Hi! Seconding the demand for a resolution of the Cretan saga before you go gallivanting off to Thailand!
Ugh, yes. I’m really glad I work for a copmany where I can pretty much wander in and out at will as long as I get my work done (and am available essentially 24/7 in case of emergency, but that’s a whole 'nother kettle of fish…)
That was my motto back in my (junior) managing days, too: “Be here from 10 AM to 4 PM. Get the rest of your work done whenever suits you. Let me know if on any particular day you plan not to be here during the 10-4 timeframe. No, you don’t have to ask, just let me know!”
Ah yes… That was me at about 15, one summer day…
How are you at software design and coding? 'Cos I have plenty of surplus work I could push your way…
Okay…so it took until 10 days ago to get the mower up and running. We had to diagnose the problem, order parts, wait for delivery, and install the parts. Woohoo! I’m finally able to cut the thigh-high grass.
So I’m out front cutting the strip of grass between the hedge and the road.
KLA-THUNK.
Mower stops dead in its tracks.
I pull the beast back a foot or two and find this gigantic piece of broken metal. Turns out the snow plow pulled up one of those embedded reflector doo-dads and threw it in the grass. Since the grass was so deep, I missed it when I did my walk-thru.
The blades are broken, the deck is cracked, the pulleys are askew. Oh…and did I mention the mower is 20 years old and replacement parts are no longer available?
Mr. K is trying to find a way to salvage it, but I have a feeling John Deere may be the new man in my life…
My job is developing software for a PLC to control a certain piece of Coast Guard equipment. There have been problems with power that I’ve been working on, and yesterday, while testing a particular piece of clever but innocuous code, the controlled equipment failed by burning up a circuit card related to power control.
I doubt severely that what I was doing was directly responsible for the failure, but that hasn’t stopped the customer from giving me all kinds of grief for it. Harrumph.
Mom and Lilbro just had a sort of showdown re. going to visit the Grandparents from Hell. He’s going to be in Barnacity this weekend (playing tourist and going to the AC/DC concert on Sunday) and refuses to go say hi to the grandparental units. After some yelling and crying on her part, there was yelling and crying on his part re. not wanting to see any more of the bastard than he strictly has to. I can’t say I don’t understand that, given that my greatest regret when the motherfucker dies will be that, since he’s donated is body to science (to piss Grandma off, and it worked), I won’t be able to dance on his grave.
Mom asked me whether she should have broken up with her parents. I told her I don’t know what should or could she have done; I have my theories but don’t see how the multicolored blazes would it help now. Personally I think it would have been nice if Grandma had fallen out of love with him about, oh, 60 years ago (ie some 10 years before he abused his daughters, and some 40 before abusing his grandchildren), but that was… well, 60 years ago, and it didn’t happen.
Scotland is just looking so nice.
ETA: she just said “well, so maybe he needs to go to a shrink! But you need to get over things!” Sure Mom, that’s why you always hid everything from Dad, knowing that his response would be never, ever, letting your parents close to your children without a full Airborne squad in the room… Ruuuuule, Britania, Britania rule the world…
Yeah…I wish my husband would just give up on fixing it and buy the new one. I’m actually hoping he’ll get discouraged and go back to working on the 67 Mustang!
Fortunately, my chain of command doesn’t think that way. Unfortunately, the team we work with on these projects does. So when I wanted to leave at 5 yesterday to get home early 'cause it was KT’s birthday and because we were done with the project, I got razzed by the other team. Yeah, I think they were just teasing, but there’s an edge to the teasing because we’re allowed to have flexible hours and they aren’t. And it makes me feel really guilty so I still went home at 5 but spent the first hour of my evening feeling like crap for not sitting at work surfing the internet for another hour just to look good for the other team. :rolleyes: :smack: :mad:
Special1, you sound like a good manager.
The weirdness in your life has peaked my interest, pie. If you want to tell us about it, I’m certainly curious.
Just so you know swampy, I *did *put on sunscreen before we went out biking last night. So there.
We went to (biked to, actually) a Greek restaurant for dinner and had a sampler of spreads: tzatziki, kalamada and goat cheese tapanade, and some kind of hummus that was really good. Then we split a cucumber & tomato salad and pastichio en phyllo, which is kind of like Greek lasagna. All gooooood. And more ginger chocolate chip cookies for dessert 'cause that’s what KT wanted. I offered to make brownies or cake, but he wanted cookies.
Your bbq/party plans sound great, rebo. I don’t often get a chance to throw a party like that either, but like you, I really enjoy doing it. We just need to get to know more people around here who don’t already have a ton of family and friends in the area. Everyone we know also knows 5 zillion other people and, therefore, always have stuff going on. We can never get more than 2 people to want to come over at the same time. It’s really too bad we can’t have a Mumpers-fest at our house some time.
Creaky I like the low carb angle. Plus I would fry 'em in vegetable oil and serve with healthy veggies. YAY! I do believe I have justified fried poke chops!
Taxi I’m glad my lecture paid off. If you always apply sunscreen, no more sunburn. Lesson learnt!
Kalhoun hubby needs to go buy a mower and get to work on that 'Stang. After all that’s waaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than a mower.
Another day down.
Dindin tonight… hmmmmm… I suppose I should consider. I’m by myself tonight so maybe go down the road to the Chinese take out. Or a Subway. Decisions. Decisions.
Like mashed NOT’s? And brown gravy. Well, all I know is gravy is in one of the four food groups of the South.
AGGGHHH! I’m so bored. Is it quit o’clock yet?
I had lunch at Sweet Tomatoes. It’s a big salad bar place and it was packed. I ended up sitting next to this family with an 18-month old baby. He was a little cutie-pie, even if he did fling a bit of food around (not at me!) and dropped his sippy cup once, and dumped the contents of the sippy cup another time. I picked up the cup, and then gave some extra napkins to Mom to clean up the spill.
When I was leaving, I told the baby “bye-bye” and he blew a big kiss to me! Cutest thing EVAH.
It’s lovely to know that they missed so very much while I was gone that they waited until I was back to schedule a bunch of important meetings… which means this is the first chance I’ve had in days to do nothing particularly work-like and surf Teh Internetz for a bit.
Also, The Boy and I celebrated four years on Monday. Since we were so zonked from our trip, the evening consisted of making dinner and then sitting on the couch watching bad TV until bedtime… yes, we’re romantic like that.
gt, it seems you managed to hie thee to Paris as you originally hoped for. I’m utterly jealous. Can’t wait to see photos!
Soapy, glad the tests came back negative. Guess rosacea doesn’t sound so bad now, right? (I wonder if the doctors sometimes do that… trick patients into thinking they have something truly horrible, so that they’ll be happy to settle for the less-awful diagnosis afterwards)
Pie, I’d blame the Splenda. It makes everything taste funny… if you’re not a fan of plain yogurt, try sweetening it with honey (which is how the Greeks serve it), or a fruit jam of your choosing. Why people ruin perfectly good food with artificial sweeteners is beyond me.*
Anyway, it’s about time for me to start packing up. The Angry Russian got back from a trip to Paris while I was away on vacation, and she’s giving me a ride tonight so that she can taunt me all the way home with descriptions of all the yummy meals they had there. Hmph. The things I will do just to avoid having to ride the bus.
Except for the folks who have a perfectly legitimate reason for skipping the sugar, that is. My poor diabetic friend is getting really sick of having to explain he’s not crazy for getting sweetener in his triple-cream coffee.
Yogurt’s also really good if you mix in salt and garlic (powder’s easiest but fresh is more traditional/authentic) and maybe some chopped cucumber and/or dill. Then put it on some pitas. Even better, make gyros and serve it with that! (But just the yogurt sauce on pitas is great.) I’ve never actually made this with Greek yogurt, but since it’s a Greek spread - a version of tzatzkiki - I’d have to assume that it’d be good with Greek yogurt.
Whew - finally!! Been busy since I got home. I had to clean the grill, marinate the steaks, clean and cut the N.O.T., slice the onion, start the grill, cook the corn and other veggies, cook the steaks… Whew. But supper was yummerrific, and italian dressing is a very yum steak marinade. We’ll have fresh strawberries on vanilla ice cream later.
It’s POURING and thundering like crazy - I expect some folks are getting flooded, since the ground is pretty saturated. Lucky for us, we’re on one of the higher points of the neighborhood.
I put in a leave request for the week leading up to Independence Day - can’t wait!!
Oh, and swampy, I’ll be emailing you with a coupla questions.
Echod, Soapy, or anyone else who could answer this question. Is there a Hebrew word for Valentine? If not, what is the word for heart - and please not “Dodi Li”
Seconding the demand for a resolution of the Cretan saga before you go gallivanting off to Thailand!
