Gratitudes 2018, Day 43

So what happens when you find the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything… and then keep going? Throw in the towel?! I think not!

  1. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A fun five-book trilogy that ultimately resulted in the terrible joke above. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, please tip your waitstaff, I’ll be here for at least another 42 days. Unless the world explodes, in which case [insert towel joke here].

  2. Douglas Adams, author of said five-book trilogy. Thanks for being such an enabler of terrible jokes, Mr. Adams. And for providing me with an easy way to cull the number of “friends” I have on Facebook: a lot of them unfriended me after reading those terrible jokes above.

  3. Replacement office chairs. There were three of us contractors who worked in ADel over the whole summer, one of whom missed work when we came back to Pubs on Tuesday. When she came back, a lot of stuff had been taken by various people, including all of the good chairs: the only ones left… let’s just say they were bad. So she and I took a walk back to ADel, where they have a surplus of chairs just sitting against a wall. Well, we accosted the chair she’d been using the last few months, I rolled one of the chairs that was against the wall into its place, then we rolled the chair all the way across the building so she could use it in Pubs.

  4. The supply room at work. They sometimes run out of stuff in high demand like boxes of tissues, but the room was fully stocked this morning. Need an extra pad of paper? Check! Post-It notes? Check! Four different colors of pens? Check! A small Guatemalan child? … Nope, still out of those.

  5. Cheese-curd brats. Every other Thursday, work has a food truck parked in the back lot for lunch. Some days, the food options don’t seem very appetizing. Today, I wanted to try a brat that had Ellsworth cheese curds cooked into it. Yummy.

Gratitudes 2018, Day 42

Today might have some repeats, but when you spend over an hour and a half talking to your wedding photographer and checking out the results of your engagement photo shoot, those things get bumped up to the top of the list of gratitudes pretty quick.

  1. Pictures from the engagement photo shoot. We finally got to see them today. Joe had about 20 different filters on his computer to use as he was editing the photos, so we’ve got picture in color, sepia, and black and white with a variety of visual effects.

  2. Visual filters. Because regular pictures in regular color are just so… blah. (That’s completely untrue, of course, but it’s pretty neat to see how different one picture can look when different filters are applied.)

  3. Anti-reflective lenses. Or at least the left one on my glasses. The right one apparently managed to reflect his camera’s flash in almost every shot, but if the reflection was over my right eye, he could copy and paste my left iris and pupil in there instead.

  4. Copying and pasting. Because sometimes the reflection off my glasses are as cooperative as the dogs. Try and get them in a certain place and then suddenly they’re right in front of your face. (The dogs actually did pretty well in the pictures, but getting them both to look at the camera at the same time… yeah, that apparently was a bit of a challenge.)

  5. Joe Conely. He’s a great photographer who did some amazing work and I’m so grateful that he’ll be taking pictures at our wedding, too.

Gratitudes 2018, Day 41

After several long months of working with Assessment Delivery (ADel, for short), today marked my first day back with Publishing (Pubs, for short). And for that, I am very grateful… I don’t think there’s a short version for that.

That’s not to say that working with ADel was all trials and tribulations. I kinda liked it there because it was a wide-open room and I was sitting across a table from some other contractors from Pubs instead of staring at the wall. No more random conversations about random stuff at random times, so I’ll miss the laid-back atmosphere and camaraderie with the ADel folks. That said…

  1. Being back in Pubs. I liked (most of) the work I was doing there in the winter and spring and I’m glad to be doing that again.

  2. New computer monitors. When four of us moved over to ADel for the summer, we brought all of our equipment with us: laptops, extra monitors, keyboards, etc. There were a few people who worked in Pubs for a while during that time and those people got their own equipment as well. When they left, it all stayed behind. “This intern had some pretty nice monitors… mine now!”

  3. An empty workspace next to mine. We brought all of our equipment back, there was some left behind by other people… if I remember right, the workspace next to me is currently housing six flat-screen monitors, three keyboards, two laptop docking stations, a few computer mice, plenty of random cords… I wouldn’t call it a computer graveyard. More like a scrap heap.

  4. Desk drawers. I still have Baby Groot on my desk to hold a bunch of pens, but I can throw papers into a drawer instead of awkwardly keeping them tucked partway under my keyboard.

  5. The Balloon of Happiness. During our time in ADel, we had a balloon. All of us Pubs people drew different facial features on it and it became the Balloon of Happiness. Later in the summer, we came into possession of ten more balloons. (Don’t ask me how unless you want to end up being an accomplice…) Many of those balloons ended up with facial features as well: one was scowling, one had an ecstatic grin, there were two cats and a dog and now they’re all in my workspace tucked behind one of my new monitors. Except for the original. I brought that back to ADel. (Given all of the projects that keep getting dropped in their laps, I figured they could use it.)

Gratitudes 2018, Day 40

  1. Homemade pizza. The Monstrosity!™ Get a crust, put on a bunch of homemade pizza sauce, add cheese, then pepperoni, then sausage, then mushrooms, then more cheese… “Shawn tasted, Shawn approved!”™
  2. Forks. Look, it was a thin-crust pizza crust! Sure, it was nice and crispy, but it was still The Monstrosity!™ Cutting it into eight slices and eating it by hand was a ludicrous proposal. (That’s not to say I didn’t pick it up and take a few bites partway through, but I didn’t want a giant pile of greasy pizza toppings flopping down onto my hand before landing on the plate.)
  3. Plates. A better landing spot for toppings than my hand, the table or on top of the dog. Not that he’d mind, but still…
  4. Paper towels. The toppings stayed on the pizza, but that didn’t keep other stuff for flowing down onto my hand when I picked it up.
  5. Dishwashers. Because cleaning up the plates and forks and knife (Me: “I don’t need a knife!” [Five minutes later] “Thanks for letting me use yours…”) is tedious and I’m grateful that we have a machine to do the work for me.

Gratitudes 2018, Day 39

  1. Rick and Tasha’s wedding. Yesterday gave us a wonderful and joyous event and I’m super happy for both of them.

  2. The amazing venue (aka, her sister’s family’s backyard). They took an industrial-sized lawnmower… at least that’s what I’m assuming. They had to clear the brush somehow and I didn’t see a gigantic herd of goats anywhere. However they did it, they cleared enough space for a path, cleared the space here for the wedding arch and a bunch of chairs… the stream was already there and the sunshine was a gift from above.

  3. Sunglasses. It could have been yucky and rainy outside, but the sun was out and I was really, really glad I brought my sunglasses from the car. Bringing the car’s A/C unit might have been nice as well, but I’m grateful for the sunglasses.

  4. Bluetooth technology. “Here comes the bride, turn on the music!” Tap on the iPad a few times… a few more times… hold up the iPad and point it toward the audience because the speaker’s not— “BLUETOOTH CONNECTED.” Okay, the speaker’s working fine now.

  5. Three-day weekends. We woke up on Saturday morning, spent a few hours getting ready, left home and got back about 5:45 on Sunday. A few hours here, go to bed, wake up and start the work week anew. Except tomorrow is Labor Day, so we can sleep in a bit longer, then start cleaning and doing laundry and other chores around the house… okay, so it might feel like part of the work week, but at least we get to sleep in.

Gratitudes 2018, Day 38

It’s 11:00, I just got back to Teresa’s parents’ house after a wedding reception and don’t have the time and/or energy for a full-blown list of gratitudes, so here’s a short road-trip inspired set:

  1. Good gas mileage. Driving for over three hours on half a tank of gas? Yes, please!

  2. Windshields. No bugs in my teeth while I drive? Yes, please!

  3. Small-town gas stations. I can use their bathroom instead of driving another hour to get to a bigger city? Yes, please!

  4. Modern plumbing. I can flush the toilet so that poop doesn’t… I can flush the toilet? Yes, please!

  5. The cashier at the gas station. You know a way to potentially get lots of bottles of Vita Ice for cheap back where we live? Yes, please!