Friday, February 24, 2006
FYI: new pictures
FYI: There are new pictures up in the top two albums ("Various and Assorted Pictures" and "Piper Pictures") at http://roberts.overt.org/. Also, there is a new album within the "Various and Assorted Pictures" album containing "Old School Photos." Check them out and leave comments!
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
I <3 Honda
Today I took my little CR-V to the dealership because it was due for its 30,000 mile check-up and also for months I've been without the use of my driver's side window (wouldn't roll down). I had an appointment for 10am and got there about 15 minutes early but they got me right in. A surprise: the 30,000 mile diagnostics and tune-ups would take 3-4 hours...that seemed a bit much. Well, I had a good book (Restoration by Carol Berg, I'm loving the trilogy) and the iPod, and they had the always classy People magazine, so I could cope. About an hour and fifteen minutes later, Joe (the service guy I'd been dealing with) came out and told me they'd discovered my window regulator was broken and it would cost $417 to fix (my warranty is very much expired). Yikes! I was willing to pay the $500 for my service and new battery and wiper blades because it had been 15,000 miles since my car was last seen by Honda and I like peace of mind, but another $417?! Yeah, wasn't planning on spending $1,000 today... So, I said no thanks, I'll wait a while (check into other options at non-dealerships for better deals) to replace that. Joe went to check if they had the part or would need to order it, and when he came back he said that, since that part shouldn't have broken in a car this young, they would "goodwill it" ("replace for free"). I was thrilled! It was such a smart and wonderful thing for them to do - it made me very glad I'd gone ahead and had the full 30k service, and it made me think happy thoughts about Honda.
Problem solved, I thought. So when will my car be ready? Three or four in the afternoon?!?! I'll have finished my book if I'd had to wait that long. Joe offered their shuttle service, and I thought "Okay, yeah, I'll go ahead and take the shuttle. That way I won't have to eat out of the vending machines and drink Pepsi (yuck) for lunch." It was about noon by the time I got home, and I did enjoy a pleasant ham sandwich on the couch with Miss Pipes. Well, then Joe called me at 1:30 saying my car was ready. Not three or four, but one thirty. I would've stayed at the dealership if I'd know it would take so little time. Oh well, at least I had a nice private, semi-healthy meal at home. Joe told me he'd let the shuttle guy know I needed a pick-up.
Fast-forward to 3:30. I'm getting close to the end of my book...still no shuttle. I call the dealership and speak to someone who "gets me on the list" and tells me it will be about 4:00. Ten minutes later Joe calls to apologize, telling me he had gotten me on the pick-up list when we talked at 1:30 and that he and the driver "had a discussion about the situation" (this explained why, I think, that when the driver arrived at 4 he was a tad sullen). So, I make it back to the dealership and we go over what all was done, I pay, and Joe asks a co-worker "so did you go get the car I asked you to?" It seems like poor Joe was having a hard time getting people to listen to him today. He gets someone to get my car, we chat awkwardly. Finally he says "I think it's all ready" and there's a shiny silver Civic outside. "Um...I drive a CR-V." Good lord. Another person goes to try and find my car. I give up and sit down in the waiting area with a Time magazine. Ten minutes later Joe gets me and promises the ordeal is finally over. Sure enough, it is my car sitting there shiny and vacuumed. All is well (them paying for my window made everything else they did inconsequential), I bid goodbye to Joe, and drive away at 4:45.
I had an errand to run today in Snider Plaza, and since it was getting close to rush hour I avoided Central (the dealership is on Lemmon Ave west of the Tollway). I took some side streets, figuring I could pick my way north until I found something familiar, but I really don't know the area well (my car needs a compass!). After I'd found a Lemmon Ave three different times and driven on Turtle Creek Blvd for a while only to end up on Hall St, I admitted defeat. Finally I made it to Snider Plaza, stopped at Cisco to say hi to Dad and think about getting some dinner, ran to CVS, then stopped at Amore to actually pick up dinner and chat with Willy. I took my veal fiorentina to the house and spent a pleasant evening with Mom and Murphy on the couch. Now I'm home with Triple-P (aka The Pipes, Miss Pipes, Piper, P-cube, Pippy-Pipe, Kitty), waiting a husband who will hopefully be home in the next 30 minutes.
21 days until vet school notification.
Problem solved, I thought. So when will my car be ready? Three or four in the afternoon?!?! I'll have finished my book if I'd had to wait that long. Joe offered their shuttle service, and I thought "Okay, yeah, I'll go ahead and take the shuttle. That way I won't have to eat out of the vending machines and drink Pepsi (yuck) for lunch." It was about noon by the time I got home, and I did enjoy a pleasant ham sandwich on the couch with Miss Pipes. Well, then Joe called me at 1:30 saying my car was ready. Not three or four, but one thirty. I would've stayed at the dealership if I'd know it would take so little time. Oh well, at least I had a nice private, semi-healthy meal at home. Joe told me he'd let the shuttle guy know I needed a pick-up.
Fast-forward to 3:30. I'm getting close to the end of my book...still no shuttle. I call the dealership and speak to someone who "gets me on the list" and tells me it will be about 4:00. Ten minutes later Joe calls to apologize, telling me he had gotten me on the pick-up list when we talked at 1:30 and that he and the driver "had a discussion about the situation" (this explained why, I think, that when the driver arrived at 4 he was a tad sullen). So, I make it back to the dealership and we go over what all was done, I pay, and Joe asks a co-worker "so did you go get the car I asked you to?" It seems like poor Joe was having a hard time getting people to listen to him today. He gets someone to get my car, we chat awkwardly. Finally he says "I think it's all ready" and there's a shiny silver Civic outside. "Um...I drive a CR-V." Good lord. Another person goes to try and find my car. I give up and sit down in the waiting area with a Time magazine. Ten minutes later Joe gets me and promises the ordeal is finally over. Sure enough, it is my car sitting there shiny and vacuumed. All is well (them paying for my window made everything else they did inconsequential), I bid goodbye to Joe, and drive away at 4:45.
I had an errand to run today in Snider Plaza, and since it was getting close to rush hour I avoided Central (the dealership is on Lemmon Ave west of the Tollway). I took some side streets, figuring I could pick my way north until I found something familiar, but I really don't know the area well (my car needs a compass!). After I'd found a Lemmon Ave three different times and driven on Turtle Creek Blvd for a while only to end up on Hall St, I admitted defeat. Finally I made it to Snider Plaza, stopped at Cisco to say hi to Dad and think about getting some dinner, ran to CVS, then stopped at Amore to actually pick up dinner and chat with Willy. I took my veal fiorentina to the house and spent a pleasant evening with Mom and Murphy on the couch. Now I'm home with Triple-P (aka The Pipes, Miss Pipes, Piper, P-cube, Pippy-Pipe, Kitty), waiting a husband who will hopefully be home in the next 30 minutes.
21 days until vet school notification.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Our Vision of Global Strategy
When Matt was doing his internship with KPMG a few years ago, I stumbled across their corporate anthem. It is one of the most atrocious songs ever. Now apparently, in Europe a couple years previous to my discovery, corporate anthems were all the silly rage, to the point where there were even remixes done of the KPMG song. Matt and his friends at work spent a much-needed break the other day listening to all the songs over and over and laughing their heads off. Now I share them with you. Enjoy!
The original KPMG song
An article that explains the phenomenon
"Jungle" Remix
"Hard rock" remix
"Teutonic" remix
The original KPMG song
An article that explains the phenomenon
"Jungle" Remix
"Hard rock" remix
"Teutonic" remix
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
4 weeks!
In four weeks from today, I'll hear about vet school...well, I will hear or they will put my letter in the mail, I'm not quite sure which. This also means that in less than four weeks, the clinic will be opening! I'm getting very excited. When I look at my Outlook calendar now, I can see today and the clinic opening day without scrolling. :) At some point, we'll have a website at www.dallasmetropaws.com, but it isn't up yet. I can't believe I only have three Tuesdays, three Thursdays (I'm taking one day off to train), and four Saturdays left at Cisco. Tom was getting sad about me leaving yesterday, which made me feel simultaneously sad and touched that he'll miss me.
Matt and I watched over 12 hours of the Olympics on Monday. Okay, actually we didn't - we went through over 12 hours of TiVo-ed Olympics and watched the events we cared about, our favorite of which was the men's half-pipe. Shaun White is awesome.
Matt and I watched over 12 hours of the Olympics on Monday. Okay, actually we didn't - we went through over 12 hours of TiVo-ed Olympics and watched the events we cared about, our favorite of which was the men's half-pipe. Shaun White is awesome.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Tied
Emily and I have this friendly little competition regarding piercings. Now, it isn't really a competition, and I know that there are tons of people out there with more manufactured holes in their bodies, but our pseudo-contest started last December when I asked Emily to go with me to get my ear cartilage pierced after my vet interview. At that point she had one hole in each lobe, plus two ear cartilage holes (4 total), and I had my double-piercings in each lobe (also 4 total). So...me getting my cartilage done put me ahead by one. We joked that she'd need to get her ears double pierced to take the lead. Instead, she decided to go for the tie recently by getting her nose pierced. Yes, that's right Emily, I outed your nose stud to my blog readers - you should update your blog, preferably with pictures. Biochem tests are no excuse. So, anyway, we're tied now, and I have to think of some way to get back ahead of her. Maybe. :)
Matt spent all weekend doing taxes, but he came home last night (in time for Grey's Anatomy, even better) victorious for having gotten some big ... thing? ... done. Not that it'll make this week any easier for him. To fill the void, I got a new computer game, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth. It is a real-time strategy game, and I've been really enjoying it so far. You can play for the good or bad guys, and there's something really satisfying about sending a horde of orcs flying by running through them with your Rohirrim warriors (I'm doing the "good" campaign right now). So far I've also had the heroes Aragorn, Gandalf, Boromir, Eomer, Legolas, Gimli, and all four hobbits to control along with my armies at various points in the campaign. The game also looks great, and it only cost me $20. I actually figured out I'd like the game because you can download the demo for the sequel right now (it comes out in a few weeks), so I'd played that first. It has been a challenge because I'm used to Blizzard's RTS games, with all their handy cheat codes. Playing through Starcraft, for example, I would play without cheating, then get bored with gathering resources and do a quick "show me the money" to bump those up. Then I'd play some more, and all of a sudden my base would get zerged and rather than lose the mission and my 45-minute investment, I'd give myself complete immunity with "power overwhelming." Well, the only way to cheat in Battle for Middle Earth is to hack into the unit properties and, I don't know, give them insane armor and hit points or something, but it certainly isn't something easy like hitting enter and typing "whosyourdaddy."
I'm also going to pass the time by reading a lot - Amazon has been having this buy-3-get-1-free deal with their paperbacks, so I ended up getting lots because, well, that's a really good deal. Karen Smyth gave me a great reading recommendation - Carol Berg's trilogy Transformation, Revelation, and Restoration - and they are really good. I'm about halfway through them now. I also got a new Valdemar short stories collection and some of my favorite Valdemar trilogies that I wanted for my own collection (the first time I read them I was borrowing from Raye-Jean).
Oh yeah, and BOOYAH - Steelers are the Super Bowl champions. I was so happy :)
Matt spent all weekend doing taxes, but he came home last night (in time for Grey's Anatomy, even better) victorious for having gotten some big ... thing? ... done. Not that it'll make this week any easier for him. To fill the void, I got a new computer game, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth. It is a real-time strategy game, and I've been really enjoying it so far. You can play for the good or bad guys, and there's something really satisfying about sending a horde of orcs flying by running through them with your Rohirrim warriors (I'm doing the "good" campaign right now). So far I've also had the heroes Aragorn, Gandalf, Boromir, Eomer, Legolas, Gimli, and all four hobbits to control along with my armies at various points in the campaign. The game also looks great, and it only cost me $20. I actually figured out I'd like the game because you can download the demo for the sequel right now (it comes out in a few weeks), so I'd played that first. It has been a challenge because I'm used to Blizzard's RTS games, with all their handy cheat codes. Playing through Starcraft, for example, I would play without cheating, then get bored with gathering resources and do a quick "show me the money" to bump those up. Then I'd play some more, and all of a sudden my base would get zerged and rather than lose the mission and my 45-minute investment, I'd give myself complete immunity with "power overwhelming." Well, the only way to cheat in Battle for Middle Earth is to hack into the unit properties and, I don't know, give them insane armor and hit points or something, but it certainly isn't something easy like hitting enter and typing "whosyourdaddy."
I'm also going to pass the time by reading a lot - Amazon has been having this buy-3-get-1-free deal with their paperbacks, so I ended up getting lots because, well, that's a really good deal. Karen Smyth gave me a great reading recommendation - Carol Berg's trilogy Transformation, Revelation, and Restoration - and they are really good. I'm about halfway through them now. I also got a new Valdemar short stories collection and some of my favorite Valdemar trilogies that I wanted for my own collection (the first time I read them I was borrowing from Raye-Jean).
Oh yeah, and BOOYAH - Steelers are the Super Bowl champions. I was so happy :)
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Hi *waves*
Tonight I am reminded of one of the negative aspects of living in an apartment. Yes, our neighbors below us seem to be having a party, and yes, their horrible techno music is making our floor vibrate, cat pace, and butt cheeks tingle (from irritation *and* the music). Anyway, I feel like griping about it, so why not do it by blog?
So, life is going okay. We had a bit of a health scare with Dad this week (someone has "weird" appendicitis) but he's bouncing back (think how superhuman he is to be up and about with that funky appendix still in there). Related to that, I ended up working an extra shift this week as we moved our schedules around to let Dad off the hook for Friday night, so I worked Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday lunch this week (money, yay!). It's funny how accustomed I am to having my Friday break, though. My feet hurt! But it is always fun working on a different day, with different people.
What else is new? Matt fell off the face of the planet recently, as Busy Season kicked into full gear. He thinks he'll practically never come home tonight...but at least he's coming back for the Super Bowl tomorrow. Go Steelers! I had a Steelers jersey when I was a baby and have had a real affection for all Pittsburgh teams since then, so I'm somewhat of a longtime fan :)
I got one of those automatic air freshener sprayers at the grocery store yesterday, and I'm really pleased with it, but it still makes me jump when it sprays every 36 minutes.
I got some exciting clinic news in the last week or so. Dr. Sarpong told me that the clinic should be opening the week of March 13 (yes, the same week I hear about vet school and the same week Matt will nearly die from exhaustion because of taxes). Stephanie also worked out my schedule. The clinic hours will be 8am - 6pm Mon-Fri and 8am - 12pm on Saturday. I'd told her I didn't want to work Saturday (and she wanted Thursday off). That worked, and to get me 40 hours a week, I just needed 4 10-hour days. So, I'll be working there 8-6 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It is going to be awesome being on almost the same schedule as Matt, and that Tuesday off will give me another day for errands, household chores, and quiet time.
I got a new fantasy book from Amazon.com the other day but I haven't read it yet. Has anyone read anything by Carol Berg?
*cry* Make the techno stop *whimper*
So, life is going okay. We had a bit of a health scare with Dad this week (someone has "weird" appendicitis) but he's bouncing back (think how superhuman he is to be up and about with that funky appendix still in there). Related to that, I ended up working an extra shift this week as we moved our schedules around to let Dad off the hook for Friday night, so I worked Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday lunch this week (money, yay!). It's funny how accustomed I am to having my Friday break, though. My feet hurt! But it is always fun working on a different day, with different people.
What else is new? Matt fell off the face of the planet recently, as Busy Season kicked into full gear. He thinks he'll practically never come home tonight...but at least he's coming back for the Super Bowl tomorrow. Go Steelers! I had a Steelers jersey when I was a baby and have had a real affection for all Pittsburgh teams since then, so I'm somewhat of a longtime fan :)
I got one of those automatic air freshener sprayers at the grocery store yesterday, and I'm really pleased with it, but it still makes me jump when it sprays every 36 minutes.
I got some exciting clinic news in the last week or so. Dr. Sarpong told me that the clinic should be opening the week of March 13 (yes, the same week I hear about vet school and the same week Matt will nearly die from exhaustion because of taxes). Stephanie also worked out my schedule. The clinic hours will be 8am - 6pm Mon-Fri and 8am - 12pm on Saturday. I'd told her I didn't want to work Saturday (and she wanted Thursday off). That worked, and to get me 40 hours a week, I just needed 4 10-hour days. So, I'll be working there 8-6 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. It is going to be awesome being on almost the same schedule as Matt, and that Tuesday off will give me another day for errands, household chores, and quiet time.
I got a new fantasy book from Amazon.com the other day but I haven't read it yet. Has anyone read anything by Carol Berg?
*cry* Make the techno stop *whimper*
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