One good thing about today

I made my first training video for work with iMovie without needing geeka’s help – and I was able to complete it in under an hour!

 

Bonus gift: I was even able to export it and get it be viewable on a Windows Machine!

Pray for Me

I know – me the most unreligious person around, is asking you to pray for me. Well, I’m going to need it today. Let’s just say, this bad day started out yesterday when I got an email that said, “It looks like the loader might be failing I will give you a call tomorrow.”  This would be our tape autoloader at work. This would be the tape autoloader at work that does all of our backups for all of the servers we have in the building. *This is really bad news!*

 

Since that email, things have just been going down hill – and fast. I have a special eNewsletter that I’ve been working on this department that can only find things wrong. It looks great, but the company we use, for some reason has problems with apostrophes, hyphens, and quotation marks. Of course, this department does not want to rewrite their text because then it will look to “FORMAL” and they are more “informal kind of bunch”. Fine, I can try to figure this one out – it is just an email to the company, no big problems.

 

Then overnight, I got 40 messages from our antivirus software about a full quarantine and items that have expired and items that have not been able to be scanned. WTF? WTF? Yeah, so this scares me and of course no one has ever showed me where on the 10 servers we have where to go look into this. I did this once before, when I only had 3 servers to work about.

 

I have changed 4 passwords this morning and I am booked almost every second of this day with meetings and such. Add to the fact that two coworkers are after my head right now and they just want me gone – even though they were the ones that were entirely wrong. Another coworker is upset at me because I think she is breaking dress code and of course one of the people who wants me head told her that I’m the only one complaining about her clothes (ah, truth is, about 8 people say she wears bathing suits to work).

 

So, maybe I need to pray to the god of computer gremlins. Maybe I need to pray to the god of ‘just let me get thru this day’. I don’t know. But I need it – NOW!

My First Meme

This is my first meme. I've been tagged by Image Goddess who is my PT-buddy and who has been battling the summer-crud that has been going around.

Rules

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

Random Facts

• When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a physical therapist/athletic trainer because I was so into sports. Needless to say, I probably would have been able to save myself some grief and money in physical therapy had I done that career path!
• I am one of the first members of my middle school’s Sports Hall of Fame for participating in softball, swimming, and soccer. It is one of the rare things that I still display from my sports life.
• I started to write fan fiction for a television show named La Femme Nikita almost a decade ago and I still write fan fiction based off of that show today. In fact, I would almost say I have a fan base of readers who get nervous if I don’t post at least a chapter a day (if not more).
• I prefer to be around my father’s family rather than my mother’s side of the family. This all sounds nice, but is the most impractical thing for me. My mom’s family is all in the Pittsburgh area while my dad’s family specializes in spreading across the entire United States and moving around quite frequently.
• I used to color in coloring books while in my college sociology class in order to stop myself from falling asleep.
• I love to take photographs and I feel that even with the digital camera, nothing is as good as actual film and photographs. In fact, I really like to take black and white photographs as it is more difficult to do.
• I have published poetry – call it young teenager angst.
• I’m really good at putting the borders together on jigsaw puzzles, but often become too bored to do anything more with the puzzle.

Now, I'm supposed to tag 8 people but the problem is I don’t even read 8 blogs. I have two places that I go all the time and I have not branched out at this time. I know, it’s time to start reading! So, I’ve answered but regrettably, I cannot tag anyone else to continue this on. Any suggestions on fun blogs to read – I’m game for it!

Practical Jokes

Some times I like to pull practical jokes and lately, it has been my pleasure to be able to do this with customized ring tones on our phone system. It is one of the neatest things to be able to do to our phones. I have control of the ring tones and most of them are the normal ring tones and a few fun ones. But there have been so people that just needed specialized ring tones.

 

First there was mine and the “Payroll Bitches” ring tone. I was able to get the Wicked Witch of the West saying “I’ll Get You My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too”. It’s great – it matches my personality. Along that same time I got our CFO an Elvis ring tone… he sings “I’m All Shook Up” whenever her phone rings. It gives her a smile – which never hurts with the CFO. She controls the money so keep her happy

 

It didn’t end there. I have this woman in the development department named Marci. Her given name is Marcia, but she hates it. Well, I was able to find Jan Brady saying “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia”. What makes this better, is that we got this onto her phone and we turned it ALL the way up. At first, she thought we were doing something to make her phone play that way. She had no idea that it was now her ring tone. She hated it at first, but the nice thing is… she has embraced it as something unique that she can really hear with the ring tone down lower.

 

I tried to get the Facilities Coordinator a new ring tone but he won’t go for it. Often, he saves the day around here, so I was able to get Mighty Mouse’s theme song. You know… “Here I come to save the day!!!!!” It’s perfect for him, but he wants us to record women talking sweet to him. Yeah, he sits next to me so that isn’t going to be happening anytime soon!

 

I also got Mork going Nanu, Nanu… but on one has selected that one.

Of course, when the PG got wind of this custom ring tones and he came up with someone harder for me to do. All these other ring tones were sort of already shortened for me. But no… he wanted a Disco ring tone. Specifically, “Boogie Wonderland”. So the search was one. First, the files really need to be wav files to make this easier. It’s insane to find this, but after about 20 minutes of searching I found a full length version of Boogie Wonderland (that was the real song singing, but not some stupid synthesizer) and then I had to edit it down to a ring of the length of about 4 to 7 seconds. I was able to pull it off and he enjoys it.

 

But now we’ll get to the real practical joke. That would be on Ms. Texas. Yep, my girl Texas who is so against the Steelers its unreal. She is Cowboys through and through. Well, she is on vacation this week and we were wondering what we could do to her. Everyone wanted to decorate her desk, because that’s what she does to us. But, that didn’t seem like it screamed out something we would do. Then I remembered that I wanted to make a Steelers ring tone. Well, it is now done. The ring tone starts out with the fans screaming “Here We Go Steelers” then a robot saying “The Pittsburgh Steelers” and ending with “And The Towels Are Up!”. It’s brilliant! It’s awesome. She is going to hate it. But I know others in this building will use the ring tone too, so I feel that I did something for everyone… not just for a practical joke.

 

And some days, this is what I have to remember. I can work somewhere where we pull jokes like this all the time. I work in a place where I have the power to control the ring tones and the hold music. I have some fun that can make the long days when I want to slap the PG silly. So, I know that I have a long day planned today, but I wanted to share the fun of my ring tones. Who knows what will be next. I will get a feeling someday and just will do it. Maybe I need to get a man recording the “breathless” women for the Facilities Coordinator. Now that would be a hoot!

Why PG's Shouldn't Be Bosses

1. They lie to your face
2. They lie to other people behind your back
3. They like to micromanage.
4. They hate being bothered about stuff that they want to micromanage but don’t know enough about
5. They like to jump the line in a “To-Do List” to be most important
6. They like to make you work on the holiday
7. They think of stupid video concepts that are going to take a gazillion hours to do and not take any of your other work off of you
8. They go to stupid baseball games that they don’t even like in order to socialize rather than work
9. They like to tell you that you don’t need more training
10. They like to get you to do all of their work and take the glory
11. They like to get you to do all of their work and all of the blame when it isn’t exactly done the right way
12. They like to make comments about exercise
13. They notice the color of your toenail polish
14. They call you and leave you messages of music
15. They really, really, really, really like the song True Colors
16. They don’t make anyone else do any work
17. They don’t understand deadlines
18. They are too small to see how big a problem truly is
19. They leave you to deal with political nightmares
20. They let you get so much work that you feel like you are drowning and then they tell you that you are rude and need an attitude adjustment
21. They hire people that should be under you in the chain but decides to make them the same level as you so you have no control over what they do because the PG is the boss and he doesn’t manage the person
22. They suck!

Blah, blah, blah

I have been such a bad blogger of late. It is because as I started to see the light and start planning for my future, I get awful projects thrown onto my desk. I have been swamped with things that are just going to take so much extra time. Some of these used to be things that I liked to do and I would think if I wasn’t under pressure to do, I would like. I would like it even better if I got to make the CREATIVE decisions.

Instead, I am going to be stuck doing a pop-up video to True Colors. Ok, I don’t know if any of you have been to Disney World and Epcot Center during the 80’s. That’s when Michael Jackson was still partially black and mostly liked. His 3-D movie Captain Eeho (or something like) was the rage and would have horribly long lines. But when you got into the preshow, they had this wonderful picture show to True Colors (and I believe it was the Phil Collins version and not the Cyndi Lauper version). It was a stunning piece of artwork and I liked *THAT* more than I liked the 3-D movie. So, even though this sounds good and creative, in the back of my head, I’m thinking that anyone who has ever seen THAT preshow, this is going to suck. And it is stuck in my head. I know how great it was. I remember how stunning the pictures were. I remember the cute little pictures of kittens. I remember the giant balloons soaring in the air. I remember the rainbows and lightening pictures that were featured. There is absolutely NO WAY that mine is going to even be 10% of what that preshow was. It depresses me. It makes me sad. It makes me not want to do it, but I don’t have a choice. The boss has spoken – this is the way it is going to be.

 

So, I plan to get back to my blog. I’ll get rid of the poll that is causing all the popup ads (and since I had to put on a song today for the hold music that wasn’t even in the running, I may not have as much control of the hold music as I thought I did). I’ll do the 8 things you don’t know about me soon. I swear!

 

And then you will get to hear all about the horrible process of making a video that I don’t want to make.

Need Humor

I was going to spend my moment, writing on my blog about how great Grille 36 is. Yes, the restaurant that “The Bus” built, is fabulous – especially if you like portions that could serve 4 people. I call them all “Bus-portions”.  I was actually enjoying time with co-workers and finding it a good day. It is always nice to be appreciated with a meal at a New and Special restaurant.

 

Then, I had to come back to work and actually work. No problem doing that. I answered some emails and addressed some issues about one of our offices and the connection at that location. The internet and network has always been slower there. It isn’t our building and the lines aren’t even really ours. It’s all been kind of ad-hoc’ed together. I’ve troubleshooted problems for months and months… with my boss always saying “Don’t worry about it” and stuff like that.

 

Well, I didn’t worry about it – and what happens? This issue blows up in my face, people believe that I “have done all that I know how to do” – which makes it sounds like I don’t know what I’m doing, and it has gone to the CEO now for “addressing”. It’s crazy… but I have the facts. I have emails. I know what I have done. I know that the only way to fix this problem is to spend thousands and thousands of dollars that none of the departments in that location has the budget to pay for.

So, I’m going to go find humor right now. I’m not going to worry about this issue tonight until the boss response. However, if he does not response or if he does not support me fully on this mess, I will fight back.

 

To prepare, I see a round or two of wii boxing.

You know it is bad......

When the person you need to copy program books that are only 8 pages long… can’t figure it out.

Levity

This describes the week for me thus far. Enough said!

It's That Time Again

I think the time happens about once or twice a week. Sometimes it isn’t as serious while other times, I start actually keeping track of things. The time is when I swear I cannot take this job any more and it is time to move on. I actually start looking for a new job and then realized how truly and thoroughly screwed I am when it comes to looking for a different job. Oh, there is a job at RAND. Oh, the Woodlands Foundation is looking for a Senior Fundraising Director. Oh, that place I never heard of wants an eMarketing Director. Oh – can I actually apply for any of these without lying about my qualifications?

 

I have no certification or stamp of approval that says “Yes, I know how to do this computer stuff!”. I have no proven track record with doing fundraising, because it all goes thru Marci and credit is never divided out. Then, I get worried that I think that I have more skills than I truly do have. I do rely upon help desk to do a lot of the troubleshooting. Half the time, I think I act like a goose with a chopped off head. I never truly know what the answer is. I guess at a lot of things. What kind of place would hire that?

 

There are benefits to what is going on here. I get 17 days vacation. My boss virtually doesn’t do any supervising until he is 4 to 5 months late with the reviews and then he gives the obligatory – your attitude sucks speech. I can create my own hours. I have cool guys at help desk that make me laugh when things are bad. I can talk to Board Members and not have to worry about the stuck-up attitude and entitlement that most Board Members have.

 

But days like this, when my wireless connection might as well be called wireless-less, and when I get ambiguous reports of ‘the state says there is something wrong with our connection’ while there are no hints of any problems – I almost want to high tail it Florida, to work at Disney, where things have got to be easier to understand, where there probably is a boss that would supervise and not let me just hang in this vast wonderland of nothingness.

 

Yep, it’s that time again.

 

 

Bad situation

You know what is awful is when you bring someone into the workplace that you think is going to be a great person for the position – but then they are the worse person. Then, you don’t know what to do to end the situation. You are sort of responsible for bringing in this awful person, who is just throwing off the entire environment of the workplace.

 

Now, she is getting worse. She is going out and being mean out in public while representing my work. If you really didn’t want to do this, say NO. Don’t stomp around, being mad at people who are DONATING money to my agency, and coming back to work and being proud about what she did.

 

It reflects bad on me. I thought she would learn how to behave herself after a year. Especially after being here a year. It isn’t my responsibility to make her behave. She should know what common sense it. She should know how to act while working with a board member. There are things you do in public and things you say in public when having a challenging time. You don’t freak out on people and don’t be mean to them when they are trying to have a fun time.

 

So now, I am going to try to find her a new job. It will do everyone well if she just leaves the agency. I think this would be good for me too. I’m miserable with her around, trying to mother people while stabbing them in the back. But who do I push off my problem onto?

Reasons why not to bowl

It was a fun concept – bowling for your birthday – to avoid the “girly-day” plans my sister had. In fact, I had fun while doing it, but now a couple days later, there are some reasons never to do this again:

 

1. My knees are now 30 years old… and they crack like they are fifty.
2. Pain, pain, pain – and pain everywhere – hips, forearms, thumbs, lower back…. Most of these don’t matter, but the forearm pain in my right hand is bad – it impacts typing.
3. Watching my sister try to bowl left-handed – it was a comedy show really. And it showed up in my dreams.
4. Seeing what my sister was wearing and the fact that it was not bowling appropriate. Let’s just say, it was too damn tight and she spent more time pulling down than actually bowling. She has always been the perfect candidate for What Not To Wear. If I dress her, she looks fine, but right now, she looks like someone who is denying their size while also being a Wal-Mart junkie.
5. No open bar.
6. Smoking was permitted there – doesn’t impact me right away… but that night, the little bit of smoke was felt in my lungs
7. I have a wii at home. Wii bowling – much easier.
8. No homemade salsa at the bowling alley.
9. It was damn cold in there. I think I could have worn a sweater and still been cold.
10. Competition – even though my sister acted like there was no competition going on, she was watching that scoreboard like a hawk. It has always been like that.
11. Talk – talk – talk – talk – ok, so this was for my birthday… but my sister barely talked to me during bowling. Instead it was to mom about her weight, her money, her car, her job, her need for more money… Oh, in the end… the day that was my sister’s plan – turned out to be paid for by my MOM!
12. And although it has nothing to do with bowling, I must have one last bitch about my sister and her involvement with this day. After bowling we went to a cookout at my house. That’s fine. I paid for the food. I prepared the salads. Mom grilled. My sister – she never even asked if she could bring something. NEVER! Ugh!

 

Ok, now that I’m going to have to find a nice place to put my Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow poster – my sister wants it in the exercise room, which for all purposes has photographs of places around the world that I would love to see – not cheesy movie posters – even though Johnny Depp is hot and I like all of the pirates movies – I still wouldn’t have gotten this poster, EVER!

 

It is now time to go back to work. Don’t feel like that either. All of those pains leftover from bowling……..

I Got A Wii!

That’s all that I can say right now. I got a Wii. I looked and looked and when I was least expecting it, I came across one at Wal-Mart. It’s amazing! I want to play Wii all the time.

 

What to do first?

It has been one of those ‘Manic Mondays’ where things are just not right and there are two many things going on. I guess it is part of my fault since I have been taking Fridays off, but that isn’t really my decision. If I could take another vacation, I would. But it is impossible. And then, I may have to come in on Friday just for an hour or two to make sure some techs are comfortable in my building. So much for a vacation day.

It is also one of those days, were everyone is pointing out all of my flaws. It is a Monday, where I got to the Post Gazette and start looking at the job postings and wondering if any of these jobs are worth even applying for. It is a Monday where one of the jobs looks interesting, pays more than what I currently make, but the qualifications are muddy and unclear. I wonder if I have the skills to do that job or would I just be expanding myself to sound good to be only put in a worse situation than I am now.

Its not that I hate my job - I dislike many aspects of my job right now. I dislike the fact that I have to get every little thing approved that I do, but it is seen as being annoying. I dislike the fact that when I try to be more proactive and assertive in making decisions, it is seen as being overaggressive and ill-advised and that my boss needs to approve these things. I dislike the fact that I have to recall things I learned 6 months ago, but I haven’t had to recall them until now and I don’t remember. It’s my fault that I don’t remember any of it. I should have written it down, but I was so busy at the time. I dislike that I’m near tears every time I have to try to bribe people for work because I’m all by myself and Board Members have dropped off the face of the earth after they promised help. I dislike the fact that everyone needs me but yet I’m not supposed to need any of them. I dislike the fact that no one every says thank you any longer. Even for the simple things like changing a password – it would be nice to just hear a ‘thank you’. I dislike that coworkers can say *I’m not doing that, you can do that.* and then they go and place my name on a letter, effectively making me in charge of something that I wasn’t aware that I was going to be in charge of.

I do cool things every once in a while. But those cool things are coming few and far between. I want to do more of those things, but instead I get stuck trying to bribe or sweet-talk, or make nice with people. I spend a lot of time tip-toeing around people because they are so more emotional than me. I spend a lot of time doing more work for others because they are the real drama queens. Real drama queens can make others look like drama queens so they can look like they are perfect princesses.

Ok, I’m off to do more bribery. That’s what I do best!

On hate

Right now, I think I have reached a new level of hating my job. It isn’t actually the work that I hate. In fact, oddly, I sort of like the work because it is never the same thing. And although I often mention how much I hate the boss, this new level of hate is not related to him much of all.

 

It’s the expectation that everyone here has that I don’t know what I’m doing. It is the expectation that I have no freaking life and that I will jump to attention with every single email that hits my crackberry. It is the expectation that they better double-check the stuff that I just fixed incase I’m lying and I really didn’t fix anything at all. And it is mostly my ‘backup’ who is doing this crap (insert a swear word there in the place of crap – because that’s what I truly mean).

 

Yesterday, after I left at well after 3 pm, I had an email about the fax machine not working at 4 pm. Well, first, I’m off the clock. I had already put in enough hours and I did not have to reply back. Second, she is allowed to call the help desk and get help for those sorts of things… but she is allowed to not like the person who answers at help desk and just never call them. Third, after doing nothing and waiting for me to come in this morning – I checked all the plugs to find that a plug was out. *IT’S THE FIRST THING YOU CHECK!*

 

So, she comes in this morning, doesn’t even say hello or anything, and starts pounding away at the fax machine – like I ignored her email and her help desk ticket and didn’t do anything. Guess what – I had another emergency going on and I still got it fixed. But, do you think she says anything – nope. She storms off and grumbles that it took long enough. What? Did she think I was going to come back to work after I left yesterday to fix something like the fax machine? If it was that important, why didn’t she call help desk about it? Why does she think I have to jump to when she says too?

 

I’m tired of this. I’m tired of untrained people second guessing what I’m doing. I’m sick of people who are supposed to help me, doing crap, giving me more work, giving me crap about the way that I do my work, and the commenting how long it took me to do the work. Hell – it’s called work for a reason. Not a lot of people like it. If everyone worked here, I wouldn’t have to do everyone’s work that they don’t feel like doing.

Oh, I can just feel the great day coming on… it’s going to be a *glorious* one right now. I can feel it.

Stupidness

I feel that I should get paid triple for any issue that is related to people being completely stupid in their activities and their actions. There are also levels of stupidness, and lately, they have all been happening. Let me explain.

 

Level One of Stupidness – this is for the person who knows no better, and they act like they know more. Instead of asking for help, they just start pressing random buttons, hoping to solve the problem. And in addition, they did not keep track of what they were doing when they were pressing the buttons. Acts on this level deserve a good *Whack* behind the head.

 

Level Two of Stupidness – this is for the person who knows better, has shown signs of life inside of their head, and they have suddenly forgotten everything. This usually occurs when the person has moved their office – either from a building to another building or even when they change departments. Suddenly, it is like they are using a computer all over again. There are signs of lapses of brain activity, the symptom is usually forgetting the answer to a question I had already answered 5 times in the past week. Asking me again, is not going to get you a different answer. I’m not the stupid one, so don’t ask me the same question again. Acts on this level deserve a good *kick* in the butt.

 

Level Three of Stupidness – inactivity of any sort. This is usually when someone gets a brand new laptop, gets home access, and they promptly wait 3 months to turn any of them on and then wonder why the password has expired. This is not my fault and I should not be bothered about these issues. This level should be at least triple pay for myself. Acts on this level deserve a good *smack* across the face along with the *kick* and the *whack*.

 

Level Four of Stupidness – any combination of the first three levels of stupidness. This is the ultimate person who shows no signs of being able to ever really work with a computer. They are the biggest PITAs and they have an air of entitlement. For the punishment for this level, they should be required to partake in training and all of the above punishments.

 

And anyone showing these signs, impact my job. It is my job to cure their stupidness or to hold their hands. It is enough to drive someone to the edge. I did not sign up for this job to hold hands and to cuddle people when they are afraid of the power button.

Another cure for this stupidness would be to take their mouse and keyboard away – to visually shame them – to make them an example – to show everyone else around them, they are so stupid, they can’t be trusted with keyboards or mice.

 

Just another day as a frustrated non-profit accidential-but almost trained techie.

July Music Poll

I can't believe how much of a success Everyone Walk the Dinosaur has been, that once more, I am asking my friends to help me select the hold music. I did get a request for disco, but alas, I don't have any disco music on my iTunes. It breaks my heart not to offer that up as an option. Maybe I'll have some on my iTunes before August.

But again, I must give the reasons behind some of these song choices......

Hey You by Madonna - Yes, the one that was available for free by MSN. It is actually a good song. It is about time that Madonna gave us some free music!

Red, Red Wine by UB40 - Can I just use the reasoning that it is a fun song?

Tell Me 'Bout It by Joss Stone - It is from her new cd and I like it. I am kind of torn on most of the cd, but this song I can listen to quite frequently.

Let Them Talk by Harry Connick, Jr. - I think I always have to have a choice that somehow screams back to New Orleans. This one is from Harry's NOLA cd. Plus, it has the reference to "talk" in it. It is a bit slower, but with Harry, his voice keeps you happy.

I Would Walk 500 Miles by The Proclaimers - You all are probably thinking, "huh?". Well, I really like this song and I have a plan for this song. When I get married, (don't roll your eyes all at once), this is going to be the Father/Daughter dance. It was my dad's favorite song and I can't think of a better song to make him "there". It's such a great song and it never makes me sad.

Kinda Cool, Ain't It by the Povertyneck Hillbillies - Pittsburgh boys - nuff said! At least I didn't pick Mr. Right Now from them.

So those are the choices. Vote away. Vote often. Throw the vote! Help me pick the next hold music!

And the winner is....

Was (Not Was) with Everyone Walk the Dinosaur! It has made it’s debut on my phone system at work and has been a hit so far. I actually have staff calling each other and placing the other on hold to hear the hold music. It has only been on a couple hours and I’ve had three comments from callers (all positive, I must add!)

 

So, I will work on another list of possible songs for June/July and put the voting back up for my friends – because my friends have the best taste in music. And the voting is not limited to one vote. You can entirely throw the decision in your hands if you vote enough! It’s going to be fun. I will only put up songs that I current have access too – I won’t download anything just for this bit of fun (of course nothing stops friends from making sure I have more music to pick from). Now, if I could just get Will Smith’s Summertime, there may be a contest next month.

Stay tuned!

Pains of getting old

I know that I'm just in a funky mood, but the reality is, I have been like this for a while. I've been worrying about this knee pain that I always seem to have. It will go away for a while, but when it comes back, it is so bad. But I have to hide and try to imagine that it isn't there.

When I go for walks, it's always there. At times, it feels like I almost can't take another step forward, but I still move forward. Thru all the hell of the past two plus years of knee issues, this right knee has never seemed right. The doctors never really found anything - everything sounded like, 'let's make this up and get her out of her care as soon as possible'.

My walking on the South Side is supposed to be my stress relief. I tell myself that I'm going to walk all the way out until my mind is not longer thinking of work or of home (and that sister of mine!). I start out and at first, I think, the knee is only warming up... it's only going to take a bit. But it doesn't seem to warm up. At some points, it feels like the back is hurting. As I cross the street and head towards the Sports Medicine Center and the Steelers training facilities, it hurts in the front and towards the bottom. Sometimes, it feels like there is a freaking fireball in there. It never is the same pain in the same area, but it just doesn't feel right.

So the walk to relieve stress becomes actually stressful as I try not to worry about this. If I was fine last year and no one could fine out what was going on, then nothing has changed. I haven't slammed it into anything. It hasn't been twisted. It just is the same thing as last year. My primary care feels that if I lose weight that it will help with the knee pain. So I go forward even more. Probably going beyond where I should, but I have to lose weight. That is the key to not only my knee pain, but the key to all the other things in my life that just isn't right - losing weight will fix everything.

By the time I turn around, I just want to be done. I even push it at that point. You would think knee pain would slow me down, but now.. I have to go faster. The faster I go, the longer I go, the more weight I'll lose. I have to make it back to the beginning in less time that it took me go out. I push and I even jog. And when I don't jog what I perceive to be long enough, I hate myself and I hate my knee.

Sometimes, I just wish someone would have the answer. I imagine walking past the Sports Medicine Center and someone stops me... that they have the answer, that they seem my limping (which I never do), and they know how to get rid of the pain.

And as I get back to the car, I wonder, what if this pain is just in my head? It is real, but I don't swell up anymore (not that I really want to look to see if I do). It is real, although there seems to be no lost of strength or lost of range of motion. So, what happens if this is all in my head?

God, the walking is my stress relief.... I need to walk. I need this. And now, if this is just something that I have to learn to deal with because I'm getting old... I don't want to get any older.

Pictures from Vacation

I found out today that the coworker who is technically my backup (who absolutely hates doing anything remotely technical and hates having to react quickly) has been job looking. It's not that her job is hard. In fact, she has it pretty damn easy, because she says no so easily and does the things she wants to do. So, while I show off some pictures of vacation, I'm going to moan about her, because whatever she decides to do, will impact me.

Her leaving may not be a bad thing. Maybe then we could get someone into the position that wants to be helpful, wants to know how to do things, and wants to be my backup. It's pretty far fetched that this will happen and if it does happen, it would probably take about a year to find this person. The job is low paying. But I don't want someone to continue in this position that they absolutely hate.

But she has it easy. Tomorrow she is taking a day off, "Because I'm burned out from doing your job". Hell, I've done my job for 7 years and I have never said to my boss, "I'm burned out". He has told me to take a day off here and there, but I never go to him and say "I can't think today and I need tomorrow off".

And today I got the whole story that I've heard most of my life coming out of my sister's mouth. She was complaining because the art gallery that I used to run that has been her responsibility for a year has been difficult. She "can't live in your shadow" and "you were perfect and I do it all wrong". Of course she is saying this in front of the boss in a big production. I mean, this is like I'm her big sister and she is living in my shadow. Hell, I gave her the checklists that I used to use for the art gallery. All she has to do is read and she would be fine. But things didn't go well because she decided that some things would take too much time. So instead of saying, "Yes, I skimped on some things that used to be done", I got blamed for her failure because I make her live up to a high standard that no one else can do.

My sister got married and moved out. I don't have to hear this any longer. Maybe it is time for this coworker to get out of here and move on. I was never perfect in my job. I'm still not perfect. But this blaming me for something like this, is just a big baby move.

Now the image guide:

Image one - HOUSE OF BLUES! I could have eaten there every single night. Good drinks, good food, good bread pudding. I may think about taking a trip to the Cleveland House of Blues just for the food.

Image two - A picture for my scientific friends out there. This was at one of those miniature golf courses that are everywhere at the beach. It had this whole sci-fi thing going on inside the building and when you go outside, it is all tiki-huts, with subtle hints of sci-fi influences (the markers for the course all had symbols and such like this).

Image three - The beach one evening, after the subtropical storm moved away - and while motorcycles roared behind.