Yesterday he hugged me a lot. And that was cool. I was (am) in dire need of hugs! And I got some hugs. So, yeah. I still want more, tho. Hmmm.
December 2006 Archives
So Annie tagged me like 200 years ago. So I'll bite.
Alphabet Tag
A- Available or single? Singularly unavailable (Well, I'm married, but sometimes I think I'm dysfunctional and emotionally unavailable, although I'm always available to be your friend and/or buddy. Honey.)
B- Best Friend? annie and sette and the hub unit and others ... I find these days I treasure each one of my friends for different qualities, and when I talk/hang out with them delineations disappear, and we are as one. Or something like that.
C- Cake or Pie? My fave cake is simple - yellow cake with chocolate icing. My fave pie is Publix Key Lime Pie.
D- Drink of Choice? Diet Cherry Coke or H2O
E- Essential Item? Watch and Earrings. I feel naked without either of those. A watch, because I am very time based, and need to know how long things take, what time it is, etc. Earrings cause I hate my ears, and I think that earrings mask that fact. Eh, they make me feel better about myself, anyway. :)
F- Favorite Color? Green. Although purple is pretty snazzy.
G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Only the Red Gummi Bears.
H- Hometown? My family still resides in Miami, Florida, but I consider Gainesville, where I went to school (Gooooo Gators), to be my first real residence.
I- Indulgence? - Cake. Brownies. Blondies (I'm not racist).
J- January or February? February - it's one month closer to the fall. (if you go forward and not backward)
K- Kids and names? Uno. Owencito is his name-oh. He's real cute, too. He picks up the phone, holds it to his ear and says "Ell-uh"
L- Life is incomplete without? Hugs and cuddling with someone or something. :)
M- Marriage Date? October 21, 2000 (This way we'd always remember what year anniversary we're on. For example, 2005 was our FIFTH anniversary. See, we're genii (the plural of genius, thankyouverymuch).
N- Number of Siblings? Two lovely sibs. One male and one female. I'm the middle child. Maybe that's why I have an active blog and they don't? A cry for attention?
O- Oranges or apples? Apples for the most part. I hate orange-flavored anything for the most part. Although, I do absolutely love eating California Navel Oranges. That is the only kind I like. Florida navels are so gross, IMO.
P- Phobias/Fears? Spiders (lord almighty, I just shivered when I wrote that) and Heights.
Q- Favorite Quote? "Never compromise yourself, 'cause yourself is all you've got." Janis Joplin
R- Reason to Smile? Eating delectable food, watching Ryan and Owen playing, thinking of Owen's stinkerbottom antics ... Those are just a few reasons to smile
S- Season? I heart the Fall
T- Tag three people! huy (although he's mighty busy these days), ray (thought i'd say Mandy, didn't ya?), and ... who else has a blog that will post this on their blog ... OK, MANDY! (you win, RAY!)
U- Unknown Fact about Me! I don't have fingerprints. Well, I sort of do. But government technology couldn't get a clear read on my fingerprints to issue me an airport clearance (when I worked on the airport project)
V- Vegetable you hate? Yeah, beets pretty much suck.
W- Worst habit? Hatin' on me.
X- X-Rays you've had? Teeth, knees (left and right), wrists/hands (left and right)
Y- Your favorite food? Italian, Thai, and Indian. All of it. Load me up, baby.
Z- Zodiac? Scorpio. Here I am ... Rock me like a Scorpio. Come on come on come on. Ugh, I hate that band.
This one is way too good not to post. Lately it seems all I've been posting about is work. (I have another good one I'll save for tomorrow.)
So usually in the morning, while I'm going thru all my emails for the day from work, I'll go to this message board that talks about some entertainment news. One of the items under discussion was Evel Knievel lashing out at Kanye West (he of the: infamous rant against George Bush during the Katrina Telethon; swollen head (and knees) from his multiple ego trips; and generally gifted rapper). Evel was saying how Kanye had defamed the Knievel name/trademark by basically pretending to be Evel in his "Touch the Sky" video (I believe his moniker was Evel Kanyevel - classy and original, right?). So Evel's going on and on about how Kanye is horrible, a bad role model, stolen his image, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Then, after reading the article, I read what this one poster wrote and totally cracked up. I copied her remark to my clipboard, meaning to send it to a friend in an email. But work got really busy, and I didn't, and completely forgot about it.
Cut to five hours later. Am on a call with my Tech Lead, the Lead Architect, and two others who are working on my project. I am on NetMeeting - if you don't know what that is, basically, you can show people what's on your screen and make group changes real time so everyone can collaborate and see what's going on at the same time). So one of the lines I'm working on, we decide to change the word "provisioning." So I highlight the word and change the text color to red. And I decide to Bold the text. The keyboard shortcut for bold is Ctrl+B. Which, incidentally, the letter "B" is right next to the letter "V" on the keyboard. Which, incidentally, CTRL+V equals the keyboard shortcut for PASTE. Sooooooo, genius me, hits CTRL+V and away vanishes the word "provisioning" and in it's place? The quote I had originally copied. "Evel Knieval hates black people." And I didn't even realize it. Til there was silence on the other line. I looked up at my screen and thought, "Holy crap." I immediately did UNDO UNDO UNDO. At which point the Lead Arch says "I'm not even going to ask what that meant," in a somewhat seriously mocking tone. So I'm backpeddling and trying to give a 10 second explanation of the Evel/Kanye story and how this one girl was making fun of Kanye saying Bush hates black people and um, I was going to send that quote to a friend (thereby digging myself deeper by admitting that I was writing personal emails on company time) ... Le Sigh. So I just completely changed the subject and all was forgotten.
It's a good thing I work with people who have a dry sense of humor.
Anyway, my lunch break is almost up. It's back to the grind. Hopefully I don't have any more meetings today where I have to share my screen. :)
Links:
Evel Knievel Sues Kanye West Over Video (text)
Kanye @ Katrina Fundraiser w/George Bush comment(video)
Kanye & Mike Myers spoofing the awkwardness on SNL (text & video)
Phase I of Operation Magic Requirements complete. Phase II underway. Work is fun ... NOT! :) Hey, it's a paycheck. And I'll take it. For my ever increasing bills. Holy crap. One thing I gotta say - has anyone ever paid over $800 for regular maintenance on their Toyota? I totally feel like we got screwed up the bum at our local toyota dealer. Well, not so local - about 30 minutes north of us. Eight Hundred Friggin Dollars. Granted, we got new shiny brake pads (THAT SQUEAL! GREAT JOB, GUYS!) in the "deal." I swear to God, I just want to bitchslap 'em. Needless to say, we'll be finding a new dealership to get maintenance for while it's still under warranty. I'm 'bout to bust out and buy me a friggin Hyundai for that kind of money. Sheeeee-et.
How do I tell Owen that Santa isn't coming this year because [insert dealership name here] royally effed over our family? Huh? Tell me how I do that! We'll make do and I'll make some ornaments out of clay and some animals out of pipe cleaner.
But seriously, that brings me to another point. I was listening to the radio station here this morning that does the Baby DJ toy drive. And they started to read a letter from a lady who had written in. And immediately, my cynical heart thinks, "Great. A letter from a woman who probably got left by her husband and doesn't have cash to buy her kids toys, cause she spent it on cheap booze and cigs." I don't know why I thought that, I just did. I'm very, very jaded, in case you haven't figured that out yet.
Anyway, so I'm listening to her story, and by the second sentence, my eyes are welling up with tears. Halfway thru the second paragraph, I'm crying. Midway thru the letter, I am bawling my eyes out. Luckily I was less than a mile from work when this happened, so I didn't have to drive far all teary eyed. Basically, it started out v. trite - "I have two kids, 14 and 8 ... yada yada yada ... I don't have a job ... husband works ... rent is late ... yada yada yada." But then she went on - and apparently, has this illness that has taken over her life - docs say she'll be permanently wheelchair bound w/in 6 months & working could be life threatening - but she is determined to find a job she can do in a wheelchair since she would give her life for her kids; her 8-year-old daughter has lupus; they don't qualify for welfare since they make $100 more than the cutoff line, but would rather do w/out welfare; no insurance for her ailment; meds for her daughter are expensive, but necessary; ... Gah, there were like a ton more things.
It just really made me realize how grateful I am to have certain things in life so many of us take for granted - a roof over our heads, someone (be it a husband, brother, sister, wife, neighbor, pet) to tell/show us they love us, and a meal in our bellies every night. Such things we take for granted, but are so hard to come by for so many people. I wish I could do so much for everyone, but I guess it's just one person at a time. We donated to Make a Wish Foundation this year. I'd really like to go back and re-evaluate and donate more. Or perhaps Second Harvest or Coalition for the Homeless. I'm thinking the former two.
The holidays can be so lonely. Hope yours aren't.
Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men.
I rarely talk about work in my blog, but thought I'd share a quick story (since I have nothing else to blog about today).
On a telecon this ayem. Several people are on. Thankfully there is a mute button on our phones. We do round tables. My turn. "I sent out the requirements to the internal team and they need to give me feedback by Tuesday. Then I will incorporate comments and get it out to the BA POCs [don't worry what the acronyms stand for] by Wednesday. Then they need to get their comments back to me by Tuesday and we can discuss it by the next Wednesday." My Tech Lead says "And how do you expect to get such a quick turnaround time on this?" My response? "Magic."
Yes. I said "Magic." I can't believe I said "Magic." On a call with over 30 people, I said "Magic." Smart-ass. So then he goes, "Oh. Magic." Next topic.
Or so these men find out ...
Ouch.
Ouch.
I can't believe we made it to the national championships. I hope we win. That's all. Well, no, that's not all. I really really really hope we win. Really. We'd totally make NCAA history with the Basketball Championship and (hopefully) Football Championship. No school in history has ever won both titles in the same year.
OK, that's that. Rock on with your bad selves.
