Birds I wish I had taken photos of this week:
I've been busy this week. I can't remember what I've actually done, but I know I've been busy. Let's see... I visited my mom in the hospital after her hip replacement surgery (she's doing great except for the whole not being about to go anywhere thing. and I think she'd like to be able to put on her own socks. Good thing it's (almost!) summer and she can wear sandals, huh?), I baked cookies, I went on three hour long walks, I finished my super fancy cabled sweater sleeve, and somehow managed to buy gas at $2.59 a gallon without even waiting for the price to go down. It's been a pretty good week.
He was a little offended that I would post such a ridiculous photo of him, so here he is being serious. (are you happy now, cat?) T$ - you'll always be OPRTLC to me! and you too, Doug! ;)
I'm overwhelmed all of a sudden. I had a meeting this morning where it was me vs. 13 other people. Ok, really it wasn't like that, but it sure felt that way. I asked if we could fix the help feature - when you click on "Help" you get a message saying something about not connecting to a database. I asked 1) do we have any help information? 2) can we either move the files to where the program is looking for them OR change the program so it looks for the help files where they are? I had 10 people tell me "That's just how it works! We can't change it." and one person saying "I want to know this too!" and two people who just looked completely confused.
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for a minute.
And then I was going to look for three-column blog templates so I can make this thing do what I want it to do and instead I ended up wanting Firefox and wanting to completely make up my own template and figure out what that del.ici.ous thing is (I probably didn't even get those periods right!) and it's all too much stuff.
So I'm just going to post pictures instead.
It's not actually crashing. It just looks like it.
http://www.abeautifulrevolution.com/photos/glorious_britannia/index.html
He seems to have a detached and almost hard view of things. Maybe it's the headless people walking or the fact that almost no one in his photos is looking at the camera. None of them seem to be smiling at the guy taking pictures - they seem to be strangers.
I remember feeling detached in London - does everyone? Physically the city seems hard and cold but the people seemed nice enough. I'm not sure if I could say I've been there twice - technically it was two times, but it was bookends for a longer trip that started and ended there. The first time I was there for less than 24 hours. I was completely exhausted and nervous about being in a strange place on my own. I don't know about you, but when I've only had 4 hours worth of sleep in two whole days I get really, really stupid. Knowing that a lack of sleep makes me stupid is makes things worse, too, because I can't trust myself to make any decisions because I know I'm probably making bad ones. So I was tired, nervous and second guessing everything I said or did. I couldn't even figure out how to make a phone call, I had to ask someone else to do it for me. That's how stupid I was that day. But I have to say the people were really very nice (and willing to help a completely crazy and stupid American tourist dial the phone, which was certainly not part of their job description). It was a very surreal day - I just felt completely out of context. And that's how this guy's photos feel to me.
Three strange things in London:
They're firing a cannon off in front of the capitol building today. We can't figure out why, but it's really loud and makes me jump every time they do it. It's not often that you hear cannon fire around here.
See, I tried to make this more interesting than a vitamin report since people actually are reading this. lol Now you guys all have to get a blog of your own. (except for Erin, who already has one. (and I read it, Erin!)) so there.
That I didn't actually do a spell check yesterday? (ha! too late - I already fixed it! lol)
Also that I seemed to have messed up something here and now my blog displays funny with the left column way down on the bottom? And I don't know why. :P
Does anyone read this anyway? I'm curious. Because if no one else reads this I'm going to start using it to record stuff I want to keep in my calendar but I don't have room for. Like the fact that today is the 7th day in a row that I remembered to take my vitamin! yay me!
Part of my job lately at work has been to test some software. The program is Rational ClearQuest, which, if I understand it right, is a part of a larger suite of products sold by IBM. One of the problems I found in the program was that the Help button/menu doesn't work. You click on it and you get an error message. That's it - no help. I asked if someone could fix it and the programmer told me "There is no help with this program. That's the way the Rational people designed it." uh huh. Then why is there a button on the toolbar that says "Help" on it? I'm so not buying this.
You've got some sharp eyes, OPRTLC! (I have to keep calling you that. ;)
That is Elvis on my fridge. That's one of my favorite Elvises actually. My favorite Elvis t-shirt has the exact same photo on it. It's from the 1968 Comeback Special (it was broadcast live on my birthday eight years before I was born!).
The magnet was a gift, brought back from Los Vegas by one of the guys from BB. It may or may not have been meant as kind of an apology. I was wearing the matching t-shirt the night he night he may or may not have done something he may or may not have felt he had to apologize for. He also did plastic dinosaur theater for me one night at work when I was having a really horrible day.
The t-shirt I got in the gift shop at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee, on spring break in 1993. It was on sale. (I definitely did not buy the souvenir Conway Twitty decorative plate in the gift shop down the road. It was brown with a cheesy "There's no one like Mother!" type quote in pink lettering and had a large picture of Conway Twitty in the middle. I'm not kidding. (Yes, sometimes I wish I could purge all this crap from my head and use the space for more important information. I'd like to remember that garbage pick up is Tuesday mornings.))
The picture it's holding up is a cat food ad I thought was funny. It's a kitten attacking a zebra. I like to think that's what Spike spends his day dreaming about. Think big, Spike, think big!
I was reading blogs today at lunch and stumbled across this on someone else's blog:One thing I am learning when working on this blog-is that the spell checker may check spelling but it doesn't check for grammer.
She might want to actually use that spell checker.
Spike and I went out too. We checked out last year's plants...
... stalked the neighbor's kid...
... and did a little necessary spring hair removal.
On the way home from work tonight I listened to my friends' polka band, Twin Cities Soundz. I liked the music, but it's hard to sing along to the Polish parts when you don't actually know any Polish. ;)
I just mailed a postcard to Poland too! Check it out - www.postcrossing.com
I was going to take some pictures of my family on Easter but my battery died! I did get a picture of this, though:
I was laying there in bed in my parents' basement and I noticed the glow-in-the-dark Tyrannosaurus Rex was still on the ceiling. I just had to take a picture. I stuck that dino there almost exactly 11 years ago. I was always surprised that my brother didn't take it down - he must have noticed it since I stuck it right above his head. It made me smile to see it was still there.
He needs to be dusted though. obviously.
I fell asleep that night singing a song we learned in Mrs. Oberg's 1st grade dinosaur unit. "Tyrannosaurus Rex was a very mean king, if it wasn't for him there'd be a happy ending!" (or at least that's how I remember it. It was a long time ago.)
That's 2 chocolate bars, 2 of my favorite kind of soap, 5 lipbalm/glosses, and 9 (9!) rolls of grapefruit mentos. (yes, there were two chocolate bars in the box and there's only one in the picture. but the ghost of the second chocolate bar is in there somewhere.) Thanks for the fantastic birthday gift! (don't worry - the ghost of my birthday is in there somewhere too! ;) ) It took me an hour to decide which lip gloss I was going to open first. I went for the one that said "ohne zu verkleben". According to Google that means that it's not sticky. Which is not true. But lip gloss packages always say that. And they're always wrong. The other Labellos are getting stashed, untested and in the package, until I need them. (It won't be long. The two lip balms I keep on my desk at work are starting to get low! I need to have at least two different lip options all the time. It's more fun that way.)
I love getting mail!
I love lip gloss!
I love grapefruit Mentos!
And I love stuff in packaging covered with foreign words I don't understand!
Thanks for knowing what I'd like. :)
I finally remembered to bring my plant in to work. I bought this plant way back in October or November specifically to put on my desk in our new building. But they banned all plants in the new building because people were overwatering them and the resulting mold was giving other people allergies. They finally lifted the plant ban a few weeks ago. I'm not worried about mold. I only water this thing when I remember to (like every 6 to 8 weeks) and it's doing really well. We have an understanding.
Oh, today it was official. I've lost 50 pounds. They gave me a magnet and everything, so it must be a pretty big deal.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm turing into one of those people I used to hate at work. They'd call me up and say "It doesn't work!" I'd ask "What doesn't work? What isn't it doing? Can you turn it on?" and they'd reply with another "It doesn't work!" I called my dad the other night and said "I need help! My bathtub doesn't work!" Well, with his expert over-the-phone diagnosis and instruction, two trips to Menards, and a 20 minute screwdriver search, Spike and I got the water going again! Thanks Dad!
Yay! Water! and a shiny new knob!
I finally went to the real yarn store this week. It's a cool place, but I wanted to spend a ton of money there. They had the 40" #1 circulars I've been wanting though (which probably means absolutely nothing to most of you...) So I had to start on these - red socks! (They don't look so funky in real life, I promise!)
I turn my back for one second and this is what I get.
Hey - those are my fries!
He doesn't even look guilty, does he? At least he didn't go for my beer.
Pattern: Bunny Blanket Buddy free pattern from Lion Brand
Yarn: 2 balls Lion Brand VelvetSpun in yellow.
Mods: None! I followed this pattern to the letter, needle size and all!
I'm really happy with the way this turned out. It's cuter than I thought it would be. I'm going to make a matching hat with what is left of the second ball following the hat pattern on the yarn label. The hat's got a knotted I cord at the top so it matches. I've got my fingers crossed that I've got enough yarn for the hat.
This pattern showed up in my email on Friday and I thought it would be a good one to try. It's fast, cute, relatively inexpensive and there are no sizing issues to worry about. Since everyone I know seems to be having babies lately, I might be making a bunch of these!
This is Spike's ideal weekend on the couch. Everything's there: the cheesy book, a "women's" magazine (Spike's particularly interested in the articles about insider beauty secrets and Drew Barrymore), the tv remote control, the keyboard, the sun shining in the window, and, best of all, the kitty cloning supplies (see all that grey yarn? We're going to create our own army of cuddly furballs!).
The coolest cat I know!
The weather people were all predicting a lot of snow last night. I didn't think much of their warnings - I mean, this is Minnesota, we're used to it. We get out and drive in just about anything. well. I should have stayed home today. 
This is the best picture I could get. It's from a traffic cam. That's the building I work in on the left! (exciting, huh?)
The drive in wasn't too bad. I never went more than 30 miles an hour, but at least I was moving. (Thinking about it now, I've realized traffic wasn't bad because everyone with half a brain used today's weather as an excuse to stay home and build a snowman or something) I was the first person in my department to get to work, which is pretty amazing since some of them get here before seven in the morning and I never ever get here early. (never!) As the morning went on, more and more people called in to say they weren't coming. Meetings were canceled and the big java programming class that was supposed to be held in the conference room right behind me was postponed (and I was so looking forward to eavesdropping on that too! I end up listening to every meeting and presentation they have in that conference room and I was so excited that they were finally going to talk about something I actually want to hear!).
I spent the morning trying not to think about yarn (because I'm supposed to be working, you know). I finally decided to run out at lunch and buy some so I could quit thinking about it. I checked traffic from the window and the highway didn't look bad at all, so all systems were go.
Ha!
I could barely get out of the parking ramp because the street hadn't been plowed and there was a foot high pile of snow I had to drive through. None of the city streets had been plowed recently - there were no visible lanes or even tracks where other people had gone. None of the stoplights had power. I gave up and turned around to come back. I just hope that things are better in a couple of hours when I go home. Especially since I'm going to be sitting here thinking about yarn all afternoon now too.
Except now I'm distracted by something else. I have wanted one of these for a while now. It's tiny and cute and blue and I can carry my music everywhere with me! It's just what I need! I told myself that I'd wait and see what my money situation was like in a few weeks. I thought that this would be a good reward for loosing 50 pounds. I just noticed that the price on this has dropped again. The price has now dropped $50 from when I first decided I wanted one of these things. This is way too amazing to be just a coincidence. It's a sign! *sigh* be still my credit card...
