2 July 2001
Happy July, everyone. No, this isn't the same color scheme as June; it's a lighter shade of green. No, really!
A weekend helped, yes indeedy. It especially helped that I spent pretty much the whole weekend sleeping. You think I'm kidding? I took a nap Friday after work, then went to bed around midnight and slept until 10 Saturday morning. Then I took a three-hour nap Saturday afternoon, and went to bed before midnight and slept until 10 Sunday. I wanted to take a nap on Sunday, but we were with K.T. and Kevin and didn't get home until nearly six in the evening, which is too late to take a nap if you have any hope of going to bed at a reasonable hour. I thought about going to bed around 10 Sunday night, but just as I was thinking of it, assorted friends logged in and I stayed up until a bit after 1.
Matt spent the weekend insisting that I was storing up sleep so that I could go sleepless for a great deal of this week. Which, to be honest, sounds like a great idea to me! What good has sleep ever done me, anyway?
Bits of the weekend were more than a little disappointing.
Matt and I decided that, in order to have something to sit on for the 4th of July cookout we've been invited to, we should go down to my parents' house and collect our (and the Brandts') canvas chairs. We drove down. My parents weren't home, and just as I was wondering where they were and when they'd come back, Matt spotted the itinerary my dad had left on the dining table...
Oh, shit. They're in San Diego, and we were supposed to have been feeding the cat ALL WEEK.
The cat, luckily for us, is both a bit overweight and a Mighty Hunter. He was frantic to see us, but didn't seem to have suffered starvation in his days of neglect. We fed him, and then proceeded to look for the chairs.
We didn't find them. They weren't upstairs. They weren't downstairs. They weren't in the attic. They weren't in the garage. They weren't on the porch. They weren't in the workshop. As near as we could tell, dad had forgotten to take them out of the trunk of his car before he and Mom left for San Diego. So we'll have to drive down Tuesday night to pick up the chairs.
As you must know if you've read this journal for any length of time, I am Gadget Woman. I require the regular purchase of electronic gadgets to maintain my special powers. (Matt is Software Update Man. We are well-matched.)
This weekend, I decided it was time that Matt and I had a CD burner. And not just any CD burner, but a CD-RW. Matt had actually selected the model he wanted some time back - Iomega's Predator - with the FireWire connection, of course, so that it would run extra-speedy.
The only local store which carries Macintosh supplies with any regularity is CompUSA. So after leaving my parents' house loaded with guilt for our neglect of the cat, we headed for CompUSA.
CompUSA had the Predator - which is a USB device - but did not carry in stock the adapter Iomega makes to use the Predator with a FireWire connection. Since we're talking about a speed factor of almost four (at least, according to Iomega's specs) Matt and I were severely disappointed.
The CompUSA salesman suggested buying the Predator, and then ordering the adapter from Iomega. But I have a prejudice against buying things from stores that stock only half of what I need. If I was going to be placing an order through Iomega directly, then I might as well order the whole thing from them.
Iomega waives ground shipping charges for orders over $75, so I ponied up the extra $10 for two-day shipping. But I guess it's good Matt and I are heading down to my parents' already on Tuesday, because I'm going to want to stop at Sam's Club and pick up a stack of blank CDs for me to play with.
The job search was disappointing this weekend, too. Sunday's classifieds didn't have a single new ad for a position I'd want and be qualified for, and the one repeat ad had changed its wording to advise that all of its advertised positions were located in "the Carolinas" - which means I don't really want them to call me back anyway.
I could blame the lack of jobs on any number of things: the area isn't exactly in a growth boom; the time of year isn't the best; the dot-com collapse has resulted in a glut of programmers on the market...
But I'm going to blame it on Bush being in office, because that at least affords me the opportunity to be smug. Because it's looking like I have to not only continue eating the shit that is this job, but be grateful that I have shit to eat.
Ah, well. At least this week will be fairly laid back, what with the holiday (Independence Day, for those of you who may not be familiar with U.S. holidays) smack dab in the middle of the week. As one of Matt's officemates observed: It's going to be like a Monday and a Friday followed by a one-day weekend and then another Monday and another Friday. No work will be done.
Well, that's not precisely true, because I have work that must be done. But I'm still ahead of schedule, and so I won't have to sweat getting the work done.
And the next two weeks will be short, since I'm taking the 13th and 16th off for what is swiftly becoming the annual Summer Bash. I probably don't have to take the days off, since Karen's coming in the 13th with Ashby, which means they're not likely to get to town until after working hours; and they're leaving again on the 16th but are perfectly capable of locking the door behind them as they go... But it's an excuse. I'm all about excuses to take time off from work.
Word of the Day:
pelagic - of, relating to, living, or occurring in the open sea; oceanic
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Hall stuff
- garden