Well, it seems Blogger doesn’t have a problem connecting with my FTP server, so clearly I must be doing something wrong. Oh well. My work computer has been acting funny for awhile now, though I’ve ran several virus scans and they haven’t found anything.

Last night, I finished the Dead Zone, or at least this season. I didn’t mean to, but it just happened that way. I mean, it was 5 episodes that I had left, and that’s a lot of the Dead Zone. It’s a show that’s really meant to be watched once a week - after a few episodes in a row, the whole psychic moment thing, where the world shifts and zooms or whatever you want to call it, got annoying.

I also managed to clean the front room up a bit. What I mean is that there is now a large space in the middle of the room where one can stand. came and took her huge desk that was in the corner (though she left her boccie ball set and the large mirror over the fireplace), so there was some space to move things around. I’m not exactly sure if we can fit a couch in there, but we’ll see. If nothing else, it’ll fit in our extremely wide hallway. I also moved ’s stacks and bags of books around. Tonight, hopefully, unless I get distracted, I’ll get the camping stuff sorted and put back into the basement. Fingers crossed.

Also, since I had successfully cleared my schedule so that I would have ample time to do homework, and have momentarily found myself lacking in homework, I have been trucking along on the shawl/stole that I have been working intermittently on since Christmas. It’s looking good! I’m on the 4th ball of yarn (of 5, theoretically), and depending on how busy our weekend is and/or how much time needs to clean his garage, I could get a chunk more done. We’ll see. It’s still slow-going, just because the way the pattern is.

I have a co-worker who is continually more of an anomaly to me. When he transferred here a few years ago, shortly after I started, it was from another State department, and I thought I’d heard that he used to work with us, but had been transferred out due to something with sexual harassment. This doesn’t exactly seem in-character for him, but it had been several years and maybe he learned his lesson? He is a friendly guy, quiet, kinda keeps to himself, but generally easy-going and nice. His cubicle is spotless. I mean, there are awards hanging on the walls, perfectly centered and not one crooked, and there are no piles of paper on his desk, no stray pens or pencils, nothing. Then I learned he lives in Southeast Minneapolis, has for decades, just south of Lake St, which isn’t necessarily the best neighborhood and it seems he might be a little out of place there. He goes on long camping trips with large groups of people (50-ish, give or take a dozen) that are catered. (Don’t get me started on that.) I recently found out he’s gay (which explains some stuff) through a conversation he was having with another co-worker (yes, it’s wrong to listen into other people’s conversations, but it was happening 5 feet away, and I’d suspected as much for a while), referencing the song “It’s Raining Men” as being a gay thing (this makes me sad, because I love that song, and I don’t think it’s a gay thing at all, but what do I know). Lastly, he is a smoker, like many people in my office.

I just don’t feel like all of these things fit together well in one person. It doesn’t make sense to me. But I’m sure I confuse the crap outta people too.

I itch today. Like crazy. I’ve been trying to keep hydrated (good thing to do when sunburnt), and I put on lotion last night and this morning after my shower. Alas, half an hour after showing up at work, my sunburn started itching. Thankfully, I no longer have to take Advil for the pain, nor am I radiating heat. I am not scratching, because that would be incredibly painful. But I itch. A lot. Itch itch itch.

popularity: 20%

Really, I’ll try to get a quick&dirty version of our vacation up for you tomorrow. Until then, you’ll have to suffer with this large one. I did limit the photos down from 248 to 172, it that helps. And they’re small, so it shouldn’t be horrendous to view. Hope it works! (Let me know if it doesn’t - new software and I’m still figuring it out.)

Grand Marais Vacation Photos

popularity: 17%

Today is National Geek Day, so let’s geek it up!

• Star Wars or Star Trek? Yes. As in, I like both. But Star Trek is much easier to watch, and comes in hour-long segments, and there’s so much more of it. Star Wars is, like, epic, and who has the time for that. Plus, the newer 3 suck.
• Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter? I’ve never read or watched Harry Potter. I don’t like trendy things. Lord of the Rings, however, I have watched and read all of the books/movies.
• Internet Explorer or Firefox? Firefox. I hate IE, and I hate that occasionally I have to use it at work, because one of our new systems only works in IE. Who thought of that?
• iPod shuffle or iPod Nano? Nano, but I have to say that I didn’t really get a choice in that, since it was a gift. I don’t think I’d ever have made it around to actually buying one for myself. But I love my Nano. It’s white and just the right size, in both memory and physicality.
• Camera phone or mp3 phone? Neither. I think they’re both stupid ideas. I have a digital camera that is always in my purse, and the afore-mentioned Nano. I want my phone to take calls, that’s it.
• Dilbert or Jon from “Garfield”? Jon is a loser. Dilbert kinda is, but not in the same way. Dilbert is really just… slightly socially inept sometimes, and gets stuck in crummy situations, and Jon really is… just a loser.

And of course, the big question

• Mac or PC? PC, but only because it’s what I know. It would take me some time to transition over to Mac, but I could if I needed to. (I think, however, that the inability to right-click in Macs would drive me crazy for quite a while.)

popularity: 17%

Today was my first day of class. I woke up early, I got to class 15 minutes early, I did pretty good. I yawned a few times in class, but what do you expect for 9 am? I did politely cover my mouth while yawning, so hopefully the teacher just thought I was tired, and not bored. I stayed mentally engaged in the lecture, which was not overly interesting, especially since she basically covered what we had read in the textbook. But I liked the textbook. The teacher seems nice. This class has the potential to be easy. At least, after one class, it doesn’t seem hard. And it’s actually 3 classes, I just happened to miss the first two.

We practically had SNB last night. is taking a 6-week course to become a CNA (or to start on the path towards becoming a CNA? I get confused easily), so we’re taking a break. But called and we talked for a while, and made lunch plans for today, and stopped by after her class and stayed for half an hour. So, there ya go.

Our dryer is fixed, finally! So I did 4 loads of laundry last night, cleaned my bedroom, and watched 3 episodes of the Dead Zone. It will take me forever to get caught up on the TV I recorded this summer. I’m caught up on Monk and Stargate SG-1, but I have the entire season of The 4400 and The Closer, and almost the entire season of the Dead Zone to watch.

I’m wearing my anniversary gift from today. For those interested, here’s what he gave me:

Ooh, how pretty!

A gorgeous amber pendant-and-earring set.

And, for good measure…

Weeks’ worth of yummy goodness!

popularity: 17%

Goodbye summer…

1. Did you go on vacation? If so, where? If not, where do you wish you had gone? I actually went on 3 vacations this year, which was amazing! Camping twice (Scenic State Park and Tettagouchee State Park) and an actual vacation on a lake shore in a condo in Grand Marais. I can’t remember the last time I was this well-traveled, or well-relaxed.
2. How many times did you swim in a pool? How many times did you go to a beach or lake? I swam in a pool exactly once, at the birthday celebration for and myself. I was at a lake many times… Scenic had one, and Tettagouchee and Grand Marais are both on Lake Superior, as well as Split Rock Lighthouse and Gooseberry Falls.
3. What are the two best things about summer? Explain: I love the long days of sunlight, when the sun doesn’t set until almost 10, and I love that, because of the nature of my workplace, summer is really quite relaxed and not much is expected to be accomplished.
4. What are the two worst things about summer? Explain: It ends just as I’m beginning to catch my stride, and while I love the sun, it exhausts me, and turns me the color of lobsters.
5. Recall the two best memories you are going to remember about this past summer (2006): Can I just lump all my time spent with into one? (Highlight: this past weekend’s trip to Grand Marais, and yes, photos are coming - be patient!) Also, maybe a tie between moving here, time spent in my hammock, and ’s dad buying me a bike.
6. I’m adding a question: Two least-favorite memories of this summer: All the moving that people did, in and out of my house, … at least I didn’t have to move furniture for ! Also, saying goodbye to was heart-breaking, and a relief.

popularity: 34%

No, this is not the long-awaited update about my weekend. Thanks to my new memory card, we took an extravagant 250+ photos. So an update will be awhile in the making. Especially since I broke my home computer and can only do this at work.

But, sent me photos of her pregnant belly! I don’t get to see her until the end of September, so she’ll be even huger by then. So exciting! It was a mass email, so I’m sure she won’t mind my sharing with this small world.

Getting so big! (That’s the baby’s room she’s in. They’re not finding out if it’s a boy or girl till it shows itself to the world, so everything is green.)

She loves to take funny pictures like this. Here it’s… “four months left? How big will I get?”

Taking a breather, in the rocking chair that she got for her birthday from and my brother-in-law.

popularity: 12%

1. Visit :: -ing relatives
2. Cake :: and eat it too
3. Period :: comma
4. Triumphant :: return
5. Screen :: saver
6. Neglect ::
7. Guitar :: strings
8. Loathe :: with a passion
9. Sugar :: sweet
10. Montage :: photo (soon to come, I promise, but I’ve got days of work to catch up on too)

popularity: 10%

Well, Tuesday night, and and I gathered at ’s apartment to color my hair. I’d like to insert that red hair always shows up… redder in pictures, or at least mine does. I really was getting quite faded, and had horrible roots. Whatever. Well, last weekend I bought a 1GB memory stick for my digital camera, because it was a ridiculously good deal and I had a little extra spending money. We decided to give the responsibility of photographing the event, since she really only came because she thought it would be entertaining. We won’t talk about how annoying she was… (you know I love you!). Let’s just say that out of the 100 photos she took, these 12 are the only ones that I kept. (Though, really, the pictures of your feet and side profiles were quite interesting, but 4 megapixel shots of my butt really aren’t making it out there into the world.) Technically, you can click on the pictures for the large versions, but why would you? They’re huge!

“Before”

Applying the hair dye.

Oh, what fun!

Yes, this is really messy!

Randomly… the frog in ’s apartment

Are we done yet?

OK, someone’s having a little too much fun.

Taking a break in-between coloring and highlighting for dinner. Notice my healthy plateful of Cheetos? (Yes, I ate a burger and veggies before that.)

After the highlighting. Look at my roots! did a great job!

The official “After” photo.

and having a little fun while I rinse out my hair.

Taking advantage of the timer function on my camera… here we are.

And… the side-by-side comparison. As it dried (in the after picture my hair is quite wet), it got a lot lighter and blonder, so you can’t tell really much of a difference yet. Hopefully I’ll take some good pictures on vacation this weekend and you’ll be able to tell better.

popularity: 13%

Another moment of clarity in a work meeting today. Last week I ever-so-briefly wanted to help organizations vision and plan. Our director was leading that discussion, and she was good at it, and most everyone involved was on the same page, at least in terms of understanding. We’re having a related discussion at the council meeting today, and it’s just frustrating. I would never have those thoughts in this discussion. However, the person leading the discussion is less-than-skilled at it, and the people involved are not on board, or aren’t listening when clarity is brought, or just care about their bias/agenda and don’t care what’s supposed to be talked about. So frustrating. There’s a few people here who make me cringe every time they start to talk, because it just seems like they don’t know what we’re about or why we’re here. And that’s not entirely their fault if we haven’t made it clear to them. But at a certain point, you can tell they don’t care and only want to press their own agenda. Perhaps that’s one of the drawbacks of an advocate-based group. I don’t know. I bet has something to say about that.

popularity: 11%

1. Where were you 2 hours ago and what were you doing? Two hours ago I was… sitting right here in my cube, checking my email. Boring, I know.
2. Who was your 2nd boyfriend/girlfriend and how old were you? Officially, the second person I could actually call my boyfriend was… . It was freshman year of college, so I was 18.
3. Who are your 2 closest friends and explain why you chose them? While I’m going to refrain from listing people, because it totally depends on the context for who’s closest (I share more with them on a daily basis, I have a long history with them and we can catch up with no problems after months of absence, I have the most in common with them in terms of beliefs and ideas and that sort of stuff….), I do have to say that, generally speaking, I don’t choose my friends. They choose me. I’ve always been terribly shy, and never good at making new friends. In college, in life, all of the new friends I’ve made in the last… ten years, have been because other people made it a point to include me and draw me into their lives. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t have chosen to be friends with any of them - in fact, I would have pursued friendships with many of them, were that my personality. But I tend to take a rather back-seat approach to friendship.
4. What 2 accomplishments are you most proud of and why? Right now, I’m proud of… starting school again, and making it to one year with . As you know if you’ve been reading here, I had quite a few frustrations with finding a class to take in the last few weeks, and was originally going to start last year, and I’m proud of figuring out a way to make it work and forcing the issue. And my longest relationship before now was with the boy mentioned in #2, and that lasted 3 months (OK, 2 weeks, then we broke up for two weeks, and then another 2 1/2 months). Plus, it’d been a really long time since I’d even had guy friends, and you relate different to guys versus girls. And I was pretty sure for the first several months of our relationship that I was going to somehow f* things up. So… we’ve obviously overcome all that.
5. What were the last 2 television shows you watched and did you enjoy it? Um… two episodes of Friends that I wasn’t terribly familiar with (they were from the last season, so they haven’t been on reruns that long), and an episode of Stargate SG-1 (I’m now caught up for the season!). I enjoyed, but wasn’t overly thrilled with any.

popularity: 27%

(I don’t normally do this meme, since it’s usually something along the lines of, “would you rather eat a thousand worms, or be covered in leaches?” But today the questions looked… answerable.)

Would you rather:

1. cover all your food in barbecue sauce OR eat everything with a toothpick? I like the toothpick idea. Plus, bbq-covered chocolate bars just don’t do it for me.
2. know how to throw a lasso with perfect accuracy OR be an expert trombonist? The idea of playing the trombone is fun ( played), but I think the lasso would be more practical, like if I ever had kids, or maybe just when I’m a junior high teacher.
3. smell like pickles OR walk like a penguin? Smell like pickles, because my boyfriend would be deliriously happy with that.
4. touch your finger to your nose every time somebody says the word “know” OR laugh uncontrollably whenever somebody says the word “but”? Laughing at “butt.” I’m almost there anyways. I find the Law & Order opening lines, “…crimes are particularly heinous” to be much funnier than I should.

popularity: 15%

Now, I have tried to be open-minded about the transition of my downtown Marshall Fields’ into a Macy’s. I have had a lot of time to get used to this, and while I like Fields’, I didn’t really think that I was a huge fan (like New York & Co, or Express). Until Macy’s came in and started changing everything. The first blow was that the clothing line FieldGear was discontinued. Now, this makes sense, since Fields’ no longer exists. But, FieldGear was basic, classic, mostly solid colors in tune with the season, and inexpensive. Most of my purchases from Fields’ in the last several years have been FieldGear.

Then, last week, they started moving stuff around. Coats ended up where formal dresses used to be. Backpacks are where coats and hats and accessories used to be. Formal dresses are located in a section of Women’s that I’d never been in before. At least lingerie is where it’s supposed to be, and Starbucks. (Though, they’d be hard-pressed to change that, seeing as how they’re separate; panicky thought - what if they got rid of Starbucks? Doesn’t Macy’s have its own little coffee thing? Maybe that’s Nordstroms. Deep breaths.)

And I think I’ve already complained about the clothing size issue. It was hard enough before to find stuff in my size - usually they had one 6 and no 4s in one of the colors of a given style. But last I checked, the brand new stuff in juniors was 9-11-13-15, and the women’s section was all double-digits. Um… yeah, I guess they don’t want my money. Shoes have stayed the same, and that’s good.

I know I’m not the only one who isn’t happy about this change, though many Minnesotans are still getting used to calling it Fields’ instead of Daytons, so maybe they don’t feel as strongly about this as I do. I, personally, had Fields’ growing up, and have never shopped at a Daytons. Anyways. Here’s what Macy’s has done recently that is definitely not winning over the public. It took them 3 days to remove the Fields’ sign from the Cedar St side and put up a Macy’s sign. Yes, the Fields’ sign was huge. Of course, in the process, they blocked off a lane of traffic and the entire sidewalk, which severely affected my ability to… enter their store (and get Starbucks). That was last Wednesday through Friday. Yesterday, they started to work on the 6th Street side of the building. They blocked off the two right lanes of traffic with their crane. During the evening rush hour. Right where about a zillion buses pass and the parking ramp merges out onto the street. It’s an icky spot anyways. I wasn’t overly frustrated, being on the bus and not having to maneuver the streets myself, but I thought about those who were driving, and how much road rage I’d be experiencing if I were them. Now, perhaps the crew working on the sign just under-estimated the time it would take them, or didn’t realize it was rush hour until it was too late, or… come up with your own excuse. All I’m saying is, when you’re dealing with a change like this (branding), if you want to keep your loyal customers, perhaps you should think about the PR implications of whatever it is you’re doing. It would be…sagacious.

But… speaking of shopping…. suggested last week that and I shop for clothing at H&M. Apparently they have European sizing, which is supposed to be leaner and longer (as opposed to the stereotypical America who sits on the couch all day eating potato chips and McDonalds and is shaped more like… Homer Simpson). We shall see - perhaps one of these days we’ll have some free time in our weekend to find out. Not this weekend. This weekend is reserved for sitting in the sun in my swimsuit, exploring Grand Marais, general relaxing and merriment, and… all other things that a vacation should be. Oh, and a ton of driving, unfortunately. Could someone please get to work on that whole transporter thing like in Star Trek? It would make vacationing a whole lot easier. (Yes, I realize it would kill several major industries in the US, like airlines and automobiles, and maybe even long-distance phone companies, though those have kinda gone to the wayside anyways, haven’t they?)

Yesterday and last night, I reviewed my course syllabus, charted out the majority of homework I will need to do, threw it on a calendar, and pulled together stuff in a binder for class. Now if only my textbooks will come. One did arrive yesterday, but it was the one I needed least. I can’t read it just yet, but the other two I need to start working on. I just know the one I want the most will come last - we have to read the whole thing and write a paper on it, and it’s 200 pages, a memoir of the Japanese Interment camps. I also made apple crisp (OK, I mostly made apple crisp - it’s sitting in the fridge waiting to be baked in the oven). At about 12:30, decided to chase something around the room, under my bed, etc. I wasn’t quite sure if there was actually something or not, but it’s entirely possible there was [shuddering] a mouse, or one of those icky millipedes that we get. She was acting like she does when there’s a fly in the room. I never saw anything, but I didn’t go looking, either. 12:30 is not exactly the time to be screaming and jumping on the bed, you know?

I also watched “Little Black Book,” which was a lot better than I thought it would be. I don’t particularly care for Brittany Murphy (though I don’t dislike her, like… Christina Ricci), but it had Holly Hunter in it, whom I adore. And Ron Livingston. I hated Holly Hunter’s character, and if you watch it, you’ll understand why. But it was actually a pretty good movie, which surprised me. It would have been a lot better if I liked Brittany Murphy, since she was… everywhere, being the main character and all. So, if you’re bored one day and see it on cable, go ahead and watch it.

Final note - yes, the Feds are still here, and all the managers are busy. Also, the girl who normally answers the phones is out today. So I’m stuck doing backup, and the girl who normally does backup is answering them primarily. But now she’s helping set up the luncheon for the Feds, so it’s just me for the next… half hour. I hate that. It can’t be helped, but I want to go on record and say that some of the changes that happened in our organization in the last year have made me unhappy with specific work tasks that are now assigned to me. Like answering the phones, which originally I was never going to need to do. That’s why I was never actually trained on the phones. Oh well. Can’t be helped, I guess. Our organization is a lot healthier financially, and stable, so that’s good. And I won’t be at this job forever. So I guess I’ll live.

popularity: 19%

The feds are here this week, which means all the managers and randomly some of the “important people” (as in non-clerical) are busy. Which means no new work will be showing up at my desk, and if some does, it will be a rush job, hugely important, fate of the universe depends on it kind of stuff. I hate that kind of work, but oh well. I am strongly lacking in work, and while there are a few projects I would like to work on, they require a manager to set up parameters, explain things, etc. Wednesday will be spent off-site, however, and I’m not working Friday (trip to Grand Marais!), so hopefully the week won’t feel tooooo long.

has graciously agreed to dye and highlight my hair tomorrow night, which is exciting. I’m going lighter for summer. Yes, I realize it’s the end of August, and I kinda missed that whole “summer” thing, but whatever. I’ve been busy, and there are a whole slew of birthdays over the summer that have used up all my “extra” cash, as well as some vacations. So… there’s no time like the present.

popularity: 17%

I got this email last week from the people who adopted :

I was just going thru some of my emails and I thought you might be interested to know that Romeo’s doing really good. He fits in perfectly here and loves all the attention he gets from people at our apt complex. He still sheds like crazy(but we love him anyway!) and somehow a bird flew into our apt last week and he caught it and killed it right away. I couldn’t believe it!Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that he’s happy and doing well. If you ever want to see him, let me know! that’s totally cool!

Wasn’t that nice of them? I mean, I barely think about him (except when I find yet another place where he’s left his mark, if you know what I mean), but when I do, I can now think about him quite peacefully, knowing that he’s happy and healthy and loved.

Miles walked since 6/1: 58 (oops, that’s not that much… guess vacations etc helped me forget to do this more often)

popularity: 10%

You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning.
Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others.
If you’re left brained, you are likely good at math and logic.
Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet.

The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility.
Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way.
If you’re right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art.
Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

You Are Rowlf the Dog

Mellow and serious, you enjoy time alone cultivating your talents.
You’re a cool dog, and you always present a relaxed vibe.
A talented pianist, you can play almost anything - especially songs by Beethoven.
“My bark is worse than my bite, and my piano playing beats ‘em both.”

The Muppet Personality Test

popularity: 10%