Quo Vado?

Yesterday evening’s questions de jour:

1. What makes a talent a talent?
2. If I don’t know to do it any other way, is that really a talent?

I hate cleaning up from emotional low points. Today, I finished the last of the clean-up work; I balanced my checkbook. To say the least, the only reason I balanced it today is because it is time to start a new black book. Let’s just say trying to figure out what you were doing two months ago sucks. However, I did ‘find’ almost $58. It helps to be overly ambitious in recording ATM withdraws. Why do I feel the need to add an “l” into withdraws? Do I think I can actually say the word that way? I cannot.

This morning I ventured out again, this time to an in town house ‘site visit’; a.k.a. our company’s version of marketing. One of our major clients had a tree fall into his detached garage/playroom. The tree, a large pine, landed resting on the buildings 2nd floor which is pretty amazing when you compare the size of the tree, the additional effects of a moving tree and the type of minor loads such structures are designed to carry. The original contractors did a great job. I also managed to work some dog therapy into the visit; that was fun.

Ok, so my love of all things Sorkin is disturbingly well documented, but I have one little thing to add right now. Yesterday after work, I picked up (but amazingly didn’t purchase) a collection of essays on television entitled Prime Times. Inside, an essay by Nick Hornby beautifully *explains* what I love about The West Wing much better than I’ve ever been able.

“It’s the curse of contemporary naturalism that prevents anyone from making the slightest suggestion of redemption; the world is not a redemptive place. You can find plenty of crappy films and TV shows to cheer, but The West Wing has class and ambition, so its depiction of principled people remaining principled is especially brave.”

Dang, I wish I could translate my brain to the page as well as Hornby.

Keith Urban, doing promotion for his new album, stopped by the local radio stations this morning. Not only does the man posses a fine Australian accent, but he drew tears to my eyes as he sang acoustically. The worst part is I can’t remember the name of the song, and I don’t see it on his web site. Argh, it was beautiful. I’m such a lyrical wimp.

I know they love their Wizard of Oz references on Stargate, but like clueless fool I tend to be I just figured out the four friends traveling on the yellow brick road reference. The only one they’re missing is Todo. Now my brain is going to try to be matching the four characters up to each option.

Things I’ve learned recently:

1. Yo-Yo Ma really does rule.
   
2. Cats are odd creatures.
   
3. The number 140 typically comes after the number 131.
   
4. I am attracted to guys brave enough to wear a pink shirt and have the personality to match.
   
5. I don’t want to annoy Julie too much.
   
6. I really should walk more if I want to make one of these useful.
   
7. Going on vacation/not reading blogs for five days will kill your eyeballs and productivity later.
   
8. If I’m busy quitting time will come and go without warning.
9. Rob Lowe is at his best delivering sly, irreverent banter. Even I can get beyond his model good looks then.
10. Bookstores are fiscally dangerous places.
11. The First Daughter wasn’t a bad movie for what it was.
12. Katie Holmes can’t realistically pull off eighteen anymore.
13. I love The Forum shopping plaza way too much.

Day in, day out you taunt me. I check, follow, read, file, or toss; yet, you continue to nag me. Like a fickle child, you disappear only to return at the least desirable moment. I cannot resist the lure of your boldness. Yet, your silent resistance to becoming bold drives me to distraction. Please gMail, Bloglines or Outlook tell me something new is happening out there, divine when I need to know, and be silent when I really should be working. Can you figure that out?

This message has been brought to you by the You Should Really Be Working at Work Council.

I’ve put off writing about the weekend for long enough, I guess. The weekend refreshed me, but I’m not sure if I could describe how.

Probably my favorite element was the singing. I love singing, I love the power that flow through me when singing within a large group of enthusiastic people, and most importantly I love singing with people who like me only intend to make a joyful noise. Power and reverence come across so much more clearly when you’re all together. Added to the collective experience, this weekends song leaders exuded enough energy to light their own personal stadiums. One of the guys bounced through every song and another projected amazing enthusiasm. Music definitely ruled the weekend.

The messages were on-point and powerful. The weekend?s messages revolved around the idea that we all have issues but letting those issues keep you from having a relationship with God is foolishness. We were encouraged to not be ‘environmental’ christians, but rather to live a life truly connect to God and Jesus. The weekend’s big reminder was one of those I too easily forget - this walk is a long-term effort and you’re going to face plant yourself more than a dozen times along the way, pick up an begin again. The other message ribboned through out the messages involved the need to make a decisive decision daily - that’s one I’m really not good at given my tendency to blindly plod through my day. I’m getting ready to review my notes, and see how I really feel away from the energy of such an event.

The fellowship left much to be desired for me; but that’s because I suck at random conversations. I really do, I tense up, the noise confounds me, and I feel unwanted waiting around to talk with someone.

The unsurprising news of the weekend is that I developed a perfectly safe crush on a guy brave enough to wear a pink vertically striped shirt with a light pink tee underneath (the tee shirt underneath clinched it and made it art). Being musically inclined Pink Shirt Boy (PSB) was someone I had an eye on all weekend, from a distance I was amazed by his passion and his ability to input that into his music. OK, I have to admit that this lover of her black t-shirt and jeans uniform was drawn to the colors he wore. I did take a minute to speak with him, but of course, I didn’t give my name or any pertinent information on how to find me, so I’ll just sit here and crush away in the safety of my cave. I feel so lame.

Why is Lime Green based on the color inside the fruit? Apple Red, Banana Yellow, and even Lemon Yellow are based on the exterior colors of the naming fruit. What makes the lime so special.

Well, we made it to Columbia. The drive followed a poorly advised course. We didn’t want to take the long-winded interstate route to get to I-20 east, so, we took a ‘short-cut.’ Only with road construction, stupid stoplights and bad timing the short cut took way longer than it should have. What we really wanted was the ‘back-way’ that someone thought would be too difficult for three women to navigate - crazy man.

The trip itself involved the usual musical taste extravaganza - country, rock, folk, bluegrass and my *personal* favorite three selections from the Kim Possible CD. Ok, so Kim Possible wasn’t bad, just not my usual bag. Oh, well, I’m going to give in and put on a face. Laters.

Why is it that de-caulking the tub sounds better to me than going to bed? I get to sleep in tomorrow, but only until nine or so. I’m still up; I spent the last half an hour trying to remove more caulk from the tub. Currently a massive amount of caulk lies at the bottom of my tub, mocking me with the idea that the worst is yet to come. I’m going to need a dry brush and many more razor blades before this project is finished. I’ll probably be 35 before I’m done, but one day I’ll be able to take my morning shower without tromping across the living room.

Oh, yeah, I really am going on vacation, I promise.

Staying up late when you know that you can get up later than usual rocks. There’s less guilt involved when you know your working on projects that really aren’t that critical. For instance, I’m finally updating my computer’s musical data and given that I’ve picked up more music in the last four weeks than I had the previous year I’m going to be here a while.

I’m pretty much packed and ready to go for tomorrow’s adventure to Columbia. The trip is for a ‘Single’s Retreat.’ I put it in quotations because I don’t know what to expect. Hope that the weekend won’t be spent just trying to attract men percolates, but we’ll have to see when we get there. If you haven’t guessed by now,

I even managed to leave all the work at work for four whole days - now if I could just stop thinking about the projects.

I’ll be off line for nearly three whole days, so please behave around here while I’m trying not to be cynical. Long, thought-twisting posts may sprout once I’ve returned to the land of connectivity.

I so badly want to say “I told you so” to one of our clients representatives. Last week while I was in Houston I caved on a strapping detail with one of the contractor?s representatives in a conversation that looked something like this:

Contractor’s Representative (CR): This special allowance is for this project only.

Me: That’s what you tell me here, BigContractorDude is going to think it applies everywhere else.

CR: No, we know it’s only for this project.

In this morning’s new project meeting BigContractorDude mentioned that he wanted this exterior wall sheathing option w/out the straps like what we approved last week. “This project only” my donkey.

In reality the strapping cave doesn’t represent a necessarily better/worse option, just one largely controlled by engineering preference and influenced by the city’s expectations of what the framing would look like.

I really want to call Dallas and say I told you so, but I’ll keep my tongue and hopefully my job.