Everybody's Working for the Weekend

(Ha, are you singing the song now?)

I am not a workaholic. In fact, I am so not a workaholic that I am taking the entire weekend off (ok, Saturday afternoon into the evening and night and Sunday) to play.

Unfortunately, that means working 2 full days in one (8 hours at each job).

Don't tell my (1st) boss. He already thinks I'm insane. Hey, at least I'm dedicated (and rich! I got my first paycheck today from job #2. Guess what I'm going to do with it! Ha, you'll be kept in suspense until Monday.).

A Day Out of Normal

Well, it was still normal, but it broke my daily routine of working, walking home, driving to work, working, driving home. Yesterday I went to a New Hire Training workshop.

Let me tell YOU, it feels nice to be a grown-up. Even in the time I took off between colleges, I still didn't feel quite as grown-up as now. Yesterday, I learned all about benefits, something I did not get to experience in previous jobs.

I get medical. I get dental. I get vision, even though I can't see ever using it (I don't wear any kind of corrective lenses. Maybe I should go have some sort of eye injury? Or maybe just an irritation). I even get life insurance. And a retirement plan, although that's not as exciting because I don't plan on retiring from here so I won't get full use out of it.

No more fears of falling down some stairs and having to pay for any repairs to myself!

Lab "Meeting"

Our lab meeting today was just an excuse for me to eat a bajillion donuts. Blech. Mmm...donuts....

Unifinished Sentence I'm Not Even Going to Bother With a Week

And the winner of last week's sentence:

Sojoyful with "When you put a lot of archivists together, that's what you get."

I liked that one because the original sentence was "monkeys", referring to how heavy a box packed with (stuffed and fake) monkeys was and she's drawing from experience and using her profession.

This week's sentence:

The best person to have as a neighbor would be _________ because _________.

This can be because you want to throw parties with them or water balloons at them. See you later!

Would You Like A Twist of Lime?

My cat has been without (cat) food for the last two days (he likes dry rice krispies and I've supplemented that with treats) as I have been without money for the last 14 (and, for those of you who don't know, cats get crazy when the don't eat for a couple days. This morning, at 7:30, he was throwing himself against my bedroom door). But a friend of mine hooked me up with a coupon for up to $20 of free cat food so today I went shopping.

Normally, I get the medium bag because I don't have room to store anything bigger. But, because it was free, I was going to get the largest bag I could.

The largest bag I could get for free was two pounds bigger.

Dude, that is some pampered cat. As it is, I have to buy him fancier food than the grocery store has (he has health issues), and I realize higher quality food is better for animals than the chicken and fish bits in the generic or even cheap brands, but he's eating better than me! I get yogurt and he gets veal chops or something.

Sing Me a Song

It's funny how life has a soundtrack. A song will come on and it will remind me of an event or person in my life. Right now, Africa, by Toto, is playing. This is what it reminds me of:

My senior year of high school (and I hesitated telling you that because of what follows), we threw a going away party for a couple people. By the end of the night, there were four of us left and we all decided to just spend the night at our friend's house and then go to breakfast the next morning. Two of us stayed up the entire night and, while our other two friends slept, we created a fort (yes, a fort). Along with other things around the basement, we took a big inflatable chair and propped it up next to the pool table. Of course we covered the whole thing with blankets, as any proper fort would have. The rest of the night was spent just chatting in our fort with some 1980s Billboard Hits playing over and over in the background. This included Africa, Living in a Trailor Park and Giving Off Sparks (what's the real name of that song? Turn Around?) and We Come From the Land Down Under.

At the Creepy Workplace Again

...Today the door did not close behind me on my way in. It slammed shut as if to keep me here forever.

(This would have been worse yesterday at night than today during the day, but I still see it as a sign of evil forces.)

Archivesy Meme

I got this from Srah. My archive's not so old, but here goes.

1. Go into your archive.

2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).

3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

"Wanna hear about the time I was abused by a monkey?"
- Thursday, August 9, 2005

A John Carpenter Moment

My work is creepy.

It's 8:30 pm. I just got to work. Work is this large building seriously in the middle of farm country. The highway's close, but the roosters are closer, blocking out the highway. Not that it matters, because the highway's kind of rural, as rural as an interstate can be, I guess. And it's dark. And they close of my parking lot on the weekends for some reason. So I have to come in some obscure doorway and meander my way through until I get to my wing. And there's lots of big, glass windows. And it's quiet. Quieter than a normal empty building. And the coke machines are sensored and come on when you walk by, interrupting the quiet.

It's freakin' me out, man.

The Forearm of Superman

When I worked at The Putt-Putt (see: Putterz), we served ice cream. Not all the time but, during my time there, I developed one slightly more muscular forearm (not noticibly stronger, at least to the naked eye. It wasn't gigantic or anything, I didn't have one massive arm and one weakling arm, although that's an interesting image). It was muscular enough that, when I stopped working year-round and only worked summers, the first summer back, I was all "This ice cream's harder than it used to be!" when really I was just a little softer in the arm.

I do have some guns (again, not body-builder type and I can't do chin-ups, but I can lift heavy boxes), but I can see a similar situation as Putt-Putt beginning again. At my new job, there are days where I sit in one place all day just pulling this little contraption towards me with my right arm. It requires some force on my part.

So, I guess I'll have to start sewing half of a super hero costume (outfit?) because I think, at least one part of my body, will soon be crying out for one.

Unfinished Sentence Week Something

This week's winner is:

Me! (And by me, I mean, Cheryl. None of your answers jumped at me and told me to pick them) with the sentence:

Monkeys, monkeys and more pick taffy.

Here's the new sentence:

When you put a lot of _______ together, that's what you get.

Overdressed

Last night I went to a party with some friends. (Disclaimer: one of the friends had been invited, the rest of us just went so I actually had no association with the hostesses, although it turned out to be a girl I had had class with a couple times and didn't like.) It was actually an undergraduate's birthday party, so it was the typical, wild party one throws in undergrad. No one was wearing clothes.

That's right. Us in our jeans and t-shirts felt overdressed. People had constructed clothing out of garbage bags, duct tape, caution tape and paint. Paint, as opposed to actual shirts. This was actually done by the girls, guys just drew smiley faces on their chests.

When I was in college (ok, now I'm sounding like my dad with his back in my day stories (aside: when I first heard the story about how many newspapers he delivered when he was a kid, it was 80. The number's now up to 300)), we had plenty of themed parties. In fact, I think all of them. Wine and cheese, cowboy themed, jungle themed, Hawaiian party, cocktail party, etc. This was not a theme party.

Apparently, this is what they do at this school. I'd never heard about it before. We didn't do this at my college. The only time you'd see girls dressed in saran wrap was at The Naked Mile (a long tradition at the University of Michigan that, sadly, the cops shut down for good my junior year), and that was more for support.

Departmental Activities

Last night we had "What I did on my summer vacation" wine and cheese night in our department. We could make 5 minute "presentations" with 5 slides and show them to everybody while eating and drinking. Most people went to fun and exciting places, or at least worked on fun and exciting theses (thesises). There were three of us who had just a handful of random slides. Here were mine:

Slide one: a picture of me at the zoo "riding" an elephant (standing next to a metal statue with one leg hidden from the camera). I've never riden an elephant or a camel so this is me pretending.

Slide two: molton lava cake. I made this. If you're going to make it, I suggest two carmel squares, because one is just no enough.

Slide three: of mice and monkeys. A collage of clipart to demonstrate my working this summer.

Slide 4: the kayaking trip, including pictures of my war wounds. You've already heard this story.

Slide 5: at Lake Huron, with the Mackinac bridge in the background.

I didn't have any photos of me napping or swimming or biking. And I couldn't get my resume up there quite right. This was actually the first thing I did this past summer was send out lots of resumes.

Not as exotic as France or Surinam.

Food Aversions

Kevi mentioned something about how he doesn't like Puff because he doesn't like onions. I won't eat chicken marsala because I once had the flu and had had chicken marsala for dinner when, excuse me, I vomited it up.

What are some of your food aversions and associations?

Let Me Just Take a Little Nap

So at my new job, I often do something that involves chloroform. Every time I do this, I imagine myself passing out. Just falling over and landing on the ground. I feel this fear is a bit unneccesary (and unrealized), yet everytime I forget to hold my breath as I open the container or pour the chloroform, I have this same vision.

(Slight aside: one of my biggest somewhat realistic fears (unlike the other three mentioned earlier) is to have something happen to me when I'm alone at work or at my apartment and have no one know about it for several days.)

Health Inspections

So, every year at my apartment complex, they perform these "health" inspections. Really, I think last year all they did was pull back the shower curtain and open the hall closet. But they always send out these memos saying they'll be by sometime between 9 and 3 and to lock your pets up. But you can't lock them in the bedroom because they (the inspectors) supposedly need to go in there. They (the apartment complex) gets mad if you request the inspectors come when you are home. So, really what they do, is try their hardest to inconvenience you. This year, they gave us exactly one days notice.

What kind of arrangements are you supposed to make in one day? A friend of mine couldn't crate her dog or arrange for him to "be away" because he was insane and ate through the industrial crate. And really, what is a cat going to do? Last year, they did the inspections in August. I was gone from 7 till noon, so I took him to my office at school, figuring no one would be in before then. But this year, since I no longer have my office and I work all day, I had to "borrow" a small dog crate from a friend (I say "borrow" because she doesn't want it back so now I have to do something with it). As much as I don't like him most of the time, I felt bad putting him in this crate, crammed in with litter box and food and water. My cat's locked up like an animal!

Puff the Not Quite Magical Enough Dragon

You know, Puff the Magic Dragon is a sad song. They try to make it all happy and whimsical but, without the cartoon storyline, it's really depressing. Poor Puff is forgotten by mean ol' Jackie Paper.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think this. But I was listening to a live version of the song and they tried to make it better by repeating the chorus with "Puff the magic dragon lives - present tense! - by the sea...". Like that makes it better.

Hello, How May I Punch You in the Face?

To work directly with people, one should be a very very friendly person.

What held up the start of my job was Human Resources. It wasn't that there was just all kinds of paper work we had to do to make them happy, but it seemed they tried to be as unhelpful as possible. And it's not just one person (although she the most unfriendly one is the one you have to deal with first because she's the one who answers the main phone line), but there's more of them! The last couple weeks, I've been trying to get an answer to a simple yes or no question. I left two messages with two different phone numbers attached and our wonderful secretary has also left two messages and no one ever thinks they should maybe call us back. In fact, the voice mail of the woman states that if it's an emergency, call... leading me to think she never answers her phone or returns messgaes.

I understand HR people or Customer Service people must get all kinds of stupid questions. But that's their job! Recall the Unfriendly Woman at Direct Loans. If your job is to assist people, regardless of the type of inquiry (i.e. stupid or not stupid), you can't let the stupid questions make you mean to other people who actually need your help. In fact, when I worked as a manager at Putterz (fka Putt-Putt), I was EXTRA nice to the stupid, rude people. Not because I felt they deserved it but because 1) it was easier on me and 2) I like to think it made them feel bad for being so stupid.

So, the moral of the story is: If you are a stupid, crotchety person, don't pick HR or CS as your job. (PS I'd like to give a shout out to all those HR or CS people who are actually helpful and friendly!)

Things I Love

I love how, on Monday, I parked my car near a lamp post in the parking lot at work at 4:30pm and, when I came out at 8:30pm, it was dark in farm country and the lights weren't on.

I love the word Wed-nes-day. I also love how it was abbreviated as Wend. in chalk on the sidewalk by some undergrad. How do these kids get in to college?

I love how pop radio stations will first play a song 6 months after a rock station and think that it's the first time it's ever been heard.

Unfinished Sentence Week 6

And the winner by default:

Srah! With "If I could create a new flavor of ice cream, it would be cream of wheat and I'd call it Phil.

Although, she was top on my list anyway, because she wants to call her ice cream Phil. Is that any ice cream, or just this flavor? One would have had to have a stupendous answer to beat her out.

That's what I like to see, creativity!

This week's sentence is:

Monkeys, monkeys and more __________.

Wait, That Was 1/2 a Second!

So I was reading the back of some cooking spray last night as I was making dinner (waffles). One serving is 1/3 second spray. And there are about 743 servings per can.

How did they find this out? I just imagine a three people standing there, one tallying sprays the other timing them and the third spray. Think of all the hijinks that would involve. And all the floundering when the sprayer sprayed something other than 1/3 of a second.

Honk Honk Beep Beep

Last night we decided we were going to go to the Drive-In. Growing up, there was no such thing as drive-ins around my house. So this summer, I first experienced the drive-in. It's fun and comfortable and easier to "sneak" food in (although, I've snuck Wendy' s into the movie theater before). It's always a little weird somehow, that the sound for the movie is coming from your radio.

So we went to see The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Wedding Crashers (this theater's great, it's $15 dollars per car and you get two movies). I love horror movies but, as you well know by now, I get freaked out by religious phenom. The Exorcism was good, it wasn't so much about the demons posessing Emily Rose but about the trial of the priest who attempted to exorcise her. Wedding Crashers was good, too. (I'm not really a movie reviewer, so I can't tell you anything else other than that I enjoyed them both). I did eat too many Swedish Fish, however.

An Apology

I had to enable a comment verification thing because I've been getting a lot of spam in my comments. So now you have a little extra work when leaving a comment. Sorry 'bout that, but it was getting out of hand.

We're Going Down, Down

Michigan football just lost at home for the first time in over two years (17 games) to Notre Dame. They were ranked #3 (which, though I loved it, didn't quite understand because they always start at like 12 and still don't have any defense) but have quickly dropped. Well, I guess you're gonna lose if you play like monkey poop.

Under the Guise of Shoulder Work

I ended up going through a sobriety check point last night on my way home. It was kind of exciting. The main part of Kent (i.e. not residential streets) is 4 miles around, not including The Kent Car Strip (a bunch of car dealers). There are about 9 different equidistant ways to get to my apartment from anywhere and I chose the one down the biggest road (4 lanes and 35 mph). There were all these construction signs and orange cones but as I got closer I saw all the police cars. The only thing I smelled like was brownies because I was coming from my friend's house where we had watched Smile (a decent storyline but horrible horrible dialog and plot and character development) and eaten lots of pastries. So it was all kind of fun for me. The kids in front of me got pulled over. They had to get out of the car and walk over to the car parts parking lot and one of the officers then drove their car (after making sure it wasn't a manual). The whole thing was like a police sting that I was involved in because I was the good guy.

Drunk driving seems to be a huge problem in Ohio, or maybe just this area, because they're always setting up these check points. Sometimes they even tell you where they're going to be. And recently they passed a law that said if you get 16 DUIs you have to go to jail or something extremely slap-on-the-wrist for 16 DUIs. This kind of poor judgement, on the part of the people and the lawmakers, is something I don't understand. But I'm glad I do my part and play the sober driver and can help out at the check points (by being a sober driver).

Home Decor

I was told that, since it is now my new home, I could decorate my lab space however I wanted. Today I brought in this picture.

Set Your VCRs!

The O.C. premiers tonight!

The Direct Loans Saga - The Conclusion?

I received a "summary statement" from Direct Loans. It looks as though they believed the post office, even though they (DL) never called me to tell me they received my fax, as I requested. So I'm all consolidated. The newest issue is, on this letter, they said payment should start in 60 days. On my original, hey you owe us money letter, it said December 31 was the day to start paying. So, I guess if I receive a statement in October, that's it. I'll let you know.

The Busy Little Bee

I just started my new (second) job today. I am now just finishing up work at the first job. And then tomorrow back to job #2 and then off to class. It'll keep me busy. Therefore, future posts will likely be limited. I'll try and keep up some, though.

Unfinished Sentence Week 5

Last week's winner was Kevin with:

Gnomes are creepiest when they're in your yard in one spot. Then you turn around to put more dishes away and look back and they're 4 feet closer.

I did like the bathroom one but it needed a better ending. Here's this week's:

If I could create a new flavor of ice cream, it would be ____________ and I'd call it _______________.

Just Around the Riverbend

So camping contained the normal camping stuff, like s'mores and cards and swimming. But some of us also went on a 13-15 mile kayaking/canoeing trip. My grandpa, mom and aunt took the canoe while my cousin, sister and I took the kayaks.

I have been kayaking before but never down as fast a river as the Sturgeon, in Indian River, Michigan. My sister had never really been kayaking at all. Kim, the cousin, was good.

Coming around the first corner, unprepared for the speed of the river, I watched as Kim made it around the next bend. I then watched as I slowly (quickly) approached a tree that had fallen and smacked into it. Now, it wasn't the tree that caused me to go in the cold water. It was me trying too hard to redirect myself, rather than just go and chance it. So in I went. I floated along on my kayak, clutching my oar and the cooler I somehow had decided I could take and trying to keep the camera my uncle had given me above water, until I could touch and get to the side to empty the water. Just as I flipped my boat over, here comes my sister right into the same tree. She falls out. The canoers help her out while I get re-situated. Off I go.

I round the next bend and what do I see but my sister in the water again and the canoe in a tree as my mom tries to leap out and save her. We start again, the canoe bringing up the rear, banking off of bank after bank.

Soon after lunch, two hours later, the trouble starts again. We must've gotten out of our groove (or flow, ha ha) because I hit a log and take in water. So I have to get out to empty my boat again. My sister makes it around my water-logged kayak and, just ahead, "stops" to wait. Except that she falls out (for the fourth time). And this time we're in some really fast water with no shallow spots. Oh yeah, and she loses her paddle.

We pull over to some fallen (felled?) trees and empty the boat there as best as we can. The canoers, who were well behind us, pass, (as do some rafters who had been stopped for lunch when we passed them 10 minutes before) and we yell to look for the paddle. Kim heads downstream on the shore. I go up, along the shore, through the woods. Catherine, the sister, who has already lost her shoes that day and can't really walk through the woods, stays with the boats. I spot the paddle. And let me tell you, it was a battle getting there and then crossing that river. I am to' up (at least it's not "toe" up). It's like I was attacked by a bear. I don't have just some scratches from a few sticks. It's like whole branches went into my arm and legs. Gouges everywhere. And a nice deep purple (and pretty) bruise covering my whole left knee from when I tripped over a log, trying to pass the paddle off while climbing back on shore. Here are my battle scars! Much better than wounds inflicted by bath tubs!

(I took pictures, but I think there's something wrong with the date on my camera or computer and they don't register on the card until not today.)

I'm Going to Mackinac City. Mackinac City, Here I Come

I'm off camping this weekend. Every year, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends of the family and my immediate family members get together and camp in Indian River, just south of Mackinac City. On Labor Day, we walk across the Mackinac Bridge.

For those of you who don't know, this is the big ol' bridge connecting the Upper and Lower Penninsula of Michigan. It's 5 miles long and only open to pedestrians once a year.

Hopefully, I'll come back with some good stories. We've never had a boring year. Here are some previous years:

- Cheryl gets left behind by family on Mackinac Island
- The motorhome blows a tire going from the bridgewalk back to camp and all 20 people pile out to stand on the side of I-75. My grandpa hitchhikes.
- Police wait outside the camp and confiscate boats and trucks of some men who were throwing explosives into their campfire the night before
- We lose my grandpa in the city after he cuts in line to get on the buseswhile the other 19 of us go to the end
- Six adults in the cab of the truck, 20 "kids" (some of us were 21) in the bed

- We get yelled at by the rangers for being too loud

- We get yelled at by the rangers for being too loud