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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wMonday, December 30, 2002 |
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I'm an accord! haha, Zubu the car will be so proud.
You are an Accord EX-V6. You're not quite plebian, but you're a comfortable and conservative sort of person who keeps a balanced view and level head during a conflict. You can be rather demanding at times, but it's all in a pursuit to keep things mellow.
which honda are you? | visit high mileage
posted by
nea at 8:45 PM
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We put away the Christmas presents away in time for my birthday ones to get strewn everywhere. woo-hoo! I opened presents from Dave this morning, then went to work. I've never had to work/be at school on my birthday, so it was a little strange. But I had a nice busy day, and have plenty to work on tomorrow, so things are good on the work front. At my office is row of file cabinets with an empty cubicle at the end. Some days are worse than others, but every day there is a food trail along the cabinets to the cubicle. It's actually pretty funny, but nice when you want a piece of candy or a snack.
Tonight Dave cooked a dinner that I figured out last week: fried calamari, lobster bisque, pasta peperonata with goat chese, and creme brulee for dessert. Yum! I like when I get have Dave cook whatever I want.
posted by
nea at 7:33 PM
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wThursday, December 26, 2002 |
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So we're back from my mom's and two days of Christmas craziness. Dave made it through the night, but then spent all day having a mild asthma attack. Poor Dave. Next time we bring his inhaler.
Christmas eve we spent with my mom, sister, stepfather, and some of my cousins on my mom's side. It was a nice little group. My mom decided to go swedish with the dinner, which was really good. We haven't had a full on swedish celebration in quite some time. Dave had fun guessing names of the food. "Oh, the hurgen yurgen vorga limpa bread." We opened a few presents that night. Dave and I got this awesome chinese-style big navy blue vase from my cousin Bret and his family. It's really pretty. Now we just have to find somewhere to place it.
After they left I realized that Dave didn't have a stocking and needed one. So, I took off my sock (hey, it wasn't that dirty!) and put a bow on it, a piece of paper that said "Dave," and a ribbon to tie it to the doors where we keep our stocking. I thought it was pretty funny, with Camille and I having these nice big holiday stockings and Dave having a decorated sock. But my mom found a few things to put in it so that Dave too had a stocking to open in the morning.
Christmas morning we opened a shitload of presents. Dave and I got a vacuum (we really needed a new one), a couple games, some DVDs, clothes, a quilt rack, and lots and lots of other stuff. I got one birthday present a bit early on accident, as Dave's mom, Linda, order a jasmine plant for me to come after Christmas but it showed up the 23rd instead. It is a really pretty plant, in a pretty basket that was only mildly chewed on by my mom's cats. About noon, we caravaned over to my "aunt" Mary's. Mary is my stepfather's brother's sister-in-law. Yep, my aunt. It was the first time I'd ever been to her home, even though I've known her all my life and she lives down the block from my cousins. Life is odd like that. For dinner we were part of the newlywed table, along with my cousin Meghan and her husband Aaron. It was a nice easy day. Hung out, ate a lot, and just talked to people.
It sucks to work the day after Christmas. I'm glad I like my job.
posted by
nea at 8:32 PM
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wMonday, December 23, 2002 |
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Woo-hoo, cheesecake! Dave's sister sent us a cheesecake for Christmas, and it is all our to devour. muah hahahahahhaa
Tomorrow I get a half-day at work, and then am headed to my mom's for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I think we're ready. We have presents wrapped, food baked, beer bought (what you ask the newlyweds to bring when you have no clue that the husband is a great cook), and clothes all packed up. I'm excited.
We had a potluck at work today for this woman who was laid off. I felt kinda bad being newly hired, when her is this woman leaving. But I got to meet a lot of people and show off Dave's cooking skills. People at my job are really really nice. You can tell that they are friends as well as coworkers. Pat, the woman we had the potluck for, also has a daughter working in the office. Halfway through the potluck Pat's son-in-law and grandchildren showed up, and everyone recognized them. I was really impressed to feel the sense of community going on. Also, two people who had met me made an effort to sit next to me so that I wouldn't feel left out, and people were constantly introducing themselves or trying to make me feel at home. As the manager of our department put it, "It's like being the new kid at camp," but I really feel included. Yay new job!
posted by
nea at 10:21 PM
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wSunday, December 22, 2002 |
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I hate that feeling you get on Sunday afternoon when you realize that the numbers of hours left in the day are fewer than the number of hours it will take to get everything you need to get done, done. Even though we spent a good part of yesterday taking care of crap, Dave and I still have a bunch of stuff to do. Sometimes it seems like you can never get fully caught up with life, just less behind.
I'm also sick of wrapping presents. I have been doing the wrapping of all the presents for Dave, my families, and our friends. The whole thing just seems so tedious. At least I'm two presents from being done, and then all we need to do is give them to people!
posted by
nea at 1:30 PM
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wSaturday, December 21, 2002 |
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We have been very very productive today. Took a ton of crap out of the house, finished shopping, started cleaning, etc. I think this makes up for the week, where Dave and I both came home from work kinda tired and just hung out until bedtime. It feels good to have a clean place, though. I was wondering what the dining table looked like under all the crap.
It's starting to feel a bit like Christmas. All of our holiday stuff is out and there's a bunch of gifts under the tree. It doesn't yet feel like Christmas is Wednesday though. Not sure why. Maybe because we did so much holiday stuff during Thanksgiving week, which was almost a month ago and feels far away. Maybe because the damn port closures delayed all the holiday decorations here, so they went up really late in all the malls and such. I don't know. I'm looking forward to the next week. Only time of year I get presents, so YAY!
posted by
nea at 5:19 PM
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wFriday, December 20, 2002 |
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Yesterday I walked to work. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh
Then I walked home to lunch. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh
I like my new job. A lot of what I've been doing is just sorting through paperwork and files, trying to get things in better order. The company only started a collections department two years ago. The department would be named Phil. Yep, my boss. Hiring someone was a smart move, as with two of us plus a new computer system we should be able to really get on top of things. Phil is a good boss. He's making sure that I have plenty of stuff to work on every day, while at the same time teaching me about the collections process and the system they have going. At the end of the day, I go home knowing I have more to do when I go back in the morning. This is a good thing.
Today was the company's holiday party. Yep, I got to go to two this year. This one was much better than the one last week. Mardi gras theme, they closed the office for half the day, and just had this big old party. Live band, dancing, lots of tasty creole food, and casino tables spread among the three floors. I did really well at blackjack, so I had a lot of chips to turn in for drawing tickets. Didn't win anything though. Not that this really matters, because I came home with a lot of stuff: mask, beads, choclate, calendar/pic frame thing, flowers, english muffins . . . good haul for the day. I've been warned that a lot of food runs through the office, which I think is good because it means more free lunches for me.
We're only one gift short of finishing holiday shopping. Not bad for it being five days from Christmas. haha
posted by
nea at 7:43 PM
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wMonday, December 16, 2002 |
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I spent my last day really sick. In fact, I spent most of the weekend being a sick lump. Missing going home to see my family, missed a funeral for our old neighbor, missed Dave's company's holiday party. Today I am much better though, which is good, because it was my FIRST DAY!!!!! I am so happy to have a new job.
It of course poured today, which reminded me how thankful I am to have a new, four-block commute. So nice to just not worry about driving anymore. I spent most of the day either reading or filling out paperwork. I read a lot. Like 400 or 500 pages of just random stuff. Brought home a pile of codes and insurance packets and all that kind of HR goodness. But I had a good first day. Everyone seems really nice. I like my boss, which is good.
I like my cubicle a lot. It's kinda out of the way, and the walls are pretty high. On theright wall of my cubicle is a big window, which is downright awesome. It is so much nicer when you can see the outside world and know what's going on with the weather, instead of being locked in an office environment with no clue. I'm totally going to bring in plants so they can sit in the sun and be happy. My cubicle is about a third larger than my last one, but has about the same storage space currently in it. Right behind me is my boss, in the twin to my cubicle. Really, other than the door, it's like having our own little office. I like it. Things seem a bit quieter than in my last workspace. The whole office is all decorated for the holidays too, which I really like. I need to start bringing in stuff to personalize the big white space that is my desk, but in a few months I think it will feel pretty good. Yay new job!
posted by
nea at 8:31 PM
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wThursday, December 12, 2002 |
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Two days to go!
Today I am officially sick. Blowing nose and having gobs of snot come out, voice sounds like crap sick. Dammit. This is not how I wanted to leave the company. This might also fuck up my Santa Lucia Day plans.
Random thoughts from yesterday that I didn't have a chance to write about:
Why I like Dave
Yesterday morning I asked Dave if there was anything in the fridge to make a lunch with. He looked and said "no." Then he went to his wallet, got out a twenty, and put it in my wallet so that I would have lunch money. Dave is good like that.
If you are going to hold open an elevator door, please do so until the person is physically coming into the elevator. Not when they are two feet away, giving the elevator enough time to start closing, hitting a person directly on their injured hand. Ow! Just as the sprain seemed to be getting better, too.
Waiting until the last minute to find a replacement for one of the functions I do is dumb, but expected. Not allowing that person to get trained because things aren't official is even dumber. Deciding the day before I leave that yes, I should train that person anyway, is dumbest of all. Especially when I can't talk. So I have to pass of the training to the one other person in the department that knows how to do the function. I feel kinda bad for loading it on to her but, on the other hand, the company had two weeks to get their act together and I didn't mean to get sick. Dumb dumb company. Every day at least one thing happens to remind me why I am leaving.
posted by
nea at 4:20 PM
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wWednesday, December 11, 2002 |
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Three days to go!
I'm sick. Not badly sick, but nasty sore throat, knowing it's going to get worse sick. I just hope I get through it during the weekend, so that I don't show up sick for my first day of work. That would suck. So for now I'm just taking it easy, trying not to push myself too hard and getting lots of sleep. Given my current work load, this shouldn't be too hard.
Last night's Christmas Party was pretty good. It was a murder mystery theme, given by this acting troop that also sang, did imitations, and tried to just generally entertain. Not the best of acting, or staying in character, but I have a feeling we got our money's worth. I had fun. The food was pretty tasty: spinach salad with strawberry vinagrette and avacado, pasta primavera with a bunch of vegtables and a tasty arrabiata sauce, and white chocolate cake with a chocolate dipped strawberry on the side. Better than banquet chicken, that's for sure. I had three drink coupons (yes, my company is cheap like that) but I only used one since I wasn't in a real drinking mood. We were assigned seating, but I get along well with the person who did the seating charts, so I sat with a bunch of people that I like. Good deal. I won a mini-boom box in our raffle. Everyone was like "Hey, a parting gift." This cracked me up. All in all, a good evening. A lot better than our bowling and pizza party last year. Yay!
The other day Dave and I realized that we don't know when the new company's holiday party is. We thought it would be really funny if it turned out to be next week and I went. Two parties in one season would be kinda cool. And free food is always good.
Off to continuing my last round of scan training. Woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 8:59 AM
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wTuesday, December 10, 2002 |
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Four days to go! And today we get off early to go to our holiday party, woo-hoo!
I'm randomly excited right now. There is so much fun stuff going on in the near future. Since I have no work to do (though I may be busy this afternoon) I can think about all the great stuff that's happening. Yay holidays! Yay Hannukah and Santa Lucia Day and Christmas and Happy Birthday to me!
posted by
nea at 10:15 AM
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wMonday, December 09, 2002 |
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Five days left here at work. Still nothing to do, though I am doing some training this afternoon.
Dave is sick. The lay like a lump, think you are okay and wear yourself out, then lay like a lump sick. Not my favorite kind, but at least easy to deal with. I have also caught the cold, but so far just feel kinda achy and my face feels funny. I hope I don't get full-on sick though. I don't need to start a new job that way.
Yesterday I cleaned our bathroom. I know, how exciting. Dave and I are gross though, we hadn't given the floor a good cleaning since May. Ew. It looks like a different bathroom now. One people might feel clean in. haha Other than that, it was a pretty low key day. Went to the gym and the market. Watched a lot of TV. Finally saw Driving Miss Daisy, which was good but not as amazing as I was expecting. I'm too much of a movie critic, I guess.
posted by
nea at 11:59 AM
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wSaturday, December 07, 2002 |
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posted by
nea at 7:07 PM
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wFriday, December 06, 2002 |
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Today my office put up their tree. Like last year, I figured "Hey, what else do I have to do?", got my egg nog, and went to start putting on lights and ornaments. They picked up a whole bunch of stuff since last year, so the tree looks pretty good. It has this gold, red, and white theme going. Nice. I'm not used to theme trees though--to me a tree is a collection of stuff, brought together over years and generations, and put on the tree wherever it looks best. None of this "Oh, I don't like that ornament. Leave it off." silliness. Whatever though. I got to spend an hour and a half tree trimming during work. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 4:42 PM
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Countdown to blowing this place: one week!
I finally started cleaning our place last night because it was driving me nuts. I have problems focusing and staying nice when I'm in a totally chaotic place. I realized that I was starting to get angry for no reason, and thought cleaning things up might help. It did. I feel calmer today. Most of the house is still pretty messy, but the kitchen, living room, and bedroom show marked improvement. Tomorrow, I clean the bathroom while Dave gets the brine shrimp/krill smell out of our fridge! woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:45 AM
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wThursday, December 05, 2002 |
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Today I had a last lunch with HT (sneef) at El Cholo. Yum! On the way back, though, I got to watch a creative use of stop signals. The man in front of me got out at a red light, stood up, adjusted his belt, and then decided to tuck in his shirt. The light turns green, he gets back in his car. Next light, he stops and gets out again. Adjusts his shirt, gets back in his car, and we go.
Question of the day: When the typewriter was sitting in the first of three empty rows of cubicles, and you fill the first row with people, where is the logical place to put the typewriter?
a. The second row
b. Downstairs in the storage room
c. I have no clue. Why don't I annoy people who sit near where the typewriter was instead of looking around a bit?
Correct answer: a
Actual answer: c duh
posted by
nea at 2:58 PM
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What happens when you give Dave a bottle of wine after a hard day and he admits to not being able to type:
Jrafgirl: how about elephant?
Das Ubergeek: lephants?
Jrafgirl: nope.
Das Ubergeek: elehpant
Jrafgirl: no
Das Ubergeek: that's night nrit eithre
Jrafgirl: ?
Das Ubergeek: that's niht right eithre
Das Ubergeek: NOT RIGHT EITHE RGODDQAMMIt
Jrafgirl: dear, i think you are too drunk to be online.
Jrafgirl: it's time for the gym
Das Ubergeek: you have to fmoadmit that i' entrebriating
posted by
nea at 7:57 PM
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Thanksgiving Dinner Out
Ok, last update. I know this is taking forever. That's what I get for not being on here for a week.
So Dave's mom decided that we were going to have dinner out. Dave offered to cook for the five of us, but instead we went to the Lobster Shanty. It was a combo Thanksgiving dinner and 90th birthday party for Dave's nana. Yes we had turkey. Actually our dinner was quite good. They make a really good lobster bisque. Mmmmmmmmmm, lobster bisque (Homer Simpson drool). Also a pretty tasty stuffing with apricots, and all sorts of other good Thanksgiving stuff. I was happily full. As a surprise, Dave's mom flew in his sister AJ. It was great to have her walk through their grandmother's door. Though we realized that we probably shouldn't give a 90 year-old woman too many surprises. She's totally there mentally, but starting to get frail physically.
Done with talking about Thanksgiving. Will post more on recent life later.
posted by
nea at 9:20 AM
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NYC
NYC is back to its old self again. Harsh, loud, and more or less uncaring of others. It was very very different from last year, when everyone was post 9/11 happy nice nice. Not anymore. Maybe this is because there is no longer a large column of smoke reminding everyone of the tragedy. Maybe people realized they needed to move on and get back to a normal life. Either way, I kinda miss the nice New York. But this is good too. It's nice to have a change of attitude every now and then.
We spent our day mostly roaming around Dave and Jaime (Dave's best friend)'s favorite places. Lombardi's Pizza, the Strand (an ENORMOUS bookstore that can only be described by the word cavernous), and Footlights (your place for any soundtrack you ever needed). We then decided to wander over towards Central Park and see the Macy's balloons being blown up. We got there a bit early for most of it, but early enough that we got to see a whole bunch of balloons. Little Bill, McDonald, Jeeves . . . very random group of characters. I still haven't been in Central Park but we were across the street from it. I guess I will in June when Greg and Jen get married in the Central Park Zoo.
posted by
nea at 9:15 AM
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wMonday, December 02, 2002 |
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Being in NJ
It was really nice to be away from everything. Every few month I have an urge to get far, far away from LA and just relax. We did go up north last month, but that was not far enough. I was happy to be away from work and internet and cleaning the apartment and everything. Just us, Dave's mom, and the cats. Richie, one of the cats, slept with us just about every night. I kinda miss the third body (usually roaring purring) in the bed. On the other hand, being headbutted awake by a purring cat is not always the best way to start the morning.
The weather was cold, but it felt good. You just don't get a good, crisp cold here. It snowed Tuesday night, just enough that everything was white when we woke up. Yay snow!
We ate like crap, but I guess that is part of being on vacation.
posted by
nea at 1:55 PM
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Providence, RI and regions north
Two of Dave's friends moved from Vancouver to Philadelphia a few months ago. We were going to visit them there, but they were in RI on a project. So we figured a three and a half hour drive was not the end of the world and decided to go visit Monday. Getting there was pretty easy. We had toll money, lots of scenery to check out, and little traffic. We made it in just over three hours. At this point, we were both sick of the car and really hungry. When really hungry people show up at your door, you say "Oh, I was thinking we could go here" then give correct directions and head out. Nope. Natalie didn't really know how to navigate around or where anything was. Not a great start to the day. It was freezing out, too, which didn't help things. After we finally found food things were much better though.
We walked around part of the original part of Providence. It was neat to see all these founder's homes from the 1700s and early 1800s. We found the judge's home. All of them had these great views over a hill. You could tell that it was totally "I am going to build my house riiiiiiiiiiiiight here!"
We found an old cemetary and decided to check it out. A little morbid, I know, but it was fascinating. We found the graves that matched the names of the people whose homes we had just seen. There were graves that were over 300 years old. Not something you really see around here.
After doing Providence, Dave wanted to drive to Bedford, Massachusettes. No, I can't spell. Of course, we probably should have checked a map before heading off. We went totally the wrong way, and once we realized this we took a small highway down through to try and get back on track. Poor and rural Massachusettes was mostly old, badly tilting wooden homes with random crap out front. Not nearly as many mobile homes. Dave pointed out that it's too cold to have mobile homes there, but I think they would have been better than some of the sad shacks that we saw. We got to Fall River and Dave was kinda done driving. Nat and Dave kept wondering why the town sounded so familiar, until they realized it was the home of Lizzie Borden, a woman who killed her family with an axe but was never convicted. We found the museum but it was closed for the season. Bummer. Headed back to Providence for dinner, then came the horrid drive home.
Driving in Connecticut sucks. Hardcore. The speed limit went from 55 to 45 and there were cops everywhere. As in we saw close to 80 while we were driving through. Then, to make things worse, they closed off three lanes for construction. Normally, this would suck but we would deal. No, it took us forty minutes to make two exits. Two. That's it. Neither of us could deal with the traffic any longer, so we consulted the map and took a different route, cutting through Westport. Yep, the home of Martha Stewart. Dave was not amused.
We got home in five and a quarter hours, making our driving total for the day eight and a half hours. Ugh. But it was fun to see new places and I'm glad we did it. I just don't ever want to drive through Connecticut again.
posted by
nea at 9:52 AM
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I did it. I accepted the offer for my new job, and resigned from the current one. I will be starting my new position on December 16th. Ten more days of nasty commutes.
posted by
nea at 9:40 AM
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wSunday, December 01, 2002 |
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Start of the holiday updates:
The Flights
Our flight going to JFK was pretty easy and smooth. Check in at Long Beach is always really easy, though the airport has expanded quite a bit since we were there last year. They added a bunch of gates, for a total of nine, and put in valet parking. Neither of us was selected for random searching this time and, oddly enough, they didn't ask the typical "Are you carrying anything someone asked you to carry?" "Did you pack your own bags?" and "Have your bags been with you the whole time since you packed them?" questions. We didn't get asked on the way back, either.
Sitting in front of us on the flight was a mom with her three children, who were about eight, five, and two and a half. They were a little loud and kept calling for their mom's attention but, for a five hour flight, they were really pretty good. About an hour before we landed the littlest one started screaming and saying his tummy hurt. Yep, you guessed it. He threw up, though luckily just over himself and the leather seat rather than us or his whole family. The poor kid had never gotten air sick before and the whole thing really scared him. The stewardess and his mom cleaned everything up (yay leather seats where you can wipe stuff off) and stuck a coffee filter into the seat back pocket so things wouldn't smell. Dave stepped in some of it and the stewardess cleaned his shoe. Very nice of her. The kid went to sleep as soon as everything was cleaned and was out for the rest of the flight and landing.
Going back was a bit more bumpy. I got a little green but lived. It was a six and a half hour flight, which is just too long for me. In front of us this time was a lady and her cat. The cat did pretty well, only meowing a bunch as we landed. Poor kitty. I wouldn't want to be in a backpack in a strange place for six and a half hours either.
posted by
nea at 5:12 PM
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wFriday, November 22, 2002 |
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Have to do some major packing and cleaning tonight. Not really looking forward to it.
So Dave calls JetBlue this morning to confirm our flights, only to find out the flight we had booked was cancelled. Argh. They had put us on a 2:30 pm flight, sitting totally apart, where by the time we got our car and drove to Jersey it would have been 1 am. No good. Dave managed to get us sitting together on the 8:25 am flight. We're going down to my mom's tonight in order to get a bit more sleep in the morning. It's going to be a long day.
No internet access while in Jersey, which means no blogging. Happy Thanksgiving!
posted by
nea at 11:41 AM
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wThursday, November 21, 2002 |
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I did some code changes to the site that I'm totally entertained by. I knew maybe two or three people, all here in socal, read my site on any given day. Turns out to be more than that. Cool!
posted by
nea at 7:46 PM
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So yesterday at 3:30 pm I get a call from the HR assistant at the place I interviewed at last week:
"Would you like to come in for a second interview?"
"Yes, I'd love to." (duh. what am I going to say, no?)
"Could you come in at 1:15 tomorrow?"
At this point I was not very happy since my supervisor had gone to out Irvine office for the day, and we'd recently been told at our last group meeting to give a week notice on any appointments. But hell, it's a new job. I ended up bargaining my way into 2:30 today, since Friday was full, I'll be out of town next week, and that was the best I could in the way of moving it earlier or later. So I told a different supervisor, worked late yesterday, went in hella early today with an alteration of clothing (nicer shirt and pantyhose), and will work extra tomorrow.
I realized as I was pulling on pantyhose in the back seat of my car at 1:30 this afternoon that, although I had an interview, I didn't have the least clue who I was meeting with. I decided to ask for the HR person I first met with last week, as she was the most likely to know who I was meeting.
Turned out I was meeting my potential boss' boss' boss. His name is Ted. Another really nice guy. He just wanted to meet me, go over a couple things from my (many) past interview responses, and ask a couple questions of his own. His were mostly based on what my opinions were about different aspects of the job. I think I did well. I also think he liked me.
My prospects for the job look really good. They are down to three candidates for the current job, and the girl who came in before me (I guess she got the 1:15 slot) he admitted to not really caring for. So really it's down to two. And, it turns out, they have another opening in the same department that they'd also like to consider me for. So really I have a job. Yay new job! I will find out next week while in NY. Yay national cell phone plans! If I do get the job, I'll start mid-december. I'm very happy about all of this. My company is going to be very unhappy, but too bad for them.
posted by
nea at 7:45 PM
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wWednesday, November 20, 2002 |
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We get our album and reprints tonight! Woo-hoo, we'll have this fancy thing to show off in Jersey. Yay!
Dave surprised me with a dozen pink roses at work yesterday. It was funny. I was expecting some invoices in the mail, so when they called from the front desk saying I had a delivery, I went up looking for an envelope. I ask Rebeca, "Where's the package?" and she goes "That" and points to this big bouquet. It took me a minute to figure out what she was pointing at. I'm such a dork. Everyone has come by all impressed. Dave won a husband point.
We decided to go to Island's last night. I know, not the most romantic place on earth, but it sounded good to both of us. Yay yaki tacos and Island fries. yum
Spent the morning working on this big accounting spreadsheet that takes a couple thousand pages of data to compile. It's something I actually liked helping on (I last did this in March) and it's something different from what I do everyday. More high-level, see where the company is kind of stuff.
A couple nights ago I was checking through some of my random favorites on my home computer, and I noticed my friend Rachel's blog had reappeared. I was good friends with her in high school. She went to college back east, and for awhile I saw her regularly on AIM and kept up with her journal, but suddenly she never showed up and pulled her site offline. The site I had a link for (I eventually found the more current one, too) went up until about November of 2001. I last spoke to Rach around then, and learned she had come home from DC and left school. She gave me one reason that made sense but seemed very odd for why she came home, but I found the real one last night. Ugly shit. That's really all I need to say. I've been kinda reading through her newer site since then, which goes from December of 2001 to October of 2002. I don't know what happened in the past two months to make her site leave off again.
It's a little wierd, finding your old friends online. Parts of her writing and some of the friends she talks about I recognize immediately. Other parts of it just don't seem like the person I knew. I guess people would say much the same about this site.
posted by
nea at 1:37 PM
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wTuesday, November 19, 2002 |
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Suddenly realized I hadn't written in here in awhile. Don't have a whole lot new going on. I have been able to keep myself busy at work the past couple days, which is nice. It's actually easier here when I have too much to do rather than not enough.
Happy six month anniversary to us! Dave and I are going out for a nice dinner tonight, but that's about it.
Dave most likely gets his TiVo tonight. Last he checked (which is constantly) it was in Van Nuys. I am just so looking forward to all the stereo components being rearranged in a dusty heap and having cords everywhere and Dave trying to figure out how to get a cord over to our kitchen phone jack. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun. woo-hoo.
Four more days until New York! I will be so so happy to have a vacation and be out of the area and have a long time to relax. We're going out to dinner for Thanksgiving, which will be a little wierd, but should be good. I'm looking forward to spending a bit of time on the east coast hanging out. I have this need to get out of so cal every few months.
posted by
nea at 11:40 AM
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wThursday, November 14, 2002 |
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So the interview yesterday went really really well. It was my future boss' (hopefully) fifth interview, but I was the first person he introduced to his boss. We seemed to be on the same wavelength. Hopefully all the other candidates suck. Yeah yeah, suck! Also, this job is walking distance and pays more, so it would be a big improvement even if the actual job doesn't turn out so well.
Meanwhile, work continues to just plain suck. Never got an apology from my supervisor over her reprimanding me for something I did correctly. I think the fact that I have a good job prospect just makes things look worse. Today myself and one other person printed and sorted over 5200 pages. Yuck! So glad that only happens once a month. Dave cheered me up once I came home with warm dinner and jacuzzi and ice cream sundaes. Happy nea.
We are planning to go to Knott's on Saturday, since I have free passes that need to be used by the end of the year. Yay theme park! I miss theme parks, since Dave doesn't like to go very often. But now he gets to experience a new one.
posted by
nea at 10:35 PM
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wMonday, November 11, 2002 |
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I had so little to do today, it was just sad. I even went on AIM, which is something I almost never do during work. I hate feeling like I have to do work, but have no work to do.
So last week, I was reprimanded over something I thought I was doing correctly. I thought that for NY accounts, we could scan them at any time, not just during our assigned group time (morning or afternoon). I was bothered, but assumed my supervisor was correct and mentally changed my policy to scan NY only during our group time in the afternoon. Today, I learned I was correct. I was doing something correctly and got reprimanded for it. How totally uncool is that? A rather pointed e-mail went out today by the person in charge of the process. I'm hoping for an apology tomorrow.
Rather low key weekend. Lot of doing laundry, watching TV, and just generally hanging out. Also continued holiday shopping, as Hannukah is really early this year and we have to get everything done before we leave for Thanksgiving. Dave and I went out for boba last night for the first time in forever. Made me happy.
So I decided that if I stay here through the new year I'm going to start really taking advantage of the free training that is "available" here. Available in that it exists, but there is no way for me to know about half the courses because I have no access to the site. The other half I have access to dates and times, but have to specially request to be able to go. You'd think they'd promote these things, in an effort to have a more knowledgeable and better trained workstaff. But no, that would make sense.
posted by
nea at 5:45 PM
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wFriday, November 08, 2002 |
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Yay rain! Boo driving in the rain!
I have my first new job interview next week. It's walking distance from my house, pays more, and sounds a lot more interesting. Hopefully it will go well. If anyone wants to check out the company it's at www.mpiphp.com.
Today, in the land of finding Linnea some random work to do, I got to be the office supply bitch. I went through this enormous catalog and figured out what we needed for the month, plus some random stocking up for new employees. It was kinda entertaining. I did a little office survey on what kind of rulers people like (12" clear), what size rubber fingers they needed, all sorts of stuff. I also learned all of our department's secret hiding places for office supplies. Sinc I was the one ordering, I picked some stuff that I wanted as well as things I knew we needed. Soon (assuming I stay) I will have a big black marker of my own. I also ordered some computer cleaning wipes, because my keyboard gets yucky but I'm too lazy to bring in a bottle of 409 and some rags. Being the office supply bitch is not exactly a job that will move me forward here, I know, but it was a fun thing to do once.
Tonight, Jenny's b-day dinner!
posted by
nea at 1:12 PM
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wTuesday, November 05, 2002 |
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Must be my obbsession with Anabolic Frolic:
is u raver?
this quiz was created by jezzebella. visit her site here!
posted by
nea at 11:29 AM
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wMonday, November 04, 2002 |
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So frustrated--I get my stuff done ahead of everyone else, have taken on a number of extra responsibilites, and help out a ton with other groups and accounts. So what happens? I get people bitching that all I do is stare at the screen and talk on the phone. Nice. And am I defended by my supervisor? No. She just goes into this speech at every meeting about how people are always watching us so we have to be careful. I'm feeling really stuck.
Been applying for jobs, but nothing good yet. Got one call, but it was as a salesperson for financial services. Yuck!
posted by
nea at 3:42 PM
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wFriday, November 01, 2002 |
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I am 40% Geek
You probably work in computers, or a history deptartment at a college. You never really fit in with the "normal" crowd. But you have friends, and this is a good thing.
Take the Geek Test at fuali.com
On a separate note, I'm going to be working on some politicals next month. Yay work, in any form!
posted by
nea at 1:22 PM
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I just checked our assignments for October. I've been going nuts by have small amounts every month: 4000 spots, 5000 spots (I can handle about 18000 without a problem). This month I have zero. That's right, none. And I'm supposed to be working hard all month so people don't gossip about me.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
posted by
nea at 9:13 AM
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Halloween was really tiring for me. I dressed up as "Prom Queen from Hell" which actually turned out a lot better than expected. I found an old corsage from when I went to a friend's prom, ratted my hair and sprayed it white, and then pulled out a bunch of makeup and made myself look pretty horrid. Dave didn't want to kiss or touch me all day. sneef. But I got of looks and compliments, so that was cool.
A bunch of us hit West Hollywood to see what all that is about. Lots of great costumes, but WAY too many people. I'm debating between my favorites: the man in drag as Anna Nicole Smith acting in full character ("So, I'm walking") with her assistant, or the small asian man dressed as Boo with his large male friend dressed as the monster from Monsters Inc. Lots of entertaining stuff, though I expected more people in costume then there actually were. There were ALOT of onlookers to the whole thing. I felt very smushed quite a few times. We also spent almost three hours walking, so my legs are kinda sore. I'm sure they'll be worse tomorrow. Dave had his butt groped a whole bunch, which cracked me up. All in all, a good night. Probably not something I need to do again, but fun.
posted by
nea at 8:41 AM
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wWednesday, October 30, 2002 |
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Slowly getting used to the glasses. I managed to live with using them until 4:30 yesterday, which I thought was pretty good.
I don't know why, but Dave and I have both been really tired recently. The sleep alot kind of tired. Last night we were both happy to go to sleep just after 9 pm. Felt good. Now I'm all happy and refreshed. We should probably go to bed early tonight (not as early) so that I don't feel like crap getting up early to do my hair tomorrow.
posted by
nea at 9:02 AM
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wTuesday, October 29, 2002 |
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Yay, it's almost Halloween. It looks like Dave and I are going to go to West Hollywood with some people and join in the gay freakishness that is Halloween. I've started getting my costume together, but really need to do an Aahs run to get some accessories (hair spray paint, white face makeup, maybe some gloves). Hopefully this year my camera won't die and I'll get some pictures of my getup. Still working on Dave, who doesn't like Halloween but accepts that if he's going out he needs a costume. I want him to be "Prom Queen from Hell" but haven't yet convinced him. heh heh
posted by
nea at 1:18 PM
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I just found a pretty cool site. More work-appropriate entertainment:
http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?jrafgirl
Hope y'all like!
Yay, it's almost Halloween. It looks like Dave and I are going to go to West Hollywood with some people and join in the gay freakishness that is Halloween. I've started getting my costume together, but really need to do an Aahs run to get some accessories (hair spray paint, white face makeup, maybe some gloves). Hopefully this year my camera won't die and I'll get some pictures of my getup. Still working on Dave, who doesn't like Halloween but accepts that if he's going out he needs a costume. I want him to be "Prom Queen from Hell" but haven't yet convinced him. heh heh
posted by
nea at 1:15 PM
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wMonday, October 28, 2002 |
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My first day of work wearing glasses. I feel so totally dorky. And kinda dizzy, in the switching between glasses for computer and no glasses for the rest of the world. Hopefully I'll adjust soon.
Weekend was not so exciting. Cleaned, watched a lot of TV (and I don't even really like watching TV), and visited with both sets of parents. Today is also looking to be very unexciting. I have a little work to do, but not much. And most of it is just getting ahead, which means I'll be bored later. The rest of the week I don't have anything either. Poor nea.
posted by
nea at 8:55 AM
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wThursday, October 24, 2002 |
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OK, so I took the Multiple Learning Inventory quiz, which took forever. Here are my results:
Linguistic 37
Mathematics 45
Visual/Spatial 29
Body/Kinesthetic 34
Naturalistic 33
Music 26
Interpersonal 38
Intrapersonal 33
So I'm good at math and can't play a tune by ear. We knew this already.
posted by
nea at 11:12 AM
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wWednesday, October 23, 2002 |
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What it is like to live in the ghetto.
Our street is a little semi-circle that hits Ventura Blvd twice, and backs on to the LA river. On one end is that shopping place of the rich, 7-11. Yesterday three idiots decided to do an armed robbery at said 7-11, and shot someone inside. This happened around 5-5:30, while I was still at work making up time. Fine, these things happen, and the 7-11 was open in a few hours. But then two of the guys decided it would be a good idea to run down our street. And hide. Possibly in our building. The area was locked down. Dave couldn't get out and I couldn't get in. Dave freaked, as I would too if there were two armed men and who knows how many dogs and policemen roaming the building, while I was totally annoyed. I could not go home. Around 7:30, we decided it might make sense for Dave to pack an overnight bag for the two of us and try to get out during a lull. At about 8:30 he finally got out, after being questioned by a cop. I, who had been hanging out in the Burbank mall with absolutely no urge to be there and nothing to do, came and rescued Dave. When he left, it looked like they were opening the street and letting people in. This turned out to be temporary.
We came back at 10:30 to a continuance of martial law. No one in, no one out. By now, both us were frustrated and tired. It was too late to really call people to crash at their homes. We had no pajamas. I didn't really want to get a hotel room. We decided to wait until 11, then go over to the Beverly Garland's Holiday Inn and plead our way into a cheap room. Luckily, they opened up our half of the street, moving the search to the construction site two buildings down. I have never been so happy to get back in to my apartment.
Today: tired and hoping they don't come back.
posted by
nea at 10:01 AM
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wTuesday, October 22, 2002 |
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So I went and got my eyes checked yesterday. The headaches have gotten better since I scooted my monitor back as far as I could, but they haven't gone away. I figured eyes were the most likely source. After looking at random things and playing "put your hand over your left eye," it turns out I do need reading glasses. Not strong ones, but still, I'm getting old and need glasses! argh! OK, to be honest, it was one of those things that I was expecting and I don't think it's a big deal. The optometrist doesn't think it will fix my headaches, though, but I'm hoping. Even a small change would make things a lot better.
Today my department is having a little potluck. Although I like doing potlucks, I don't love doing them with my coworkers. They are not the best people about proper food storage. No, you cannot keep a beef stew under your desk all morning and then serve it at lunch time. yum, bacteria! Also, a couple of them don't think about what they are saying. Last time I (okay, Dave) baked a cherry custard. One person totally said, loudly, "Ew, that looks really gross. I'm not eating that." Hello, if you don't like it, fine. But maybe other people want to eat it? So rude.
posted by
nea at 10:00 AM
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wMonday, October 21, 2002 |
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I am so so so glad that Daylight Savings is next weekend. I really hate getting up in the dark. I never feel like I've gotten enough sleep, and half the time I think I've been woken up by a fire alarm or something rather that my alarm announcing that it's 6:45 am.
Had a pretty good weekend. Went to the Century Club with a bunch of people Saturday night. I liked how the place was set up--four or five different rooms, lots of bars everywhere, and not insanely crowded. I was drained by midnight, though, so Dave and I ended up taking off early. Damn food poisoning. My stomach still isn't right, but is quite a bit better.
Eye exam today. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 8:48 AM
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wFriday, October 18, 2002 |
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Spent yesterday dealing with what I think was food poisoning. Tuesday they turned off our building's water. When they turned it back on, Dave and I didn't think about running the taps for awhile just to make sure that everything was clear. Instead, Linnea fills up a liter bottle from the kitchen tap Wednesday night and goes to the gym. I felt kinda funky coming back, but just figured it was the workout. By 4 am Thursday I was not doing good at all. I had to miss work cuz I was totally a mess. Sick, achy, and really frustrated and feeling so bad. I feel more or less okay now though, which is good. I don't think I could have dealt with another day of that.
Tonight we go clubbing! Hopefully I'll be okay and not have to wimp out super early. We will see.
posted by
nea at 9:00 AM
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wMonday, October 14, 2002 |
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nea is tired.
Every now and then our apartment building fire alarm goes off. It always turns out to be a false alarm, but we still get up and find our wallets and shoes just in case. It's a loud, obnoxious thing, complete with strobe light. Today it decided to go off at 6:15 in the morning. This sucked on its own, but we dealt and grumblingly went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, it beeps once then goes off. Then five minutes after that. Then three minutes after. This continued the rest of the morning. Not a good way to start the week.
posted by
nea at 9:18 AM
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wSaturday, October 12, 2002 |
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I'm such a dork. Today on the way to lunch at wokxp.com (not so good but oh well) I totally tripped and fell on my hands and knees. So I'm on the ground somwhere between shocked and laughing at myself, while Dave is checking my leg to see if it's broken. Nope, just a scrape on my left palm that kinda hurts, and both knees are all sore. I think my left knee is going to end up with a really ugly bruise. There are times when I am such a clutz.
Having a nice quiet day. Got lots of sleep, watched a bit of the travel channel (World's Best Bathrooms. actually very entertaining), and almost finished cleaning the bedroom. It was disgustingly dusty, but is all nice and shiny now. I even used a lint brush to clean the lamp shades. woo-hoo!
Saw We Were Soldiers last night with Diane, Joey, and HT. It was a good movie but very very gory. Good but gross special effects. Reminds me of my random Vietnam War fact: the average soldier in Vietnam lived fifteen minutes. Yep that's it. And we want to go to war with Iraq. Great.
posted by
nea at 9:09 PM
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wFriday, October 11, 2002 |
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Sometimes I hate living in the valley.
I admit, the commute sucks, but that I can usually deal with. It's not the heat, the vibe, or our apartment (which I really like, actually). It's having no friends here.
I have no friends in the valley. No one to go to dinner with, go to the mall with, or just meet somewhere to hang out. No one. It's just me and Dave and our apartment. I hate that. Today, Dave and I wanted to get together with people for dinner. Dave's brakes need work, so I have to pick him up to go anywhere. I was hoping people would come to the valley, but no. No one wants to come to the valley. It's just, like, sorry you can't make it to West LA. See you some other time. I realize that it makes no sense for people instead of meeting 10 minutes from home/work, to meet 45 minutes away. I don't blame my friends for never wanting to come to our home or to go anywhere near us. I just really hate feeling so isolated from everyone.
posted by
nea at 2:16 PM
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I am so delighted that it is Friday. I really need to get sleep, and can totally sleep for twelve hours tonight if I so desire. Dave and I have no weekend plans (call us) except some shopping and cleaning (call us) which is also kinda nice. Things seem so hectic most of the time.
Thought of the day:
If the titles of your books are The Three Musketeers, Ten Years Later, and Twenty Years After, what order do you put the books in? It turns out the 20 is after the original, and the 10 is 10 years after the 20. Argh. And I don't like reading books out of order!
posted by
nea at 9:24 AM
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I actually worked yesterday afternoon. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:20 AM
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wThursday, October 10, 2002 |
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Been spending most of this week at work doing "stuff." Helping someone on this, editing that, attending random meetings. I've been helpful, but not especially productive where my own stuff is concerned. That's okay though, I'm still ahead even while not working. woo-hoo!
Dave and I both got food poisoning from some old homemade green salsa. oops. Messed up our gym time though, as we were only there for about half an hour before we needed to go home. bleh
I am so looking forward to the weekend. I really need some sleep.
posted by
nea at 9:13 AM
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wTuesday, October 08, 2002 |
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Last night Dave and I went to Costco. I love going to Costco. There is always something that you decided you need, and buy, and then realize how silly it is when you get home. Why do we need 1000 feet of plastic wrap?
I haven't wanted to work this week. This is not so good, as I do actually have work. oops.
posted by
nea at 10:29 AM
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wMonday, October 07, 2002 |
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We got a new biller today. His name is Rommy. Did anyone in the department know he was coming in today? No! And guess whose responsibility he is? Yep, mine. Back to training.
posted by
nea at 1:15 PM
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So, the weekend. We went up to Oakland to visit Mike and Lorrie, who are friends of Dave's that he met online. My car got to go on its first road trip, which was cool. Dave and I both got to take the car over 100 mph, and saw how she handled going up the grapevine and all that. It was real easy driving both ways, and we had enough CDs in the car (yay built-in CD player) to have good tunes both ways.
The weekend was, um, interesting. It's kinda hard for me to have a weekend where plans keep changing and where it's extremely hard to have a conversation with your hosts. I realized that I had nothing in common with these people, and couldn't even understand the conversations going on around me. I don't know much about witchcraft or pagan rituals or their friends or hardcore geeky stuff, so it was hard. I felt pretty lonely and frustrated most of the weekend. Sunday was cool though, Mike took us to his sword practice. I'd never fought with swords before (OK, so we were practicing with these bamboo things with hilts) and it was totally fun. I learned the proper stance and a number of the beginning positions. I picked it up pretty quickly, since you hold the thing more or less the same as a field hockey stick. Also, it's all about perpendiculars, so me and my math tutoring got into the whole thing. I got all combat mode. hee hee. Dave had fun too, but messed up his knee by standing funny. This might be the hobby Ted has been looking for me to get.
Tonight, the car wash!
posted by
nea at 1:13 PM
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QOTN:
"You taste bad."
"Fuck you, don't eat me then."
posted by
nea at 10:29 AM
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wSunday, October 06, 2002 |
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OK, I really should be writing all sorts of stuff about my weekend up in Oakland, but instead I am posting my answer to one of the funniest quizzes I have taken in forever. If you haven't seen "Rejected" (that wierd cartoon Dave and I play for everyone on his computer, yeah, that one) this won't make any sense. Otherwise . . .
Which Rejected Character Are You?
posted by
nea at 8:22 PM
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Some free tickets changed my plans for last night. Instead of going to APhiO, I headed over to Radio Fest at the LA Equestrian Center in Burbank. Basically, most of the area stations sponser booths, with a game or food or drink or whatever, in an effort to promote their station. Most of the big media people (like me! haha) are invited, so it also turns into a big networking party. Dave and I went and had a pretty good time. We ate too much, but that's okay. It was free. We also got a bunch of random stuff, like the mini-pumpkins sitting on top of my monitor, or a plastic cereal bowl from KPWR-FM. It was cool.
We didn't get home until almost ten though. Yes, I know that's not so late. But when you're getting over a cold, being out of the house for fourteen and a half hours straight is not so good. Today I'm tired. Not really sick anymore, other than dumping random odds and ends of mucus out of my system (yum), but still not totally healthy either. So today I decided to take it easy. I worked for a couple hours, but have hung out in my cubicle most of the day. Finished the book I was reading online, took a walk, cleaned things up, worked on my French . . . there was work mixed in there too, but all in all a very low key day. I finally brought Dave's French 1 textbook to work, so I've been doing that during lunch and at random times. Maybe some day I'll be able to speak it decently. Dave would be happy.
Tomorrow we are heading up to Oakland for the weekend. Should be fun. I think we're going to take my car on its first real road trip, which should also be cool.
posted by
nea at 3:52 PM
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wWednesday, October 02, 2002 |
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Sick, but better. Still not dead.
We finally dropped off the stuff for our wedding album at the photographer's house. Only took us four months. And you know the only reason we got it together was so that we have an album to take with us when we go back east for Thanksgiving.
Tonight I'm heading over to APhiO's info nite. It'll be nice to be on campus and be back in the rush environment again. I like rush so much better now that I'm just a peripheral part of it. Making a couple thousand copies and showing up at an event or two is so much easier than being up every night calling perspectives, spending all day tabling, and then trying to be nice and friendly at events every evening. I'm happy to not have to worry about getting caught spamming the dorms (see Rich's blog) or having enough nametags or wondering who is going to pick up the pizza. Instead, I get to sit back, relax, and be the nice chapter advisor stopping in for a visit and to make sure everything's okay. yay.
posted by
nea at 10:54 AM
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wTuesday, October 01, 2002 |
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In exactly a year and six months I have gone through 10,000 staples.
sheesh
posted by
nea at 2:36 PM
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Still feel like crap, but I decided to make it work anyway. Not dead.
Not that I have much to do today. I need to call some stations, but don't know how much of that I'll be able to do with my voice all messed up. Every winter my voice goes out. Most of the time I can talk, just not very well. We'll see how today goes, I haven't had to have a full-on conversation yet.
How you know my sister and I are different in the eyes of my mom: I accidently threw a party for Diana Saturday night at my mom's house. We were supposed to have a bonfire in CDM, but it got rained out. My mom and stepfather were out of town for the weekend, but my sister was there. My sister threw a total fit, but that's another story. Anyway, if my sister had thrown a party, with alcohol and boys and about twenty people, my mom would have killed her. Me? No big deal. She didn't mind at all, and thanked us for taking out the trash and leaving a chicken and some beer. It's good when your mom knows most of your friends.
posted by
nea at 8:57 AM
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wSunday, September 29, 2002 |
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So right now I can't breathe. I caught Dave's cold, which I knew was going to happen but am still not too happy about, and Dave decided to deglaze a pan with vinegar. Unfortunately, the pan was too hot and suddenly we had vinegar vapor in the air. It's horrible. It smells awful and I had to leave the apartment for a bit as I couldn't stop coughing. Still feel like hell and can't breathe, argh.
So, the thing Friday with my supervisor. One of our billers resigned to start a new position, near his home, for a much higher salary. This is after bouncing around through four jobs in our office in the past year and a half. He tried really hard to get two weeks to give notice, but could only get one. Since my company has an "at will" policy, or something like that, you don't technically have to give any notice at all. We already knew he was searching for a new job, so his leaving was not a surprise and was something I had planned for. I thought my supervisor had as well.
Instead, I get the lamest ass bullshit out of her. When another biller in our group asked what we were going to do, she replied that she didn't know if we'd do anything since it was such short notice. How much notice does it take to go to lunch or buy a freaking cake from Ralphs? None! Good answer. So then Friday I get an e-mail from her, basically saying she already had lunch plans (with the other supervisors, that she goes out to lunch with almost everyday anyhow) and that it wasn't payday yet and she didn't know what to do. It was a total copout. I could tell that she wanted me to reply, "Oh, it's okay, we don't have to do anything." That would have been really lame, especially given that we had another biller, in a different group, leave this week and we gave her a sending off party. Instead I replied with the fact that I would go and buy a cake from Ralphs on my lunch break and that we would get together in the afternoon. Luckily, she realized that would make her look really bad, and took it upon herself to get a cake and a card. All in all, everything turned out fine. It just really bothered me that she wanted to do nothing for him.
posted by
nea at 7:16 PM
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wFriday, September 27, 2002 |
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Feeling kinda lousy today. Dave's totally sick since his sinuses got all messed up with the fire. I've been feeling off all week, but I'm not sure if that's me getting sick or other random issues. Bleh. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow in order to wish
Happy Birthday to Diana!
This weekend looks a little less crazy than last, which is good. I think Dave and I both need some sleep and hang time. We are finally meeting with our photographer Sunday night (it's only been four months) to give him the stuff for our album as well as a list of reprints/blowups. woo-hoo!
I have a rant I need to do about how my supervisor is handing the leaving of the biller under me, but I will do that at home, not here at work.
posted by
nea at 2:03 PM
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wWednesday, September 25, 2002 |
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Whoever said you can't control the weather never set a forest fire.
The sky is just awesome today. When I got on the road in Studio City, ahead of me the smoke clouds spread out, getting thinner as they reached toward the ocean. Behind me, the clouds merged together in a brown haze that is the Glendora fire. Over the pass, the sky seemed to go from blue to gray and foggy. As I took off my sunglasses, it was a pale brown haze wafting over the westside. The tops of tall buildings disappear into the mist. The color is a little gross, but the effect is beautiful.
Nice way to start the day.
posted by
nea at 8:47 AM
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wMonday, September 23, 2002 |
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"Gosh, why do I have a string cheese in my pocket?"
"Is that a string cheese in your pocket . . . "
". . .or are you just happy to see me."
posted by
nea at 2:34 PM
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Dave and I seem to alternate between crazily packed weekends and relatively empty ones. This one was overflowing with stuff.
Saturday we got up early, packed up our sleeping gear, parked the car at the Metro lot, and headed over to Hollywood. I guess in NY for the past hundred years they have celebrated the Feast of San Genaro, the patron saint of Naples. Theres lots of food and games booths and all that good stuff. Well, this was the first year that LA was to have a similar festival. Dave had a need, so we went. Of course, Dave didn't know exactly where it was (argh) so we started walking around, and noticed a large parade coming down the street. The parade was led by a group of indian dancers in full costume with big peacock feather headdresses. This didn't seem quite like the event we were looking for. But, further down the line, Dave spotted the bust of the saint. Ta-da, a festival! We followed the parade back to the feasting grounds, and got to watch the opening ceremonies. It was pretty cool. We got to see Jimmy Kimmel (of Man Show fame), who was one of the bust bearers. Dave got his sausage and pepper sandwich fix, and I got some tasty gelato. Yay Italian stuff.
We hopped back on the Metro to get back to the car and head straight to Newport. Sunday was Greg's birthday, as well as my dad's, so Greg was having a house party Saturday. It was fun. Very low key, lots of food and drink, just a real nice day. It was nice to just hang out with people, and just spend some time talking. I got to see Greg's new home, which I love (I want a big house in Newport! Yeah, someone needs to buy me on!) and watch a couple movies. We went out for fondue at around 9:30 at night. Yay chocolate! Dave and I want to go there again and do the whole three-course fondue thing. Kinda expensive though, but whatever. We went back to Greg's, where Dave spent most of the time napping while Greg and I got nicely drunk. It's been awhile since I've been drunk. I'm so lame these days--I was gone on two large mudslides. Pathetic pathetic nea. It's kinda nice to be a cheap drunk, though, as I used to be a really expensive one. Dave didn't want to crash at Greg's, so we headed out around 2 and got home a little after 3.
Sunday I spend most of the morning (well, all of the morning) sleeping, and then started cleaning and running around since my dad and co. was expected at 4. We went out to the Hollywood Bowl and had a nice, if slightly long time. Had lots of tasty food in this nice shaded area where we could hear the first band, then headed up to our seats to watch the rest of the show. B.B King is a great performer--mixing up talking with the audience and having fun with his band with playing music. For 77 years old, the man is doing pretty darn well. We left a tad early, since it was way too late for my little sister to be out and about, but still got to see most of the show.
The problem with overfilled weekends is that on Monday you realize how much other stuff you needed to do. We didn't make it to the gym at all. There is an enormous mountain of laundry in our room (though we still have plenty of clothes. Why is this?) and lots of random piles that we really need to get rid of. Also, as Dave and I suck at watering, I think we need to throw out most of our dead brown outdoor plants. We'll find time somewhere to get everything done.
I'm more or less out of stuff to do at work again. Well, at least I had one week of work.
posted by
nea at 11:01 AM
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Last night we get back from the B.B. King Blues Festival at 11 at night (we were expecting to be back by 9) and my dad starts opening his birthday presents. My little sister is sitting completely spaced out on the couch. After opening one box, he sticks his arm through and goes, "There's one more present in here, a magic hand! Oooh, a magic hand! Look Leah, it's a magic hand!" Leah looks up and goes, "That's really stupid."
posted by
nea at 8:53 AM
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wFriday, September 20, 2002 |
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So this week I have been working at work instead of being online and blogging. It was nice to feel productive for a change.
Last night I learned how much fun it is to buy live things. Dave and I went out for Vietnamese food in Van Nuys last night, and decided to stop by the Ranch 99 next door. While there, we realized that we meant to be there to buy crabs this week. So, after getting stuff to cook with the crabs and a few other odds and ends, we headed over to the live tank. Dave grabbed the tongs and a bag, and started poking crabs to find a lively one. I found one that was walking around, pointed it out, and Dave picked it up with the tongs. We got it out and in the bag no problem.
The bag started moving around, which made me giggle, but wasn't scary or anything. While I'm making sure that the crab is settled in the bottom of the bag, I hear Dave yelp. Turns out the next crab he poked quickly reached up and try to grab the tongs. This crab was a fighter. We couldn't get him out of the tank, but this Chinese woman next to us finally did. Now the bag was alive. The guy weighing the crab had to be quick, because the bag was ready to take off. Dave and I were both holding the thing well away from our bodies.
Finally we get to the checkout line. Our bag is moving like crazy, and I'm totally giggling at the whole thing. This little girl in front of us in line got scared and hid behind her dad. The best part was when we set the bag of crabs on the conveyer belt. The bag started moving away. You could tell they wanted to walk back to the tank. It was hysterical. On the ride home, Dave and I kept pinching each other, pretending the crabs had gotten out of the trunk and were attacking us. It's like a really sad B-movie, "They came from the fridge to kill them all . . . Killer Stone Crabs!" When we got home, we learned that one of them had pinched its way through four plastic bags, but luckily didn't get out. The crabs were then left to suffer a slow, cold death in our freezer.
On a totally different note, my company is having a beach party today. Yay no work for four hours! Yay free food and parking! Unfortunately, it is hella foggy here in SaMo right now, but I'm thinking it will burn off. I brought my bathing suit along, but the weather will determine whether I change into it. I don't think many people in my department brought suits, which is good, because I don't want to see most of them in that little clothing. Nine-month pregnant woman in bikini, yum! haha I'm also happy because this party kicks off what is going to be a very fun but very crazy weekend for Dave and I. We have one house to clean, one feast, two workouts, two birthdays to celebrate, and some food to cook. Yay fun weekends!
posted by
nea at 9:38 AM
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wTuesday, September 17, 2002 |
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Ahhh, it's so nice when my internet surfing is a break from work instead of the other way around.
posted by
nea at 3:03 PM
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wMonday, September 16, 2002 |
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My feet hurt!
Yesterday Dave and I went to my cousin Meghan's wedding. They had it at the upstairs balcony and the foyer of an auditorium on the Claremont College's property. It was totally pretty and elegant and didn't need much in the way of decoration, which was cool. I got to see my family and show everyone my car, which was also cool. Dave and I thought we had a pretty interesting mix of people at our wedding, with people flying in from all over the country, but we had nothing on Meghan and Aaron. Aaron is from New Zealand, but lived in London for awhile. Many of his New Zealand friends have moved around the world, so they had people flying in from NZ, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, and a few other countries. It was great to hear the crazy mix of English accents, though the best part was when a bunch of the kiwi guys got together and did a traditional Maori chant. OK, so it is also an AllBlacks cheer, but it was still pretty cool. Dave and I were comparing our wedding to theirs, and decided they definitely had the more fun reception. Their DJ was a lot more in tune with what guests wanted--if people started walking off the floor, he quickly ended the song and switched to something else. There was a lot more young drunk people, too, which made the evening more exciting. It was fun. We ended up having to take off early since both of us had to work in the morning (though I came in late) and my feet were ready to give out.
posted by
nea at 11:41 AM
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wFriday, September 13, 2002 |
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Thoughts on how my old game room has changed.
A few years ago, in the quest for games online, I joined MSN's "Zone." It was an area where you played head to head on a huge number of games. I liked it in that there were always people to play with, and many of them made nice conversation. I became a regular, I had people on my zone friend's list, and I recognized a lot of the screen names in the rooms where I usually played. I slowly gave it up though, mostly because there were a million wierdos mixed in with the good players. I was too good for the beginner Reversi room (Othello out here in the real world) but not quite good enough to compete in the advanced room. So finally I quit.
The other day I was playing on something or other and thought, "What ever happened to the Zone?" I typed in the URL and there it was, updated but basically the same. I couldn't access my old screen name, so I made up a new one and went in. The people in there have totally changed. I have played maybe twenty games and one person has made any conversation. Only one. Any conversation. At all. And they wouldn't even talk to me until after the first game. I say "hi" near the start of every game (I was taught this was good ettiquite) and get no response. I could be playing with robots, and the effect would be the same. It makes me a little sad. I'd almost like to be propositioned for cyber sex in the tournament rooms, at least then I would know some real people are out there.
posted by
nea at 9:55 PM
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Yay, it's Friday! I'm loving these short weeks I've been having. Between summer fridays (which are over, boo), and Labor Day and 9/11 it feels like I haven't had a full week of stuff in a long time. This makes me happy, I hate having to be here all week. Not nearly enough work for that sort of schedule.
Got to go to Olive Garden last night. I like Olive Garden. Yes, I know it's not authentic. I'm not going there for a real Italian experience. I go for hot tasty breadsticks and salad and then an entree that I'm usually too full for. But hey, this means I have eggplant parmigania and spaghetti for lunch today. Yay!
posted by
nea at 8:42 AM
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wTuesday, September 10, 2002 |
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So our DSL, after almost a month of acting strange, is finally fixed. What's a little eerie is that we went through almost the same process with our cable modem in Santa Monica. In both cases, it worked fine for about four months. Then it started kinda randomly switching on and off. After getting sick of it, we called the provider, who promptly sent us a new modem. For our old cable modem, this worked for a couple weeks before the problem continued. For the DSL, this didn't help anything. So then, both times, a person was sent out to look at our lines. It turns out that the signal is set way to strong. The person turns the signal down, and all is fixed. In both cases. How fucked up is that?
posted by
nea at 9:30 AM
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wMonday, September 09, 2002 |
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I think it's that same part of me that wants the tatoo.
posted by
nea at 4:36 PM
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Today's showing of an utter lack of common sense among the public:
The grandmother of an eight-month pregnant woman dies. The woman had false labor last week, has been warned by her doctor to try and keep calm and quiet, and is at work. Do you:
a. Come pick her up and take her home to the family
b. Call her and ask her to come home
c. Call her and tell her "Sorry, your grandmother just passed" causing her to burst into tears and render her unable to drive home to her family
In the meantime, our office hears Shariese bawling and we all get up, thinking she's gone into labor. Her supervisor gets on the cell phone, and basically tells the person off for relaying the news over the phone. I realize that the person on the phone was probably in shock and not thinking but, sheesh, you don't give an eight-month pregnant woman bad news over the phone. argh
posted by
nea at 3:11 PM
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Busy weekend! I don't even know where to start, there was so much going on and so much new stuff to think about and all of it is so crazy.
Went for K-BBQ Friday night. I really like Korean food, and this place we went to is probably what started me on it. The food is tasty (though Dave and I burnt our tastebuds out earlier in the week so it didn't taste spicy enough) and the waitresses are a total trip. They make jokes, act totally silly, dis the guys . . . totally entertaining. There ended up being about 20 people there, a number of whom I rarely get to see, so it was nice to talk and eat meat with everyone. I got to show off my car (I'm just so excited about it) and see Greg's new ride. It's a little odd to be with everyone at once, though, since some people I see like two or three times a week and others I'm impressed if I see three times in a year. These are all people that I used to be with constantly, always partying or having class together or talking on ICQ. Now? Some of them I barely know anymore. We spend so much time catching up and bringing up old memories that there's barely time to make new ones. Still though, I'm happy when stuff like this goes on. Otherwise, it would just be me and Dave hanging out with each other all the time.
Afterwards, in the usual disjointedness of our friends, half of us went to Neil's wine and cheese night while the other half weren't invited. I hate stupid high school drama, but that's what a lot of our group has gotten down to. Whatever, at least I'm part of the "mostly neutral" group. It was a very low-key time. Ted came down, and I spent a good part of the evening chatting with him since I haven't seen him in about six months. Dave got tired and left, but I ended up being out at Neil's until 3:30. To be honest, I was sadly impressed with myself. I haven't been out past two in, well, I don't even know. Probably since before I graduated. I feel so old. But it felt good to be out that late. Walking back to my car I totally got into the vibe of late-night Westwood. Although I'd never want to live there again, I love how there are always people up and awake and that, no matter what hour, there is always something to do.
Saturday I spent most of the day sleeping. Dave was lonely but for once didn't give me a lecture about drinking and being out late. Yay Dave! In the evening we headed over to Hooter's to watch the UCLA game. I could care less about sports, let alone the game, but we had this total need to be social. I'd never been to Hooter's, either, so I saw it as a good oportunity. That place is cool! We had this downstairs area, nicknamed the living room, all to ourselves. There was a comfy couch, a couple tables, a set of bleachers, a bunch of chairs, and this huge TV. Perfect game watching setting. Food wasn't great, but we weren't expecting much. It was a great space for just hanging out and talking, too, as you could just grab your drink and move around in the room. UCLA won, woo hoo!
I know, I know, this is long and rambly. But at least I'm to Sunday?
So one of my coworkers scored free tickets to the Harley-Davidson Open Road Tour concert at the CA Speedway in Fontana. It was an all day event, but we were lazy and didn't want to eat concert food, so we headed out after lunch and got there about 2:30. Unfortunately, 2:30 happened to be the time when George Clinton and P*Funk stopped playing. I thought they'd be later in the day. I was bummed, since that is who I wanted to see, but it was okay. We looked at a bunch of random exhibits and then watched the Doobie Brothers and Journey, two old bands that were before my time but cool anyway. The scene was great--a bunch of old bikers, many of whom had brought their families along, all wearing leather outfits and sporting lots of tatoos. We played a few rounds of "Are those real?", got flashed by a number of old women with sagging breasts, and generally had a good time people watching. It wasn't really my crowd, and is probably the opposite of Dave's, but was fun to be in. We headed out around 7:30, at which time the biker crowd was heading out and the Kid Rock crowd was heading in. Good stuff.
posted by
nea at 10:38 AM
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wThursday, September 05, 2002 |
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So Dave said I needed to go take the D&D character test on myself. It's totally male oriented, but here are my answers anyway:
Str: 7
Int: 11
Wis: 18
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Chr: 15
posted by
nea at 9:32 AM
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wTuesday, September 03, 2002 |
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Well, I had work this morning but now it is all gone. I have nothing left for today or tomorrow. Sometimes I think I should work slow and spread the stuff out, but then I would feel really dumb. bleh.
One of my coworkers went to China Town this weekend and bought a new pot for my lucky bamboo plant. I've had it sitting on my desk since like the second week I worked here. It is now huge. It's just starting to peek over the back wall of my cubicle, so soon enough it will be tall enough for everyone to enjoy. It's nice to have a little piece of life in such an artificial place. The new pot is a white with a real pretty blue glazed design. I need some more rocks though, so that the frog with my plant doesn't have to be submerged under water. Poor little wet froggy. Tonight, to the pet store to pick up aquarium rocks!
posted by
nea at 3:20 PM
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I have a new car, I have a new car . . . yay! I am happy. With a minimal amount of haggling, and a lot of sitting around an overly warm dealership, we got my car and all is said and done. Wrote a huge check for the down payment (you'd think after the wedding I wouldn't be phased by this) but luckily we got to keep some of my savings to put in the house account. Yay house account! I will be putting up pictures of my car (no, it doesn't have a name yet) on our gallery page soon. We also took some parting shots of Pip, which I will also put up.
This new car feels so nice. So much more power than my old car. It's really great. If you want to see all the fancy technical crap (sorry, I'm a girl, I don't really care) you can read it here. Also, I am so damn proud of us on the price. We ended up getting the car for over $2000 under invoice, which is not something you often here about. I guess having connections, in this case the head manager of the entire sales department, is a good thing.
I am also greatly entertained by having a built in CD player. Dave and I went to Virgin last night, since we decided that a new ride needs some new tunes. I actually bought CDs for the first time in probably a year, if not longer. Picked up the new RHCP CD, as well as the one by Michelle Branch. I didn't realize how expensive this whole buying music thing has gotten. I guess I've been spending more time on Morpheus than in stores. Dave picked up two CDs as well. One was classical, and I have no clue what the other was. It was so nice this morning to just stick in a CD rather than listen to the annoying jabber of morning radio. I am going to have to start a more extensive use of our CD burner and the free music out there in internet land.
posted by
nea at 9:25 AM
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wSunday, September 01, 2002 |
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We have picked a car: the 2002 Honda Accord LX with lots of random stuff that I doubt any of you want to hear about. Besides, you can just get rides in it. We are going to buy the car tomorrow morning it looks like. We haven't done our final final haggling yet (friend of a friend at the dealership has today off) but currently we're getting the car for $16,600, which is about $2500 under invoice. Yep, that's right, under. The 2003 cars are coming out Wednesday, so everyone really needs to get rid of their 2002s. Since I plan on driving the car into the ground anyway, I'm not really concerned that the car is already a year old. This is all very exciting for me--I've never had anything close to a new car before. I've never had car payments before, which is going to suck a little, but we budgeted for them so no big deal.
We went swimming for a bit today, but made sure to only stay out there about twenty minutes cuz it's like 105 degrees out here. Damn burning hot valley. Pool felt great though. Thanks to my lovely sunburn last weekend, my tan is looking pretty nice right about now. I like summer time. Feels so nice to just be outside.
posted by
nea at 3:18 PM
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wFriday, August 30, 2002 |
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I'm so dragging today. Not the I partied all last night and am too hung over to move dragging, but the its been a long week and I'm tired dragging. This weekend is going to be pretty packed, too. I'm tutoring twice, going to HB to pick up the title to my car and the bathing suits we left last weekend, are having dinner with my dad Sunday, and are planning on test driving and buying a new car for me inbetween. Currently, we're down to five cars: the Honda Accord (current winner), Toyota Corolla, KIA Spectra, VW Jetta, and PT Cruiser. Add to that relaxing time, gym, and the possiblity of dim sum Sunday morning, and things are looking pretty crazy. I'm very happy that our office is closing at one today, so at least I can get started on all this early. Just need to make it through the day . . . bleh.
posted by
nea at 11:20 AM
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wThursday, August 29, 2002 |
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My head has just been a mess recently. I don't know if I've been staring at the screen too much, or not getting enough sleep, or not drinking enough water, or what, but I get headaches almost every day. They're not too bad, but enough that I can't function full speed. I'm sick of taking Advil every single day. Stupid headaches. Stupid computer.
I think I realized why more and more people have health problems. Back in the olden times, people did different chores based on the time of year, and were often up and moving. Intricate jobs, like weaving, were only done in the winter, and not for a long enough period for people to get some sort of repetitive stress disorder. There was no TV or computer monitor to stare at. Now, everyone does the same job every single day. No wonder people pull muscles, and get eyestrain, and have all sorts of other health problems. Maybe we'd be better off if everyone traded jobs every season.
posted by
nea at 9:47 AM
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wTuesday, August 27, 2002 |
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Damn blogger. Why do I not start in a text file, so that I don't lose all my thoughts.
Abbreviated version of what I just wrote:
Slept bad. Real bad. Slept in and came to work late. Feel good now. Had nice lunch outside.
Stupid blogger. argh.
posted by
nea at 1:19 PM
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wMonday, August 26, 2002 |
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Being at the beach on Saturday felt so good. The hot sand burning our feet, the ice cold water cooling them off, jumping up into the waves . . . . I was happy. The water was pretty dirty but whatever. What was a little wierd is that Dave and I were the only ones who went in the water completely. Most of our friends, if they went in at all, went knee deep at best. I thought the whole point of the beach was getting wet, but I guess not. They missed out--Dave and Greg and I saw a handful of fish swimming really near the shore. Greg was also busy for awhile catching sand crabs, which is something he and I did all the time as kids with our siblings. There was a TON of food which was quite tasty. Dave and I both got sunburnt (surprise), Dave rather badly from playing football with his shirt off for almost two hours. Silly Dave. Mine was mostly on my shoulders, and on my chest where my old suit used to cover but my new suit doesn't Neither of us blistered though, which is good. Yesterday we spent most of the day hanging around the apartment slathering on aloe vera. I love aloe vera.
posted by
nea at 9:40 AM
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Silly show I would love to see: Puppetry of the Penis. Supposedly it's two guys twisting their penises into different shapes. Man, do you have to be drunk to start doing that.
posted by
nea at 9:35 AM
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I'm so happy that it's Friday! I used to think that every day could be just as fun as the weekend, but now that I work full time and have a lousy commute, I realize how great weekends are. They're more or less the only time I see my friends ( which really sucks) and get to sleep in. woo-hoo!
Tonight Dave and I are having a couple people over for dinner. Of course this means Dave is going to be the creative cooking king, and our kitchen, which is prefectly clean right now, will look like a cajun storm blew through it by tonight. Tomorrow we're going to HB for a beach party! I get to go home! I get to go to the beach! Dave doesn't like the beach so we NEVER go and it makes me sad. I like the smell and feel of warm sand and cold surf. It's the only place I'll play tackle football, because it doesn't hurt to fall in the sand. It should totally be a fun day.
posted by
nea at 8:42 AM
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wThursday, August 22, 2002 |
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Today is going to be a long and totally unproductive day for me. I had thirty minutes of work this morning. Yep, that's it. And everything is done for my accounts--nothing to follow up on, nothing I'm saving for later. Done. I spent the rest of the morning reading. Yes, it's a great way to spend a morning, but I would really rather be at home tending Dave (who is sick) and getting the house clean for our dinner guests tomorrow night. I thought about taking a sick day but Dave said no, as I only have two left for the year. C'est la vie. This afternoon I'm going to try and find people to help, so that I can be productive for someone. Dave is coming over the hill to meet me for dinner, since Aaron and Zac (the kids I tutor) have football practice until late. Which brings me to the other unproductive part of my day.
How much attention are two kids going to pay when they have had 8 hours of football practice every day this week. Eight! No other high school sport spends eight hours a day, five days a week, practicing. On Tuesday, when I went to tutor Aaron, he was kinda tired and out of it. He hadn't done his homework and told me honestly he didn't have time to do the usual amount I give him. I'm sure tonight either he or his brother will be asleep when I get there, and I'll have to wake them up to tutor. I don't think that this is a good way of getting extra enrichment. In fact, I think it's pretty silly that I'm going to try and teach to two tired boys who don't need to listen to what I'm saying because their grades are not directly affected. argh. On the other hand, today is installment two of my summer pay for doing SAT tutoring. Yay $250!
posted by
nea at 11:33 AM
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wWednesday, August 21, 2002 |
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Again, I have run out of things to do. But, for once, I'm not totally bored out of my mind and running for the elevators at 5 pm to save me from this stupidity of daily work. Instead, my eyes have finally adjusted to reading online for a couple of hours straight. I'm currently reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which is an extremely long and complicated novel. It's great. I look like I'm busy doing something, as the text is just plain black on white, like a long important document. At the same time, I've been really productive for my group. I created a biller training guide, which our company has long since needed. I've been conducting training, and my accounts are more or less in perfect order. It's sad--I look like this exemplary employee when really I'm spending half the day with my nose in a book. Life is good.
Yesterday I had a period of two hours between work and tutoring that I needed to kill, so I went to the mall. I'm such a girl. I needed new black flats and a new bathing suit though, so it all worked out. Dave had no clue how much women's bathing suits can cost. He was thinking thirty, maybe thrity-five bucks. I had to instruct him that would probably be about right if I bought no-name bikinis on sale. But, as seeing me in a bikini would be rather scary, I do the one-piece thing instead. And ones with some sort of good lining or underwire so my chest doesn't look like it's trying to merge with my stomach. Why would you make a bathing suit with no built-in bra type thing? Why do women want to go around looking so hideous? Whatever. I have never understood most bathing suit makers, who pick patterns and styles that make utterly no sense. Yesterday I tried on one suit that fit well except the butt was about four sizes to big and the sides came halfway down my thighs. No, it was not a boycut suit. It was a badly made one. Another had teeny tiny shoulder straps that more or less went around my arm, and would fall at a moments notice. Although this might be great for flashers and topless bathers, it made no sense to me. Amazingly enough, I found something that fit. I hate bathing suit shopping.
posted by
nea at 11:33 AM
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wSaturday, August 17, 2002 |
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The fun of garage sales.
Part of getting married after you've already set up a household is that you end up having a lot of old stuff that you don't need anymore. Dave and I had a ton of random crap, mostly kitchen stuff, and so we had a garage sale at my mom's house this morning. I've been around when my mom held a sale or two, but I was a lot younger and have never actually had one myself. We were told garage sales in HB start early, and started pulling out stuff and setting up signs around 6:45 am. Immediately we had the first of the two groups that showed up predominately throughout the day: the middle-aged or elder white collector. He immediately bought a chipped but collectible plate cast off from my mom's ebay collection. The group was the mexican man, usually accompanied by his family. One group was looking for stuff they collect, or just stuff they wanted, and were more or less willing to pay the price asked. The other looked for stuff to resell at the college swapmeet, was aggressive, offered ridiculously low prices, and stole a couple things. Can you guess which group is which? There were a lot of nice people though, and it was kinda fun to watch what people bought. Things I thought would go first took forever, and some of the stuff we thought for sure would sell (like an entire set of full-sized sheets, plus comforter and bed ruffle, for $3), didn't. Our big sale was a silverware set, plus plastic tray, for $6. At about 1:30 pm, when all the good stuff was gone and we were sick of being out there, we piled up the stuff and put out big "FREE" signs. Things still left at 5 pm: one styrofoam cooler from Omaha Steaks, a few books, and a 286 computer that doesn't work. We did good though--for selling off old stuff we didn't want we made around $90. Since most of our sales were fifty cents or a dollar, I think we did good.
It's tiring being out and aware all day. I took a nap from 3 to about 4:30, and am still a little groggy. Tomorrow we go test drive cars and buy new bathing suits. woo-hoo!
posted by
nea at 9:26 PM
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wWednesday, August 14, 2002 |
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Another happening yesterday that I find quite funny- Dave received an e-mail that his website is part of the top 1000 gay websites. He has a banner to post on his site. I'm so proud.
posted by
nea at 8:41 AM
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Yesterday was just totally mentally draining. I found out about my raise, tried to get rid of the piles of other people's stuff on my desk, went through a company-wide meeting (in which no one raised a scene, which surprised me), conducted training, tutored, and told the family of the kid I tutor that, no, I won't be tutoring next year. By the time I got home I just needed food and to space out. Didn't really see Dave much--I was just too tired. But today I'm fine again, and ready for another really busy day. Today's print out 4000 pages day! woo-hoo!
On a separate note, Dave's company decided to switch to T-mobile so I'm getting a new cell phone this week. I'm not happy about it but really don't have a choice in the matter. I'll be sending out my new number soon.
posted by
nea at 8:34 AM
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wTuesday, August 13, 2002 |
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Today my supervisor and I finally got to talk about my raise. My job hunt is over--I got a 25% raise!!!!! It's going to be on this Thursday's paycheck!!!!! I'm really excited! Yay nea!
posted by
nea at 8:47 AM
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wMonday, August 12, 2002 |
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My week is going to go by so slowly. I have about two hours of work a day to do, max. Today I did have one work highlight. It has really bothered me that the person in charge of making any changes in our scanning system, as well as doing administration for it, had no clue how it worked on the user end. So we spent two hours going through the whole thing, and all the different ways in which we use the system. Besides feeling like I've been helpful to the department, it was nice to train someone that had a clue. I didn't have to explain over and over the difference between the red box on the verify page and the red box on the image (answer: no difference. They are looking at the exact same thing, and one box is just the blown up version of the other) and the box in which you type your info. This is easy to me. This was easy to him. This is not easy to the rest of the department. Does this surprise me? No, just makes me realize how important an education is.
Nothing to do here between now and five except sit and websurf. I need to do more job applications tonight.
posted by
nea at 3:36 PM
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Yay good and productive weekend!
I had Friday off, which always makes me happy, so I went to help in my stepmother's class again. I feel a little bad for them. LAUSD implemented a new reading program, in which everyone reads the same book at the same pace. There are a ton of worksheets to do, and a lot of having to sit in their seats and pay attention. The problem is that the work is too hard for most of them, but too easy for about three of them. All in all, the whole class just can't stay with the program so there ends up being a lot of just telling the kids the answers.
Saturday Dave and I spent the day in a cleaning frenzy so it would look all pretty when people came over that evening. My dad came by to help us put up two paintings that we received as wedding gifts. They're these watercolor prints that are just totally awesome, and one of them has become the focal point of our living room. The other one is in our bedroom, a bit off to the side because neither of us like the idea of having a huge painting hanging over our heads as we sleep. I didn't really realize how messy our place had become until we started cleaning. It was really messy. It wasn't really dirty, as we had done a thorough cleaning for Jamie's visit, but just a lot of odds and ends massed into piles, especially in the dining room.
After much work and a short nap, our friends started arriving so that we could all head out to the Hollywood Bowl for a picnic and music from Lord of the Rings. I lied to everyone about the time, which is good because we got moving about 45 minutes later than scheduled. Actually, we got moving right about when I thought we would, but whatever. There were still plenty of picnic tables and we had the right amount of time to eat, drink, and be merry before the concert.
It's funny, Dave and I grew up with typical white people potlucks. BBQ, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, watermelon, etc. Saturday was totally an asian-american potluck--fried rice, korean sushi rolls, pastas from Ralph's, ribs, El Pollo Loco chicken, quiche, and all sorts of other good stuff. We had WAY too much food for nine people, which was great, because this means Dave and I had lots of leftovers. Actually, we still have leftovers. The only part that sucked is that we put all the leftovers in our picnic basket, which Dave had to lug up and down the big hill around the bowl. That thing was heavy. Poor Dave.
The concert was really good. I haven't heard an orchestra in a long time, and I don't think I've ever gotten to listen to one accompanied by two choirs. They played some stuff from Harry Potter, which I really liked except for Dave giggling that one of the instruments looked and sounded like a farting bedpost. Kinda ruined the piece for me. The stuff for LOTR was great. The choir had to sing quite a bit of the music in elvish, which I'm sure took a while to learn. We were a little far back to see much (forgot the binoculars) but the acoustics where we were sitting were great. I love going to the bowl. The whole atmosphere is just so nice, sitting up in the hills, being outside listening to music. The audience was kinda entertaining too. There were some hardcore Tolkien fans dressed in full garb as Hobbits or Norse worshipers or whatnot. Cool stuff.
A night we'll have to repeat again.
posted by
nea at 10:06 AM
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wThursday, August 08, 2002 |
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People farting in time to the music is really gross.
posted by
nea at 8:32 AM
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wWednesday, August 07, 2002 |
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Sorry, I actually have work at work so I'm doing silly crap at home.
I have begun sending out resumes. woo-hoo! Nothing back except automated responses and one rejection. No worries though. It's not like I'm unemployed. Those of you who want to get me a job, please let me know.
posted by
nea at 10:31 PM
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