I’m feeling a little blue. I got two separate rejection notices from the same company, and I felt like emailing them back, “Okay I get it, you don’t frekin’ want me. You can stop rubbing it in any day now.” I’ve decided to try and move around within The Company for the time being. I am going to continue my external job search, but if I can at least move into a different department maybe things won’t seem so bad. I’m just more burnt out than a dead light bulb. I need me some change, and so I really applied for one job, but that posting had been up since 3/2 and probably isn’t available anymore. There’s another department that I am well suited for that is desperately in need of 2 people and will need a 3rd before the end of the summer, so I talked with the lead over there, and she’s going to talk to her manager for me. She was excited about me moving over with them, largely because I wouldn’t require as much training as a new hire.
I haven’t talked about it with my manager yet, by which I mean my boss’s boss’s boss. In the past he has said that he would help me get any job that I saw that I wanted, but I’m scared that it’s a lie. What if I tell him that I want to move and then he makes it harder? I know, I need to suck it up and talk to him. It’s hard because he’s always busy and rarely in his office. It makes it really easy to avoid the situation. The ironic part is that his office is directly across the hall from mine…. Okay, next time I see him and he isn’t on the phone or talking to someone else I’ll tell him. What’s really the worst thing that is likely to happen? There are horrible retaliatory things that could be done, but most likely either I get to move or everything stays the same. Okay, I’m ready. I can do this.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Bed Head
I have bad hair today. It’s almost big enough to be considered 80’s hair. See, I decided that in order to expedite myself to work this morning that I would wash my hair at night. Not having to wash my hair in the AM would shave several minutes off the getting ready time. The only problem is that I got caught up in sock knitting* last night. I know, it doesn’t sound that exciting, but the prospect of project completion makes it hard to put down. Anyway, the whole point is that I didn’t take a shower until 10:30 at night, and didn’t finish the getting into pjs and teeth scrubbing until 11. So I went to sleep with wet hair. My hair doesn’t normally have a whole lot of body, but something about rubbing it all over my pillow as it dries seems to do unholy things to it. It’s soft and untangled, but it looks a fright. People better get used to me having scary hair, because it’s probably going to keep happening. :)
*I started knitting a pair of socks on the way to Fredricksburg, but only managed to knit the toe. On the way back it was dark, and I didn’t want to strain my eyes, so I started knitting the foot on Saturday. I finished the first sock of the pair last night, and Jeff says that they are his favorite I’ve knit so far. I followed sock knitting rule #1 and cast on for the second sock immediately, but that’s it. I’ll start the knitting of it during lunch or on the way home today. I’m digging this yarn. The yarn is a bit thicker than my “real” sock yarn, but it’s not so thick that they feel awkward on my feet. Still it makes the knitting go faster, and that’s always a good thing. I’ve actually offered to knit Jeff a pair of socks out of this weight of yarn, if he goes and picks some out. I don’t think he’d like the same pattern though, it’s a little girly.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Brrrr!
It’s still kind of chilly outside today. I remember during our Fredricksburg* outing the news was on and we all saw the predictions for freezing temperatures. Tim and I looked at each other, and said no way! This is Texas and it’s already April. The current weather map showed yellows and oranges, but the futurecast showed blues and purples. It must have been a mistake of some sort. Only it wasn’t a mistake, or at least not a forecasting one. It sure did get cold. As Jeff and I drove around town on Saturday we dealt with cold, rain, and even sleet. The good news is that we should be back in the yellows and oranges soon. I’m not a big fan of the cold.
Today I didn’t go out to lunch. My lunch buddy is out sick, and Jeff never got around to fixing his car over the weekend so he has mine. (Something about laying down on the driveway to get underneath the car while there was rain and cold didn’t seem to appeal to him.) Still, I didn’t want to just lose that 30 minute lunch they don’t pay me for, so I knat. I spent 30 minutes outside sitting on cold cold cold concrete knitting away on my latest sock. Socks are great, because they’re so easy to carry around. I think that if I’m going to make sitting outside knitting a standard thing that I might need to get a cushion. Maybe a cushion with a waterproof side in case the ground is a little wet….
*This entry is not going to do it justice, but I don’t want to forget to mention it, Fredricksburg was super fun. Julie, Tim, Stella, Jeff, and I all roadtripped and I had a blast! I think I may have to take another trip up there again soon, or maybe to some other fun locales that are within 1 ½ hours of Austin. It’s looking like I have several more 3 day weekends coming up in my future. April 20th, May 11th, and May 25th. With 3 days off at a time, I’ve got to do something extraordinary, even if it’s on the more typical day of Saturday.
Also, Movie Night was one of the top showings in the food department. Movie night is always full of tasty surprises, but it seemed like everyone went above and beyond last night. I had no idea that so many of my friends were adept at cooking various Asian cuisines. I’ll have to remember that next time I get to pick the theme. Jeff picked out some trippy-ass Japanimation, and a general freak out was had by all.
Well I’ve almost made it through the first day of this new schedule. I’ve done my best not to update every 10 minutes with how long I have left to go. Still now that I’m down to the last 30 minutes I’ve got to wrap up a few loose ends so that I’m ready to bail at exactly 3pm. It’s going to be really weird to not sit in traffic for an hour on the way home.
Today I didn’t go out to lunch. My lunch buddy is out sick, and Jeff never got around to fixing his car over the weekend so he has mine. (Something about laying down on the driveway to get underneath the car while there was rain and cold didn’t seem to appeal to him.) Still, I didn’t want to just lose that 30 minute lunch they don’t pay me for, so I knat. I spent 30 minutes outside sitting on cold cold cold concrete knitting away on my latest sock. Socks are great, because they’re so easy to carry around. I think that if I’m going to make sitting outside knitting a standard thing that I might need to get a cushion. Maybe a cushion with a waterproof side in case the ground is a little wet….
*This entry is not going to do it justice, but I don’t want to forget to mention it, Fredricksburg was super fun. Julie, Tim, Stella, Jeff, and I all roadtripped and I had a blast! I think I may have to take another trip up there again soon, or maybe to some other fun locales that are within 1 ½ hours of Austin. It’s looking like I have several more 3 day weekends coming up in my future. April 20th, May 11th, and May 25th. With 3 days off at a time, I’ve got to do something extraordinary, even if it’s on the more typical day of Saturday.
Also, Movie Night was one of the top showings in the food department. Movie night is always full of tasty surprises, but it seemed like everyone went above and beyond last night. I had no idea that so many of my friends were adept at cooking various Asian cuisines. I’ll have to remember that next time I get to pick the theme. Jeff picked out some trippy-ass Japanimation, and a general freak out was had by all.
Well I’ve almost made it through the first day of this new schedule. I’ve done my best not to update every 10 minutes with how long I have left to go. Still now that I’m down to the last 30 minutes I’ve got to wrap up a few loose ends so that I’m ready to bail at exactly 3pm. It’s going to be really weird to not sit in traffic for an hour on the way home.
Are We There Yet?
We are now 2.5 hours into my work day that began at 7am. Well, to be honest it began shortly before 6 which, according to the color of the sky, was before the day began. Still, none of it counts until I am in The Building. *bleck* I have 5.5 hours to go until I can clock out and leave. Apparently my boss was looking for me at the start of shift meeting at 7 this morning. There are a couple of issues with that. The first issue is that he didn’t tell me that he wanted me to go to any such meeting, so I’m not going. It’s really kind of stupid. The main purpose of this meeting is for them to “call roll”. I’m not a kindergartener and I clock in for crying out loud. He can look at the system and see if I was here on time or not, which for the record is the second reason for my lack of attendance. Yes, I’m off to a great start by being 10 minutes late today. Jeff’s opinion is that I was 1 hour and 50 minutes early, and so everyone should be happy. We’ll see how well that goes over. Anyway, this meeting is completely on the other side of the building from my office, so until I am specifically told that I must attend this thing, I will just abstain. Man, I hope that he doesn't tell me that I have to go.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
No More 9 to 5
Well it finally happened. I knew that it was coming, but I kept my head down and tried to stay under the radar. My manager finally figured out that there really isn’t a good reason for me to work my off hours anymore. Starting next week they want me to work a “real” first shift. I’ll be working from 7am to 3pm. It’s dreadfully early, and I’m not looking forward to my alarm going off at 6am, but on the other hand I won’t have any traffic to speak of. The real bummer is that I won’t be able to carpool with Jeff anymore. Most of his calls don’t start until 9 or 10 in the morning, and it would be difficult for him to be done by 2:30 in the afternoon reliably. We might still do it once in a while, but we’re going to have to buckle down and get his car fixed this weekend. He made some progress yesterday, but it’s still in pieces. Maybe with me hovering over him while he works it’ll happen faster. I hope we have nice weather again. *crosses fingers*
Monday, April 2, 2007
Post Party Post
So despite Jeff’s worst fears, we pulled off a nice weekend for his birthday celebration. The first thing that went right was that we had excellent weather all weekend. It was sunny and warm, but not hot. There was a slight breeze, but never enough that I felt cold. When the weather is nice, everything else just seems to work better.
My friend Chris came into town this weekend. We met up with Chris and his girlfriend Brandy, and their friends Sheena and … Eric? I forget his name. I’m so horrible with names, and for the record I think it was only said once. Still that’s not the point. We had lunch at Romeo’s Saturday afternoon. That’s one of my new favorite lunch spots for the weekend. They don’t tend to be horribly busy, and you never feel rushed. We ended up spending over 2 hours there. Great food and great conversation made for a great start to the day.
Next up was a bit of a low point. Jeff for some reason really wanted to see The Host. I was iffy on the movie, but the posters tag it as the greatest monster movie ever, so I was up for it. That movie was a big disappointment. I don’t know if there was just too much lost in translation or what, but it was not my thing. There were interesting elements to the characters that were never fully explored, and then other facets that were explained in painful detail, only it never had any bearing on the story. Jeff’s suggestion is that people wait for the dvd to come out before they watch it. I just recommend that you don’t bother watching it. I thought it was a little boring, and whatever Jeff tells you to the contrary he fell asleep multiple times.
After the movie we stopped at Randall’s and picked up a birthday cake. It was chocolate cake with fudge icing. I was really impressed with the cake. It was moist and had great flavor. I think it only cost us about ten dollars. But we saw other cakes (of the same variety) that did not look the same. Some of them had a dried up looking icing. I don’t know if they were old, of if the lids weren’t properly sealed, but we could have had a much different cake if we didn’t look closely. So when you buy your cake at Randall’s make sure you give it a good once over and compare it’s color and gloss to the other cakes around it.
We spent a little time at home resting up before Jeff’s party. I watched some bad tv and he spent time in the office doing something or another on the computer. We spent the evening at Opal’s south with a few friends drinking and talking the night away. It was really nice. Brandon and Courtney ended up being able to make it after all. Ian came after work, and Crystal joined us for the last drink of the evening. Bill hung out with us for a while, and was kind enough to pick Ian up from work so that Ian didn’t have to take the bus. Of course Erin was there, because she wouldn’t miss it for anything. She once again stole the show with her handmade wrapping paper. The funniest story though, is the story of Beth. See Beth got to Opal’s at 8 pm with a cell phone that had a dying battery. She managed to get one call in and out to her husband who confirmed that she was an hour early to the party. Beth is not one to be discouraged and spent her pre-party hour celebrating with a table of complete strangers. You have to admire that kind of spirit. I’m entirely too shy and probably would have spent the hour by myself, but then again I almost always travel with knitting so I would have been okay.
Sunday I went to the second half of my knitting class. I had already finished knitting my bag (pictures coming sometime soon) so I worked on knitting a sock, and helping out the other students. I handed out some rivets for people to use, because I had to buy a package of about 100 when I needed 4, over Christmas break. It was a fun morning of chatting with other knitters.
When I got home Jeff’s dad was there. He had brought some smoked barbecue that Jeff’s mom had made, and Jeff grabbed some side dishes from Bill Miller’s Barbecue and some beer to go with it. So we watched some Deadwood and ate barbecue before Dan hopped back on his motorcycle and drove back to Houston. You can’t make that kind of stuff up!
Jeff and I rounded out his weekend by playing World of Warcraft last night. He’s been pestering me because I don’t play my warrior very often, so I was holding up his quest progression. I think he was satisfied with the number of quests we did. We finished off the last of the chocolate cake and I crawled into bed to go to sleep before I turned into a pumpkin.
I’d like to say thank you to all the people that we spent time with this weekend. We had a great time, and we’re glad that you were there with us. To everyone else, I know that you would have been there if you could, and we thought fondly of you and barely gossiped about you at all. ;) I hope you all had a great weekend, and now it’s time to get back to work.
My friend Chris came into town this weekend. We met up with Chris and his girlfriend Brandy, and their friends Sheena and … Eric? I forget his name. I’m so horrible with names, and for the record I think it was only said once. Still that’s not the point. We had lunch at Romeo’s Saturday afternoon. That’s one of my new favorite lunch spots for the weekend. They don’t tend to be horribly busy, and you never feel rushed. We ended up spending over 2 hours there. Great food and great conversation made for a great start to the day.
Next up was a bit of a low point. Jeff for some reason really wanted to see The Host. I was iffy on the movie, but the posters tag it as the greatest monster movie ever, so I was up for it. That movie was a big disappointment. I don’t know if there was just too much lost in translation or what, but it was not my thing. There were interesting elements to the characters that were never fully explored, and then other facets that were explained in painful detail, only it never had any bearing on the story. Jeff’s suggestion is that people wait for the dvd to come out before they watch it. I just recommend that you don’t bother watching it. I thought it was a little boring, and whatever Jeff tells you to the contrary he fell asleep multiple times.
After the movie we stopped at Randall’s and picked up a birthday cake. It was chocolate cake with fudge icing. I was really impressed with the cake. It was moist and had great flavor. I think it only cost us about ten dollars. But we saw other cakes (of the same variety) that did not look the same. Some of them had a dried up looking icing. I don’t know if they were old, of if the lids weren’t properly sealed, but we could have had a much different cake if we didn’t look closely. So when you buy your cake at Randall’s make sure you give it a good once over and compare it’s color and gloss to the other cakes around it.
We spent a little time at home resting up before Jeff’s party. I watched some bad tv and he spent time in the office doing something or another on the computer. We spent the evening at Opal’s south with a few friends drinking and talking the night away. It was really nice. Brandon and Courtney ended up being able to make it after all. Ian came after work, and Crystal joined us for the last drink of the evening. Bill hung out with us for a while, and was kind enough to pick Ian up from work so that Ian didn’t have to take the bus. Of course Erin was there, because she wouldn’t miss it for anything. She once again stole the show with her handmade wrapping paper. The funniest story though, is the story of Beth. See Beth got to Opal’s at 8 pm with a cell phone that had a dying battery. She managed to get one call in and out to her husband who confirmed that she was an hour early to the party. Beth is not one to be discouraged and spent her pre-party hour celebrating with a table of complete strangers. You have to admire that kind of spirit. I’m entirely too shy and probably would have spent the hour by myself, but then again I almost always travel with knitting so I would have been okay.
Sunday I went to the second half of my knitting class. I had already finished knitting my bag (pictures coming sometime soon) so I worked on knitting a sock, and helping out the other students. I handed out some rivets for people to use, because I had to buy a package of about 100 when I needed 4, over Christmas break. It was a fun morning of chatting with other knitters.
When I got home Jeff’s dad was there. He had brought some smoked barbecue that Jeff’s mom had made, and Jeff grabbed some side dishes from Bill Miller’s Barbecue and some beer to go with it. So we watched some Deadwood and ate barbecue before Dan hopped back on his motorcycle and drove back to Houston. You can’t make that kind of stuff up!
Jeff and I rounded out his weekend by playing World of Warcraft last night. He’s been pestering me because I don’t play my warrior very often, so I was holding up his quest progression. I think he was satisfied with the number of quests we did. We finished off the last of the chocolate cake and I crawled into bed to go to sleep before I turned into a pumpkin.
I’d like to say thank you to all the people that we spent time with this weekend. We had a great time, and we’re glad that you were there with us. To everyone else, I know that you would have been there if you could, and we thought fondly of you and barely gossiped about you at all. ;) I hope you all had a great weekend, and now it’s time to get back to work.
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