Good day, bad day, one of those days

Today was one of those days. I was saying that it was a bad day, but was told that if I said that, then it was. If I put it into perspective, then it really isn't.

Some days I can handle lots of bumps in the road. Today was definitely not one of those days. It started this morning when I turned off my alarm (set for 6:20) only to realize/remember, at 8:35 am, that I had turned my alarm off last night, and the alarm I had turned off was the 7am alarm. I was late for my 9:30 appointment in downtown DC, and late getting back to the office. I made it to my 11:00 (pushed off to 11:30) meeting, but had to leave early to make a 1pm conference call. At 2:15 I started running reports for my client, and finished about 3:00pm. That's when my client -- whom I really do love -- called to tell me about more changes she wanted made in another report on the system. I think I held it together until I got off the phone, but after that I had to get out of the building. A very long fresh air break later, it's actually time to go home, but at least I am not all riled up, and can face my family with calm.

Oh -- there's one more trick to the whole perspective piece. My 17-year-old son chose 4:00 am last night as the ideal time to tell his parents that he had started smoking in July. 'Nough said.

Rain, rain, come again

I live in the Washington DC area, on the Maryland side of the beltway. For those people who envision Washington as hot in the summer, or who are fixated on global warming, this is the second summer in a row with above average rainfall. Normally we are hazy, hot, and humid. This year it seems we are either basking in gorgeous summer days, or soaking wet and flooding. Once again, we are also focused on extreme weather. Hello Bonnie and Charley. Actually, one of my colleagues commented that the folks who select the names should have had a sense of humor -- then the third named storm of the season would have been Clyde, and today and tomorrow, Florida would be hit with Bonnie and Clyde.

Geeks and Nerds

My daughter called me a geek last night. This is strange coming from her, since she has a degree in electrical engineering, and plans to build her next computer herself. To me, hardware is really geeky.

This all came up because I told her I had started a blog, and she said she would never do that, she hates to write. I'm not sure I love to write, but I suddenly feel I have a lot to say. In fact, people at work think I talk too much -- but that's another post.

I don't feel much like a geek. On the other hand, I was called a nerd recently too. I don't feel much like a nerd. That name calling came when I admitted that in my early teens I kept a journal where I wrote the "juicy bits" in dwarf runes as in LOTR. That I could both write and read them, made me a nerd. (Note: I can't anymore, which makes the journals somewhat unreadable, not to mention that this teenager didn't have too many "juicy bits" to write about.)

So am I a geek or a nerd? I remember a cartoon my mother sent me when I finally went back to grad school, the man sitting behind the desk was telling someone on the phone, "Sure I'm a computer nerd, but I'm going back to grad school to become a computer geek." Truthfully, most of the time I feel like neither, but then something will happen, like telling someone with no technical background how a piece of software works, and I suddenly feel like a geek.

Question: What makes a perfectly ordinary person into a geek?

Storms and Behavior

Why is it that so many people are fascinated by serious weather? I am including myself in the group. When I know a large storm is coming, and I am at work, I will pull up NOAA's weather loop (http://weather.noaa.gov/radar/loop/DS.p19r0/si.klwx.shtml) and track the storm. I know I'm not the only one in my office. At home I will listen to weather forecasts every ten minutes. This even happens when snow is threatened, even though the weather forecast probably won't change from one hour to the next.

Is it instinctive? I would have thought that was bred out of us...

Napoleon Dynamite

My 17 year old son is really bored. No friends around, and nothing to do. I can always find something to waste copious amounts of time, and I am seldom bored, except by tasks that have to be done (like cleaning) but he seems to get bored easily, and when he is bored, he gets depressed. When I got home last night he wanted to go see a movie. The only time he found was 9:45. Now I like to go to bed at a reasonable time, and I'm not a big advocate of going to the movies on a weeknight, but when we found a 9:20 showing, I went with him.

Napoleon Dynamite is a very different movie. This takes the "not fitting in during High School" to the extreme. Napoleon wears his pants too high and his t-shirts tucked in tight. He lives with his brother who spends his day surfing the net, and his grandmother who quickly disappears from the story when she is injured riding dune buggies on the beach! His uncle moves into the house, and he is frozen in 1982 when his football coach didn't put him into the big game. The characters in this movie are all stereotypes, but the story rings true, if in an exagerated way. And of course, Napoleon finally comes out of his shell, wins the right girl, and all is right with the world.

Question, does that ever really happen in real life? Would teenagers from middle America really abandon the head cheerleader and her group to follow a group of misfits? Not likely....

Car Insurance Tango

My daughter just bought a used car. Of course this is a very nice car, witness the info below:

Its a 2001 Honda Accord EX coupe;
Silver/Dark Grey Leather
Sunroof
Power Seat
AM/FM CD & Cassette
Automatic
Anti-Lock Brakes
Front AND Side Airbags
Keyless remote Entry
ohhh by the way - it only has 23k miles
It was a one owner car, 3 year lease with a clean carfax report.
$13,500

Anyway, she called the insurance company this morning -- her insurance, 23 yr old female, driving for 7 years, 1 ticket, no accidents, was $714 for 6 months. Not bad. She also got her name removed from our policy, although she can still drive our cars. That saves us, .... wait for it .... a grand total of $16 for 6 months!!! I guess boys, 21 and 17 really do cost more on the car insurance....

More thoughts on blogging

Jessi welcomed me to the blogging world, and hoped I would be more faithful to the activity than another friend.

Question, is blogging like exercise? You start out all excited and committed, and then first one thing, and then another gets in the way, and then you feel guilty about how long it's been since you last blogged, so you don't want that giant gap, and maybe you go back once, and struggle, and then you just stop. Every once in a while you say I'll start again soon, but....

I have recently changed the way I eat. Really, it's a diet, but lot's of people laugh at me when I tell them I'm on a diet, so lately I have started to call it healthy eating. But I have also noticed that I have started "cheating" a little. If this is a diet, then that is the beginning of the end. If it's healthy eating, and a life style change, then I should be able to break the rules occasionally and still get back on track. For all those who insist I don't need to change anything, when your clothes don't fit, and you don't have money to replace them, you had better do something fast. Going to work in your bathrobe is not a good idea.

If you are wondering how I got to diet from blogging, it's the same thing. If a new exercise program is like a new diet, is like a new blog, then I hope this blog is more like my healthy eating plan than my completely dead exercise regime. Exercise is walking up to the third floor in the parking garage, the fourth floor is too high to walk. :-D

Everyone has to have a first post

So everyone has to have a first post. It seems fairly obligatory from all the blogs I've looked at. I have started this blog at Jessi's urging. I can't decide whether that's because she thinks I should do it since lots of people at PPC (where I work) have blogs, or because she is interested in what I might write, or because she thinks it's cool that a woman "my age" (more about that later) can, and does behave like someone half my age, at least some of the time.
Some examples of behavior that seems a little less than age appropriate:

• I don't dress like a baby boomer.
• I would rather party with my co-workers on my birthday (and oh did we party) than take my husband to the airport.
• I changed careers recently, including going back to school and getting a degree in Comp Sci -- and then getting work in the industry despite the slowdown. Well maybe this one just shows intelligence rather than inappropriate for age.
• I like most of the same kinds of movies.
• My daughter doesn't mind being seen with me. (She's the same age as some of my coworkers)

Question? Is it a bad thing when someone my age acts years younger. Does it cause friction with people the same age? Does it cause friction with the younger people at work?