I take it back

I take it back. I would rather be called "the bottleneck" than "the horse we're riding".

Still Trucking...

Yup, I'm still going to post even though no one might be reading :)

Finished my Apres Surf Hoodie... Here it is blocking...

I made it much longer than the pattern indicated and the length is just right. Love it! Wore it last week to the Vetern's Knitter Sale at Fiberge and got my 25% off. Love a sale - I got some more baby merino to make my brother an argyle cowl for his birthday. And some to make myself one to go with my new orange coat as well. I'm digging this whole popularity of the cowl thing... Keeps your neck warm, won't unwrap and fall off like a scarf, the ends don't get in your way and when you arrive at your destination, you can pop it in your pocket as some are barely larger than a hat! I think my brother will like his in tan and black fair-isle type argyle... The boy is a prep at heart, anything argyle is tops on his list! And yeah, this is a birthday knit, there's no way I'll be done in time for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, I finally started my Christmas shopping this weekend! I made it up to the outlet mall with my 20% off at Coach coupon and bought my previously mentioned brother a new wallet. Outlet priced at $120, half off sale plus coupon made that puppy only $50. I'm trying to control my spending this year so other than some kitten mittens that'll be it for him. What are kitten mittens? I'm so glad you asked!

I hope that works, I used to know some html but not so much anymore. If not here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGCKONstXWI. Yeah, it's his favorite show and I think I can probably whip those suckers out in a few hours.

Work has been crazy busy. I should probably be doing that instead of posting here but let's be honest. It's boring. I need to bring in massive amounts of money this year so we can hit our financial goal and get our bonuses and lucky me, our sales guy waited until the end of the year to get a bunch of PO's. I've hardly had anything to do all year and now it's going to be non-stop until next year. Good thing I already took most of my vacation time. Everyone is freaking out and they need to CALM DOWN. 1) I'll get this shit done. I always do. I've never missed a hard deadline. I'll bring in more part coders - it's something I can easily find, especially in this economy and right around the holidays. 2) When the stress level is high, I get sick. Since I'm the only one doing this, I can't get sick. So the stress level needs to come down. 3) If I have my headphones on and I'm not responding to you, there's a reason for that. I'm probably trying to calculate the volume of a hollow circular paraboloid and translate that into flat plates. It's not the time to interrupt me to tell me that Nordstrom Rack is opening less than a mile from my house. Trust me, I already know. And 4) I would prefer is people not refer to me as 'the bottle neck'. It's not my fault all these PO's came at the same time. It's not my fault there's only one person here that does my job. It's not my fault that everything has to go through me before it can be coded. It's also not my fault that our statement of works don't charge extra for all the work I do during set up for coding. I can get it done fast or I can get it done right.

Ok, back to work. I can't even tell you how happy I am that next week is only 3 days!

Seasons are changing again, it makes me a little sad. I love summer, being tan, going to the pool, playing golf. Golf has been relegated to the weekends now. More time after work, since I was regularly playing a good 2-3 times a week after work this summer. I guess I should start going back to the gym. Seems it's been a mass exodus from my old gym to my new one! Not that I can blame them, it's a whopping $7 more a month and sooooo much nicer. More classes, racquetball courts, 3 times as many elliptical and treadmills (and they all actually WORK!) and a (get this ) POOL!!! So far I've seen quite a few people from the old gym - the tall skinny black guy with the grey hair and all his workout friends, the guy that looks like the Clark Kent version of Superman, the lesbians that play football for Ickey Woods, and that guy my friend took out with us on NYE a few years ago.

I've been making it there about once a week but you know that's really not enough. I hit it there last night, usually it's not so crowded when I make it there on the weekend and I stay in the pool and don't do much else. Well, I'm stepping it up and doing 30 min or so on a machine before swimming. I really need to get online and DL some masters workouts - I find a get a whole lot more done when I have like, actual SETS to do instead of just aimlessly swimming back and forth. And it may look like I'm showing off, but I NEED to do some speed work in order to feel like I've actually gotten something out of the workout. It is fun coasting by the rec swimmers though...

This weekend I'm going to jump on a jet plane and heading down to Chucktown (Charleston for those unfamiliar) to visit A. It might be a train wreck full of shame and regret, but I think everyone needs a day like that every once in a while. I won't be flying back though... I'll be driving. YAY! Need to find a good knitting project for that drive. I was thinking about making a orange and black cowl for my dad because I could pretty much make it without a pattern, but I'm sorely tempted to work on my Apres Surf Hoodie instead.

Too cute right? I'm making it in this great cyan color from knitpicks.

Yeah, it's really kind of bright but I like it! I really look much better in colors like this than the color the model is wearing anyway. I'm (finally) through the back section and I plan on starting the front tonight. I'm making a few mods to the pattern though, I think it would end up way too short on me to begin with, considering my loooong torso. And the sizes are between a 39-1/2 inch and a 43 in bust. Being I'm 40", I figured I would make the 39-1/2" and block it to the right size I need. And if I need it to be a bit wider than design, well, it needs to be a bit longer to compensate. So the directions will have you decrease at a rate of once ever 8 rows for the waist and increase once every 10 rows for the bust, so I decreased at every 10 and increased at every 12. I also knit an extra inch before starting the waist shaping, but I have the same amount of plain knitting at the bottom. Thankfully I think I took good notes! It was a little heartbreaking - I should have been finished with the back Saturday, but turns out about halfway through I messed up the lace pattern and had to frog! All that work *sob*. Oh well, rather have it done and look good than just have it done 3 days sooner!

Reminds me I really need to take and post some FO pictures... Maybe next time!

So it's been a while?

Yes, I see now my last blog post was in February. Yes, I see this is post #5 in my blog. I guess you could say my dedication to blogging is a little lax. And yes, that would be a massive understatement!

I've been apathetic about computers lately. I spend 95% of my 40 (yes, 40 max!) hours at work on a computer, so about the last thing I want to do when I get home is get back on the computer. But, my friends, I have found a way where I can blog with my apathy - yes, blogging at work. Let's be honest here, of the 95% of the time I'm on the computer at work, 100%$ of that time I have some sort of Internet browsing going on. I may not be actively browsing, but you can be damn sure it's open. And now that lovely Sonic Shield has blocked facebook, I can't even get through with a proxy server! Which is too damn bad, I used to have a mad rush going on in BeJewled over there. Luckily for me though, I can still get on Ravelry through the proxy server. Anyone interested in website construction or knitting should mosey over there and request membership. Seriously, I work for a company that produces a web-based application for manufacturing environments. I have 4 full time programmers and one systems administrator on staff. Ravelry pretty much kicks our website's ass. And the whole thing is coded by ONE GUY!!!! I don't think most people over there get how freaking unbelievable that is. My website is constantly crashing, producing internal server errors, and corrupting data. Oh, and all our data is either entered by us or is entered by a user and extensively filtered by us. His data is all user entered and hardly ever crashes! I wonder if Casey (yes, everyone on the website knows his name, and he's constantly on the boards answering posts and emails) is just that good or if my guys suck THAT BAD. Probably a little of both I guess.

Speaking of work, yeah, work sucks. I get way too little pay, not enough vacation, and way too few interesting and engaging things to do. I feel brain dead at times, like I once knew how to think but the grey film has clouded my eyes and my brain and I can no longer think or see clearly. We have business planning meeting at the end of the month where we set budget for next year, i.e. how much we're going to try to make and spend. I don't know why we're going to bother with it though, basically my boss Dash is going to make all the decisions and we're going to have conversations that are 4 times as long as they should be just for him to come to the same conclusion as he had in the beginning. In preparation for this illustrious event, we've been ordered to read Strengthsfinder 2.0 and take the personality quiz. I'm not going to reveal my actual results today, or ever maybe, but it was interesting. Apparently the quiz goes in different directions depending on how you answer, but mine didn't even ask about numbers. Which is interesting given my BS in engineering. According to my top 5 strengths, I should have gone into either marketing or journalism. 2 of my strengths specifically said either journalism or marketing, and one said media. Apparently my grasp of the English language and my propensity to use large words (which I admit I am more apt to do in speaking, because I'm a terrible speller) leaves people impressed and intimidated, motivated to go into action but lacking in understanding of what I'm actually talking about. Yeah, that kind of made me chuckle. Of course, I know he had us take this quiz so he can decide what role we should take in this company, but I do believe I'm hoping in vain that my job description will change. I'm pretty sure he'll make up a couple of tasks for us to do in the upcoming year and then promptly forget about it. Which I feel is fairly accurate because one of my coworkers indicates that's exactly what happened last year. Oh well, I'm not planning on staying here forever, but someone please remind me when I'm job hunting next time to negotiate 3 weeks of vacation for sure!

Love life.... Well there's not much to talk about there. I'm hanging out and having fun with this guy I met last year who lives in Florida. Nothing serious there, he's just up here for like, a month, working and doesn't really know anyone here so we're having a good time. He's fun, and maybe a little crazy, but hey, it keeps me occupied.

Well, that's enough for now. I don't want to exhaust all my topics and not post again for another 8 months!

Another Date - LOL

Rule number one in dating- if you're going to google the person you're going to go out with, don't tell them. And especially don't tell them in the first five minutes of meeting them. And even more important, don't bring up some obscure paper they wrote for NASA like, 4 years ago. Ihad to google myself to figure out what it was!

Took my baby to the shop today. So sad I'm going to be without her for five days - and I have to drive this shitty Impala until then! I so want to download that song and blare it- it's awful! Hopefully I'll get her back on time as good as new!

Work is fucking biz-zee! The project I'm working on is coming to a head. Feels sometimes like I'm teaching remedial high school subjects though. Everytime I get a spreadsheet from someone I have to highlight everything they missed or got wrong, and then send it back. Once I didn't have to send it back at all. Once I had to send it back 5 times. One guy didn't put everything in the column it was supposed to go in, he left it all combined in a text stream - like I have nothing better to do than fix everyone's spreadsheet for them. Then someone had the nerve to call me a software rep! The nerve!!!

Booked my trip to Miami today. Well, I booked a trip to Miami for the wrong week, then I called Delta freaking out that I booked it on the wrong day, then rebooked it on the right day. I want to pack already! My friend claims she's going to carry on. 5 days??? Carry on??? Forget it! I can't wait!

Can't give a crap

So like any NY resolution mine has been broken. But I’m back and I guess I have a lot of updating to do!

So I went on my first match.com date. Ugh. Note to self: ask what a guy does before committing to even drink with him. When I did ask what he did, he told me he works at his friend’s tennis store. Seriously? You’re 3-fucking-4 years old, it’s well beyond time to have an actual career. Then he asked me if I ever came up to party in Dayton. I have no idea why I would ever do that- I mean, I know you all have probably heard about the rocking party scene in Dayton Ohio, but that drive is just a little long for me. The best part though, was when he named two songs by my favorite band, because I mentioned in my profile that I’d give bonus points to anyone who could. For one thing, bonus points aren’t real. For a second, all he did was GOOGLE THEM! I asked him if he liked him, he said no, I asked if he at least listened to them, another no! At least f-ing download a song or two and give them a listen if you’re going to bring it up! I know I said I would give him bonus points, but in reality, for that performance, I took points away. He asked if I wanted to order food and I made up an excuse that I was meeting friends for dinner later. He did make the all so generous gesture of picking up the tab for my ONE beer, which cost a whopping $1.75- less than his coke I might add. NEXT!

The economy is bad right? So then why is there an hour and 45 minute wait to get a table at PF Chang’s on a Friday night? Luckily my friends and I are cute; a little balking at that wait got us a table in 20 minutes along with free appetizers and free dessert. But seriously, if the economy is so bad, why is every restaurant I walk into on a weekend so packed? However, I can’t complain about the sales going on lately!

I’ve been thinking more about moving lately. Florida fo sho. I want to walk in the sun and not pick my shoes based on whether or not there’s snow on the ground. My friend Janet is trying to get back to Miami, but I don’t think I want to move there. I don’t speak Spanish! Maybe somewhere a little farther north up the shore. I don’t even want to live by the beach, just knowing I can get there in less than an hour is good enough for me. Plus you know wherever I move there will be a pool! I’m going to start saving my funds now. Plus I think I need to wait for the economy to come back a little bit and get some more experience at this job before I start job hunting again.

Job is going well. Busy! My boss keeps trying to get into all these new businesses so we may very well be HAMMERED in the next few months. I think I might even get a bonus this month- I’m not really eligible for one but my boss did say that he could put in for one for me as “discretional spending” and he did. Yay for a bonus in a time when people aren’t really getting much of anything. Not to mention I’ve never gotten a bonus before. I take that back, I got a $100 gift card once, but I don’t think that should count.

Weekend update

Sorry, I'm sure it won't be as funny as the original.

Friday - went with J to see Benjamin Buttons and have some eats. BB was good, a little sad, but that happens. Stopped at the Lou to have some food because it was 10:30 and we were starving. A was working there, he always hooks me up. 2 free beers - sweet. He probably is sweet on me, but he's young so there's no potential there. When we left we got our parking validation refunds. Apparently the kid didn't have much cash left so he refused to give anyone the full $4 and gave people $3 instead. You can believe I wrote the Levee a LONG letter about that one. I know it's a buck, but seriously, you can't short people money because they kid wasn't given enough cash at the beginning of his shift. Anyway, he could have been lying about that and lined his pockets with the additional buck.

Yesterday I went to the gym and just hung out. Met up with A and L for some Chipotle, and then headed to Habits for some drinks, where K met up with us. K just broke up with the guy she was dating on NYE, and has already signed up for eHarmony and met a new guy yesterday, who called while we were there and later showed up. Honestly, she does this over and over again, and I wish she would take some time for herself for once to learn to be on her own and figure out what she wants before she jumps in another relationship with the first guy that comes along. I'm not the only one that thinks that way, but honestly, what are you going to do about it? There's not much you can say to someone about it that's going to go the right way. After Habits, L went to Hap's and A and I went to Hyde Park Tavern. It sucked so we met up with L at Habits, where A almost went home with a German Shepard puppy. Better than a greasy guy with an STD right?

Woke up with a bit of a headache, popped a few advil and had some greasy hash browns and homemade goetta for breakfast. Made it up to the galaxy for my 12:30 club fitting. Tried out a few men's drivers, found one I really like. Apparently my club speed is really quick for a woman, so I ended up with a men's senior driver. Found one I hit 217 yards straight down the middle a Cobra. Took a few irons into the simulator, found one I really liked, Ping G10's. Again, a men's senior club. So I got all written up on my special order clubs, and they decided I could buy the driver today but that my mom should come in and get the clubs for me. So after I checked out, I was sitting around shooting the shit with E for a bit, when we noticed some trade in clubs sitting on the next register. Ping rhapsody, the same club I was ordering only slightly better, and they were brand new, full set. The guy had his order sheet from when he purchased them less than a month ago. They were the exact spec that I needed with the exception of the lie angle, they were off by a degree. So I took the 7 back and hit it in the simulator, and was hitting the crap out of it. They were going slightly left but that was because the angle was off. So B took them back and adjusted the angle, and they were mine for a mere $460! For reference, when they were bought new less than a month ago they were $1037. The G10 Pings I was ordering were around $650. I even ended up with more clubs than I was really ordering, I was going to get 5-PW and a gap wedge on my order, but buying used I had to buy the whole set, 3-PW and I got the gap too. They guy had bought 2-PW, gap, sand, and lob wedges, hybrid set and driver less than a month ago and already traded them back in! Some people have more money than sense. So I got new clubs and paid for it all with gift cards from Christmas! Yay!

Had dinner tonight with M. Haven't seen her in a bit, so we went to Mitchell's and had the tasting menu. Yum lobster, spinach salad, lobster and crab cakes, and creme brulee for dessert. She got me a birthday gift, it's the cutest picture from with the quote "there's always something to toast to" on it.

Doing the match.com thing. A is doing it too and raves about it. K is doing eHarmony. A thinks we should do a documentary, I think it would be hilarious. No potential so far, but we'll see. A said she also had doubts the first few days, and to give it a few days. We'll see, Ill have to keep you updated!

Day one, and coincidentally, new years day...

So i figure it's time to start something new, right? New year, new blog, new audience of people to bore with my mundane life. So most people write about what they do during the day, right? Well, last night was, of course, new years eve. My first instinct was to boycott. I hate NYE. I like the concept, but the execution sucks. Then my second instinct was just to treat it like a Friday night, dinner and maybe a movie with a friend. Well, then it occurred to me that all the places I like to go, would be $60 to just get in the door, traffic would be horrendous, and drunk people would be on the road. Which brings me to my third idea, which was to go out with two of my (male) friends who didn't seem like they had any concrete plans. Well, until about 8 pm last night, when they both decided to stay in because they were sick. So the one, G told me to call him later to see, maybe he'd be feeling better. So I did and apparently, his pocket answered so I could enjoy the bar background noises. Nice right- lying about being sick. So since he only lives 5 min, I did a drive by on the way to buy myself a happy new years bottle of champagne and confirmed it. Yes, no car in his driveway. I don't mind that he didn't want to hang out with me on new years. All he had to do was say he had plans and I would have gone back to boycotting new years. But this is bullshit. I don't even know how to handle it - probably the silent treatment for now. Oh well. I was exhausted, so I downed the champagne and was in bed before midnight.

So today I woke up at the crack of 6:45. Yes, I forgot to turn off my alarm. So when I couldn't fall back to sleep, I turned on a little TV, confirmed that I still had Comedy Central, and settled in with some Saved by the Bell reruns. Eventually I dozed back off and woke up again around 10:30. Got up, had a divine caramel chocolate and pecan muffin from Costco and settled in for the Bones marathon. Not that I like Bones all that much, but David Bor-a-I-don't-know-how-to-spell-his-name is hot. So I worked on knitting the left glove and watched for a bit. Took a break now and then to do some cleaning and laundry. Then I decided to assemble the filing cabinet the I bought from Target the other night. I was rocking on the thing, I should have had it together in less than 20 minutes. Until I had to put in the drawers. I went to put the large one in and it was a tight squeeze. It went about half way in before it stopped. I pushed it a little harder, and then *whoosh* ball bearings all over the floor. Sticky ball bearings, on my unvacuumed and my vacuum barely works floor. Nice. So I finally get it all back together, all the sticky ball bearings back in, get the drawer back in and *Woosh* AGAIN! Luckily the third time really was the charm, and even though I washed off the sticky grease to get the ball bearings back in, I finally did get the drawer in. Lubed it all back up with a little WD-40 (yes, I do have some on hand!) and now it's good to go, upstairs in my orange room holding the hand-me-down printer that halfway works.

So I did something else today. I created a profile on match.com. A has the worst luck with men, and she told me that she was doing it and was having great luck with it so far. She actually raved about it, which surprised me, coming from her. So I created one, hopefully fun and flirty. I looked at my first 5 matches though -well, let's just say it can only go uphill from here! I figured I would do it for what, 6 months or so and see what happens. I've already had 3 people view my profile HA HA! My mom has been bugging me about doing it as well. I said to her that it usually works better for older people, to which she pointed out that I am older now. Ouch - point taken.

Well it's back to work again tomorrow. I wish it was busier-there wasn't much to do over the holidays. I'm going to have to make my first phone call tomorrow asking someone to pay their bill though. Wish me luck on that one!!!