Passing Time In The Mind of Birdwoman

So, after a week + of the world’s worst form of birdwoman torture (sitting in a room whilst lawyers argue, misconstrue, posture, not fully embellish... and be forced to just sit and listen!! No questions allowed!! Jury duty stinks!), I am back at the office.

My first day, I’m in a meeting for this one project. Thinking about another phase of this project, in which the coder made a database column with the word “comity” in it. This spelling had passed through all the QA and UA testing cycles, even though it appeared straight through to the end-user reports. Seven months (57 DTS packages, 326 reports) down the line, project manager says, “Hey, this is spelled wrong. We should fix it.” (We shall pause for a snicker among those who do application support.)

But anyway, I got to thinking, how do you really spell it? Committee? Yeah, that’s it. Committee. Like the inactive version of committer. The committer is the person who actually does something and the committee is… not!

Ain’t that strange, how that works?

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PeeCee School Strikes Again!!

OK, How many of you used to do the Little Bunny Foo Foo song when you were a kid?
(from a sheet Moth's teach sent home)

Little bunny foo-foo
(put up two fingers like bunny ears)
hopping through the forest
(hop fingers up and down)
scooping up the field mice
(pretend to scoop up mice from ground)
and kissing them on the head
(blow a kiss)
...

what's that you say?
kissing?

where I come from, we used to say "bopping"
(and show the action by pounding the bunny ears with our other hand)

But that's too much violence for my little cherub.

Sure, right.

What I really want to know is how they get to the moral of the story? Hare today and goon tomorrow.

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Jury Duty

After 4 or 5 times in the jury pool, I have actually been picked for a trial. A longish one, too. Seven days of fighting lawyers.

Where's Judge Wapner when you need him?

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How’s Tricks?

So, the Cogswell takeover is just about done. We’re working through the weekend to put our new name and logo on all of our client-facing applications. It has been, in short, a nightmare the last few months. More work and fewer people (through both layoffs and walkouts).

BUT for me it has been better, because I got demoted. I went to my boss in February and gave him two choices: cut my position in half, or let me know how many weeks notice he needed. I give the guy props. I could have gone to the top of the layoffs list, but instead, he did what I asked. Of course, I’m still carrying a lot of the old stuff – people still come to me. But as long as the angry folks can go to the new guy, I’m quite happy. I can’t take being yelled at. I’m a total pussy about that.

So, I now actually have time at home. I’ve been recuperating from the stress of the last year, enjoying my job and my life, and funnily enough, not taking the time to blog about it. (Well, I’ve written some of the entries but never posted.) I’m going to take the time today. Whenever today ends up being.

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Bad Mommy part 26

Stinky’s reached a new phase. Last night, he got mad because I told him he had to do something which didn’t make sense to him and made him do it. (I’m at the point where, even if his arguments make some sense, I’m pushing him to obey me, and do it quickly. Because I’m scared a time will come when I need him to jump when I say to, and his hesitation might hurt him…) He was doing what I asked and crying, saying I was a bad man, I needed to go to jail, and that he was going to call the police.

All is well from his side this morning, but I’m carrying a bit of a grudge. That’s a pretty hefty threat, and in the day of the nanny government, it’s not an empty threat. Regular parental discipline gets you in the news and at the very least in court.

This parent stuff SUCKS. I don’t want to be a total mega beyotch all the time. But I have to be. I’m not his friend. I’m not his Hallmark Mommy, making cookies and mopping tears. More and more, I’m the only thing between him and the awful world, and I’ve got to teach him lessons he doesn’t want to learn. And his resentment and anger don’t make me like my job any more.

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Daddy, Look at My Big Stick!

The Moth is a little “dutchy”, as my sainted mother would say. He can’t say ST. It comes out D. Which is especially funny if you re-read the title of this little entry. It is, as you can guess, a direct quote that still makes us laugh heartily.

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Season Closers

OK, since when do TV seasons have to end on such a “cliffhanger” as… well… Andrea being dead?? Or all three Winchesters getting hit by a semi? I guess I’m glad that Veronica and Logan are back together, and I loved the fact that there was some Deus Ex Machina retribution on Logan’s old man, but Weevil? He was just coming around to the white hat side! And I don’t even want to know why Scotty went all medieval on that wannabe pedophile – you just KNOW that’s gonna come back and bite him in the butt – I just hope it’s not in this week’s season finale… Please, Allison, you’re the only character left that I’m hoping won’t give me a crappy summer of wondering.

(for those who are wondering, the shows referenced above are Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural, Veronica Mars, Cold Case, and of course, Medium. Though I’m also wondering what the Numbers season closer will do.)

(and yes, I do TIVO a lot. I never go out anymore, so it's about 45 minutes a night of R&R.)

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Larry, You’d Be Almost Proud

The nest is looking a little harried – especially in the living room area. The couch makes a scary crunching noise if you sit in the wrong area, and all the upholstery has giant rips. Re-finishing the crap furniture we bought just isn’t worth it. So, bought some new stuff.

Funny thing, though, is that new furniture is BIG. Our house is SMALL. We went with the smallest stuff we could find (that was still comfortable) and know that we’ve got to lose some stuff in the living room. The first thing was the storage for dvd’s. I got a new corner entertainment center – just taller than our crappy current one – that had storage in it.

It came last week. I put it together this weekend. All by myself. I even used a power tool (if an electric screwdriver counts). John lifted the TV, but otherwise, I did all the wiring by myself, and only managed to screw up the gerry-rigged phone line that DirectTV has hooked up. That, I couldn’t fix.

But otherwise, it’s all happy and working and actually pretty and solid, too! (I’m the most unhandy person in the world, so this is a pretty major achievement!)

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Corporate Travel

So, Cogswell sent me to Denver.

Got in on a Sunday night, and the airport shuttle took us through an AWFUL part of town (homeless shelter with neon Jesus Saves cross outside and lots of scary looking dudes there, too) getting us downtown. The outskirts of town are daggone ugly.

There are no trees, and no hills. Well, except for the Rockies in the distance.

I couldn’t sleep past 4, but lay in bed til 5. I went down to the hotel gym, and worked out on an elliptical for 1 hour. The machine had it’s own tv so the time flew. Went back upstairs to shower, then downstairs to the Starbucks for breakfast…

To find out that this office has 4 kinds of Starbucks made for them here, fresh, and free. All drinks are free.
The offices are sweet, the cubes are beat, but the view… they’re up high in a high-rise, and they can see the Rockies in the distance.

We walked to a fish taco place for lunch (was good despite sounding bad), and I got a sunburn between the walk and sitting outside for 30 minutes to eat. It’s 80 degrees out and not a drop of humidity. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it in Philly.

It’s supposed to snow tomorrow morning – quite heavily.

Everyone here is thin. The fat people are my size. They all ski and hike and climb and run – they have their kids on skis at age 2.

None of them drank “diet” at lunch.

It’s a very different culture – much younger, even when they’re the same age. I’d probably like it, if it didn’t snow so much!!

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