It seems so trite and cliche to keep talking about the weather, but seriously what is up?! It’s crazy…or the apocalypse, I haven’t decided which.

As you know, Monday was thunder, lightening, rain, and cold. I wore a long-sleeved mock turtleneck shirt, jeans, a warm vest, and socks and shoes.

Today it is at least in the mid-80s (and it usually gets a little hotter later in the afternoon). I wish that halter tops and short shorts were office appropriate! I have on capri denim pants and a wide-strapped tank top, but it’s still too much—I even put my hair up! I am dreading going home this evening—my apartment is going to be like a furnace!!

It’s a good thing I didn’t unplug my fan and swap it out for the space heater just yet.

Good grief.

Posted at 12:18 PM | (4)

Hmm, I am thinking I have made way too many posts about spiders. It is by now a well-publicized fact that I do not like spiders and that getting close to them or squashing them creeps me out. However, the creatures seem undaunted by this fact, or else they did not get the memo.

The last time I got gas I decided to go through the automatic car wash. At this particular gas station, they have a couple guys who will prewash your car before you go through the machine, which is quite nice. I also appreciated this because at the time, some spider had decided to make a medium-sized web between the passenger side mirror and the window. It was a complete web, which made me wonder how long the spider had been working on it, and why I hadn’t seen it.

After the car wash, my mirror and window were web-free. But, this morning as I got in the car I noticed that I again had a web on the passenger side—this time just on the mirror. And then I saw it: a big, brown, furry spider (well ok, I’m not sure about the fur…I didn’t really inspect it, but I do know that it was scary looking) hanging out in the area where the mirror attaches to the side of the door.

Gross. Was it the same spider? How did it get on my car? How long has it been hitching a ride? And what is this spider obsession with my passenger side mirror?!

Anyway I then took the hose and attacked the spider with water until it fell off my car. I’m not sure where it went after that, but it probably went to go get reinforcements or else modify its plan of attack.

I think the spiders may be out to get me…

Posted at 1:31 PM | (1)

This morning at 6:15am I was startled awake by what sounded like someone dragging a large metal object across the ground over an extremely long distance. Only, it wasn’t a metal object at all, but rather a prolonged bit of thunder. It was actually pretty scary sounding—especially considering that I was asleep and I think even in the middle of a dream.

A bright flash of lightening a little while later confirmed that it was indeed a storm and not some inconsiderate person causing an early-morning disturbance. I can’t even remember the last time it rained here, so I suppose we’re overdue. This is probably just a freak occurrence, as I hear it’s supposed to be sunny again later in the week. However, until then, the thunderstorms are expected to continue throughout the day.

Damn, I guess this ruins my plan to stand in the middle of a large field holding metal objects…

Posted at 10:20 AM | (6)

I was doing some dishes and along with the regular plates and silverware I had a couple of pots in which I had made some mashed potatoes. Both of these pots were filled with water so that the last vestiges of potato wouldn’t solidify to the point of becoming a permanent addition to the interior.

Anyway, the pot full of water was in the sink for a day or two, because as I’ve previously written, I don’t do the dishes on a daily basis. This particular pot is coated with a black non-stick surface which makes it mostly, although not entirely cool.

You see, as I quickly dumped the water from the pot into the sink I saw, out of the corner of my eye, what appeared to be a bunch of tiny black legs, sprawled out. I think that a spider may have crawled into the pot and drowned!

I’m not 100% sure though, as the spider-like object was quickly swept down the drain by the rest of the water. But the sole contents of the pot should have been white and fluffy, not black. The dark coloring of this pot kept me from seeing if any little creatures had taken up (very) temporary residence. Anyway, the fact that I saw the legs means that this spider—if indeed it was a spider—was far too large for my liking.

On the bright side, that means one less spider to creep me out by crawling near my bed or something!

Posted at 2:46 PM | (1)

I’ve done this once before, but since I just saw someone do this again today, I figured why not! I can’t think of anything to post at the moment and who ever feels like working on a Friday??

So, here are 10 random songs taken from the ol’ iPod. I have posted a bit of the lyrics. See if you can guess what song it is.

1. Don’t tell me what to do, don’t tell me what to say, and when I go out with you, don’t put me on display. You Don’t Own Me by Lesley Gore Guessed by: Darren

2. There’s no simple way to let me know. Funny how she always cried out “daddy.”

3. And where are you baby? Where can you be? Why aren’t you here loving me? Alive by Joey Lauren Adams Guessed by: Lisa

4. OJ Simpson. Not a Jew. The Chanukkah Song by Adam Sandler Guessed by: Kevin

5. All I can do is just pour some tea for two and speak my point of view. No Rain by Blind Melon Guessed by: Kevin

6. Let’s not do the wrong thing and I’ll swear it might be fun. Follow you Down by Gin Blossoms Guessed by: Mikey

7. We’ll fight, but not out of spite, cuz someone must stand up for what’s right.

8. You’re the whisper of a summer breeze. You’re the kiss that puts my soul at ease. Rush, Rush by Paula Abdul Guessed by: Lisa

9. I watch you sleep sometimes and it feels like the first time, and you’re always on my mind, every day is like the first day.

10. She’s got a competition clutch with 4 on the floor. Little Deuce Coup by The Beach Boys Guessed by: Darren

One or two of these might be a bit obscure (I’ll definitely be surprised is someone gets one of them). But at least 2 of these my mom could guess, so there you go!

Happy Friday, everyone.

Posted at 1:10 PM | (10)

Woo two days in a row where one of the editors brought in donuts. Yesterday was the regular weekly thing, although today was a special, optional meeting, which I only attended because of the free food.

For some reason I’m sleepy right now, although I didn’t go to bed later or wake up earlier or anything, so who knows what’s up. Maybe it’s because it’s so hot outside and so cold inside. Or maybe I subconsciously know that I get to leave A LOT earlier than I did yesterday. Yesterday I got in late so I had to stay at work until 6:30. Today I can leave around 4:45 or so.

Until then, I suppose no nap for me!

Posted at 12:57 PM | (2)

One more thing (I can’t do a lot of things at work at the moment because they are working on the system I use in some form for 99.9% of my daily tasks), in honor of today being Talk Like a Pirate Day (which I wrote about back in 2003), I find it quite fitting that today someone searched for the phrase “Ar me matey”.

Of course, the timing of the search phrase isn’t really all that surprising,but the fact that I’m the number 2 hit for it kind of is.

Anyway, just thought I’d share. In the time it took for me to type this post, the system came back up. So, yay! :)

Posted at 12:48 PM | (3)

It seems not so long ago that it got so hot during the afternoon that I would have to open the windows, turn the fan on, and wear the bare minimum of clothing inside my apartment.

Now there is a definite change. The mornings are cooler and overcast, and while it does get nice during the afternoon, it’s not nearly as hot. And now, as soon as evening comes, there is a noticeable drop in the temperature. It’s getting to where I can foresee having to put the flannel sheets on the bed soon.

I will blame the cooling of the temperature for my lack of posting over the last couple days. I did, however, manage to fulfill my goal written about in a previous post—I took pictures of some buildings and other objects in Goleta on Friday evening. I have edited some of them, but I am not sure when I will get around to posting them. Typically when I take pictures, I wait for an appropriate photo meme for which to publish them for the first time. But, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll decide to release them all as a series or something.

Taking the pictures reminded me of the other indicator that summer is gone—the days are much shorter now. I got off work around 6:15pm and took pictures until about 6:50pm, and by the time I was done, the sun was already setting. It was getting pretty dark by the time I reached my apartment downtown. I hate it when the days become shorter!

Posted at 10:26 AM | (5)

I need to remember to bring my camera to work with me sometime or at least any time I am near Old Town Goleta. Every time I drive near the more industrial part I think there are at least 3 or 4 kinda neat shots I could take. It’s so weird that SB is this place where people think of cool old buildings and culture and beach, and then there is this nearby industrial, run-down stuff not too far from the airport.

Someday I will remember to take pictures, and hopefully they won’t turn out crappy and/or boring. The area is kinda neat in a run-down sort of way.

Posted at 12:01 PM | (2)

When I decided to move into my apartment I had the good fortune of doing so at the same time my mom was remodeling her kitchen. This meant that she decided to update everything contained within this room, including silverware and dishes. Since she was getting rid of this stuff, it all went to me, as I needed things like plates and forks to eat with. I didn’t have to worry about such things at my old place of residence as I rented a room in a house and its kitchen was equipped with plates and other utensils.

Since I was getting my mom’s place settings, I got all that she had, which is to say, enough for 8 people or so. This is both good and bad. It’s good that I don’t have to worry about washing the same plate every day or that on the very slim chance that someone comes to visit and I prepare food, that we won’t have to do something like eat spaghetti a la Lady and the Tramp due to a lack of extra plates or forks.

There is, however, a bad side to having so many dishes. I get lazy! I know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. So sometimes the plates sit there for a few days because I know in the back of my mind that I can probably eat for a week and a half before NEEDING to do dishes. The only thing stopping me is the fact that my sink probably couldn’t hold that many dishes (and the fact that it might be kinda gross to see what would happen to dishes after 2 weeks or more). But admittedly I pretty much never wash my dishes as I use them, as dish washing isn’t high on my list of favorite pastimes.

So in this case, although it is nice to have so many place settings that I don’t have to worry about what to eat on if I am lazy for more than a day or two, less would be more (but don’t ask me to get rid of any dishes)!

Posted at 9:20 AM | (2)

Have you ever walked out of your house and had a fleeting thought that you might be missing a crucial (by common standards of decency) article of clothing?

Every once in awhile I’ll walk up to the main doors of my office building and wonder if perhaps I forgot to put on a shirt or maybe my pants or something. This is of course absurd, as I’ve never forgotten to put on something, let alone walk around in public like that (unless I just didn’t notice and no one bothered to tell me. It wouldn’t help if you just gave me appalled stares, as I’m pretty oblivious and never notice people looking at me), but nevertheless the thought still pops into my head from time to time.

For some reason, the thought has been occurring to me more often lately. I’m not sure what that means. Perhaps I will blame this fear on that time my mother accidentally sent me to preschool without underwear. Just kidding, mom. While that incident did actually happen, I wasn’t upset or embarrassed about it. I just matter-of-factly told my teachers who then provided me with the spare set my mom had provided the school, which also happened to be my very favorite—Wonder Woman underoos, blue with white stars.

But I digress. Perhaps I’d be more embarrassed if it happened now that I’m older—I suppose I wouldn’t want to walk into work in my underwear. Although, if I was wearing some Wonder Woman underwear, maybe I wouldn’t mind so much. ;)

Posted at 12:02 PM | (5)

So I had this “dream” last night that I had set my alarm to wake up for work the next morning. But, this was a mistake because in the morning it would be Saturday, so I reached over and turned off my alarm. I reasoned to myself that if I was wrong, and tomorrow was a weekday, I’d probably wake up in time for work anyway. I don’t have to come in until 10am, and lately I find I’ve been waking up around 8am on my own, which would give me plenty of time.

This morning I woke up suddenly and looked at the clock on the opposite wall. It read 7:15am. My alarm is set for 6:45am, but it had not gone off. I guess the dream I had wasn’t really a dream after all, but my half-asleep self deciding that today was going to be Saturday, not Thursday. I then got up and showered and still made it to work by 8:45am, which is about the time I often show up anyway. So, it wasn’t that big a deal, I just like having the extra time in the morning to take my time.

I guess my subconscious REALLY wants it to be the weekend already (despite the fact that this is a short work week)!

Posted at 9:42 AM | (1)

All last month I worked on knitting a “mystery shawl”. This was part of an online group, the premise being that every week a new clue is released and you knit that part. You don’t know ahead of time what the shawl will look like, so each clue, along with the end result, is a mystery until you actually finish.

Well when I went home, I also finished the shawl. I then stretched it out and shaped it so that it would actually fit a person and not a Cabbage Patch Doll or something. I had decided that I would make it for my mom. The finished product fits me quite nicely, but as my mom didn’t really try it on, I’m not sure how it looks on her. At any rate, she better wear it every single day, regardless of weather (with the exception of rain. It being made of wool, it would shrink and have to be reshaped and that would just suck). :)

Anyway, a picture of it is below in case you are curious. It is the first time I made anything lacy, so I think it came out all right, considering.

Posted at 6:24 PM | (3)

This post is mostly just a test to confirm that all has gone well with the upgrade. I am now running on the latest version of Movable Type, version 3.2.

Things have moved around a bit, but it promises to be pretty cool, once I’ve had the time to look around a bit. The feature I think I like the most off-hand is the improvement to comments. You can now view comments for all blogs, as well as just look at ones still awaiting approval.

Some of the other info provided looks pretty cool as well.

Anyway, hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Posted at 7:26 PM | (6)

Today as I was sitting in my apartment, I decided to drive home to LA and pay a surprise visit to my parents. I left SB at around 3:15 and made it in just under 2 hours.

Since my parents are cleaning up and repainting my grandma’s house now that she’s moved out, I figured they’d be there today. I stopped there first on the way home and sure enough, my mom’s car was parked in the driveway; I opened the door and they were happily surprised.

I also timed it just right—they had finished for the day and were about to leave. They showed me what they had done so far and then we went to dinner.

I’m guessing my help might be enlisted at some point, since there is still quite a bit to be done. I escaped having to help today, but will I be so lucky tomorrow?

Posted at 8:37 PM | (2)

I know that technically the end of summer is still a few weeks off, but for those of us in the US, Labor Day weekend marks the end of the season. Perhaps it’s because after that time kids have to go too school and there are no more paid work holidays until the Fall.

This Monday is Labor Day, which means we all get a 3 day weekend. This is something I only just realized yesterday, although it’s better than not remembering until I try to show up for work on Monday! Sigh, summers always seem to go by so fast.

Anyway, what to do with the extra day off? I’m thinking at least part of my weekend will be spent upgrading to the new version of MT (after backing up everything, of course) and, if I’m really ambitious, tweaking my templates to take advantage of the new features and getting rid of deprecated tags.

Posted at 7:34 PM | (1)