Jobs and Things

So, who's noticed I've been talking a lot about work lately? I know you all have, and I'm sorry. Work has been so busy that it's all I've got to talk about.

If you want to know, I had my annual eye exam yesterday and the surgeon said everything was perfect. (Fox, did you stop looking into that?) I haven't been riding for a long while, but we plan to do it today. It's been hotter than Hell here. I think of my friend Willow every time I see a butterfly (why is that, Willow?) and a pretty white one just flew by my window.

Ok, this is kind of funny.

Sometime during the Summer, I looked at a lot of ventriloquist websites. During those random searches, I found this awesome device; a stand that attaches at waist so a ventriloquist and walk around with their buddy on a little platform with them (also freeing up a hand because the other doesn't have to be used to hold our friends up). Cool, huh? Well, when I found it months ago, I didn't make note of it. So, yesterday, I decided I might actually want to buy it, and I tried every word combination I could think of to locate it. It just wasn't happening. I searched all morning, and though I could accurately describe the thing for the search engine, none of the words I chose were what the actual website used. I got very frustrated, and went to lunch and an after-lunch meeting thoroughly annoyed. I am the Queen of Dig, I can find anything!

I told one of my coworkers about it and why I was thoroughly frustrated when I returned from my meeting and decided to search again. This time, I didn't try to describe the thing, I tried the most likely term that I used when I accidentally ran across it the first time. Wouldn't you know, it was on the first website that came up! Yes, my previous searches did bring up that website, I just didn't look close enough to see it there (because I was so certain that my search terms would bring me right to it, I think). I really am the Queen of Dig, and I really can find anything if it's out there to be found. Sometimes, I guess I just need to get out of my own way!

Don't worry, I copied the link and the name of the site and e-mailed it to myself, so I'll be sure to find it if/when I decide to buy it.

Work is still busy and pretty much all I have to talk about. It took me two hours this morning to work two e-mails, and one of them is not yet complete.

"Let me confirm that."

During the course of my work today, I had to call a company to verify a payment address. They had one of those automated phone answering systems (don't we all hate those?) where you speak your responses. "Say 'main menu' for the main menu." "Say 'payment locations' to hear payment locations."

Unfortunately, payment locations only told me where one could go to make a payment in person, and I need the payment address. There wasn't an option for that, so I follow further instructions by saying "representative" to get to a representative. The system wants an account number, I'm looking at over a thousand customers. I repeat "representative."

System: "Sorry, I didn't understand that."

Me (angrily): "Rep-re-sen-ta-tive!!"

System: "Sorry, I didn't understand that."

Me (calmly): "Representative."

System: "Sorry, I still didn't understand that."

Me (annoyed): "That's because you're stupid!"

System: "Let me confirm that."

I thought I was going to die, I was laughing so hard! I relayed the exchange to my nearby coworkers who also thought it was pretty funny! (For the record, I called back and got through to someone who had the information I needed.)

That's not the funniest phone system I've ever heard. I remember calling one company who had a long list of menu options. "For account information, press 1. For our fax number, press 2. To change your service, press 3." and so on. Towards the end of the message, it said, "To end this call, please hang up. To speak to a customer service representative, please hang up." Yeah, that one had me laughing for a while to. I took a chance and hit 0, and had a good laugh with the rep who answered when I told him what the message said to do.

Oh, my days!

Work, Work, Work!

Federal holidays are usually nice. Traffic actually moves when lots of people don't go do work. OBC was open today, but many people were off.

We use this as a catch-up day. It's a great day to catch up on work that may be falling behind, because all the things we do that have deadlines (related to when the mail gets sent, or when payments are made) do not happen on holidays such as these. There are no payments, banks are closed. And there is no mail, USPS is closed.

So, I got to hammer away at my eighty-job inbox with complete and total disregard to my usual 1500 deadline on certain jobs. This means less hopping around from job to job, and less phone calls coming in because people think we're closed today. It makes my work more streamlined.

I actually got quite a lot done, almost eighty jobs. That means some fifty came in during the course of the day. Tomorrow will be back to the same old; daily deadlines apply today.

With all the work I did, though, I feel rather burnt out. Yeah, I'm still not sleeping very well, and
I have a lot of unexpected expenses this month that occupy a lot of my thoughts. Maybe that's it.

Tomorrow, I can work nice and slow again, and no one will notice (truly, Adolf has no idea how much work I am capable of doing in a day. That's a very good thing since he expects less than that of me). And my anti-virus scan has started and everything is running slow (I have a ginormous drive). That's about how I feel today. At least there is also some accomplishment there.

You Know You're in a Drought When...

...there is not a single day where the MD Renaissance Festival was rained-out. Yes, I know we still have two more weekends to go, but usually there is at least one day (one year, there were a ton of days) where the rain is so bad that I get told not to come in because of the low crowds it brings.

Not a single rain day this year. The land is parched and you can tell.

Today was a very hot and humid day. I chose the wrong thing to wear, and spent the day incredibly uncomfortable. I hope next weekend will be a little cooler, because I intend to wear my court dress, which is rather heavy and works better in cooler weather. They are talking rain for Tuesday. We'll see!

If nothing else, the heat of today has left me exhausted. I hope that means I'll sleep well!

Party Time!

Congratulations, Jill and Greg!

The third an final wedding of my wedding obligations this year was also very nice. I've learned a little about what it takes for me to enjoy myself at a wedding. It take me liking at least one of the main two people involved. That may seem obvious. The thing is, I enjoyed this wedding. The ceremony was nice and short and the pastor was funny. Then the reception had good food, I was sat with a group of people who all knew the bride's sister (my good friend Turtle) so we had something in common to talk about, and there was music you could dance to.

They're really a great couple, and I'm sure they will spend many long years as happy together as they were today.

Don't mistake me, I still don't like weddings. But I do like that I've been able to go to three of them and not feel like I was being tortured, and actually have a good time and well wishes for the newly coupled.

Oh, This Lovely Weekend

I get to see Pat's house today, finally! Pat moved in before I left for Idaho, and we simply haven't had a chance to get together since. I'm really excited to see the place, and I'm also going to re-explore the possibility of getting one myself. I don't think I can afford Pat's community, but there are some in my area that should have a more affordable land lease. I so badly want to move out.

Last weekend, my mother and I had to return my grandmother's car. We visited for a bit, then went over to see her friend, who is so close to us she is like a grandmother herself to my brother and I. We call her aunt; blood relations or not, she is family. I know she enjoyed our impromptu visit, but she did leave me a little annoyed. I had mentioned how expensive things were and how very hard it is for me to even consider moving out, and she asked why I wanted to. She's been widowed for years, and living on her own, so I suppose she just doesn't understand that sometimes it's good to be alone. It's also very hard to ask a boyfriend (or boyfriend potential) over to watch a movie knowing my dad will be playing WoW in the next room. My aunt was yelling at me! She yelled at me for wanting to live on my own, and for wanting to get married and have children. But it's perfectly alright, and good for him, that my brother is married. I am not going to be living with my parents until they retire and sell the house from under me.

So, I'll have a look at Pat's house today, and I'll want one of my own. And another coworker is having a house built, and I want one of my own. If I could find one I can afford, I'd even settle for an apartment at this point.

My mother read an article recently that talked about Idaho being the fastest developing state currently. She said despite recent layoffs, they're actually in a worker shortage. Then she said that maybe I could find a job first and then find a place to live. Wait, is my mother encouraging me to move to Idaho? I think she's starting to think that it's not so bad, because she wants to retire to Colorado, and her sister lives in Utah. All relatively nearby places, I guess. My mother also suggests I should hold off getting a modular home like Pat's, because they are trying to introduce legislation that builders who build five and six and seven and eight hundred thousand dollar homes need to also build homes that are actually affordable. So, maybe by my move out goal date, they will be building $100,000 homes here? Yeah, I don't hold much hope for that either. Someday, I will get out on my own.

Tomorrow is wedding number 3. I hope it's as nice as the first two I went to this season. And that should be all the weddings I have to endure for a while. One can only hope. Sunday is my last day of working for the faire season. You'd be right if you noticed I haven't worked much. I guess that means the booth is well staffed. There is no rain in sight, it's going to be very dusty.

Oh, and guess what? Welcome to my 600th blog post!

Dreams of Dogs

Last night, I dreamt of Buttons.

Buttons was our dog. He was a pure bred Toy Poodle, mostly white with a little patch of peach on his back. I remember getting off the school bus to find my brother, who had stayed home sick, running up to me screaming, "We got a dog!" Naturally, I didn't believe him.

Sure enough, I walked down the street to my house where I met my mother and a then-nameless little Poodle puppy. Mom had some shopping to do that day, you see, and took my ill brother with her. My brother wanted to go into the pet store, and my mother said ok, "but we're just looking." Apparently my mother's definition of "just looking" is "buy the dog you like."

Last night, I dreamt that Buttons had gotten out of our yard (which the tiny little guy sometimes did do) and my brother and I were walking around the neighborhood looking for him. Down one street, we heard him barking on the next street over. We walked around to that street, and there he was in somebody's yard, very happy that we had found him. The people who had him said he just showed up there, but they were going to keep him if no one came for him.

Then I woke up remembering my doggie, and wishing I could hug him again.

Websites and Publishing and Things

I've been working on my websites this evening. It has become quite the (usually) relaxing way to leave my work day behind me. I haven't been riding my bike at all this week, but I also breathed in a lot of dust on Saturday and am not really up to it. I don't think it will be another cold, and it better not turn into another cold. I had a cold for the previous wedding, and the last wedding I have to go to is this weekend. Not another cold!!

So, I figured out how to publish in FrontPage with FTP, and it actually works. Go me! I didn't add anything to my main site today, but don't worry. I will get all my images back up some day.

I know this entry seems like a whole lot of nothing, and for that I do apologize, faithful blog readers. I've mentioned how I haven't been sleeping well, and I'm going to try to make up for it by going to bed now. Good night!

Sometimes You Feel Like a... Dolt

Ok, I'm not a total dolt, I'm learning. It's true that I was complaining about FrontPage's limitations without actually going in to FrontPage to see if what I need to do is possible. I was basing my information on the (usually rather thorough) FAQ of my webhost, that includes specific instructions on how to upload sites using three specific popular site building programs. The only one where FTP how-to's were not written was for FrontPage, which led me to deduce it wasn't possible (or at least not apparent).

I did some searching and found some other information, and it looks like it totally is possible. And I know where to find the information I need to do it. Now, I would like to go home and open up that program and put it to work! It probably won't be for another day or two yet, as I finish up some things and tweak others to get the site ready. Microsoft still doesn't play with the other kids, though. He's over swinging on the monkey bars while the rest of us play hopscotch, and he wants us to come and watch him swing on the monkey bars. Think about it. And laugh. I haven't had any coffee yet.

Tonight should be a good night. I don't plan to do anything special. I have no idea when dad is getting home, and I know mom is planning to go golfing. This means I should have a nice solo ride, and maybe even some time to myself in the house (to work on my sites some more). Despite my total lack of sleeping and that I've been really stressed out for the past few weeks, I'm having a pretty good day. I'm excited that things seem to be working, at least!

And I managed to get some coffee!

ARGH! COMPUTERS!!

I wish I could find that Sherman's Lagoon comic strip and scan it for you....

I was really hoping to come here today and announce "Go look at my cool website, made with my snazzy new program!" Alas, no. It's been one thing after another trying to get all FTP things set just right to publish the thing. Even as I type this, I'm trying for the third time to get this stuff up. (Before any of you laugh, remember I'm a total FTP rookie.) It's going to be cool when it's up though!

I've also learned, among setting up an FTP connection, that Microsoft, and so many things Microsoft, just doesn't play with the other kids. I can create and publish my websites with FrontPage, or I can create and publish my websites with any other site developing software, but I can't use FrontPage for one site and something else for the other. That's because Microsoft has to be special, and doesn't use FTP to publish sites. And in order to publish with FrontPage, I have to have a special setting at my host. And I can't have this special setting and FTP set up at the same time. GAH!

This is extra annoying because Fusion works so much better for my picture-heavy site, and FrontPage works so much better for my text-heavy site (particularly because so much of it is already built in FrontPage and re-designing it in Fusion would be a pain and a dozen). If anyone has a simple solution to this problem, I'd love to hear it. (What I'd really love to hear is that I can indeed publish with FrontPage using FTP, and I just missed it somewhere.)

Ok...File transfer is complete. That's what it says....

Success!!

Ok, I see some tweaking is in order, but it's up and I'm happy! Go click on my website link to the right --> and let me know what you think! Be gentle, I'm still learning.

And working out the technical dilemma with the other site.....