Post Stormageddon

The storm broke midday Saturday, but the cold front came after it, and the temperatures dropped and the snow levels plummeted. PLUMMETED. We had run out to Henry’s to buy a couple things for pizza on Sunday and LO, a beautiful snowcapped mountain.

Mike was driving, so I tried to take a picture.

Yeah, that thing in the distance. Snow!

I scurried home, because I was sure I’d get a much clearer shot from our house….

Except for the strange copse of eucalyptus trees exactly in the line of sight of the snow. Fail.

But hey, the pizza was good. And I had the foresight to put aluminum foil on the lower rack of the oven to catch the dripping cheese (this always happens!).

Mish Mash

1. It was slow getting here, but STORMAGEDDON 2011 PART II finally arrived sometime last night. The inexorable DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP of the gutters (I swear, they only placed gutters halfway of what was needed) woke me up around 5:30 and when I looked out at the creek next to our house, it looked more like a rushing river. Now that the sun has risen enough to take a picture, it’s calmed down significantly. Alas.

But usually, it’s no more than a trickle and a frog bed.

2. Why on earth does commercial spaghetti sauce that’s marketed as “heart healthy” (that Costco has on sale) have sugar as an ingredient? Gimme some tomatoes, basil, and garlic and call it a day.

3. Speaking of basil, I’ve been watching two new cooking shows as of late, “Extra Virgin” and “Bitchin’ Kitchen”. On “Extra Virgin” this week, they made homemade mozzarella, bruschetta with tomatoes, pasta with homemade pesto, and cupcakes. I pretty much wanted to jump through the screen and eat everything. I wish smell-o-vision had been invented already! “Bitchin’ Kitchen” made a pepper crusted tuna steak with wasabi smashed potatoes, which also sounded delicious. The host of the latter, Nadia G, has a really funny over the top accent. But then they showed her in a promo, and she sounded normal. I was a little disappointed! She’s Québecois, and has a really excellent French accent, which I always appreciate.

4. If you and your husband are sitting next to each other at the table, both using your computers with identical wireless mice and yours continuously stops responding every time he’s using his mouse, it’s because they’re interfering with each other, not because your mouse is confused or the batteries are dead. Makes so much more sense now!

5. Due to the fact that we have been overpaying our escrow account on our mortgage since we bought the house (they estimated how much it would be and were WAY over), we got a nice chunk of change back at the beginning of the year that we were not expecting. We were able to use this money to pay off my car and for Mike to buy a new, shiny, MacBook Pro (thanks, David, for the hookup!). It won’t be shipped until next week, but Mike is so excited to have a real video card, he can hardly stand it. It’s cute.

On Gifts

“Anna smiled. It was just as she’d thought. Gifts, she recalled him saying, aren’t frivolous things, they’re very necessary. They’re demonstrations of love and affection, and their “excess” makes life more than mere drudgery. You can do without many things, Anna, but not gifts, however small and insignificant they might seem.”

From Myst: The Book of Ti’ana
(Yes, I know, reading that book makes me a huge geek, but it is one of my favorite book series.)

So, here’s the thing about me: I am a terrible verbal communicator of feelings, on the whole. It’s something I work on, but am not good at.

I am, however, good at giving gifts, tokens, trinkets. I’m not talking about Christmas GIFTGANZA. I suck at that. I’m talking about everyday “I’m thinking about you” or “You’re awesome!” type gifts. Things like leaving a Hershey’s kiss on a keyboard for a birthday (it helps when you have master keys to the building) or making a blanket for a friend who had admired one you previously made. Things like bringing a cookie to someone having a rough day, taking time to recommend a book, or making baked goods sans chocolate (heresay!) so all can enjoy. I think the most meaningful gift I ever made was a dinner of (as I recall) spaghetti, salad, and yellow cake for a friend’s family when her father died. Mike and I drove to her family’s house and left it on the door. I didn’t want to be in the way, I didn’t want to send flowers, but I wanted to do something to let them know that I was thinking of them.

In a way, it kind of fits that I’m in IT (although, if you had asked 18 year old me, I would have laughed at you). Every time I get to help someone, it’s like a little gift, and they’re happier for it. I thrive on being able to do something for them that makes their day brighter.

Mike and I had a long discussion about this last night (hence the fuel for post). I iterated that while I certainly don’t expect anything in return for these gifts (indeed, they’re often spontaneous, like when I tried to buy brownie mix for a friend across the country, and didn’t read carefully enough and ended up sending it to myself), I feel like people don’t realize that it is my way of trying to gain acceptance and friendship. It feels like my way of saying, “Hey, I think you’re cool, we should hang out more often.” in a friendship kind of way.

I’m certainly not complaining or bemoaning the fact that other people don’t see these gifts the way I do. I understand that everyone is different, and they may see a cookie as YES CHOCOLATE! and not an overture of friendship. I imagine most people have no problem being like, “Hey, let’s go out for lunch!” It’s hard to make new friends, man.

I’m really trying to walk the fine line of not sounding whiny and annoying here while still explaining my viewpoint.

Let’s bring this back around to the quote, shall we? As mentioned, that quote is from the Myst series of books (yes, from the video game). I really identify with it, because it just seems so fitting in my philosophy. (That, and the quote from the same book, where Aitrus’ mother tells him he was born old.) Simple, thoughtful gifts/trinkets/tokens/what-have-you are just part of my vocabulary. They’re just not verbal.

I feel like this is finishing lamely, and I probably have more to say on this subject. I almost made an outline, but then I thought that might be too much effort for a blog post. It is, after all, the internet.

Been Busy

Sorry, I’ve been ABLOG for a few days (Absent Blogging Lady…uhh…something something). I have a more interesting and deeper post a-brewing, but it’s proving difficult to write and I’m slowly thinking about it.

It’s so easy to fall off the blogging bandwagon, and so easy to just stay fallen. I’ll renew my efforts!

In the meantime, here’s a cool picture of a computer from work

Most of the offices at work face the ocean. And by face, I mean, they are literally 10 feet from the ocean’s edge. The salt air goes “OM NOM NOM” on computer innards and it is cool and gross and frustrating at the same time. This one is a fan inside a G5 iMac that recently kicked the bucket (maybe some popped capacitors?). It’s like, salt-dust-crystals!

(And then I blew some compressed air on it and they spun away and that was cooooool!)

It Is Done!!

That’s right, people, the car is MINE! Where’s my pink slip?

Ooooh, what a beautiful moooorning

I woke up early this morning (5:30–I didn’t need to get up until 6:30) and was lying in bed, checking email, weather, etc. I had thought the weather forecast today was no rain, but it changed, and it’s supposed to start OMGFLOODing this afternoon. When Mike got up, I told him he should take an umbrella, which turned into a “where are all the umbrellas?” I swear, we own no fewer than 5, but can never locate them.

Anyway, I pulled myself out of bed to go umbrella hunting. I opened the door of our bedroom, which looks straight out to the living room window and the blinds were open and the sun was rising and *angels singing*

Sure, it’s a little blown out in the middle there, but whatever, it was my iPhone. I was so inspired, I ran back to the bedroom and got my “real” camera out to capture the moment as well. You don’t get to see it because I’m lazy and that would have required getting out my computer and finding a camera cable and opening iPhoto, blah blah blah. I still haven’t gotten the pictures off from last week’s photography “class” yet.

Oh, I found an umbrella in the closet downstairs. And then I found two in my car. Woops. Sorry, Mike. 😦

Despite my sinuses hurting this morning, the pretty sunrise set a cheery mood for me, and I feel pretty good about the day.

Invisalign Retainment Update

So, after the orthodontist cleared me for 12 (blissful!) hours of retainer-free wear a couple weeks ago, I initially felt some trepidation. I was worried that my teeth would shift during the day, as I hadn’t had the trays out for longer than a couple hours. Also, my teeth felt naked! For the first several days, I tried leaving them out longer and not brushing my teeth, but the instinct and habit was too strong.

Ok, I admit, I’m still trying to keep myself from brushing my teeth immediately after lunch.

Since 12 hours is not a full wakeful day, I kind of had to meter out my wearing. The orthodontist had suggested not wearing the trays at work, and then putting them back in when I got home.

That wasn’t really what I wanted, since being able to have dinner and/or dessert tray-less was more important to me than work-time-food.

I eventually settled on this (these are all approximate):
7:30a: Take out trays, drink coffee/tea/cocoa, eat oatmeal
8:30-9a: Brush teeth, put trays back in
12p: Take out trays, put away
9-10p: Brush teeth, put trays back in (depends on when I get ready for bed)

This ends up being 11-12 hours of “free” time. I like the re-traying in the middle of the morning, because it makes me feel less..guilty?

Anyways, after a couple of weeks of this now, the lower tray is significantly less sore at night when I put them back in. At first, it was like OW OW OW THOSE ARE TIGHT. Curiously, the upper teeth, who have been in retainment a full YEAR longer than the lowers are having more difficulty adjusting to this new regime, and the tray is consistently tight in the same spot every night.

My theory on this is that the left side eye teeth (cuspids, I think), the lower one pushes up and out on the upper one (these are the first teeth that meet when I close my jaw) and the tray pushes it back down.

Anyways, progress is being made, and it’s nice to be able to eat a brownie or whatever without hunting down the tray case.

Dump Pasta & Sleeep

I was languidly lounging on the couch last night, when Mike texted me to say that Justin was coming over after they were done with racquetball.

“Hmm,” I thought to myself, “that probably means I should make something more than cereal.”

I had been thinking about something pesto-related, but was feeling too lazy to make Crawford Pizza Dough. I had a jar of Kirkland Signature pesto in the fridge. I put a pot on to boil for pasta, and cut up some asparagus into chunks. I sautéed the asparagus and some fresh spinach in a pan with a little pesto (ouch! hot oil!) and dumped that into the pasta with the remainder of the pesto jar. I then added some fresh mozzarella and left it to stay warm while I made crescent rolls (what, they were in the fridge!).

Anyway, this falls under a general category of “dump” pasta for me. Sauce+vegetables+noodle. The previous incarnation of this was something like spaghetti sauce+zucchini+green peppers+onion+garlic+parmesan. It’s an easy and versatile thing to make when I’m out of ideas, plus it cleans out the crisper of questionable vegetables (the asparagus were fresh, I swear!).

Plus, we all loved last night’s pasta. I may have eat a lot of mozzarella while waiting for them to arrive. Maybe.

Unrelated, as the weather has been whipping around here (it’s raining today, was almost 80 last weekend) my head has been feeling migrainely-unsettled. That, plus some lingering side-effects from last week’s boot camp have made me lethargic and tired. I fell asleep at 9p last night watching parkour. Which isn’t really boring at all, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Mike kept nudging me, but it was just too much effort to wake up. A consequence of this early sleeping is early rising. I keep waking up around 5 and lying there, trying to will myself to go back to sleep.

I don’t know about you, but I have this built-in, unfailing sleep meter. You know, in the Sims, how they have that little bar when they’re sleeping? It fills up during the night and when it’s full, they wake up. Mine is pretty much like that. 8 hours or 7a, whichever comes first (usually 8 hours). My sleepometer just fills up and my eyes pop open and I AM AWAKE HI HOW ARE YOU WHAT’S GOING ON? (Yes, if you’re wondering, my mom did hate my sleep schedule as a child, as she and my dad and my little brother are all night owls and I am a most definite morning person. Also, I refused to take naps.) Oh wait, I still don’t take naps.

Although, right now, a bed sounds nice. But I’d never fall asleep.

Photography Workshop

Yesterday, Andy and I went to the photography workshop from the groupon that we had purchased waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in October. When we bought the groupon, it was alluded that the class was about composition, portraiture, and “capturing emotion”. Sweet, we said! We both felt portraits were our weakest photography aspect.

Which is pretty hilarious, considering I’ve done two (two!) weddings. I’ve gotten better, but still.

I suffer from event anxiety, and as Sunday approached, I was in full on psyching myself out mode. I was awake early, left early, was there early, etc.

However, it was all for naught.

My first clue that things were not quite what I was expecting were the sheer numbers of people pouring in. A workshop, in my mind, was maybe 30, 50 people, interacting with the instructor and their cameras and learning.

This was a 200 seat “lecture”/time share presentation (we’ll get there in a bit).

My second clue was looking at the ($21.95 value!) booklet and the table of contents listed things like “What is aperture?” “What is shutter speed?” Which is fine. I mean, it’s good for people to learn that. But, I kind of took an entire 10 week course with Jess a couple years ago about just that. Andy is photography-savy, too. We weren’t looking for a how-to-use-your-DSLR class.

My third clue that this ($600 value workshop and safari for ONLY $60 with groupon!!) workshop had no food. Seriously, if you had actually paid $600 and showed up and there was no coffee even and all the people they had “working” were volunteers from previous classes, wouldn’t you be annoyed? I mean, I paid $60, so whatevs, but for $600, I expect coffee, pastries, and lunch!

My fourth clue was the bio of the guy, who claimed to single-handedly have revolutionized wedding photography and then everyone copied him and isn’t he GREAT?

Andy showed up, and we proceed to be snarky for the next four hours, and then bail after the “workshop” section was over. I drew a lot of doodles in my booklet, and filled in the worksheets to keep myself occupied.

However, we did both learn about the depth-of-field preview button on our cameras (mine is Canon, Andy’s is Nikon, so we had to look it up for our respective cameras). That’s probably worth $60 😉

The last hour or so of the class was the guy and his “lovely assistant” trying to convince us we should come on a horse-photography safari in Montana! And then my initial thought that this felt like a time-share presentation came true. They weren’t talking prices, though, so I looked it up on my phone. $3k for a weekend.

Speaking of money, let’s presume that the entire class bought the groupon. $60 a pop for 200 people. That is $12,000. Sure, there’s rentals and travel and printing the books, but they had no paid workers and no food. That is a lot of money for very little work. If we extrapolate and pretend that everyone had actually paid $600, that is $120,000 for one day of “lecture”. What. The. Heck.

Seriously.

Andy drew a mustache on the picture of the guy on the cover. I think that is an adequate summation of our estimation of the class.

Valentine’s Hilarity

I am so entertained after decorating my coworker’s desk with (recycled!) hearts in our shared office.

Hheheheheheheheheheh
heheh.