a good deed

Yesterday, at the pool, I was doing my laps as usual and noticed that the guy in the lane next to me was a novice swimmer. Well, more novice than I am, as far as that goes. He also didn't have goggles and the pool is usually super-chlorinated.

So, when I finished up my workout, I waited at the end of the lane for him to come back. I told him that I noticed he didn't have goggles and how rough the chlorine is on the eyes. I handed him my goggles and said he could have them - and that I had a back-up pair at home. He was really surprised and gratefully - and put them on right away. I wished him a good weekend and went back to work.

balance

I saw a set of signs up in the student union today. One said that graduating seniors could pick commencement tickets today. The other directed incoming freshmen to orientation.

Seemed like a circle of life kind of balance thing. Kinda neat.

Which was good, because the rest of the day was shit. As was last evening. As is, apparently, tonight.

So, at least I've got the circle of college life thing going.

easter weekend, saving the day, still standing, temp

I went to my sister's new house for easter weekend - my parents stayed there as well. The new house is huge and on a great piece of property. We had a pretty low-key weekend; I got trounced by my brother-in-law at ping pong and we went for a couple of walks with my niece. She's babbling up a storm and working on new words all the time. We all enjoyed her exploration outside - the creek, the trees, the trampoline, and the trip down the quiet road in the wagon.

Back to work and a very stressful Monday - but on Tuesday I saved the day several times. It's getting close to the end of the semester and the pressure is rising. I helped several departments get things done yesterday and got some good feedback.

I'm still experimenting with the standing desk. I think I'm getting used to it, but my feet still get a little tired by the end of the day.

The heating and cooling system here at work is based not on the outside air, but on the time of year. So, we freeze in the fall and cook in the spring. A nice warm day - with the heat on in the building - means that we swelter. Yesterday, it hit 83.1 degrees in the office.

Hope it doesn't get that bad today, but we're already at 77.5 degrees and it's not even 7:00 yet.

dog

I forgot to mention one part of the walk from the other night. I was taking a slight shortcut through a bank parking lot and out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement behind and to the side of me. I turned and saw a dog. Here's a reconstruction of what went though my head while I was busy being startled:

DOG!-straylostrabies?!-(werewolf?)-rabies!-lostdog-stray-help?-run?-CHASED!

I made a loud noise and shouted at it to leave me alone. It was a pretty good sized dog and it was a full moon - so, I was totally justified in the werewolf thought.

The dog wandered away and successfully made the trip across a busy road to pester some people at the dollar store. I continued on to Starbucks - and kept looking for the moon.

standing and walking - but not talking

Today is day four of my Standing Desk experiment. I'd read about some studies that said that sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day can lead to some health problems, so I bought a cheap set of plastic shelves and configured them to sit on top of the cubicle on my desk. I still need to work on the height a bit, but otherwise I'm getting used to it. My feet are bothering though. I've got a foam pad that I'm using, but it's not enough and either shoes or no shoes, they still are uncomfortable. I'll give it a few more days and see how it goes - I can pretty easily revert back if needed.

I took myself for a walk last night - I was in the mood for hot chocolate and made a trip to starbucks. Total 2.9 miles. This is on top of the 30 laps I got in the pool at lunch + standing up all day. I slept pretty well last night as a result - once I finally turned off the video games and went to bed.

My phone is being a little...what's the phrase I'm looking for? Oh, right. Ham Doctor.

The screen won't go dark at the preset 7 seconds... or any number of seconds, apparently. So, the battery drains like it's trying to get a signal from Pluto. Which is, in fact, still a planet. A dwarf planet, but that's still real - right? I mean, it's not like the movie is suddenly called, "Snow White and the Seven _______"?

Anyway, it sucks. I charged it up last night and this afternoon I'm already down to one battery bar - which doesn't mean anything, apparently. I've seen it sit on one bar for days (though not recently) and other times I'll go from full bars to a plaintive beeping as it approaches shutdown in minutes.

You know, I'm pretty much indifferent to smart phones. People that have them seem to enjoy them. I'm on a computer 8+ hours a day so I kinda like to unplug. But I don't begrudge them.

I don't have a smart phone. I have an ordinary phone. Which apparently translates to "non-functional".

The really crappy part is that I can't even enjoy hating them since I'm stuck in another 2 year contact. Ugh.

I'm going to try a factory reset and a cell tower reset when I get home and see if that fixes the "no bars of any kind" issues I'm having. If not, I'm going back to the Verizon store. I don't care how shiny the phone is, I'm really getting tired of paying too much money a month for a phone that doesn't work.

karma

I headed back to the School of Law this afternoon for a beverage and thought I'd treat myself since it was a nice day and I'd had a tough week. This time, my target was the vanilla frappuccino. I swiped my card, pushed the button and the machine politely registered my transaction and thanked me - giving me my revised balance.

And nothing else. No gears turned, no whirring noises could be heard. No beverage was even attempted to be dispensed. Nothing - except my card now has $2.50 less on it than before.

I switched machines and got an iced tea instead.

Apparently, the machine remembered me from last time and was still ticked off from the discounted-by-force frappuccino I got before.

I have learned my lesson.

accidental frappuccino

I headed over to the nearby school of law today for a beverage - since the computer center vending machines don't have the selection or the convenience of using our campus ID for payment. My co-worker went with me since he wanted to get out of the office for a few minutes as well.

I swiped my card and punched in the code for a cranberry juice. The machine did its thing, but when the bottle dropped, it neatly wedged itself between the plexiglass front, a side panel, and the corner. I gave the machine an experimental shove and quickly concluded that I was out of luck. I swore quietly and my co-worker came over to give it a try. He used what was right on the edge of excessive force, and then went ahead and crossed the line to excessive. To the point that I thought he might break the machine - not a good thing in a building full of lawyers.

After a few moments, something odd happened. The cranberry juice bottle refused to budge - of course - but another bottle fell instead. In the far upper left corner of the machine are the really pricey drinks and apparently they are vulnerable to machine shaking. Down tumbled a cold bottle of Starbucks Coffee Vanilla Frappuccino - which I've never tried.

We quickly headed back to the office - leaving behind the stranded bottle of juice in favor of the iced coffee drink.

It was good. It tasted of anarchy. :)

the law

Early on Saturday morning - before I headed out for my epic swim - I heard sirens outside. I looked out to see 3 police cars come down one of the roads near the apartment and make a sharp turn onto our road. A bit later, my room-mate heard something that could have been shots fired, but it was difficult to tell.

A bit after that, my room-mate looked out the back windows and saw a police care in our backyard. There was a black Cadillac parked/abandoned back there as well and we watched a police officer inspected the car. Not long after that, a tow-truck came, but they ended up driving the car out of the yard since the ground was too wet for the truck. In short order, everything was back to the way it was.

Later that day, we found out (from our neighbor whose brother is on the local police force) that the car had been stolen in a nearby township, driven it and been pursued by police until he got to our backyard, then fled on foot. He was captured a few blocks away.

This was all fascinating at the time, but now it's just disconcerting. I guess the trees in the back and along the road made me forget that I'm really still in the city. We're always very careful about locked doors and such, but it's still worrisome.

5 miles

I hit the pool this morning and did 30 laps. I was feeling pretty good and worked my way up to 60. Figured that I could do better than that, I set my sights on 120. I was getting tired, but kept going. 150 came and went and by this point I was really tired, but I did some math and realized that another 30 would finish me at 180 - 5 miles.

I got through it, but I was really tired. I mean really tired. It was all I could do to pull myself out of the pool. I was feeling better when I got dressed and better still when I got home and ate. I think I'll sleep pretty well tonight.

5 miles. Didn't think I had it in me - and not bad for a 38 year old.

irritated

I spent much of my Monday in a bad mood. Must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed - I was cranky all day. And pretty much every email or phone call I got just ticked me off more. I couldn't even enjoy my swim - I got dizzy at the end and had to stop and rest. I got home, spent most of the evening cranky and went to bed cranky.

So, I get into work with a resolve to have a better attitude and I check my voice-mail. I had one message - from 5:30 the evening before - asking for help with a project that needed to be done that night.

Really.

Now, I'm pretty much used to the "last minute" on projects - it's kinda the way things go. But this one really took the cake. I called them this morning and they had worked around the system and gotten whatever Incredibly! Important! Thing! done that they needed to get done.

So, I actually had people contributing to my bad mood when I wasn't even here. A sort of time delay annoyance.

(insert head shaking here)

laps and news

Yesterday, I hit the pool after work since I wanted to go farther than my lunch hour would have alloted me. So, I did 60 laps and felt pretty good. Today, I hit the pool again and did 45. I would have gone farther, but I got really worn out. Still, not bad for two days.

Got some bad news from Illinois this week. My aunt - who has been fighting brain tumor - had a relapse. She had been doing better but had a seizure and was back in the hospital for surgery. They removed 90% of the tumor and some scar tissue and are still waiting to see how she's doing. She's a fighter and we're all pulling for her.