I had this friend in high school - 10 years ago, now, that I graduated! - who used to answer the question, “How are you?” with, “Yellow.”  To her, the color yellow represented contentment.  All was right in her world when she said she was yellow (much like when, in Firefly, Kaylee answers that things are “shiny” when she’s in a good mood).

I have a new yellow theme.  I’m feeling pretty good tonight after a rough couple of days personally and at work, so I thought it was time for a little bit of yellow.

David bought me a Zune!  =) 

I came home from work, he took my laptop bag and lunch box from me, and said, “Do you want a present?”  Of course I responded in a very excited affirmative - a surprise like that from my husband is a BIG deal (he’s a planner and very practical - not much into surprises).  He gave me a pair of scissors, and I said, “Thanks!  Scissors!  Just what I always wanted!”  He laughed and pushed me into the living room, where a box sat on a chair.  We opened the box and there it was - my very own Zune!  (For you non-computer folks, a Zune is Microsoft’s version of a video iPod.)  I’m so pysched - it’ll be PERFECT for the flight to Hawai’i!

Yay!  I’m still excited about it.

Techno-babble (disregard, moms):  I’ve been playing with it for the last few hours and have figured it out - all but ripping DVDs to Zune formats.  I downloaded several applications (shareware-style stuff) and the best I’ve seen so far is called AnyDVD Converter.  The DVD to .wmv conversion is fast, and doesn’t require a DVD to .avi step before going to .wmv (a big plus on the speed side of things).  The video quality is stellar, the audio quality is good and rich - the only problem (and I imagine this is something to do with me and my computer, or else this program wouldn’t be rated so highly) is that my audio and video aren’t syncing up.  I only tested one DVD (but several times, from scratch), so I’m in the middle of ripping another DVD to see if it was the disc’s fault (fingerprint, or something else that would cause file reading drama).

Techno Update:  The issue is the video conversion - it’s dropping frames.  It’s very subtle, but very consistent - it’s dropping 1 or 2 for every 30 or so.  =)  So, now to figure out how to stop it dropping frames.  I’m hoping it’s just a resource thing on my machine, but I’m not completely sure it is.  *sigh*

… a day.

It would be so much easier if folks would just talk to one another instead of being passive-agressive, and if they would just think about things like, oh, motives and intent before overreacting.

I am watching two friends suffer possible serious reprimand because another woman (the Diva) is overreacting on hearsay.  Granted, what they each said was offensive - I was there to hear their comments - but neither spoke out of a mean spirit, and neither had any intention of offending.  One (D) thought she was being clever (and was, in fact - it was just about a sensitive topic to the Diva, who usually takes D’s clever joking for what it is), and the other (J) thought he was congratulating the Diva on being clever.

Now they’re both anticipating negative consequences.  D doesn’t really care - her attitude has always been that you can take her or leave her (which actually is refreshing in a world where everyone cares so very much what everyone else thinks of them).  J, however, is pretty upset.

If the Diva, who heard what D and J said secondhand, had bothered talking to either of them, all the drama could have been averted.  They both would have instantly apologized for the offense and would have explained why they said the things they did.  Instead, the situation has deteriorated into a huffy (and clique-y) tantrum.

*sigh* 

Don’t folks have anything better to think about than perceived slights?

Last night, I dressed up as a very large Dorothy Gale (thanks, Mom!).  The Indiana Wind Symphony, in which I play the saxophone, had a Halloween concert at a local middle school.  The entire [professional] ensemble dressed up in costumes to play some really fun music.  The first half of the concert was movie music from Gone With the Wind, Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars.  During intermission, there was a costume contest for the audience.  The second half was more serious (but still Halloween-themed) literature.

There was another Dorothy onstage with me - my costume was better, and I wasn’t wearing a wig, but she had a REAL dog in her basket.  A real dog!  On the stage while we played!  Dorothy costumes were popular…  A little girl in a Dorothy costume won the audience contest, and when she came onto the stage to get her prize, the tuba players behind me reached up and patted me on the shoulders, saying, “Better luck next year!”  I told them that next year, I’d have a dog, too!

Pictures probably won’t be appearing anywhere on the internet.  =)  At least, none of me.

Anyway, I’m trying to convince the folks who run our website (and haven’t been interested in my help, even though I do this professionally) to start posting/podcasting our music.  I think it’d be a better way to get our stuff heard, and possibly generate more interest in the ensemble.  I know they make professional-level recordings of each concert - which sound a heckuva lot better than my husband’s little mp3 recorder’s recordings.  Even with his little recorder, though, you can tell that we don’t play like an amateur community ensemble.  For one thing, we’re in tune!  For another, we actually play challenging music.  It’s too bad David’s recordings sound so muffled and miss all the mids, or I’d just start having him record concerts and post the music myself.  =)

Anyway, family - if you want to listen to the concert (again, not a good recording at all), you can go here: www.aukerman.org/IWS.

It has been a wonderful two weeks.  My sister, Leah, visited while our mother went to spend time with Dad in Hawai’i.  Then, Mom came back from HI and spent a few days with me in Indy.

I’ve discovered something:  of all the people I know in the world, I have the most in common with my sister Leah.  We like the same movies.  We like the same music.  We like the same shoes.  We drool over the same necklaces.  We have the same hobbies.  In fact, the biggest difference I could find between us while she was here was that she likes video games a little bit more than I do, and that I like playing the piano a little bit more than she does.

… today I saw a car standing on its side.  On a railroad track.

Our alarm company made a mistake today that cost me:

• $125 in fines for police coming to check a false alarm.
• $40 in lost wages for the hour I had to spend screwing around trying to figure things out.
• my productivity this morning at work - it was a busy and stressful day already.
• my calm and my dignity - I chewed out the dispatch officer.

ARRRRRGH!

I got a call from some dope at Brinks today (Kip, Zip, Pip?  Some three-letter named punk) saying that our alarm was going off, wanting to know if I wanted the cops to check it out.  I asked him which zone it was - that’s how Brinks labels the types of alarm (glass break, door open, motion sensor, etc.) - and he told me it was a zone 3 motion sensor at the front door.  I told him that we don’t have motion detection activated as part of our alarm system (it’s a $500 installation, and with a dog, worthless).  So, I asked him again what kind of alarm it was.  He told me again, “motion at the front door.”  I asked him if he meant that my front door was open, and he said, “yes.”  So I said, “Go ahead and call the police.”

He called back a minute later and said that the police requested someone - me - to be there when they arrived.  I told him it’d take me 10 minutes to get there, and he told me that the police said I was to wait outside in my car for them to show up.  “Don’t try to go into the house - you might be mistaken for an intruder,” he says.

So, I waited in my car for a half an hour.  Cops didn’t show up.  I got fed up and went in.  My dog, of course, was hysterical.  I waited for 10 more minutes and fumed.  Then, I called Brinks.  A woman answered and said again that it was a motion sensor - when I explained that we don’t have motion detection, she corrected herself and said it was a zone 11 alarm - the glass break sensor.  Which means that my stupid dog was barking and set off the alarm again.  If, when I received the first call, ZPKipDope had said the correct zone, I’d have told him to simply reset the alarm.

That was too much.  I called the dispatch office and told the woman that since the cops never showed up like they were supposed to, she could cancel the alarm and not bill me.  She informed me that the police had come and gone.  So, I lost my temper.  I told her the situation and asked what I could do about that bill - she informed me that the police had done their jobs (with an attitude) and that it wasn’t their concern.  So I yelled at her, tersely apologized to her, then hung up on her.

Today is making me crazy.  Brinks WILL be paying that bill.  If they don’t, we’re cancelling their service and going to another company who can correctly identify “zones.”