Thunder of Wade

I did the bulk of my Christmas shopping online, but there were a few things I wanted to get that I went to the stores for. Armed with a list, I braved the shopping plaza – and I shopped. It occurred to me, as I battled the crowds and lines, WWKD?

What Would Ke$ha Do?

Well, if her songs are any indication, she would steel a bottle of wine, drink most and spill the rest in the toy aisle, and would grope anyone and everyone – including the clerk – in the checkout. And then rip the pages out of a magazine and throw up in a shopping cart.

As fun as that sounds, I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I stuck to my list and escaped with only light emotional scarring. I think I’m pretty much done unless I’m out and something catches my eye.

I’m at work today – feeling sick and deeply tired. I’d rather be at home playing video games with my cat. (he cheats) But, there’s too much to be done and big projects that need my attention. I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of folks on the biggest project, but I’ve enough to keep me busy in the meantime.

I’m also going through Halls like they are going out of style to try and keep the cough at bay. I suspect that the entire world now tastes of strawberry menthol. And, yes, it’s as bad as you would expect.

Finally, the steam heat is still out on one part of campus. This is affecting the pool area – the hallway and locker room are like a sauna and the pool deck is chilly. And the pool is bitterly cold. Not as cold as a frozen over lake, but pretty cold when you’ve got a bunch of laps to do. I think it makes me faster, but it also wears me out. I’m not letting my cold (or the cold)  get in the way of my swimming, but I think I’m going to have to set myself on fire at some point to finally feel warm.  And winter is still just getting started.

Thanksgiving last week included a trip to a historic mill where they current owners decorate the mill and area around it. They had a miniature Christmas village set up with animations and lights. A few workers were moving among the small buildings and I thought they should have been dressed as Godzilla.

They also had a Santa Claus museum set up – and I gotta tell you, it creeped me out. The displays were in bad shape for the most part and the animated Santas were disturbing. Worst was a rubber Santa mask – being worn by another Santa. Serial killer much?

The main attraction was the outdoor light show. The crowd was noisy, the flashbulbs from selfies blinding, and strollers wielded as bulky weapons.

But, then the show started with a collective gasp and everyone was still as the lights and music began. There was another gasp as the show ended and the 3.7 million lights came on.

It only lasted a moment and then it was back to “humans in a crowd” aka “jerks”, but for that moment…

In other news…I’ve been doing a lot of folding this past week on a number of origami projects. One of these involves some very tiny modules and a very precise count. And one was missing. I may have miscounted – or a chops-licking Thunder(cat) may have been involved.

Finally… I’m on day three of a headache. It’s not a migraine, but it’s annoying enough to notice pretty much all the time. I’ve taken some Advil which banishes it for a while, but I think I’m just tired and need a break. I did a lot driving for Thanksgiving and didn’t get a lot of rest.

So, last Saturday was a trip to IKEA, but before we could get there, we had to pay some tolls. It cost $7.75 to get across the various toll roads from here to IKEA – and $5.25 was apparently just to get in the state. Really, Pennsylvania? Is that how you want to roll? Also, your roads are not that great. Really was expecting a car wash and maybe a hot chocolate chip cookie for all that, but we got nothing.

IKEA, though, was worth the trip. Really fun and interesting store with a neat design and cool vibe. And some of the happiest food service workers I’ve ever seen in the cafeteria – where, of course, I got some Swedish meatballs for lunch. They were excellent, but they also “repeated” on me later in the day. Best part? I managed to resist the impulse buys and got out of there having spent only $30.00 Which is kind of amazing.

Sunday was a birthday party and the birthday girl got an easy bake oven. Which is really not well named – there were 5 adults working on that with her (including me) and we still struggled. The small portions of the finished product were delicious – but amazingly messy. I helped with the wrap up of the project and narrowly avoided several chocolate disasters.

Her little brother is a minecraft fanatic and since I’m the only one around that speaks minecraft fluently, he drew some pictures for me. The coolest ones I scanned and uploaded – all of them are now on my fridge. Pretty impressive – especially since he’s only in kindergarten.

This week has been more swimming in a very crowded pool. On Tuesday, I got to the pool and found only one lane that only had one person in it – the rest were full. I tried to get the guy’s attention – he was doing the backstroke – but he wouldn’t acknowledge me. It finally looked like he saw me and moved over to one side so I got in.

Mistake. He hadn’t seen me, refused to see me, and was all over the lane. I dodged him for three laps – then got out, disgusted. By that point, another lane on the other side of the pool opened up so I went there. After swimming a bit, the lifeguard asked me to move back since they were short on people. I did and luckily got a lane next to Captain Un-Observant. I always pay attention – especially so when the pool is busy – and I always make it a point to share. It wasn’t a great swim, but I got the laps done and that’s all that matters.

Tonight has been a pretty productive evening. Took out the trash, cleaned out the recycle bin and litter box, worked on a christmas project, replaced the liscense plates on my car, had some dinner, and… well… updated my blog. Got a little more to do around the house, then an early bedtime for me.

Wait… where’s my cat?

THUNDER(cat), HOOOOOOO!

It always works…  🙂

I’ve discovered, much to my surprise, that I really like buffalo chicken. I’ve never been one for much sauce, but I tried this recently and found I really liked it.

I was eating out a restaurant that had this on the menu – and one of my dinner companions had asked for extra lemons for their tea.

Hmmm… buffalo chicken is good. And lemon chicken is also good.

Seizing the moment – and the lemon – I added to the sandwich.

And it was AWESOME!

I don’t know if I just invented something new, but you need to stop whatever you are doing and go get a buffalo chicken sandwich and add some lemon to it.
In other news…

Recently, the phrase came up: “like trying to herd cats”. Which, from experience of trying to herd one cat, is difficult.

Unless you use a laser pointer. Thunder(cat) would follow a laser dot off the edge of a cliff or out an airlock into deep space. It is his purpose in life, his holy grail, his deep, universal, meaning.

While it would still be chaotic due to the nature of cats, I think you could effectively “herd” them with a laser dot.

And I think this translates to humans as well, though instead of lasers one needs to find something that encourages progress in direction towards a goal they want – that just so happens to be your goal as well.

Instead of a push, it’s a pull. The carrot, not the stick.

This is not as earth shattering as the buffalo lemon chicken…

(why are you still here? Go try it now!)

…since this is essentially the more evil parts of marketing – but it’s an interesting parallel.  And a solution to the Herding Cats problem.

One thing I forgot to mention from my most recent blood donation: Iron. One of the tests they do is to check to make sure you have enough iron in your blood – this is done with a finger stick and a machine. The tech said that if my iron wasn’t high enough for a double red, I might still be able to do a single donation. We needn’t have worried – my level was 18.6 And the machine only reads up to 19 – beyond that, it just errors out.

Apparently, I’m Iron Man. Who knew? Guys usually have higher levels than women do and I’ve been inadvertently eating more iron rich foods (dark green veggies, black beans, and chick peas). I was also over due to donate blood, so all that together means I nearly broke the machine.

Dang it. I totally should have checked to see if magnets would stick to me. That would have been really handy.

In swimming news…

I already posted this to facebook, but it’s not official until I blog about it too. I hit 200 miles in the pool for the year today. Well, I guess the official bit was when I updated my log – but the blog is important too.

I wasn’t especially fast today and I only did a few flip turns and 1/2 lap of butterfly. And it’s not exactly olympic caliber – but still, not bad for a 40 year old. Or rather, a 40 11/12 year old. 🙂

Back to the pool again tommorrow, but no new goals for the year. Just going to keep going and see how I do.

So, I leave you this evening with a musical selection from Dessa, “Skeleton Key“.  Enjoy.

On Friday, I hit 199 miles in the pool for the year. Granted, that’s not much for a professional swimmer – but I feel pretty good about it. This week, I’ll hit my goal of 200… and then keep going. I’ll reset the counter in January, but for now I’m still going strong.

I was off work today and went to donate blood. I was signed up for a double red and when I got there I realized that the person in the donor area ahead of me was my former boss. We chatted for a bit, then he finished his donation and I was up. I didn’t have any trouble, but at the end the technician said the saline and plasma wasn’t going in properly. Either he had mis-positioned the needle when he started – or I had been squeezing too hard.

Clearly, I was just too damn powerful for the machine. Yes! As a result, I didn’t get back all the fluids I would normally have gotten and was told to triple up on my intake today.

I was fine – but a guy at another station ran into trouble. He passed out as he was finishing up his donation. They were a few moments waking him back up, but he was fine. A little intense, but nothing to scare me off for next time. And I think that next time will put me at 9 gallons. What do you know? Milestones left and right.

Finally, I stopped off to see the Ladies from New York. They were doing well, but unable to watch DVD’s on their TV. Instead of the usual re-wiring or TV setup I usually do – this “repair” just involved showing them the Source button on the remote. (they had been trying to get to this from the menu).

I think they felt a little silly about this, but I didn’t mind – it was nice to see them again. And they gave me some orange soda and a bottle of water for the road to help me with my fluids.

So, that was my weekend. Pretty quiet – and I need it too. Short week at work coming up, but a busy one. Going to hit the sack early – provided I don’t get too hung up in smacking monsters in Diablo.

Link

A much simpler costume than I usually go for – but I needed a break.  I had a lot of fun startling people on campus – with two exceptions.

A woman in the Alumni office said she didn’t celebrate Halloween because it was Satan’s Birthday – or perhaps just Satan’s Day.  She wished me a “blessed day”, though.

And she continued to hang around while I hung out with the folks that did enjoy the day – even going so far as to offer to take a picture  But, really, Satan’s Day?  People actually believe that?

I also tried to crash a meeting with the Board of Trustees.  I was actually invited, but I had the day off.  It might have been amusing, but would also have been disruptive.  I got turned away and it was just as well.

Otherwise, the day was good.  I covered way more ground than in previous years and was exhausted by the time I was done.

Oh, and nobody could figure out who I was.  🙂  At all.  When I told them I was from an EAP story, one woman said I should have a raven on my shoulder.  Except I thought she said “raisin”.  Which made no sense, but was pretty funny.

So, two awesome dreams last night.

1. I was taking a final for a social studies test. Breezed through the multiple choice, realized that I hadn’t read the chapter that I needed for the essay – but it was open book so I figured I would just read it fast and go from there. Then I saw that the chapter in the book was written by The Bloggess herself – Jenny Lawson. Figuring I would want to really enjoy the chapter, I borrowed George’s truck (Thanks, George!) and went to Arby’s.

In the middle of the final.

I had just parked the truck and cracked open the chapter when a woman said I needed to move my truck since it was blocking the handicapped space. It really wasn’t – and she was walking around pretty good so I don’t think she really needed it – but I moved the truck anyway. As I did, I saw a house nearby – and realized that it matched a photo from Jenny’s book. I was right near The Bloggess’s house! I thought about stopping by and saying “hi”, but realized – even in the dream – that it would just freak her out since she’s got some self-admitted social anxiety issues. And I didn’t have any taxidermy animals with me to give her.

Next, I dreamed I was at work and came up with a solution to our website editing problem. I came up with a plan where we (And by “we”, I mean pretty much everyone other than me)  would write a module that would intercept database calls, provide the users with a new editing interface, and save the content to update the database overnight. It would be a hassle for the users, but it would speed up editing. I’m not sure exactly when I came up with this awesome and totally impractical idea, so I’m just going to see if I can get 8 hours of comp time.

You’re welcome, University of Akron. Even when I’m asleep, I’m still saving the day.

I had a long day at work yesterday. It was the regular 8 hours, but it felt much longer – even for a Monday. I hit the pool and struggled through my slow laps, then home and video games for a bit – then out to dinner. I was listless through the meal and even the hot sauce couldn’t get me moving.

I wanted to watch the first episode of season 2 of American Horror Story Asylum, but before I did that I needed to lay down for a bit.

And I almost napped.

Which would surprise my Mom. Apparently, I gave up on naps at a much younger age than she would have liked. She had to settle for “books naps” were I would sit quietly in my room and read while she did, ummmm, whatever it was that she did. How should I know? I was in my room.

Anyway, I don’t sleep during the day unless I’m really sick. There’s usually a migraine or some hearty vomiting involved – or both – but this time I was just really tired.

I didn’t sleep, but just the quiet got me settled down and I felt better. AHSA was good but not as scary as the first season’s first episode. No nightmares last night, just a kitty that purred like a jet engine revving up. Seriously, Thunder(cat), could you take a down a notch? You’re going to hurt yourself.

And back to work today. Not sure what happened yesterday – can a person have mono for a day?

It was weird.

I’m part of a committee at work that has a member at one of our branch campuses. The meetings are usually held on the main campus, but today we were heading to the branch campus by bus. The note I got was that the bus would be “at the circle”. Except, there are a lot of circles on campus where a bus might be. I found out later that there was another email with clarification that I missed – and I picked the wrong circle. Well, actually wrong circles – I went back and forth between three nearby ones. 15 minutes after we were supposed to leave I had pretty much given up and was about to head back to work when my cell phone rang. It was the crew wondering where I was. Turns out the bus was at pretty much the opposite end of the campus. Embarrassed that I had made everyone late, I took off across campus on foot at a dead run and in a few moments I was on the bus and off we went. Given where I was and how quickly I made it to the bus, I think I impressed a few folks – but I was still pretty embarrassed. The bus ride was uneventful and the meeting went okay – and I learned a lesson about following up for more info if things aren’t clear.

Yesterday, I swam my usual mile in the pool and afterwards I went to the locker room – and totally blanked on my combination.

Now, I’ve used this lock for years and I’ve run the combination hundreds of times. But, I was blank. I guessed a few times before the “I’m wearing a speedo and everything else is in this secured locker” set in.

I took a deep breath and tried again and it mostly came back to me. Close enough that the lock opened. Now that the panic was gone, the combination manta came back in my head and I was fine. But for a moment there… well… it would have been bad.

Finally, I’ve noticed a behavior about my cat – he likes to headbutt me. Sometimes he’ll do it when I lean into him and sometimes he’ll go out of his way to give me a little headbutt. It seemed like a nice thing on his part, but I didn’t really understand it.

So, I asked Mr. Google and found an article where a few veterinarians explained that it’s a form of pheromone marking. Ummm.. yea? But instead of just marking ownership or territory, it’s also about marking safety and trust. He’s sort of saying, in his own way, that this particular biped is safe and can be trusted.

Which is pretty sweet. Weird, maybe, but sweet.