you know

a lot of ills can be cured by blaring def leppard on your headphones.

bluntly goon

CYTV Rockets Up Again Today!
Our Chief Leaker needs to know that Evil-doing doesn't pay.

i love spam, especially when it rhymes and involves works like "evil" and "goon".

this post is brought to you by my bloated copy of xmlspy.

what's fit to print

min's surgery last week went pretty well, really, thank the bejeezus. and thank him i did. her recovery was a little wibbly wobbly but not anything really unexpected. her sister lori has been staying with us since tuesday -- mostly for moral support it seems, rather than actual assistance, although she did make some soup. =)

work has alternated between really hectic and really slow. i have a feeling starting this week (starting today, at any rate) it will lean more towards hectic. i did this unexpected thing, i volunteered for a high-profile temporary position within our group called a Bug Czar. it involves going to a meeting every day and keeping tabs on all of the high priority bugs for web dev (of which there are many) and generally getting called in on anything urgent.

why did i do that, you might ask? aren't i utterly disinterested?

well yes i am. here's the catch: NO SPECS. i have no new specs (projects) for a month and a half (til mid-april). that means no pesky javascript or ajax or what-have-you. and i am ever, ever so grateful for the repreive. there's these lulls of quiet time and then a couple of hours of craziness. it's weird but it works for me.

admittedly the lack of substantial coding appeals to me most. but so does the occasional spot of downtime, by which i can bring you posts like these. and hopefully, in the future, far more interesting ones. ;-)

taking a bite out of...a lot of things

you may remember that recently i asked for good vibery by way of min's toofers -- she had oral surgery scheduled which was abruptly cancelled.

well, it's been rescheduled and i forgot to tell you. it's tomorrow at noon. so, internet loved ones, please keep her in your thoughts. i'm sure she will appreciate all the goodness she can get!

incidentally wrt my annoyed post over the weekend, things are going a lot better now, thanks! let's just say there was a lot of processing talking that we'd put off for way too long, and i'm very glad we're moving forward. me like forward.

fitting today's theme perfectly...

here are the two latest blogthings quizzes:

You Mostly Fight Fair

When you fight, you tend to remember your end goal of resolving conflict. However, you can get a little too wrapped up in your own feelings. Remember that there are two sides to every argument. And even if you think you're totally right, you should take more time to hear your partner out.

Do You Fight Fair?

You Are 74% Burned Out

You are very burned out. You need a huge break from your responsibilities, starting as soon as possible. And you need this time to reevaluate what you really want out of your life. Because you're working hard and going no where... and that would burn anyone out!

Are You Burned Out?

sounds perfect to me

i'm sure it's all those answers about reading books that did me in...

The Monk You scored 13% Cardinal, 66% Monk, 50% Lady, and 43% Knight!

You live a peaceful, quiet life. Very little danger comes your way and you live a long time. You are wise and modest, but also stagnant. You have little comfort, little food and have taken a vow of silence. But who needs chatter when just sitting in the cloister of your abbey with The Good Book makes you perfectly content.

Find out: Who Would You Be in 1400 AD ?

as if you needed more proof

that things are calming down a little at work (albeit temporarily) here are two more random things:

- spam (from liz, who i regularly exchange funny spam with) that said:

We live in a century of improbable technologies such as self-cooled beer, artificial retinas of the eye, full automated factories.

made me start wondering about this self-cooling beer. was it real? and turns out, it will be very soon.

- announcement involving a guy called knish, leading to a google image search for gluten-free knish, for which the only search result is this.

ok back to bug researching. :)

typo of the day

"The most important part is the presence of the scrollbards"

scrollbards! wandering around the streets of england, looking for someone to buy their carefully scribed collection of words. we should all be so lucky to have the presence of scrollbards.

and in a retroactive typo of the day, a recent favorite is butto. as in:

"Please use the code below or create a similar butto:"

o butto, how i love thee. you have butto-d your way into my heart.

word to the wise

in case you didn't know this, when a last-minute multi-person project comes up at work, don't say 'you can give me the nasty one'. because then you will end up working all night and into the weekend.

here's hoping i'll be off the internets by mid-afternoon...

this is unreal

i don't know how this happened:

You Are 0% Homophobic

You're open minded, tolerant, and accepting. And you're not homophobic in the least :-)

Are You Homophobic?

speaking of unreal, min and i went for a VERY last minute trip up to oregon over the weekend! i like spontaneity but normally our unexpected outings occur within a 50 mile radius and only last a few hours. being a last minute idea, we didn't leave until about 330pm saturday. due to traffic and weather we didn't arrive to salem (where my parents/sister live) until around 430am. good thing my family tends to sleep in.

we had a great time visiting with them - playing games, talking, having grilled cheese and marionberry cobbler. we also ended up going to our beloved rose's, which closed in the 90's (much to our dismay) but reopened a few years ago. yay! sadly the food wasn't quite as magical as it used to be but it was still damn tasty.

oh! and i had the best. coffee. ever. holy crap. so rich so creamy so tasty so why can't they have some down here??? wah!!

per wen's suggestion that a visit might be helpful in addressing these feelings of wanting to move: great idea. now i want to move even MORE. apart from enjoying being with my family - which meant a lot - i loved revisiting my past. here's where i did blah, there's the HS i graduated from, etc. it was fun. and while i think california, esp the bay area here, is beautiful in many many ways, i fell totally in love with oregon again. also i never realized how much parts of it - esp between salem and eugene - looks like middle tennessee. which yes, i sometimes wax nostalgic for (altho not for its summers).

because of all this we left late coming home, too, and didn't get back until 4am. so with that plus fighting off a cold, my ass is dragging. time to apply more toffee crack.

just kidding!

thanks to everyone who sent the good vibes ... the surgery got cancelled at the last minute. they'll be rescheduling soon, and i'm far too annoyed to go into the why now, but needless to say this was not cool.

anyway - we'll keep all that vibery on retainer for later... thanks again. =)

speaking of roots...

no, this is not a post about a television miniseries or levar burton, altho i mildly enjoyed his eyebrow skills while he was on STNG.

the roots i speak of today are in the mouth, which is the root of much pain, at present, for min. long story short, as a side effect of her life-saving surgery last year, her teeth are in an accelerated state of decay. it's gotten worse in the last few months in particular, to such a point that now extensive extractions are required. due to last year's surgery, she can't undergo these extractions at a normal dentist, but requires an oral surgeon.

the *only* good part to all this is that the necessity of this is due to a medical condition, so our blue cross, instead of delta dental, should cover it. much better payout!

and i say should cover because we didn't get the luxury of preauthorizing...we'd planned to wait it out, but in the last week min's pain has been off the charts - fractured teeth will do that - and so here we are with last minute (scheduled yesterday!) surgery.

so, anyone reading in the next day or so, please keep her in your thoughts. she's due for a pretty rough ride, considering the rest of her medical situation, and would welcome all the good vibery there is out there.

and now that i'm completely bleary-eyed from yet another crazy week at work plus the dental wackies, i'm going to bed. nighty night, internet. =)

rooted

lately i have been completely overwhelmed with a desire to return home. and by home, i mean oregon.

most of the time when someone asks me where i'm from, i say 'the west coast', because we moved around a lot. if pressed, i'll say oregon because i was born there, and have lived there the most (probably a third of my life).

within the last year, my parents, sister and her clan have all returned to the sweet, misty green of oregon. for a lot of that time, my parents were in a bad way (shitty situation with my uncle, then living out of a hotel for the last few months) but finally the heavens (in this case, government) blessed them with some low income housing. i haven't blogged about their situation much, because it was rather depressing and there wasn't much i could do about it, but they have a place to call their own now, and the relief i feel, it is great.

my sister and her two lovely boys moved to oregon in november. they had a rocky start too, but have settled a little more quickly. they're situated enough to get camera phones and send me some nice pics. :-D

now my parents have always - gently - pushed me to live closer to them. for many years they lived in one of the Hottest, Driest, Blandest Places On Earth (phoenix), so it was really easy to say no. my sister also lived there, but never asked me to move, probably because she hated it too. scorpions? not really a selling point.

now they're all up in oregon, and getting pretty cozy. apparently it's so nice (as if i didn't know oregon was nice) that really, can't i just move up there? apply to jobs up that way? my sister was practically pleading with me a week or so ago, and since she has NEVER done anything like that, it just about killed me. my chest ached for wanting to be there with all of them. because she just missed me. and i miss all of them.

the part that really hits me as funny is that there is no drama surrounding this. nobody needs rescuing (and of course, that's good!), but i'd swear someone activated some kinda homing beacon or something, because the drive to pack up and leave is insane. the good(?) news is that the insanity has spread to min -- without my really saying anything -- so at least we're both infected. it'll be interesting to see where this leads…

ps. no i am not just writing this because i've had a hard day/couple of weeks.
pps. yes i've had a hard day/couple of weeks. :-p

5 things

i don't know about deep dark secrets, but things that have probably not come up yet here, or not much:

1. i used to be a very devout christian. note that i do not say zealot, because i have never been the type to evangelize, but i was quietly, deeply devoted to my faith. now i would say that i believe a lot of the same principles, but am less hung up on the details and their implementation.

2. i spent a year and a half living on a bus. have i said that here yet? i think i mentioned it in passing. anyway, with my parents and (most of that time) my sister. my dad and two guy friends (previously homeless guys from the shelter where my dad worked, but had been living in our garage for the previous 6 months) gutted a bus and turned it into a motor home, complete with working kitchen and bathroom.

3. for karen: i used to have grand plans for the music business. granted my plans changed from time to time, but the plan ranged from songwriter, to recording engineer, to producer. i attacked that plan with a vengeance at belmont university. wow, they have a subcollege just for the MB program now. anyway. my time at belmont was insanely formative, to say the least. for example: i realized i liked girls. :-D

4. on a related note: it took me 3 colleges, 8 majors and 8 years to get a degree that i don't use on a daily basis. the breakdown:

chemeketa
psychology
sociology
mechanical engineering
mathematics
physics (ultimate goal: astrophysics)

belmont
music business (business administration)

univ of montana
liberal studies
business administration

5. and how did i end up with a business degree (that i don't use) when i'd been pursuing liberal studies with the intent to go into journalism? because UoM has a cap on how many credits you can have without getting a degree, while accepting financial aid. over the course of 3 schools and 7 years, i managed to hit that limit. woo! so i had to get a degree over the 8th year, and business what i was able to squeeze out enough credits for.

there you go! oh, tagging. um...here's who's left:

kelly
wen
underdog
snowflake or andrea or cheddah or carol, if any of them still read me!

thanks for tagging me, LSR - that was kinda fun. =)

while i'm waiting for a file to open

(don't ask)

i booted up the itunes because i had a horrid yet wonderful song stuck in my head.

the first song that the mr. dj served up was thin line, by the indigo girls. i've heard this song many times. owning the album will do that to you. but for some reason when i booted it up today, i was taken back to nashville. i was sitting with my roommate kelly, singer/songwriter/fellow IG freak, in the dining room and in the background, this song came on. i'd been studying at the table, she'd been sitting up on a desk, feet on the chair below, sometimes playing her guitar along with the cd, sometimes playing her own music.

suddenly in the middle of this song, we got into a big discussion about harmonies, what worked about the song, what could have made it better, and soforth. we were both incredibly passionate about our positions, some shared, some disparate. although of course i don't recall the details, obviously it was a moment in time that stuck, resonated with me. it is a moment that, even though my moment in the music business world has long passed, and am no longer such an IG freak, i cherish.

and so i share a bit of it with you. the song is really good, if you haven't heard it. one of the few covers IG has released. check it out!

$160 = cheap peace of mind

at least it is when your dog starts vomiting blood.

yes we went to the emergency vet tonight. yes pearl is fine, or should be totally fine by later today. for reasons that are very much unknown to me, she decided to throw up a chicken strip (jerky, the kind especially for dogs) about 1am. she's had them plenty of times, but this time it came back and apparently some got stuck somewhere along the way.

poor thing just kept trying to get rid of it, would calm down for 20 minutes, then start up again. after an hour or so of this, she started bringing up blood -- that was my limit, so off we went to the vet.

once again i love adobe animal hospital. they are fast, they are kind, and they are cheap. they only thing i don't like is the distance but really it's only an extra 10 minutes from its competitors and the quality/price canNOT be beat. she got a crapload of medicine there, some to take home, plus the er visit itself...$160? thank you!!

and no they didn't have to do anything fancy. yes i asked if she should get xrayed. that's our baby! but the doc didn't feel anything and as she wisely pointed out, if pearl wasn't better by later today, we could bring her back for more tests. pearl did throw up once more on the way home but she's already crashed asleep, so i think we're done. thank goodness because i'm tired. the *only* benefit of our escapade is now i have a guilt-free excuse to work from home, since i'm just now heading to bed. :-o

the whole world is fair game

earlier today i showed liz a most awesome site i found. it was awesome for many reasons, but for starters, let's just say there were hybrid names involving birds. liz was (sarcastically) thanking me for showing her the site and then noted:

liz: you'll never get this time back
me: i'm glad though
liz: oh me too
liz: wait, why?
me: because this is rich man
me: the world is so full of people to mock
liz: true
me: and eventually, to write about
me: it's perfect
me: i have decided the whole world is fair game, so i'm taking better notes
liz: nice
me: 100% agree
me: dude, there is so much goodness out there
me: it's inspiring
liz: i'm inspired
me: good. that is a good state to be in.

and i guess that's why i'm writing this. it's a perfect example of how, even if i'm not writing fiction like i want to yet..and i will…i still feel inspired, turned on to the world at large. it's a really lovely feeling.

i know this post is the equivalent of putting the world on notice that if you say/do/write something i find interesting, i may work it into a bit of fiction someday, but a) that isn't unusual for a writer and b) i promise to change details to protect the obscenely embarrassed. but i also promise to write down the things i find really beautiful. i play nice. :-)

and a very good year it was, too

any year that includes a new space shuttle, The Price Is Right, and alyssa milano is a good year.

In 1972 (the year you were born)

Richard Nixon is president of the US President Nixon approves NASA's space shuttle, a reusable spacecraft, at a cost of $5.5 billion Nixon arrives in China for an 8 day visit, which he calls a "journey for peace" While campaigning for the presidency Alabama Governor George C. Wallace is shot and seriously wounded Five men are arrested in the Watergate office complex in DC for breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee Hurricane Agnes strikes the East Coast causing 117 deaths First scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) os introduced for $395 Shaquille O'Neal, Jennifer Garner, The Rock, The Notorious B.I.G., Cameron Diaz, Eminem, and Alyssa Milano are born Oakland Athletics win the World Series Dallas Cowboys win Superbowl VI Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup The Godfather is the top grossing film Pink Floyd debuts "The Dark Side of the Moon" during a performance at London's Rainbow Theater "You've Got a Friend" by Carole King wins a Grammy for song of the year The Price is Right premieres on CBS

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

100% agree!

i'm actually amazed i only got 70%..

You Are 70% Addicted to the Internet

In your opinion, life without the internet is hardly worth living. Could be, but you probably need a bit more fresh air and sunshine to think clearly.

Are You Addicted to the Internet?

winter must be cold for those with no lead memories

so i have this freelance project i've just started - the usual full gamut from design to production, probably with a little writing - and right now we're in the initial design phase. in that phase, if i've gotten almost no visual direction from the business owner (which unfortunately is the norm), then after reflection on their needs, concerns, market, i troll the internet to get my design juices flowing.

tonight in my trolling i found this. when i saw the pencils i involuntarily took in a breath. how adorable! it's a little bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, their tips ready to loose all kinds of creativity. they're lead cigarettes that i want to linger over and smoke down to their stubby little erasers. and i don't even use pencils anymore. well hardly ever. but seeing them, it was like the promise of creation was in the air, i could smell it.

i suppose this all goes back to being young, when i DID use pencils voraciously, and loving school so very much. truly, i adored it. if i could've afforded to go to school forever i probably would've, and i've got the student loans to prove it.

anyway. when i saw the pencils that phrase popped into my mind: a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. and i thought, why does that sound familiar? so i googled. there's lots of people saying that, or close. wtf? and then finally, i found it -- it's a variation on a movie quote, of course. it's from you've got mail, which in my opinion is actually rather annoying, but does have moments of wittiness and charm, including the following:

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

so there you have it. most everything about me probably can be understood through a good movie quote.