WTHHL...YEAR

Have I really been gone that long? Almost. I should have titled this post...PATHETIC.

Wait 'til I have time to catch you up!!!!

WTHHL...Month

Yeah, I know. You're wondering where the phuck I've been. Work, work, work. Home, home, home. House-sitting, house-sitting, house-sitting. Repeat...endlessly. However I thought I would stop in and mention that a subsequent trip to Red Lobster Topeka totally redeemed it as a dining destination. The service was the exact opposite of what we were treated to last time. Wait staff took drink and hors d'oeuvre orders within seconds of seating. The food arrived in a timely progression and was fresh, hot, and oh so yummy. Our server was incredibly attentive, almost as if our pictures were posted in the back with the caption VIP written under them.

Work is interesting to say the least. While I still think the new sheriff in town is a good thing, I've learned he's not going to be a daily presence in our working lives, more a one week a month one. Apparently something is going on in Denver between our company and another and this will have him commuting between the two locations. Gee, we really could have used another heart doc in town.

Speaking of docs, I'm still feeling 100% better since the surgery. Kinda silly how long I dragged my feet about it once I had a proper diagnosis, but then again it was nice to fully explore all the options available to me, as few as they were.

So THAT'S how it works...

I can tell by the number of comments I've gotten that you're all dying to know how things are going at work...

Well, we have a new department head and he seems to have his head located someplace other than his nether regions so it's a good thing. He's very good at acting as a buffer between the tech staff and the incompetence that we've dealt with in the past.

Personally I'm doing wonderful since I embraced the idea that good is good enough. No need to strive for perfection. Of course my good is way better than anybody else's best... And if that's not good enough for the company, I got three job offers out of the three resumes I sent out so I know I am employable.

I've had to interact with one of the most difficult people in the company twice over the past week and not only have we both gotten something out of the exchanges, it was actually pleasant!

I've taken on two side jobs over the past month, one of which I am starting to regret. It's a big job as in I'll get enough money from it that I'll end up declaring it on my taxes, but it's starting to look like this is going to be a high maintenance user situation and I don't know that I have the time to devote to a high maintenance customer...

WTHHLWeek

Random thoughts from this past week:

On Tuesday my mirror showed this:

On Sunday my mirror showed this:

My cat knows when I fill up the dog's water bucket in the kitchen. No matter where he is, no matter what he is doing, when I turn around from the sink after filling the bucket he is there wating:

You know you're a shutterbug when you see a four foot snake in your yard and the first thing you try to do is convince the dog to go fetch your camera (she didn't).

I think that wonderful change of life has begun. You know, that second one. You spend several years longing to be "a woman" and then you spend the next 40-odd years regretting that you receive that monthly reminder that you are in fact a woman. I wonder how bi-polar and menopause are going to co-exist in the same household.

Yeah, it's cheesy, but I like the Bionic Woman.

Yeah, he's a ham, but I like Shark. I think if I wasn't a lesbian I'd sleep with James Woods.

WTHHLN @ Red Lobster

I don't know WTHHLN at the Topeka Red Lobster, but they sure weren't about to serve us dinner...

The original Saturday plans were for a picnic out at Rock Springs 4H camp. Rain changed those plans. The weather guessers said the rain would be gone by Saturday morning, but they guessed wrong. So we went to plan B. That was a Topeka run with shopping at Kohl's and Barnes & Noble, lunch/dinner at Red Lobster and a Topeka Roadrunners hockey game. The shopping and hockey worked out just fine.

Red Lobster was something else, though. They apparently were short of busing staff because we had to wait to get a table cleared off. Keep in mind we'd specifically arrived at 3:30 to miss the lunch and beat the dinner crowd. There were loads of empty tables in the place...almost all covered with dirty dishes. Our waitress passed our table twice with assurances she would be right with us before she did in fact come to take our drink order. We finally had drinks at 10 minutes after seating. Another 10 and she took our order. Maybe it fell apart at that point because we both decided to order something different. We are creatures of habit. No Lobster in Manhattan so we pretty much order the same favorite thing whenever we do go there.

10 minutes later we had salads and those yummy cheese biscuits that I love sooooo much. And then...nothing. Tables fill around us, orders are taken. 45 minutes later we have two assurances from our waitress that she's dinged the kitchen twice about our order, but on the second stop with us she takes the time to write our order down all over again! Did she forget to turn the first one in? After seeing the table of five that were seated after we arrived get their entrees, I flag down the manager, who is in the area to bus tables, and ask about the delay in getting our main courses (which, by the way, were promoted specials). He stands there pathetically, shaking his head, no explanation but to say he's very sorry. Magically our waitress appears with our order. Unfortunately it is too late, we've got a hockey game to get to...

And boy was it a game. MAHL hockey. The stars of tomorrow in action today. The players all seem so young, and no wonder! The oldest of them was born in 1987. They'd beaten the TX Tornado the night before and we were hoping for a repeat. When the Tornado scores two goals in the first five minutes, our goalie is thankfully yanked and replaced with last night's goalie, but is it too late? I watch the mascot for the Roadrunners and wonder why it looks like a Cardinal to me. Big, red, yellow beak. I don't recall ever seeing a roadrunner in quite those colors and I lived in the southwest for most of my life. If you're going to bring a team from Sante Fe and change the mascot to a Cardinal, a bird quite commonly seen in Kansas, why not simply rename the team the Cardinals? I don't get it. The Roadrunners manage to tie the score at 3, but the Tornado is relentless and pulls ahead by another goal. We manage to tie it and remain tied through the first overtime. It is not until the shoot out that we fall to the Tornado.

There were a couple of good fights, which surprised me, but maybe it was more to generate fan interest than an honest altercation with the opposing players. Still both teams netted severe 10 minute penalties on players for misconduct. Our team even caught two of those 10 minute penalties.

I hadn't planned on buying anything except maybe a pair of jeans, but I totally lost all resolve when I saw the price and selection on Henley's and 3/4 sleeve heavy T's. I love Henley's. My favorite shirt. I bought eight shirts and managed to keep it under $100. Score! We then adjourned to Barnes & Noble for S*t*a*r*b*u*c*k*s coffee and desert to the meal we never ate (I did end up having the worlds smallest, yet most expensive Brat at the game).

In all fairness to Red Lobster, I have to admit that it's the first time I've ever had bad service there so I will probably give them another try when next we get the craving for seafood. All in all, not a bad day at all.

Target Practice

So my friend Bonnie and I go out to Fancy Creek Range on Saturday to shoot. I joked with the Range Master that like some people hire in people to exercise their horses, the missus hires someone to exercise her guns. I left the revolver at home because I hate it and had no intention of shooting it, but I took the .22 and the 9mm. Bonnie had her single action .38 which I have to admit is a sweet piece, but I frickin' jump every time it fires. The difference between the report of a .22 and a .38 is so noticeable when you are three feet to the side of the chamber. I did my best, but ended up mostly shooting when she was reloading. The .22 holds ten in the clip so I got in a good bit of shooting.

I suck with the 9mm. I only ran two clips through it, maybe three. All my shots went low and right. Well of course they did, the gun is sighted for someone else. When I talked to that someone else and mentioned how bad I did with the Luger, she said, "Well the sights aren't adjustable." WTF? A gun that you can't adjust the sights on? Does anyone make such a thing? No, they don't. It took me one minute of looking at the gun to see the three screws that obviously have to do with sight alignment. But I think I'll keep this piece of information to myself. See, if I adjust the sight to me and she sees how good I shoot with it, perhaps the gun will pass into my ownership...

As usual I did very well with the .22. It just doesn't pack enough power, but is good for practice. Since the range is open every Saturday for the next two months, I'll have to test my sighting on the 9mm and hone with the .22. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go clean the guns.

There's a new sheriff in town...

...and I think we think alike. Work may get immeasurably better over the next month. If not, I have a line on something on the other side of town. Less hours, more pay, better benefits. Oh, but that extra 10 minute commute is a big minus.

Went to the 'ville to see RSLC's gig at Rusty's Outback. Never been there. Not too bad. Outdoors, nice summer-like night. Place didn't get packed until about half-way through the first set. Russell looked good. He's lost a little weight...maybe he can afford to eat less now that music is a full time job and that was a major cut in pay. Or maybe his girlfriend keeps him well exercised. Whatever, the band sounded good and I know how much a comfort it is to play for a hometown audience filled with personal friends so they had a good time. So did I in spite of the fact that I got stood up by my co-workers again. Too bad, I was buying...

A Game Day

...and I'm not talking football. I should have known I was going to be intimately acquainted with the wild side of life from the moment I got up.

There were turkeys in the yard this morning...when I let the dogs out. They (the turkeys) must have not had anything to eat recently as they managed to vacate the yard without depositing any of Maverick's favorite parfume, eau de turkey poop.

On the way to work there was a deer speed bump on the highway...the 70 mph highway. I didn't see it until the last minute and wasn't of a mind to lose control of my car just so I could avoid the blood and gore. Fortunately it had been pretty well tenderized by the traffic that paved the way before me.

Then there was the matter of the game camera. It's a thing hunters use to identify good places to set up for shootin' stuff. Good places as in, Hey, this is a major animal trail here! Look how often the camera catches Bambi and family. And is that Turkey Lurkey and family strolling by? My boss got new memory cards for his game cam but his computer can't handle the size of the cards so we had to get him a new card reader for his laptop. The first picture on the card is him playing with the buttons on the camera. It's a nice big picture. All the other pictures are really small so he must have pressed the button that changes the resolution on the camera. He says that you can't change the resolution on a game cam. He's wrong. I looked up his model and it has four different resolutions you can choose. But I guess Mr. Big Game Hunter knows everything and isn't about to listen to some city girl tell him what his camera can and can't do.

The day is winding down and as I was browsing a friend's blog the dogs decided that there was something foreign in the yard that must be chased. Oh look, it's Bambi. I wonder what they'd do if they actually caught one...

The latest from MicroSnot

Seems that in spite of what users of the software might think, MS is ready to release SP3 for MS Office 2003, but is Office 2003 ready for SP3? Well, not any of the versions that anyone I know runs...

In checking to see if SP3 has already snuck onto my system, I went to the Office update site and had it poll my workstation. Yes, I know I could have just checked the about section on the help menu, but I felt like reading some fairy tales. No, I'm still at SP2 and thank heavens I downloaded the full version of SP2 to my local drive so I can deploy that company wide rather than have to fight my way to configuring Office 2003 back to usefulness on 200+ workstations. I love the way MS describes SP3 on the update site: Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3 (SP3) contains significant security enhancements that practically cripple your ability to work, in addition to stability improvements. Some of the fixes included with SP3 have been previously released as separate updates. This service pack combines them into one update. Note: the colored text is my own, not theirs.

Apparently one of the small drawbacks to installing SP3 is a complete and utter inability to open files that were created before you applied the service pack. In an effort to prevent you from possibly falling into one of the gaping security holes in the suite, MS has decided to prevent the software from actually opening or modifying any existing files. Well I don't know about you, but I've always wanted to have a $795.00 piece of software that just sits on my workstation and does nothing.

Rest assured, they have a workaround. Simply edit your registry to disable all the security features that the service pack just installed. Of course my favorite line in the page describing the download is not the list of things it fixes, nor is it the list of things that no longer work after you install the download. No, my fav section is the To remove this download section...there is no uninstall feature for this download.

I'm too old for this shit...Part 2

Well, I guess I got a little bit younger. After not getting the lawnmower running when we first put it back together, I guess it was good to take a break.

I still do not see anything wrong with the belt path. I did take another gander at the parts schematic for the mower deck and discovered there is supposed to be a washer between the top of the mandrel bearing and the bottom pulley. Really, how significant can a washer be? I didn't know about the washer because it was either missing to begin with or it disintegrated when the bearing seized. So I trudged to the shop where I bought the second bearing (the correct bearing, if you'll recall) and the young man at the counter simply gave me the washer I needed. Just gave it to me. No $1.29, no $.99, no nothin'. Just gave it to me. Sears would charge me $2.92 for the washer plus a minimum of $4.99 shipping and handling. And it's a rather hefty sized washer, let me tell you.

Now I hope the kid didn't think that the mower would turn up in the shop in the next day or two when he gave me the part. It will definitely go to them when it needs service that I can't perform on it, but this particular service is complete. Done. It be fixed. And no, I don't think it was the washer that made the difference because when it was all put back together, it did the same thing it did the last time I put it back together. I think it was shimmying the belt on one of the pulley's that made the difference. One of the pulleys is twice as wide as the belt is. The lower half of the pulley is all shiny with wear, the upper half dark and oxidized. The belt was sitting on the upper half of the pulley once the deck was re-mounted. I shimmied it down to the shiny side and when we started her up, the blades turned without binding and stopping. Hoo-rah!

I'm rather proud of myself, but I still think I'm too old for this shit...

Happy Birthday to...A-man!

Sunday was my co-worker's birthday so today he was greeted with gifts and decorations when he arrived. He and the D-man had done my workspace up with crepe paper for my birthday. I thought I'd return the favor but all I had was hillbilly crepe paper. Yup, I wrapped the chair, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and telephone. Then I hung 'streamers' from the drop ceiling. It came out even nicer than I expected. Bonus: He was well prepared for any shit that happened to come his way...

Sunday, lazy Sunday

Well, lazy for me. I only did two loads of laundry, ran to W*a*l*g*r*e*e*n*s for allergy meds, D*i*l*l*o*n*s for strawberries and cream of mushroom soup, and did my duties at Bonnie's with the cats. I did get to sleep in until almost 9:00 am which was a special treat for me since I rarely have animals that realize I don't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning two days each week. Why don't they get that? Maybe I should feed them tranquilizers on Friday and Saturday nights.

Yes, I've been getting up on time and getting to work on time for two weeks now. We have a trainee in the department and I figured I'd better set a good example. Plus we have a new department head starting Monday so even though I don't give a shit whether I keep this job or not (after all, it is just a job), I decided it couldn't hurt to get off on the right foot with him. Who knows, maybe he'll even make a difference for the better.

Now it's time for me to be un-lazy again and go iron the few pieces of clothing that I mistakenly bought the require ironing. Hopefully they'll wear out soon.

Done, not done

Well the lawn mower still isn't running. Everything went back together just fine, but as soon as you drop the deck to engage the blades the whole thing comes to a grinding halt. I was told to check the path of the belts and they looked exactly like the illustrations in the manual so I'm not sure what to do. I was just so disheartened to have it not work the first time and we were hot and sweaty and hot so we left it for another day. Maybe that other day should be tomorrow and perhaps after having left it alone for a while, I will instantly see what is wrong.

Today we finished up the deck rails. The missus visited some friends in Wisconsin and came back raving about how nicely the rails on their deck were finished with a top rail. Rather than listen to her bitch for the next six months about how we need to do that with our deck I've opted to get 'er done. After all, I do have a table saw...

She measured and bought the boards. We still have stain left over from when we stained the house a couple of years ago. The guy at h*o*m*e d*e*p*o*t sold her some fancy-schmancy screws with a special square bit. I don't have the upper body strength to get the fancy screws to countersink so I've secretly replaced the expensive screws with the old fashioned kind that actually work! I had a little trouble with cutting the angles at first. It seems that whatever direction I think the 45 degree angle should be cut at I am wrong and should do the opposite. This is why girls suck at geometry. It doesn't make sense to our minds.

We only wasted one 3 foot piece and it was doubly painful because it was only 1 inch short of being long enough to use on another section. The longer pieces are a pain in the ass to cut because getting one person that's eight feet away from the saw to feed the board towards the saw without tweaking it out of line with the blade is almost impossible. Still we did pretty good for a couple of novices and next weekend we'll tackle the other deck.

Other than that things are as fine as they've been for the past year. We took a small vacation to Lake of the Ozarks which was nice but ended on a sour note. Maybe we just aren't meant to be together forever.

I'm too old for this shit...

...or "Why am I taking apart the mower deck on the riding mower?"

Because I can, that's why. Yeah, it saves us money; but somehow I thought that at my age I'd be paying someone else to do this sort of shit for me.

We bought a used mower. It's bigger and newer than the one we have and we got a good deal on it. We bought it knowing there was a bearing issue on the left side. We knew it would not be that expensive to fix, but once we talked to someone who'd already done it on the same model, we knew it was probably a job we could handle ourselves which means that me, being the mechanically inclined one, is the one that's handling it.

The non-mechanically inclined one went online and ordered the part based on what the person with the prior experience told us was wrong. I probably should have taken the deck apart before ordering the part to ascertain that that was indeed the part we needed because once the part arrived and I set out to do the job it turned out to be the wrong part. I knew the second that I took the pulleys off and saw the upper bearing that that was the one that was shot. Now chances are because the upper mandrel bearing is shot, it put stress on the lower one so even though I now have the correct part, I'm going to replace both the upper and lower and be done with it.

I better get some nice jewelry out of this...

I Am (still) the NRA

Amazing how "conservative" I've become since moving to Kansas. Heh, heh. This weekend was a shooting weekend. Saturday there was a Women on Target event at Milford Lake. We did shotguns, air pistols, black powder muzzle-loaders, archery and .22 rifles.

Surprisingly I did extremely well in all events. Surprising because last time I sucked at shotgunning and rifles. Even ended up selling the .22 rifle I got for Christmas because I didn't feel accurate enough (plus I really wanted a pistol to pick off squirrels, not a rifle). But this go-around I did best in the rifle and, believe it or not, archery.


I guess I should not be surprised about the archery. There was a fella back when I was growing up in the wilds of Los Angeles who was a bow hunter. He used to take me to Griffith Park where they had an archery range. This was back when a bow looked more like the kind you'd see in cowboys & indians movies rather than the modern marvels with their wheels and pulleys. I was fairly decent back then when it was a much more difficult piece of equipment to operate so I guess I should not be surprised now that my entire focus can be on siting down the arrow and not on can I draw this thing back far enough to shoot more than 10 feet. I ended up with 75% of my arrows in the chest kill zone. I wish I could say that the arrow I shot in the fake deer's ear was intentional, but I cannot. Ditto the ankle shot.

We had so much fun at Saturday's event that we went out to Fancy Creek range on Sunday and I spent a few hours with a lovely Heritage Rough Rider revolver and a Smith & Wesson .22 automatic. I have to admit preferring the automatic. While the revolver was very pleasant to shoot, I'm fairly lazy and like not having to cock a gun. I also liked that the clip on the S & W holds ten bullets affording more shots between reloads. I shoot well creating nice tight groups. Neither weapon was my own so once I had figured how it was calibrated to the owner it was a simple matter to adjust my point of reference to get the bull's-eye.

Now we're all buzzing about the BOW event at the end of September. Three days of outdoor activities for women only. I just know I'm going to sign up for Skinning and Tanning, the photography workshop and Predator Calling (to lure wildlife to the barrel of my camera lens, not my rifle barrel). Who knows what else I'll try...

Still sick...

I have had a cold since August 4th. It is now the 13th. It cost me 3 sick days at work which have a dollar value of $220.00. I returned to work on the 8th as I was on the mend. Then Friday night it settled in my chest and I had a sleepless night due to coughing spasmodically all night long which left me drained on Saturday. Saturday night and Sunday were better and I worked again today, but the cough remains. And it's an unproductive cough. Hack, hack, hack, but nothing comes up.

Now I've noticed my nasal discharge has once again turned yellow. So if I'm relapsing that bad, should I go to the doctor?

Here's my rant: If you are sick, do not go to work and infect your co-workers. I repeat:

DO

NOT

GO

TO

WORK

Next person who so much as sniffles in my range of hearing will be killed and I feel quite confident my lawyer can win an acquittal based on justifiable homicide.

On the plus side, being home has enabled me to kill two moles. Good way to get some of this aggression out.

Sick

...one of my co-workers was kind enough to share the joy that is a summer cold with the rest of us working grunts. Nothing like sitting around in 100+ degree weather with a snot-faucet of a nose and feeling like a small Asian pachyderm is sitting on your chest.

So I've been laid out with this since Saturday night. Started feeling that back of the throat tickle during the Simpson's movie. Hoping sincerely that the pregnant woman I was with didn't catch it from me. Sunday was miserable, but since my muscles were sore from a Saturday day of moving rock all over the driveway, I didn't mind being forced to take it easy. I do object to having to spend my vacation days, the days I'd planned to use for my upcoming vacation, on being home sick.

So between surgery, the horrendous shit at work, and now being sick, I just haven't felt much like blogging lately. Hope you'll forgive me...

So THAT'S how it works...

...as in it doesn't. Nothing has changed. No one is any better at their job, in fact I'd hazard a guess to say I'm worse at my job. Tickets are still not being entered. Jobs are still being called done when they're not. And I'm still apologizing up and down when things go wrong.

No one has said a word about my meltdown., at least not to my face. My immediate supervisor appears to be none the wiser. I don't believe she's that good of an actress so I have no clue what if anything is happening, but my view says nothing is happening.

So I got a Sunday paper and marked up the classified's. Then I updated my resume. Then I sent the new resume out. But I'm not sure I really want another job where you submit a resume. Maybe I just want to wear the blue vest and say, "Thank you for shopping at you-know-where."

So How's This Work?

I have no idea how this spill your guts to HR thing works. I know HR said that it would take some time to address the issues raised. I spent Monday with a rictus of a smile on my face, barely communication with my co-workers. Who knows about my meltdown? Does management now consider me a liability? A loose cannon? Disgruntled? Expendable?

I've never had a situation that I ended up taking to HR. If it wasn't something I could work out with my co-workers myself, I just made it a learning experience and moved on. What's different now? Why do I give a rat's ass what happens to this company? Why don't I just quit? It's just a job and I can get a job anywhere. Do I care so much because until recently it was the most fun I've ever had working?

I have no illusion that I'm irreplaceable. No one is. I will say that I'll be hard to replace. When I segued from my career in film to being a stay at home mom, I definitely got great satisfaction out of the fact that they had to hire three people to replace me. One to handle the database administration, one to handle the network administration, and one to do everything else I did. But it was also sort of sad to think that I worked that hard. I missed out on a lot of family time by doing that and working so much turned me into a lunatic alcoholic. But I can feel myself turning into the lunatic again and I sure don't want to go back to drinking so I guess I have to trust that whatever is going to happen will happen and it's in God's hands now.

Meltdown

So Friday afternoon I had a meltdown in the HR Director's office. After spending my morning fixing a machine that was deployed to do a specific job without the critical piece of hardware needed to do that specific job and discovering that a co-worker was using out-dated procedures to complete tasks, I'd reached the breaking point. I even took a nice extra-long lunch to try and adjust my attitude, but there was no turning back the clock. That camel's back done broke.

And I didn't even go to HR to discuss it right then and there. I just wanted to make sure that HR could find time in their schedule for me the following Monday, once I'd had time to calm down, reflect, organize my concerns and even possibly offer some solutions rather than just blathering on about all the things that are wrong with my department. Well that was not to be. The Director took one look at my face, closed the door and told me that I looked like I needed to talk, let's do it now.

I flitted over all the issues in my usual rambling, incoherent, couldn't ad-lib if my life depended on it fashion. I know I got my points across and I managed to do it without mascara running down my face like an over-heated Elvira on crack. But I didn't get to offer solutions like I wanted. I've lots of ideas to get the department back on track but since I've spent the last six months complaining about things that never got changed I figured that maybe the problem in the department is me, not my supervisor, not my co-workers. All those wonderful ideas are covered with dust in the back of my head.

So I took HR's advice to have a relaxing weekend and try not to think about it. Some of the issues I raised they're aware of , others they were not. I really do like the people I work with, and I'm not looking to get anyone in trouble but really, if they don't want to do a better job then they need to quit dragging the rest of us down with them. Or at least the company needs to stop punishing the whole department for the actions of a few. It's worse than grade school!

I did spend a little time this weekend putting together a list of suggestions for improvements. Perhaps I'll even get to share them with the company...if my supervisor doesn't fire me for being a rat-fink.