A resolution
29 12 08 - 17:47. Category:
I'm not a big fan of New Years resolutions. It's always just seemed like a setup for not getting something done.
Derek: and it's ok, we can fail together
Brandon: failing together is really just called lowering the standard
Well, I'd like to actually make one this year: I'd like to stop waking up tired and hating my alarm.
Tax season is just around the corner and there is no way I will survive 55 hours a week going to bed at 12:00am and waking up at 5:30am.
I did it in college and I can do it again. I want to get to bed by 11:00
at the latest. Preferably I'd like to get to bed around 10:30.
Is this going to kill my free time? Probably. With raiding (xref WoW) I don't have a lot of time to just do things in the evening.
Here's hoping.
Disclaimer: That picture is about 1.25 years old. Not that that doesn't happen anymore, but my hair isn't as gelled to hell these days. They're also not all mine. =P
More than expected
26 12 08 - 22:35. Category:
I hope everyone had a good holiday. Check this out:
The pattern style is called bargello, and it's ridiculously complicated to put together. I saw one once and have always liked them. I've told my mom for years (jokingly) that she should make me one. Well, surprise, she did. It's obviously not quite finished as you can tell. My mom only managed to sew the top together and not actually quilt it before Christmas. The quilting will be done tomorrow.
It's friggin' sweet.
Happy Valentine's... wait... this is wrong!
24 12 08 - 22:49. Category:
I went out today with my mom because Jo Ann Fabrics was having some 50% off coupon sale and I wanted a pair of silk long underwear. Dress slacks hold back wind like a sieve does water.
Jo Ann's does an exceptional job bringing on immediate boredom, but at least I did pick out the three fabrics for the tree skirt my mom is going to make for my future trees. Nothing compares however to this little gem I found.
ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME?! IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!
(Did I buy the bag? Yes. Why? For the sheer ridiculousness of it and I am addicted to these things like it's nobody's business.)
Home for the holidays
23 12 08 - 15:59. Category:
I'm at my parents for Christmas. The drive out to my brother's place got canceled seeing as the required freeway is closed and driving 500-ish miles at 25mph would be everything short of fun were it even possible. Instead I'm sitting at my parents watching day-time TV and eating far too much fudge.
Have a happy and safe holiday everyone.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow
21 12 08 - 19:10. Category:
Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the skies are so delightful. And since we have places to go... I"ll stop. The weather in Portland is the worst seen in at least four years. The several inches of snow got covered with about 1/4 inch of ice this morning.
It all started last Monday, and up to yesterday I've managed to avoid driving. I got one of the last two sets for my size tire. Today David and I put them on. I handled it like a pro, despite them being the harder cable chain style.
I think I deserve a caboodle of masculinity points, tyvm. I wouldn't be driving at all, except it's about 40 miles my parents house from here, and I would like to go home for Christmas.
This is the one where I copy Mike
18 12 08 - 10:51. Category:
Buah ha ha, I've wanted to title a post like that forever. Mike over at
What Some Wold Call Lies recently added (or I just recently saw) a feed of his shared RSS articles.
Spotting this, along with my recent fanaticism and binging on Google Reader, made me instantly think it was a great idea. After a little finagling and some help from Mike, you can now check out what I've been reading in the "Sharing" section on the left.
I warn you, it will include relevant news articles and the occasional LOLcat.
"Buck a Hit"
17 12 08 - 15:59. Category:
I encourage everyone to visit
Jack Bog's Blog today and participate in his "Buck a Hit" program.
It's the sixth year of the event, and I found out about it via my friend Caro and
Another Portland Blog's post.
Basically just follow the link to Buck a Hit two dollars is donated to the Oregon Food Bank. It's a great and completely free way to support a charity.
I needs a hat
17 12 08 - 11:51. Category:
Curse you Gap and your sudden but inevitable well timed sale!
It's been below freezing a few days now and isn't looking to let up any time soon. More snow is incoming sometime today. My poor ears have been stinging and in much need of comfort.
UPDATE: It's snowing now, and people are starting to think about going home cause of weather conditions. Damn public transit means no excuse for me!
So I dropped by Gap after work with the intention of picking up a hat. Well, conveniently enough, they're having a sale. All hats, scarves, and gloves are $10. Two day sale, dunno if yesterday was day one or two.
I walked out with two scarves and two hats. I made myself put down the third scarf I'd found (mostly because I couldn't find a good hat to go with 2/3 of the scarves).
But my ears did not freeze this morning which was greatly appreciated. I can suffer the flattened hair and the fact that I look funny in hats for some much needed warmth.
Seriously? Four of them?
16 12 08 - 13:21. Category:
Entry deleted due to company policy.
brrrrrrrrrrrr
15 12 08 - 11:13. Category:
Walking to the MAX in 20 degrees (feels like six with wind) bumps buying some sort of hat/ear protection to the top of your shopping list.
Weather won't get above freezing until Wednesday at the earliest, and we are supposed to get six inches of snow that day as well.
The office is usually a comfortable 73-75. Today of all days the heat has been knocked down to a shivering 66. I know 66 isn't too bad, but when you're just sitting for eight hours you don't generate a lot of heat on your own.
Wtb warmth.
UPDATE: Huzzah! They are here fixing it!
UPDATE: They left and it's still cold. The guy did say even turning our vents all the way up no heat was coming through.
The system is broken
12 12 08 - 16:57. Category:
Did you know that if both parents are retired and have a dependent child not only can the parents receive social security but the child can too?
Even though the family can have over a million dollars in investment income and ownership in businesses and the child can have thousands of dollars of investment income in their name, the child can still collect thousands of dollars of social security if Mommy and Daddy are retired.
How wrong is that?
File labeling
10 12 08 - 17:44. Category:
One of the thing instilled to me from growing up up around my dad is to be helpful. My dad offers his help wherever he possibly can. He's helped random campers with the dead car by driving them to the ranger station and continually fixes his neighbor's broken-down lawnmower. I can't recall him ever telling someone he couldn't help them when he had the means.
This is what I get from my dad, and maybe my friends have noticed that I'm quick to offer any sort of assistance I can. Hell, I like helping friends move. Yesterday at work, when I'm chatting up the receptionist because I have zero work to do, I naturally offered to help with her labeling project. New files have to be made for all our individual clients 2008 returns. Of course there was the "oh you don't have to," "no really, I don't mind I have nothing to do" exchange.
About a half hour into the labeling, one of the other admin staff (the assistant to the most tight-end partners I should add) brought me some accounting work. When she saw the files and labels at my desk she got this sneer of disgust and asked "who gave you that? Why are you doing that?" She gave me the new job and paused a moment as she left to give the files one more abhorrent look. "We normally just don't give this kind of work to the accountants."
I decided to lay it out for her: "Really I don't mind. I actually enjoy the change of pace and when I have free time I'm more than glad to help out on any projects that need to be done." I felt it was the closest I could get to downright telling her not to judge the work she and the admin staff do as less than the work of the accounting staff.
It's not the first time I've run into this attitude at the office. When I helped to bring up supplies so that an admin staff could stay on her lunch the "you don't have to do that" and "No it's fine, let _______ take her lunch" exchange went back and forth way more than necessary. People also couldn't understand why I would take the time to organize some of our out-of-control supply storage.
I can understand the admin staff being protective of their work. The work itself draws individuals who, like me, are fairly protective of their duty. There is definitely a dynamic in which the accountants can be comfortable requesting specific types of work from admin, and admin can be comfortable know that certain work is their responsibility and a necessity for things to get done. I guess I'm just flabbergasted that the situation exists, but I'm not about to stop doing admin work when they can use the help and I have the time.
Guess I'll just add it to the list of molds to break. :)
Day Without a Gay
10 12 08 - 16:34. Category:
I did not call in gay today, or even sick. I needed to put in the hours. But here is what I have done today:
- Spent extensive time reading up on the incoming nerf to hunters in World of Warcraft.
- Read everything the second it popped up on my Google Reader.
- Made paper snowflakes for the office cube decorating.
I think I can successfully say that I didn't contribute to the economy.
RSS day two
09 12 08 - 16:16. Category:
Comics! There are comics with RSS feeds!
The most depressing thing about using Google Reader has to be that what took meandering through pages and tabs and a decent amount of time killing can now be done with one page. Just pull up reader.google.com, the end. It's convenient and quick, which is problematic when you have had no work to do in the office since lunch. An empty reader is so brutal, so final. You're left alone with an Internet connection and you don't know quite where to go.
Oh... right... StumbleUpon. Later.
Discovering RSS
08 12 08 - 17:21. Category:
I've always been behind the times when it comes to the Internets. I cringed away from Firefox (btw check out
Songbird, an iTunes-esque player based on Firefox) because I thought extensions would be a hassle. I just started dabbling in CSS when I put this site together. So it makes sense that my shear boredom at work today as made me finally approach RSS feeds with a tentative poke.
I added my own personal RSS link over there on the left, cause I didn't know about the Firefox address bar one. Give people options, easy access and whatnot. I also updated what pops up for my site if you search for never7 on Google. Oh my god an actual description!
Google Reader is awesome, it is crazy convenient. I know I will love it, but it is very sterile. The Internet is not just information, it is the
presentation of that information. The look of a site can cause companies to fail compared to competition. All the blogs I read put effort into their presentation, and it deserves to be seen. What a site looks like shapes the impression of the message delivered.
RSS completely removes that. And while you could argue that the words should stand for themselves in our era of integrated multi-media, one element of presentation should never be singled out. The best example I can think of is Brian over at
Cheap Blue Guitar. His banner constantly changes, and they're awesome, and people should see that.
So I guess I'll be mingling Google Reader with visiting sites. Not much to my site, so I suppose I can't be hurt by RSS readers (hey, it's readers!).
Making an apartment feel like home
08 12 08 - 01:16. Category:
Our first Christmas tree.
My first audit
04 12 08 - 14:47. Category:
No one likes tax. It's cubicle work with forms and numbers eight hours a day. Everyone thinks audit is more interesting and dynamic, and you get to leave the office. In my classes, I was usually the only one who interested in tax. A little insight into my personality: I like cubicle work, forms, and numbers. I cringe at the idea of doing work at a clients, cause I don't like feeling displaced when I'm trying to be productive.
My first audit is a company's 401(k) profit sharing plan. Even before the field work, I was less than thrilled. Audits require a ridiculous amount of checklists and sign offs. All I'd done is copy an old clients over and updated the information and cleared out the lists and I was already annoyed. And I'm the type of guy who likes filling out forms and such.
To make it even better, the partner for some heathenish reason chose to do our field work on a Friday. Next to no work gets done on Fridays, it is definitely a slacker day at the office. But not for me, I got to go out to a client for eight hours. It gets better, the controller we're working with had to leave early for her kids' sports stuff, so I got to do the field work on a Firday, starting at 7:00 am. Ew.
UPDATE: The fieldwork was actually pretty enjoyable. I'm still not a fan of the checklists, but the work was at least interesting and engaging for my first audit. It was also nice to work a little more intimately with a senior and a partner. We ended up putting in nine hours, and they went fast. Much faster than a Friday in the office normally would.
The conference room they put us in was really bloody cold. I wore my wool jacket the entire day while I was working. I still have some work to finish up once the client sends us more information, and I have to find where on the damned checklists I have to put my initials.
So even before the field work, audit was already losing any appeal it might have had to me. Give me my desk and some tax returns, kthxbye. Compositions and reviews, that wouldn't be too bad. Audits, while interesting in theory and the actual work, get killed by the bureaucracy.
The Red Bats of Peppermint Flats
04 12 08 - 12:59. Category:
One of the panels David and I went to at Orycon (the Oregon SF convention) was a collaborative fiction project. Basically it was a panel of authors, a room full of good-humored individuals, and an hour to come up with a story.
What we got was a story of red bats, menses, robots, a priest, and some Elvises (Elvi?). You can read the story in its entirety over at Jay Lake's
blog.
Jay was one of the panelists and it was definitely an entertaining hour. Much more so than the panel on neural interfaces that degenerated into a discussion of ergonomics and people's personal health issues brought upon by their work environment.
Quickies
03 12 08 - 12:25. Category:
- Of course the day I say to myself "It's not that cold outside, I don't need my scarf" is the day the light rail feels it should run the AC when it's 45 degrees outside.
- I shouldn't play Warcraft late into the night. Dreaming about an undead invasion is not very restful.
- From a Stumble: "Computers are run by tiny gnomes. They do all the work sat at tiny desks inside your PC. When you turn it off they can all go home and have a rest before they are needed again. The screen is in fact an arrangement of gnomes wearing different colour hats." (Physics doesn't exist, it's all about Gnomes)
A few more dollars
a guide to stressing yourself out
02 12 08 - 11:12. Category:
Step 1: Create your online accounts for your student loans.
Step 2: Build a spreadsheet so you can conveniently track your individual loan payments, balances, and the accumulated value of your debt. After all, you do love making spreadsheets.
Step 3: Realize, for the first time, exactly how large your accumulated minimum monthly payment is going to be.
Step 4: Compare the monthly loan payment to your take home pay.
Step 5: *stress*
Step 6: Finish the dregs of the hot chocolate at your desk you forgot about. It has long since gone cold. Misery complete.
A dollar
01 12 08 - 10:19. Category:
Friday night I got a group of friends together to see the Portland Christmas Tree lighting and then go out for dinner and some drinks. For dinner, we went to
Rock Bottom, our usual location. Everyone says we don't venture out, but no one ever has a better idea that we agree on.
The service was pretty bad, 20 minutes to order a beer and another 20 before you get it is a little excessive. When our waitress finally took our order I asked for my standard chicken fried chicken. "There's no way you can eat all that!" the waitress said to me. She then bet me a dollar. Well the food there is really damn tasty, so of course I ate it all.
When she brought us our check, the pictured dollar was inside the little billfold. That and the German gummy bears Caroline brought me made my night a pretty good one.
And yes I had a good Thanksgiving, it was nice to see all my family again.
