One Day More!

Okay...Three and a half hours and I will officially be out of here and on vacation. Wooo hoooo! Nothing but me, Michael, mosquitos and alligators for four whole days! :)

Of course, now we're down to the wire I am looking at my desk cluttered with the stuff I needed to get done beforehand and thinking I will never make it. Why I am stupid enough to procrastinate so much I don't know. I always know exactly what I have to do to succeed at any given venture...I just so rarely seem to be able to get myself to actually do it. And so the cycle of putting things off/guilt/recrimination/putting it off more perpetuates itself. Oh well.

The site is down right now because SLA is in the middle of a move, but their article on trends in blog searching looks like it might be interesting once it's back up (thx mom).

t minus 2 days and counting...sucked into the vortex without escape.

Two more days until we escape to the Everglades. Two more days, and I'm starting to wonder if I will make it! I am so tired and bored and directionless and unmotivated that it's becoming unreal. I read somewhere recently that boredom is really just anxiety in another form. Considering that the physical manifestations seem to be about the same, or produce the same result, anway, I'm ready to believe it. Hopefully four days of walking, canoeing, swimming, and relaxing by the bay in a *gasp* actual natural setting will readjust my brain.

Of course, I hardly need to visit the Everglades really because we are gearing up for the Annual Summer Bug Invasion and so I'm getting lots of visitors right here. Ants at my desk at work. Ants impervious to the usual ant bait/traps in my kitchen. Ants in my bathroom. Not to mention the increase in the local toad and lizard population. Oh well, it could be worse--a friend of mine has his car infested with cockroaches! Thankfully my apartment has been pretty much roach-free since the hole in my security closet was patched, though I have had to kill my share of 1 1/2 inch monsters in my time. Blech.

Comments have been slow lately. Maybe I haven't been saying anything interesting enough?? Please, make me feel loved! Leave a comment!

Links etc.

Cleaning out my email today, which means I have a bunch of links I kept and meant to post but never got around to. So, in no particular order....

Subversive cross stitch. Need I say more??? (thx mom)

And you thought six of one was bad...look at the "informational" web site/expose maintained by the good folks at the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library.

Does this piece of information have any relevance? You decide...

And cat lovers will be interested in hearing about the Kabul Cat Company in Afghanistan.

I'm still fooling around with my blog template, as I'm sure you can see. Hope you enjoy the (slightly) new look and the (slightly) enhanced content. I'm almost tempted to study the template codes enough to attempt making a totally unique template, but I think it will have to wait until I have more free time on my hands...

How Evil are you.....

Wow, This site is really too fun for words (thx Kim)..... going to have to work on my evilness factor, though! :)

Wild waters

Well, it's officially storm season again...welcome to Florida, land of the necessarily-weather-obsessed. We've been lucky ever since we moved here...though we've faced tropical storm conditions occasionally, we've never dealt with a full-blown hurricane. And, if we have our way, we'll move before we ever have to!

Blogger has an interesting new feature in which you can create and share a searchable profile...I've just met a fellow writer, Kim from Texas, who not only shares my interest in bellydancing, but some of my other hobbies, favorite movies, and favorite authors as well. Great minds and all that. Isn't online networking an interesting thing?

The high price of driving

Wondering how gas prices are down here? This image from CNN pretty much says it all. While regular gas is not quite that bad in my area yet, I'm pretty sure the operative word there is...yet. I paid $2.04 per gallon last week, and they're still on the rise.

Just in time to catch all the holiday travellers, too. You think that's a coincidence?????

Worked both Saturday and Sunday this weekend...had Monday off but, as usual, it doesn't seem to be compensating very well. Especially considering the fact that I can't seem to convince myself to sleep at night no matter how tired I am. I'm telling you, the Everglades cannot come soon enough...

DeKlein in intelligence, fruitless torture, and the image question.

Yep, that's my premier. That too. What a guy, eh? (thx randy)

An interesting article on Slate this week about why using torture in interrogations is not only ethically wrong, but also hinders attempts to put terrorists behind bars.

I sent an email to the author of I am a librarian today. She is an MLIS student and photographer working on a book about "real librarians," and she's looking for people to interview and photograph. I wonder if Michael and I will end up inside it? Guess I'd better pack my bellydance stuff for ALA, just in case :)

Mistaken Identity

So here's my story.

When I moved to my current apartment three and a half years ago (OMG has it been that long?????), I got what was obviously a newly-recycled number. So I kept getting calls for Nadine Curcie. As in, two or three calls a day, minimum. While the situation got really annoying, really fast, especially when the person on the phone pleaded with her to "call back, even if this is the wrong number," it was nonetheless interesting to track the progression of these calls. First, it was:

• "This is ABC hospital calling for Nadine Curcie. Please call us regarding your appointment...."
• "This is XYZ Equipment Supply. Please call and let us know how your wheelchair is working out..."
• "I'm calling on behalf of 123 Doctor's Group. Call us right away...."

Then, we got,

• "This is BlahBlahBlah Credit. Please call us immediately regarding your account."

And, finally...

• "This is John Doe, investigator for the Law Offices of Generic, Hancock, and Everyman. I'm looking for Nadine Curcie. Please call me back so I don't have to call you again."

Though I guess I got a vicarious thrill out of watching these bumblers try to track down someone who'd obviously skipped the state (if not the country) to escape her medical bills, the fact that the majority of my calls and voicemail were for someone that I had never even met made me feel like I was being subject to SPAM at home as well as online. So for the better part of three years, everyone who called my house got this message:

Hello. You've reached Darcy Sharman at (my phone number). If you are calling for Nadine Curcie, please be aware that she is no longer at this number, and messages left for her here will not be returned. If you'd like to leave a message for Darcy, please do so at the sound of the tone. Thanks; bye.

I kept this message for so long because, amazingly, it worked. My SPAM calls decreased dramatically.

You know where this is going. Don't you. Yes, within the last couple of months, after some gentle ribbing from friends, I decided to finally banish Nadine's name from my voicemail domain. Guess who most of my phone calls have been for this week?

Give them points for perserverance, I suppose...

Thank you, Kraft, McDonald's and Pepsico. You've helped us create a brand new word for a brand new world: 'Globesity'. Though the other factoid I read on this topic today said that while a huge number of Americans are trying to lose weight at any given time, only something like one in five of them try anything as crazy as...eating less and exercising more.

Not that I'm saying this in a sanctimonious, superior-lifestyle kind of way. I have as much trouble changing my habits as anyone, and it's really only by the grace of genetics that I'm still shopping at Old Navy instead of Lane Bryant. It just strikes me as absurd that people are willing to try anything to lose weight, no matter how crackbrained, unhealthy, or dangerous, except for the one sensible plan. Reminds me of my ex-boyfriend, who regularly went to the bar for a dinner of supersized loaded nachos washed down with 5 or more beers but wouldn't drink milk because it had "too many carbohydrates." Or the article I read in a recent Marie Claire magazine, titled "I gained 40lbs to lose 100," where a young girl, who definitely did not fit the profile for bariatric surgery, describes the tremendous abuse she heaped on her body in order to get access to the procedure. This woman was literally willing to eat herself sick for months in order to get her "quick fix," even though she herself admitted that she had only recently gained weight and that the extra pounds were due to new eating habits spurred by stressful circumstances. Argh....

I'm not a size 4 anymore, but at least I have the brains to know that should I want to change that, eating less, eating better, and getting my ass of the couch is a better option than the latest quick-fix pill, fad diet, or other insanity.

A nice break from the usual Florida Swamp Pit Conditions this weekend...milder temperatures, drier conditions and a nice cool breeze made it feel almost like a nice Edmonton midsummer day. We actually got to spend time outside without feeling like we were going to die of heat exhaustion, which was refreshing on a mental as well as a physical level. I really hate being cooped up at work or at home all the time...makes me grumpy :(

Of course, the weekend went way too fast, so it's up and back to work today, with the depressing prospect of having to work all this weekend looming ahead. Things have calmed down a bit at work lately, but I still feel overhyped somehow, and my regular days off never seem to be enough to refresh or recharge. As a consequence I seem to be getting nothing done, whether on work or personal goals, and spend all my off time crashing on the couch with today's choice of trashy fiction. Which is okay for a while, but not really fulfilling in the long run. And the guilt about not working on my personal goals, not getting my housework done, not doing anything productive on any level just worsens the stressed-out feeling. Ack! I need something to break this cycle and fast! Before I manage to convince myself that I'm a totally lazy, good-for-nothing loser.

Sigh.

Well, welcome to America, the land of the free...unless, of course, you criticize the Bushes.

Whatever.

You know, I was in a really grumpy mood earlier today. The kind of funk where even though you know objectively that your life is not too bad, all things considered, you can't seem to remember one thing that would make the whole thing worthwhile. But Michael and I made reservations to spend Memorial Day weekend in a cottage at the Flamingo Lodge in Everglades National Park. So we can spend the weekend canoeing and hiking and swimming in the pool and doing yoga on the bay and birdwatching and generally hanging out. Ahhhhhhhhh....I feel less stressed just thinking about it. :)

Tech support seems to be having a little trouble clearing Sasser out of our systems. Our lab was shut down entirely last night and this morning; half our public computers were taken out of commission for fixing tonight. Our printing stations seem to have been hit the worst--I think they don't have as much protection. Most patrons have been understanding, thank goodness, though after 3 days of malfunction some are getting a little testy. The old if-we-knew-how-important-they-were-we'd-jump-up-and-perform-magic-so-the-machines-would-work-just-for-them bit. :(

Other than that, same old same old....

You know, I couldn't tell you why, but the fact that the Olsen twins are worth over $150 million dollars each and just got their own star on the walk of fame is unaccountably depressing to me ...

Or maybe I'm just depressed by the fact that I know that, regardless of whether I'm interested or not. My friend Randy had an article on his blog this week that talks about this phenomenon, among other things.

A really really fun weekend at work here, as our systems have all been infected with the Sasser worm. And of course, since our 40 lab terminals need a password after rebooting, we have been up and down all weekend. The information I've seen about it so far indicates that the thing is fairly benign, but I don't know why someone would go to the trouble of creating a worm that would do nothing but periodically reboot your computer, so I am half expecting the "true nature" of this thing to be revealed at a later date.

Other highlights of the week: I danced at the Sawadee on Friday and actually finally felt like I did a decent job. The place was packed, and actually a lot of people said that they came that night specifically because there was dancing, so I guess the idea is paying off for the owners. My biggest fan, little five-year-old Richard was back, giggling all the way through my performance as usual. He is so cute ...

Work has been relatively stressless this week--my boss is back, and the Micromanager was out of the building for the week doing interviews for our open positions. ahhhhh....

And, best of all, after an interminable Sunday at work, it is finally nearing closing time. So I get to go have dinner cooked for me at Michael's, and, if I am lucky, I may even convince him to go hang out at Starbucks afterwards. The rest of the day is definitely looking up!