SERIOUSLY! JESUS H. CHRIST! How do you get to be a middle aged, adult person living and working out in the world and not know how to chew your food with your fucking mouth closed??

He's really savoring that package of cheddar cheese Lance crackers today. And by the sounds of his saliva, he's enjoying the hell out of them. I hope so because it might just be the last package he ever eats.

Motherfucker. Let's go break some wrists!

Someone here is making coffee and even though I do not like the taste of it, I really enjoy the aroma. It smells really wonderful in here for once. I got to my desk at about 6:45 this morning, got up to make some tea at about 7:30, and haven't gotten up from it once since then (it's 10:30 as I write this). I've been busy.

After having one of the best nights of sleep that I can remember recently on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday nights were disasters. I thought that Saturday's version, bourbon induced, would be better the next night after laying off the alcohol, but it turned out to be worse last night. Just awful. I think I may have gotten a total of three hours, maybe, and all of it fractured by periods of waking. On the plus side, I got to see the launch of the shuttle Endeavour live (it's sad to think there are only four more shuttle launches to go now). Thanks to getting a solid ten hours of sleep over the night on Friday, I don't feel so poorly right now but this afternoon will be the test. I'm normally a little sleepy around 2:00 and hopefully I can push through that part of the day today.

I had a grand weekend, though. The friend that I went to visit in Augusta a couple of weeks ago is here and we got some lunch on Friday at my favorite pasta joint in town (Figo, I guess they have like eight of them now but I always go to the one on the west side). Saturday I cleaned my apartment and then had Tim and his girl over for some dinner and Wii fun which was a blast. Since I was already up on Sunday I went for a run in the park (there was actual sun - for a while!) and then got cleaned up in time for mass. After lunch I made some family phone calls and then watched a little of the Superbowl later (congrats, Saints fans!). I had an invite to a Superbowl party but didn't really feel like going. I was already a little grumpy from not sleeping well and I didn't want to be out too late (little did I know, I could have watched three Superbowls in the time I spent awake last night).

I know I've said it before and I will certainly say it again, but engineers are weird. My cubemate, Rockin' Randy, just said, out loud and apropos of absolutely nothing, "Let's go break some wrists!" and then got up and walked out of the cubicle. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't some wrists around here that deserve to be broken, but it seems like an odd thing to say. Lord only knows what was going on in that head of his that prompted that interjection.

It's only 8:17 in the morning and already I can say that I were doomed to replay this Groundhog Day over and over again I could see myself considering other options. The ability of the modern human being to sacrifice the needs of others in order to satisfy their own needs never ceases to amaze me. I don't know what's at the root of this failure, but every time I have a day like this I can't help but think of George Costanza:



(I know, lamest youtube "clip" ever, but it was all I could find)

I had a great weekend getting a few things accomplished and hanging out with my friend Tim, who hasn't been around this neck of the woods too much lately. The weather here has been so off and on that it was nice to be able to have a reason to hole up in my apartment for much of the weekend and do some organizing and planning. My taxes are done and I'm getting back about what I planned for. I think I've got my withholdings balanced out perfectly now and I feel pretty adult about it. My grandpa, the retired banker, will no doubt be proud (note to self: call grandpa).

My cubemate, he of the endless rocking, is back after being gone for three glorious weeks. That was really great but I'm paying the price now as he's apparently spent that time storing up conversations like never before. Please don't tell me this day is going to repeat when it's done.

Dammit.

J.D. Salinger dead at age 91

We barely knew you, J.D., and that's the way you wanted it, but what I did know of you I liked a lot.

Short summary of my trip to Augusta: we have a friend who is doing a temporary assignment there so three of us went over to visit her. She's got a really nice place right on the Savannah River and it's a walking distance to downtown. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's walking distance to downtown. The downtown is just... well, sad.

Augusta reminds me of what Savannah would look like if you didn't have the squares and you closed eight out of every ten businesses. Its downtown is just devastated. The main street there is Broad Street, which is really nice and is, actually, very broad. Unfortunately it's not very pretty. There seems to have been a number of bars, restaurants, and theaters that once thrived there but now are almost all closed. Of what's left, well, I've never seen a downtown with so many "Vegas showgirls" bars (a notch below a strip club I guess, which means they are about as useless as nipples on men) in a two block stretch.

We did eat at a really nice family owned Italian restaurant that had wonderful food and a fun atmosphere. I also stumbled upon a great used book store and made a couple of purchases there, so we did our part to inject a small amount of cash into downtown (incidentally, the area near the famous golf course is nice, but very suburban strip mall dominated - not good). Since the weather was crap the whole time except for right when we were leaving on Sunday, we stayed inside a decent amount and played a lot of Wii.

And that's about it. It was a fun trip but I was disappointed that I only was able to take a few pictures. The couple days I had there were just so uniformly grey and rainy and cold that I just didn't bother. There were a thousand things there that I wanted to shoot, though, and it's fertile ground if your photographic inspiration is abandoned places (which mine kind of is).

Awesome. Off Friday today. Slept to 11:30, really needed it. Going on a short road trip with a couple of friends over to Augusta for the weekend. I've lived in Georgia all these years and have never been there except to drive through. Not sure if the weather will cooperate, but I'll be trying to take some pictures.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

So I had to send out a meeting request this morning because someone gave me a bullshit answer to a question I had and now they're going to pay for it (at 1:30 today). In the responses that got send back, there was this gem:

I could do it at that time if I could do it over the phone. Can you guys just call me from the conference room. I think once everyone understands the root cause this will become a mute point.

I'm going to ignore the obvious "is his second sentence a question or not" question and just laugh at the "mute point". If it's a mute point and we call him on the phone from the conference room, does that mean he's not going to say anything back to us and just sit there silently? I have no idea why that saying gives so many people so much trouble, but I am thankful for the chuckle that he provided me.

It also made me think of this:

At Borders last night, standing in line with my single selected volume, waiting mostly for the woman checking out with her enormous basket of books. Frustrated, still feeling the lingering effect of being sick, wanting really only to be back home putting my nose in the first few pages of my new Murakami, aware that my rising anger was unjustified. The woman's total rising just as quickly, coupons being sought in a cavernous purse, Borders reward card to be looked up, not present. Grumbling, I shift my weight and consider the various forms of gift card designs presented before me on the stand, at eye level. My eyes roam. I wonder, not for the first time, if I would ever again see Vern Yip at this Borders like I did that day six or seven years ago when Trading Spaces was in its heyday, when my mind blanked on his name. Various discount schemes are discussed with the salesperson. Is 10% off of her total purchase more or less than 40% off of the one item? Is there any way this transaction could take longer? I am surprised only that she is not paying by check.

The woman, speaking now, I realize that she has some sort of speech mannerism. She grunts, "mmm!" at the end of each sentence. Very pronounced. Was this developed? Pathological? Some sort of manifestation of mental illness? The person ringing her up must either know her already of be a really good poker player since she's not showing any sign of surprise.

Now, feeling horrible about myself. Does she buy books as a retreat? Are books her refuge, a place she can go and delve into a world that doesn't care how she speaks? Her total is over $150. I've never spent that much at one time on books in my life. She is completely kind and polite, if particular, and now I'm wondering why I thought it was so important to get my book purchased and get back out into a world that might laugh at this woman when she talks. And then she's gone, out through the door, and I take my turn at the register, mind going with her.

Have been sick all week. Finally starting to feel better, but I haven't been to work since a week ago today. It started over the weekend and I ended up with a wicked respiratory virus that was making it difficult for me to breathe. I was finally able to get in to see a doctor on Tuesday and he gave me some wicked steroids and some Albuterol. Since there's nothing you can really do against a virus, we're treating the symptoms until the virus has run its course. Things are much better now that I'm on the drugs. I was coughing so much and not getting any sleep and thankfully last night I was able to sleep pretty much straight through.

So that's where I've been. I'm hopelessly behind on LJ, having only commented here and there, but I'll be catching up as I can.

Near Ollantaytambo, Peru. April, 2006.

Yes, those are my two lower legs and feet. You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get this picture, but I had a vision and I couldn't ask some random other person to get down on the ground, focus like I wanted, and take this. I had no idea where my traveling companions for this leg of the trip were and if I was going to take this shot I had to do it at that moment (when no one else was in front of me on that part of the trail or behind me waiting to pass). I kind of think this has a certain Indiana Jones look about it, though I'm hardly that manly, with the nice pants and good shoes. That was accidental, though. I had left my tennis shoes in the US and my jeans back in Lima with one of my bags (I only took a backpack with me to Cuzco), so I had to dress up to do some exploring. Ollantaytambo, by the way, is amazing.

Taken with my Minolta X-700 using the self-timer and a 50mm prime lens. The difficulty here was that the autoexposure lock, which I would have liked to have used on this shot, is on the same switch as the self timer - pull up for timer, push down for AEL, can't do both. That's the only real design flaw of that old camera. I needed the timer more, so I kind of winged it with the exposure and it came out great.

Is it just me or does LJ seem really slow (as in rate of people posting, not system speed) today?

Well, I'm out of corduroy pants to wear. It was 18 degrees when I got in my car to come to work this morning. With a 12 mph wind the windchill was like 8 or something. I realize that's not the coldest anyone has ever been, and of course growing up in northern Ohio and southeast Michigan I spent half the year this cold. But for here, for us wimpy Georgians, that's fucking cold.

There's a particular genre of person that really bothers me at times like this. The guy who used to live somewhere that it's cold all the time and now lives somewhere that it's usually warm. When that normally warm place turns unreasonably cold, the guy goes around in shorts and shirt sleeves, proclaiming that "this isn't cold, this isn't anything". That guy is stupid. Spending 17 winters in Toledo, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan didn't teach me to flaunt some sort of toughness, it taught me that you should dress appropriately for the weather and when you can get warm you take the opportunity. We have a couple of those guys here at work and I just shake my head at them. Except for the guy that works down the way from me who is from North Dakota. With him it's probably genuine.

They're predicting up to 2 inches of snow for Thursday, cue the run on milk and bread at the grocery stores. I'm not especially looking forward to driving around in that, since Atlanta has virtually no equipment to salt or plow roads, but of course if there's anyone they expect to come into work if it snows it's the guy from the land of snow who happens to have a four wheel drive Jeep.

I just remembered that this is my Friday off. If we get snow overnight there's nothing I have to do the next day, so no worries. I've got plenty of milk and bread and can walk to a MARTA station. Besides, I'll be shocked if we get more than a dusting.

I brought in my DVD of "Rear Window" and have it playing just for the audio. I have seen it so many times that I practically know it by heart. I can't really watch it (that wouldn't look so good to the people walking by my desk) but it's fun to listen. An insurance company that sends a nurse out to see you for a broken leg? That gives you a back massage and makes you lunch? Those were the days.

So I'm back at work for the first time since the morning of 18 December. It's... rough. Made more rough by the fact that it's only 19 degrees here. It was not easy to get myself out of my nice, warm bed at 5:15 this morning when I had just heard on the radio how freaking cold it is outside.

No matter, though. I'm here. I've got tea. I've had two weeks of rest and I can say I'm reasonably ready to be back to work. I've got 306 e-mails on my work e-mail to review and that should take me a while.

One bonus to being back here: I'll be much more frequently commenting and posting here. So there's that. I'll have a more comprehensive post a bit later about my break and what's coming up in 2010.

Hope you all had a great holiday season (unless you happen to be Orthodox, in which case I hope you're getting excited about Christmas coming up!).

The best part about today is that I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Or at all next week.

Christmas was great. I spent some good time with the segment of my family that is down here (my aunt and uncle and their kids) and I spent some time with some friends. Overall, it's been really wonderful break from the routine I'd been operating in for months. I'm having a hard time comprehending that I've got an entire week still to go. I've got some stuff to take care of around the apartment and a few things planned that I don't normally get to do.

Can I do this two week vacation thing every month?

You may not be doing anything special for it, but turning 22 deserves at least some recognition. Happy b-day, thewebmisstress!

Growing up, this was traditionally the most anticipation filled day of the year and normally one of the best. The 23rd was always the day before the big Christmas festivities kicked off. I won't lie, when I was young I was really spoiled by my grandparents. Growing up, there I was the only grandchild on my dad's side for a really long time and was one of only two on my mom's side. Christmas time was always very good to me (I never acted like a spoiled brat, for the record).

Tradition worked out that I would go to the vigil mass on Christmas eve evening (until I was a late teen and started going to midnight mass) and then went to my paternal grandparents house. My dad's side of the family, and sometimes my dad if he could get leave, would gather there and we always had a great time. My grandma would always put out a lot of appetizers and for some reason always had a bowl of pecans in the shell that I loved to crack. They would always have a fire going in the fireplace. Then we'd have dinner and open presents.

I'd go home and get to sleep then get up and go to my maternal grandparent's house to open presents. There was always a big breakfast and my cousin would be there. They had a wonderful sunroom in which they put the tree and the presents, and they always went out of their way to make sure my cousin and I got a lot of stuff. As I got older they got much more reasonable but when I was, say, ten and younger they definitely sacrificed to give my cousin and I a magical Christmas. My cousin and I would laugh and play with our new toys and run around like maniacs while my mom and aunt would talk about their Christmases growing up.

So the 23rd was always the calm before the storm. My mom would always be wrapping presents or making cookies or something like that. I'd watch the Grinch (which is on tonight!!) and try to help around the house while enjoying our tree. When my grandparents moved to Florida in 1986, things were never really the same. The tradition, which I had followed ceaselessly for 12 years ended and while Christmas was still wonderful it wasn't like it had always been.

I'm finishing up a few Christmas things myself this evening and thinking about years past. Today I took the subway up to the mall because I did need a couple of last minute items, but mostly to be in the midst of the throng of people and feel the consumerism spirit. Tomorrow I will go to the vigil mass and I will sit in my apartment, maybe with a friend or two and have a drink to celebrate the coming day. It is not the same. Growing up is wonderful and awful at the same time, and I am so thankful for all those wonderful memories.

Happy anticipation day, every one.

First day of my two week vacation. I'm finishing up some Christmas stuff today and then plan on relaxing for a very long time.

I'll be in and out on here until 2010. I will probably only post a few times, but I'll be reading my flist often and commenting. I hope all of you are having a really wonderful holiday season so far!

Elephant trunk. North of Chiang Mai, Thailand. September, 2003.

Taken with some little point and shoot film camera that I can't remember because two nights before leaving for the (then) trip of my lifetime, someone knocked my good Minolta Maxxum off of a table and broke it. This picture isn't all that visually impressive or anything, but come on - elephant trunk!! Someone in my group, maybe even myself, rode this impressive beast later that day. Riding on an elephant is not nearly as comfortable and exotic as it might sound. Their gait is not all that conducive to a cushy ride and if you think you're high up whilst horseback riding, get on an elephant sometime. It was fun, though.

If you're new here to my flist thanks to AMA or however you might have found me, you have the misfortune of hitting my LJ at a time when I'm really super busy. We're trying to get a lot of stuff closed out here before Christmas and I'm finding little time to write about what's going on. Feel free to poke around, read what you'd like and comment if you feel the desire. Welcome, and enjoy. If you've got questions, please ask.

Before I go anywhere with this post, a very happy birthday shout out to rediscover_me! Have a wonderful day!!

The weekend was fine, although made a little insufferable by the sheer number of University of Florida and Alabama fans that were milling about the city, generally clogging up the works. I'm as big of a fan of college football as anyone, but holy hell some of those people were really annoying. I'm sure alcohol was a factor in most cases.

At the same time, it was fun. There was a lot going on around the city this weekend and there was kind of a sense of things happening and events taking place. It made the city feel bigger and more cosmopolitan than it often does. I like that.

I did a little Christmas shopping and that led to an interesting interaction. I do a lot of my shopping online since the vast majority of my gifts are going to be mailed to other cities and I'm going to have to pay to ship something anyway it often is a good deal. However, there are a few things that I need or want to get in person, one of which was at the Apple store in the mall. The store was jammed and the line to pay was horrendously long. While standing there, waiting my turn, my eyes were roaming around the room. I had one of those "my eyes swept past your face while your eyes were sweeping past mine" moments with a woman who was on her way out, probably ten feet away from me. We made eye contact and I was feeling a little stupid because while I wasn't checking her out (she just happened into my view), she was the kind of girl you probably would check out if you checked out girls. She was tall and attractive and dressed nicely. Just as I was giving myself an internal shake of the head and looking away, she kept her eyes directly on me, gave a big smile, and with an indication of her head toward the queue said (very sincerely), "good luck!" I managed a "thank you!" that hopefully wasn't too much stammer, totally surprised. And then like that, she was gone. Honestly, it made me feel pretty good. The look on the face of the guy behind me was pretty funny, eyebrows raised and lips pursed in what I assume was jealousy.

It's been a really, really slow morning here. For whatever reason it seems like I've been here all day when it's only been a couple of hours. I don't have any big project to do or anything and a few of my people are out today, so I knew it would be dragging a bit today but I didn't expect time to actually be going backwards. I'm pretty much at the end of the Internet, at least the Internet I can access here at work, and it's only 9:30. Ugh.

Good news today though as I learned that my cubemate, he of the Lance cracker breakfast and constant chair rocking, will be gone all next week taking his family to Disney World. The week after that I have three days of a training class in another building and then after that I'm off for two weeks for Christmas. So this is more or less the last day I'll have to deal with him this year.

Happy birthday today to the fittest dudette on my flist, the bad-assed wolfsgotnards. I hope your foot is all better and that it hasn't set your running back too much!

There might be snow here tomorrow. That would be exciting. I imagine I won't get too much in the city, but the burbs might get a dusting. It'll still cause mass chaos.

Urubamba River Valley. Near Pisaq, Peru. March 2006

Taken with my Minolta X-700 using a 35mm lens (the widest angle lens I had at the time) on Fuji 400 speed film. Our bus pulled off the side of the road here just so we could take some pictures and stretch our legs. The river valley here was considered sacred by the Incas. It doesn't show up too well in the photograph, but the snow-capped mountains off in the distance were amazing. Towering. Inviting.