Quo Vado?

I don't know why but Professional Head Shrinker routinely forgets to restock his tissue supply. I also don't know why I haven't acknowledged this reality and started to take my own.

Like every other visit to his office, this one left me hating therapy. This round included a round robin debate on whether or not I'm stupid. With him overestimating my IQ, my snidely correcting him, a debate over the difficulty of engineering, and a conversation about the correlation between vocabulary and intelligence. We've had the conversation more times than I'd like to admit. I'm still not willing to say he's correct. He is after all allowed to have his own point of view. I try to avoid reminding myself that I pay him to keep repeating it.

We've almost returned to the point of the conversation where I bailed last time around. I decided to sit here in my wrongness and be wrong. Part of me wants to repeat that slide away. I'm trying to hang in there, hoping the lingering feeling of futility will pass.

PS. While not quite as bold as Friday's retort, today's response to whining was almost as good: "I can either listen to you whine, or do the work you're whining about."

I'm skipping a learning session about the new version of AutoCAD that I should probably be attending. The newest version has become more "happy" with bells and whistles. Given how few commands we actually use around here, I wonder just what we're going to do with it given how few of our clients have ventured past AutoCAD2000.

The accention of computer aided drafting made it possible for me to become an engineer. I don't have the patience or skill to draft exclusively by hand. At the same time it's helped make the engineering job more difficult. The client sees making changes as just moving a few lines around. The 'speed' with which something can be detailed makes the contractor less likely to read the notes and more likely to whine if all possible cases aren't covered by a section/detail. The advent of CAD has also made it easier for the various building codes to expand as the It's Just a New Note mentality flourishes.

So, back to work for me. Does anyone know how much load 2-2x4 studs in a 12.5' exterior wall with a component and cladding pressure can carry when the studs are spaced at 16" on center?

Why on earth do I need to come and listen to you holler to morons on the phone? I know you don't know how the systems I design work, but seriously, why do you want me to spend half an hour listening to a conversation between three people who don't know what they're talking about when I do? Wouldn't it be easier to have me talk them through it?

I know I'd sure end up with a slightly smaller noise headache.

PS. Field guys usually don't care why, they only want to know if they have to. Leave explanations until you're asked for them.

Today really behaved like a Monday. All day - as Dad would say. All I have left at the end of this day is bullets.

• There’s a wiki on how to be charming. I still haven’t decided if I should read it.
• Dad actually appeared in one of my dreams this weekend. He spoke as much as usual (not much at all) and gave me a goofy grin. Not bad for the first remembered dream image thirty-some-odd years.
• I think I missed Studio 60 last night. I don’t feel anything about that.
• After about three weeks of moderate amounts of pressure at EngrMine the impossible has been requested. Again.
• Detailing two-hour exterior walls out of wood really kind of sucks.
• Sometime this week I need to remember to make an appointment to get my hair cut. I’m starting to look like a shaggy dog. Driving while hanging my head out the window has become more dangerous with all the blowing hair.
• Has anyone seen my llama?

I survived the long weekend at home with the cat who didn’t like me because I had to do mean things to her for her own good. After six rounds of dosing Jess I’ve determined that it’s as nerve inducing to the humans as it is to the cat.

I spent most of the weekend waiting with trepidation that Alm would come home from the beach with news. I expected a phone call sometime Saturday; but, due to a recharger snafu I was unable to hear one way or another until she returned late yesterday. She and tractor man are now exclusively dating - which among my friends is a BIG deal.

I didn’t realize until seventy minutes into this morning’s ceiling staring that nerves at the pit of my stomach over the weekend echoed the nerves I had during Dad’s last surgery. Luckily, this time I managed to distract myself with more things than playing five straight hours of unmarked Minesweeper. My head knows that this weekends events aren’t as drastic as the fear of thirteen years ago, but people moving on to the next phase of their lives tags the pain of the girl forgotten.

Professional Head Shrinker is going to have so much fun on Thursday.

Like every other office, EngrMine goes through ebbs and flows. The beginning of the year marks the rush to finish projects for the RHA deadline. Late spring and early summer bring piles of shop drawings and the pressure to finish the non-RHA projects. Site visits and new projects decorate the summer and early fall. The end of the the push to finish projects before the code changes signals the approach of the new year.

While those large scale cycles are good to know, it's the smaller, less overt cycles that amuse me. Take the binder clips on the book case as an example. I keep three sizes handy, conveniently called small medium and large. Typically, I keep a container of small, a container of medium and two or four large clips. Today as I cleaned up the work zone (as I'm wont to do when I seriously don't want to work) I found the small container of clips bare, the medium container of clips overflowing and the large clips multiplying like hares. After seven years, I can tell you what that means without looking at the desk or the task list.

• Too few small clips = minor finishing elements for several projects have been finished.
• Excessive numbers of medium clips = no projects in the middle design stages.
• Too many large clips = most of the projects are in construction and there remains only one set of important drawings.

I've decided I don't like this state of affairs. It leaves too much flexibility in the task list and me hanging in the breeze feeling like nothing is all that important to get done.

Now, back to those steel shop drawings.

In another anniversary of sorts, today represents the last day of my seventh year of working at the EngrMine. As lunch came to a close I decided that this year needed to go out in style. Bossman started whining about what to do about employees leaving with out telling him (The Kid making it an extra long weekend this afternoon) and arriving when ever they choose (me almost every day).

When he asked what he could do about that I said, "Fire my ass."

I'm still waiting for him to do it.

Maybe luckily.

Photo by Manassas Cakery.

Happy 3rd Anniversary to Quo Vado?

The 24th of May represents a best guess of the day I started blogging. Feeling the need to settle on one, I picked this one based on some of the earlier blog posts.

Thanks world for sticking around this long and reading the random stuff I post.

I forgot to eat lunch this morning. My stomach keeps reminding me. Do you think if I ignore it, it will shut up? Nah, I didn't think so either, but a girl can hope.

I forgot to wash my hair this morning which left me feeling slightly icky. I don't know why light and fluffy hair is such a must for me to feel clean.

I'm really just checking out the post by e-mail feature.

Has anyone seen my llama?

My attitude toward the office continues to sour. I'm infecting others. Part of me knows it's supposed to be hard and that everyday won't be filled with roses. I want life, how I choose to spend my life - which, let's face it given the amount of time we pour into it is what it is to a large degree - to not be so steadfast in it's connections to negative feelings. Some fraction of those feelings spring from independent thoughts in my head, but the remainder flow from the daily situational struggles faced working for the pyromaniac-firefighter and working on the evil projects from hell that just won't go away.

Dimensions really aren't my thing.

Has anyone seen my llama?

[Insert Grey's Anatomy filler word here. I refuse to type it even when I hear it in my head because I'm loath to admit just how easy it is to stick things there.] I had to snag two long-ish pieces of sports tape from Bossman's desk this morning because I managed to jam the middle and/or ring finger of my right hand. I'm not sure which one because it hurt more between them than it did at any given finger. This typing with them taped together is kind of interesting. Luckily there hasn't been much call for the lower ring finger key - until you get to the end of a sentence and since I don't know where those belong we're doing OK.

I'll have to tell Bossman I stole some tape when he returns from Jury Duty. Yep, folks that's right there's a peaceful Monday (relatively) here in The Ice Box because someone's doing his civic duty. While I'm grateful for the momentary reprieve, I hope it doesn't last too long because than I become the camel to kick while she's down.

Has anyone seen my llama?

• Why do we associate genius with being able to make thoughtful decisions?
• My boss doesn't know how to quickly determine the component and cladding load on a wall. Why is he my boss again?
• I have ice cream in the freezer at work. The guys taunted me with eating it before I could get to it at lunch today.
• Unknowingly messing with Squids brain more than I expected makes me laugh.
• I'm trying to clear off the green shop drawing desk while living in fear that it will be covered over by noon Monday.
• There will be an abundance of people at my house this weekend. Hopefully, Jess will want to hang out with me.
• I survived therapy yesterday. I still don't like it. It hurt like the dickens to drag my body out of bed. The physical ramifications of emotional exhaustion are worse than the day after starting a new work-out regimen. (Hey, I may not exercise now but that doesn't mean I haven't started and stopped dozens of times.
• Has anyone seen my llama?

Professional Head Shrinker asked my mostest favoritest question today. Of course he only asked it because I answered the conversational version of his question with, “I’m alive and in one piece.”

While how I feel has changed from the walk into his office, the general feeling in my stomach as I associate with people outside of business is that of being a barnacle.

Photo by Keith Jones, Copyright 2008.

That’s the perfect analogy for the way I feel almost every time I’m trying to hang out with people.