DLand - St. Patty's Day Prelude

In Southwest Virginia today. This was all for the 4th Anniversary of our Software Product. The whole office drove over to celebrate with the folks in the library. The stinky part was leaving at 5:30 am to get there in time. We made it okay, although it was VERY foggy. The gang there had brought in sandwich fixings and a HUGE cake made by Wanda, the best cake maker on the East Coast. We all chatted and munched and had a good time. It was good to go back and see my old co-workers. But it's true what Thomas Wolfe says; you can't go home again. It's always different. So we had lunch and Russ and I traded notebooks (which makes me a very nice person since I now have a very old notebook with only 1024 resolution and Russ now has a very kick ass notebook with 1400 display resolution). But I travel so little, that I don't really need a notebook. And I can get to anything I need with Terminal Services. I love Microsoft. Monopololistic business practices are my friend. All my software can talk to each other. But that's a totally other topic. :)

Then it was off to the Home Place for dinner. The fog was atrocious, but we made it there unscathed. The place was pretty empty for a Friday night, but the food is always good. I stuffed myself. It was nice to have all Atlas employees in one place at one time and not have it be a conference or some other stressful event. It's a shame we can't all live in the same area. Maybe one day.

The real bummer was that my headlight went out during dinner (don't ask me how that happens - I had two working headlights when I got there and only one when I left). But I followed Dan home and it was fine. One of my little projects today is to go play "helpless girl" at Advance Auto and have them put a new headlight in my car.

Dropped Shawn off at Kroger to meet his brother (which was a mild fiasco given his stressing out over spending the weekend with his bro) and then headed to Vlad's apartment. My spider sense told me that Nick had recently been here (the wet shower curtain and clean boy smell in the bathroom), but I had the apartment to myself. This would have been better had this not been the Bachelor Pad of Doom. Just let me say that moldy brocolli on the stove can totally sour the smell of an entire apartment. And thus I cleaned their entire kitchen in order to hunt down the dead thing smell and their guilt and shame will be payment enough. Nick never came home last night (I'm not his mother so whatever) so I'm still Home Alone. It's been kinda pleasant. I've got lunch plans with Vicki today and then might call Mike and Rae. I'm hoping the sky will hold out and stay a little sunny as opposed to icky and grey like it was for two days. We'll see how that goes.

But now for the good news! Jeremy called and he didn't get the job we were hoping he would get. I know that doesn't sound so great so far, but the guy said that they gave the job to the woman who had been working that job part-time for the past three years or so. Duh. He also said that they were so impressed with his application and interview that he's forwarding his info to his boss. Then an hour later or so another lady calls (the boss I think) and says that she wants to hire him part time until she can make a full time job at another library doing very similar things to the job he applied for. This job was at a public library attached to an elementary school and community center. It was a job well suited for my Jeremy of all Trades sweet pea. So things are looking up. Fortuna has smiled on us.

And as if that weren't enough good news for a rainy Friday, Jeremy calls again later and says that Cox called and we now have digital cable and CABLE MODEM at the house! Happy day! I have been so morose over our crappy phone modem. And it was insulting to live 10 miles from another city that had it covered. I thought I would never download pics at anything more than a crawl. But Fate has thrown us a internet access life preserver and we'll be zipping along in no time! Yippee! The diary entries will surely improve from this technological breakthrough chez Genie.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Happy Birthday to My Beloved Software Product!

DLand - The Garden State

Well, this diary entry comes from a hotel in Princeton, New Jersey. I'm thinking that this little town is where doll house makers come to get all of their ideas. We drove in Route 206 and on either side it was charming house after charming house with big trees and wrap around porches and elegant glass doors. I'm looking forward to leaving this afternoon so I can get a better picture of them in the daylight. We're here installing software for Princeton. I have been to a couple of Ivy league schools and I must admit that I get a little antsy travelling any more North than New Jersey. I'm always convinced that the people are going to be insane. Usually, I'm pretty right. But these people have been fine and the installation has gone smooth as silk like they say.

Kevin, my travelling companion, had OSTRICH for dinner last night! I was too chicken, I admit, to order it for fear that it would be weird and I would have no dinner. But I stole part of his and it was excellent. It was juicy and tender like the best steak you've ever had. The waiter said it would be like chicken but it was more like the most succulent beef you've ever eaten. I definitely recommend it. My meal was the mundane salmon filet. Tasty but far from ostrich. I can be such a wuss sometimes.

I have been learning all kinds of little knowledge tidbits while watching TV. A lot of TV is trash, but I seem to have fallen into the land of learning these past few days. For instance, did you know that bees can dance? When a bee leaves the hive and finds food, she comes back to the hive and then does a dance to tell the other bees where the honey is. She walks around and wiggles her butt in a certain direction. The direction of the wiggle tells the bees what angle related to the sun to travel and the number of wiggles tells the distance (like the number of yards). I think that's fascinating. I never would have thought bees could be so complicated. It just goes to show you there's a lot of magic that we don't see.

Ack! Gotta run or I'll be late!

-------------

Oh, well as Frank Sinatra would say: "Night and Day". Just got out of the training session at about 4pm. It was supposed to be from 9 to noon. Ugh is the first thing I say. Well, the systems people were very squared away. But the library people were true to form. One of the bittersweet parts of my occupation is that I deal with both technical people and library people. Both are very strange birds (as my mother would say) and with limited social skills. The main complaint that I had with these folks is their inability to see the forest for the trees. The entire training session was one big string of customization questions or internal political issues. Talk about a mental workout. They all had good intentions and I'm sure it will all work out in the end, but geez!

So I was so irritated by that exhausting day and the prospect of driving home at 4pm, that the doll houses didn't seem nearly as impressive on the way out of town. Mostly I noticed the poor condition of Route 206 with all it's pot holes. Speaking of pot holes, my chauffeur Kevin took 95 instead of 295 so I'm bouncing along the engineering wonders of Pennsylvania highways. I would think that if a state gets ridiculed by everyone for having crappy roads, they would do something about it. But I think at this point that PA prides itself on it. It's as if they're testing the fortitude of travelers. It's like travelling across a concrete jungle - at rush hour. So overall, I'm still not impressed with the neighboring states on the east coast. I suppose we'll stay where we are for quite a while. I'm still thinking I couldn't live in a state where you can't get to an ocean. It's all what you're used to.

One little hightlight of this trip so far was the water tower with Sesame Street characters painted on it. If you're in Morgantown, New Jersey you'll see it for sure. It is the home of Sesame Place, whatever that is. But it was very awesome to drive by the 80 foot Big Bird. That and I had scallops for lunch. It was a weird arrangement with warm cherry tomatoes and what looked like garden weeds but it was a treat to have scallops if a bit strange.

Well, we're heading for gas and dinner. More news later.

DLand - Back in the Saddle Again

Went to Kingdom A&S this weekend. I was well pleased with the day. We got there Friday night and stayed at Vlad's. Had dinner at the Cellar and a beer or two. It was supposedly to celebrate Chantal's birthday, but most of it was just spend eating dinner. I had these images of bar hopping and painting the town red, but actually just got sleepy eating my sandwich and wanted to go to bed. The party life is just not for me, it seems. Saturday was a day of nothing. It was good to see the Smiths and the Gen and the typical crowd of folks down in Black Diamond. The fashion show was pleasant and there were several A&S displays that could inspire me to become more involved in the SCA. I've been a hermit for a long time. But now, work is getting better and I think I might have a weekend or so free to do some fun stuff. So much of the SCA is so dorky. But I think that's true in any organized group - particularly one that has no member restrictions. But this weekend helped me see the stuff that I did like about the SCA and a minimal of stuff I had no use for. Watched the Heloise and Abelard play and that was excellent. I was only vaguely familiar with the story and it was an excellent rendition of it. A well spent hour. I wish I could remember the woman who performed it, because she was excellent. She's one of my favorite field heralds too, because she is the least grating and fairly witty.

The definite highlight of the day was seeing Bera and going to the Cellar again. It was an excellent evening. I only wish Gen could have been there too, but she had already gone out to dinner. You never realize how much you miss something until you see it again. I got to sit at a table with almost every significant friend I had in the burg (minus the aformentioned Gen) and it was fabulous. I don't think we all have had that good of a time in a while. And it was nice to hear that life is working out for well for everyone. There are the ups and downs, like everyone's lack of funds, but overall life is getting good for us all. That was very heartening for me. I've been the Mope Queen so far this calendar year and it was very wonderful to have some good vibes in me. We never did go to Jillian's to dance on Thursday and I never did go bar-hopping this weekend, but I don't feel like I missed much.

The only sucky part about coming home was the hour in which we left (8:45pm) for the 5 hours drive home and the icky car that I own. I HATE my car. If I had money to replace it I would just park this stupid car somewhere and leave it. And I know I shouldn't talk badly about it, because it will come to haunt me, but I can't help it. It's made for midgets. I'm not sure how anyone over 5'10" is supposed to use this car. The back seat is only suitable for car seats or coats and the trunk holds barely a trip to the grocery store. I want a new car sooooooo badly. The Saturn is very reliable and economical transportation and I do appreciate that, but GEEZ, I just can't sit still in this clown car. I have dreams about owning a car that the dogs will fit in so we could take them somewhere. Or even a car that four people could ride in. All I have to do is sell this one and find the car of my dreams. Ah, and to think I used to be fond of the car and think it would be nice to own a sporty coupe with a sunroof and leather. I shouldn't talk to poorly about it or no one will want to buy it from me.

Well, for such a full weekend, this is a short entry. But I look forward to happy days to come and good stuff to write about.