littoral \LIH-tuh-rul\, adjective:
1. Of, relating to, or on a coastal or shore region, especially a seashore
Since I haven't posted since the 18th (gasp) I figured I better get on it so I don't disappoint the peanut gallery. And just where have I been? Well, if it's possible to make one week stretch out into eternity, that happened last week. I was at work on Monday, but then in a flash I was in Pittsburgh with a dear friend and after some minor finagling, I was able to still go to Oregon on Thursday morning to visit my family for a few days on the coast -- hence the word of the day.
For anyone who has not been to the West coast, you are seriously missing out. I mean, it's so awesome there, so much better everything than the east coast. You think your coast out here is so great -- Cape Cod! Ha. It's a joke compared to Seaside. I'm not kidding. The Oregon Coast is one of the most beautiful resources the Unites States owns and yet it's so ignored. Public service announcement #459: If you haven't been to the Oregon coast, get your head out of the sand and go there. You won't regret it. I'll post some photos tomorrow so you can see that I'm not lying.
The water in the ocean there is 45 degrees right now. Wouldn't that feel good today, in this 100-degree weather? Tomorrow is supposed to reach 100 degrees, which brings the heat index up to 110 degrees. That's out of control. I've been to Tucson in hotter weather than that, but they don't have humidity there. How does one survive outside in 110 humidity? I feel really bad for the workers who are constructing a building next door to mine. I hope they bring enough water. That job must be one of the worst of all times. Working in snow and humidity. No thank you. I think I'll stick with my job for now.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Word of the Day: Quandary
quandary \KWAHN-duh-ree; -dree\, noun:
A state of difficulty, perplexity, doubt, or uncertainty.
For years I've heard people complain about jury duty. They've said that it's a impediment to their daily life, that it takes up too much time, it's boring, it's annoying, etc. So when I received my first jury duty summons in the mail a few weeks ago, I was justifiably irritated. Nevermind the fact that I'm 28 and have never been summoned to perform my civic duty of judging other people, how could they waste my time with this useless jury duty!
The summons states that I must call everyday after 4pm to see if I will be called to duty the following day. It is now Tuesday and I have called for Wednesday and still I have not been asked to report for duty. Apparently there are no criminals needing a group of their peers to condemn them of their wrongdoings (look I've just been eliminated as a possible juror anyway!). There have been no trials this week.
So I worked all weekend on G8 stuff and didn't have a single moment of non-working time in 11 days straight and I'm sorry but I WANT to go to jury duty if only to get out of work for a single blessed day. So why won't they call me? Where is all the annoying, time-consuming horribly boring jury duty that everyone complains about? If anything, I'd like to complain that they aren't calling me! I would argue that there should be a hotline for people to call when they WANT to do jury duty. Fine, some of you don't. That's your choice. But I do. And I don't think it's fair that they gave me false hope that I would be called. There's always hope for Thursday or Friday, but I hold no faith in the court system at this point.
What does a person have to do to get a day off around here?
A state of difficulty, perplexity, doubt, or uncertainty.
For years I've heard people complain about jury duty. They've said that it's a impediment to their daily life, that it takes up too much time, it's boring, it's annoying, etc. So when I received my first jury duty summons in the mail a few weeks ago, I was justifiably irritated. Nevermind the fact that I'm 28 and have never been summoned to perform my civic duty of judging other people, how could they waste my time with this useless jury duty!
The summons states that I must call everyday after 4pm to see if I will be called to duty the following day. It is now Tuesday and I have called for Wednesday and still I have not been asked to report for duty. Apparently there are no criminals needing a group of their peers to condemn them of their wrongdoings (look I've just been eliminated as a possible juror anyway!). There have been no trials this week.
So I worked all weekend on G8 stuff and didn't have a single moment of non-working time in 11 days straight and I'm sorry but I WANT to go to jury duty if only to get out of work for a single blessed day. So why won't they call me? Where is all the annoying, time-consuming horribly boring jury duty that everyone complains about? If anything, I'd like to complain that they aren't calling me! I would argue that there should be a hotline for people to call when they WANT to do jury duty. Fine, some of you don't. That's your choice. But I do. And I don't think it's fair that they gave me false hope that I would be called. There's always hope for Thursday or Friday, but I hold no faith in the court system at this point.
What does a person have to do to get a day off around here?
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Word of the Day: Viral
viral
adj : relating to or caused by a virus; "viral infection"
No, I don't have a virus.
I was basically held at gunpoint this afternoon until I assured my friend Brian that I would blog about a project he's involved in at work. Here is the conversation we had taken directly from the chat window.
The project is basically a Solar Car Race Team from Houston. The company Brian works for, Schott, donated the solar panels to the school so they could build the Sundancer, the car they plan to race in the Dell-Winston Solar Car Race in Dallas, TX. Brian set up this blog for the students so they could track their experience and update fans who are checking on their progress. He thought I was being sarcastic when I said I thought it was cool, but it actually is. I wanted to build a solar car when I was in high school, but instead we just got to read about it. So these kids are pretty lucky to be involved in something like this.
What I'm wondering though is why I don't get this excited about any of my work projects. Of course, I don't work somewhere that invokes excitement. And I *was* excited to go to Russia for the G8, but that didn't work out because they thwart fun. I guess converting websites isn't exactly thrilling work so I should just be glad that I work with really wonderful people who I don't mind spending 40 hrs a week with. But I would really like to be doing something that I could get excited about.
So back to the word of the day. Why did Brian want the word to be viral. He doesn't have a virus either. He's in marketing and he wants his advertising of this program to be infectious. Perhaps I should have used the word "infectious" because that better explains what I'm talking about here. How many people in the world have a job that is a happy form of infectious? I wish I had one.
adj : relating to or caused by a virus; "viral infection"
No, I don't have a virus.
I was basically held at gunpoint this afternoon until I assured my friend Brian that I would blog about a project he's involved in at work. Here is the conversation we had taken directly from the chat window.
Brian: i'm pretty proud of myself
if you wanna help viral me a bit with your blog that would be moy bueno
me: sure I can do that
Brian: thanks doc
word of the day = viral
me: hah
okay, you ordered it
The project is basically a Solar Car Race Team from Houston. The company Brian works for, Schott, donated the solar panels to the school so they could build the Sundancer, the car they plan to race in the Dell-Winston Solar Car Race in Dallas, TX. Brian set up this blog for the students so they could track their experience and update fans who are checking on their progress. He thought I was being sarcastic when I said I thought it was cool, but it actually is. I wanted to build a solar car when I was in high school, but instead we just got to read about it. So these kids are pretty lucky to be involved in something like this.
What I'm wondering though is why I don't get this excited about any of my work projects. Of course, I don't work somewhere that invokes excitement. And I *was* excited to go to Russia for the G8, but that didn't work out because they thwart fun. I guess converting websites isn't exactly thrilling work so I should just be glad that I work with really wonderful people who I don't mind spending 40 hrs a week with. But I would really like to be doing something that I could get excited about.
So back to the word of the day. Why did Brian want the word to be viral. He doesn't have a virus either. He's in marketing and he wants his advertising of this program to be infectious. Perhaps I should have used the word "infectious" because that better explains what I'm talking about here. How many people in the world have a job that is a happy form of infectious? I wish I had one.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Wedding Photo
The weekend provided the best weather imaginably for the wedding of my good friend Rebecca (now) Cline. It was held out in Warrenton at the Black Horse Inn, a bed and breakfast in the countryside with horses and a beautiful landscape that included an old farm house where we all stayed and a reception hall.
Everything turned out lovely and I have very fond memories of the event. Rebecca and Toss are currently traipsing around San Francisco, soon to be on a cruise to Hawaii. I am jealous.
(Photo taken by the wonderful Mr. Reed)
Everything turned out lovely and I have very fond memories of the event. Rebecca and Toss are currently traipsing around San Francisco, soon to be on a cruise to Hawaii. I am jealous.
(Photo taken by the wonderful Mr. Reed)
Monday, July 10, 2006
Word of the Day: Junking
I can't believe I haven't discussed this topic yet on my blog. And I thought I was running out of things to say... Nothing is complete until this topic is discussed in full. It's called Junking.
I'm patiently awaiting the day when the word "junking" makes it into the dictionary. It will. Oh it will. It is slowly taking hold as more and more spam enters our inboxes and forces us to construct methods of ridding ourselves of this unwanted mail. I have rules set up on my work mail that automatically sends things from specifically people straight to the junk mail folder. This way I don't even have to see them, much less take the time required to click on them and move them manually to the junk folder. When people ask me if I've read these specific emails, I just say "Oh, no, I junked him." I junk everything labeled "broadcast", anything with the terms "technical", "help desk" and anything sent from another country that isn't specifically addressed to me (we get a lot of random embassy mail).
Inbox is not in the dictionary. They had time to add the word "supersize" but have not gotten around to inbox? They just added the words "google" and "unibrow" to the dictionary. Incidentally the word "biodiesel" has also been added. I'm not even sure what that is.
I'm patiently awaiting the day when the word "junking" makes it into the dictionary. It will. Oh it will. It is slowly taking hold as more and more spam enters our inboxes and forces us to construct methods of ridding ourselves of this unwanted mail. I have rules set up on my work mail that automatically sends things from specifically people straight to the junk mail folder. This way I don't even have to see them, much less take the time required to click on them and move them manually to the junk folder. When people ask me if I've read these specific emails, I just say "Oh, no, I junked him." I junk everything labeled "broadcast", anything with the terms "technical", "help desk" and anything sent from another country that isn't specifically addressed to me (we get a lot of random embassy mail).
Inbox is not in the dictionary. They had time to add the word "supersize" but have not gotten around to inbox? They just added the words "google" and "unibrow" to the dictionary. Incidentally the word "biodiesel" has also been added. I'm not even sure what that is.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Nothing to Say
Alright, I'll admit it, I have nothing to say. In fact, I haven't had anything to say in almost a week now. I think that officially means that I have writer's block, despite the fact that most people don't think that's a real ailment. Try being a writer for a week without anything to say. It's devastating.
I mean, I could write about the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, which I've been waiting many months for -- it's finally coming out on Saturday.
Or I could write about the wedding I'm going to be in on Saturday that prevents me from seeing the above mentioned movie (for a VERY good cause! Cheers to Rebecca and Toss).
Or I could post some photos of the Fourth of July party I went to on Tuesday at my friend Mo's house, but my camera dock is broken so the photos are helplessly trapped.
I could post some random facts about Oregon I found out just now -- it's the 28th most populated state in the U.S. and the 9th biggest. They make the best cheese at Tillamook. If you ever go there, ask for the squeaky cheese -- oh, and the Oregon Strawberry ice cream! Did you know that the state drink is milk? Who even knew that a state had a "drink"? Too bad I'm allergic to it.
I don't really want to write about any of those things though, so I won't. We'll just go on like this with nothing new to update my blog with until I get a life or a divine inspiration floods my brain. Until then...
I mean, I could write about the sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, which I've been waiting many months for -- it's finally coming out on Saturday.
Or I could write about the wedding I'm going to be in on Saturday that prevents me from seeing the above mentioned movie (for a VERY good cause! Cheers to Rebecca and Toss).
Or I could post some photos of the Fourth of July party I went to on Tuesday at my friend Mo's house, but my camera dock is broken so the photos are helplessly trapped.
I could post some random facts about Oregon I found out just now -- it's the 28th most populated state in the U.S. and the 9th biggest. They make the best cheese at Tillamook. If you ever go there, ask for the squeaky cheese -- oh, and the Oregon Strawberry ice cream! Did you know that the state drink is milk? Who even knew that a state had a "drink"? Too bad I'm allergic to it.
I don't really want to write about any of those things though, so I won't. We'll just go on like this with nothing new to update my blog with until I get a life or a divine inspiration floods my brain. Until then...
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