I was looking for a desktop background to spruce up my work computer and went back to a site I hadn’t been to in a number of years. Take a look at Digital Blasphemy if you want to see some really creative work. They have a free gallery with quite a few scenes to choose from. My favorite is “The Grid”.
A to Z.
My blogger friend Thom posted a little bit about himself from A to Z today and I found it so interesting that I thought I would do the same.
Here we go.
Accent: I have a touch of Toronto, Ontario in the way I speak because I had a Canadian voice coach in college and when I was trying to neutralize my Central New York nasal sound when I was in radio, I paid very close attention to disc jockeys on Energy 108 from Toronto and the CBC’s “As It Happens”.
Booze of Choice: I’m not much of a drinker, but I do like beer or two from time to time. Or five.
Chore I Hate: Folding whites. Too many darn socks!
Dog or Cat: Cat. Tom is our son. I’ve only had one dog in my life; when I was growing up we had Sunshine, a German Shepherd/Husky mix. She liked to sleep in the snow.
Essential Electronics: If it beeps, bonks or flashes, I’m interested.
Favorite Cologne: Not a huge fan of cologne, I prefer to just smell like myself.
Gold or Silver: Gold. It works better with my skin coloring.
Hometown: Pulaski. I’ll let you guess the state.
Insomnia: Rarely. Earl is jealous of the fact that I can say I’m going to sleep and be asleep within three minutes, anywhere, at anytime.
Job Title: Officially I am a Network Operations Center Technician II at a local telephone company. I prefer “Mr. Telephone Man”.
Kids: Thought about it, never pursued it.
Living Arrangement: In a beautiful house with my partner of almost 10 years.
Most Admired Trait: I have no idea. I have been called “Mary Sunshine” at work but not in the last couple of months. Maybe I need to work on that.
Number of Sexual Partners: Not as many as you would think. I tend to add to the number in groups. Kidding.
Overnight Hospital Stays: It’s been a while, but quite a few when I was a kid. The last one was when I was 17. It was two nights. Bionics Upgrade.
Phobia: I used to have a huge fear of elevators but I got over that. I guess the only phobia I have is electric shock therapy; I can’t think about it and I can’t stand the sight of anyone getting it. I have to leave the room if I see it occurring on a television show or something.
Quote: “Life is such a sweet insanity.” Totally stolen from the theme song of “The Hogan Family”, as performed by Roberta Flack in the late 1980s.
Religion: Baptized Methodist, now I just focus on spirituality, but if it had to be nailed down I’m probably closest to Wiccan.
Siblings: A younger sister.
Time I Wake Up: 1 1/2 hours before the start of work (it varies). On the weekend, between 8 and 9.
Unusual Talent/Skill: I can roll a barrel across my folks’ back lawn without falling off.
Vegetable I Refuse To Eat: None. Bring ’em on baby.
Worst Habit: Venting my frustration. Loudly.
X-rays: Quite a few, the latest was in 1992 when I had to be tested for TB for a job. I’m allergic to the TB test stuff, so I always ended up getting an x-ray every year.
Yummy Foods I Make: Anything that you would find in a diner. I love to make french fries. Unfortunately, I don’t do that much anymore. My arteries were becoming too clogged.
Zodiac Sign: Cancer.
Front Porch.
In celebration of the sunshine, Tom and I sat on the front porch together for lunch. For some reason he doesn’t feel the “Thou shall not nudge the PowerBook” rule applies when we’re doing a little sun surfing. Perhaps I’ll have to remind him how these things work.
It’s always so refreshing to sit outside and just listen to the sounds that ride the breeze. A crow screeching about something in the back lawn. Song birds tweeting a sweet little tune. The sounds of the New York Thruway off in the distance, the warning signal of an Amtrak train. I could just sit back, make myself comfortable and listen and observe for hours. I find it so peaceful.
A great way to recharge the batteries in the middle of the workday.
Contrail.
As I’m sitting here at the kitchen table getting ready for supper, I look out over the patio and notice a jet contrail in the sky. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention, except the contrail is dark. And the jet is apparently doing a U-turn.
Undoubtedly the trail is dark because it’s nearly sunset and the sun is creating some odd shadows in the sky.
To the right of this little spectacle we have two smaller contrails, presumably further away, that are running in parallel with each other, same direction, same speed. That strikes me as odd too.
Now I’m going to have to pay attention to the sky and see what’s going on.
Color.
Now that the sun is actually showing itself and it’s starting to feel a little like spring in these parts, I’m noticing more and more people are coming out of their hibernation and starting to walk the streets around downtown. You can always spot the winter shut in type, they are still wearing a heavy coat while others around them are making due without a jacket. And they look very, very pale.
When I was growing up my sister often referred to my coloring as “lily white”. Now that I look back on it, I think that was kind of rude. Nevertheless, while I wouldn’t paint me in the same corner as Casper, I will admit that I don’t get much color on my skin. I’m the type that burns and then peels, rinse and repeat. I go from “lily white” to shocking red to yuck and then back to pale white.
I think my sister hogged all the tanning genes in the family. I don’t think she’s ever had a sunburn in her life. But then again, I’m the only redhead of my generation so maybe I just got an extra helping of the low sun tolerance genome.
I’m going to attempt to get a little color this year without getting all sunburned. That way when Earl and I go traveling this summer, I won’t spook everyone at the beach.
Fashionista.
Today has been a day of getting chores done. Earl’s company vice president is coming into town to take a tour of his two plants on Monday and Tuesday, so he’s out of town getting his office outside of Albany in tip-top shape. To get all the logistics worked out, which involves a rental SUV, a corporate jet and an 18-minute flight from point A to point B (which takes about 90 minutes to drive), I ended up driving Earl to Albany and getting him settled in his hotel room. We went out for a little dinner while we were there and then I headed back home.
While he was packing and I was putting away laundry, I saw the box of clothes that have been anxiously awaiting the results of my fitness routine. I thought about it a minute and then said “what the heck”, and tried some of these clothes on.
THEY FIT!
There was no jumping across the room to land in the jeans. There was no lying down to fasten snaps, there was no fear of belts exploding off my waist. As I went through the clothes that were set aside back in 2004, I was delighted to see that my clothes were fitting nicely, boosting my confidence to new heights.
I guess the working out and eating healthy is finally paying off. I was so happy that I ended up doing cardio on the elliptical machine instead of the treadmill today at the gym. I found out the proper name for this beast, I’ve always referred to it as the “spastic thingee”. I welcomed the correction.
So I’m going to trudge on with the whole health thing and focus on staying in my “thin” clothes and building up some muscle and stamina. My goal is to be able to do a backwards flip by running up a tree (like that new Visa commercial) on my birthday in mid July.
Or at least a three day, 200 mile bike ride.
Family Night.
Tonight was a “family night” in that Earl and I spent the evening with my Mom, my aunt and uncle, my cousin and some friends. Always striving to do things in style, we went to the sold-out Billy Joel concert together after having some dinner at a local Italian restaurant.
The food was good. The waitress was rather surly, but we think she was overwhelmed by the number of patrons that were headed for the concert.
Billy Joel was excellent. The concert was at the Carrier Dome in front of a record crowd. I believe the show sold out in three hours or something like that. There were about 40,000 people there.
Billy looked good, sang phenomenally well and overall the show was a really good time. One thing I found humorous is that instead of everyone lighting lighters for encore, people now hold up their cell phone with the display lit. How’s that for a creative use of technology. Has this caught on elsewhere?
Overall, a good time was had by all.
Comp.
Today I took the day off from work with some comp time earned with my last run of on-call. Earl was out of town so I didn’t really go anyplace exotic with my favorite co-pilot installed in the passenger seat. Instead, I indulged in my roadgeek tendencies and drove through around the Capital District of the Empire State.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. People fascinate me. I could sit in a mall or a busy downtown area and just people watch for hours. So many people walking about, oblivious to what’s going on around them, going on with their daily business. Since it’s the end of March with temperatures in the mid 40s, some people are bundled up like they’re headed to the Arctic while others are wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt. I was a fashion hybrid in this regard today, wearing a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.
Since I was in a city bigger than a breadbox, I stopped at Crossgates Mall and went to the Apple store. We now have a black 4GB iPod Nano in the household. It’s for Earl to use when he is working out at the gym. I bought a Sportswrap for it so he could attach it to his arm. I also bought myself a Sportswrap for my iPod. I hope I don’t forget where I am and start singing Madonna tunes out loud while I’m on the treadmill or something.
I stopped at a K-mart to make a pit stop and to get a box of tissues for the car, because I was slopping my packed lunch all over the place while I was driving. I grew up with K-mart and have traditionally considered it one of my favorite department stores. But what has happened to these stores over the past decade? I suspect the downfall began when they became “Big K”. There was nothing bigger about the store when they put up those tacky signs. In fact, when the “Big” concept made it’s debut in 1990, little was done to renovate existing stores. And still today, the stores have not had any upgrading aside from a few new signs and a fresh coat of paint. I’m afraid I’m going to have to scratch K-mart off my list and start shopping at Target instead; I’m finding the K-mart stores too depressing.
K-mart aside, I’m happy with my little headstart on the weekend. It’s going to be a good one.
Solo Act.
Earl is out of town on business tonight so that puts me in bachelor mode. I’ve been looking forward to going to the gym all day (get up off the floor, it’s not that unbelievable) so after eating a relatively healthy dinner and letting that digest for a little bit, I made the trek to the gym where I decided it would be a cardio night.
I started out on the treadmill, doing about 25 minutes. I know, seasoned gym people would say “big deal”. Oh well, I’m just starting this whole gym thing again. I ran half of the routine and walked at a fairly good clip for the remainder of it. Somewhere long ago I read that you should alternate between walking and running so your heart rate goes up and down, up and down, forcing it to work harder and do more good things to your body.
Thank the universe I don’t have hair because had I shaken a head full of hair I would have showered those around me with sweat. I think I turned 18 shades of red. I don’t like to think I was soaked, rather, I glistened.
Feeling all limber and whatnot, I decided to try one of those glider thingees that swings your arms and makes like you’re a gazelle. I did that thing for 10 minutes. More sweat, more glistening.
After then getting on a cross country machine and basically spazzing out because it wanted to swish when I wanted to swoosh, I decided to calm down a bit, gulp a 24 oz bottle of water and head to the locker room.
As soon as I walk into any locker room, in my mind I am transported back into junior high school when I was all intimidated by the upperclassmen we had to share the room with. There are big, buff guys everywhere, peppered with a few older guys that have obviously done nothing but maintain their health their entire lives. Men are shootin’ the breeze, showering (don’t look too long!), shaving and getting ready to go lift weights or head home after lifting every weight in the place. Then there’s me and I can’t shake that image of myself I had when I was 13 – scrawny with a paunch, unable to grow any sort of facial or body hair and thinking that my homosexuality is glowing like a neon light. Of course, it’s just paranoia doing it’s thing because no one even notices that I’m in the locker room with them. Besides, the paunch is disappearing, the flame is kept to a low pilot light and I have a full beard now.
I guess I’m just one of the guys now.
