Romance Novels Ridiculed

These modified romance novel covers really brightened up my day. They're so wrong, yet so funny!

Amusing article in the Portales News-Tribune

Apparently, we live a "simple life".

Last month, my husband and I hosted some visiting graduate students and it seems we made quite an impression on them. I was idly googling our names and came across this article. She writes as if we were Amish or something. We actually do own a television, we just don't keep it in the living room. I emailed this link to my husband and he was quite amused, since we are really such technophile geeks.

Argh!

My code hates me. I set up a new input file to test a new feature and it broke. No big surprise there, it's still a work in progress. I look up the line causing the error and can't see why it is behaving the way it is. I comment out most of the new feature and try the new file again. Still broken, but there error is in another place. Still can't see why. I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that I may have just uncovered a preexisting bug in my code with this new test. *sigh*

Fun with the Next Blog button

Ah Yes, Medical School

As if my handwriting weren't hard to read already

Lately, I've been trying to teach myself Handywrite in the hopes of having a faster way of getting information from my head onto paper. (Hard as it may be to believe, I don't always have a keyboard at hand.) Once I get the basic system down, I can start using the related shorthand system to get even faster, if I want. At the moment, writing anything in this system is slower than writing it out in cursive or print, but it is hard to judge since I tend not to write complete sentences by hand anyway.

Sushi, socialization, and sleep

On Saturday morning, our new mattress was delivered. Our sagging old full mattress has been replaced by a Sealy Posturpedic queen with a pillowtop. Ah, the delight! We actually have the option of sleeping without touching. The extra six inches make so much difference!

In the afternoon, we made massive quantities of sushi and had people over for games. The sushi was so well-received that we had none left after the gaming, so we made another batch yesterday. I know what I'm having for my lunch today! Yum!

Flaming yarn!

After the recent announcements of some novelty yarns being recalled due to flammability issues, Knitdamsel decided to set several samples from her stash on fire to see what would happen. Let's just say that the recall is certainly justified. I'm just glad I don't go for those fluffy synthetic yarns.

Dude, snow!

It's snowing so much that they just sent an email for all non-essential personnel to go home!

Wil Wheaton is on CSI tomorrow

Remember to check your local listings and watch it!

I'm cleared!

Apparently, the way to get a security clearance is to stay home with a cold for a day. I checked my email this morning to find the happy "Clearance granted" email waiting for me in my inbox. This proved to be the deciding factor in the "Am I still feeling too sick to go to work today?" debate. I wanted the darn badge!

So, I came in to work and went over to the badge office to get my nice new badge. So, first I wait in the line, with only one person in front of me. I get called up, hand in my old, uncleared person badge, and receive a nice thick booklet to read and sign. The booklet basically said "don't do anything stupid with your new clearance", although it took about thirty pages to enumerate all the things I shouldn't do. I
sign some forms to indicate that yes, I understand this is a big responsibility and yes, I read the whole booklet.

Back in line. I'm the only person waiting for service, but I still have to stand in line on the spot where you wait for the next person to become available. I get my new badge, but wait! There's a problem! I don't have a hyphenated last name! That should be a space, not a hyphen.

Her: We can't change that here.
Me: Really? When I changed my name on my badge last September, they were able to get it right. I saw them edit it right on the computer there.
Her: Well, we can't change that here. Call this person at this number to get it fixed. There's a phone at the end of the counter.

I shrug and go down to the end of the counter, call someone who is located elsewhere in the same building, explain the annoying error, and am informed that it has been fixed.

Back in line, alone, again. Back to the same woman. Hyphen is still there. The badge creating program must have cached my information. She looks up something else, marks my incorrect badge as destroyed, and looks up me again. No hyphen. Yay! I select a PIN for the badge swipe boxes that require one and leave the building with my shiny new badge.

I immediately head to the nearest gate to make sure I can actually get through it on my own. Swipe card, enter code, and I'm in! I head over to the building where most of my department is located to find someone to celebrate with me. Unfortunately, by this time it is around noon, so nearly everyone is out for lunch. At least I can high-five our secretary and find out in which office they'll put me.

Of course, this brings up the next issue, moving. I'll have to share an office again. *sigh* I really kind of like my office here in the trailer. I just didn't like having to be escorted around any time we had a department meeting. I'll have to pack up my office and have the moving guys haul it inside, maybe next week.

Now we only have one uncleared person in our department. The poor guy is almost certain to be forgotten for meetings now!

Check your credit

I went online and got my free annual credit report today. Nothing unexpected on it, fortunately. Unless you live on the east coast, you should be able to do the same. (Eastern states won't be available until later this year. Check the site for the exact date.)