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I have a sort of love/hate relationship with my work boots. I think they’re comfortable and they say, “This is a guy that knows which end of a hammer to pick up,” – which I do.

However, they are fairly difficult to take off and put on – without almost totally undoing the laces. Which I didn’t do last night. And as I grabbed the heal to give them a good yank – the heal came unglued from the rest of the sole.

I managed to get the boot off – and I think I can re-glue the boot with some shoe-goo. Still, I’m bootless for the moment and had to wear shoes that are not suited for this kind of weather. Annoying.

Well, I guess I could keep typing about other non-important things, but I’ve got a meeting to go to…so, back to work…

Today, for lunch, I had Campbell’s Chunky soup, with sirloin burger and country vegetables – and brown rice. Anyone looking though my kitchen cabinets will find many more cans of this same soup – it’s something of a staple for me. Today, however, I was surprised by what I discovered.

In the middle of a bite, I bit down on something that I couldn’t immediately identify. Which is odd all by itself since I’m deeply familier with this soup and rice combo. It “felt” like I was biting into a piece of wood.

I spit it out and it sure looked like a small piece of wood on closer examination. It had grains and the texture and hardness were along the lines of wood – though there was a small hook-like protrusion on one side. Since I can’t imagine how wood would enter into the soup making process (except maybe a wooden crate with vegetables in it – though I would hope they have a filter for that sort of thing) – I studied it a little more carefully and decided it must have been the solid core of a carrot. It was the only vegetable that might have produced this unique shape – though the hardness was unusual.

I check the rest of the soup and discovered no other weird items. Still, it was damn odd and I’m going to see if I can get a picture.

That’s it for this update – though I will say that holiday shopping today wasn’t as bad as I feared. With the exception of Best Buy – it was worse than I expected.

Later…

The call to the landlord was successful – by the time I got home, the heat was back on and my apartment was toasty. Well, not toasty since I don’t keep it that warm in there, but still nice.

Christmas shopping is proceeding on pace – I’ve got my list of people to buy for and I think I’ll be able to knock it out this afternoon with a trip to a couple of stores.

Had a moment of swearing on the drive to work this week – a small section of road closed for no apparent reason. It’s not the first time this has happened on this stretch of road – nor is it the first time that I’ve gotten in the turning lane and then been trapped by other traffic when I didn’t seen the poorly positioned signs. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Point A to Point B kinda guy – and I had to loop around past Point E to get to work. Annoying.

Let’s see…what else is going on? Well, we met the new VP on Friday – seems pretty cool. From his resume, he’s got a “rep” of sorts about downsizing companies – but from the brief talking to him, it sounds like he’s got some good plans and that he’s got the same kind of concerns for our processes that we have. So, should be cool.

I guess it’s time to start my deep breathing and non-stress shopping mantras. I’m…well, let’s just say I’m not good with crowds. I had joked about wearing a protective cup and carrying a sword, but I think instead I’m just going to play it cool. As the Jets would say:

“Just play it cool, boy. Real cool”

And on the disturbing note of me quoting West Side Story – I’m outta here…

I usually keep my apartment a little cool in the winter – but it was downright cold yesterday when I got home from work. I turned up the heat and went about my business – but eventually noticed that it was still pretty cold. I checked the vents – no heat, no air movement. Not good.

I had company over last evening and we checked the furnace. If the pilot light was where we thought it was – it was out. All of our attempts to get the furnace going met with failure – but fortuantly I live in an apartment and it’s not always my problem. I bundled up for the night and just made a call to the landlord – and left a message.

Fingers crossed that they can get over there today and get things resolved. I’ve got a back-up plan (I always have a backup plan) – but it’s still troublesome.

So, I’m at work and at least it’s warm here – better…

wait…

Yes, it’s for real. One of my co-workers (and I use the term “work” loosely) – was just now snoring in his cubicle. Loud enough that I could hear it over my headphones.

His phone started ringing as I approached his cubicle and that woke him up.

That’s just…you know…wrong.

And now it’s time to get back to work for me…

So, I’m driving on route 8 south recently and noticed that traffic was slowing down. I attributed this to late rush hour traffic, but then I heard on the radio that there was an accident. On route 8 south. Just before the Perkins exit. I glanced up to see the sign above me: Perkins exit, 1/2 mile.

Great.

But, traffic never came a complete stop for more than a minute or two at a time. It mostly just moved slowly until I got right up to the exit. Police stopped all the traffic for a moment to get the ambulances out of the way, then they headed out too. Suddenly, the way was clear and we all surged forward with the post traffic issue euphoria. Like emerging from a dark and evil forest into a sunlit meadow – or maybe I’ve read too many books with evil forests in them.

Last night, I stopped for groceries. Which is always an adventure in itself. I’m pretty good at moving past the clueless, but a poorly placed shopping cart changes things. I got stopped a couple of times by these people, but was mostly unscathed until it got time to check out.

The store I went to is poorly designed in that there is little approach room to the checkout area. So, instead of forming proper lines, everyone just gets kind of bottlenecked. I saw an opening, looped around the doughnut display and was about to queue up when an elderly woman blocked my way. She asked me “Are you going out?”

Now, I think pretty quickly so this is a slowed down version of what when through my head:

1. What?
2. What is she talking about?
3. “Out?” Does she mean outside?
4. Does she think I’m going to steal my groceries?
5. Maybe she’s angling for help getting her groceries to her car.
6. Then why did she ask me before I was done checking out?
7. Maybe she’s referring to “out” as a direction to move my cart.
8. But “out” which way? Out toward the frozen food? Out toward the check out?
9. Wait, maybe she’s trying to invent some grocery store slang and “out” becomes the shortened form of “check out”.
10. Hmmm…well, duh. Of course I’m going to check out. She can’t be that daft.
11. I’ve already spent too much time figuring this out – time to use misdirection and then cut and run.

So, I pointed in a direction past her and said “I’m going that way”. Then I re-angled my cart, went on past her and found a line that looked longer, but saw that people only had a few items each.

I lost track of her at this point, but it was a strange moment – and that’s what this blog is all about.

Back to work…

I had to stop for gas last night after work – and I passed up a couple of stations on the way so that I could go to the one I usually go to. Which was cool since the “regular” station had cheaper gas than the others in the area. Of course, everyone else knew that and it was chaos to get in there and get to the pumps. I got in line and I’m sitting there waiting. I don’t really want to move since there are so many cars going a lot of differnt directions and I didn’t want to add to the confusion. Since the woman in front of me has gone inside to pay for her gas – and apparently rewallpaper the building since it took her so long, I decided to pull around her to the only open spot in the place. Though, this will entail me going in reverse which I don’t like doing.

I finally get into place, get out of my car and go to fill up my tank…

…And I realize that the gas tank is on the other side of my car. Embarassed, annoyed, cranky and irate at myself – I get back in my car and leave the station. I go down the road to a nearly empty station (with slightly higher prices) and get $15.00 worth of slightly more expensive gas.

Now, I’ve owned my car for several years now and I don’t think I’ve even done that before. I’m going to blame it on the frustruation of the crowd, but it could just be that I’m slightly stupid.

And on that note…back to work…

This past weekend was “project weekend” – a mystical time where I actually try to get a bunch of stuff done instead of just sitting on my ass playing video games that whole time. To be fair – I did plan some games, but I also got a lot done.

DVDs – I went through my collection, found the ones I didn’t want anymore and traded them for a couple new ones and a CD.

Video games – same deal here, except that I had so much in trade that I had to get a “trade slip” for a future visit. Which is cool.

Got some christmas shopping done – and then decided to really get to work. Started with rearranging my movies and games – since they now fit better on the shelves. Then I headed to the door.

The weather stripping around my front door has been coming loose for a while now and though I could have called the landlord on this one, I figured that I could handle it myself. I mean, how hard could it be? (yes, I am an idiot)

I bought the new stuff at home depot – then did some rough measuring and tore out the old loose stuff. The new stripping looked like it could only go in one way so I got it in place and then tried to close the door.

Note the use of the word “tried”. Yeah, it didn’t really go well. I found a couple of problem area and found a nail that was coming in at a bad angle. A bit more swearing and I finally got the door to reluctantly close.

Next up – the clothes dryer. I wanted to get one of those airflow re-directs that you put in the hose to send warm air into the apartment, instead of outside. It’s a good idea in theory and didn’t seem to look too difficult in install. (see note above about me being an idiot).

My first attempt was using the exisiting vent tubing. The inherent problem is that the tubing is a spiral – and the re-direct box opening is round. So, the cuts were a problem, the fasteners were a problem (and it didn’t help that one was broken out of the box), and it was dark and dusty behind the dryer.

20 minutes after it was all in place – and in the middle of drying cycle – I heard a crash. Sure enough, it was in pieces on the floor. Not broken, just fallen loose. I swore, put it back together and started it back up. Later – another crash.

So, back to home depot for more tubing, since I had convinced myself that was a the problem (still an idiot). The foil tubing seemed more flimsy, but also more fire resistant and the new metal ring clamps seemed the way to go. This meant that I also needed to get on the floor behind the dryer to fasten the tube to the dryer itself – and since I didn’t have/couldn’t find a flashlight – I did this by candlelight. Don’t worry – I vaccumed most of the dust up first. Tightened everything up and it looked great.

Then – another crash. Swearing. I tried again and tightened up every clamp within an inch of total molecular fusion. Started it up – threatened the dryer, the vent system, the entire basement and it’s contents.

And it’s still in place – or at least it was when I left the apartment this morning.

So that – along with shopping and wrapping some christmas presents – was my weekend.

Oh, on a final note. I’ve gotten into the pseudo-habit of pulling an Emeral style sauce pan spin when I’m getting ready to cook (i.e. heat up something from a can). This weekend, however, the pan flew out of my grip, sailed through the air, and hit the gound with a crash. It didn’t have a lid, so the huge dent in the side doesn’t seem to matter – except as a warning to all my other kitchen implements.

I barely made it out of the weekend alive. Now I’m safely back to work and it’s time to get busy…

Which sounds a lot more interesting than just saying that I forgot my watch. Which I never do. I’d be more likely to forget to put on pants than to forget my…. wait, okay, I am wearing pants this morning. I had to check.

Had trouble getting up this morning – and then I had to scrape off my car. I hate that. It’s my least favorite part of winter. I’d rather drive in a blizzard. Well, not in NE Ohio – most of the people on the road with me seem amazed by this strange “snow” thing. They have to drive really slowly to observe it. Madness.

That’s about it for now, time to get back to work…

I’m back from an extended Thanksgiving weekend (well, I was back to work yesterday, but I was really cranky and didn’t feel like blogging), and started out this morning with a really weird set of dreams that I kept dipping in and out of. They mostly revolved around getting a team of scientists to work together in a lab that was full to about waist level with a very runny clay. It was sort of a team build exercise and sort of a computer engineering problem.

I took a quick shower and apparently didn’t dry my hair enough – the hat I wore to work really messed up my hair. Which I didn’t think was possible considering how short I keep it cut.

Actually, I’m only guessing that it’s messed up. I can feel that a section in the middle front is sticking up – and the rest is fine. Oh well. I’m in a cube farm and with no meetings I might not actually see anyone else today, except when I go to lunch and I’ll be wearing my hat again.

I beat Spawn: Armageddon last night – on easy mode. The normal mode? Quite a bit more challenging – though ultimatly nothing to write home about.

And I guess that’s about it – time to get back to work…

1. …a man wearing a black cowboy hat, a black leather duster, and grey-ish boots make from (or made to look like) the skin of a cold-blooded animal. Maybe a gator.

2. …a guy wearing gray hooded sweatshirt that said “Smartass University”

3. …a girl with purple streaks in her hair wearing a leopard spotted coat. The leopard spots were a normal color.

There’s never a dull moment as long as you pay attention.

Back to work…