Random Thoughts

• I had no mail today. None at all.
• I got a free cappuccino at Sheetz just for filling up my car.
• I counted it up today and I did a total of 299 on-call shifts in 2008.
• I saw Craig Ferguson on Million Dollar Password and was impressed with his intellect, so I recorded his talk show (the Late Late Show). I am in love with his Scottish accent. And he's pretty funny!
• I am currently obsessed with lox and cream cheese.
• There were seven other people in the gym at work today. It really is not big enough for that. On the upside, though, I found out they are finally going to put in a new TV in the next couple of weeks. The old one broke and has been gone for about 3 months.
• I heart Robert Krulwich's science podcast on NPR.
• I know it's time to take down the Christmas tree but I am so fond of the lights.
• Quite recently there were no movies I wanted to see. Now there are so many! Marley & Me, Milk, Last Chance Harvey, Hotel for Dogs, Bride Wars, Four Christmases. And in Feb they release He's Just Not That Into You and Confessions of a Shopaholic!
  

Wannabe MAM

Is this not the fanciest Goodwill store you've ever seen? It reminds me of the Milwaukee Art Museum, with its cute little baby wings.

P.S. I went inside, and they didn't have anything I wanted. :( New rule: Coolness of Goodwill store on outside inversely correlates to coolness of stuff on inside.

Ponderables

David Pogue, the NY Times tech columnist, gathered these questions from readers. Number 3 is a fabulous idea!

1. Why can't I order TV channels a la carte, so that I just pay for the ones I want?
2. Why do the signal-strength bars on my cellphone change when I'm standing still?
3. When we are put on hold, we offered numerous options--"press 1 for sales," etc. Why not an option to press for "Mute this annoying music," or maybe to select different types of music?
4. Why is there a Maximum Weight notice in an elevator, and what are we supposed to do about it? How are we supposed to know how much we collectively weigh?
5. Why is the numeric keypad on a computer (7-8-9 at the top) upside-down from the numeric keypad on phones (1-2-3 on top)?
6. Why aren't elevator buttons double action? Press once to go to floor, press again to cancel. It would save all those "OOPS!--I hit the wrong button" moments.

Checking in

There doesn't seem to be much of note going on lately, so the blog has been sadly neglected. The most exciting news I can muster is that I went to both the eye doctor and the dentist this past week, and got good news all around. My eyes have actually gotten a little bit better (!) which is a first. And the dentist actually mistook me for a flosser because my gums are healthy and I had hardly any tartar. All fascinating facts to the average reader, I'm sure.

We finally got some rain last night and today, which we were dying for. Remnants of a tropical storm, I believe. I watched a hurricane preparedness show with my parents yesterday and although I feel relatively prepared, now that I'm a homeowner, I get to enjoy fretting over property damage. Yippee.

Work has been pretty quiet. No trips lately, none coming up. I am going to Washington DC with my family next week, though. It will be my parents' first time, so I'm excited to show them all the monuments. It's a little of a bummer that the American History Museum is closed for renovation until 2008...so no viewing Dorothy's ruby slippers or Fonz's leather jacket.

I'm watching Meet Joe Black in HD. It's such a good movie. Brad Pitt does an incredible job. The other day I recorded Signs, with Mel Gibson. Love that one too. I also have Legally Blonde, What Women Want, and Spanglish. Hurray for TNT HD. Yes, there are commercials, but the picture quality is worth it.

Guess that's all for now.

I wonder how often this happens...

At work, I have to dial 9 to get an outside line. And then I have to dial 1 before area codes. (Earth shattering, I know.) So what happens if there's a disconnect between what my brain tells my finger to do, and what it does--say, for instance, instead of dialing a 6, the finger goes haywire and dials another 1? Um, that's right, it connects you to 911 emergency response! (Who knew you didn't have to actually dial 9-911?!) And if you're me, you say, "Oh my god, hang up, hang up!" as if somehow commanding your hand to hit the receiver will make it move faster. And then, you turn to your coworkers and say, "I almost just dialed 911!" as the phone rings and it's 911 calling back to make sure there isn't an emergency. Yep, I'm that lame.

Wowzers!

Today my coworker told me a story that could only be described as "Wow!" His wife's sister (let's call her Sharon) wasn't feeling well for quite some time. She went to the doctor, who discovered she had really high blood pressure. He prescribed a low sodium diet.

She did not feel better, so she went for a second opinion. This physician diagnosed her with pneumonia, but antibiotics did not make any difference.

Sharon went to a third doctor, who asked, "Have you ever taken a pregnancy test?" Can you guess where this is going? Lo and behold, Sharon discovered she was 31 weeks pregnant!

This doctor referred her for an ultrasound, and while that was being performed, Sharon had a seizure brought on by the sky-high blood pressure (which had, no doubt, been aggravated by the shocking news of impending motherhood). She was rushed to the hospital where she had a C-section...the very day she found out she was pregnant!

My first question was, of course, "How could she not know?!" Apparently, this woman's cycle remained normal. Really?! Well, if she says so. The second question was, "Didn't her appearance change?" Inexplicably, she gained only 4 pounds during her entire pregnancy!

You hear about this kind of thing on the news, but this time it was someone a friend of mine knows, so it's hard to be skeptical. But it is nonetheless very hard to wrap your mind around it. Imagine, one day you leave work, and the next day you have to call in sick and tell your boss, "I had a baby." No one would believe you! And just having your life change overnight like that--I mean, having a kid is huge, and usually you have nine months to mentally prepare for it. This woman had no time at all!

I guess it's just a reminder that your life can change drastically at the drop of a hat, and you never know what the future may hold.

Throw the clock out the window...

Holy canoli, people, it's September already! We've entered the -Ber months, which means that Christmas is right around the corner and then 2007 and before you know it it'll be 2008 and the state quarters program will be over and there will be no reason to pay with cash ever again! (Deep breath.) Sorry if I get a little carried away. I know I'm not alone in feeling like time is just flying by. It seems like every year goes by faster and faster! Before I know it I'm going to turn around and my baby niece will be graduating high school!

Although months tick by with alarming speed, the days go by just as fast. Every Friday I wonder what happened to my week! And every day at work I wish I could just freeze time, catch up, and then unfreeze time. Does anyone remember the show called Out of This World, where the main character, Evie, was half human and half alien, and she had lots of superpowers? My favorite was the power to freeze time, which she accomplished by touching the tips of her index fingers together. Naturally the writers used this gimmick a lot in the middle of potential hilarity, such as paint cans tipping over from the tops of ladders, and pies flying across the room. But oh, how I wish I could just touch my fingers together for a few extra hours everyday. I could read and knit and watch movies and nap! And when that gets boring, I could learn another language and explore every nook and cranny of the planet. Then, I could write a novel, cook a gourmet meal every night, and re-teach myself calculus.

Unfortunately we only have 24 hours each day and they never seem to be enough lately. Things are hectic at work. We had to let go one of the new hires because he just wasn't working out and he was really starting to be a liability. So although my plate temporarily became a bit lighter (with the removal of the "train new employee" side dish) it got filled right back up with more projects. It's all good, because I love my job and my coworkers. But I've been staying late everyday and I know it will get old pretty quickly.

So now I've got a lovely three-day weekend, and all I can think about is how in a heartbeat it will be Monday night and it will be over. You'd think this would make me want to live each moment to its fullest and all that jazz, but really I just want to sleep in and chill around the house. I do have to get my oil changed and I'll most likely visit my parents but other than that I've got no plans, and I'm fine with that. We're supposedly in for some pretty decent weather (btw, Ernesto stripped the crepe myrtle blossoms, blew around the pine needles landscapers use as groundcover here, and deposited a fair amount of rain, but otherwise was not much of an event in my neck of the woods). Today was in the high 60's and I loved it! Can't wait for fall. Hold on a sec...wasn't I just lamenting the speedy passage of time, and suddenly I'm wishing for the future to hurry up already? Man, I make my own head spin sometimes.

Speeding

I hope this never makes it to America (description courtesy of David Pogue):

[There are] hidden overhead cameras that (according to our Italian guide) take pictures of your license plate, relay the time of your passing to the next set of cameras, calculate your speed, and automatically issue you a ticket if you’re speeding. The cameras can't see who's driving, though, so paying the ticket requires that you specify who was at the wheel; if you don't, you get slapped with a fine ten times as high.

Man, I would so get tons of speeding tickets! I have a lead foot. It's the one law I break every day. And I have to say that my new car makes it way too easy to speed. Not only does Fiona have quite a bit of pep, so she's quick off the line, but also the speedometer is laid out such that the needle is straight up at 80 mph...whereas in my old car the needle was practically horizontal at 80 mph. Such a tiny thing, you'd think, but I can't tell you how many times I've caught myself doing 90. Yikes!

While we're on the topic of speeding, what's up with those signs that say "Speed Limit Enforced By Aircraft"? Do they really have some guy in a helicopter or something with a radar gun aiming it at the freeways? And how do they hold you responsible? Do they have some sort of satellite taking pictures of the cars they catch? How low do these aircraft fly? Could I see them from the driver's seat? I've always wondered.

Speaking of road signs, there was a unique one in Pennsylvania that I saw a couple times.


It's not often that you see hyperbole in govermental signage, now is it?

BTW, not my photo; I was never quick enough to catch it as I sped by; courtesy of Stop and Go.

What I see from the car

Sitting in traffic can be pretty boring. Luckily, I always have my camera with me. Here are a few shots I've taken in the past couple weeks.

First, the spectacular daylilies on the highways have bloomed and are brightening up the driving experience.


Next, construction on US 1 is plodding along. I can't wait for it to be done. It will make my commute so much easier. Notice the ugly temporary median, and the nice smooth permanent one in the distance.


At least when I'm sitting in traffic, I have lots of lush trees to admire.


And lastly, something I see from my living room: Comet enjoying the screened porch. This was last week...it is currently way too hot and humid to have any windows open, even at night or in the morning.

Memory

Memory is a mysterious thing. Case in point: my gym lock. I’ve had it for about two years. It’s a purple combination lock that I bought at Target. (Did you need to know that?) Although I did not get to pick the combination, the string of numbers lends itself pretty well to memorization. And usually I manage to pull them up from the recesses of my brain when needed. But I vividly recall one evening about a year or so ago, having to sit on a locker room bench trying to clear my synapses, because I could not for the life of me remember the numbers in the correct order. I was drawing a blank. Or rather, I was drawing a jumbled mess. I think numbers from my previous combo lock even crept in. I tried many different strings and none of them worked. There was a long moment of slight panic--what am I going to do? My car keys are in there. My cell phone is in there. And there's no way I can get to them. Briefly visions of gym staff arriving on the scene with some lock cutting tool entered my mind, but I dismissed them quickly because, darn it, I knew the numbers, they were in my brain, they were just temporarily inaccessible. And I knew, of course, that the more frustrated and panicky I got, the less likely I’d be able to remember them. I ended up distracting myself by watching some TV (they always had MTV2 on in the locker room at the LAX 24 Hour Fitness) and then trying again, and I finally got it.

So it was a weird feeling when I walked into the locker room the first day at my new gym and a string of numbers just popped into my head, seemingly out of nowhere. But of course, it wasn’t really out of nowhere. I was back in a locker room, and my situational memory brought those numbers up to the surface. Remarkable how the brain works.

Speaking of forgetfulness.... Unless I stand right in front of the stove for the duration of the cooking time, there is a 95% chance that the pot will boil over. I've burned many things in the toaster oven. And when I put clothes in the washer, often times I forget to transfer them to the dryer for hours. Is this an indication that I'm easily distracted and scatterbrained (in an ADD sort of way) or that I have a bad memory? I'm not sure either one is better than the other!

Oops

Here's something you don't see everyday.


I took this picture at work today. My boss peeked into the office I share with two other ladies, and calmly asked if anyone had a camera on their cell phone. I replied yes, and that I had a real camera too, because I always carry it with me. He said, "Come on!" and we proceeded to walk briskly, then run, outside and over to the edge of our parking lot. He wouldn't tell me what we were running to see. I couldn't imagine what it might be. I looked over the fence into the neighboring office's lot and saw this:


Oops.

Seems it was just one of those days for this rookie Raleigh cop. Apparently she was making a right-hand turn out of our office building's driveway when a clipboard slid over and somehow caused the steering wheel to get stuck. For some reason she didn't or couldn't brake, and she went over the embankment. I wince with sympathy when I think of the mortification she will no doubt endure when this story gets back to the station. Luckily no one was injured.

You can click on the photos to see larger versions. Notice there are no air bags in the vehicle. Hmm. I guess they would hinder an officer's ability to hop out and chase a suspect after a wreck.

There was a news helicopter flying overhead within minutes, and one local news website has a small writeup about the incident. (I'm not sure how long the link will work.)

Minutiae

Put in a DVD today and feared the worst (broken equipment) when it wouldn't play at all. Took it out and turned it over. Ah-ha! The movie is called Secondhand Lions after all, but come on.


Yowsers. I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often, considering how little protection Netflix offers the millions of DVD's they send through the mail. The crack was barely noticeable on the front so I didn't catch it before I loaded the disc. Hard to believe, since the whole disc was completely split apart. Anyway, I reported the problem to Netflix--they have a very user-friendly system for these kinds of things. They will send out another copy and requested that I return the damaged one ASAP. I had another to send back as well (The Interpreter with Nicole Kidman--very, very slow to start, okay by the end, but the best part was the behind-the-scenes bonus features about shooting on location at the actual U.N. (this was the first film to be granted permission) and about what it's like to be an actual U.N. interpreter) so I hopped in the car. Even though I'm not a kangaroo.

The mail had already been delivered here so I drove to the nearest mailbox about half a mile away, hoping it would be in time for today's pickup. Alas, no. Bummer since Monday's a holiday. Oh well. The drive was interesting. Something was falling from the sky and it wasn't rain or snow. It was either hail or sleet...I've never really known the difference. But it made a neat tinkly sound on the car roof. Most of the little pieces of ice melted on contact but some stuck around for a little bit. I swear one that hit my jacket as I was standing outside the car "experiencing" the weather looked just like an itty bitty star of David. Weird.

It's February already??!!

I'm due for a new post but haven't got much to say. This afternoon I delivered a cake for my friends Larry and Carlee, to a woman in RTP. It was for her mother's 63rd birthday. Monday I went over to Larry and Carlee's with Arvind for dinner and games. We played Coda, Loot, and Scattergories. I lost miserably at every single one. I think we are witnessing the tragic and yet perversely hilarious gradual decline of yours truly's mental capacity. My brain, until now only mushy in spots (mostly the ones in use when I attempt to display even minor physical coordination) is just about entirely mushlkjroqc.... At least I can still spell Febuary Frebuary Febrary February. Dude, write February ten times in a row. It starts to look reeeeally weird.

A-hem. Pardon me. Where was I? Ah, yes. My decline. In the final throes of self-preservation, I dropped off a follow-up thank-you letter at the company where I interviewed last week. I figured, since I was in the neighborhood, why not? Afterwards I went back to the Body Shop outlet to get a couple more oil warmers. They're a steal at only $3 each, normally like $15 in the regular stores. They really are the best way to fragrance your home. Plug-in thingies, even the oil ones, work okay for a few days in a small area like the bathroom. Candles are so expensive and the smell isn't that strong. But oil over an open flame, that's the ticket.

We live in a strange, strange world

I just checked my email. Two new messages.

CNN Breaking News 12:42 pm (12 minutes ago)
-- Islamic militant group Hamas wins landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary election, officials say.

BMG Music Service 12:38 pm (16 minutes ago)
Your ASHLEE SIMPSON Featured Selection is here!

We really do ask a lot of ourselves to live in a world where the disparity of things competing for our attention is so vast.

When it rains, it pours

I can go for days without anything of real interest going on, at least nothing interesting to blog about. And then I have a day where, like, 38 interesting things happen. Yesterday was one of those days!

Job Hunt
I had a "pre-interview" of sorts over lunch with someone at a giant techie corporation in RTP (Research Triangle Park, for those of you outside NC). I was quite nervous, because I am in no way qualified for an IT job. But apparently for this one you don't need a background in IT. They expect you to learn on the job. Apparently I made a decent impression, because the guy who met with me decided to pass on my resume to his boss. So hopefully that will lead to a real interview. I feel like I did after I quit teaching...I'm at the point where I'm willing to take any job that will pay the bills...not desperate enough to apply at McDonald's, but okay with putting the search for a dream job on hold because this is a great opportunity to beef up my resume in an entirely new field, and it pays well. Well enough that I might be able to get monthly massages! Woo hoo! Oh, and buy a house and save and all that responsible stuff.

(I think I'm on a massage kick lately because I am suffering from some serious tension in my shoulders. Another sign I'm spending way too much time on the computer.)

So it was my first trip into RTP, and it is very impressive. Big expanses of trees, with little clusters of buildings here and there. They all look rather new, and none of them are tall. It's the kind of business park where occupants call their offices "campuses." It definitely felt like college at lunch. We ate in the company cafe and it was like a new-fangled dining hall. Not the kind where the lady behind the vat of mystery casserole plops a giant helping onto your plate, but the kind where it looks more like a food court and all the options are genuinely tempting. I would love eating there everyday! The most college-y part was when you put your tray into the cleaning racks after you're finished. Definitely a flashback!

Field Trip
After the lunch meeting I went to see where my friend Arvind works. I felt like a kid on a school field trip. He does the closed-circuit TV broadcasts for the giant techie corporation. Yes, the corporation is giant enough to have several of its own TV stations! They have little talk shows where they discuss techie stuff. And I think they do quarterly meetings that way too. Anyway, the control room was overwhelming...so much equipment, so many buttons and little screens, and all of it just a comlpete mystery to me, and like a second home to Arvind.


And you thought YOUR cord management was challenging!


Amazing. It's basically a one-man shop, too--he does the lighting, the sound, the cameras, everything. Down to brushing the suede chairs before a show so that they look better. It's all in the details. There are people who notice that kind of thing, and I'm one of them. Here's me in the studio...


On my way out, I encountered some geese, which I'm told refuse to leave the campus because they are so well fed. I think they are cute, but they are also rather dirty. Giant birds=giant bird droppings. Enough said.


Bunco
As if that weren't adventure enough for our heroine, she had to rush off to Bunco night afterwards. It was our first meeting, and I didn't know what to expect. The lady who volunteered to organize it did not give us any indication of how prepared she was, but it turned out great because she had a delicious spread of munchies and had photocopied rules for everyone. It is not a hard game to learn...there is no skill involved...but it can get confusing when you don't know which table to move to, and what to do when there are "ghost" players. But we all managed to do fine. It helps when everyone is laid back about it, and just rolls with the punches. You forgot to ring the bell? Eh, who cares? We scheduled the next one for four weeks from now, and I'm already looking forward to it! Everyone there was positively delightful. I enjoyed meeting all the new faces.

News Flash: I'm French!
One incredible coincidence: when the hostess asked my last name, and I said it, one of the ladies there exclaimed, "Did you say 'Mertz'?! That was my maiden name!" I have never in my life met a Mertz I'm not related to! She was from St. Louis and said there are tons of Mertzes there. Her family got into researching their geneology, and traced the Mertz clan all the way back to the 1500's in the Alsace-Lorraine region of Europe. Now, is that part of Germany, the country I always assumed was my ancestral homeland? It sure sounds French. Hold on. Apparently it flip-flopped between German and French control, and is now vehemently bi-cultural. How cool to think that I've got French blood in me!

Movies
The other thing I wanted to write about is a couple movies I've seen. I saw Wedding Crashers the other day on DVD...I was very disappointed. It had done so well at the box office, and from the previews I'd imagined it having a lot of potential. But it was basically just crass and dumb. Granted, I did watch the unrated version, so maybe the theatrical version would not warrant "crass," but I bet it would still be "dumb." The other movie I saw was The Family Stone. It was very good. More of a drama than I'd expected, but that made it meaty, so to speak. The cast was amazing. I adore Sarah Jessica Parker, and Rachel McAdams is rising on my list. Of course Diane Keaton rules (Something's Gotta Give is in my top 10, if not my top 5). Stone is definitely one I want to watch again...I often like movies more the second time around. But Wedding Crashers? Nope, doesn't warrant a second viewing in my opinion.

Websites
You gotta check these out because they are fun and incredible, respectively. First, a time-wasting game (thanks, Arvind!): my high score is 318...anything over 250 is doing well though. And second, a fascinating concept site (thanks, Mom!): photos taken with an extremely high-resolution camera. The photos are gorgeous by themselves, but then when you see the cropping/zooming capabilities, it just wows you.

Happy New Year's Eve!

No cohesiveness this evening, my apologies. Just some random thoughts.

First, I was cutting the tag off a new sweater and something gave me pause. I couldn't help but wonder: why the heck did they give me this?


Do the powers that be at clothing companies think their customers are capable of actually weaving new fabric if the sweater should develop a hole of some sort? And do they anticipate holes forming? Why else would they give us extra yarn? My favorite is when they give you a spare nondescript button. Understandable to include an extra if it's some sort of fancy, unique button that would be hard to replace. But often it's just a plain ol' semi-translucent dealie that can be found at any craft store. Gee, thanks. You shouldn't have. Course, I still keep them. Have to. You never know.

Secondly, lovely sunset to close the year. I like when the sky takes on hues other than those children draw in pictures for the fridge.


I hope my multitude of readers (ha!) enjoys a fantastic New Year's Eve, and a fulfilling 2006.