Quo Vado?

• The new ten dollar bill isn’t really all that green. It’s more red toned than anything else.
  
  
• I didn’t know there were rules for calling shotgun. My ignorance is probably due to the fact that if I’m not driving, I do much better not being able to see everyone else’s bad driving habits.
  
  
• LeWho had to go and mention McD’s yesterday. Today, I’m hit with a craving for ridiculously fattening and over salted fries.
  
  
• People often give me a hard time about buying my cars new. In addition to wanting to know all the stupid things the vehicle I’ve been driving has run over in the past, I found this post (another link for which I cannot remember the origin) that says most of everything else I want to say about my desire to buy a new car.

You Belong in Dublin

Friendly and down to earth, you want to enjoy Europe without snobbery or pretensions. You’re the perfect person to go wild on a pub crawl… or enjoy a quiet bike ride through the old part of town.

Via Blogthings

For the fifth day in a row I woke up at the first bell. Only, yesterday, I realized that I foolishly started this exercise the week before we spring forward. (Twice a year I wish I lived in Indiana, Arizona or Hawaii just to miss this crazy time change thing.) So, now that I’ve survived the fist five days, I guess I should share the impetuous for the experiment. While I love sleep, my work start times were starting to really bother me. So when someone (I don’t remember who, sorry) pointed to Steve Pavlina’s article How to Become an Early Riser I read it to see what new thing I could take from it. The whole getting up at the first bell is where I chose to start. My first bell rings at a time most people would consider late, but I rationalized that setting it any earlier would defeat the any chance I had of succeeding - especially given that Bossman expects me to be at work until six.

Over the last week I’ve enjoyed the couple of moments I’ve had to sit down and write a bit before leaving for work. Starting the day feeling like I’ve accomplished something - even if it’s small on the scale of things - feels pretty good too.

So, anyone ready for a nap?

Given my love of stoplights, I spend much of my driving time on alternate surface streets. Over the last month, the labeling I’ve seen lead to much head shaking.

If I were to call a home a manor, what would you imagine? A good sized house set back from the road with some great trees and an area of well sculpted gardens sounds about right. Now, when I say estate, what comes to mind? I see a house, larger than a manor, set further back from the road with extra buildings and better gardens. So, where’s my problem with the local labeling? It’s simple really, just about every house I’ve seen labeled as a manor or estate has been wedged into a small piece of land, with the houses so close together you can hear your neighbor pee. These aren’t manor homes, and they’re certainly not estates. They’re large houses, packed too close together, with no reasonable guest parking and very little character.

Please, remember that an estate needs a butler. If nothing else, so he can cheekily name all of the rooms.

This morning’s dream was interesting. I found myself acting like a patient in the hospital. The hospital in question strangely blended the hospitals I know in real life with the television hospitals I see every week. I wondered around in this mixed world having been administratively checked in, but not in the wards care yet. I found a bed to nap on, cold food to eat and elevators to take me different places. Familiar faces - folks I actually know - streamed by filling various hospital functions. When I finally checked into the research ward, I didn’t recognize anyone. That felt weird. Every June for fifteen years we’d stop in as a family to a research ward, do the tests they needed and head back home. We visited so often we were known by name and left to wonder the halls from appointment to appointment carrying our own charts. So, not knowing the research nurses threw me for a loop - and sent me to the parking lot. I’m not sure the connection.

Strolling through the nearest drugstore at lunch - trying to remember what I needed in addition to cranberry juice - the volume of Easter decorations struck me as extreme. Then I realized I’d just come across another one of those things I just don’t get.

Why do some people feel the need to decorate their house and/or yard for every holiday season? Why is it possible for vendors to create inflatable yard decorations for every season and not go broke? What is the point of the furniture and wall coverings you’ve previously purchased if you have to routinely change out the accent pieces. How on earth does something that changes that rapidly ever feel like home? Do you not get that natural things have their own beauty that doesn’t need to be accessorized by garish decorations? Can’t you see beauty in simplicity? If you need more color in your life, do yourself a favor and paint (or curtain) a wall.

Your Quirk Factor: 76%

You’re so quirky, it’s hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there’s little about you that’s “normal” or “average.”

Via Blogthings

The problem with peanut butter is that it gets everywhere. Sticking to my insides is one thing, scaring my clean shirt and decorating the paper on my desk is another.

Why does all the fun stuff have to be so dangerous?

Well, a very special event has indeed occurred. I woke up at first bell for the third day in a row. I know, not a great achievement, but a notable one for me.

I tossed and turned last night in bed with a horrid case of project worry. I may have solved what caused the overturning math issues, and it’s on the list of things for me to look at before sending out today’s project. After forty-five minutes of tossing and thinking the key to slowing down the brain was remembered. I put on tunes, music for some reason breaks the rolling link of the worry list and allows me to sleep.

The Sleeplessness List

• Add components and cladding loads to the general notes.
• Add large missile note to the general notes and review the city exception language with Bossman.
• Check the sizes of all the hurricane anchor floor-to-floor straps - after you verify the overturning load for the upper floors is based on the overturning of the respective floor, not the first one.
• Narrow down the pile grade beam details needed for this project, renumber and cut.
• Size Simpson ATS alternate to Hold-Downs and Straps, add details to S502a and S502b.
• Remove the pealing nail polish - that’s somehow tinted pink.
• Pin hair before it dries.

That’s all I can remember from last night, now here’s hoping that I can get it all done before the package goes out today.

The West Wing - “Welcome to Wherever You Are” 7.15

The tease opens with the Santos campaign at the end Halloween Eve - six day before the election (E +6). With some beautiful singing by Annabeth, and subsequent girl talk banter flying over the guys heads the first act (I refuse to call it a tease because we’ve gone to six acts) defines the activities of the last five days schedule and fast paced/overlapping tone of the episode.

The secondary story of Toby’s ongoing legal issues resulting from the military shuttle leakage brings the fire breathing passion that I so admire about his character. Of course, this bit of hot air comes only after some ridiculously cute moments with his children and an argument with Andrea.

Beyond the awesome Toby moment, this episode ends with a great Josh/Santos moment. We’ve been watching Josh struggle to fill the Leo role for the better part of a season. There have been brief moments where you believe he could become the backbone of the Santos administration, usually followed by some great Josh-like foul. As Santos looses his cool at the end of E +5 , Josh provides the calm and connection Santos needs to face the next event without killing anyone.

Oh, and I liked the campaign stuff better this episode than the last because Santos had the same problem I have - he just wanted to get down to the business of running the country without the hassle of election hoopla.

Cross posted to TV.com

As a note to regular readers of QV? there will be a higher frequence of The West Wing posts until it comes to a close. I know you’re used to seeing the mentions, I just wanted to warn you they’ll be seen more frequently than usual for the six weeks or so.

I end the day with…

• An iPod Mini in my back pocket.
• Three pins, a small binder clip and a braid in my hair.
• Blue and green ink on my arms and hands.
• Flaking nail polish on both index fingers.
• An annoyed lower back.
• Three-quarters of a can of Diet Coke, warm.
• A clear work zone.
• A mess of a desk around the work zone.
• Uneaten chocolate that I forgot I had.

Oh, well, I guess I’ll be back tomorrow.

… but, only if the auto-pilot program has the stop sign at Allen and Lake Forest programmed into it. With a seriously fried brain, MPC donated a layer of tire rubber to the intersection as we came to a sudden stop. While I understand why the stop sign is there, my brain doesn’t choose to remember it. This is a problem.

In the drama that was yesterday, I forgot to pass on the most reliving news of the day. Parking Space Chick’s replacement showed up for training today. PSC has talked for the last three years about how excited she is too retire. She’s been counting down the days since at least last September. I thought she was supposed to leave in July, but it looks like that’s going to happen a bit earlier than planned. I wonder what the story on that one is.

My only concern at the moment is the possibility of her transferring her attitude toward me to the new hire. We haven’t been much more than flagrantly civil to one another since that fateful day in January and I does concern me that she might infect someone else with her distain of me.

Then I take a deep breath, remind myself that there’s nothing I can do about it, and go back to work. Seriously.

ETA: I was again up at the weeks chosen time. Two day’s in a row. It’s about time to shatter a record.