So Earl and I are on our way to San Francisco. I’m writing this quick little entry from Newark, which is definitely not San Francisco. It’s Newark.
We have never been to San Francisco. It should be an investing extra long weekend. We’ll probably have a few pictures to share and I’m hoping to run into a few bloggers I’ve never met in person.
It should be a fun time.
So last night I finally got my wish and we had some powerful thunderstorms pass through the area. The fun started around 1:00 p.m., knocked power out at work for a little while and then storm after storm passed through the area until about two this morning. I didn’t get a lot of sleep for a number of reasons including the fact that I was excited about the storms, the lightning show was incredibly frequent and bright and the thunderous accompaniment was quite loud. If it hadn’t been a school night I would have stayed up and taken pictures until I couldn’t stay up anymore, but alas, work expects me to be productive and even though it’s Tuesday, I am working from work today because of our vacation that starts tomorrow.
I heard Earl yell several times at the weather radios throughout the house because they kept going off. He’s not a fan of the weather radios. New apps on my iPhone and iPad were constantly alerting us to what was going on outside and Tom put himself into a comfortable brace position for all the fun (comfortable brace position = kitty nap pose near patio door).
I saw several downed trees on my way into work, including in front of one of the houses a few doors down from us. Their powerlines were drooped down to about three feet off the ground. I was curious as to if that’s what caused our power to flicker a couple of times.
The best part of the storms last night was that it gave us the opportunity to see if the new creek/drainage area in the backyard was working properly. And lo and behold, the water was flowing in the creek and the yard was still dry.
Wicked awesome. I did a little happy dance this morning in a symbol of rejoice.
So it’s kind of funny how schedules work out. We were invited to my cousin’s daughter’s graduation party on Friday evening. We really wanted to attend but work wouldn’t cooperate, especially since the party was in Buffalo (about 200 miles away from the Manor). So we didn’t make it to Buffalo.
Until Saturday.
We ended up driving to Buffalo on Saturday night so that we could attend Earl’s company picnic for his Buffalo crew on Sunday afternoon. I had met one or two folks from that office, so for the most part this would be a new experience being the “boss’ wife” with a new crew. Earl also gave me a tour of the Buffalo plant and his office there. I think I may have been beaming with pride.
The gathering was very enjoyable.
I like Buffalo. Saturday night we went to Duff’s in Depew for wings and Beef On Weck. I commented that on the eighth day, Beef On Weck was created. Because it is damn good. We then went for a drive through some of the lively areas of the city before calling it a night and getting some rest. It was good to be in a city where there was actually something going on after sundown.
We should go to Buffalo more often.
As Earl and I were driving home from Buffalo yesterday (and Earl was doing to driving), I noticed a couple of roadside advertisements for barbecues. The affairs looked to be local fundraisers of some sort, the type of gathering to raise money for a church or a fire department or a marching band or something. I think local gatherings like this are a good thing.
Two of these gathering were being advertised with plywood cut-outs of the type of barbecue in question; for example, a pork BBQ was being advertised on the side of a giant plywood pig, who was pink and had a face and a squiggly tail and everything. The expression on the pig’s face was one that lacked amusement. The second BBQ, a chicken barbecue, had a dancing hen as the spokesperson. I don’t know if Ed McMahon awarded her first prize in the spokesmodel category, but apparently we were to believe that she was so happy to be the meal that she was dancing her way to the chopping block.
These kinds of advertisements bother me.
Now, I know where meat comes from. I grew up on a farm and I can vividly recall chasing a cow or bull that had busted out of the fence in the morning and then seeing them hanging in the barn that evening. I’m seriously not proud of the fact that I eat meat and if all forces were in alignment, I would probably be eating barbecued vegetables most of the time. I like a good barbecue, but it’s not the meat that I like, it’s the flavor from the sauces and cooking methods that appeal to me.
I guess I think it’s kind of weird to have your food depicted as dancing its way to your plate. If we showed what happens when said animal stops dancing then folks probably wouldn’t contribute to the community fundraiser being advertised. I don’t know why we can just write “PORK BARBECUE” in a nice, blocked lettering. It’s kind of like the signs with the swervy cars on them, why can’t it just say “SLIPPERY WHEN WET”?
I wonder what dancing tofu looks like.
From 2000, here’s Kylie Minogue with “Spinning Around.” We played this track on WOWZ/WOWB when I was Program Director, though it wasn’t ever officially released in the United States.
This track was originally written for the comeback album Paula Abdul never recorded. Personally, once I knew that I could easily hear Paula Abdul singing this song, though I really like Kylie Minogue’s take on the track. I swear I can hear the riff from Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September” in it, but if it’s there it’s not credited.
It’s the second day of the “Click To Add Text” presentation at work. Only half of the attendees have joined the coast to coast broadcast this time around. I’m one of them. I’m crazy like that.
The Centrally located decided that lunch would be at 1:30 p.m. Eastern. And the lunch break would only be 30 minutes.
This makes me somewhat cranky but I’ll get over it.
There is a different staff on at the Dunkin’ Donuts closest to my office today. Maybe they change after the lunch shift. No one knew what I ordered. Perhaps they forgot about me due to my telecommuting ways.
Whoops, the bell will ring shortly and I must get back to the “Click To Add Text” presentation. Ain’t it a gas.
So last night it was insanely hot for this part of the country. When I woke up at 0100, drenched in sweat, I noticed that it was still 81F. This morning at breakfast time it was 79F and the humidity was at 80%. I’m not used to such a warm evening and not having air conditioning in the house is making it mighty hard to sleep at night. Sex is completely out of the question and that makes me cranky.
I said it.
If you follow my Instagram photos (either on Instagram or on the newly built Instagram page available in the menu bar at the top of this page*), you’ll notice that last night I was taking some photos of lightning. I also took a video and posted it on YouTube. The storm in question blew north of us, but it made for some very interesting lightning displays. There was a lot of cloud-to-cloud lightning so the clouds were basically just lighting up in interesting ways. We had a brief sprinkle of rain and some wind, but nothing that was ever going to cool this area down. It was kind of a bummer. I’m in the mood for a wild thunderstorm to blow through; something that’s going to make a ruckus and maybe make the weather station freak out. I like that sort of extreme weather. I always have.
It is currently 90F here at the homestead at lunchtime. Luckily, I figured out how to completely remove the window in my office so that I can have an ample breeze blowing through and keeping it all manageable. The humidity has dropped down to 50% so maybe there’s some relief in sight.
When folks find out that we live in Central New York, famous for its snowfall, they ask how we can live in all that cold weather. Truth be known, I’d much rather be cold than hot. It’s easier to put another layer of clothes on instead of trying to keep cool. If this global warming thing is going to keep things so toasty we might just have to break down and put air conditioning in the house after all.
It has been a year with many highs and too many lows, but I’m wishing the hap-hap-happiest of birthdays to my sister today. Here’s one of my favorite photos from when we were kids. I’m guessing it was taken around 1980, since the house didn’t have siding on it yet and the back porch is just a slab of concrete.
I wish I could find an adult-sized version of that t-shirt I’m wearing. Happy birthday, sis!
You may find this hard to believe but there are times where I am easily distracted. Now, I don’t mean that I go running off into another room because I saw something bright and shiny in there, ok, that only happened one time and I didn’t know it was the ladies’ room, but there are times where something will catch my eye and my brain will have to process it.
Today is the first of two, six-hour days of training for work. Because it is the 21st century, I work for a company that tries to be hip, the team I belong to is scattered all over the country and most importantly, remote training sessions are much easier on the budget, I am watching this training via WebEx and listening in via conference call. Actually, it’s not WebEx, it’s GoToMeeting and the audio connection information on the GoToMeeting should be ignored so that we can dial in with a landline instead (vs using the headset attached to my Mac). I am watching the presentation on my personal Mac because the display is much bigger than the screen on my work provided MacBook Pro.
I sound like an Apple fanboy.
I am an Apple fanboy.
Where was I? Oh yes, distractions.
I noted at the beginning of the presentation that the presenter mentioned one ten-minute break each hour during the day, however, at no time did he mention a lunch break.
Sacré bleu!
Now, I don’t know about most American workers these days but I try to work balls to the wall so I can get my stuff done and get to my lunch hour. I then work balls to the wall in the afternoon so I can get my stuff done and get out of the office at a reasonable time. Now, this might sound like it’s self-serving and quite frankly, it is.
The lack of the mention of the lunch break distracted me. As I pondered over whether we would have an actual lunch break or not during the presentation, I came up with alternate plans on how I would enjoy at least a snippet of a lunch break. This distraction led me to another distraction, and that was that the presentation and training seminar was apparently called “Click Here To Add Text”, but I digress.
I did my best to pay attention and I did learn some things along the way, but that niggling wonder of whether we would get a lunch break or not was always present in the back of my head. What am I going to do?
12:00 came and went. At 12:05 it was announced that we would take a ten-minute break and reconvene at 12:15.
NO LUNCH!
I ran upstairs (luckily I’m working from home today) and made myself a bowl of popcorn because a. I love the stuff, b. I find comfort in popcorn and c. it’s quick and easy.
I rejoined the conversation at 12:14, with a minute to spare. Said conversation was already in progress because they started at 12:13 with the assumption that everyone had already returned.
If we were on GoToMeeting’s audio and video controls they would have seen that I was still away.
Ugh.
The presentation continued as I munched on popcorn and listened to the tinny little voices on the conference call. I used the MUTE button on my phone so that others wouldn’t know about my secret stash of popcorn. I had usurped the lack of lunch during the “Click Here To Add Text” presentation! I made a little evil laugh.
At 12:50 it was announced that we would break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30 p.m.
w00t!
It turns out that the presenters are in Central Time while I’m in Eastern Time. I’m not used to having to bow down to another time zone. I guess they don’t realize that we are in the Eastern Time Zone, the time zone that reigns supreme from the mountains to the valleys and to the oceans white with foam. Stock markets close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Prime time television starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. I don’t care if you’re still eating lunch when “American Idol” infests the television yet again, that’s not my problem. If you want to see it on time, you’ll move to the East Coast which is the most important.
So now I have 11 minutes left in this Centrally Timed Lunch Hour. I supplemented the clandestine bowl of popcorn with a chicken salad-on-croissant sandwich and a large, unsweetened iced tea from the local Dunkin’ Donuts. I was happy to note that this store closest to the house is back to its old ways with the crankiest employees on the planet again.
And now it’s getting ready to thunderstorm. That will liven up the presentation nicely!
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
