Saturday, January 22, 2000

Now I get it!!

Y'know how all of the Gang are always talking about the locusts and llamas and whatever else they can imagine that eats their pages or their time?  Now I know who those silly locusts and llamas and whatever are!  They came along and just devoured my day-- okay, so the nap I took around the middle of the afternoon didn't help preserve any of my time but, it could've been worse!!

Brian and I headed off to Costco, the warehouse grocery/computer/computer supply/office supply/wine cellar/Coke retailer/vitamin-stocker-upper joint this morning and $250+ later we left to go to Fry's electronics and buy the CD burner of our dreams (uh-huh, right!) along with an early Valentine's Day present for Brian, Quake III for Linux.

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I forgot to mention the other day that he has already given me my Valentine's Day present-- a 20" gold chain for my pendants.  I needed one with a special clasp the usual clasp doesn't work with my fingernails.  I needed a lobster clasp or something and, as it turns out that's what I got.  Now, because my Valentine's Day gift was purchased in advance, this could throw off his entire means and usual decision making process for my birthday gift.  We'll see, huh?  I didn't cry (we were in the store so I couldn't and I didn't even do a really good Lucille Ball later)-- I wonder if he missed it?  Hmmm . . .
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We also picked up Turbo Tax and Turbo Tax for States so we can sit and stare at that for a few months-- I hate doing it and, unfortunately (at least until he reads this), Brian has chosen to sit the boxes by my desk so I'll have to be the one to stare at them and wonder how bad its going to be this year!

Brian's grandmother called to cancel our dinner plans for tomorrow night-- she's feeling a bit under the weather so we're going to wait until a few more weeks and hopefully she'll be passed feeling poorly.  So, that means that tomorrow we can do ALL of the cleaning that our rat-killin' caused us to miss today.  We will drive those locusts and llamas and whatevers back into submission and finish this project once and for all.  Or we won't but we'll see how it goes then, eh?

Have a good night and talk to you next time . . . same time, same channel.

Another Wild Week

This week has been a very interesting week to say the least!  All of the sales reps that I am currently dealing with  are on a mental hiatus (I swear, they aren't responding to emails or phone calls so what else can I call it?) of sorts so, I'm left with the "hurry up and wait attitude" for contracts.  Nothing new, eh?  Yeah, right but you should see my Tuesday!!  Next Tuesday is when it is "business as usual" because most of them will be back from the sales meeting (and, yes, by the way, it is "worldwide") and everyone wants to have a call or hold a meeting on Tuesday!  I'm booked in the morning and in the afternoon-- solid . . . already!!  Oh, yeah, a good day, I can tell!

I have to go to the meeting on Monday-- which is nice from the standpoint that I don't have to go to the meeting on Saturday and Sunday.  On Monday, I'm riding up with my manager because she can't get to the shuttle on time (the shuttle is leaving from our offices at 6:30am and she has kids to get into school) so we're going to be able to grab the carpool lane and head on up to the city in record time for a Monday rush-hour.

International Visitors

So far this month of the nearly 3,000 hits and over 1,000 page reads on my site, I've had visitors from the United Kingdom, Ireland, India, South Africa, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and, of course, The Netherlands.  Of course, that's only a small fraction (15%) of what can be deciphered from the Webalizer readings.  There are 41.85% of you that are not registering with any known company, entity or country so that leaves a lot of open area-- there could be more countries and I just don't know it because it can't be "seen" by our log reader.

This Weekend . . .

Yeah, I know I've said it before but, this weekend we really ARE going to finish putting away the Christmas stuff and reorganizing ourselves to the point of ridiculous.  I've been meaning to get photos of stuff for the renters insurance and, I've got a couple of those disposable cameras to use up so . . . seems to sound like a winning combination, y'know?  We'll do virtual pictures, too, but if we have a fire here, the computers will be the first to go and since we are probably the only Daynotes family that doesn't have a CD burner, something has to go in the safety deposit box!

New Banner

The Screen Writers Studio is now making banner advertising available so I have joined up . . . if you're interested in buying some screenplay software, this is very good stuff-- I have demo'd a couple of other programs but none were as user-friendly as this one.  If you click through and by one of the programs, I do get a percentage but I didn't really put it there to make money but because I really like the software.  I've had links to the website before (like when I first got the software) so the name shouldn't be completely unfamiliar.  Anyway, it is at the bottom of this page and on my home page-- feel free to explore.

Brief Update

First of all, this update will be short because I'm home early from work and Brian's on his way home shortly and upon his arrival, we'll be going shopping.  I did, however, want to point out to my readers that, if you caught my post early in the evening last night, you may want to go back and read it again-- I posted once, then twice and finally ended with a third update!  I doubt that I'll be that sporadic again but if you read early, you may have missed something.  Isn't it Jerry Pournelle who has (or had) on his site something like: "Refresh early and often"?  Coulda swore . . . maybe or maybe not but, if it was his site, then it would make sense . . . great minds, equal thinking-- you get my drift!

From Barbara . . .

And speaking of great minds . . .

Reading your post for Wednesday, and I agree with your husband. Those pages are for you to post what goes on in your life that you feel. I like the combination of sap and logistics myself.

I made the mistake of telling Bob you collector power tools. Over the years since we have been married I have received the following the gift items: new garbage disposal, metric wrenches, socket sets, garage doors, etc. You get the idea.  I too like home improvement shows and as a matter of fact have just finished another web review column for our library periodical Library Journal. Will mail you the URL when it goes up. I was taking Family Handyman, but switched to Today's Homeowner for a change. I like to refinish furniture too. Let me know how The English Home mag is?

BTW, I am not shy, do feel free to use any or all of e-mails that I send you. Enjoy your page.

Barbara

Barbara F. Thompson
Research/Information Services
Winston-Salem, NC
email: barbara@ttgnet.com
http://www.ttgnet.com/bft/bft.html

It wasn't a mistake in telling Bob that I collect power tools-- he's welcome anytime to send more my way!  From the sound of your page yesterday, power tools don't get a lot of use around your house so you might as well pack 'em up and send 'em to me!  We may have an apartment but you'd be amazed how well we can crank out redwood furniture for our patio!!  We can't use the garbage disposal or the garage doors (our garage doors are sliding and have to work with the ones on either side of our doors) but the rest of it sounds good.  What will you take in trade?  We'll have to work that one out, won't we?  ;>)

If you get a chance, look for a book called "One Hundred English Gardens" (ISBN #0-7472-1174-4)-- its wonderful!!  Yes, once I get the magazine, I'll definitely let you know how it is and, PLEASE send the URL of your review column when its posted-- I'd love to see it!

Thanks again for your email and your support-- its also nice to know we have even more in common, too!

No one, by the way, managed to email me about their recipe for "up" and "happy" all the time so, I have to assume that everyone is in agreement-- we're all human and all capable of not being "up" all the time.

Just another day in paradise . . .

That may be a bit of an exaggeration . . . I had lunch with a friend who has a son that has Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD); this is the same disease as the child in the movie "Lorenzo's Oil".  It is not pleasant but, she has a great deal of insight to share when it comes to the disease.  She can talk about the disease but it is difficult to talk about the effects that the disease is having on her life and on her child.  She will eventually lose him because there is no cure and no treatment for his particular form of the condition (Lorenzo couldn't process fats-- if I understand it correctly-- but her son cannot process proteins so brain cells are not being replenished) and that's the part that is difficult to bear-- not for her son but for herself, because she is the one who will be grieving his loss.

Ironically, my sister and I spoke tonight instead of having our regular chat session, and she told me that one of our uncles has been diagnosed with cancer.  Uncle Chet is one of my dad's brothers and he was always one of our favorite uncles-- aren't they all?

Also, ironically, Brian's boss's son and daughter-in-law are going to have a baby tomorrow-- the doctors are going to induce labor, which is why they know that the baby is going to be born tomorrow.

It makes you think about life, doesn't it?  It makes you think about "what's worth it" and "what's important".

When my friend and I were talking about her son this morning, she said that she doesn't think about how her son won't be with her forever.  Every morning when she goes to wake him up she realizes that she's not sure that he will be able to wake up.  So, when he does wake up, it is another day in paradise.

These Pages . . .

The above is my third attempt to write tonight.  I kept thinking "Good grief, I can't write that-- it'll depress everyone!"  But, then, Brian and I talked-- these pages are written for me to write and tell you what I think and what I feel and, yes, I am a sentimental sap sometimes but I'm also a very logical person.  No, not everything here is always going to be "up" and "happy" but, then is everything in your life "up" and "happy" all the time?  If it is, please write to me and tell me your recipe for such happiness.  I'd love to bottle it and sell it-- maybe I'll even work out a deal to split the proceeds with you-- NAH!!!  ;>)

I enjoy having all of you read the things that I write and appreciate that you stop by every day or just once in awhile to read these pages-- so far this month, by the way, I have had over 1,000 page-reads!!!  These pages were originally started to give you the other side of my husband's viewpoint of our life on his web site.  I believe that these pages have grown to include more of my thoughts and less of "Our Life" stuff than I had expected but, that's why even though it is difficult to use the right words some times, it is important to hear and be able to speak all of the things that I feel and think in a day.

So, even though its been said before, thanks for coming by and sharing yourself with me, too!!

Talk about the "Impossible Dream"!!

Okay, so I'm a little weird: I watch every episode of "This Old House", "Hometime", "Handy Ma'am", "About Your House with Bob Yapp"-- ALL of the home improvement shows I can get my hands on.  Yes, I even liked "Home Improvement" when it was on-- anything to find out how to fix up a "fixer-upper".  When Brian and I met, I had a couple or three power tools and was on my way to collecting more!!  I subscribe to the "This Old House" magazine and "Sunset" magazine and a couple of wood-working magazines are on my regular magazine rack raid list.  Why, you ask?  Because, I am one of those people who believes in the "Impossible Dream":  I will own real estate in California before I die!!

So tonight in the mail when I received an offer for "The English Home" magazine, it only seemed natural that I had to have it.  I whined for about two seconds at Brian so that he would "let" me get the magazine and then, promptly tore the reply off and stuck it in my purse to mail tomorrow-- Like I'm going to ask if I can spend $25 on a magazine!!  Yeah, right!!!  One more step to my "Impossible Dream" English estate!  (And yes, I have the English Estate Gardening Book-- bought it on a trip to London, don'tcha know!!)

Monday's Notes

Yesterday was an off day for me-- I'm used to pushing the envelope every day here at work and, with virtually nothing to do except web-surfing for seminars, I found myself not knowing what to write about for yesterday's posting.

There were a couple of things to note about yesterday that I had neglected to mention:

1.  I went to lunch with a friend whom I met at my previous employer's.  She has also left the company but we meet, so far once a month, to talk about our new positions.  Unfortunately for her, she wasn't as successful in locating a position that she's happy with; apparently, it is difficult to get time with her management to resolve problems.  Also, unfortunately for her, I'm ecstatically happy in my new position realizing that this was the best thing that could've happened to me so I'm kinda hard to tolerate upon occasion and, specifically, I would think, when things are not going well for the other person.

2.  It appears that my sister in Michigan is feeling a bit more perky; she hasn't been able to stay awake long enough to visit my webpage over the past two weeks but, did spend considerable time galavanting through the site on Monday (well, catching up on the 15 pages she'd missed, actually!).  Yeah, she's back!!   ;>)

3.  I've started to work-out again.  I'm not good at going on a regular basis even though I need to go at least three times a week but would be better yet if I went four or five times per week.  I started going in March of last year when Brian and I quit smoking so that I had some way of burning off my stress.  I attended fanatically (6 times a week) for the first few weeks but, in April, when I had my surgery, I became . . . reticent about attending and, frankly, showed less than a "lack of enthusiasm" for the work-out, looking for excuses wherever I could find to get out of going.

In December, with learning the new job, I stopped going completely which was probably the worst time to do so.  "Worst time" from the standpoint that I had a high level of stress and needed the work-out but couldn't find the time or energy to go.  But, as Brian says, I always go back to working out which is a GOOD thing rather than walking away from it entirely.  Hopefully, I will be able to continue to have the time and energy to go to the club because I want to get "used to" going now so that when end-of-quarter happens the way it did in December, I will WANT to go to the club for the work-out to get rid of the stress that'll accumulate as it did last end-of-quarter!.

Wanderings . . .

As noted several times on this website, I've been incredibly busy the last two months barely finding time (as stated above) to work-out and always trying to find time to fit all the work in that I had to get done.  Yesterday, and today both were almost completely filled with "free time" during the day.  Oh, there was the occasional Non-Disclosure Agreement or in-bound Software License but all-in-all, it has been very slow by comparison to the rest of my tenure-- slow, that is, until I point this out in correspondence with Wendy and Chris Ward-Johnson (the Keyboard Couple).

Suddenly, I'm deluged with about 15 emails and another agreement or two in my email and other in-boxes!  Yeesh!  I hate being blind-sided!!  The worst part is that, after spending a day and a half wandering around aimlessly trying to fill the time, I'm suddenly taking home my laptop to do work!  There has to be a better balance, right?  Oh, well, maybe not . . .

Wonderings . . .

Y'see, its like this: There's a major sales meeting over the weekend in San Francisco for our entire company-- I believe that its a worldwide meeting but, I don't know for sure.  EVERYone that I deal with will be there and, since they are all preparing for the trip and the meeting that starts on Friday evening, most of them know that they aren't going to be able to finish any open issues or be accessible to their customers for a week so, we're slow as a result.  Well, its only temporary and the week that they go back to their offices is month-end close-- a "mini" end-of-quarter!  Oh, yeah, balance . . . sure! 

Temptations!

The temptation to type "1999" there, in that space just above this section is still very strong-- I hate that!!  I had the same problem (and still do upon occasion) when I quit smoking!  Old habits die hard, don't they?

Records

This appears to be my most visible month ever-- Sometime overnight, half-way through the month, we reached the same total of pages read as the entire month of December! Yee-haw!!  This is fun, isn't it?  As I've said before, I've got several university students stopping by now and then along with a few from institutions around the world, and speaking of around the world, The Netherlands, India, Sweden, Australia and a couple of other locales are popping in from time to time!  To all of you, THANKS!!  Its so nice to have you all around and the correspondence is great, too!  Keep it up!!

CLE Seminars

I spent the majority of my beginning-of-the-quarter day surfing the web looking for seminars, both on-line and live to attend.  Generally, these seminars cost a bloody fortune and because of that, are usually attended by a bunch of attorneys.  Its always fun to one-up the attorneys-- I did that at a seminar that I attended at sun.  The instructor asked us to write legal language for a clausal situation: the "us" was about 10 contract negotiators and 15 attorneys.  The instuctor liked my paragraph of the 25, the best and, frankly, one of the female attorneys I worked with didn't like that very much at all!  (Of course, I loved it!)  Anyway, I've found several to attend where only parking and lunch will need to be reimbursed-- it seems like a horrible waste to travel someplace to attend a seminar and thankfully, I won't have to do that!  Anyway, I've found a couple to attend "LIVE" as it were as well as one that appears to be quite informational in on-line format.  Should be interesting . . .

Loose Ends

What remains of my summary of yesterday is that on our way to Brian's folks yesterday afternoon, we went to see Brian's grandparents on his father's side.  His 101 year old grandfather is getting over a cold and has a kind of croupy cough left over and his recently birthdayed grandmother is doing fairly well herelf, thank you.  These two are amazing!  As usual, a wonderful dinner and pleasant time were enjoyed at his parents' house, too.  Even tho a bit shy, my in-laws are wonderful people and great fun, too!

Archive and other housekeeping . . .

There's that word again!!  (Yuck, I hate housekeeping!!)  I've decided to wait a bit on the archive of my last week; I've pretty much decided it would be a better thing to archive on Sunday night when I've got time (usually) to check the links, etc.  We have a bit of an explosion that occurred in our living room a few weeks back (my fault) and I've still not gotten around to cleaning it up so, I've decided I should do that today. Also, before we go to Brian's folks', we've got some errands to run and things to do so this'll be a short post and then, maybe, more later.

Have a wonderful day . . . its sunny in Northern California so the rest of the world must be doing well, too, right?  Right!  ;>)

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