The "My bumpy transition into adulthood" MMP - and how was yours?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Happy Birthday, GT!

OK, so it sounds like the most votes are for the Greek pattern, but I do appreciate Pie’s vote of confidence for the designer on the leaf one. And I’ve got a couple votes for the spiral one. This really isn’t helping make the decisions any easier! :stuck_out_tongue:

Ours does work really well. It gets the clothes clean with very little energy, water, and detergent. But, as I said upthread somewhere, it takes for-frickin’-ever. I’d really think hard about whether you’re willing to have every load of laundry take an hour (just to wash, not counting drying time). Maybe that doesn’t bother other people as much, but I used to run a couple loads before work on Fridays because I could get them in and out while I was working out/showering/eating breakfast. Now if I’m lucky I can get one load done… and that’s if it doesn’t go all unbalanced and then take even longer because it has to do each spin cycle five times. I find it very frustrating. But yes, it works well, gets the clothes clean, and uses less energy to do so.

62

I had to run that past the Google Translator since I don’t speak Frog, but I approve. When I run out of languages to swear in, I tend to make them up as I go.

I don’t know how many times I’ve brought washers and dryers back from the dead, but the percentage is a hell of a lot higher than what I’ve done for people.

63

I just tried a Monster energy drink for the first time because they were promoting them outside Canadian Tire over the weekend and I thought, “Hey, free energy drink!”

It tastes like feet.

Puggy - It’s a knitted toque. It is by definition dorky. Like, my-grandmother-knitted-this-for-me dorky. :smiley: I used to have a nice and manly DeWalt toque. (I used to work for their parent company, Black & Decker, so I had lots of swag.) It was plain, black, no pom-pom, and the front flipped up to reveal the logo. It was simple and probably the least dorky of hats I’ve ever had. But I lost it and I know not where.

VBob - I generally stick to English unless I’m trying to soften the impact or be ironic. That particular curse however is good. It has a certain La Terminator flair to it. :slight_smile:

64

Somehow I missed the memo last time around… (I blame GT’s long post and my TL;DR mentality [AKA “ADD” :p] for not noticing) – so:

Happy Birthday, GarderTraveler!! :):):slight_smile:

Remember – no matter what your age, after a certain point you can always say “well… I’m closer to 30 than I am to 20.” :smiley:

65

Hippo birdie, gt!!!

Mindy, I think there’s a law somewhere that all energy drinks must taste like foot-flavoured windshield wiper fluid. You’d have to pay me large sums of money to get me to drink one… free just ain’t enough of an inducement.

PS - it’s trou d’cul. :slight_smile: Though it does usually come out sounding like trouduc since to swear properly in French Canadian, you should sound like you’re trying to talk around a mouthful of hot potato.

Fingers crossed for you, Puggy. Hopefully it’s just a nasty rumour and never comes to be… the bad L word is scary.

Nooner, I’m fully aware of the limited attention span of IT folks. :slight_smile: Yesterday, we spent the first half hour of an hour-long conference call trying to establish exactly which issue the call was intended to resolve, and then spent the next half hour listening to one of the programmers give a long convoluted explanation of something that was totally unrelated. :smack: One of my mentors once compared it to “herding cats”.

66

Happy, Happy Birthday GT!

I had to grow up fast. My parents divorced when I was in third grade. English is not my mother’s first language. I had to help her fill out forms all the time and even wrote my own excuses for missing school and had her sign them.

Also, I had to take on more around the house. I was responsible for cleaning, weeding, lawn mowing, laundry, you name it. I also was responsible for watching my younger sister.

Because we didn’t have much growing up, and I wanted the same stuff my friends had, I worked for all of it, going out and getting lawn mowing, babysitting, and housesitting jobs until I was old enough to get a “real” job. Because I had to work for everything, I learned to appreciate it more.

With all that being said, life is too short be a grown-up all the time. I want to enjoy myself, and I find the older I become, the more I’m willing to let the fun out and I’ve become less serious. It’s weird.

Work was hellacious yesterday, and frankly the whole month promises to be more of the same. No one is in my branch but me. My co-worker is out on various leaves throughout the entire month, and my new supervisor is out because she broke her shoulder. It sucks, but nothing can be done, so I’ll just buck up and do the best I can. When I found myself becoming irritated yesterday, I just stopped what I was doing, sat back and thought about the vacation I just came back from. That all put me back in the right frame of mind.

Well, no sense in putting off the day. I have tons of work and not nearly enough time.

Hugs and smooches to all.

67

Happy, Happy, GT!

I just got a new winter hat. I realized that the hat I’ve been wearing (a red stocking cap) is one I got given by mistake at Christmas when I was 6.

I’m 46 now.

Way past time. :slight_smile:

Still home, still sick, still bored.

68

Happy Birthday GT!!!

My transition to adulthood started with a gap year in Germany, as a Rotary exchange student - so I basically spent a year not turning up to school, drinking large quantities of beer and having sexual relations with a number of attractive young German men. Subsequent years at university (aka college/law school) followed a similar tack (i.e. not turning up to school, drinking large quantities of beer and having sexual relations with a number of attractive young [insert nationality here] men) although I did still manage to graduate (just). I probably didn’t really feel like a grown-up until I left Australia aged 24 and moved to the Middle East. Then again, for feeling like a grown-up, nothing compares to being handed your very own baby and then being allowed to take it home!

All that aside, I really wish my husband would hurry the f*ck up and become an adult - I am getting kind of tired of being the only grown-up in this family sometimes! It really takes a grown-up to turn off the TV at 8:30pm and go to bed of her own free will, as compared with a man who sits up until 1am watching horror movies and then expects someone else to wake him up (repeatedly) in time for work in the morning!

69

Mindy, my husband has a hat like this. Don’t you want one like that??

70

The full quote is “Managing programmers is like herding cats.” I believe this appears in several anthologies of “Murphy’s Law and Corollaries…”

Meow! :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

(Also (pet peeve) IT != R&D.)

On review – Hi Dotty!!

71

Happy Burfday GT!!!

72

Whoa! Thanks everyone for all the colorful greetings (and cake! I got cake, too!).

You didn’t read every single word, SO? I’m crushed. I thought you cared. :frowning: etc.

:smiley:

I think I like the spiral the best, taxi (I know, that doesn’t really help).

I think a whole lot of people would do better with a break between high school and college. Can’t even begin to tell you how many students I had in introductory German classes who were only there because their parents expected them to be there. Some of my greatest problem students were just not ready for college. There probably ought to be a reality-based test that decides whether you spend a year doing something else or head straight to college. Of course, there would need to be something constructive for you to do during the gap year.

Woke up too early, but tried to sleep until almost 8, I think. Then I went to find myself some breakfast (grapefruit, scrambled eggs, a pastry from Panera (really wanted a good croissant, but I would have had to get in the car for that), cafe con leche. Yum.

But, still sleepy. Maybe I’ll take a nap.

GT

73

They’re the same size as top-load machines. (Or were you thinking of laundromat-sized machines?)

Actually, our first front-loader was smaller than a normal top-loader.

In our experience, they’re so much better than top-loads. Yes, a full cycle with pre-wash, extra rinse, sanitizing and whatnot can take close to two hours, but we normally just use the “quick wash” which only runs 40 minutes. You’ll find that you save time on the drying - the front-loaders spin so much faster that clothes come out damp-dry, rather than wet.

Just for giggles, if you get a front-load, pop some “clean” clothes in for a quick cycle without adding any detergent. Watch the suds form, showing how bad your previous washer was at actually getting dirt and soap out of your clothes. When we got our first front-load machine, we were so horrified at this that we re-washed everything.

Obligatory link to the EDS Cat Herding ad.

74

I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned it - another defining moment of adulthood is buying major appliances.

75

clears throat
Feliiiiz, feliz en tu día,
Jardinera, que Dios te bendiga,
que seas feliz en tu día,
¡y que cuuuuumplas muuuuchos maaaaaaas!

Pointing out to a translation teacher the instances where her English sucks isn’t a Good Idea, is it? Specially given that she appears to be a bit overwrought at the time…

76

I belonged to a watershed group once that actually planned a planning meeting to plan a planning meeting. After that ran through my brain a few times, I resigned from that group.

77

When it comes to knit hats, I want one that’s ultra-geeky.

Can I commission one of you MMP knitters?

78

Or having a workman (or inspector like for gas lines) say “Hey mister ---- you got you a problem here” and really giving a darn about it. When our sewer line collapsed I found that out for sure. Everyone knows what flows downhill – a plumber can find a way for 120 feet of that downhill to cost $15,000.

79

Gross coffee truck pizza sub for lunch because I forgot to bring one. Bleh. They use canned mushrooms. Canned mushrooms are the devil’s fungus. Inexplicably, there’s also a big slice of ham on it.

Taxi - I don’t think I could wear that hat. I’d have an overpowering urge to speak with a thick Minnesota accent and go chasing after Steve Buschemi.

Mahna[sup]2[/sup] - Actually, I don’t mind Red Bull or Red Rain. It’s not for everyone but I don’t mind the taste. Monster, on the other hand, tastes like they tried to copy Red Bull’s flavour but accidentally spilled embalming fluid and turpentine into it, but figured nobody would know the difference. Also, good description of cursing in French – but doesn’t that sort of describe the language in general? Or is that German? :smiley:

80

From where I stand in BA-land, all propellerheads tend to look the same to me. :slight_smile:

kopek, don’t forget the part that comes before the heartburn-inducing quote. You know, the one where you’re desperately hunting through the phone book for a plumber at 10pm while trying not to freak out about the 5" of raw sewage pooled around the drain in the basement. It was the first time I years that I had to fight the urge to curl up into a ball and cry for my mommy.