Quo Vado?

A couple of months ago, I got myself Shanghai into this evil vile project of Bossman’s. The evil vile project (henceforth known as EVp) is proving to be itself as evil and vile as I originally thought. Between revelations of yesterday and today, I’m beginning to think that maybe artichokes need to take lessons in practicality.

Today, Grumpy brought light into my day by pointing out that the artichoke is calling for three 7’-3 windows complete with jambs and sashes to be located on an exterior wall. The windows will be beautiful in the 20’-6 wall. Just so long as you don’t mind a little water.

The ‘lovely’ and ‘sane’ tower element, however, keeps taking the cake for the most ‘well thought out plan’ of the architectural world. In their infinite wisdom the artichokes decided to place a steel and concrete framed tower inside of a condo unit primarily framed with wood. To say the least, beyond the differential settlement issues and the initial puzzlement of the owners as to why the floor feels different in the sunroom, the thing was a bear to frame originally. With dimensions and cantilevers going everywhere, I spent days just trying to figure out what was happening generally. Now, however, they’ve taken out a mezzanine piece and inserted a floored attic deck that’s there to allow maintenance workers in to change the bulbs illuminating the tower. There’s only one slight problem. To get to the attic deck the maintenance worker is going to have to climb onto the main roof, crawl up a 4’-6 ladder, squeeze through a 4’x4’ service door and crawl down a 4’-0 ladder. All I can think of is some poor maintenance guy getting stuck in the attic because he fell in though the service door head first.

Artichokes are excessively practical. Really.

I loose seven minutes every time I leave the flat. It’s been bothering me for months. I leave the flat at 8:11 am and somewhere in the hundred and fifty foot walk to the car the time changes to 8:20 am. The clocks in both locations are set to an exterior source of time either my network set computer or the radio. These worlds some how manage to be seven minutes apart. I’m going to have to make an executive decision soon and set one to the other before I loose any more of my mind.

I was nearly hit by a car yesterday. The car wasn’t going fast. It wasn’t going straight. There was no driver in it. Yep, I almost found myself bruised by MPC. After fourteen years of setting the parking break, last night I forgot. Luckily no damage was done and I didn’t loose my Yankee Sweet Tea in the small moment of panic one feels when noticing that the car you thought was stationary was moving.

Today’s PSA: Use your parking break. Sometimes, even when you can’t see or feel the pavement sloping it is and your car will roll.

Corollary PSA: Disengage the parking break before driving. Your nose will thank you.

OK, so the bloody thing is useful when I’m stuck at the airport and need to let someone know to not come to get me just yet. It’s useful after bad weather or an accident. But other than these small occurrences, I could live with out the phone. The thing rings while I’m eating. It allows Bossman to page directly into my office and scare the bee-gee-bees out of me. It interrupts the flow of work on a bad day and destroys too many good days. Somehow, it’s become one of those things I cannot leave home without - though I never use it. If I can’t see your face I don’t want to talk to you. There’s body language and lip reading that cannot be done over the ether. If my ears are having a bad day, I have to fill in the blanks of what I hear. Add to that the *beauty* of constant chatter in a room of two people not speaking to each other. Dude, give my ears and my head a break and just let me cut the power to the local switching station and poor sugar in the generators. Five minutes of silence anyone?

I paid the vampires today to collect some blood. For her birthday present Alm asked that I get a physical. What a birthday request, though knowing it wasn’t a bad idea to fulfill her request. So, today that process took it’s second step as I gave the lab a mere two vials of blood. I was so disappointed. I didn’t get to read too much of my new book.

I had a solid Thanksgiving weekend. Since I stopped going home for Thanksgiving a decade ago, I’ve spent the weekend in a variety of ways. I’ve slept through it, cooked for others not traveling any where, crashed a friends places, and even house-sat. This year, the weekend found itself dedicated to the second phase of preparation for my online course work. I had carved out a functional work area with the egg desk, but I wasn’t quite happy with my room yet. In creating the work area, I orphaned whole piles of books, files and keepsakes to the pathway back to the bathroom. I didn’t want to live with this floor chaos for the next eighteen months.

After much internal hemming and hawing, I decided to install some wire rack storage in a corner of the main bedroom. It took two sleepless nights, another trip to IKEA, and twelve hours of sorting, repackaging and pitching but I finished the project. By the end of the weekend, I’d rearranged my room, organized the shelves, flipped the mattress, changed the sheets, replaced the bent shear rod, reorganized the closet, cleaned the bathroom, made five trips to the dumpster and unloaded a careful at Goodwill. There are two more small tasks awaiting me tonight, once they’re done I will have finished the fall cleaning and begin looking for a small project to keep me occupied until classes start in January. Maybe, I’ll finally get around to hanging the prints that have been sitting in the living room for a year.

Photos of the rearranged room can be seen here.

Photos from my trip to Nashville on the 20th can bee seen here - including some photos from inside the car wash.

Blue traveling coffee mugs tempted me as I picked up lunch today. Einstein’s holiday promotion merchandise is blue and silver - my favorite holiday season colors. The ‘you don’t need more kitchen stuff’ mantra held strong during my visit, though, after two visits to IKEA and a long stop in RCB, I’ve become fearful that the mantra may give away soon. Given that other than my Cutco knives, none of the stuff in the kitchen right now came from my stash, I really don’t need anything new.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I made a list of things about or for which I am thankful.

1. God is much more patient with me than I am or would ever be.
2. I have a great mom.
3. I have learned to appreciate my mother’s greatness as of late.
4. Whenever Squid leaves me a message, he works hard to make me laugh.
5. Squid has good taste and shares information.
6. I have a cozy flat that is my home.
7. I’ve been gifted with the ability to fit a great deal of stuff into a small space.
8. I have not forgotten how to laugh.
9. There is a functional washer and dryer in the house.
10. Some of my favorite furniture is early relative.
11. Alm takes care of me when I’m sick.
12. Jess is starting to warm up to me.
13. I enjoy reading.
14. I’m not wearing shoes.
15. I can now complete computer work from bed.
16. There is Goodwill to give the purged stuff.
17. I’m in a position to change careers in a drastic fashion.
18. I want to change careers.
19. Microwaves make reheating food simple.
20. Dishwashers do most of the heavy dish cleaning lifting.
21. There are so many movie theatres in this area.
22. I was able to take a nap this afternoon.
23. Tape
24. Living in the south introduced me to sweet potatoes.
25. I’ve felt the urge to purge more stuff from my home.
26. MPC is currently in one piece.
27. MPC gets great gas mileage.
28. I enjoy driving.
29. Learning to eat better is progressing along. I still have a long way to go, but progress has been made.
30. Alm allows me to rent a room from her.
31. The trees outside shield the flat from the summer heat.
32. I can hear.
33. Drive-by shootings aren’t common in the areas I frequent.
34. Work gave me a break where I didn’t have to push quite so hard for a couple of weeks.
35. Break’s over on Monday.
36. I’ve stuck by this blogging thing for a thousand posts.
37. Television shows now come on DVD.
38. I’m not dead – yet.
39. The Sci-Fi channel is playing Firefly – the commercial breaks actually add to some of the funny.
40. People I don’t know by sight were willing to help me with my TFA application.
41. I have a normal sized head.
42. I have small feet – the shoes are generally cheaper.
43. I don’t have to eat cat food (it smells bad).
44. I have my own office at work.
45. I have a job that pays the bills.
46. My feet are now staying warm without the benefit of socks.
47. I actually get to take the entirety of this holiday weekend off of work.
48. I don’t have to be a soldier.
49. There’s an IKEA nearby.
50. Beds come in various sizes.
51. Caffeine was discovered.
52. There is texture in the world.
53. Tall people are willing to help those of us who cannot reach the highest shelf.
54. I know danger comes in all kinds of packages.
55. I have yet to burn down the house.
56. My work doesn’t require that I wear dress clothes often.
57. The company holiday party is only once a year.
58. There are so many beautiful colors in the world.
59. God makes it so that I can see a wide variety of those colors in unexpected locations.
60. Donuts and bagels have holes.
61. My head is hard.
62. I know how to sit still.
63. Pears
64. I can see.
65. My friends want what’s best for me.
66. I’m not in high school.
67. Peanut butter comes in smooth and crunch.
68. Squid used to let me steal his Legos.
69. There are now online options for completing most of my teaching certification training.
70. I’m too old for my mother to make me eat a specific food.
71. There are direct flights to the town of the new homestead.
72. Somebody thought of putting smiles on Goldfish crackers.
73. I have all my original moving parts.
74. I’m not craving pickles right now. Which is good because I don’t have any.
75. There are cuter creatures than I out there in the world.
76. My uni-brow is coming in slower.
77. I kept reminders of past failures.
78. Digital Photography
79. I’m not incarcerated.
80. My mattresses are still fairly new and I haven’t popped any springs.
81. My room is big enough to hold quite a bit of stuff.
82. I haven’t lost my ability to move furniture.
83. I never married the wrong man.
84. The water in my toilet isn’t currently running.
85. I have mental acuity.
86. I live in the United States – as screwed up as this country is, I can’t see myself living anywhere else.
87. Someone invented on-line bill pay.
88. My little hands are nimble enough to carry a wide variety of things.
89. I don’t have to work outside.
90. There’s always someone willing to help me change a tire.
91. There are no porcupines in the flat.
92. Spell checker works so well.
93. I can phone home whenever I need to.
94. There is so much software out there to help me do the blogging thing.
95. I don’t understand how all the networking stuff works.
96. Carrots are a vegetable.
97. I don’t have to cook this weekend.
98. Cell phones mean that I don’t have to update mom with a new phone number each time I move.
99. My commute to work is just twenty minutes.
100. I realized this was my thousandth post before I wrote a whiny post about having take a nap.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Remeber to appreciate your crazy family why you have them with you.

If I drink much more watered down Gatorade I just may hurl. Signs of my intelligence are waning quickly. Last week I worked late into most evenings to rearrange the furniture in my room. The new dresser and furniture locations meant having to dispose of some of the ‘stuff’ I’ve collected along the way. This purging isn’t really anything new - I do it about once every six months. This time around, however, I overworked myself last week made me susceptible to the cold I caught on Friday. I spent the weekend in bed trying to fight it, only to loose my mind over the bit of rearranging I have left to do. I’ve been up until nearly three in the morning for the last two nights either fussing or trying to switch off my brain. The best part, that cold I should have finished off came back. How sucky is that?

I felt so poorly after Friday’s site visit that I avoided leaving the house for the weekend, and as such didn’t become one of the thousands to see the new Harry Potter flick. Tonight, I rectified that oversight. Given that the fourth book isn’t one of one of my favorites, the movie surprised me. It did an excellent job building up the suspense, and while it left some of the more interesting details out of the story, it cut them away to avoid the awful plodding that I hated about the fourth book. If you like Harry, and haven’t seen the movie yet - give it a go.

Over the course of the last couple of months, I’ve ‘left’ various articles of clothing in my office. A pair of wrinkle-resistant khaki slacks that rub me the wrong way, a junked pair of Birkenstocks, and an oversized waffle sweatshirt. Today, all these plus a forethought inspired pair of socks came in handy as I returned from retrieving lunch looking like a large drowned rat. While my hair is still falling damply in my eyes, the rest of me can nearly forget today’s wetting - if only my toes weren’t still frozen.

I shouldn’t whine about frozen toes, however. We’re entering the months where my toes stay frozen. There’s not much I can do for them as winter approaches. Until the sun recovers it’s ability to heat up the pavement to barely touchable temperatures, the toes will stay frozen.

I think I forgot to tell you all that I created a three day weekend from the office this week by scheduling a site visit today. It’s another trip up to Nashville, so maybe there will be more photos while driving tonight. Have a good day everyone.

And, if there’s a question you’d like to ask that I just may be able to answer, ask away. I’m declaring an all request weekend.

Well, the cat is ready to do unspeakable things to be because I keep confusing her. I keep moving around the furniture and deciding that things go in different places than they did before, and she has no clue what to make of all of it. Luckily, for her anyway, I finished putting together the dresser. It feels great being able to actually put my bed linens in a drawer, rather than leaving them out in a basket.

My toes are cold so I’m going to bed.