Mishap

We are in the process of remodeling our living room. We are going to be painting, putting up new window treatments and having bamboo flooring layed. We are currently in the process of deconstruction of the room. We have moved all the furniture out with the exception of my computer, desk and a bookshelf.

I was working on clearing out my desk to get it ready to move, and I decided that I was going to clear out my old paycheck stubs. I pulled them all out and started shredding them. I shredded for a long time. My shredder overheated. I also was thinking that I was going to be extra safe and burn the shredded stubs. One of my former employers had my entire SSN on the check along with my checking account number.

I took the garbage bag out to the neighbor's burn pile and lit it on fire. I also decided that while I was there and had a fire lit, I was going to burn our Christmas tree. So, I went and grabbed the tree and threw it on the flame. I picked up the tree and adjusted it so that it would burn more completely. Just as I picked the flaming tree up, the wind switched. I felt the warmth of the flames lick my face and I thought that I probably singed my eyebrows, but I didn't smell the tell tale odor of burned hair. I finished watching the tree burn and went into the house.

I went immediately to the bathroom and looked at my face. Both eyebrows, my eyelashes on my right eye and some of my hair were singed and curled. Then, I smelled the burned hair. ACKKK. Fortunately, they were not completely singed, but it was enough for me to think about doing that again. And no pictures were taken.

Contradiction #2

Now, I don't have a problem with women who don't shave. I also don't have a problem with women who pluck their eyebrows. I love women! I LOVE WOMEN!

Eyebrows plucked to a thin line are not an issue, nor are hairy legs and armpits. Neither of them are what I would choose to do. I am also not turned on by them (women with hairy legs don't do much for me), but that's their thing. Nary a problem for me. I shave (occaisionally in the winter and frequently in the summer) because I have an unusually high level of testosterone and after a month or so, I begin to resemble my brother even more than I currently do. I also pluck a little, just to keep the unibrow gone. My partner does not need to do either, she has no hair on her legs and her eyebrows are so light colored that you can't even tell they are there.

All that said, there is a woman here in town who has her eyebrows plucked to a fine, pencil line. They are so thin that I noticed it immediately, the first time I met her. It was summer and she had shorts on. I also noticed that she did not shave her legs (not sure on her armpits). What's the point? It takes a hell of a lot less time to shave than to pluck, we're talkin 5 minutes in the shower once or twice a week, whereas, plucking to that extent HAS to take much more time than that on a DAILY basis.

So that's the second contradiction that I have observed in my life. . .

What's that about????

Meet the kids #2

This is Gus. Gus is our second youngest. He has a sister named Cleo (you will meet her next). Gus is a big boy. He also thinks that he is a dog. He loves dog treats and will chase them down the basement steps. Like I mentioned, he and Isaac are best buddies. They can often be found sleeping, curled up together on the couch or on one of the dog beds. Gus and Isaac often chase each other around on the cat condo and wrestle with reckless abandon on the floor. Gus has also been known to curl up to the dogs and try and sleep (this usually ends with a growl and the dog moving).

Gus also came from a rescue. I had always wanted an orange tabby (I had had some as a child and thought that they were the coolest cats) and so when my older cats, Smokey, Chick and Spunky died, it was time to get a kitten. I also knew that it was going to be a male and his name would be Gus.

When it was time, we checked out a couple of places like the county humane society and a rescue here in town. We were always overwhelmed by the number of cats and wanted to bring them all home with us, so we could never pick one out that would fit in our household. We then found an ad in the paper that said that they had 6 kittens and had some orange ones. We called and asked about them. This is how we met Jamie. Jamie runs the "Ray of Hope Cat Rescue". Jamie has 20 cats of her own and has made it her mission in life to save as many cats as she can. Well, we went to see these kittens, they were nearly feral when she found them, and were still a bit skittish. Fortunately Gus was what we wanted, but my sweet partner had ideas that Gus shouldn't be alone. So we also ended up with Cleo. This also forged our relationship with Jamie and her rescue operation (and got us hooked up with Isaac).

So that is the story of Gus. He is a source of constant laughs and our most photogenic child.

Meet the kids #1

As my profile mentions, we have an entire menagerie of critters. I thought that you may like to meet them.

This is Isaac. He is our youngest furry child. He is the clown of the house, mostly because he is still a kitten. He is currently 9 months old and is the sweetest little (well, not really little anymore) kitty. Isaac came to our house as a tiny kitten. He came from the rescue that we have got Gus and Cleo from. The woman who runs the rescue knows how to get us. . .just send a picture of a cute little kitten and we will come running. She's no dummy.

Isaac is best buds with Gus (who you will meet later) and thinks that the dogs are just very large cats who are overly protective of their treats. He also thinks that Pogo's tail is his very own animated cat toy.

Finally. . .

Well, after two weeks, I finally have the router up and running, so we can both surf on the laptop and the desktop at the same time. I figure that it took about 10 hours of my time and 2 hours of a friend that is geekier than I am to get it up and going. So, 12 hours of time. Was is worth it? I guess so. Soon we will be cutting off the land phone line and relying solely on the cell phones and cable modem.

I think in the long run we will be saving money, but who knows. . .

PS. Thanks JR! You rock and are the King of the Geeks in my book.

Contradiction #1

I went to my parent's house in Wisconsin during the holiday season. They are dairy farmers. My dad has been a dairy farmer all his life. He has high cholesterol and is on all the various medications for that malady and has had a 5 way bypass. My mom has had angioplasty and is also on cholesterol medication. They are both supposed to be on a "low-fat" diet.

My brother and I were looking through the refrigerator for some "real" (ie: not non-fat) ranch dressing because we both feel that non-fat ranch is just inedible. We asked mom if she had any "real" ranch dressing and she said "No, because your father isn't supposed to have the kind with fat in it". That is very understandable because of the heart issue. HOWEVER, this is the man who still has bacon on buttered toast every morning for breakfast.

Is that a contradiction, or WHAT?!?!?!

Tech Support

Yesterday we got cable modem in stalled. Yes, prior to this, we were still using dial up. The cable modem installed beautifully. The installers arrived on time, and I hooked it up and installed the drivers and it worked. It just worked, how great is that?!?!

I then went to install a wireless router that I had purchased so that we can use the laptop without being connected (the whole point of a laptop). I started the installation around 10 AM and by 2:30 PM I had not yet gotten the router to work properly. I called tech support. I ended up talking to them after being on hold for 20 minutes. Just a side note, all you people who called Gateway between 1999 and 2000 (while I was working tech support there), from noon to midnight on any weekday, I AM TRUELY SORRY FOR YOUR WAIT.

Tech support should love someone like me, for the most part, I know what I am doing and try everything that I know to do several times before calling. Still, they want to start at the beginning. Tech support: "Lets unplug every cable and start over". Me: "Wait a minute. This is what I have done (and I explain all the steps I have taken) and I am at this point in the install and everytime I get here, the installation just freezes up and will not let me go any further". Tech support: "Ok". While he is silent, I can see him looking franticly through his tools to figure out where I am. Might I also interject that I am talking to someone in India, and it is not unlike speaking to Apu on the Simpsons. So we get to a point where this guy doesn't have a clue what to do and he says "Let me verify your phone number and I will have my superwisor call you back". I am on my way out the door for work. The "superwisor" never calls.

So I get home at midnight and call again. No hold time at that time of the day. We get another step further and everything seems to be working and I hang up with the tech. IMMEDIATELY after hanging up, the damn thing locks up again. So I get on the phone one more time. This time I get a female tech, who clearly has no IDEA what she is doing (not a dis on female techs, this woman did not have a clue, but it had nothing to do with her gender). I say to her "I am at this point in the installation, and I have been working on this ALL DAY. I am thinking that there is something wrong with this router." Then I ask her what she thinks. She says to me "If you want to return it, you have 15 days". I respond telling her that I have an entire year to return it because of where I bought it. But she didn't EVEN TRY. Why did I have to go through all these steps with the previous tech's to have her say. . . "sounds like the router is bad"????? Hell, we could have resolved the problem at 11AM this moring instead of screwing around all day!!

So, I am still only connected to broadband on this machine and the laptop is still connecting with dial-up. I have no router because I don't feel like going out this morning and exchanging this one. I will go out and exchange the router on the way to work and HOPEFULLY, I will be up and running by 1AM tomorrow morning. I'll keep you posted.

Back to work

I have been on vacation since December 24th. It has been a wonderful time of relaxation, spending time with family, friends and my partner and just general laziness.

I go back to work today. I am not looking forward to this event. I work in the shipping department of a Fortune 500 company's only US distribution center (the company shall remain nameless because I don't want to become another Heather Armstrong). I used to love my job. I worked in the receiving department. I dealt with people outside the company, I expedited orders, I made a difference. I was forced in October to move to the shipping department. Management wanted to shake things up a bit. . . and shake they did. Among other changes, the guy that worked in shipping is now in the position that I loved in receiving and I am in his spot. While the people that work under me are glad that I am their coordinator, the people that I used to work with outside the company are not very happy with my replacement. The one thing that I will say is that no matter how hard you try, you cannot train someone to have customer service skills, you either have them, or you don't. And he just doesn't have them.

I would prefer to stay here and surf the internet or work on my stained glass hobby or just veg in front of the TV watching shows on HGTV on how to decorate my space, but I WILL return to work today because of the work ethic that I have. This job also pays AMAZINGLY well, so, there is some incentive there.

Back to the old grind. . . fortunately, I work second shift so I don't have to leave until 2:30PM, because it will take me that long to work myself into leaving the house and going back to that place. . . ACKKKKKKKKK!

Me in the Olympic National Forest in Washington. 

A good time was had by all. . .

We had a New Year's Eve party last night. It was fun. We had about a dozen of our friends and one co-worker (that we actually like to hang around with) over. We had good conversation, played euchre, listened to good music and ate homemade pizza and lots and lots of cookies.

The pets were all on their best behavior. This means none of the cats jumped up on the table to check out it's contents (with the exception of the two females, they all hid) and neither of the dogs jumped on anyone.

2006 has arrived. With it has come the promises to myself that I will exercise more and lose some weight, that I will get out of debt and that I will save more money . . . awwww, I'll start that tomorrow. Today, we have party leftovers to eat and football to watch. . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!