adventures in gmail advertising

while deleting in the spam folder:

Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole - Makes 8 servings

enjoy!

sayonara (part 1)

yes this will be a continuing series but suffice to say, now i can say something i've been holding back for quite some time:

i'm quitting my job and moving to oregon.

to be precise, i'm not the only one moving to oregon. all living things (and oh, so many unliving things) in my household are moving as well. i haven't been able to talk about this before because there are a few people (hello!) from work who quietly read this blog. but now that i've given notice to the landlord and my workday overlord, now you're officially the last to know.

and yes this is partly why i've been posting less, mainly in terms of being verra busy on my weeknights and weekends doing prepwork. but honestly, the other reason is that work was just so damn crazy for quite some time.

as mentioned previously, i volunteered for bug czar duty on the previous push, in an entirely successful attempt to avoid javascript-happy specwork. the tradeoff, of course, is people pinging you night AND day. there's a certain thrill in people constantly clamoring for your attention, even if it's only for input on inane issues. however it does get a little tiring, being in the spotlight so long. and let's just say that the work for the current push -- while not involving much specwork, thank you -- has still been driving me crazy, although that's more about people and process rather than the actual work.

if you're wondering, no i do not have a job up there yet. there have been attempts, of course, and even a job offer earlier this year (yes, this has been in progress for quite some time). however the job meant living in corvallis and while that area has a few charms, for the most part it's the opposite of bewitching.

which is why we're moving to the general portland vicinity, preferably somewhere south/west/central. want to be close to my parents, but also, i want to be in a larger city. i want to feel that energy buzzing all around me, but at a leisurely, oregonized pace. our little family needs good access to all things medical, as well, and so again, portland beats out corvallis (or most anywhere in the state) by a landslide.

then there's all the great memories i have in portland. having chocolates and steamed milk with my mom at pioneer square, trolling through vast, verdant washington park, meandering through powell's for hours, walking in the light drizzle just about anywhere, with everything green fragrantly blossoming all around me.

those are just some of the reasons i can't wait to go.

as to when we go -- we'll be up there by the end of october. which means now i need to pack and finish getting ready.

um. holy shit.

for me loyal scallywags

happy talk like a pirate day!

and to those of you with kids, i offer this unexpected treasure from my inbox this morning. i mean, really...a chance to indoctrinate your younglings from the getgo? pretty hard to resist, i'd think.

plus, if you've ever wanted a badass name for your vehicle, the generator will set you up. for the record, i now drive "The Barbaric Cream Puff".

for a good time, call 1-800-BEAMEUP

from an email list's event announcement:

If you show up, you will be abducted.

This is the kind of ROI I can get behind.

could not resist

even though one answer was wrong (two answers were correct). see if you can guess which one!

You Scored an A

It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

48.0 LTS Keggar!!

that was the title of the skype chat we had going all night during last week's live code push at work, and yes i came up with the title, and yes i purposely mispelled kegger. consider it a token of my attempt to have a good time, even though i was pulling a 930pm-645am shift. for the record, on a normal day i probably roll in around 10am.

pre-push, i had grand visions of using this time to write several witty posts, which you may notice did not occur. while i did get some very minor reading done, fact was i was too busy talking to people all night, looking into prospective web dev issues. gratefully there were no actual issues for our team, but that didn't stop the powers that be from thinking we might be at fault. thus, the busyness. the morning came rather quickly, and then i got the rest of the day off. pretty nice.

in other news, i saw my sister and her cohorts yesterday. if you're keeping track, now the clan is up to 4. for quite some time there's been drake and mike. now there's also danni, who is actually mike's wife. long story? why yes it is!

suffice to say that the foursome has been in the making for quite some time, and a month or so into things, they seem to be happy campers. especially my sister, grateful to have another girl around. who can blame her? girls rule.

anyway we drove out to stockton -- a midpoint for both of us -- and met them at a marie callendar's 'because their salad bar kicks ass!' (said my sister, when i asked where she wanted to eat). she did put together a tasty salad, i'll give her that. i forgot how good their cornbread is, but to be honest i wasn't impressed with much else. however, we had a delightful visit, weren't pestered to leave even though we were there chatting for hours, and really, that's all i wanted.

that's it for updates. hey, that's more than you've gotten in weeks! have a little gratitude. sheesh. ;)