If you need me, I'll be in the basement.

Our team at work is moving offices - I think I may have mentioned it before, I'm getting the smaller cubicle that I'm not at all bitter about? Anyway, it's finally happening and our move date is Wednesday. I had some time on Saturday morning to get an early start and get most of my stuff moved. I figured I could then help the rest of the crew and leave whenever I wanted to on Wednesday.

Spent a couple hours on that project, then headed home. I meant to get supplies to work on my door/desk, but that got derailed. Surly, I headed to the basement and did some cleaning/organizing. Stopped for a few minutes for lunch, then back to work. Made some good progress and wore myself out - which was pretty much the point.

On Sunday, I played some more Darksiders - pretty sweet game. Finally beat the giant sandworm, now I'm a little stuck on the giant teleporting spider. She's a trash talker too, so it'll be nice to finally take her down.

Last week, I finally got my swim fins. I got to try them out on Wednesday and man, I was fast. Almost no effort and I was hydroplaning across the pool. It was pretty cool. I'm hoping to get the motion down on the butterfly kick - we'll see how that goes.

I didn't get to use them on Friday - there was a swim meet and the lap swimming lanes were limited. I'll use them again today.

Looks like this will be a busy week - better get to it.

I was a spider monkey for a while.

I got some bad news this afternoon - one of my aunts passed away yesterday. She was the second wife of my dad's brother - a brother that he hasn't gotten along with in a long time. As a consequence, I didn't see her much or interact with her much even when I did see her over the years.

There was one time, though, that I was visiting my grandparents for a summer during college and my aunt and uncle invited me on a rock climbing trip. They were both avid climbers and this was a new thing for me - but I went along and had a lot of fun. I remember approaching one site, getting geared up, and using my long reach and flexibility to climb it like I was going up a ladder. Actually better than a ladder - I was so focused on the hand and foot holds that I didn't pay much attention to my fear of heights. Though I did freak out a little at the top I still impressed myself. My aunt was a little less enthused, I think. She was quite a bit shorter than me and could not have taken the route as easily as I did - if at all. Her British upbringing kicked in and she shouted up to me, "You're like a bloody spider monkey!"

I think I did impress her when - too scared to rappel back down - I "down-climbed" off the rock and she laughed when I lay face-down in the dirt in relief.

We had a fun day and afterwards I keep seeing vertical surfaces and instinctively looked for hand and foot holds.

My aunt's heath began to deteriorate a while after that trip and while she was able to climb a few times, it wasn't something she could do frequently.

I wish I'd had a chance to get to know her better. I'm glad she's not in any pain anymore and I wish I'd gotten a chance to climb with her again.

A good deed goes unpunished

I took myself for a walk on Saturday. The roads were cleared from the massive snow we got, but the sides were piled with drifts and plowed snow. And that's where I found myself when the traffic came barreling my way. At one point I was thigh-deep in the snow.

I went to Staples for a keyboard tray, mouse, and laptop case. And I ended up being somewhat encumbered on the trip back. I was pretty well worn out by the time I got home and took a mid-afternoon bath to relax and warm up.

Went out to dinner at CiCi's pizza and picked up a couple of cheap games for the Wii. I also finished up watching Logan's Run on DVD. Not a great movie, but the themes are interesting.

On Sunday, I went to the hospital to visit my FRM's grandmother. She was in for gall bladder surgery and though they had a bit of a scare after the surgery she's doing much better. I think she really appreciated seeing me, so, that was good.

I finally got around to sending in a donation to the Airedale Terrier Rescue and Adoption. Been meaning to do this since my parent's dog had to be put to sleep, but I wasn't sure what to include in the note. Got that written up last night and in the mail today.

Watched a little of the show "Hoaders" - in a word, whoa. Made me want to clean my basement - just in case.

My room-mate and I are going to go pick up the recliner today. Maybe. A family friend of his passed away over the weekend and the calling hours are this evening. He doesn't really want to make the drive there tonight - I guess it will depend on if he can get any time off tomorrow for the actual service. If he stays in the area, we'll pick up the new recliner and maybe a door for me to make into a desk.

Well, got a meeting coming up - better get ready for that.

The great chair debate

My room-mate recently got a coupon for 55% off furniture at a local store - with a very short time frame. Setting aside the likelihood that this is a variation on the "high-pressure" sales approach and that the furniture was likely marked up a lot before then being marked down - well, we do need a new recliner.

So, off to the furniture store and the great debate begins. After what felt like forever, we finally narrowed it down. To two recliners. At that point, we finally got greeted by a sales clerk and she went off to get some paperwork while we got things sorted out. Color, fabric, size, brand, construction, the color of the other furniture in the living room - all were fiercely debated. I really liked the hidden mechanism in the pleather chair and it was cheaper, but in the end we went with the more practical and standard recliner.

Debate settled, we headed upstairs with the clerk to the payment area. The one payment clerk was busy, so Jeff (who had decided he would be the one buying the chair) decided to visit the restroom. As soon as he left, another payment clerk came over and since a line was forming, I stepped up and finished the paperwork - and presented my credit card. Not a big deal since we were splitting the cost anyway, but I think he was surprised since we were almost done by the time he got back.

The chair will be available on Monday and we're going to go pick it up - to save the $50 delivery fee. I'm also going to buy a door to make into a desk - the van we'll use for the chair should have enough room to make it in one trip.

In other news... I was at the locker room at the gym yesterday, getting changed after my swim. An older guy came in after a run and sat down at the other end of the bench. I normally don't make much small talk with strangers in the gym, but I noticed that the guy just... stopped moving. Not sure if he was about to keel over, I asked, "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah," he replied.

"You just seemed to go on 'pause' there for a minute," I said and he laughed.

"No, I'm fine. I must look really bad after my run. A few weeks ago two people came up to me after I was done and said they knew CPR,"

By this point I was done getting dresses and he wished me a good day as I headed out. I know CPR as well - though it's been a while since I had a refresher. :)

Finally, work has been really intense this week. I'm getting a lot done, but new things keep coming up. This morning has been a little quiet and I'm hoping to get caught up. Our team is getting ready to move to a new office, but the boss has been strangely reluctant to give us a definitive time frame. I already started clearing out the junk from my current cubicle before I move into my new - smaller - cubicle.

My hands are tired, but the project is done.

I've been working on an origami project for my co-worker and his girlfriend for their wedding. I had made up a bunch of samples for them, but what they selected turned out to be a massive project. Mette Rings - they will be using these on the wine bottles they are giving away at the reception.

Each Mette ring requires 18 units made from square paper of the same size. And they requested 100 rings. 100 x 18 = 1,800 units. And the wedding is at the end of February. In making my samples I determined that I could fold one unit in about 30 seconds - so, plenty of time for those, but it was harder to factor in getting the paper ready and putting the units together. I broke this down into phases to stay on track.

Phase 0 - Material Acquisition. I pulled from my own paper stockpile, a craft store, and Staples. I also bought extra blades for my paper cutter and 3 bottles of glue.

Phase 1 - Paper Cutting. I wore out two blades for my paper cutter, but got all 1800 units cut in about 4 days.

Phase 2 - Unit Folding. I started carrying around stacks of paper with me and a knapsack to hold the completed units. To the movies, to the birth of my niece. Any downtime was spent folding. I did too many in one day and had to put my hands in the snow to numb them. My parents - who are pretty good folders themselves - helped while we were at the hospital in the waiting room. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

Phase 3 - Ring Construction. I had all the colors sorted out into boxes and bags - then with movies playing on the TV, I sorted out 2 white, 1 red, 2 white, 1 black, etc. until I had 18, then I put together 2 sets and then put those together. I put them in stacks of ten to keep track of them.

Phase 4 - Structural Integrity. To prevent the rings from flying apart when handled, I coated each side with glue. (I've tried gluing the units while putting them together and it's tedious - even for me). Each side had to dry before I do the other - took a lot of time and a lot of space.

I finished up last evening and boxed them up to bring into work. Took me about two and a half weeks for the whole project. My co-worker has promised to get some good photos for me.

In other news... my work phone stopped working yesterday. We're gearing up to move to a new office in the building and I thought this was a precursor - but no, it's just broke. I had the office manager make the call to repair yesterday afternoon before I left - we'll see how it goes. It's pretty quiet here - but my voicemail (which I can still check via my computer) is filling up.

It's a girl!

I got the call on Wednesday that my sister had gone into labor - not quite a week early. I got on the road as soon as I could, but my cell phone rang a little after 5 PM to let me know that I was suddenly an uncle!

Yea!

Little Corbyn Renee was born at 5:02 PM, 01/20/2010.

21 inches, 8 lbs 1 oz.

My sister had a rough time with the labor, but she and baby are both doing fine and are home. Corbyn is still getting used to the world and her sleep schedule is apparently a little out of tune. But I'm happy to report she's made the transition from sticky poop to smelly poop - which is apparently very important.

I'm pretty sure she's the cutest baby ever, but I'll admit to maybe being a little biased. :)

My news is not so interesting

The rest of my holiday break was pretty uneventful, but one of my co-workers had news. We met up for breakfast the day before we headed back to work and he and his girl friend gave me some news. She's pregnant and they are getting married. So, in 2010 they are planning...

1. A wedding in February

2. Building a house and moving

3. Having a baby in August

4. And my co-worker is planning on taking classes towards a degree.

They've been doing a flurry of planning since they found out and he proposed. Any one of those things would be a lot of work to organize - but all at once, so to speak, is quite impressive. Or crazy. Or both.

In other news, my room-mate and I managed to injury ourselves playing Wii. I was getting bored with the bowling and tennis and so we tried a few rounds of boxing. The next couple of days after that I was sore in my chest and arms - he had that plus shoulders. (Mine were okay since they were conditioned from my swimming). We're both better now, but there were a lot of "we're old" comments for a while.

I went and gave blood on Monday and as I went in I noticed that they had the double-red machines set up. I've done that before and while it took a little longer I actually felt better after the donation. The staff didn't comment on this while I was doing the history until I asked if that was going to be a regular thing. They didn't know but said it might be cause it was a special "O" blood drive. Which I have. I got taken over to another table for a regular donation. One of the double-red areas opened up and the guy after me in line got taken to that area. I didn't know about this in advance and don't know if I needed an appointment. Felt a little dissed, actually.

When they did the needle stick, the tech warned me that it would be a "pinch" - and it was more painful than usual. Enough to make me hiss though my teeth - though I didn't cry or anything. The tech said, with a little bit of a snide tone, "Don't like that part?" I replied, "Well, it's not a pinch".

"It's a big pinch" she replied and I didn't comment as my next remark would have involved some swearing.

I think I've ranted before that telling someone it's going to "pinch" when they shove a big needle into your vein is just bullshit. A pinch is something completely different. Granted, I don't think they should say, "I'm going to shove a harpoon into your arm, hold still," but maybe a "here we go" comment would be enough warning and not involve lying.

Anyway, the donation went fine and though I was tired afterwards I recovered okay. Next time I make an appointment I'll have to see about getting on the double-red list. And for the record, yes, it's a smaller needle.

That evening, my room-mate needed my help in taking the lights off the tree and I think wanted me to carry the boxes to the basement. I told him I would do that - but not until the 5 hours of no heavy lifting after giving blood had passed. He took the boxes down himself.

Finally, I've been working on a large scale origami project using packaging paper. 30 inches on a side squares. Except I ran into some 'replicating failure " issues.

See, I was working from a long roll of paper and to get my squares I would fold the end down to the side and get a right triangle - then cut along that new line and get a new edge. Doing so introduces the chance that my new edge may not be 100% and since I kept doing this, the errors built up. I got my 12 squares out of the roll and as I started to fold I found several were not really squares. A couple of those were close enough to make work, but about 5 sheets were unusable. All the good ones are folded, but I'll need to get more paper and cut some more squares. The end result is going to be a giant star with multiple points - the number of those depends on how much paper I use.

I'm going to hit the pool again today and my sister has asked that I do an extra lap for her since she would really like the weight reducing feeling that a pool creates.