« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »
May 11, 2005
works on men of all sizes
the big even of the week at work, was the annual amgen chili cookoff last week, which is an extravaganza of chili booths, beer, wine, coworkers and their families gathered to...uh eat chili.
the thousands of amgen folks and their family units swarm the contained area around my building and it's a zoo of breeders on a rampage.
wandering through the kid's area packed to the brim with hundreds (i swear to god) children, daniela and sarah, and i all looked at each other and the first word out of our mouths was a simultaneous, "uh, contraception?"
we settled at a table in the midst of the swarming children for some chatting and eating when suddenly behind me there was a long, loud and incredibly annoying and disruptive whistle.
i turned, eyebrow raised and looked hard at the whistling 10 year old boy. he immediately ceased whistling, spun around on his heel and ran.
i turned back to the table, "see ladies, that works just as well with 10 year olds and 30 year olds alike."
Posted by heidijanet at 08:42 PM | Comments (1)
May 09, 2005
*sigh*
well as i mentioned a couple of weeks ago, i had a follow up my physician to see how the spine is doing, and apparently the damn thing still isn't healing up.
so, i had a CT scan of my spine so he could get a better look at why.
i just got off the phone with him and apparently there are a bunch of micro-fractures in the vertabrae that he didn't notice before.
also, in speaking with a surgeon, apparently all the soft tissue surrounding the injury was likely torn apart with the force of the fall. which makes sense.
so i have to go back for a series of facet injections to confirm this and then they will brace me up. for 24 hours a day. for the next three months.
and the very first oh so sympathetic comment of consolation from my boss, "well, there goes your sex life!"
*sigh*
well, frankly that isn't really much of a loss.
Posted by heidijanet at 05:11 PM | Comments (1)
May 05, 2005
yup. i need a vacation.
i am not the kind of person that believes in signs, but i do look for patterns. anyone who keeps up with me here or in real life, knows i'm a workaholic.
after running my time allocation for the last six months, and realizing that i am averaging, AVERAGING almost 65 hours per week.
in just the last four months i've also managed to be out of the office on business (of course) 25% of my time this year (i was out the entire month of january), i managed to break my back, get a promotion and rack up over 70 hours a week.
last thursday, when my alarm clock began optimistically bleeping at 5:30am, i reached out for the almost completely spent snooze button, and came face to face with my very first thought of the day, "i need a vacation."
so...checking my horoscope yet again today:
LEO: Don't be shy about putting in for your vacation days now, no matter how busy it happens to be at work. You need some time off, you need it soon and you need it together. Be sure your sweetheart is just as adamant. You both have at least one favor out there that's overdue to be called in, so if you need to, make that call and pull those strings. Do whatever it takes to make this time together happen.
then, receiving a directive this morning from a woman i consider a mentor and respect very much, that i work way too hard--i've decided that i have officially uncovered a pattern.
so, i'm taking a week off. before july. i starting to plan right now. i may need to be a little loose with my definition of sweetheart--as everyone knows that in order for me to actually meet anyone that could be considered a sweetheart, they'd have to throw themselves on the hood of my car at 9pm when i pull into the driveway at night.
but that is a minor detail. however i am taking destination suggestions from anyone with any good ideas. i'm looking for warm, affordable, in or outside the u.s. where i can sit quietly, get my melatonin producing and stare at something other than this cursed computer screen.
and if anyone would like to come along, i'm keeping my definition of "sweetheart" very loose this week. *grin*
Posted by heidijanet at 10:50 AM | Comments (4)
May 04, 2005
pearls of wisdom
every day i learn tiny little lessons about surviving in the corporate world that they just don't teach you in school. a couple that i've learned over the last week:
1. don't drink at office parties. especially if someone has a camera.
2. do not start bitching about a co-worker before you have actually hung up the phone after leaving said co-worker a voicemail. (i have feelings too) ahem.
3. admit making a mistake--even if you didn't make the mistake alone. it's your team, it's your mistake. if you want the credit for a job well done, be prepared to take the blame when it goes wrong.
4. manage your expectations. after getting home night after night with racoon eyes (usually the only time i look in the mirror again after getting ready in the morning), i switched to a long-up-to-16-hours-lasting mascara. apparently this 16 hour business is only true when tested on women who do not blink, sweat, rub eyes in frustration all day. length of lasting diminished approximately 55% by actually being human. very disappointing.
5. if someone tells you not to prepare for a meeting. don't listen to them. prepare. prepare. prepare. amendment: interestingly enough, i just received a suggestion that sometimes it is wise to intentionally NOT prepare for a meeting, as we often waste time preparing within an inch of our sanity, only to find we have the answer in our head already. hm. i'm going to try it both ways and report back.
Posted by heidijanet at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)
May 02, 2005
technical problems, getting help and tiny victories against the spam misery in the world
i've been silent for the last couple of weeks. there are times that i go silent because i need a break or i'm overworked...but this time it i was in a protracted battle against comment/trackback spammers.
i shut down my comments last December after getting slammed with over 10,000 comment spams in less than a week. i set MT to force manual approval of all comments before they posted...but this became enormously inefficient at that scale.
i was sad to close comments, but i was overworked and didn't have time to upgrade/install plugins etc. etc. that is required to get a handle on the situation.
THEN i started getting trackback spam, which was just too much. after struggling for 2 days to upgrade MT, install MT blacklist and incorporate the little tweaks necessary...naturally i ended up breaking a few things.
so (for once) taking ariel's advice i turned to blog barter to get it all configured correctly for a very reasonable trade for something on my "expert's" wishlist.
(which, after the fact i just charged over to her wishlist and picked out something nice in the quoted price range, as though it was christmas. note to novices in getting help, you're supposed to agree to it first. fortunately she was very polite about the whole thing.)
at any rate...after tediously deleting all 10,000 comments spams (btw, martin i think i deleted a comment from you by mistake, sorry), i have opened comments back up and have missed hearing from my friends and family.
particularly those that (mistakenly) believe that reading my blog is just like staying in touch with me. a common problem i think, and as usual, ariel expresses this weird phenom better than i could.
so i'll be posting more regularly, and i hope the handful of folks that read along make a little noise from time to time. after all the trouble i went through it's the least you can do.
Posted by heidijanet at 12:02 PM | Comments (5)