Blogthings

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

You Are Bubble Tea

You are playful, sweet, and light hearted. You almost always have a smile on your face. You don't take life all that seriously, and you're always up for some laughs. You are very modern. You are up on the latest food, fashion, and entertainment trends. You are open minded and open to new experiences. Finding new things to love is a minor obsession of yours.

What Kind of Tea Are You?

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Will try to update tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, very busy week ahead at work!

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Graph Jam

Bonus treat!

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Steampunk Laptop

Greg and Travis posted this to the Coredump forums. It's beautiful technology. It's functional piece of art. I can't get over how freaking cool this thing is.






There are more pics and a video at this link:
http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm

Had a great weekend, had lots of fun at Allison and Austin's wedding. More on that later. Nearly bedtime here. Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Lessons Learned

I learned two things this morning.

1) I was stretching after my walk, and as I was looking at the trail upside down, legs wide, head down, I saw a long shape lying on the path. At first, I thought it was a curled up leaf, or a seed pod. Then I realized it was moving. It was a slug. The slug was making its way steadily but oh so slowly across the asphalt path, which was as wide to him as the Mississippi would be to me. He could be stepped on at any moment, the sun could fry him before he reached the safety of the grass on the opposite side. It can take a long time to reach a goal. That doesn't mean it isn't worth it. Don't get discouraged!


2) Peaches are the sexiest fruit. Skin on, they blush at you, like they know a secret you don't. The peach is having impure thoughts. The crease on them is suggestively naughty. It could be a great ass, or the opening of a woman's secret place. (Hard place to describe without being flowery, vulgar or clinical) I was peeling my peaches to cut them up (I plan to pour vanilla yogurt on them later, there's some more sensual imagery for you) and when the knife split the skin, the flesh of the peach and the juice rose up around the knife, covering it in sweetness. Peaches are the sexiest fruit.

More fun with Zombies!

Tonight Chits, Artie and Harriet came over to play games. We played another game of Last Night on Earth. This time, we played a scenario called All Hallow's Eve. We had to find the townsperson who was controlling the zombies, and then burn his Evil Book. We accomplished our goal, by using a lot of dynamite to take out mobs of zombies. Artie, playing the town sherriff, took out the last group in highly cinematic fashion. He ran from the church to the police station, and dropped a gas can by the zombies. He tried to shoot it to make it explode and failed, but then I shot the can on my next turn. I played Becky, the town's nurse. In the end, it was Jeb, the town mechanic who was the Zombie Master, and we defeated him. (really Jeff, who was controlling the Zombies) I like the game more each time I play it. I think after a few more times, I might want to try my hand at playing the Zombies. We also played Ticket to Ride and Carcassone. I am very mad at myself, because I should have won Ticket to Ride. I forgot to connect one very important route between Dallas and Houston, and hence instead of gaining 76 points at the end of the game, I lost 40+ points. I think I was too disgusted with myself to even do the math to figure out how much I lost by.

Starting our next new Hire class at work tommorrow. Prindle is coming!

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Update!

Thank Goddess it's Friday! It's been a crazy week. My favorite manager is out having surgery, one of my fellow team leads left for a two week vacation yesterday. I will be so glad once we get our new venture, AJ Prindle, up and running. We also have another New Hire class, for our tobacco business, starting 7/28.

I am not aware of our specific plans for the weekend, so I plan to just relax and go with the flow, and enjoy the days off with Jeff before he starts school in the fall.

Less than a month til we leave for Topsail Island, NC!

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Last Night On Earth

Just got finished playing a fun new game for the second time with Chits, Krev, Artie and Jeff. The game is called Last Night on Earth, and you play a party of 4 heroes vs. zombies in several different scenarios. Our scenario was Escape in the Truck. You had to find keys and gas, fill the truck, and have at least two of the heroes make it to the truck and get out. In this game, we all escaped, and I blew away 5 zombies with the pump action shotgun with some very awesome dice rolling. I got to play Jenny, the farmer's daughter.

Work is work. I am anticipating possibly having a new hire class before AJ Prindle starts. This would be preferable, as it means we could then take all of our people for the new company from our experienced agents. I'm working 1 PM to 10 PM tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to one more wedding before summer's end. I'm currently wildly jealous that Grey is at Sirius Rising. Trying to do more witchy stuff. I definitely need to do my yoga tomorrow morning. My goal is going to be to do Yoga every morning that I work late. That will get me doing it 2 or 3 time a week.

I ate too many peanut butter M&Ms, and my stomach is a little unhappy, so I am going to go lay down.

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

PS - Two posts in the same month... Woot!

The Change

One hand
Reaches out
And pulls a lost soul from harm
While a thousand more go unspoken for
And they say what good have you done
By saving just this one
It's like whispering a prayer
In the fury of a storm.

(chorus)
And I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world will know that it will not change me.

This heart
Still believes
That love and mercy still exist.
While all the hatred rage and so many say
That love is all but pointless in madness such as this
It's like trying to stop a fire
With the moisture from a kiss.

As long as one heart still holds on
Then hope is never really gone.

What I do is so
This world will know
That it will not change me

Borrowing a blog tactic from Al - sorry to have missed all the fun at the Farm this weekend, but Jeff and I got to spend some much appreciated quality time together. Just thought of this song the other day, hadn't heard it in forever and couldn't remember anything but the chorus, so here it is. You can hear it on my myspace page.

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Over a month again

Life is what happens you're busy not blogging...

Anyway, just wanted to drop a quick note tonight regarding DIABLO III. Jeff and I are very psyched for this despite not being able to find our old Diablo II disks to play and get a temporary fix while Blizzard holds out on us like a prom date before the punch gets spiked. PVP also mentioned it in today's strip.

Things are very busy at work and at home, we're getting ready for NC in August, and Froshapalooza was huge smash the weekend of 6/21-6/22. Rob's wife Tasha gave me a card reading with her Faerie Oracle Deck. A spider crawled onto one of the cards during the reading, lending extra signifcance and mystery to the card it touched (Ilbe, the Retriever. Something is lost, Ilbe has it for me when I realized that it's missing)

That's all you get for now. It's almost bed time. I got home from work at 9:30 and I am going back in at 8 AM tomorrow. Merry Part and Blessed Be!

A little late for Beltane, but enjoy

Quote of the Day

"I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence."

John Wanamaker

I am reading Pathways to Success by Dale Carnegie at work today. It's an interesting book. It's a combined edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living.

So, something to mull over if you're in a mulling kind of mood.

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Happy Beltane!

Beltane
Jethro Tull

Have you ever stood in the April wood and called the new year in?
While the phantoms of three thousand years fly as the dead leaves spin?
There's a snap in the grass behind your feet and a tap upon your shoulder.
And the thin wind crawls along your neck it's just the old gods getting older.
And the kestral drops like a fall of shot and the red cloud hanging high
come a Beltane.
Have you ever loved a lover of the old elastic truth?
And doted on the daughter in the ministry of youth?
Thrust your head between the breasts of the fertile innocent.
And taken up the cause of love, for the sake of argument.
Or while the kisses drop like a fall of shot from soft lips in the rain
come a Beltane.
Happy old new year to you and yours.
The sun's up for one more day, to be sure.
Play it out gladly, for your card's marked again.

Have you walked around your parks and towns so knife-edged orderly?
While the fires are burned on the hills upturned in far-off wild country.
And felt the chill on your window-sill as the green man comes around.
With his walking cane of sweet hazel brings it crashing down.
Sends your knuckles white as the thin stick bites. Well, it's just your groaning pains.
Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane.
Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane.
Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane.
Come a Beltane. Come a Beltane.


Jeff and I started the holiday off right this morning. :-) I was sorry to miss the Brighidshaven event. The way the summer is shaping up, I might make it to Lughnasadh. Frosh-apalooza falls on Midsummer. I really want to go to a Snow Water event at their Nemeton.

I wish I had a Nemeton.

When I was in Erie a couple weeks ago, I picked up The Forest House by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It comes before the first short story in Lady of Avalon. It was a good book, but I already knew a lot of the information from reading Lady of Avalon. I would have liked to see more rituals, but part of the point was that the women of the Forest House were constantly afraid of the Romans because of what had happened to the priestesses on the Isle of Mona.

Have a blessed and joyous Beltane!

From the Good Vibes Blog

Speaking of Design - Good Vibes Blog

I thought this was funny. :-)

I can haz Cthulu!?

Lolthulu

Enjoy. I want this as a bumper sticker.

Work is going well. We let go one of our trainees and we are working hard with another to build her confidence.

I'd much rather deal with "I want to do it and I'm struggling" rather than "I'm lazy and I'm going to do as little as you let me get away with."

Today was the other trainer Kelli's birthday. We ordered lunch and she had to listen to my version of Happy Birthday before she left to go home.

I went shopping last Wednesday with Al in Erie and picked up some sweet new clothes for work at Burlington Coat Factory. I also got some Mary Jane-style Crocs, so I can wear them to work and be super comfy for training.

Gonna have some porkchops and macaroni and cheese for dinner, Jeff is on the phone to Adam. We are hopefully going to see him sometime in May.

That's all for now folks, Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Damn you Artie

I know it's been a long time between posts. To make up for it, I bring you this link. Artie showed us this last night. I hope that once enough other people see it, I can stop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AXPnH0C9UA

Things are good here, just finished our first new hire class at work. We have determined that our test sucks. When the highest score is a 79.5% (You have to pass with a 75%) it's not a good sign. The test is poorly worded, and doesn't actually test what they need to know to be on the phones.

Today we are going to Port A to hang out with Jess and Frosh, Chits and Artie is coming to. We will play some games. I hope we can play Vegas Showdown, I am getting pretty good at it.

Not too much else going on lately. Looking forward to seeing Iron Man when it comes out May 2. I also want to see Zach and Miri make a porno when it comes out, which is apparently not until Halloween. :-(

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

It ain't over til I say it's over!

So yesterday morning, I get pulled into a meeting with my manager Tom, and our HR rep, and I am offered a Training Coordinator position. As it turns out my friend Juli, the current Training Coordinator, put in her 2 week notice on Sunday, as she is taking a job at a call center closer to her home in Jamestown. So now the new Training Coordinators will be Kelli (who I strangely feel better about, now that I know she spells it with an "i". She also reads a lot and has a good vocabulary, so I am certain we will get along swimmingly.) and me!!!

So although I am sad Juli is leaving, because I was looking forward to working with her, I am very excited to be starting my new position. I got to go out to lunch yesterday with some of the folks from our management team, and today I got to attend my first management meeting.

The only forseeable downside is that my schedule is going to change, I will be working at least one evening shift a week, and one weekend day. But Tom and Trisha both emphasized the need to be flexible as far as scheduling goes, so as long as people are willing to help me out and cover me when it is needed, I think it will work out great. My pay rate also increased, and as a member of management I will also get more vacation time each year.

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

More work?

Work has been interesting this week. Once again, we can't accept credit cards. About a month ago now, we lost the ability to process MasterCard orders. We converted a lot of those customers to Visa. Now we have to tell them we can't take their Visa either. The customers aren't too happy. This contributed to the following quote from my friend Dawn, which made me do one of those arched back, belly laughs at the ceiling.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But I have all your cigarettes!"

Lazy day at home, most ambitious activity so far has been shoveling and sweeping off the cars. We got a pounding from the snow last night. Jeff's copy of Risk: Godstorm also came in the mail today. I think soon he may be looking for someone to play with.

I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday, doing better now, thanks to 12 hours of sleep.

Back to World Of Warcraft now I think. I am working on getting my warrior to level 70. I have couple things left to do in Hellfire Peninsula and then it's on to the Mushroom Forest... I mean Zangarmarsh.



(Does anyone else remember this book besides me? It was awesome!)

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

Things I wish I knew 10 years ago

I was having some deep thoughts in the car on the way home today, and I thought "this sounds like a blog post". I was thinking, you never know what life will bring you. Jeff was saying the other night that he wants the next place he lives to be the house he dies in. And that would be nice, to have so permanent a home, but you never know. We could buy a house near Bradford (not right in town, of course. Scary townies!) and then 5 years later the company I work for could move to New Mexico and offer to pay me to move down there. We could go on vacation somewhere and like it so much we decide to move there. Jeff could get his MSW and be offered a position in another city or another state. So we're never "done". I don't think we can plan before we're 30 to be settled. The only constant is change.

I called this blog "Things I wish I knew 10 years ago" because I was remembering being in high school and college and thinking "Oh, this is it my life is OVER. I failed a test, my life is over; my boyfriend dumped me; my life is over; My friends are all graduating and leaving me, my life is over.

Life is never "over." It's a series of endings and beginnings that cycle over and over again. And the balance of the Wheel goes 'round and 'round.

So even though I did not get the Training Coordinator position at work, my life is not OVER. My manager had nothing but great things to say about me even as he was telling me they went with another candidate (from outside the company) And I am going to be going through the training with this new person, so I can learn how our current training process works. They want to give me the background I need so that (hopefully maybe they wouldn't guarantee anything outright) I can be a part of our training staff in the future. Tom (my manager) also said they wanted to hear my ideas on our current training process, how to tie the information to different things so that people can remember it once they leave our training classroom and are out on the phones working.

So while I did not get the position, I am still going to be doing something new at work starting Monday.

It's not over. :-)

Merry Part and Blessed Be!

tiny Kharasa

February post

Today was a great day. Jess and I went skiing at Holiday Valley and then ate lunch and did some shopping in Ellicottville. We went to Alexandra, where there is this awesome candle that smells like a tomato plant. It reminds me of my Grandma Eb's garden. We also went to Kazoo II, which has all kinds of neat things. I spent some time looking at the milagros, which are silver charms that Catholics in Latin American countries will give as offerings to saints on behalf of their loved ones. For example, if your loved one had a broken foot, there were foot charms. There were also breast and penis charms, which seems to me to be for motherhood or fertility, or I guess any ailment with those parts of the body. It's basically a form of sympathetic religious magic. I love finding similarities between the rituals of different religions.

Then when Jess and I got back, we played a new PS2 game that Chits has purchased. IT's a trivia game and you get 4 buzzers with it. It was pretty fun. I won the first game (which Chits did not play in) and lost the second (in which Chits kicked all of our asses, badly) I also got to see my adorable nephew, Aidan. He can take a few steps now, and stand up from being seated. I can't wait til he starts talking.

It's a busy month. Lacy and Jay are coming up next weekend to go to the Old Library. They are going for Valentine's Day. I am going for French Onion Soup and dessert. Valentines Day sucks, see last year's rant here for the reasons why.

Well, it is way past my bed time. Merry Part and Blessed Be!