Freedom of the Knees
I wonder if there’s a chance in hell I could get away with wearing my kilt to work next Spring.
Don’t know why I’m thinking about that now – it was 55 degrees Fahrenheit and foggy this morning. Of course, that’s good bracing Highland weather, so maybe was the cause.
I like my kilt. It’s comfortable. I don’t think I’d go Regimental at my workplace, despite jameshroberts‘ insistence at yubbie and colleenk‘s wedding that “If you wear underwear with it, it’s a skirt;” to which my retort was, “well, I have a little experience in those matters too” (cf. the Technicon 2007 Dance for example).
I probably just haven’t awakened yet. Ah, well. Back to work.
Highly-rated lap
Every morning for years now, I perform a little ritual of dragging my semi-conscious carcass out of bed and into my office, where I wake myself up with the morning’s email and Friends page.
Now there’s a new element to that ritual: every morning, little Midori sees that I’m awake, jumps up to my chair, curls up her kitten body in my lap, and goes to sleep.
As if it wasn’t hard enough getting out of this chair to shower and dress…
(I have to keep grabbing her, too, as she forgets that my lap is not infinite, and tries to roll over in her sleep.)
Good News and Bad News
Yesterday was a real roller-coaster ride.
I was slammed with tickets at work yesterday, and fell behind despite my best efforts. I’m catching up a little bit today, but what a mess. There is never a lack of things for me to do here, let me tell you!
So, back in April, the driver’s door switch in the Hyundai broke. The car believed that the door was constantly ajar, meaning I couldn’t keep the power locks locked while the car was in motion (BAD), the dome light wanted to stay on all the time (turned it off), and the open-door dinger would chime erratically (psychosis-inducing).
While I still have to take the car by the dealership for several reasons, it finally occurred to me that with three pennies and a bit of duct tape, I could restore proper function to the switch. Now the locks work right, I’ve got my dome light back, and the dinger is no longer suggesting that I go on a three-state murder spree.
Then we headed over to ptownhiker‘s superhero game; and, less than a block away from the venue, someone’s cat darted in front of the car. It was over before I registered the blurred shadow. We pulled over immediately, and found the owners, but it was far too late. The owners thanked us for having the decency to stop and find them… thank goodness I was heading straight to a big gathering of friends, because that was a hell of a downer.
The WWII superhero game, on the other hand, may have been the best session we’ve had in the campaign. All the heroes pulled together as a team and contributed something vital to the rescue of a torpedoed troopship in the North Atlantic, and the evening was full of crazy plans and laughter. One of the heroes has what is basically the Portal super power, and we come up with a new way to abuse it almost every session 🙂
And this morning I found where I’d accidentally hidden my iPod from myself. So, an eventful day-and-a-half.
EDIT: Here’s a Flash version of the Portal game. I wish I hadn’t found this at work 🙂 http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/
The Halloween workplace
Haven’t seen anyone dressed up for the holiday here at NASA. I guess it’s not too surprising, we are conducting serious business here frumph frumph frumph. But I have my bunny ears nearby in case of emergency.
The places I’ve worked have had varying policies about employee Halloween costumes. I think I wore a costume at B&D Comic Shop, but it was so long ago, I can’t clearly remember. The “Thrifty Nickel” encouraged dressing up, though many years, no one bothered but me; I usually wore a Starfleet uniform or my Jedi outfit. One of the last years I was there, one of our more conservative salespeople unaccountably chose “Tinkerbell” to make her sales calls in, which led to a panicky alteration of the costume when she discovered how much leg even the tame Disney version would show.
I can’t recall any costuming at Decipher, which was a bit of a surprise – you’d think a bunch of game geeks would garb up. My last Halloween at BCT was a smash, though. I dressed up in drag, and was convincing enough from behind that one of my bosses mistook me for another co-worker.
Anyone here dressing up for work?
Gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen
Another round of the hair saga today.
Back when I started paying for my own haircuts, I decided to grow my hair long. It was pretty straight and stringy back then. (First pic) After the car accident, I cut it a little bit shorter, but it didn’t get far from my collar line, and it filled out a lot. (Second pic).
raininva liked short hair on me, so I kept it pretty trim while we were together. (Third pic) This year, though, I figured I’d enjoy growing it back out to its two-decades-ago length. (Fourth pic, though I have put the beard back on since then)
Reviews have been mixed. Some of my BCT co-workers were unimpressed, but the new hair went over great at Invisifest. It’s cool at NASA, though with all the military there I think I’ve got the longest hair on base.
This weekend, an acquaintance told me that it looked terrible on me – it bummed me out a bit. But just today, one of my coworkers told me she loved it, and it was a big improvement over April’s length.
I’m going to keep it long for now, but there certainly seems to be very little middle ground here!
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| 1988 | 1997 | 2003 | 2007 |
Thank you for indulging my little narcisissm moment.
Employment opportunity
If I know you, and you are interested in moving to Hampton Roads for a permanent position installing and troubleshooting Macs, Windows machines, and/or Linux boxen for NASA, NOW is the time to e-mail me your resume.
Demonstrable computer skills would be a good idea – either college education or practical experience. Polyplatformers who can handle two or all three OSes are especially encouraged.
Dispatch From the Friends List Network
Interview questions from gryphynkit can be found by clicking here
Furious slacking
I accomplished very little this weekend, which I think my body and soul needed badly; this morning I went into work quite bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, clearing a lot of tickets over the course of the day. Actually, I slacked a bit too much, as it was my turn to do dishes, dinner, and laundry this weekend, and I only managed 1.5 out of three. Have to do better on that.
I did have a social obligation Saturday, which was nice – got to see some old friends – but the weather had gifted this little cookout with 90-degree temperatures and 90-percent humidity. I was still chugging glasses of water all day Sunday trying to rehydrate myself.
Don’t know if it was related, but I had a weird dream Sunday morning. Someone had physically wrenched the display screen completely off a laptop, and it was my job to fix it with nothing more than a roll of Scotch tape. The dream ended long before I found out how best to approach this little issue.
Mirandala dinged 61 Sunday night, with shrewlet‘s invaluable assistance. Soloing quests in Outland is less practical than in Azeroth, though simply grinding wandering monsters can be good for XP. My last level was in February: at 5 months per, I should hit the level 70 cap around the time they’ve raised it to 90 🙂 Hardcore, yep, that’s me. (Okay, I’d move quicker if I played alts less often. What’s your point?)
Speaking of such – WoW fans are agitating for personal housing in the game. Can the FFXI and SWG players chime in here and tell me what’s so interesting about that? What can you do in your house? Can you watch the magic bard-in-a-box for extra resting credit, or cook special meals for +25 Health bonuses. or throw a party for your friends to get Diplomacy XP? Or is it just fluff? (I like fluff fine, mind you.)
Are you Experienced?
Just came back from a very nice dinner with raininva at Red Robin. She gave me some loot from Vegas’ Star Trek: The Experience – a Starfleet emblem and an isolinear chip keychain.
Rain just got promoted, and is apparently being groomed for bigger things in the future. I’d be jealous, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m quite pleased with my new job 🙂
