EY's Rants and Raves

AR will be getting what is nicely called "inclement weather". Two snowflakes cause most of the populace to freak completely out. There will be no milk or bread in nearly any grocery store as of 9 pm tonight, I'll wager. Unfortunately, I have to go to the store, not for milk and bread, but for chocolate chip cookie and brownie ingredients. I'm supporting a local charity's "Chocoholics Night Out".

I've cleared the calendar so I can work from home tomorrow should the weather actually BE bad. Snow, I could probably handle, ditto on freezing rain. Unfortunately, we're scheduled to get both plus ice and sleet. It's been cold for a few days and will continue to be so. No "32 and snow today, 55 tomorrow" as we normally get.

So Emma will be in tonight, tomorrow during the day and tomorrow night. She loves to be in. Heck, it's warmer; I don't blame her. She's normally in at night, when she's sleepy and not needing to be entertained. Tomorrow, she'll be awake and not thrilled that I'll be working. I don't want her to sleep all day or she'll be up all night. I suppose we'll both get out for a walk. Will do us good if we don't freeze to the road.

A co-worker invited me to be "LinkedIn" with him. So I did. He has over 500 people in his network. I guess this is the professional version of having friends on MySpace. I actually went out to LinkedIn to see what I'm supposed to do now. I can add people to my network either from Big Faceless Corp (BFC) or from the college I attended.

Here's the thing....I'm not the most social person in the world (I'm an only child, so go figure). If I *cared* about contacting someone from BFC to say "hi, remember me, I know you", I'd just do it. I don't see a need to make a sandbox for us to play in. Same with school alumni. If I wanted to maintain a relationship with you after we graduated, I probably did so. And if I didn't....well, no offense, but I'm probably "just not that into you".

I guess I could invite some of these folk to be in "my network", but I just don't see the point. If I know you, I know you. If I want to be friends with you, I probably am already.

Networking has always seemed to have a tinge of "I'm only making contact with you so that I can eventually get something for ME out of it". I suppose, at the most essential, all friendships are like that. But to consciously go out and acquire people hoping it will "pay off" later is just too mercenary to me. One time, someone explained networking in a way that didn't seem quite this selfish, but I've lost that definition, so I'm stuck with mine.

So if any of my Dear Readers are big networkers and can shed some light on how it's not totally mercenary, I'm all ears.

According to the Chinese calendar, 2007 is the year of the pig. I have no quibble with that. At Big Faceless Corp, however, it's the year of the Stupid. Only 30 days in and EY and her teammates have gotten some of the most stupid questions/requests we've encountered in 3 years.

To the point that I'm ready to say "Wanna run with a sharp stick in your hand? Fine. Wanna attach razorblades to it too? Sure, go ahead. If that's what you think is keeping the doors open here, have at it. But when you get cut and clients don't want to deal with the bloody mess you've created, I'll be standing here with some nice, cold alcohol and that bright orange-y brown-y stuff that hurts like all get out to give you some first aid. Yes, it will burn, it will sting, you'll cry and you'll whine. And I'll remind you that this was your idea and I'll be laughing my @$$ off".

I've already warned my massage therapist that she'll be earning her money at a few visits already. I think if I tell her that 2007 is the Year of the Stupid and that I'll be more stressed as time goes on, she'll fire me.

What a time for football season to be over.....

My sinuses have been back to normal for a few days. No meds taken, no incessant nose-blowing, breathing is A-OK. And just as important, so is my ability to taste. Specifically, my ability to taste wine. I went to the Not-So-Local Booze Warehouse and restocked our cheap red wines. Things like Big House Red, Red Diamond, Yellowtail, etc. Even found some Garretson Catfish Cuvee on the clearance rack and since it was $13 and not $18, I picked up a couple of bottles to serve as cheap red wine.

Opened the Garretson (of course) and it tasted just like it should. Jammy, inky, deep without being earthy or overly tannic. Yum, yum, yum. Won't be buying any really expensive wines to try for a few weeks just to be sure. But it is quite a relief to be "fully tasting" again.

Turns out the Jeep purchase was a false alarm. A story concocted to ruffle my feathers. Silly boys. If I were going to get ruffled over another vehicle on the property, it would have happened loooong before now....

Well, it's a Jeep this time. For all that The Boy gripes about Jeep owners, how expensive Jeep parts are and how much he loves GM products, he's succumbed. So that makes 2, count them, 2 vehicles he's bought in one week. And I think I buy vehicles as an impulse purchase? Granted, I buy BRAND NEW vehicles on impulse. I'll probably pay more on the Civic this calendar year than he'll have paid for his new toys.

So I told the guy he bought it from (who called to tell me that he'd bought it) that now I had license to go buy a new pair of shoes. Technically, I have that license all the time. You see, despite my love of screaming at the TV when the NFL is on, I'm a girl. I haven't bought shoes in a while, other than good walking shoes needed for our vacay. And the beauty of not having all our kizash in one account is that in reality, The Boy can spend all his money on trucks of any kind and I'll still have plenty of money for shoes.

I think the dodge of having the previous owner call to tell me is funny. Just like it was funny when he told me about a truck purchase when we were at lunch with some of his best friends. I could tell by the guilty faces all around that they knew about the purchase and knew they were there to be witnesses to any criminal activity that might be triggered in me.

Working on trucks, getting all the good out of them before the rest goes to scrap, building something new out of all the trash is a HUGE stress reliver for The Boy. Granted, yoga would be less expensive and something we could do together, but I think it would be beyond unfair to say "no more trucks and get rid of the crap you have". If he told me to stop buying wine or seeing my massage therapist or cooking, I'd have a big issue with that. Highly unlikely since he's a direct beneficiary of the first and third in that set.

So I suppose I'll pretend to be shocked...SHOCKED! when he gets home this afternoon. And who knows, I might just have a new pair of shoes.....

Nope, not the same Ghost. And not truly a sighting. A letter. An honest, envelope with paper inside letter. I know, how 20th century, but I was very glad to receive it.

If a surveyor asked me "Who is the LAST person on earth you'll probably ever hear from?" The letter-writing-ghost would be in the top 10, probaby top 5. While we were friends last time we talked, I have a bad habit of not being very nice to him. Turns out, he's a better friend than I deserve (as are all my friends, btw, especially those who read this blog).

So I fired off a rather long email (how DO you condense 15 years into an email?) and am waiting. Waiting. Yes, he's on the other side of the country. Yes, it's barely morning there and he's less of a morning person than I am. Yes, I'm probably not the first thing on his mind this morning. I'm quite sure I will be panicky and nervous all day. If I weren't worried about my kneecap shooting across the parking lot, if I'd brought workout clothes and if it weren't in the 40's outside, I'd probaby go run around the campus a few times.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm waiting? And not very patient?

As much as I love football, sometimes the backstories can get to be too much for even me. I'm glad Indy is going to the Super Bowl. I'm not a fan, but I'm tired of hearing how QB Manning (the Elder) "just can't win the big game". Heck, I'm tired of QB Manning (the Elder) all the way around unless he's on a commercial. I certainly don't have anything against 6' 4" 240 lb quarterbacks and his commercials are just plain funny. Getting hit in the face with a blast of steam is no joking matter and rubbing dirt in it, while a common old school sports remedy, isn't good for burns. I'm also tired of feeling sorry for Tony Dungy. Granted, it's not fun having to play Evil Genius Coach Belichick, I get that. Tony's a good coach and a good man and I'm glad he's going to Miami. I'd prefer he not be playing one of my fav teams, especially one with such an inconsistent offense, but I think it will be a good game.

College football, especially that in my small state, has turned into a bit of a soap opera. Offensive coordinator hired straight from a leading high school, hightails it out of town. Later news insists he left before he could get fired. Sounds kinda like "I was going to break up with him anyway". Two solid players--recruited with their coach from leading high school--also leaving. One to the first school that showed us up, the other to parts unknown. Now his replacement comes, from a "local" NFL team. On the heels of that news is that the NFL team he's leaving is looking at College Head Coach as a replacement for their retiring guy. Hmmmm, we give you our College Head Coach to be your NFL head coach, you give us your NFL assistant coach to be our offensive coordinator? A definite promotion for Head Coach, but I just don't see the win for the other guy.

College Head Coach will have a similar situation as his current gig: Players (and entourages) not happy with the way he coaches airing their "concerns" to the media? Check. One QB who does a good impersonation of a statue, another kinda mobile, but needs some work? Check. Megalomaniacal boss who thinks he's a coach? Check. However, college students who participate in the state's sporting religion are much different from multi-millionaire professionals and their agents that populate the NFL.

Really, I prefer the game on the field.

I didn't want to write anything at all about the Bears earlier, even though they were winning at the time. I'm superstitious enough not to want to jinx them.

Rex Grossman was OK, some lovely passes, no horrible mistakes. Defense created 4 turnovers....FOUR turnovers. Was a very good game. February 4 can't get here soon enough for me!

the ponies at Oaklawn Jockey Club, that is. I'm not much of a gambler, but I always enjoy going to the track. It's a big thing at work to get your team together for a day at the races. However, in nearly a dezen years, I've alway managed to either work with teams who flat out won't go to the races or teams where we have no outings whatsoever.

Fortunately, I have friends. Two of whom got married on Thursday. Apparently, if you looked carefully, you could have seen the signs and known it was coming. Me, I prefered to not try to divine anything from their actions until I actually heard them say "we got married." They've been together for a while and make each other sickeningly happy. My take was "if they want to be married, they will be. None of my business either way." A small group of us spent the day giving money to the track. Almost all of us had at least one race that can extremely close. Two of us didn't cash in any tickets all day. Unfortunately, yours truly was one of them. Everyone else had some small winnings here and there.

We had a good time just being together, had a great dinner and then played cutthroat spades (our favorite game) at the condo the newlyweds rented. We'd gotten a hotel room in town where I hoped a sleeping pill would save me from the 2 extreme snorers I have. Twas not the case. Even Lunesta is not enough to make me a heavy enough sleeper and the Breathe Right Strips I took only made one person worse than normal.

We had a nice breakfast today, drove around town and came home. There are a lot of interesting things to do and see in Oaklawn's town. We promised that we'd try to come up with a few Saturdays (both with kids and without) to come back and have some fun.

Seems that when I'm not in front of a computer, I can think of tons of blog topics. Great thoughts also come to mind when I am in front of a computer, but need to be doing work, not blogging. However, sitting in the living room, with a Good Eats repeat and a snoozing dog, I can't recall any of the seriously exciting topics I've been dying to ramble on about.

I'd had my "dander up" about something this weekend, but now it just doesn't seem like that big a deal. Work is about normal, except that 2007 is turning into the year people ask for the most insane things. The NFL is heating up to the Super Bowl. A momentous occasion, but also the last game before a long dry spell until August. Yes, there's the Pro Bowl and the draft, but the trip to Hawaii isn't "serious football" and the draft is picking sides, it's not a GAME.

I was going to start a regular "feature" on the blog about my canine, but she's asleep right now, so it's not a great photo time. I should have better pix of her on my laptop, but I'm a bad Mom.

So I'm fresh out of ideas at the moment. I'm sure the masses are crying.....

Yes, I finally watched "Brokeback Mountain" last night. I know it's been out on video forever, but it was on HBO last night and I managed to catch the whole thing. (Aside: one of the frustrating things about having HBO is catching a movie I want to see halfway through. Yes, I have a programming guide in the cable box, but I forget. You ever forget? Happened to me.)

The landscapes were goregous, the men weren't half bad either. I've not seen Heath Ledger in much, but I really liked him in this. I'm sure it was true to the taciturn nature of Ennis, but I'd have liked it if he didn't say all his lines as if he had a mouthful of marbles. I was a bit surprised at Anne Hathaway as one of the wives. I was more familiar with her in "fluffy" roles like "The Princess Diaries" and "Ella Enchanted". She was quite good as Lureen.

Still ill and still not amused by it. The sinus-y-ness is getting a little better. Either that or I'm so annoyed by my coughing that I don't care. I coughed all through church this morning, all through ballgames this afternoon and I'm still at it. Rarely is it a "serious cough", it's mostly just an annoying throat itch. I've not been far from the Luden's throat drops, which help when I have one actually in my mouth, but not so much after they're gone.

I emailed the eDoc and I could be at this for another week. Lovely.

I get a daily newsletter from the Washington Post and an article they've featured for a couple of weeks is recommends that parents use keyloggers for kids on the Net. I understand the dangers unsuspecting kids can get into. However, I'm quite in favor of personal privacy and am horrified at the thought of parents being so nosy.

I don't envy parents today and certainly keyloggers would let you know what's going on. Since I'm well past teenage years and don't have computer literate parents (or kids), this isn't something I'd *need* to worry about.

Personal privacy, learning limits, making good decisions are all a part of growing up. And sometimes you don't get the experience to make good decisions without making a few bad ones first.

Random and rambly, I know.

I don't do well being sick. Yeah, I know, neither does anyone else, that's the point. I've been sinus-y for a week and a half and am ready to be done with it. I started off with a 4 hour decongestant and about the time I'd feel better, it would be time to take another dose. So I switched to a 12 hour. More convenient, but now, I feel OK for so long that I've forgotten to take my pm dosage twice for 2 nights. Doesn't make for a coherent morning.

On the upside, I'm clearing through the box of tea on my desk that has been neglected for the past few months.....

I hesitate to write down resolutions. Heck, I'm not really a goal oriented person, and a resolution is much like a goal. But there are things I want to do better. I want to be a more patient spouse. I want to finish the blog about our vacation. I want to accomplish a specific job-related item at work. I want to attain a specific industry certification. (This one is a little scary--it will pretty well lock me in to a field. I've had fun bouncing to whatever seemed interesting at Big Faceless Corp.)

As with nearly every other US citizen, I want to get in shape, lose weight, etc. I got two wonderful Le Creuset pots for Christmas and what you usually cook in those (or at least what I most want to cook in them) isn't necessarily low fat. I'm going to have to finally make short ribs to get that out of my system. Then I can start cooking out of "The Passionate Vegetarian" (another delightful Christmas gift from The Boy) and we'll be doing better.

So Gentle Reader, what do you resolve?