Quo Vado?

It feels weird, for the first time in weeks I have reached midnight and am actually ready to go to bed. There isn’t anything that needs to be done before tomorrow morning. While I remain woefully behind at work, I caught up with school earlier this evening.

I didn’t watch the State of the Union this evening - I never do. I know it’s supposed to be my civic duty, but I can’t bring myself to listen to such choreographed empty bru-ha-ha. (I think one the things I loved about TWW was that it didn’t have tons of speachifying. While it could be preachy, it generally chose to do so in the context of intense conversation.} Instead of yelling at the television, I put in SeaQuest DSV and listened along while I attacked the many piles of stuff that had overtaken my room in the last month. I still have a mound of laundry and shredding to do (sorry Philip, the laundry can always wait), but you can now see the top of the egg, the shoes (and the cat for a while) returned to their home in the closet, and the bin of stuff to be considered/shreadded at a later day nearly emptied. I feel like I’ve accomplished so much.

Sleep well.

Who Should Paint You: M.C. Escher

Open and raw, you would let your true self show for your portrait. And even if your painting turned out a bit dark, it would be honest.

via Blogthings

The cat just scared the bee-gee-bees out of me. I have in my closet a shelf that I refrain from putting things on because Jess likes to hop into the shelves and nap. I tried to put stuff there for a while, but she always disturbed it. So, we declared a temporary truce. I leave the shelf relatively empty, she chooses not to mess with the stuff on the adjacent shelving unit. As truces go, not to bad though it bugged me for the longest time that she never made use of the shelf when I was home. Until tonight, when she tells me in annoyed manner that I shouldn’t be disturbing her beauty sleep.

Discovery: Day old pizza tastes best at room temperature.

Random Short Drive Thought #1 - About my Fourth Career: When I learn how to draw, how to sew and manage to become one of the final three Project Runway contestants I’m going to have a collection called: Flames In Ice On Fire

Random Short Drive Thought #2 - About my Second Career: It always amazes me how diligently the guys I walk buildings with watch after their language and me when I’m walking a project. It’s one of the more endearing, and in a way encouraging, benefits of being a female structural engineer.

There are days when I wonder what it would be like to go through life without being easily amused. Dude, ‘tis the little things that make me grin.

Oh, if you ever raid the kitchen candy jar around here you’ll notice that there are all kinds of Starbursts because The Man gets all three packages. However, if you find a lemon or orange one you’ve had real luck. I go candy raiding almost daily.

Man, it feels like a Monday. I was up way to late writing a touchy feely paper for school and I’ll be up again later tonight writing a paper on complex numbers. I’d forgotten what a complex number was - they’re so important in real life.

And now for some fluff:

• Ben Macntyre wrote a beautiful opinion piece for The Times Online about what made The West Wing Special
• I really should have to wear socks in January - at least on this side of the equator.
• Kobe’s 81 points sickens me. Yeah, I’m sure it was a great show. But one team obviously wasn’t playing as a team and the other just wasn’t playing. I know Wilt scored more, but he forced a change in the game and I just don’t see that happening this time.
• I’m seriously considering plunking down some cash for a massage.

For the last month or so lethargy has hit every single one of my weekends. The whole idea of getting out of bed hasn’t worked for me. It doesn’t matter what has to get done. It doesn’t matter who I’m making anxious. All I want to do is lie in bed and do nothing much. I cannot make myself go to sleep during the week and I can’t get up on the weekend. I think there’s something wrong.

… just don’t make me keep time.

Galetea tagged me with the Meme of Four

Four Jobs I’ve had:

1. Kelli in the Deli
2. I tried to sell vacuum cleaners
3. Structural Engineer
4. Salad/Breakfast/Seafood bar attendant

Four Movies I can watch over and over:

1. Ever After
2. the first four seasons of The West Wing
3. Bulletproof Monk
4. 10 Things I Hate About You

Four Places I’ve lived:

1. Fort Wayne, Indiana [As I like to remind my boss, I’m a Hoosier born an bread and a Yankee to boot.]
2. Cleveland, Ohio
3. Salt Lake City, Utah
4. Altamonte Springs, Florida

Four Places I’ve vacationed:

1. Washington, DC
2. Boston, MA
3. Charleston, SC
4. Frankenmuth, MI

Four of my Favorite Dishes:

1. Lasagna
2. Escort Chicken - reheated
3. Country White Bread from The Mill
4. Chicago Pizza with Sausage

Four sites I visit daily:

1. Gmail
2. The Blue Sloth
3. NewsGator Online
4. WGU Portal

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Asleep
2. Sydney, Australia
3. On a Solo Road Trip
4. On a Beach

Four Bloggers I am tagging to do this meme:
As much as felt good at being tagged, I don’t know who hasn’t done this yet.

12:16p “I’m markin’ up shear walls and boppin’ ‘em on the head.”

12:43p “Gosh, that smells like … Fruit Loops.”

5:48p It turns out that Bossman’s kind of crazier than usual because one of my coworkers gave their notice last week while I was out of town. I leave the office, fun stuff happens, and no one tells me about it. I have to work on beefing up my news gathering services.

It just doesn’t work for me. Really, please don’t waste my time twice in the space of an hour complaining about how you feel like you’re in over your head and then hang out in the kitchen for ten minutes reading the sports page. I know you’re busy, because I’m swamped. I understand the whole needing to take a break for a moment - my brain’s currently at the end of a long one (subject for another time). I, however, am your employee and complaining about your workload to me makes about as much sense as mud.

OK, I’m going to make it to the grocery this weekend. I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. I need to stock the flat and the office with snacks. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The list already includes:

• peaches
• mandarin oranges
• graham crackers

So, I took the second math evaluation test for school, and boy did I screw the pooch on that one. I have forgotten more stuff than I even knew I’d ever remembered. Additionally, I ran across some notation that I didn’t recognize and some wonderful problems involving Gauss that I forced myself to forget long ago. I may have to take a refresher course just to get recharge my brain on what a lot of that stuff looks like.

From where I sit right now, Mr. Exponent Picker was correct. As an engineer becoming adept at approaching problems in various ordered fashions was the point of much of my mathematical education. When faced with the possibility of having to explain some of why math works to others I get nervous. Of course, my reliance on knowing how it works more so than why it works is why I’m a good, but not great engineer.

the entry floorHow long do you think it will take me to trip over today’s presents?

The shop drawings will be stacked along the filing cabinet that Triple-A re-dubbed “Shop Drawing Hell.” Shop drawings are documents we receive from the contractor detailing elements of the building for which the final design is left to the contractor. These elements are typically repetitive in nature with geometric twists thrown in to make them location specific. Floor trusses stay pretty common, with the bearing walls moving a bit. The bearing walls for roof trusses remain fairly constant but the profiles have all sorts of vertical geometric issues. Even the steel stairs change slightly from building to building. The contractor provides the designs for all of these elements because they are better able to alter/change materials and sizes based on availability and price. Checking these documents isn’t hard, but when they pile-up they become the definition of dreaded tedium.

The announcement finally came yesterday. After seven seasons, NBC will be cutting loose The West Wing in May. Though at times it’s been difficult and I’ve often wondered why I didn’t let it fall away, I’ve kept watching for the last two and a half seasons. While the show lost much of its effervescence when Sorkin left after season four, I keep watching for the moments that make my heart soar.

It’s taken me two years, but I finally figured out what I miss the most in the post-Sorkin era. Sorkin wrote dialogue that, while repetitious, snapped while bringing humor and beauty. There are writers currently writing for TWW that bring slices of Sorkin-like dialogue, but difficult to find are the moments of verbal poetry where you can close your eyes and just hear the music behind the words. What I miss, however, lies behind the spoken words. The created family of the first four seasons permeated through every scene. From Josh and Sam trying to ‘protect’ Leo, to Leo offering to climb in a hole, to CJ and Toby’s discussions about her father, I knew that these people cared about each other. That knowledge helped me to believe that the inhabitants of this fictional White House could possibly care about me as well.

In the years since Sorkin left, the original set of staff has been broken up and now find themselves a different faces of the table, Santos campaign staff lacks camaraderie, and no one appears ready to jump into any holes. The kool-ade has soured, and I watch now because I just cannot stop. I hope the powers that be treat the last several episodes with dignity this series deserves.