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Terry Pratchett is Rad, and Other Random Thoughts

On Tuesday I was having a tough day. I had finished a rough day at work and I had an hour break before I headed to what I knew was going to be a rough ballet class. And I had forgotten my book. Crap. I generally keep books tucked all over the place, anywhere I might need one. Apparently the books that had been posted to The Car and The Ballet Bag were good enough to be promoted to house books and their positions had not yet been filled. This happens frequently. I'm too good at walking and reading at the same time.

Monday (not in disguise)

Sometimes you need to draw an elephant on a piece of paper to make it through the day.

It sounds weird but it's true. At least for me. Yesterday I was home alone scrubbing toilets and changing litter boxes and not having a very good time. So I put on a tiara and cued up some Broadway showtunes and got back to work, singing at the top of my lungs. It helped. My husband came home and there I am folding laundry in a tiara. He kissed me and said, "You look nice." We finished the laundry together. That's how rad my husband is.

Monday in Disguise

Yesterday I took my car in for its 90,000 mile check-up. I had a $199 coupon that I had been saving for this event on my frigerator door. Not that I'm so naive to believe that I could get in and out of the mechanics for $200 when I have 90k on my car. I was expecting $500. That seems to be the standard price for sneezing in an auto shop. Turned out to be $813 by the time I had to bail my car out at the end of the day. Apparently I needed new brakes, front and back. Ouch. It's not that I bad, I tell myself. At least I got out for less that $1000.

Friday Morning

The coffee shop around the corner now sells muffin tops. For one dollar I can have all the best parts of a blueberry muffin and not have to deal with the creepy paper wrapping bit that normally comes around the bottom. At first I was concerned. Do they bake the whole muffin and then just cut off the top part so wasteful people in the land of plenty can have only the good parts?

Peaceful Morning

Funny. I was just telling a friend last night how alarm systems make me uncomfortable and what do I do this morning? I set off the office alarm. Ack!

For those of you who aren't dyslexic, you can probably walk up to an keypad on an ATM or a telephone or...I don't know...an alarm system and have confidence that you know what order the digits are supposed to go. You probably never mix up your own phone number and you don't have to make up rhymes to remember your ATM codes.

Mind-bogglingly, Stupendously, Fantastically Amazing!

Okay, I'm going to geek out here, but bear with me because this is cool. I was talking with my ESRI tech support folks this morning (Thanks for all your help, Margaret - You rock!) about difficulties in calculating magnetic declination in our mapping software.

For those who don't know, I'm a GIS analyst. That's something like a cartographer and database manager at the same time. When people ask my profession, I generally say "Map Geek"; it saves time.

You're Kidding Me, Right?

In a meeting, some maps I made for a project came out.

"We'd like you to change the aerial photographs to full color." The maps are pushed to me across the table.

"They were in color," I said. "You requested that I change them to black and white." I push them back.

"Oh, well... Blah blah blah color." Deep breath, Shannon, I tell myself. They pay you to be here 8 hours a day and you get paid to do the stupid, redundant crap just the same as anything else. Smile for the boss.

"Sure thing." Big smile. "I'll get right on that." I move to get up.

A Pirate's Life for Me

It's June in Sacramento Valley. Nearly July, in fact.

It's nearly July in the Sacramento Valley and I'm wearing long pants and a flannel shirt. And I'm still cold and considering another layer. What's wrong with this picture?

Well, I'm at work of course. The AC vent over my desk is whistling along merrily and the overhead fluorescent lights are twitching along in time with the song and I'm at my desk slowing shriveling up and bleaching in cumulative response.

Heaven forbid we open a window.

Not single spies, but in battalions

I'm going to rant on about sad things for a bit. If you don't want to deal with it, don't read it. I totally understand. I wouldn't write it if I didn't need to get it out.

TGFMBD

~~TGIF~~.

TGFMBD. Thank God for my Back Up Drive.

There's nothing like a downed server to wake you up. I work for a small business and I'm what goes as tech support around here. I'm not a computer doctor. I'm certainly not a computer surgeon. I'm more comparable to a school nurse. I can put on band-aids, I can tell you that you should never stick that up your nose again, and I know when to call the real doctor.

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