Boss: You’ve been so good at doing X, you’re being given a development opportunity for the next six months.

Me: Well, that sounds ominous.

Boss: Yeah, what is the worst possible assignment you can imagine.

Me: Well, either being forced to go live in rural Nevada or being forced to go work in Chicken Little with Chip on Shoulder department.

Boss: Good news. You get to stay here.

Me: <headdesk>

See – its either good people, bad location, or drama filed pissy people in a good location. Apparently, my “opportunity” is to work on my people skills.

Have I mentioned that I hate people?

So…. after the first meeting where my department was insulted, ridiculed, disparraged, and basically I was told “we don’t want you, we don’t need you, and you have no value to us” I took a few days off to spend with Mom and Dad.

And it was good.

Valley of Fire Hike

PHOTO BOMB (Dad didn't even notice) - Furnace Creek Inn - Death Valley National Park

the Cowboy survives his first day long Joe & Pat Show

Ya’ll Tomorrow is another day. Today was not as bad as last week. Apparently the natives might actually be able to temporarily remove shoulder chips, but who knows? All I know is that this assignment is gonna suck ass for the first month at least.

Oh, and the other crappy parts of my job – the ones I feel balance out the FUN and COOL factors? Yeah, I’m still having to do those. I can’t even ditch one Hoover type assignment for this new Dirt Devil one.

Sigh. more later. I still has Xmas photos, and more from the last trip to ‘Mento, and then I prolly owe you a post on the Cowboy and how I’ve totally become a cliche.

Good times will be had by all. And more importantly, I will not be at work. Which will be a lovely change, and a desperately needed break. Oh, the stories I could tell you…

Till then, here’s a little NOM NOM NOM from christmas.

B'Dawg supervises a triple word score in Alec Baldwin's Words With Friends

p.s. for those of you detail oriented kiddos paying attention, yes, that is a Jane Austen mug in the background.

In previous posts you see I was in Denver and then Northern Nevada (the land with limited gasoline).

Then the week of Thanksgiving, I went to Sacramento for business meetings. Yeah, the week of Thanksgiving. WTF? But I went. And it was lovely – the trees in ‘Mento were at full peak and it was just really nice to walk around and enjoy a place that has “fall.” California is whack, yo. And not in the fun fingernail polish sniffing way. I just have to shake my head and thats all I can say about that.

Sacramento (Capital of the Alternative Universe)

The airport in Mento had just opened a new terminal – and one of the centerpeices in said terminal is this really cool light fixture:

cool chandelier thinging in Sacramento Airport - new terminal

I can not help but wonder WHY they didn’t try to camofluage the supporting braces and chains better? Because its really really pretty till you see metal bands around it. Disappointing. But I still want one.

Then I went to Carson City. Twice in one week, with one over night stay. But yeah.  I wasn’t sure I if I was coming or going at that point. I think I spent more time at the airport than my house.

And then the Cowboy had me up at the ranch in Utah his friend owns. The Cowboy was deep frying a turkey. And yes, he really is a cowboy. See below:

Denim the Dog and The Cowboy

That’s a blue heeler. And let me assure you, he’s watching the NFR (National Finals Rodeo) on satellite. Which he watched every. single. night. it was in town. Ten days of cows, horses, and all that implies. I learned things. Against my better judgement, I learned things.

The Ranch in Utah

But the Ranch is lovely, and it was nice to get away, even if it were a bit “brisk” and the Cowboys is both a cover stealer and a bed hog. This was the trip where he learned, “If she’s up and dressed before I am, its not going to be a good day.”

Cause he likes to see out the window.

And on the drive back, just this side of the Virgin Narrows on I-15, you can see the B-dawg, who enjoyed chilling with the ranch dogs and getting to run around and be silly. He slept pretty much the whole way home, which was a nice change.

I’ll have christmas photos up soon. Perhaps by easter. Hope you all have a lovely holiday season and don’t party too hard on New Years!

Between Winnemucca and Battle Mountain, NV

No one really WANTS a coal plant in their back yard. Fortunately, there’s a LOT Of empty space in Nevada. In one such location, there is a coal power plant. I was there last week. With a head cold. Teaching Sharepoint. Love the people, hate trying to get there. Because it either involves directly DRIVING from Las Vegas for 7 hours. Through deserted desert.

OR you can fly to Reno, and then rent you a car and drive the three hours east.

Ya’ll, I gotta say. Sumbitches must have REALLY wanted to get to California because between the Mohave and the Great Basin deserts, this little pioneer would have turned her happy little ass back around and stayed in Denver. Or St. Louis.

Rental Car agency gave me a Jeep Compass. Funny enough, this is what I got in Seattle last month when jetting up for the day for the cousin’s wedding. Here is photo of said vehicle:

Jeep Compass POS model

For those of you keeping score, yes, this would be an SUV. With the typical shitty gas mileage that one gets with an American SUV.  Mother frakers claim that some of the models get 27-29 MPG highway. The MFs LIE. Or I had a four wheel drive version, which is possible because it is ski country and ski season in reno. Regardless, you’d think that it would have more than a 13.8 Gallon fuel tank. Alas, poor Yorrick….

So there’s a stretch of Interstate 80 where there is 60 miles between gas stations. Do you see where I am going with this yet? So while I left the plant, some 200 miles from the airport, with half a tank of gas, I failed to recognize the conseqences of my decision at the time. It was pretty. I had satellite radio. I was sick.

Pony update over at his blog. Needless to say, things have sucked there.

Meanwhile, back in the mundane world, I just got back from a bidnez trip to Denver.

SNOW! YAY!

Where I was trapped for 36+ hours with 10 female coworkers. Traveling with that many women? means NO PRIVACY EVER. Because you can’t even go pee by yourself. And Lillith had booked the entire trip down to the gnat’s ass of a second, so I was EXTREMELY anti-people when I got home. GRRR. (and I left after having the vet take off half of Rico’s face, so I was already in a bad bad place.)

BUT I busted loose from that gaggle of estrogen and got away to have a two hour (non-alcoholic, sadly) lunch with Mile High Pixie! Best. Part. Of. The. Whole. Trip. We talked non-stop about all the things that were OMG about our lives and it was GOOD. We needed at least another three hours. And wine. Or margaritas. So it was with much sadness I returned to the flock o’hens on our return to the airport. (which is so far east of town, I think its in Kansas, by the way.)

THEN on Saturday, I watched Georgia Tech not just win against Clemson, but beat them soundly. (Where the hell was that team against Virginia and Miami????) As Dr. Leenda and I had a bet on the game, I was even MORE excited to receive my loot this week:

He really is a nice guy. I’ve worked for extremely competent assholes, and I have to say I prefer (to a certain extent) the kindler, gentler, less/uneffective alternative. But sometimes, I just want to strangle the guy and scream at him for failing to actually lead:  make difficult decisions and directly deal with issues that require confrontation.  Nice Guy has other quirks too, but today, I will share with you my favorite.

Nice Guy has a tendancy towards buzz words and catch phrases. Its so bad, I’m not sure if we forbid him from using them, he could actually speak. I have a running list on my black berry that I update every time I’m in a meeting with him, and I will share the current version with you now. Remember, all of these phrases have not been used just once – they have become legend in the company. In meetings, I like to keep a running tally of  how often each one is used. And last month, I swear to you, he talked for about 5 minutes at the end of a meeting, and dropped about a dozen of these. My boss and I were about to fall off our chairs we were trying not to laugh so hard.

Circle the wagons  (Yes, I am not kidding. This one gets used OFTEN. I think its a metaphor for the fact that we’re so busy circling wagons, we never make any progress. I suppose I could freaking him out by telling him he’s clearly racist against Native Americans?)

Pull the trigger

Lay it down/on the table

Cool  (You need to hear it in a hippy dippy kind of tone – except as if it were done by an engineer trying to be hippy)

Groovy (See above)

Under the radar

Macro / macro level

The Mission going forward  (omg, I just threw up a little. i wish I could self destruct myself out of the meeting when I hear this)

Handshaking (I always hear this and think : we’re gonna need ALOT of Purel)

Holistic (This is currently his favorite – last meeting – 13 times used. And I will note that he does use it correctly!)

Rocking and Rolling (See “cool” above)

Get some momentum (Momentum doesn’t get you shit when you’re just going in a circle, dude. I’m just saying.)

Blah blah blah blah (Yes, that’s literal. Its like “Yadda Yadda Yadda” from Seinfield but not as cool. Or as clever. I believe its used to cover up a short coming of actual knowledge of the information at hand.)

Blast through

Seance (This one is fairly new – perhaps in honor of halloween? He uses it in weird context too – as if we’re going to have ask dead people for help)

Shoot the shit

Grind through / Grind on (This one is one of my favorites – the first meeting he used it, he was on the third repeat and said we would have to “grind on this with Company X” and I turned to my other snarky engineering bud and said, “I’ve seen Him and His Employee with X. I’m not grinding on them.” and Snark said, “Yeah, especially without them buying lunch first.”)

Handholder /SuperHandholder (WTF? Super hand holder?)

Man (See “cool” above)

Dude (See “cool” above)

Coom Bi Yah  (Sigh)

(Drive) through the chute  (We circle wagons, we pull triggers, and we drive through chutes. Failed dream of being a cowboy??)

Keep cranking  (We crank AND we grind. I hope everyone got their shots and has latex handy!)

Oujoui board (Perhaps to help with the Seance? Also, dude – this is Mormon country. I’m not sure using this metaphor is actually helpful? Again, another one that makes me wonder voices he’s hearing on a regular basis)

Plans of attack

White Paper (This is an ongoing groaner – when ever NG recognizes he knows NOTHING about the task he’s been given, his first order of business is to find someone who DOES know and ask them to write a white paper so he can learn all about it. This has happened to me several times. I have yet to execute, choosing to follow the Beetlejuice Rule of Managing Managers)

Bulls eye

Bucket (Apparently he prefers to sort shit and responsibilities into buckets. OK. Acceptible metaphor. Just quit beating on  it so long you have to have a seance to get the bucket back.)

Train wreck (This started as a description of the environmental regulatory forecast – and he loves it. To the point where its becoming something he latches on to in a conversation because he actually *understands* it, unlike so many other things.)

Food for thought

Plan of Attack (we do lots of planning and very little attacking in our circle of wagons.)

Conceptual scope (Excuse me, I have to stop here - what the f$#%^ exactly is “conceptual scope.” Oh, that’s right – code for “I have no idea how to get started so lets lay out a conceptual scope for a plan of attack. ” Christ Almighty.)

Straw man (Yes, you are. Not unlike the character from Oz)

Ya’ll its so bad, I would make a drinking game out of it, but we don’t have glasses big enough to get us through a half hour meeting. So instead, I’ve built a spreadsheet that randomizes these phrases into a matrix resembling a bingo card. At some point in the not too distant future, I am going to print them out and pass them out, complete with a prize for the bingo winners.

Till then, here are a couple of photos (taken with my BB because I’m an idiot and forgot the real camera) from a trip I took recently to go look for fall foliage with Punkin and Kimmie, and my Cowboy (more on The Cowboy later). Oh, and I did a quick trip to Seattle (as in, I spent more time flying up and back than actually in the Emerald City) for my cousin’s wedding. It was beautiful, she was so happy, and I cried.

Yankee Meadows in Utah - potential camping spot of the future...

Cedar Breaks - no color left here, just 2ft of early season snow!

(Cedar Breaks was where we camped last July – This was taken in early October – it was a goreous day up there – about 36F and no breeze. The snow sparkled.)

Steve Jobs shaped the way we interfaced with computers, the way we allowed ourselves to express ourselves, and brought the personal computer interface to non-technical people.

He touched millions and created paradigms on top of paradigms.

He was, for lack of better words, fucking brilliant.

And at 56, he’s gone. He burned bright, he burned gloriously, and he burned fast.

Go well, Steve. May your journey thrive.

-Written on an iPad2.

Sigh.

I was picking up some things (including a fridge for the tack room) this weekend, and one of them was a present for a coworker whose birthday is coming up. She has an ipad so I picked up an accessory for her that I adore. But while I was in the electronics section, I wandered (BAD) through the CD racks and picked up a sale on Eric Church…

And I am now a Fan. This is the title cut off of the CD I bought. And it made me smile. I miss you guys.

She just posted a lovely discussion on dating after divorce, and I have to say, its not just after divorce. I think it applies to dating later in life, period!

Using another human being as your relationship pace car is a bad idea.

OMG. What a great way to put it – its so hard to let go of OTHER people’s expectations of what “it should be like” or “what’s appropriate” or “this is how its done.” You gotta figure out what works for you. So far, I’ve done ALOT of research and can safely list about 4,724 items that DON’T work for me – but I had to try them out to conclusively determine this.

I don’t do anything I don’t want to do with anyone I don’t want to do it with and neither should you. People make too much of all of this.

Yeah, even my screw ups? Were because I WANTED to do what I was doing. Perhaps misguided intentions (or not – sometimes a girl’s just gotta have fun), but that last part? Yeah, no shit. We girls, we make too much of EVERYTHING.

If you think your choices can’t be trusted because you’ve made such bad ones in the past, then get to yourself to therapy.

Word sister. Preach it.

Great great post from a woman very eloquent in her description of the trials, tribulations and need to navigate life as a single chica. And timely too – date night here in Vegas. This should be interesting.

a while ago mom called…. (work is nutz ya’ll… I love it and I am so amazingly grateful on a regular basis for how awesome my job is, and the awesomeness that is my coworkers, and then I come home and drink. A. Lot. From a Box’O'Wine, but I digress…)

ANYWAY, mom and dad were in Washington, doing stupid Ranch shit they aren’t appreciated for (omg, the Ranch looked great, but I cried half way to the airport, feeling like I was saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa for good), and Psycho Kitty got sick.

Psycho kitty was one of two kittens, feral like, that showed up at our house in Alabama over 16 years ago. We tied to catch them and one attacked (really attacked) Mom, and when we caught one, we took it to the vet. Those of you who know, Rabies tests are terminal because they require brain tissue, so we lost that kitten to make sure Mom didn’t need ot get the full rabies profile of shots.

It was negative.

So when we caught the second kitten, we figured we were OK. But this kitten, she was feral, and it took a while to charm and cajole her into domesticity. My little brother seemed to have the most luck – he eschewed petting her with his hands and instead used his giant feet instead to stroke her and shortly she became “his” cat. Because of her skittishness, we called her “Psycho Kitty.” When we took her to the vet to get spayed, the decision was made to tell them she had a more “normal” name, lest the vet (who already thought we were silly for calling the dog “Sam” …. making him “Sam Hill”) think we’d clearly lost our minds. So we elected a name that hinted at her Psycho nature – Pandora.

And so she became the cat with two names – Pandora in public and Psycho in private. She had a peculiar habit of dive bombing your feet with her cheeks when she was feeling personable – a habit cultivated by my little brother’s tendency to pet her with his toes. And she was smart. Lord was she smart.

And like every damn cat my parents have had, she was in no way, shape or form, interested in getting into a carrying case. So it was with much fussing, cussing, and general exasperation that we got her in one and moved to Mississippi when my parents left Alabama (moment of sadness here.)

They stayed there for a while, with Psycho adjusting to OMG white carpet and no one but mom and dad to love on. She seemed fairly happy. Then they bought the house in coastal Alabama, and she moved again. And not a few months after that, they decided to move to the United Arab Emirates for two years.

And Psycho became mine.

She was a particular cat. I remember trying to fish her out from under the guest bed at my friends John & Regan’s house in ATlanta on the drive to North Carolina after dropping my parents off on their adventure. After dumping mom and dad (who were crying too) at the Pensacola airport, she howled and I cried till we got to Montgomery. Then she decided to Hate. For a while. And getting a cat out from under a queen sized bed so you can start an 8 hr drive? Not. Fun. In fact that’s right up there with a root canal and IUD. At the same time. While having a hang nail and heartburn. And a migraine.

Psycho lived with me for a while during Mom&Dad’s UAE adventure. I already had Baxter at this point and my two kittens, but when Pyscho showed up? The pack order changed….

She made it very clear that she was the alpha dog, the pride leader and basic house Bitch, complete with dominating the prime spot on the bed next to me. This distressed Baxter, cowed Tinkerbell, but my little hippie cat, Thomas O’Malley? He was all “peace, love, and mickey mouse” about it. Dude, even I didn’t fuck with Psycho Kitty when she was on a ramp.

But my kittehs taught her the wonder of a pet door and I think she missed it every day when Mom and Dad finally got home to Alabama and they came and got her. They travel a lot. Seriously? Gone for weeks at a time – to far and exotic locations, squandering my inheritance, but I digress. So in the last couple of years she enjoyed laps and love from my folks and then went to the boarding kennel or partook of the pet sitter.

And it was on one of the trips (to the Ranch) that she finally slipped.

The vet kept her alive for them to get home – in fact he thought she was gone several times. And the first day Mom was home, she went to the vet clinic, petted the friend and companion that had made her house a home, and said good bye. She told me it was hard, but Pyscho was sick and clearly was holding on for just that moment.

She called me that night, to tell me – telling me that she had to call since for a while Psycho was mine and that I needed to know that she’d left us. She was a really great cat, and a personality to reckon with.

When we love these creatures, when they teach us that there is the potential to get beyond ourselves and recognize that there is joy and companionship worth having, but its not without loss, when we do this, we grow, and we hurt.

Thank you Psycho. I enjoyed every exasperating moment, and I loved you. I will see you again someday, and I am grateful for the Gift you were. Go well, kitty. You will be missed.