Quo Vado?

‘Tis Saturday morning and Alm and I prepare for our weekend road trip. Luckily, our destination is a mere 4.5 hours away and the party doesn’t start until eight, so we can poke around for another half an hour or so. Tonight’s party is to be costume and I found a great one where I can wear jeans and a fun hat. I’m going as robber in the Wild West, of course, complete with play six shooters and a hat bigger than I am. While events like this aren’t really my cup of tea, I’ve had fun collecting the costume. Well, now it’s time to go get cleaned up so we can get on the road. Have a good weekend, ya’ll.

A couple of great things about being a structural engineer. First, I can say in the course of conversation, ‘well, I’m going to size some studs’ and not feel badly. Secondly, when you find a pretty leaf on your way to lunch you can collect it, bring it back to the office and have plenty of paperweights to press it under without worrying about tripping over anything.

Oh, and just because I can:

Click to see the whole image.
From “What Kind of Day Has It Been” The West Wing - Season One

Today’s Impromptu: Compassion

For thirteen years, my days began and ended with a walk. Like clockwork, I’d leave from the house and head toward school. Passing through the day, frustrated clouded over my head as I struggled to find my place among the tall people. One afternoon my walk home had grown the frustration to full blown anger. When my dad arrived fro work, I began to complain to him in full ‘you won’t believe what happened today’ mode. Having three older sisters, Dad watched as the vinegar ran out; when I finished his question for me was “what did her shoes look like?” Seeing my puzzled look he continued, “Have you ever walked a mile in her shoes, just to see the influences on her behavior?” Compassion, as practiced by my family, always involved walking in shies that didn’t necessarily fit.

The idea above, while probably not so directly defined, governed my view of compassion for a long time. Today, as I struggle to keep peace with this world in which I live, I still begin to step outside myself by asking about the other person’s shoes. The experiences each of us has buried in our minds inform our behavior, and how you react to me has as much to do your previous experiences as it does with my behavior. For along time I thought if I could figure out why you did what you did, I could understand from where you were coming. I often approach issues I have with other people this way, and I try to help friends think the path through. It’s often difficult to stay level ten angry at someone when you realize they might have reacted to some jacked up thing from their past. This simplistic approach, while being a great first step, misses an elemental aspect of compassion.

Have you ever wondered why the word passion can be found within compassion? I didn’t get it until a year or so ago. Compassion moves beyond more than just understanding why someone behaved a particular way, to having empathy and/or sympathy for someone else’s cares and concerns. So, take a moment, try on a new pair of shoes and move through to something with a bit more feeling. I’ll try, even if you choose not to and I’m scared.

Ok, so, I’m ready to go to bed; but I cannot - the outcome of the game beckons. So, I’m trying to watch one of my least favorite episodes of The West Wing and not watch the game. I want to know what happens, but I watching with terror in my heart is impossible. Some part of me believes if I watch I might jinx the game, as if I’m that important in the scheme of how a baseball game two states away plays out. I can’t stand this episode so I’m watching with the sound off. I wonder if I’ll feel anything special if Boston should happen to win this game. As I sit here excitement and anxiety bubbles over the possibility that the jinx could be broken, and that city up north that I love so much could once again know the joy of being baseball champions with the added benefit of knowing they won’t have to listen to the ?yeah, but you didn’t have to play the Yankees’ chorus. I just don’t know if I’m going to feel anything special. I just realized that the two places (Boston and Chicago) I’ll move back to the snow and cold without much argument both, as of this moment anyway, have fall traditions that are less than stellar in my time. Oh, well, I’m going to try to watch the game.

Nine Layers is by way of My Chaotic Neurotic Klutzy Life… a blog written by KlutzyGirl. It’s one of those memes I’ve been trying to get to for more than a week. Enjoy!

LAYER ONE:
Name:  kelli
Birth date: August 13, 1975
Birthplace: Fort Wayne, In
Current Location: Marietta, GA
Eye Color: Blue Gray
Hair Color: Mouse Brown
Height: 152 cm
Righty or Lefty: Right
Zodiac Sign: Leo

LAYER TWO:
Your heritage: 0.75 German 0.125 English 0.125 French
The shoes you wore today: Navy Blue Birk Sandles w/ Multi-Color Buckles
Your weakness: ice cream, romantic comedies, and music
Your fears: heights, being trapped, and emotions
Your perfect pizza: italian sausage
Goal you’d like to achieve: leave my current job and start teaching

LAYER THREE:
Your most overused phrase on AIM: Squid, are you there?
Your first waking thoughts: Can I get away with another nine?
Your best physical feature: my feet
Your most missed memory: Family walks around the block.

LAYER FOUR:
Pepsi or Coke: Diet Pepsi
McDonald’s or Burger King: McDonalds
Group/Single Dates: Small Group
Adidas or Nike: Birkenstock
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: The stuff I don’t have to make
Chocolate or Vanilla: Dark Chocolate
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee

LAYER FIVE:
Smoke: No
Cuss: Rarely
Sing: Yep, badly too
Take a shower everyday: Only on the days I’m pretending to be awake
Do you think you’ve been in love: No
Want to go to college : Been there, done that.
Liked high school: I liked the extra-ciricular activites
Want to get married: Yes
Believe in yourself: Not Usually
Get motion sickness: Only if I don’t drive.
Think you’re attractive: No
Think you’re a health freak: No
Get along with your parent(s): Yes, from a distance.
Like thunderstorms: They are the perfect place to dance
Play an instrument: I tried, but I can’t read music and am tone deaf.

LAYER SIX: In the past month…
Drank alcohol: No
Smoked: No
Done a drug: Nope
Made Out: No
Gone on a date: Yes
Gone to the mall?: Yes
Eaten an entire box of Oreos?: No
Eaten sushi: Yuck, No
Been on stage:  No
Been dumped:  No
Gone skating:  No 
Made homemade cookies: No
Dyed your hair:  No
Stolen Anything: No.

LAYER SEVEN: Ever…
Played a game that required removal of clothing:  No
If so, was it mixed company:
Been trashed or extremely intoxicated:  No
Been caught “doing something”: Yes, coed clothed showering
Been called a tease:  No
Gotten beaten up: Yes
Shoplifted: Yes
Changed who you were to fit in: Yes

LAYER EIGHT:
Age you hope to be married: when it’s time
Numbers and Names of Children: I don’t know if I want any but if I do we’ve got Joshua, Georgia, Wilam and one other that escapes my memory right now.
Describe your Dream Wedding: Elopement some where with a party much later.
How do you want to die: Quickly.
Where you want to go to college : I went to Case Western Reserve University. It’s in Cleveland, Ohio.
What do you want to be when you grow up: Taller.
What country would you most like to visit: Aw, man, I have to choose between Scotland and Australia? It’s impossible.

LAYER NINE:
Number of drugs taken illegally: 0
Number of people I could trust with my life: Crap, I don’t know if there are any, I barely trust anyone else to drive.
Number of CDs that I own: 300
Number of piercings: 2
Number of tattoos: 0, Sadly, the hepatitus risk is too high so I can’t get one.
Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper?: 2
Number of scars on my body: 2, both of each I got on the same day
Number of things in my past that I regret: legions

An old friend of mine landed in my morning dreams. His presence confuses me, as I use the word friend in the previous sentence loosely. We didn’t and don’t know each other well, many years ago we spent much time in each others company as our mutual friends (used appropriately) gathered people to them. He was one of the younger members of our group; he routinely annoyed me with his childish behavior and abrupt absolutism.

Rice Krispy Treats for breakfast is a good thing. I had an interesting experience while at the Fuddruckers last night getting dinner and the RKTs. Fuddruckers is one of the half-dozen or so places around the flat I routinely pick up food and upon my entry yesterday one of the counter guys gave me a smile. I didn’t think much of it, they’re usually friendly there, and then his coworker started giving him a hard time because that was the first time he’d really smiled all evening. That really made me feel good.

My stomach prefers Split Iced Tea to Diet Coke first thing in the morning. The bubbles and I are slowly growing apart, which is sad because I like bubbles.

To complete my All Saints Eve costume I need to go and get a cowboy hat and some fake six shooters, being a bandit is going to be fun. Alm had another guy related evening, so I made the decision that we are going to Charlotte for the Costume Ball, sometimes putting others needs before my preferences annoys me; I’d really like to stay home an ignore another holiday.

Tuesday night television sucks. Most other nights I can find something to watch, but on Tuesdays there is nothing to drain the brain. So, now I’m going to attempt to watch The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind. I don’t know if I possess the quiet thoughtfulness that I’m anticipating this movie needs. We’ll see how it goes, though it starts with a very true statement about Valentine’s Day. It’s three minutes into the movie and I’ve turned it off, I don’t want to ruin my impression of this movie so I’m not going to try to watch it when I’m this tired. Maybe I should just go to bed. Nah, I’ll grab a book and hopefully fall asleep while reading.

Yesterday turned out to be an emotionally charged day. The aggravation over the software issues continued throughout the day, spilling over into a fight with Bossman, encouraging tears for sad country music and nearly becoming one of *those* customers at Toxic Hell. So, I went home and vegged out in front of the tube. However, I did amaze Alm at my ability to laugh at The West Wing without having sound because I knew what everyone was saying. I listen too that show way too much. As for today, for now I feel calmer, though I cannot use Firefox - I have to see if I can figure that out later. I’m now going to go check the floor truss shop drawings I should have completed two weeks ago - what fun.

Oh, I didn’t make a new friend with this morning’s network guy. I have in my possession things he coveted. While I did share a gmail account (I still have two left), my iPod wasn’t available in trade.

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Music to Write By asked by profgrrrrl
Well, when I’m writing the music tends to be instrumental, because other people’s words floating through my consciousness make it harder to hear my own. I listen to Mozart, Bach, almost anything Yo-Yo Ma, Yanni (yes, I’ll admit to this), Nicholas Gunn and occasionally bagpipe tunes. When I’m working on solving a problem, formatting something, or just general engineering stuff I listen to Tim McGraw, matchbox 20, Trisha Yearwood, Hoobastank, Jackson Brown, Garth Brooks and many others. Now if only the network ‘fix’ of the weekend hadn’t lost my tunes I’d be happier.

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How do you write? asked by profgrrrrl
That’s a rough question; it varies wildly depending on what I’m writing. The evil boring engineering letters I write the body first, then I tack on basic greetings and salutations and have Bossman review. After Bossman’s review I’ll add a bunch of unnecessary words and a few antecedents and send it up to our AA for formatting and printing on letterhead. I know it’s somewhat sad that I don’t do my own formatting, but I’ve long since given up trying to understand how our front office works here. Those ridiculously serious entries that make me wonder why I insist on taking myself so seriously require running away from home. I shove Ira into my shoulder bag and go for a drive. Somewhere down the road I stop, grab something for my stomach and force myself to sit down and write it out. So, if you ever in North Georgia and you see a weird girl with her feet propped on a chair, an iBook in her lap and her eyes closed while typing furiously, give her a wide berth. I also spell/grammar check those when I’m done to make the text readable. Other entries are completed in a stream of conscious fashion, and the remainder are thought forced out because I’ve been meaning to mention them or because I cannot stand having my blog stay without updates.

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Shockingly Provincial has an interesting idea for the 2008 elections, way out in the field, but interesting none the less.

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There’s more I’ve not yet gotten to, but that will have to wait, have a good afternoon.

What a frustrating Monday morning. They reconfigured the network over the weekend, and part of the process reset all of the defaults in the programs I use everyday. Word, Excel and AutoCAD all need to be reconfigured to match the way I work. These changes take me a couple of hours to set, and I don’t have that kind of time in the next couple of weeks. It may not seem like a big deal if you tend to use things how they come set up, but really, having to pass through several menus to find the tracking information or to change to small caps is crazy for the type of work I do. Add to that, remembering where all of the appropriate AutoCAD settings can be found on the network strains my brain beyond all recognition. I have something non-rantish to add later, ‘til then have a good Monday.

Ah, they tell me today is Friday. This produces many problems for me, including the fact that I have yet to share my exciting weekend news, the isolation of our work computers for network maintenance, and the fact that I have way too much work to complete before the end of the day.

My exciting weekend news, while only exciting for Alm, is that I completed the decaulking, the cleaning, and the recaulking of my bathtub. Now, I no longer have to plod across the living room to take a shower in Alm’s bath every morning. If only I can remember to pick up my puff. I’ve also learned that I’ll never be hired out for my caulking abilities. I suck at cleanly placing caulk, the job I did is less than elegant, and urges picking if I look too closely. My hands are just too small to use a caulk gun correctly.

I’m behind because I left work on time yesterday, planning to work later at home. Only that didn’t happen. I arrived home, put on my sleeping pants and fell asleep at 6:00p. I awoke around 10p, but was in no condition to think about work. Two hours later, I returned to dreamland. I feel much better today than I did yesterday afternoon, but I still feel guilty.

Oh, and I’ll answer profgrrrrl’s questions eventually, they are marked for saving until I get to them.

Today’s Spark: Virtuoso

If you could miraculously and instantly develop the mastery of a single musical instrument, which would you choose? Why? Has the instrument always intrigued or interested you? Is there a specific song or piece that you love in which it is prominently featured? What music would you play, and for whom? How and where would you use your new skill?

Oh, it would be the piano hands down. It speaks to me in wondrous ways, from the black and white keys to the simple complexity of its design to the way rhythms are evoked subtly or obviously. I don’t have a favorite piece, that would be way too limiting; as for what I would play, it would probably cover a bit of everything but focus on pieces that are more contemporary. As for where I’d use my new skill, it’d probably be at any open piano that someone would let me touch, my fingers itch just dreaming about it.

Well, the television turned out some great visions tonight. First, after accepting that The Wells Wing as pure melodrama, watching it wasn’t too bad. Sadly, my expectations found their home far below the historical level; but they didn’t kill off Donna and Josh showed the heart he tires so hard to hide. Second, after years of following the BoSox I enjoyed watching the last couple of innings of the ALCS. I’m excited for them.