LolaGeek

I know everyone is eagerly awaiting my recap of my trip to New York this weekend, and I’m almost finished writing it up, but I’m super busy today so it won’t be posted until tomorrow.

It’s another crazy week at work. We’d had a lull in SOP deactivations for a while and I almost forgot how nutso this could get. There actually aren’t any deactivations this week (there was going to be one, but it’s now delayed), but we have the most obsoletions ever – whole series are being wiped out! – so it’s quite a bit of work to getting all these updates done. Plus lots of key players are on vacation, so we’ve had to schedule things around when people are here, and have back-ups filling in.

Guess what – I just got a web cam. I figured it was time to upgrade, I’d had my previous one since like 2001 (not that I’ve used it in the past couple years), and it didn’t have a microphone or anything. Now I can make video reviews of products, or some of those annoying “shopping haul” videos! (Actually, sometimes those are fun to watch, I just wish people would use a script or at least bullet notes – it’s so annoying to just hear them go, “Sooo… here’s this thing… and it looks like this… [waves item blurrily in front of camera].”)

Also, I finally did a project I’ve wanted to do for a couple years now. I got nine botanical prints, put them in matching white frames, and hung them in a grid above our bed. The prints were from Vintage Printable, the frames were from Michael’s, I had them printed on cardstock at Kinko’s (though honestly they could’ve been done on nice paper with a good home printer), and they’re hung with 3M Picture Hanging Strips, which hopefully hold up well so we aren’t awakened by glass smashing on our faces in the middle of the night. I love the way it turned out! It seems to make the ceiling feel higher, and the room just feels much more finished. I can’t help but smile when I walk in and see it now!

I was stopped at a traffic light on my way to work this morning, when I heard a kind of whistle sound behind me. I turned around, and in the lane next to me there was a gross old car with a gross old man hanging out the window waving at me. I rolled down my window, and he yelled over, “Do you know where Greaterford Prison is?!” “No I don’t, sorry,” I said, trying to look apologetic. I mean, I’d heard of it and knew it was nearby, but I didn’t even know what town it’s in. I rolled my window back up and faced forward and wished for the light to turn green so I could get away from this creepy situation. (I hope he found his way there, turns out we were only about 10 miles away.)

I now have a black gel case for my new phone. It mitigates the pink pretty well – though as I’d suspected, a case on a slide phone is not really perfect. But I’ll deal with it. I have 7 more days to make up my mind, but I guess I’m going to stick with this phone. For all its minor faults, it’s still pretty good, and an improvement over my old phone in many ways. Also, I recently saw that this is T-Mobile’s most popular non-smartphone.

GG and I went out to Kohls early Saturday morning to get him some clothes. I have a couple friends who are absolutely obsessed with the place, but I don’t think I had ever been there. Actually, I usually forget that we have one so close to us, since it’s to the north and we almost never drive north unless we’re going up to New Hope. A lot of people recommended it as a good place to get men’s clothes, though, and it seems like they’re always having a sale, so off we went – early, so it wouldn’t be crowded.

He mostly needed pants and sweaters, but we did also find him a very cool black and gray striped button-down shirt. Then he got four pairs of pants (black, gray, brown, and khaki), and two zip-up sweaters. Besides the shirt, I think everything was on clearance or was buy one, get one 1/2 off. So we did well.

Coming home, we stopped at Chick-fil-A for an early lunch. Here’s a fun trick: their employees are required to respond to “thank you” with “my pleasure,” instead of “you’re welcome.” Try it sometime, by saying “thank you” as many times as you can. GG and I kept saying it, but our cashier was just like, “sure, sure,” until the very last time we said thank you as we were walking away and he said, “sure, my pleasure” and GG and I were both like, AH-HA!

I pretty much napped the afternoon away while GG went to work on his mural. It was lovely.

GG left early on Sunday morning to go paint, too. I hadn’t seen the mural in a while, so I made a surprise visit to see him working. I think he thought there was some emergency when I showed up, but I just wanted to see him and see the painting. It looks awesome! (Well it should, the slowpoke has taken nearly two months working on it by now, and he’s still not finished!)

When I got home, I made up for all my napping the day before by cleaning the kitchen, sweeping and vacuuming all the floors downstairs, and taking out the trash. Then I got all caught up with Fringe – I don’t even know when it comes on anymore, and I keep forgetting to watch it. Then I set myself up in the living room with my laptop, a big blanket, and a cat, to watch TLC’s Sunday Night Freakshow. That little Charlotte from “The Tiniest Girl in the World” might give Kenadie some competition in the “cutest primordial dwarf” category!

Oh, and I saw last week’s Project Runway and I have to say, I totally disagreed with the judges. In my opinion, Amy should have won, for doing something that was beautiful and flattering, while not hiding the burlap of the challenge. Ben and Anthony were my choices for runners-up. And Ping should have gone home. Sorry, I’m sure she’s nice and she does interesting work, but the dress was not remotely good looking and wasn’t even made well. What happened to the “carved” necklace she was going to do? That sounded interesting. And did they ever go to that “industry party?” Don’t tell me it happened in the Models of the Runway show, because I’m not watching that. But usually when they have to design dresses for the models to wear to an event, they then go to that event.

Last night I made stuffed smashed potatoes for dinner (and lunch today… and dinner tonight… and lunch tomorrow… it was a lot of potatoes). I just stayed up long enough to watch Heroes, and then went to bed a little after 10. But we didn’t go to sleep until closer to 11 because we were watching YouTube videos on my phone (!!!).

I got my new phone last night, and I think I’m going to like it (but I have two weeks to make up my mind). Last night, things were a little iffy, but after just being able to (easily!) pay for an eBay item through PayPal on the phone, I think I’m sold. Also, I got the red and pink one, but the item I just bought is actually a black gel skin for it, and then I don’t think it’ll look so… pink.

Something else I just did: applied for a job. That I might actually have a good chance of getting. Eep!

Tomorrow morning we’re going out early to go clothes shopping for GG. I think he wants some more sweaters. On Wednesday he wore khaki pants, tan Sketchers, and a brown sweater over a white button-down and he looked so cute! I couldn’t stand it!

After playing with it for a while, I changed my mind about the Samsung Comeback. It is pretty chunky and ugly, and the QWERTY keyboard inside was really small and hard to type on (even for me!). But I was checking out the Gravity, and I think that might be the way I go. I can’t believe I’m looking at phones with QWERTY keyboards! Next thing you know, I’ll be getting a smartphone or something with a touchscreen! I told the girl at the store I’d be back on Thursday (she’s helped me twice, so I promised I’d buy from her), so I need to make up my mind by then!

Oh but the real reason I was out tonight was because I was getting a haircut. Here’s my before, and here’s my after. Not as short as I usually go for my annual haircut – it’s just below my chin. The girl I like at Supercuts wasn’t there, but this other nice girl did my hair instead, and I like it. It definitely needed to be chopped, it was starting to get too long and was just hanging there.

And good news, AVG seems to have solved my computer problems! It found that Trojan that messed up McAfee, as well as a bunch of other stuff McAfee never found! So now my next mission: get some sort of refund for McAfee (I paid for two years on three computers, and I’m only going to end up using it on one).

A few places my money will probably be going in the near future:

• Vitamix: The most awesome blender ever. Nobody has anything bad to say about this machine. You can make smoothies, peanut butter, soup, even ice cream in this thing! But, it’s over $400. So I gave myself a couple weeks to think it over. I decided that if I had some cool-off time and I still wanted one, I’d order it. I still want it. So, probably this week I’ll place my order.
• Samsung Comeback: It’s time for a new cell phone, and I think I found it. It’s a little clunky looking, but otherwise seems perfect for me. (I’ll miss my nice sleek phone, but it’s a couple years old now, and it’s feeling a little loose when I slide it open. Plus, it randomly turns off sometimes. I’m worried one day it’ll just stop working.)
• AVG Anti-Virus: Actually, I already bought this one. I got another virus on my computer! I don’t know how this keeps happening, it’s not like I’m downloading stuff or surfing for p0rn or anything, I just go to the same few web sites all the time! Anyway, I seemed to get it all cleared up, but one little bit of something was left behind and McAfee wasn’t functioning correctly, so I tried to uninstall and reinstall it, but it wouldn’t reinstall. So I’m trying something new, since McAfee obviously doesn’t work anyway! I’ll report back on how it goes.
• Wedding Gift: We’re going to a wedding in a couple months, so a gift is needed. Plus, I’m sure there’ll be a shower. I’m not complaining, just listing something else I need to pay for.
• Vacation: I don’t have anything planned, but I have 3.5 more vacation days I have to use up by the end of March, so probably some money will be spent.

I enjoyed my extra-long weekend. I stayed up late on Thursday night, then slept in Friday morning. I cleaned a lot, then went out for a little while before coming home for an afternoon nap. Saturday I mostly waited around at home while GG was out at a funeral. That’s when I picked up the virus, so then the rest of my day was spent trying to take care of that. Saturday night we went to a party, which was fun, but everyone kind of crowded into the basement, where the hosts have a bar. It was loud and very cold down there. GG and I stayed upstairs where we could actually talk to people. On Sunday we went to an annual family lunch type event for GG’s family, at a Mexican restaurant. It was nice… especially since I’ve probably only met some of them twice. And today I had lunch with Jess (and met her new babysitter).

Allure magazine keeps e-mailing me and sending me letters reminding me that my subscription is about to end and trying to get me to renew. Yes, I know that it’s about to end and I’m not going to renew. I reevaluated my magazine subscriptions and decided not to read it anymore. Plus I have two new subscriptions starting in January (yay, Amazon’s $5 subscription sale!). I feel like I should write them back and explain, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

I’m thinking it might be getting close to time for a new phone again. I love love love my phone and it’s not like it’s totally obsolete or anything, but it is about time for my scheduled upgrade, plus it’s been doing some weird things lately (shutting off mid-use – fully charged – and not letting me turn it back on for a few minutes), and the slide part feels a little loose. I’d really like my next phone to not have any moving parts. Before this one, I only ever had bar-style phones, and having a slide or flip makes me nervous. I was looking at the Nokia 6301, it looks like a definite contender, but I don’t think it’s in T-Mobile stores anymore and I like to see things in person before I purchase them, soooo, we’ll see. (I’m really reluctant to get a real “smartphone” because the amount of time I spend using WAP is already rediculous and really it meets my needs for what I need to do, for a minimal monthly charge.)

I’d been craving some good, hearty vegetable soup, so on Tuesday I whipped up a batch. I didn’t have any recipe or anything, I just dumped a bunch of stuff in some beef stock: carrots, corn, onions, potatoes, crushed tomatoes. And I like soup with a little pasta in it, so I poured in a bit of this type of pasta that’s about the size and shape of small beads. (I forget what it’s called, it starts with an A.) Then I figured, what the heck, and dumped in the rest of the box. My first bowl of soup was delicious. I came back for a second bowl, and the pasta had pretty much absorbed all the broth! So now we have tons of leftovers, but if you want it to be soup and not pasta with veggies mixed in, you need to add some water. But it’s still delicious – I’m enjoying some in its solid form for lunch right now.

Catching up with highlights of the last few days:

Thursday: I was taking a nap in the living room when I was awakened by a knock at the door and saw through the peephole a man in a suit standing on my porch. I was all disoriented from having just woke up. He was running for Mayor of our town and wanted to see if he could put a campaign sign in our yard, since we’re right across the street from the polling place. I told him I’d have to check with GG, who wasn’t home. If I’d been more aware of the situation, I would’ve asked him some questions about his position on things, but instead he probably thinks I’m crazy.

Friday: GG filled in on bass in the band that three of his old bandmates are now in. He had a good time, but didn’t get home from his show until 4:30 AM (it was at the Jersey shore). I’m glad he doesn’t do that every weekend anymore! Meanwhile, I ate Taco Bell for dinner.

Saturday: I happened to see on the internet Friday night that the bridge in our town that’s been closed for the past two years was reopening on Saturday morning. So GG and I went to the ceremony. Everyone gathered in the middle of the bridge and a bunch of politicians talked, including PA Governor Rendell. Apparently, ours was one of the worst bridges in the state (the worst in the region), which is why they decided to rebuild it. They were supposed to cut a ribbon, and even had the ribbon set up, but then decided it would be better to just remove the “Road Closed” signs at the end of the bridge. So everyone walked down and applauded as they carried the signs away. Then they were supposed to have some old-timey car drive over the bridge as the first vehicle to cross, but it couldn’t actually get across because all these other trucks and the Governor’s limo were parked at the other end of the bridge! They got everything cleared up, though, and we actually drove across it a little while later while we were out doing errands.

Later, we went to visit friends of GG’s from college, who just moved into this house in NJ together. We stayed up really late watching movies, but luckily we got an extra hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Savings. We saw Even Dwarfs Started Small (totally weird), Frontier(s) (totally gorey), and The Onion Movie (totally the third time I’ve seen it).

Sunday: I slept way in, then did errands and chores around the house while GG was out working. I noticed that there is now way less traffic in front of my house since it’s no longer the detour for the bridge, woo hoo! Supposedly they’re going to be removing the No Parking signs soon, and we will be able to park on the street in front of the house again! His parents were having a lunchtime birthday party for his brother, but GG didn’t even get home until 2, so it was about 3 by the time we got there, so we had more like an early dinner. We were there for a few hours eating, opening presents, and later an uncle we don’t see very often came over, so we had to hang out with him for a bit. The little gray kittens they adopted this summer are home now, and they are so cute! They play like mad, then totally crash and fall dead asleep.

Monday: While I was at work, GG called and told me he’d talked to… someone from our town, I’m not sure who… and they put a sign in our yard for the mayoral candidate who’d stopped by on Thursday. Well, when I got home I saw that it was like a giant billboard! Haha… guess we had to support him then! Then we went out with GG’s parents and brother and his girlfriend to a sushi buffet. I am probably not the best person to take to a sushi buffet, considering I don’t eat seafood and can’t really eat enough in one sitting to make any buffet worthwhile. I’d been to this place a few years ago, though, and I have to say they definitely had more non-seafood options this time. In addition to various rices, noodles, salads, and chicken and vegetable dishes, there were even some non-fish sushi – I had a bunch of mushroom sushi, a pork rib sushi, and there was some tofu sushi but I didn’t get any in time and then it was gone. That’s the other thing – there is so much food there and it’s constantly changing! Because it was GG’s brother’s actual birthday that day, the waitstaff brought out a nice piece of cake with a candle in it, and had him hold this Japanese parasol while they took his picture, which they printed and gave him afterward. That was pretty funny.

Tuesday: Today I got more bad news at work and suffered through another day at the most downbeat office in PA. Then I came home, voted, made dinner, and tried to set up in the living room with my laptop so we could watch “V” on the big TV. However… my laptop can no longer find any wireless networks?! It was working fine, then I turned off the wireless for a minute while I was updating my antivirus software and was momentarily unprotected. When I went to turn it back on, it wouldn’t pick up our network. I tried turning wireless on and off, turning the modem on and off, turning the computer on and off, setting up the network as a new network… nothing. Ugh, I hate that stupid laptop. It’s been nothing but suck.

This weekend was not as relaxing as a weekend should be. I’m back at work and I feel like I haven’t even had any time to rest since last week.

Friday night GG had to go someplace (I think he was painting his parents’ house?), so I went to the mall to look for a couple things. The only thing I actually ended up getting was a new pair of earbuds for my MP3 player. I have a problem with in-ear headphones, I think my ear holes are small or something, because most don’t fit or if they do they’re very uncomfortable and fall out a lot. So I got one of the pairs with little rubbery nubbins on the ends, and the rubber parts are interchangable, so you can size them up or down. I’m using the smallest pair, and I guess they fit okay, though I think I could go smaller. (They do make one size smaller, but you have to buy them seperately. Of course.) Also, maybe it’s just the fit, but it feels I’m underwater and there’s water in my ears – I hear that swooshing sound when there’s no music playing, and I just hate that feeling. I’m wearing them at work today, so we’ll see. They’re this pair, by the way.

So Friday night after we both got home from our respective errands, GG and I hung out on the sofa in the living room. We still haven’t set up our air conditioners but it was getting really hot and humid, so we figured we’d do it over the weekend. In the meantime, we just stayed downstairs where it was cooler. He hadn’t been able to use his laptop for a couple weeks because it wasn’t picking up any wireless signal. I thought it was a problem with our modem, because the wireless does seem to keep going out, and you have to turn the modem off and on to reset it. But he was sure there was a problem with the computer, so he finally called Dell support. Guess what – he’d accidentally turned off the wireless function by using his keyboard! (Apparently it’s like F2 or something – you don’t have to hold down any other key in combination – and there’s no light or anything to signal that it’s on or off.) Glad he got that solved, now we can sit and surf together like a happy couple!

Saturday we got up early and went to the farmers market. We got I think three kinds of peaches, some tiny plums, Yukon Gold potatoes, more portabella mushrooms to grill, a bunch of basil for GG, and a wedge of Birchrun Blue (which I have just about finished myself… but I always recommend it as blue cheese for people who don’t like blue cheese – it’s very mild). When we got home I did laundry and took a nap in preparation for going out to dinner and a movie. We were literally just about to leave the house when Ed called and said he and Kate were minutes away and could they stop by? Well, okay. So Ed and Kate came over to tell us that they got engaged! Yay! They really couldn’t stay long because they were on the way to see her family, but that was nice of them to come by and tell us in person.

So we went out to dinner, and the meal was not that great and the restaurant was noisy and crowded, and there were tons of screaming kids right by us. I especially hate when parents just let their kids run around a restaurant. If you are going to take your kids out to eat, please keep them in their seats at least! Then we walked over to the movie theater, met up with GG’s friend, and went to see Bruno. I wasn’t sure if we’d like it or not, because even fans of Sacha Baron Cohen have been giving it bad reviews. I think GG enjoyed it. I think it could have been better if they’d edited things another way to tell a different story. The first part, especially, where he’s trying to become famous in America, just didn’t work for me. The storyline about trying to become straight was a lot funnier. (Also, it was more interactions with regular people instead of celebrities.) I would classify it as 50% dumb, 30% gross (and I mean really gross), and 20% funny.

I was up early again on Sunday morning because I wanted to go to Target before it was too crazy there. However, they still didn’t really have the things I was looking for. (That didn’t stop me from buying a basket full of stuff, though.) I wanted to go to the Old Navy that’s in the same shopping center, but it doesn’t open until later on Sundays, so basically my going out early backfired on me. Instead I went food shopping, cleaned the refrigerator, and took a nap.

I had to leave in the afternoon for a concert, which was some distance away, and my carpool was going out to dinner beforehand. I ended up driving because our planned driver had a last-minute car issue (her windows weren’t going up or down, and one was stuck down) and I was the only one with enough gas. So we got up to the area where the park was and started looking for someplace to eat. There is pretty much nothing around this place. Last year we ate at some fast food place. This year we decided to try this diner we passed. It’s a divided highway, so I had to go up and use a jughandle thing to turn around to get to this place. Worst. Meal. Ever. The service was horrible (and slow!), the food was horrible… We learned our lesson and will never be going back there. Got to the park just in time, played the concert, and Jess and Rob showed up with the baby! They just happened to be in the area and decided to come by! So that was nice that they could see the show. Afterwards we went to this place across the street from the park for ice cream (we go every year), then we drove home and I went straight to bed.

It cooled off over the weekend, and it’s cool today, but I heard it’s going to get humid again this week, so the air conditioners are definitely going in tonight!

• I got us a DVD player this weekend (because our old TV had a DVD player built in, so we didn’t have one). I picked this one because it was pretty cheap, but it was HDMI capable. Well, got home and discovered that it didn’t actually come with the HDMI cable, just regular red/yellow/white cables. And I didn’t realize the HDMI cable costs more than the DVD player itself! So it better be pretty awesome if we ever get it… Also, the DVD player has a red light that comes on when the unit is off, which took me a while to figure out. I kept thinking I was turning it off (the light went out), and I didn’t know why I’d come back and the light would be back on! But actually it will turn itself off (light comes on) if you leave it on for too long. A little annoying, it’s a very bright little light.
• We had a baby shower yesterday for a guy at work whose wife is having a baby in a few weeks. That was fun. He was the only man there, though, which was weird. Also, they tried inviting his wife, but nobody had his home phone number, and the emergency contact number in his file was his mom!
• My leg feels totally better and my foot definitely hurts less, but still has some issues. I was supposed to take 4 Advil 3-4 times a day, but I’ve only been taking them 1-2 times a day. Might go to the chiropractor, we’ll see.
• Last night was our first holiday concert of the season, at a retirement home. A couple funny things: I looked down before the concert started to see that the second button on my shirt (which was the first one buttoned, since I didn’t button the top) had come off! But I had a tank top underneath and it pretty much stayed together, so no problem. Our director was getting his wireless microphone set up in a storage room off the room where we were playing, and he started talking and joking around, going “This is the ghost of Christmas past!” and we were all like, “Um, you know that’s on and we can hear you?” And finally, it is really windy in that room! I always forget, but there is a breeze in there, and it was hitting just me and the guy sitting next to me. After spending most of the first couple pieces keeping my music from blowing off my stand (and I could tell the audience was laughing at me, but I didn’t care, because they’re the ones with a stupid windy building!), I realized I had a pen with a clip in my purse, and used it to clip my music to my folder. The guy next to me tried a pen, leaning a comb against the pages, etc., but he didn’t have quite as much luck as I did. I hate that stupid windy room. Um, but the concert went pretty well. We have one tonight and then another next week, and that’s it for the year.