Teach Your Children Well
I've raised them right. Here's a conversation I had last night with the kids.
E: So are you excited about going to Washington D.C.?
H: Yes. Do they have a baseball team in Washington?
E: Yes, the Nationals. Actually, the Twins used to be Washington's team, the Senators but they moved here and became the Twins. The Nationals are a new team but they have some former Twins playing for them.
H: Like A.J.?
E: Sadly, no.
H: Does Little Nicky Punto still play for the Twins?
E: Yes. You still like LNP?
H: *Giggles Excitedly*
A: Is there a baseball game on tonight?
E: No.
It turns out there was indeed a game on last night. Twins vs. Boston. So that made a liar out of me. We watched and H cheered hard for Nicky, chanting L-N-P when he came up and executed a perfect sacrifice. A took a bath then crashed out on the couch watching LeCroy suck some more. Runners on first and second and two outs, Morneau hits a single that would have scored a run but freaking Matthew "I suck" LeCroy has to get in the way of the damn ball. End of inning.
Spend, Spend, Spend
While Dawn has declared a moratorium on her spending, I feel the need to pick up the slack. My company has been promising some sort of discretionary bonus in March. We got an e-mail yesterday confirming that the payment would arrive on Friday. They were ridiculously impressed with themselves that the payment would get to us in March. I say it was damn convenient that the 31st is a Friday. But I digress. In addition to this payment, I've also made a substantial sum this week with my other job so I won't be dipping into any savings or anything. I would never, never, never touch my savings account for something like this. In my mind the only acceptable reason to touch that account would be if I lost my job and needed to pay my mortgage or pay for life-saving treatment for me or a family member. Not that the amount in there would cover much treatment.
Anyway, I do not spend money on things, but I'm looking at getting an expensive piece of equipment for my trip. My dad said I should get my own damn stuff instead of borrowing my mom's. So I'm going to get my own and he's not allowed to use it. Ever. Neither is my mother, but that's because she'd break it within five minutes. Tonight, I'm off to Best Buy to investigate. I won't be buying because things are much cheaper on the internet (bonus - no sales tax), but I need to feel and see and check things out before spending a few hundred dollars on something.
"Hi Jack. I'm Annette. You're doing it wrong."
I was invited out to dinner this evening. There was only one condition to the invitation - that I accept money for the gas to drive to the restaurant and that the dinner is on her. She said, "I pay for the dinner and the gas and anything else - just like if I was your mother or grandmother." Ha! Guess what mom? You're doing it wrong.
I wonder
Yesterday in the Reason Express they posted a link to an article in the Baltimore Sun about a proposed state law requiring kids in Little League to wear protective goggles and face masks when playing baseball. These protective measures would need to be worn not only when one is batting but also in the outfield because it's a danger to a kid if he can't catch. My assumption would be that all this protective gear would actually hamper all the kids abilities to catch and hit the ball, but it's for the children and legislators know best. Does the Maryland state legislature have nothing better to do with their time than discuss mandatory goggles for little leaguers? Thank you so much Daddy Government.
Hmmm...
Why is it that whenever one opens up those little packages of Starbursts you can never get the cherry flavored ones? Two oranges or an orange and a lemon, that's it. I say it's a Starburst conspiracy.
Like I asked for this
All morning, people on this floor have been giving me nasty looks as if I actually wanted to move here. Some suggestions for the sign I am contemplating posting expressing my true feelings about the move are welcome. Most ideas are currently unprintable and would constitute a hostile work environment.
In other news, I recommend not getting a Lexus. They are deceptively fast and you'll spend a lot on speeding tickets if you drive one. Not that this would be a huge problem for you if you had enough to buy a Lexus in the first place.
In still other news, the penguins have proliferated at the International School of Minnesota. It's a penguin extravaganza for Will Steger's highly anticipated visit.
Why?
So I read in the Star Tribune this morning about the average wedding now costing around $25,000. Why the hell would any sane person spend that much money on a one day affair? Average length of marriage - 4 years. They'll still be paying off the debt long after the divorce is final. People mortgage their houses, ask their parents to kick in 10-20 grand, charge everything on their credit cards or other ridiculous moves to finance their wedding. I don't get it. And this is of course, why I am not having a wedding.
More in money - It's pay day (I think) and I am being forced out of the office early today. I ask you, how often does your company kick you out early?
Update
I'm still tired even though I was asleep by 8 last night. Also, dirty. And ready to kill the next person who stops by and asks what something is and where it should go and oh by the way, why don't you just take care of it yourself even though it's totally not your responsibility and you have no idea what it is either?
Also, conveniently, I found several copies of a book entitled "Stalking" in our libary here at work. I took one and am currently reading up on it.
Closed circuit to the bastard who is broadcasting bad network connections in the office - I'm watching you. If you lock me off the network again, you will regret it.
It's Wednesday
I'm tired.
Spend, spend, spend
Lack of planning sucks, but I love it when I tell someone something has to be done. They inevitably tell me it's going to cost a lot. See I don't care. I didn't do the planning and I sure as hell didn't decide we're only going to give people a week's notice, so I don't care what it costs, just get it done. You give me some authority and responsibility and I'm going to take advantage. Bastards.
In other news, last night I still had free HBO so I got to watch Big Love. It's a show about polygamists. I liked it, but I'm not sure what the big deal is about the illegality of being married to multiple people. You're over the age of consent. Why should anybody care how many people you're married to? Really I think the entire show was designed to see how many times we can see Bill Paxton's naked backside.
I was very good this weekend. I went swimming Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I went grocery shopping and made a real meal (beef stroganoff and tortellini salad), I vacuumed upstairs and I studied Polish.
Or at least I started to study Polish. Everything was going well until I came to a part that said, "Unlike in English, Polish verb tenses do not need to match between the object and main clauses." Which is a total lie. It's all contextual and situational. I got hung up on the English portion for half an hour where I called my mother and we discussed that the Pole who wrote the book doesn't understand English, which should have been obvious when reading some of the translations provided. When I finally went back to studying, the next chapter started in on perfective vs imperfective - the Polish concepts I will never understand. I think the Poles made them up after too much vodka. Iterative imperfective verbs I get, not sure why one needs to use them, but I understand them. I gave up at that point and went to the pool.
In other news, I also discovered that I had free HBO and Cinemax this weekend. Skinemax lived up to its billing with titles like the Witches of Breastwick. Sadly, I went to bed instead of watching what I'm sure was a cinematic masterpiece.
This morning I was awakened by George, who refused to lay down and let me sleep any later than he thought I should. Stupid dog kept barking and tried to eat my sock. Though he didn't attack my head which he sometimes is wont to do. Happy Monday all.
Jeszcze Raz
So here are the declensions minus numerical declensions and other irregularities. I would have provided my own table list, but sadly, I have not a clue how to make all of the Polish letters and don't really want to spend the time figuring out how:
Adjectives
Bet I Can Bore You More
So Dawn claims that she's being boring going on endlessly about her "mid-life crisis." I am not currently experiencing a crisis so I can't talk about that but I keep having really vivid dreams that are now inspiring me to be boring.
Last night (actually this morning between 5:30 and 6:30), I had this dream where I ended up in Poland with no luggage. I couldn't figure out whether I had left it on the plane or whether I had simply not brought any along in the first place. Anyway, my host family came to pick me up and brought along my mom's cousin's child whom I have met exactly twice. The last time I saw him was two years ago. The reason he was there was extremely convoluted so I won't describe it. The main thing that disturbed me about this dream was that Danuta was speaking English better than I could (her English is terrible) and I could barely get out a word in Polish.
Because of this horrifying lack of Polish speaking ability, I am now going to embark on a self-taught six week crash course in Polish to increase my fluency and remember basic grammatical rules. That way I won't sound like an idiot when I'm buying mittens. Today I will begin with basic declensions. These will be posted on my blog so that I can review them and all my studies daily. I'm sure all three readers will be extremely entertained by it all.
Planning is good
My company is not so much on the planning. They suck. Also, no one knows anything.
In other better news, I was reading my favorite blog - Hit and Run - I saw an exciting ad running in the side bar. I want an
Endless Pool. And I can have one for the low, low price of $19,999. I've already started saving.
I can see again
So they are tearing apart my dashboard as we speak. While I am extremely happy that I will soon have a defroster again (driving to work with the windows open is not my favorite thing), I am unhappy that massive operations are occurring on my truck. Thankfully, I have this wonderful thing called an extended warranty that covers exciting repairs like this. $100 and I'm good to go. Since they charge $101 an hour for labor, I think I'll do well on this deal.
As long as it's in the shop, I also told them to go ahead and do something with the differential fluid (another $120 this time not covered by warranty), but held off on the serpentine belt, the brakes, and flushing the coolant. I'll go to Nimrod for that. Yay to the neighbor who said he'd replace my serpentine belt for free! Even with the gas expenses, I'll still save at least $100 having everything done there. I can probably talk my brother into going with me, thereby splitting the gas.
In other fun news, I've lost all network connectivity on my office computer and no one has come by to fix it for 3 hours. So I'm at my other cube, writing for this blog until they come and fix it.
More Snow Related Activities
In addition to driving in white-out conditions yesterday, my truck decided that it wanted to make things a bit more difficult. While driving on the freeway, my blower went out. No defrost, no heat. All I had was major ice build-up on the windshield and windows that were quickly fogging up. The blower briefly regained power just before I pulled into the ramp, but it has not worked since.
Initially, I thought perhaps the intake vent was blocked and that overheated the motor. I knew it couldn't be a fuse because the power had ever so briefly returned. Although last night, I did switch them out just for kicks. Nothing. Apparently it could be a resistor or it could be I destroyed the blower completely. Either way, it sounds like my dash is going to need taking apart and major repairs done to get the heat/AC working again. I wouldn't worry about it but I absolutely need the defrost working. I had to roll down my windows this morning to make lane changes on the freeway and to check for traffic when turning. For all of this, I blame my company.
I'm also back to being angry about having driven in yesterday every time a coworker jubilantly celebrates their day off. I wonder who I should contact to complain about poor management. I want to point out how downright dangerous and irresponsible the company was yesterday.
It's snowing
So FYI to my company - If visibility is zero, there is no power in the office building and you know it's not going to come on until 9 PM, perhaps maybe you should decide to close the office BEFORE 8 AM. It's not real effective to have the boss tell you we're closed when you're in the damn parking ramp. I hate people.
Since I'm here however and working (the power is back on), I'm taking a snow day in July.
No one else is here, I'm leaving soon. I need a nap.
Sweet Dreams Are NOT Made of This
Last night I went to bed around 8:30. I was very tired. However, I woke up around 2 after having two very disturbing dreams. Because there was no way I wanted to return to either dream (and I'll detail those in a minute), I turned on my light and read for a couple/three hours before trying to sleep again. Now I am tired and not feeling at all well. Must have been the dreams.
Dream #1 - This was the most disturbing dream because it was just wrong on so many levels. I won't go into extreme detail here, but let's just say it involved one of my ex-boyfriends doing things that I cannot write about in a public forum. The main thing to know about this ex was that I was attracted to his brain, not his body and he did nothing to really change that level of attraction because, well, his skill set was not up to par in that arena. To be having these dreams 5 years after we broke up is really wrong. Maybe I need to rethink that whole no dating policy. Seriously, I cannot handle any more dreams like this.
Dream #2 - This dream was about work. I get enough of work at work. I really don't need to be bringing it into my sleep. God, I'm now organizing the integration in my dreams and justifying why we need to hire new people and creating presentations while asleep. Even worse, Shoreview is creeping into my dreams. That may be acceptable if the hot guy I met with on Wednesday had been there, but sadly, he was not.
My dreams tonight had better be free of both the ex and work or I'll start drinking heavily.
A View to a Kill
Let's discuss for a moment the various Views in the Northeast suburbs of Minneapolis/St. Paul. I seem to go there a lot and my expense report is going to reflect this very soon. First off, they are a long way away. I started panicking when my meetings ran past 3:00. I absolutely refuse to drive through spagetti junction in rush hour. I'd never get home. One hour in the car without traffic I can handle, two hours spent parked on the freeway I can't. I especially cannot handle this when my meetings have delivered nasty news that will mean a vast increase in my workload and major problem solving skills. I've decided that Shoreview = Bad.
Yesterday, I discovered that Mounds View has a Taco Bell/Long John Silver. I had never imagined one could order hush puppies and tacos in the same fast food restaurant. Then because I couldn't get back to the freeway, I had some issues. Barb needs to work on fixing it so that visitors to her fair town do not have these issues and can get to their meetings on time. I've decided that Mounds View = Fair.
Mittens
My favorite mittens are handmade by nice old Polish Gorali (mountain men). The fur (yes, it's real) inside the brown ones is so soft, but tends to get worn down after a couple years of use. Last time I was in Zakopane, the mittens were $3 a pair. You could get them cheaper if you bargained, but they need the money and I have it and it's THREE dollars. They may be up to six dollars now. Still for nice soft leather, fur lined mittens, it's a bargain. I love these mittens. I need to buy more before all the die.
You want a pair? I'll see what I can do.
The Flight of the Phoenix
I've finally booked all my flights in Europe. I'm so happy to have everything taken care of. I'd like to send a special thank you to Air Canada for randomly changing my itinerary yesterday. I now have an extra 40 minutes to make my connection in Toronto. I should have no worries about missing that flight.
British Airways is also feeding me on my flights to and from Warsaw. I like them. Although they seriously need to reconsider those ugly flowered blouses they make their flight attendants wear.
Next step, making sure Danuta knows when I'm coming to town so someone can get me at the airport and someone else can make me lots of wonderful food and someone else can make sure Sonia is sleeping when I get there. I'm not going to be up to dealing with a three year old. Feed me and get me to the mittens and I'll be happy.
Until then, no more money is being spent on this trip. Except on flu masks. I'm sure my dad'll get right on that now that they've confirmed bird flu in Poland.
Question
Here is the situation - I am going to London (we all know that) and then am traveling on to Warsaw. I leave on Friday at 18:00 CDT. I will be at work at 7 AM, so we're working on the assumption that I will have been awake for 12 hours before I even get on a plane. I arrive in London at 11:05 BST (4:05 AM CDT). I don't sleep on planes so we'll assume I've been awake for 22 hours at that point.
I have two options for going to Warsaw:
A) I can either wander around London in a sleep deprived state and head back to the airport for a 19:00 GMT flight that arrives in Warsaw at 22:15 CEST (17:15 CDT).
or
B) I can wander around London for a shorter period of time, check-in to a hotel for $89, sleep and then get up ridiculously early to catch a 7:30 AM flight to Warsaw.
I'm leaning towards A. What do you think?
Leadership
I could easily use this blog to bitch about my job, but I won't. Because I've actually been enjoying myself recently. The change in "leadership," however, is not a positive. Leadership means being decisive and having a set sort of plan of how to go about things. It is not about how every one of your employees feels or group decision making. Take a stand. If things don't work or need to be changed, then make those changes. Don't wait for your employees' approval. Oh and organization helps. A lot. Learn something about it.
Timing is everything
I've been planning my trip for weeks. Dates and plane/train schedules kept throwing things off. Finally I got everything worked out. I figured out where I was going and when (I even found a way to get to work and the airport while keeping my truck in my garage Yay!) and where I was going to stay. Then I got the note. Apparently, I owe $3000 for the new siding on my house on March 22. Thanks for that advance warning boys!
I have the money for both, but I'd prefer not to spend all that money at once. What if my furnace dies and I have to replace it? What if they find my window frames are all rotted and I need new ones? Houses cost money and there is always something that needs replacing. Worse, what if I lose my job? Mortgages also require paying.
So maybe I'll just go back to my original plan. The plane ticket is paid for and Warsaw is not only cheap, but food and lodging are all free. I'm sad that I can't do everything I wanted to do (I blame V at this point), but I'm getting a vacation. And a less crazy and more relaxing one at that. I've always said though, that if I'm just going to sit at someone's home and relax, I don't need to fly to Europe to do it. Maybe instead of planning trips to expensive Western Europe, I'll make a trip to Zakopane and get me some mittens.
Word Verification
Blogger has decided I need word verification to enter posts. Apparently, I'm a spammer. I hate blogger.
In other news, I got this e-mail yesterday:
I had a dream about you last night.
You went crazy for like 20 minutes. And I mean crazy.
You were screaming at the bushes and verbally assaulting police officers.
Then you started to try to breathe in the air coming out of the exhaust pipe of a school bus. All the children saw you and told their parents who in turn would no longer let you babysit for them. Then you came to your senses and cried all night in your bedroom. I felt bad.Perhaps my work with integration will end with me going crazy. I know it'll happen if I have to "live" in the Shoreview office for a while as my boss suggested. No.
Those forces I mentioned?
They have been thwarted. Perhaps I'll head to the Bulldog for beer and baseball tomorrow night.
