a year in after-tax dollars.
Here's another:
I just added the HD package to my Dish Network lineup so I need to sacrifice something in return. Besides, I've got 2 movies here which I've had since mid-March and a 3rd one I've had since late April. This is fairly common for me. At $19.47 a month, it would be cheaper for me to buy the movies I want to see and then donate them to Goodwill when I'm done and write it off as a donation. Or, just watch what's on Dish Network which is what we do anyway.
That's another annual savings of over $233.
Up next on konagod's chopping block is this tree killer:
This is going to be a tough adjustment but I know I can do it. Last year they trimmed both sides of the paper so it's slimmer and therefore holds less news that's fit to print. Then they raised the rates for delivery. And now they are about to raise them again.
I thought about just switching to Monday-Saturday since the Sunday paper is over $6 a week. But often the paper isn't here when I get up at 5:30 and occasionally I'm done with my coffee when it arrives. Besides, as you can tell from the last post, the contents of the paper are more of an irritation to me than anything else.
I can read the news online for free. That's another $665 annual savings in after-tax dollars, not counting the upcoming increase.
So what's my annual savings total for today? Close to $1,500. Not bad. That's about what I'm spending annually of fuel costs to drive to work. And soon I'll be working from home so that takes us up to $3,000.
It's bad enough listening to the people wanting politicians to "do something" about the high cost of fuel. Here's what I'd do: tax the shit out of it. Assholes who spend $60k, $70k or more for an SUV in this day and age should be able to afford it. And use that tax money to improve public transportation for the rest of us, and provide rebates to those near the poverty level who have no choice but to drive. However, I do realize any kind of government program that has to track and manage rebates for a certain group is going to end up costing as much to manage as it collects in taxes, if not more.
I just get tired of listening to stupid people (who are financially doing OK) complaining about what it costs to fill up a vehicle which they themselves made a conscious decision to purchase it, and knowing up-front the pathetic fuel economy of the vehicle.
Bryan Carisone, a heating and air-conditioning contractor in Raritan, N.J., “absolutely loves” his new GMC Denali XL, an extra-large sport utility vehicle with televisions built into the leather seats. But in June, one week after he bought it, he pulled into a station on a near-empty tank and watched the total climb higher and higher — to $109.
“It just about killed me,” Mr. Carisone said.
Oh my God. I am just filled with pity for the guy. Here's a suggestion: you made a mistake; deal with it. I feel pity for the people who need trucks and vans for their work; not so much pity for the Hummer drivers who use it to run to the supermarket for a $25 bag of groceries. Nor do I have much pity for the "soccer moms" who thought buying a behemoth to haul the brats and their equipment to soccer practice would make them part of some elitist club and they could feel equal to their peers. I'm sorry, but fuck that shit.
What is really starting to yank my chain is the emphasis on what it costs to fill a tank vs. actual gas mileage. Like all tanks and all vehicles are equal. Check out this next bit of insanity.
Families that were accustomed to the convenience of sport utility vehicles are having to cut back as well. Colleen Hammond of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, loves packing her three kids and all their soccer gear into her 2000 GMC Yukon XL. But she hates paying $160 to fill the 38.5-gallon tank. Last month, she parked the Yukon in her driveway and borrowed her friend’s Toyota Land Cruiser.
“I don’t know if it gets better gas mileage, but I like her car because it costs $100 to fill it,” said Ms. Hammond, 40. “I think $100 for a tank of gas is cheap now.”
Hello!!? Does anyone sense a disconnect here? Switching from a Yukon XL to a Land Cruiser because it only costs $100 to fill it means absofuckinglutely NOTHING! It means the tank doesn't hold as much; the gas isn't any cheaper! Jesus H. Christ, people are stupid. You fill it up more often! For god's sake, TAX these idiots!
Many consumers whose tanks would easily swallow $100 worth of gas refuse to pump that much at once, just to avoid the trauma.
“Usually I don’t let it get real empty so that I don’t have to see that $100 on the pump,” said Bob Hammond, 61, of Chesterland, Ohio, who drives an Avalanche. “It’s a mental thing.”
Yes, it's a mental thing and it's called insanity.
Sigh... sometimes I feel like I need to bang my head against a brick wall.
I've been feeling the pull like a magnet to visit a crystal shop here in Austin. It's called Crystal Works and it's located at 12th & Lamar. It's actually a short walk from where I work but I could never force myself to actually visit there during the week. I was afraid I'd be disappointed and then I'd be all sweaty after walking several blocks in the mid-day heat.
Today we went out for lunch and I decided I'd take a short detour downtown and check out this shop. It's small but amazing, and PACKED with all sorts of crystals and stones, jewelry, rings, smudge sticks, incense, and a couple of huge shiva lingams which managed to calm my nerves like Valium. (The big ones were $1,500 each.)
I may have a difficult time spending my $100 gift card at Williams Sonoma and Pottery Barn but I had no problem whatsoever dropping a little cash at a shop that sells rocks. That's konagod for ya!
This is my little collection I've had for about 2 decades.
I have worn a crystal pendant around my neck for awhile. My favorite one lost a stone out of a mount awhile back so I switched to the another one which is basically a silver man-figure grasping the crystal with both arms and both legs. "The silver crystal-humping man" (Tart can swing by and grade me on my punctuation and grammar) is what I call it. It's interesting but ever since those pictures started circulating of McCain humping Bush, it lost a lot of appeal for me.
Today I treated myself to something different. Out with the crystal and in with the opal. This picture is blurry but it did capture a bit of the green peeking through.
Here's a more detailed shot which has more of the blue/purple showing. This stone is fascinating and I've never really known much about opals.
A card which came with this explains some of the qualities of opal and I believe I made a good choice. It reads as follows:
Opal is a stone of inspiration which enhances imagination and creativity. It helps one release inhibitions and enhances memory.
Opal is also a very spiritual stone, and can help one be "invisible" in situations where they don't care to be noticed.
Opal brings happy dreams. It also eases the process of change.
Basically, all of that is important to me, particularly at the point in time.
Upon doing additional research, I learned that opal is my mystical birthstone which is of Tibetan origin. Being an April baby, all I've ever heard was that diamond is my birthstone. And konagod isn't exactly the diamond necklace type.
Specifically, this is what's known as a boulder opal and supposedly those represent a small fraction of overall opals in the world. This one comes from Australia which is the source of the world's vast majority of opals.
The opal is the official gemstone of South Australia. Adelaide, the capital, is a sister city to Austin, and ironically home to a couple of my fave bloggers who in many ways are an alter ego to txrad and myself.
But I digress. Also scored me another dangly stone earring. Can't remember the name of this stone; I'll have to do some internet research and track it down. I was happy to find something I like since I recently lost my favorite one which I'd had for about 12 years or longer.
In this picture I inadvertently stuck it in the same hole as the silver hoop. Just letting you know so you don't think the hoop is part of this earring. Yes, konagod does have more than one hole. :-)
Actually that one I lost a couple of months ago was found by txrad in a crack in our driveway a few weeks ago. And then I promptly lost it again after about a week. I'm thinking I may have lost it the 2nd time at work. That stone was apparently ready to leave me for some reason.
Stones are funny that way.
Opal cutting in action:
Another short video for true opal geeks:
Opal: Way better than the silver crystal-humping man.
Honestly, I don't know what to do about this but it is driving me completely batshit insane. I'm sure there's a technical term for what is being done to my konagod dot com email account. I just call it hijacking by some asshole for sending out thousands of spam emails. Most of them kick back into my in-box as blocked and undeliverable.
I just deleted over a thousand of these nasty buggers from overnight.
I think I need to pay a visit to the host of my domain and check out some settings.
At the last one we met up with a former work colleague and his wife and their two adorable children.
There was a point in the conversation where txrad said, "I have a personal question."
That was when I should have turned on the camcorder.
He asked the woman if women are able to voluntarily release the milk when breastfeeding.
I thought it was a good question although it surprised me.
Tonight he told me he was inspired to ask the question because in his upbringing on the farm in North Dakota he would milk cows and they were sometimes dripping when it was time to milk. Like they were on a certain cycle.
He was embarrassed to bring that aspect into the equation because he didn't want to equate women with cows. To which I replied, "we're all part of the animal kingdom."
Problem solved! I had to reboot. I also did some research and learned that you can delete the keyboard driver and reboot and let it reinstall the driver and that will correct the problem. I also vacuumed cat hair out of the keyboard just in case that was a problem. Certainly can't be a good thing!
Another site had something up about pressing CTRL and the left shift key or CTRL and the right shift key to alternate between typing backwards which strikes me as odd. Who the fuck wants to type backwards?
Jesse Helms has died at age 86... on the 4th of July. Very patriotic.
Oh I must bite my tongue. But Good Lord, I despised that man's politics and beliefs.
Early on, his habit of blocking nominations and legislation won him a nickname of "Senator No." He delighted in forcing roll call votes that required Democrats to take politically difficult votes on federal funding for art he deemed pornographic, school busing, flag-burning and other cultural issues.
In 1993, when then-President Clinton sought confirmation for an openly homosexual assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Helms registered his disgust. "I'm not going to put a lesbian in a position like that," he said in a newspaper interview at the time. "If you want to call me a bigot, fine."
I was just cleaning a few things out of the fridge. Here's a glimpse into our chill chest. Not bad; I've seen far worse. (I like looking in people's fridges, so if you ever invite me over, you know what to expect.)
I do this every 2-3 months because there's always something stored in there which we forget about, and it usually has something green and fuzzy growing on it. And each time I always end up throwing out something I missed the last time around -- something dreadful which should have been discarded a few years back.
Today's discovery was horseradish sauce.
What a waste! It appeared as if all we'd done was tasted it and put it back in the fridge to expire. What really shocked me was the "sell by" date on this little gem.
For those of you with a memory impairment, when we bought this stuff, it was fairly easy to go to the airport and board a plane. No need to remove shoes, nail clippers were probably in everyone's luggage, shampoo and conditioner in their original 12 oz bottles were common, even an ice pick could probably slip through. Ahh, those were the days, my friends, those were the days.
That's not the oldest thing in our fridge though. Not long after we'd moved in together while we were living in California, txrad came home from North Dakota with a jar of choke cherry (wild cherry) juice which we were planning to make into jelly. The funny thing is, that's still on our agenda. But we're waiting on the 20th anniversary. (Of the chokecherries, not us.) The REALLY funny thing is we got drunk one night about 2 years ago (well, that's not funny or unusual) and we opened the jar which had been sitting on a shelf in the pantry all these years. It was still fine then and there's still no sign of mold. That's some amazing shit.
On to another story, completely unrelated to the fridge:
txrad and I embarked upon another dreaded expedition to our local shopping slab with gift card in hand for the Williams Sonoma/Pottery Barn combo. After failing at finding anything to spend $100 on at PB last weekend, we felt certain we'd score something at Williams Sonoma.
Wrong.
I did spy a springform pan for cheesecakes. Mine died a few years back. But if we've gotten along this far without one, why splurge on one now? Besides it was $40. We checked out a few other things but nothing gave us the urge to buy, so we came home.
I'm seriously starting to wonder why I cashed out those AMEX points for gift cards at these shops. I should have stuck with Home Depot. I can ALWAYS spend money there.
txrad has a Question of the Day:
What's the oldest thing you've ever found in your fridge?
I told myself I was going to ignore politics for the rest of my life during my 5-days off, but this just gives me heart a flutter. McCain has put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations in the midst of the 2nd campaign shakeup in a year.
Mr. Schmidt is a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and he worked closely with Karl Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s political adviser. His installation at Mr. McCain’s headquarters sharply diminished the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.
This next bit just cracks me up.
The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several aides, including Mr. Schmidt, warned him about 10 days ago that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, according to two officials close to the campaign.
And now, another step in the direction of Bush 2004 is going to save his ass?
Wow. Just when I was getting pissed off at Obama for various and sundry things, suddenly all is forgiven.
Just in time for Fourth of July fireworks. Yes, I have survived my employment meltdown last night but that's not to suggest I'm calm or that I feel good about things.
I'm feeling a bit angry about money. The fact that I have to make a decision motivated by money above all else deeply disturbs me. Unfortunately the alternative would probably be more unpleasant and might involve selling a house out of necessity rather than desire which is equally annoying. So I will plow ahead and adapt.
It's a painful decision to leave a company and a job which I truly love. If I won the lottery I'd probably keep that job.
They are probably going to "see what they can do" to keep me on but in the current economic climate I can't imagine it will be enough. And before this month ends, I'll likely be employed again with the agency where I worked on 9/11/01, barring some miracle.
I might buy a lottery ticket today. Just for the hell of it. Meanwhile, I have 5 days off for the holiday starting today (seriously, what a great company!) and I need to try and enjoy it.
Sorry, no real posting today. Got lots on my mind as you can well imagine, but I have the best group of people reading this blog anyone could ask for so I appreciate all the comments on the last post.
Meanwhile.... Starbucks doesn't sound like a very good job option.
Jesus, where is this economy headed?
P.S. I have the next five days off for July 4th. See? I told you I worked for a fucking KICK-ASS company. Expect an increase in posting since I have no other plans other than just sitting here.
