My first emergency repair in the new house; a handy MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Well, that was a total waste of time. For some reason, administrative assistants at my company, have this idea that no one understands what we do, particularly our management. This annoys/irritates/aggravates the people we support, as AAs are like Mama, if s/he ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. So, due in part to this and (many) other complaints, they dissolved “our” organization and replaced all of the leadership at the very tippy-top. Sadly, they did not replace local “leadership,” as in “don’t step in the leadership.” Anyway, AAs now are their own entity ('cuz this company loves having separate entities for everything) and we are now getting specifically targeted training and programs. Yay, right, recognition and acknowledgement at last? Um, no.

We are at the end of our year-end evaluation process (I’d rather have my toenails pulled out with pliers) and it’s time for thinking about next year’s goal-setting! Because your goals should be aligned with the company’s business plan, i.e. your goal should be to do your job, based on your job description (which does not exist, but they’re “working on it,” just like they have been for the past 4 years.) So, we had an hour-long webcast, attendance mandatory, on goal-setting and career development, that was advertised as being specifically targeted for AAs. The webcast consisted of: explaining to managers how to talk to the AAs about their goals (Make eye contact! Be empathetic!), defining what a goal is, according to the company and finally, sample goals. For IT, Accounting and Facilities. The presenter was the national HR manager for IT. Every question was answered with a really long pause and “That’s a really good question. You should talk to your local manager/HR rep about that.” Yeah. *That * was a valuable use of my lunch hour. On the other hand, our manager apologized to us for wasting our time, so that’s a point in her favor.

Congrats to ivyboy! I didn’t bother taking the English AP test - I knew I wouldn’t pass. English teachers despise my writing style and the way I frame my arguments, while every other teacher has appreciated it. I did take AP History - 3. Pretty good for only getting to the 1880s in class!

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Congrats to Ivyboy! My daughter is taking AP English along with AP Psychology next year. She already has homework for her AP English class.

Today has been a very “meh” day for me too.

I didn’t get any e-mail from FCM, so that leaves three out of um, I’m not sure. I’m still too tired to figure it out.

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hehehe…rigs you’re three hours ahead of me, looking at the time stamp. Have I mentioned my lifelong curse of insomnia?

bobbio if it’s any consolation, I make Mayberry look urban. Any part I need must be ordered. And it’s always on back order. It took a month to get a part for my brand new dryer to get here. My old dryer broke in January, I bought a new one in March when skiffman got home and it worked for a week. Having lived in the village, which makes Kodiak look urban, I strung clothes line throughout the house and hung the wash. Hillbilly Deluxe. I am bummed that there isn’t a plethora of turkey feathers to be distributed, but I am happy for you and your turkey fans, they are pretty. Oh, and if you don’t mind I am co-opting your daughter’s name, with a gender change, for The Son. 13 1/2 years old, and my almost 1/2 century on this planet accounts for nada in his eyes!

Oh, and as for dustbunnies, have your daughter read Dolores Claiborne, she will leave the dustbunnies alone after that!

Yay ivyboy!!!

Okay, The Son has gone to (this is a bit confusing) my #1 daughter’s mil’s house to rake the acreage she had mown yesterday by some older kids. He’s getting paid, so he’s happy, he’s out of our hair, so #3 daughter and I are happy, it’s all good. #3 daughter just popped some from-a-mix muffins with frozen blueberries added into the oven, and when they come out in will go the poke chops with my special barbecue sauce to cook slowly until supper. They will be accompanied by home made corn bread and some kind of veggie, corn if #3 daughter has her way. Mebee I’ll just throw the corn into the cornbread… I have white beans soaking, they go in the crock pot tonight for tomorrow’s supper.

#3 and I are going to shampoo the carpet as soon as the muscle relaxers and the heating pad do their job on my back. It is a cold (49F) and rainy day, and the outlook is for just more of the same. Tra-fricken-law. I called my parents on Saturday, they live about 30 miles north of Seattle, and said it was very warm verging on hot. :frowning:

I am off to get busy, have fun y’all!

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Great MMP, Bobbio. The talk of painting is giving me flashbacks to buying Casa GT, which was seven years ago. I closed on 7/2 and moved most stuff 7/12. We had to strip wallpaper (yuck!) and painted just about every room. Cut it very close, but it got done. I’d really like to re-do it now, because we went with pretty blah colors.

I want a new fridge. (Mine is old, harvest gold, and the drawers are rickety.) Unfortunately, it keeps working.

Gotta go garden.

(Don’t you love alliteration?)

GT

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I love tuna steaks. Just in case you were wondering.

PT went well, but reaching behind my back with my left arm is nigh on to impossible for now. I’ll keep working on it. I like my therapist, and I like the facility. So there’s that. I go again tomorrow, then not again till next week, but I’ve got 3 appointments next week. It’ll be interesting to see how far I get before my next doctor visit on Aug 17.

And now, I think I need some medicinal ice cream. That’s the ticket.

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It seems my gracious hosts here in Panama City have been taking notes from the MMP. I arrived at the house after work to find 80% of the furniture from the dining and living rooms shoved into the kitchen and front hallway (the latter is now more impassable than a federal legalization of gay marriage). Turns out all the carpeting and wallpaper is coming down and being replaced. Inside of a week, too! I’ve got $20 that says that ain’t happening. Who wants to bet against me? :stuck_out_tongue:
All adore awesome alliteration. Alliteration augments assorted advice and affords artists an awl against apathy.

What do I win? :smiley:

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Ah. Thanks.
Gotta tell ya, we don’t have those around here.

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:confused: I don’t have a daughter, just a grown son, the VunderKind…

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Ok, so guys, we got a new pet yesterday. Don’t get excited, he’s not a kitten, only a leopard gecko. A baby. I still think he’s cute though. I have named him Picante. Here’s a link to my photo album. Here’s hoping it works. Again, the read-only password should be mellon, case-sensitive.

Picante

We got him yesterday and tried to give him some mealworms but he ignored them. We were worried, but today we tried to give him some pinhead crickets and he stalked and hunted and then ate 9 of them. Yummy!

His tank is partially set up. As he’s a baby yet, we will wait (as advised) to set up the moss and rocks until he’s a little older.

Pic of what he may look like full-size

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Forgot to say earlier: yay for Ivyboy!

Also, the cat saga was amusing, taxi.

Spats, ummm…you win…a well…no, I can’t bring myself to alliterate further. Sorry. All out of alliteration.

Progress with crabapple bed, but the mosquitoes were out there in force, so I decided to continue tomorrow morning, very very early (mulch bags are already strategically placed).

Put away just about all the laundry and am now going to read for a while, then continue with more clean-up.

Can you tell I’m having people over Wednesday night? House isn’t ready, but it will be by then. Good thing I kinda cleaned before the 4th.

GT

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Ok, sorry, it’s Mellon, case-sensitive, then you must click on Picante. Weird.

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Ooops…missed your post. He’s a cutie. Pics turned out very cool. Took me a bit to figure out what he was standing on.

GT

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Sean, check your e-mail.

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I still have a job, till the end of next week, at least.

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:smiley: For everyone else’s benefit, he’s on my hand.

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Cute, yes, very. But can he sell insurance?

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He’s adorable, Mika! Is it possible to spoil a gecko? Because something tells me there’s a good chance he will be. :smiley:

And a belated yay for Ivyboy! Does he know about it yet?

FCM, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about body parts, it’s that if you don’t use 'em, you lose 'em. Which is why, even though I have all kinds of orthopedic issues, I still stretch everything enough that my doctor can’t believe how flexible I am. It’s easier to keep the motion even if it doesn’t work right than to lose it and try to get it back. My best example of that was my mom; after my dad died from his Parkinson’s and for the first time in 15 years she didn’t have a full-time patient, she basically sat down for a year and a half. By the time we finally pried her out of her chair, she could barely walk any more. It’s been a real struggle for her to regain her mobility. So good luck regaining use of your arm.

Right now, though, I’m just tired. And I have like six hours of work left to do on this Ghastly Job from Hell™. Why do I do this to myself? Why can’t I learn that magic little two-letter word that starts with N and ends with O? Sigh. Back to the salt mines.

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Good evening, MMPers! Yay for IvyBoy! Lots of congratulations to Bob, and Mika, your gecko is really cute. I love geckoes.

Best Friend and her husband have departed for Philly. They ought to be home by now. They left at about 1 this afternoon. We had a wonderful time with them.

On Saturday we went to Mass and then came home and I made salad with the new patented sesame miso ginger dressing and garlic sausages and chicken cooked in white wine with parsley and thyme and we had homemade bread and homemade cinnamon buns for dessert. We got drunk over dinner, and I spilled red wine. Oh, well. Then Quasi-Daughter and Dricing Husband came over and we all hung out drinking and chatting.

On Sunday we wandered around a lot, hung out at home, went out for Indian, and then went to a lovely sung Evensong service at a downtown church that has one of the best choirs in Canada. It was great. Then Mr. Lissar tried to teach them tai chi and BF and I talked food and lots of other stuff. It was amazing seeing them.

So that was my weekend. Today was saying goodbye and then going to work for eight hours and being monstrously bored. Attacks Husband was just here and we divided up the Trader Joe’s loot.

I haven’t been on the Straight Dope in more than a day! The horror!

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Yes, you feed them fat juicy butterworms and silkworms to spoil them.

**anyrose **you zinged me good. :wink:

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A cold beerverage in my hand, baseball (OK, HR derby…) on TV, and a purring cat next to me.

It’s a good night.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, I’m in all-day training for our new routing system upgrade. The tech lab at the high school though, does have PC’s with internet access, so I imagine you’ll all know when I get bored - that’s when I’ll post here.

Geckoes…Cuervo says they look like good eatin’. Or at least good chasin’ and playin’ with.