Gremlins in the computer

When I got to work this morning, my computer had rebooted. When I logged in, my mouse didn't work. This is normal - I have to unplug my mouse after I log in and then plug it back in before it works. I moved one of my monitors and fiddled with the plug until it worked. I then moved the monitor back and prepared to get to work.

Except the monitor I moved was completely black. I fiddled with the plug and finally realized I'd hit the power button while moving it. I turned it in and opened my email.

My password didn't work. I tried a few times before realizing that my email domain was wrong. I fixed it and logged in.

Before doing too much, I decided to open a ticket with the help desk for my mouse problem. I opened the ticket and then locked my screen to go get some water.

When I got back, my password didn't work. I tried it a few times, checked to make sure caps lock wasn't on, and tried again. It still didn't work.

I went over to talk to someone in IT, who pointed out that my keyboard had probably changed from multi-lingual to another language. I did the control- shift thing that switches keyboard mapping schemes and logged in.

I had an email from IT about my mouse problem suggesting that I plug the mouse into the laptop instead of the docking station. I decided to do it immediately, so I unplugged the mouse.

The mouse cord was tangled with the other computer cords, but I managed to get it untangled. I sat down again, plugged the mouse in, and realized my computer was dead.

After more investigation, I realized that the power cord for my laptop docking station had come unplugged while I was untangling the mouse cord.  I plugged it back in and rebooted the computer.

My mouse didn't work. I unplugged it and plugged it in again.

I opened my email. My password didn't work because the domain had switched again. I fixed that and logged int.

An hour after I got to work, I was ready to actually work. Naturally, I had to go to a meeting.

Job news

I started a new job 7 business days ago. It's a short term job, but it's interesting and it gets me out of the house.

I'm taking the bus there, which is nice unless I have somewhere to be, since those are inevitably the days when the bus just doesn't show up. On the bright side I can read on the bus, even while clinging to a pole. 

There is a gym at work which I have not joined. Part of me wants to, but I have to figure out the logistics of getting gym stuff there on a crowded bus. I am still working out at home, and I now am the proud owner of a chin up bar.

I was planning to work on chin-ups this summer. My motivation is that chin ups were part of the warrior workout at boxing, and i was going to start trying them this fall. All I had to do was walk four houses down the street to the park to try them.

I made it there zero times. 

And then on Friday, I went to boxing and discovered that chin-ups are now part of the circuit, not an optional extra.

September me wishes July me had been more motivated.

The Recipe Book & Deadlines

I'm the oldest grandchild on my mom's side. I have a cousin who's a couple months younger, and then a sister and cousin who are two years younger. When I was in university, my mom wrote down a bunch of family recipes and gave all of us a recipe book.

As time went on, the computer that had the original file crashed and the file was lost. As others grew up, the old recipe books were photocopied and shared.

Two or three years ago, I thought, "Hey, we should make this an ebook."

I started copying out the recipes one at a time. I was doing this at work on the days when I stayed late because it didn't make sense to come home after boxing.

After a few weeks, it occurred to me that scanners could easily scan the book, and I could use Acrobat (which was on my work computer) to translate the resulting PDF into text.

That was much, much faster.

There was still some proof-reading to do, but it was a good start.

I moved everything into InDesign (also on my work computer) and tried to figure out how to make each recipe its own link under a table of contents. (The answer, it turned out, was to make each one a separate file in the book.)

Then I discovered that I had too many recipes, because InDesign has a hard limit of 150 files. I'd have to make multiple books and then merge them in Calibre.

That was in December 2013. In January 2014, I changed to an earlier boxing class. I had no time after work to work on the book.

Last week I picked it up again. Now that I had a deadline - the work computer has to go back - it didn't take long to finish it. (Probably a couple of hours, and that was mostly because I found a formatting error that needed to be fixed in each of the 150+ files.) I made a title page on Wednesday and finalized the book.

It's finally done.

At least until someone finds a typo.

Yes, again

Last Thursday, I was laid off.

It wasn't a total shock - no one has been able to tell me what I'd be doing this year, and I knew changes were coming.

Unlike the last couple of times, I'm still expected to work u til the end of the month. I like being able to transition things, but three weeks is a little longer than I'd like.

I've got an appointment with the outplacement service next week, and I plan to get my act together job-hunting wise on Tuesday. 

But first, I need to get through winter camp.

Where I've been

This is another "wow, I haven't updated in a month" update. Let's see if I can remember what I've been up to.

The pathfinders went to a glassblowing class. We did a birthday party package, and it was interesting, but I was hoping we'd be able to do more of it ourselves. (We picked the colours and blew the gass, but didn't gather or shape it).

The resulting ornament was really heavy.

Wanda went away for a weekend and I proceeded to do exactly what I would have done if she'd been here.

I went to Montreal to go Christmas shopping. Uncharacteristically, I bought a gift. (Don't worry, I'm not done.)

There were layoffs at work. Not me, at least not yet.

The pathfinders did a craft activity at a community event.

I took three days off work but still had no time to relax.

I went to a work Christmas party. 

I slipped on some ice and hurt my wrist (not seriously). I went to boxing anyway and, for added fun, forgot my shoes. I persevered.

Speaking of boxing, they've started added an exercise between every station. Two weeks ago, it was jumping split squats. I was sore for four days.

The Best Laid Plans

I'm on vacation as of Thursday.

Last week, I was running around like crazy trying to get everything done.  However, my brain moved into vacation mode yesterday, so today I was more of the mind that what gets done, gets done, and the rest will wait.

This morning managed to be hot, humid, and overcast. We had thunderstorms last night, but that didn't get rid of the humidity - it was still really hot when I left for work.

The air conditioning in my car isn't working, so it was a hot & sticky drive in.  Work was warmer than usual, as well - it takes the heating and cooling system a while to adjust to temperature fluctuations, and no one was in on the weekend.

I took off my sweater for a few minutes until I cooled off, then started my day. 

At 9 the power went out.

A few seconds afterwards, I heard the generators start up and the emergency lighting came on.  (I'm on the 9th floor. Those generators are loud.)

When the power goes out like that, I always expect it to go on before too long, but that didn't happen. After about 5 minutes, we started opening our docked laptops so we could work.  (Our monitors were dead, but the laptops still had batteries.) My plan was to work until my battery had about 30 minutes left, then go home. I didn't really want to do that because I wanted to go to the gym, but I couldn't really justify sticking around just to go to the gym class - especially since the gym didn't have power, either.

The computers worked, but the water cooler didn't. And the guy who stocks the kitchen on Monday didn't show up - my guess is he didn't want to carry three carts of beverages/snacks up 9 flights of stairs.

The power came back on at 10:15.

At 12, I went to the gym, only to discover that the power was back, but the a/c wasn't. It was hot.  And humid.

Luckily for me, I am used to exercising in those conditions, since I box above a pool, but it still wasn't much fun.

When I left work, it was dark, but dry.

By the time I got to the Queensway, it was starting to rain.  For the next 20 minutes, we went from the first sprinkling of rain to harder rain to a full-out thundershower, and back again.

When I parked in my driveway, it had almost stopped.

What a weird day.

I'm lucky enough to be able to work from home, so when I came down with a cold on Monday, I took advantage of it. I stayed home until Wednesday, but yesterday I really needed to go on - In part so that I actually got tired enough to sleep.

I left early to avoid traffic, and then finished my day from home.

So this morning when I woke to ice falling from the sky*, I thought I'd stay home again.

Then I realized that the odds of me going grocery shopping after work were really low if I hadn't left the house yet, and if I went to work, I could go out for lunch, so I went in to work.

It took me a while to chip the ice ** off the car, but it actually was a faster drive than usual. Driving home was fast, too.

That would be the silver lining to the "snow in the middle of April" cloud.

* not freezing rain - ice pellets.

** the freezing rain was before the ice pellets

Not How I Like To Start My Mornings

Yesterday morning, I went out to the car and put my boxing bag and laptop bag in the car. (My gym bag was already at work since I didn't make it to the gym on Tuesday.)

I got in the car and, turned the key, and ... nothing happened.

I tried again. Still nothing. Basically, it was acting like the battery was very dead.

I popped the hood and examined the battery. It was still there.

I went in the house and called CAA, then I called work to tell my manager I wouldn't be in for a while. I couldn't work from home, because I'd left my laptop at work.

I called the garage to see if they could fit my car in. I consulted OC Transpo to see how to get from the garage to work.

I ate jelly beans and mentally rearranged my plans for the day.

After about twenty minutes, I got a call that CAA was five minutes away, so I went back out to the car.

It started.

CAA arrived and I told them it was going. I called my garage back and they suggested it might have been ever so slightly out of gear.

I went to work.

It has started without a hitch every time since then.

But I still bring my laptop home every day.

This is why you should make a list

There was a bake sale at work today, and I had said I'd bake for it. I made a few things that were actually baked on the weekend, but decided I'd make Rice Krispie nests (with jelly bean eggs) the night before.

So yesterday, in other words.

Now, I box on Wednesdays, which means that when I get home, I am carrying my laptop bag, my gym bag, my boxing bag, and my purse. Totally manageable.

Yesterday, though, Wanda went straight from school to work, and she'd asked me to stop at her work to pick up her school bag.

Let's see, that means I was carrying Wanda's school bag, my laptop bag, my gym bag, my boxing bag, and my purse.

Oh, and a sub, because I'd stopped at Subway.

And it was garbage day, so I had to bring in the green bin and the black box.

And a it was CSA day, so I had to make a separate trip out for the cooler.

I finally got inside. The first goal was to eat - which I did - and then I emptied my lunch dish out of my laptop bag and my gym clothes out of my gym bag and my work clothes out of my boxing bag.

Then I emptied the cooler, and finally it was time to start the nests. I picked up the cereal box to get the recipe, and discovered the box was almost empty.

I gave up and went to take a shower.

While I was in the shower, I debated the wisdom of going to the grocery store. It was late, but I'd already bought the marshmallows, and I wanted to make the nests. Besides, I had to return some laundry detergent - or try to, since I didn't have the receipt.

I decided to go.

The store accepted the detergent for return, even though it was my mistake (thanks, Metro!) and I bought the cereal I needed. By the time I got home, it was 9:30.

The nests were in the muffin tin by ten, and I added the coconut straw and jelly beans this morning.

That's when I ran out of Saran Wrap.

New Directions

I've mentioned before that I used to work for a large high tech company - one that went through years of layoffs and doesn't so much exist anymore.

That means that I know a lot of people who  have been laid off.

Some people found new jobs that were similar to their previous jobs. Others went in a different direction - starting businesses, going back to school, changing careers.

A few weeks ago, I met with one of my former colleagues who made a change.  He had been a director of support and now has moved into financial planning - investments, mortgages, budgeting, etc.

It sounds like it has been challenging but intentional, and I hope it works out well for him.

When I was laid off the first time, I considered different career options. I ended up deciding to stick with what I knew. I never would have suspected I'd end up doing what I do now - I didn't even know jobs like this existed.


I wonder what I'd do if I got laid off again tomorrow.

Confusion ahead

I've fully recovered from the concussion - I worked all day every day last week, and even went back to the gym on Thursday. I was pretty tired by the end of the day for the first part of the week, but by Friday I was back to normal.

Naturally, the only way to follow a full week is with a short week.

Tomorrow is a holiday here in Ontario. This holiday (Family Day) was added a few years ago, and I've only actually taken it as a holiday ... once, maybe? I've often ended up working it and taking the day off at another time.

This year I'm off, though. 

I was a little afraid I'd forget - in fact, on Friday I was predicting that I wouldn't notice until I'd been at work for a couple of hours - but now I'm pretty sure I'll remember. I'm considering going down to Winterlude in the morning, and I've created a to-do list that should keep me busy the rest of the day. 

There's no reason why I can't start on the to-do list today, but ... um ... I just haven't. Well, I guess laziness is a reason.

There's also no Pathfinders tomorrow due to the holiday, which means I will probably be confused about what day it is for the rest of the week.

Of course, that sometimes happens on a regular week, so it's not exactly unexpected.

I don't really feel like I need the day off - possibly because I spent last week on my couch - but I'm perfectly happy to take it anyway.

I need a nap

I got up crazy early on Monday. (3:45, to be specific). I didn't have a choice - I had a flight at 6:30.

You know what's not a good idea? Flying to the US early in the morning the Monday of the week after New Year's. There were crazy lines of people going everywhere - but mostly, I suspect, somewhere warm.

I made it through the lines, though, and after breakfast in Dulles, landed in San Francisco around noon.

(Of course, noon in San Francisco is 3 here, so it had already been a long day.)

I took a car to San Jose, checked into the hotel, and went in to the office.

I was there for 3 hours, and by the time I left, I was starving.  My colleagues and I went and got dinner, and then I went back to the hotel and collapsed.

(After checking Twitter and Facebook, of course. I wasn't living in the dark ages.)

At 4 a.m., I woke up. I really would have liked to have slept more, but my brain decided to do it's overactive puppy imitation. (You know what we should do? We should get up! It's morning, you know! Let's get up and see if the internet is still there! Let's get up!)

I got up.

I'd ordered room service (which was insanely expensive, but work was paying for it), and it showed up promptly at 6:30. I have to say, my bagel and cream cheese was extremely well presented - the bagel was wrapped in a napkin, the cream cheese was on the plate, there was butter and jam, and the glass of orange juice was sitting in a container of ice - but it wasn't worth the $20+ it cost. Except that it was, because I needed breakfast.

Look, it's sunlight

We went in to work at 7:30, and left again at 7:30.  It looked beautiful out, but all-day meetings don't leave much time for enjoying the weather.

When we finally got back to the hotel, one of my colleagues and I went for a walk. We explored the area around the hotel, and eventually ended up walking by the outdoor skating rink beside the hotel. The ice was ... not good, but there were tons of people for a Tuesday night, and they all seemed to be having fun.

The skating rink

 Wednesday was a little shorter - the meeting started at 9:15 and ended not long after 4, so my colleague and I were able to walk around a little in daylight. We made it to the university (where we'd been the night before) and then stumbled across city hall.

A bunch of us then went out for dinner, then it was time to go back to my room to pack.

Thursday morning, I left for the airport at 3:30. After an extremely disorganized check-in process (which wasn't helped by it being not long after 4), I took my 5.5 hour long flight to Philadelphia, then a shorter 1.5 hour long flight to Ottawa. When we started descending, I looked out the window and thought "Hmm, wonder what river that is".  Then I turned my head to the left and noticed it ended in a giant lake, and thus had to be the St. Lawrence.

After another long day (on which I saw the sun both rise and set from a plane), I made it home by a little after 6.

Remind me not to do that again for a while.

More Random Thoughts

Remember how I resolved to do some exercises every day in August? And then I went to Europe?

I didn't make it through the month.  Once I got on the ship, I kept forgetting, and eventually I just gave up.

* * * 

A conversation with my niece:
B: I want to take tae kwon do.
Me: That sounds like fun.
B: Yeah. Then I can hit and kick, and you can just hit.

* * * 

I usually go to the gym at lunch, but I didn't go today because they were giving away free frozen yogurt there was an employee meeting.

When my instructor asked yesterday whether I'd be there today, I said, "I don't know, there's a rumour we're getting ice cream tomorrow."

She said, "I'm competing with ice cream?"

Yes. And losing.

* * * 
Wanda often buys the Glee soundtracks, and we keep them in the car. Right now, we're listening to Glee #9583023, which contains the most randomly-shoehorned song in the show's history, "Last Friday Night".

I'm not sure whether there's a doll on the BBQ, an Australian BBQ on the BBQ, or whether they killed someone named Barbie.

Any way you look at it, it's weird.

But catchy.

Random Thoughts

I believe I forgot to mention in my last post how ... historic Europe is. Our tour guides in Denmark and Norway both mentioned how Denmark lost Norway because they sided with Napolean. That was 200 years ago. In North America, we barely remember World War II (which, BTW, we also heard about in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway).

* * * 
I wasn't feeling well yesterday - not totally sick, but not totally well, either. I didn't go to the gym at lunch (we had a wellness fair, so my class was cancelled), and I debated whether I should go to boxing.  (I'm lucky we had the wellness fair, because they were giving away water bottles and I had forgotten mine.)

I went to boxing, albeit with the thought that I might leave early.  

It wasn't bad - until I hit myself in the face with the skipping rope. (I'm such a graceful skipper.) I almost cried.

(I didn't. There's no crying in boxing.)

After the class, I felt better, and today I'm fine.

* * * 

My garden is producing tomatoes, and yesterday I got 3 containers of tomatoes in my CSA box. Good thing I like tomatoes.

* * * 

Blogger is doing this thing where it turns on bolding when I hit enter. It's very annoying.


* * * 

My neighbour works at the same place as me. She worked from home today, and e-mailed me at lunch to ask me to pick up a parcel someone had sent to her.

It was a beautiful basket of flowers. All afternoon people were stopping by and asking what the occasion was. I, of course, did not know.

I managed to resist the temptation to read the card. (When I dropped off the flowers, her daughter read the card, so I know who they're from now. As always, the reality was less interesting than the speculation.)

* * * 
    
I need to buy a new suitcase. Mine got munched on the way back from Europe. It was pretty old, and I was pretty tired, so I didn't report it.

But I need a new one, because I might be traveling again soon.  I want one of those fancy ones that has four wheels and can be moved without tilting it, but I think I'm too cheap to pay for one.

* * * 

I bought Season 1 of Downton Abbey back in January. I've watched one episode, and the summer is over. I may need to get a cold and spend a weekend watching TV.  


* * * 

My dishwasher is broken.

Well, actually, the dishwasher itself is fine, it's just no longer screwed into the cabinet - which effectively means it can't be used. I need to figure out how to get the screws back in through the tiny slot above the dishwasher. 

I'll be the one limping

My foot hurts.

It started hurting yesterday on the way to the gym for this month's class of torture (30 seconds squats with shoulder presses, 30 seconds alternating row, 30 seconds alternating chest press in the bridge position, 30 seconds lunges, 30 seconds lunges on the other foot, 30 seconds renegade row, 30 seconds pullover in the bridge position with alternating crunch-like things with your knees - then repeat the whole sequence another 5 times).

Naturally, I went to the gym anyway - it didn't hurt that badly, and I hadn't really done anything, so I figured it would be fine.  It didn't hurt at all during class.  (Um, that may have been because everything else hurt - see above).

This morning, it started hurting again. Naturally, I went to the gym for cardio class.

Yes, I am a slow learner.

(As an aside, I've never done the cardio class before.  It was basically low-impact aerobics, and it was ... fine.  Not my favourite thing, but fine.)

Now? My foot hurts.

I'm starting to think signing up for the work Olympics (which seems to involve bouncy-castle-like-things for adults) might not have been the best idea.

But I'm going to be there tomorrow anyway.

Like I said, I'm a slow learner.

Yes, I'm still alive

Well, after the initial misstep, I've remembered to do the exercises every day. (I've even done the exercises every day, which is a whole different thing).

I worked the stat holiday last Monday.  I didn't have to work it, but since I was covering for one of my coworkers, I wanted to work it so the rest of the week wouldn't be too busy.

(That coworker returns tomorrow.  I'm thinking of throwing her a "Never Leave Again" party.)

I also have a new manager at work - I'm still doing the same job, just in a different group - so that has taken up some time.

It's been rainy in Ottawa lately - not all the time, but enough that I wore a jacket to work one day last week.  (Not Tuesday, when I got soaked going home from boxing. Some other day when the farthest I had to walk outside was from the car to the house.)

In other sad news, summer is almost over.  That means Sparks will start up soon.  I'm not sure I want to continue with Sparks, so I probably should get on that and figure it out.

Oh, and I got my hair cut & coloured yesterday - dark, with a slightly crazy red that I love.

In other words, not much is new.

Things I've said while playing Super Mario Galaxy

At some point (last weekend? two weeks ago?), I started playing Super Mario Galaxy.  It's taken up more of my time than I'd like to admit. That's not why I skipped Blog Out loud last night - I had my last boxing class before summer, and if I'd gone to BOLO instead, my elbow, knee, and ankle wouldn't hurt today, so as you can see, boxing was the obvious choice.

(As an aside, two people in my department at work have required unexpected medical attention so far this week, so when my knee started bothering me last night, I thought "If I have to call in and say I'm going to miss work to go get my knee looked at, my manager is going to have a heart attack."  I fully expect her to bring rolls of bubble wrap in on Monday.)

Wanda laughs at me if she happens to be upstairs while I'm playing.  First of all, I tend to plunge to my death.  A lot. Secondly, some of the things I say are apparently weird if taken out of context.  Things like:

• Stop falling and don't get eaten by bugs. Words to live by.
• There's no "almost" in bees.
• Why can't I ... crap.
• Stupid Mario. I don't know why they call you super.
• No! I hit the button! I HIT THE BUTTON!!!

It's all worth it, of course.  If I get another 16 stars, the space station will start flying again and we can go rescue Princess Peach (who is kind of a dolt - she sends the same letter over and over again, and she really should get off her butt and rescue herself instead of waiting for Mario, who is probably plunging to his death somewhere).

Totally a good use of my summer.

Why I Can Never Change Jobs

Now that I'm a regular employee, I can access the company gym for free. Free.

There's more.

Not only is it free, but it's at work. This means I can go to the gym at lunch. I can even do classes at lunch.

Over the past week, I've done four classes - circuit, strength and stretch, core, and body toning.

You know, I used to think I was in pretty good shape. That was before the day when my lower back was sore - not because I injured it, but because I'm not used to working that muscle. I'm not actually sure I knew there was a muscle in my lower back.

Since I'm taking a little longer for lunch, I stay a little later. That means I don't leave until 5, and I don't get home until 5:30.

At the other gym, my classes didn't start until 5:30. My evenings are endless. I'm going to need some new hobbies.

The view is different from this side

As I said earlier, I started a new job on Monday.

Usually, when you start a new job, you get a few days to adjust - figure out how to login, find the bathrooms, etc. When you start a new job but sit in the same desk as your old job, it doesn't work that way.

I didn't get to do much of my new job this week. Not only was I still doing my old job, but I was also interviewing people for my old job. One of my colleagues and I did the first round of interviews. We had two yesterday, three today, and a couple more will take place next week.

We had a list of 21 questions and asked the same questions of everyone. (Of course, we also asked clarifying questions when necessary.)

It was an interesting experience. The applicants are people we already work with, so we know a little bit about them already. I'm kind of rooting for all of them.

The New Job

I started my new job today.

Well, actually, I started my new job last week as a contractor, but I didn't become a regular employee until today.

I still sit in the same desk and work for the same manager, but the name on my paycheck is different.

I was a little concerned that they'd cancel my contractor's badge over the weekend and I wouldn't be able to get in today, but that didn't happen. (I still have it, as a matter of fact. I assume I'll get a new one this week.)

My contract was supposed to be up on January 30, but it was extended while they did a background check (as my now-current job wasn't official until the background check was complete). The background check took two full weeks.

(I didn't really expect they'd find anything, but at the same time, the new job wasn't a sure thing until it was done.)

I'm in a slightly different role - one that involves being opinionated and telling people what to do, which are some of my main skills - and I have lots of ideas for how to develop this role.

And I can stop preparing for my contract to end every 2 months.