I went from one insane, politically-charged project with a super-tight deadline to another. Hence the lack of posting. I am, in fact, actually working on said project right now. Well, to be absolutely precise, I’m taking a break for a few minutes. There’s only so long you can stare at an electronic medical record before you stop seeing detail and start making mistakes.

So, Leah’s gone. Her visit was so wonderful - we adore that girl, and I just LOVE having her around. We have a lot in common, so I didn’t feel like she was a guest I had to go out of my way to entertain… it was just easy to be with her. We didn’t do all that much - just lived my life together and hung out - but it was so much more fun than it normally is! We keep ourselves very busy with people and events - Leah knows now that I’m not exaggerating when I say things never slow down. =)

For example. Just this weekend: I will be working 10 hours of OT, a couple of hours for my contracting company (Sedona Learning Solutions), an hour or so catching up on some web admin stuff for NADDI, AND preparing for, then hosting Zach (the teen boy who’ll be “living” with us for July starting this weekend). Then we have a birthday party and an open house.

But, things are starting to get back on track. I’ll have the time to do the things I need to once this project is finished and stops invading my personal life. Maybe I’ll even have a chance to get out there and take some pictures before it’s autumn.

Friday night, we went to see Derek’s art at the Stutz open house downtown.  Derek is a coworker friend and a fellow TU grad - and he’s really talented.

Some of us made an evening of it.  We went out to dinner with some coworkers and then to Derek’s studio.

Dinner was an adventure.  We started at a really neat place downtown called the Rathskeller, but since it was such a crush - no room to stand without being jostled - we decided to leave. 

We had paid $10 to park at the Rathskeller (a popular place any night, but especially on a nice weekend night), and since we were only there for a few minutes before deciding to leave, John (the friend I was riding around with) tried to talk the parking lot attendant dude (who was incredibly rude) into refunding him the money.  It was a no-go, so John just got into the car and backed out.  And then Denise (who was riding in the backseat) started yelling, “stop, stop, stop, John!”.  So John stopped.  She said, “there’s a huge lightpost behind you!”  John goes, “oh” and then steps on the gas.  But he forgot to put it in drive, so he reversed straight into the pole.  As the car thunks into the pole, he says, “that lightpost?”  =)  We all had a good laugh - he didn’t hit it hard enough to cause any damage to his car.

We all ended up at a dive called “the Tip Top Tavern”, close to the art show.  Had dinner, drinks, and many laughs, then headed out to the show.

It was huge!  None of us had been before, so none of us expected it to be three buildings (lots of floors, each) of studios to wander through.  There was live music, tons of people milling around… It was really neat.  I’ll be going back next year for sure, and leaving more time to look through.  As it was, we arrived late enough at Derek’s studio that most of us were tired and/or sick with serious allergies.  By the time we’d spent an hour and a half looking around and talking to Derek, we were ready to go.

Anyway, go check out Derek’s site (it’s a group site with some other folks): http://www.limnersociety.com/.  His latest, and my favorite, stuff isn’t posted there yet.  Hopefully he’ll get some of the photos from the event online so you can see his work.  I took a couple with my camera phone for John, but feel weird about posting them without Derek’s permission.

Remember the coworker who thought my “binary” clock was a braille clock on first glance?  He wrote an article about it.  =)

So, cousin Tim bought me a clock that displays a binary representation of time.  It was a great gift - cracked me up, and has been pretty fun.  I brought it into work after Christmas and have had to explain to just about everyone in the entire office what it is and how it works. 

Behold:

It’s 09:40:54.  (yay, cameraphone!) 

Enter a coworker who is well-traveled and computer smart.  He picks up the clock and says, seriously, “Wow!  A braille clock!”

I cracked up - yeah, all blind people use dots of light to tell time.  They can see tthose much better than the LED numbers on a digital clock.

In the line-up of Christmas activities at the office: the Christmas song rewriting contest.  One of my favorite entries:

“Working in the 1815 Wonderland”

Water tinkles, are you listening?
On the desk, puddles glistening.
A beautiful sight,
Though not watertight,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

Gone away is the good smell,
Here to stay is a new smell.
Popcorn in the makin’,
Or is it burnin’ bacon?
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

In the hallway we can do some bowling,
And pretend this is the P.B.A.
She’ll say: did you break it?
We’ll say: No man,
But you can fix that pin,
Try the duct tape.

Later on, we’ll perspire,
As we roast like a fire,
Fans turned to “high,”
Minus twenty outside,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

In the basement we can play some foosball,
And pretend that we are 9 or 10.
We’ll have lots of fun, we happy foosers,
Until they need the space and move us again.

Working late, get a bad scare,
A stranger’s camping out in your chair.
An adventure a day, the [our company name] way,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

Today and yesterday have been party days here at work.  I’ve never been paid so much to eat and chit-chat in my life - I could really get used to this.  =)

Yesterday, we all left the downtown office at 10:30 to drive out to the west side for our 11:00-3:00 department Christmas party.  We knew it was gonna be a riot as soon as we got this invitation:

It was hilarious!  Coworkers and bosses ran around in the most outrageous outfits - they were characters in a murder mystery.  Here are photos from the event:

http://www1.mymeded.com/content/clarian/docs/1207_holiday_party/

___

Today, the instructors (downstairs) had a “progressive Christmas party.”  =)  That means we got to walk from suite to suite, touring their decorated offices and eat ourselves silly.  It was wonderful.  AND I got paid to do it.

*sigh*  I love my job.

I’m back and it’s yucky out - cold and wet and gray.  Hawai’i seems like a million miles away.  I’ve been nursing a chai and whining to my officemate - P’s great at commiserating.

Speaking of P, she was involved in another atrocious-working-conditions fiasco while I was gone.  One of the guys on my team (JR from earlier posts) had to evacuate his office.  It’s directly below the bathroom upstairs.  The toilet overflowed - onto his desk!  They keep saying it was just the tank, but no one believes that.  P was in his office in a flash and ended up cleaning everything, top to bottom, with Clorox.  Yuck!

I talked to our office manager before I left - I let him know how I [we] felt.  He was sympathetic, but basically said, “There’s nothing I can do.”  I suggested that he talk to someone who could do something.  Doubt he’ll do anything, but at least I’ve done more than just whine.  =)  I’m thinking that since the petition thing worked so well for the HoHos, maybe we should give that a shot.

Today’s a pretty stinking hilarious day at work.  An email string I just got:

A writes: 

This here delightful item might make a great holiday gift for or from you creative types: http://www.puttyworld.com/index.html

D writes: 

I looked at the website. Looks like you can fashion clothes out of it — like belts and stuff. Picture it: Mood underwear!!!!  J, I think we should invest in this one. We could make A KILLING with MoodPutty Undies!

J writes:

Agreed.  Two men pass a woman on the street.  One says, “That woman is HOT for me.”  The other asks, “How can you tell?”  The first one says, “Because her panties turned bright red when she looked at me!”

D writes back:

The second man responds: “Dude, you’d better check your color key. I think that’s the woman you stood up last week for drinks.”

J replies:

First one’s reply:  “Come to think of it, the bright red was in back…”

D responds:

The woman, still silently fuming about being stood up, thinks to herself, “What was WRONG with that other guy’s socks?”

A conversation my coworker and I had today:

DD: in the 40s today
DD: kinda nice actually
DD: ahhhhhh
me: uggghhh
me: I’d much rather it be warmer.
DD: most folks would
DD: JR and i will have to run away together to an ice floe somewhere
DD: hang out with the polar bears…
me: I’ll send you postcards from hawaii
DD: we’ll send you photos of the snow angels we make.
me: I never understood what would possess grown people to lay down in the snow and wiggle.
me: first of all, the angels look like they’re wearing culottes.  those went out of style AGES ago.
me: secondly, it’s wet.
me: thirdly, it’s cold.
me: fourthly, the person on the ground is lying in a prone position - just ripe for assault or theft.
DD: mugged by a gang of penguins…
DD: really, i don’t think that there are many assaults and thefts on ice floes.
me: well, I suppose we could leave out point #4 in that case.
DD: and coulottes come and go
DD: i’m all about wearing what i like
DD: my snow angels have similar feelings about fashion
me: culottes should stay gone.
me: seriously - when I was a kid and did the snow angel thing (like, once), I actually scooped out the leg line.
DD: how funny!
me: had to fix it.
DD: and they didn’t medicate you then?
DD: ;-)
me: anyway, because you’re squirming so much, the head always ends up shaped funny.
DD: i tend not to do a whole lot of flailing
me: isn’t that the point?
DD: it’s not really a whole-body experience
me: yes, it is a whole-body experience - your whole body gets wet and numb from the snow!
DD: i mean, you only have to move your arms and legs
me: yeah, but try moving your ring finger without moving the others - things are connected!
DD: my head’s not connected to my legs
DD: or my arms
me: but it’s connected to your neckbone, which is connected to your…
me: didn’t you go to preschool?
me: didn’t you TEACH preschool?
DD: yes, but the fine points of flailing were never covered in my curriculum

I have Skype installed on my computer.  It’s an online communication tool that allows you to either chat with (instant message) or talk to (online phone call) people over the internet. 

I’ve mainly used it to talk with family (Melissa’s in Asia, and it’s free to talk to her this way), but I use it at work occasionally to talk to coworkers who are working offsite.  So I leave it up and running at work.

I had a meeting today in which my computer was going to be attached to a projector for a demonstration of some software.  I, thoughtfully, I thought, exited all my email and communication programs so we wouldn’t be interrupted by pop-ups in the meeting, then traipsed down the hall and hooked my computer up to the projector.

45 minutes of the meeting went by without event.  Then it happened.  A chat request from Skype popped up in the center of the screen and interrupted the presenter (turns out I’d forgotten to close Skype since I rarely use it).  This chat request had an avatar - a picture - in the window.  This picture was of a naked, spread-eagle woman.  And it seemed to fill the entire projector screen.

I cannot tell you how mortified I was - I quickly explained that my name must be listed in some public directory for the application.  The guy closed the window, but all the people just kinda… stared… at me.  Thankfully, in the end, they all laughed about it.  I could have gotten into quite a bit of trouble.

I got back to my desk and immediately found the privacy settings on the application.  If you’re running Skype, and you leave it on at work, I suggest you do the same.  =)