LolaGeek

Who saw “The Office” last night?! Even GG was excited to find out what was going on with Jim and Pam. I like the way things turned out – except for what happened to Sparkles the cat!!!

My big project at work for the last few months has been migrating our department web site (which is huge) from one server to another – and because we’ll be using a different system to maintain the site, I basically had to re-create all the pages and then update two sets of pages (the current ones and the new ones) any time a change was made. So it’s been a pain. But! It’s been fun and interesting for me, and as of Monday it should be finished! Hopefully today the new site will make the final move from Staging to Production, and on Monday we’ll send out a communication to the entire organization we support. Yay!

Tonight we’re carving pumpkins – we bought two big pumpkins last week, and we’ve been putting this off because every night something else comes up, but it’s finally time. GG will cut the tops open, I will scoop out the pulp and roast the seeds, and he will carve a design on at least one, but probably both of them. And then… I don’t know what will happen to them. Hopefully we can sit them on the front steps.

On Saturday we’re going to a barbecue party, and then we’re going to see Jim Gaffigan at the Tower Theater! But we’re going to the 10PM show, because the 8PM show was sold out, and since I’m not going to be able to nap beforehand (because we’ll be at the barbecue) I’m a little worried about staying awake. “Hot Pockets!” And on Sunday we’re going to another party, a birthday party for the bass player in GG’s band, who lives in New Jersey. (And I bet there’ll be a lot of kids there… ugh.)

Legal Trouble for Martha Could Equal Big Bucks for Rachel: A prisoner in South Carolina is suing Martha Stewart for $3.5 million in damages for his claim that his civil rights were violated when he tried to buy her Westport home. If he wins the case, he’ll be donating the money to Rachael Ray! Check out some of his allegations, they’re hilarious.

Seattle Commuters Urged to Ride the SLUT: Unfortunate mass-transit acronym.

The Threat of Killer Space Rocks: Yes, it’s true, “astronomers are struggling to contain the threat of a civilization-ending galactic visitor.” Apparently, rocks floating around near earth (near-Earth objects, or NEOs) are tracked by several countries, “but there could be millions more, many of them potentially lethal, lurking in the cosmos.” Awesome. Also includes several potential solutions in case one decides to head for us.

Visual Representation of Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Almost looks like a cute puffy cloud… until you realize how gross that is.

Trashcan Designed for Plastic Grocery Bags: Cool! It actually has handles on the sides designed to hold the handles of the plastic bag down. (Especially cool considering Simplehuman also sells their own special liners that you’re encouraged to use.)

Diary of the 1000-Pound Man (parody): If you’ve seen the show “Half-Ton Man” on TLC/Discovery/Discovery Health/etc., you’ll enjoy this. “Did I ask to be a 1000-pound man? Did I ask for an entire birthday cake covered in pepperoni slices? Actually, I did on that second one. It was very good.”

Unclutterer: Ah! I love this site! I wish I could live this way. Alas… the stuff.

So I was kind of thinking, “Do I really want to get sucked into another season of Heroes?” But of course I was still looking forward to it and I watched and wow was it good again! So excited to see how the rest of the season turns out! (More tomorrow, maybe? For tonight, I’m defragmenting my hard drive.)

The Duggar’s Big Family Album is on tonight!

In celebration, here are some Quiverfull t-shirts!

What, you’re not familiar with the Duggar family? Read here. Or better yet, read here. Or even here.

How many networking type sites are you a member of? Lollibomb was asking about it on etsy a while ago. I feel like I’m a member of pretty much everything – I just make a username, even if I never go back to it – but in general, I usually only use/visit a few sites:

• LolaBlog
• LiveJournal
• MySpace
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Etsy
• LinkedIn
• Plus I use Bloglines, which feels like it keeps me connected with other people, even if they don’t know that I’m reading them

How about you? Are we friends?

Well, there won’t be any Linky Thursday today – this week’s just been so busy, I haven’t had time to collect any links! On Monday we had SOPs issued and becomming effective at work, which is always a busy day for me, but these were a bunch of big-deal SOPs and actually I think we just finished up all the work this morning. So that was crazy. And I had a band officers’ meeting on Tuesday night and then practice last night, so I barely even had any time at home. Tonight GG and I are going to go run some errands I’ve been putting off – he’s just excited because I mentioned going to the music store, which I guess he thinks means sitting around and trying out guitars and pedals. But really I just need to buy a new little rubber pad for the thumb rest on my clarinet. Tomorrow I’m pretty much free… Saturday I need to do some stuff during the day, and then I’m going to GG’s show Saturday night (it’s the closest gig to home he could ever have! Well, besides playing at one of the unsavory bars down the street). And on Sunday we have a concert about an hour away, so we’ll probably be leaving in the afternoon and then there goes the whole rest of the day. Ugh! Busy week! Somewhere in there I think I need to mow the grass (hopefully one of the last times this year…), and maybe we can think about taking the air conditioners out of the windows for the season.

GG and I went to the exact geographic center of New Jersey (pretty much) on Sunday for dinner with MB and Alan. I drove, because after finding out that it would be like five weeks until his car would be fixed, GG returned his rental car. So he’s driving his parents’ Jeep, which kind of sucks and I definitely didn’t want to be riding in it for an hour. Anyway, I hate driving, in case you didn’t know. But actually, the directions I had were pretty good, and we only got lost a little bit – the directions said to turn right onto this road, but what they meant to say was turn right into the jughandle in order to make a left onto the road. Oh New Jersey! You and your jughandles! So dinner was nice, and their house is so cute! And it was good to see them, and meet their kitties, Trotsky and Peppin!

I went to the dentist for a regular checkup last night, and they told me that I have my second cavity ever! I actually was kind of expecting it. It’s not like a regular cavity, and it doesn’t hurt or anything. What happened is that where I had braces on my back teeth, the area is now decalcified, which basically meant spots where the enamel had worn away, but it wasn’t cavities. Last year, they decided the spot on my right side had become a cavity, so I got that filled. Now a year later they’ve decided that the left side is a cavity now, too. So I’ll go back in a couple weeks for that fun stuff. (Actually, waiting for the novocaine to wear off was worse than getting the actual filling last time!) Also, they sold me another $10 tube of toothpaste, and they want me to buy this $80 toothbrush (regularly $140) from them.

I had a one-on-one meeting at work this morning with the head of our department. He’s been having them with everyone in the department, which he hasn’t really done since he took his current position (which was three years ago). Basically, he just wants to see how everyone feels about their job, where they’d like to develop in the future, what the department can do better, etc. I was kind of nervous about it for some reason, which is weird, because I’m actually on really really good terms with him. But of course I got in there and everything was fine and he agreed with what I said and it should all be cool. I guess my biggest concern, if you could call it a concern, is that my position was sort of “invented” for me, and as such, I don’t really have a defined “career ladder” like a lot of other positions do. So in some ways I feel sort of stuck in my current job, but in other ways I’m curious and excited to see what it evolves into next. And I told him how I’d like to take on more of a leadership or project management kind of role. So… we’ll see what happens in the coming months!

Whoops, I seem to have missed Thursday! Enjoy these links a day late!

Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure: What we all aspire to be.

How to disable Snaps previews: You know those annoying mini-windows that pop up when you hover over links on some sites, showing a preview of where the link goes? Here’s how you can turn those stupid things off. (Sorry, Snaps users.)

The Daybook: An interesting idea in organization, especially for a note-scribbler like me. Looks like it combines an appointment book, diary, and to-do list into one flexible system. (Based in Australia, international orders are $25/book with free shipping.)

Kam Kam Cat Body Pillow: Cute, in a bizzare, misshapen way. I feel like I could make my own version, though. (I would make it a little longer.)

Horizons Restaurant: Note to self: I want to eat here. Organic, vegan restaurant, recommended by Sara. GG and I will have to make a date of it.

The Apiary: Inside With: John Mulaney: The Apiary interviews my imaginary boyfriend!

Pretty boring for a birthday, I guess. I spent all day in a class called “Business Across Borders,” which I’ll be in until the end of the week. When I got home, there was a little bag of gifts from GG’s parents waiting for me. Then I went to band practice, and because I was running late (from the class), I drove by myself instead of riding with my usual carpool people. When I got to rehearsal, there was a 6-pack of cupcakes waiting on my chair, from one of my carpoolers. The band has a written copy of “Happy Birthday” that we usually surprise people with on their birthdays – someone will go around before rehearsal (or a concert, or wherever we are), and tell everyone, “Okay, when we start to play the first song, play Happy Birthday instead.” But I thought for sure they wouldn’t play that for me. So we go to play the first song of the evening, and it sucked. Our director finally cut everyone off, and turned to me and said, “Well, happy birthday!” It turned out that only about half the band had gotten the secret message to play Happy Birthday, so some people were playing that and some people were playing the song that had actually been announced. Haha! After band I distributed my cupcakes and listened to a voicemail from my brother, who’d called while we were practicing.

So it wasn’t like a super spectacular day or anything, but I already had a party and got cards and gifts from people ahead of time, so it’s not like it was disappointing or anything. It was a nice birthday :o)

Hey, it’s 9/11 again. I wrote a pretty extensive summary of where I was at this time in 2001, so you can read that if you like.

Now for the more fun story: 25 years ago tonight, my mom ate a big hoagie and watched Miss America on TV, before going into labor.

So tomorrow I’ll turn 25. And it’s all downhill from there…