Day Before Christmas Eve

As John said in his comment on yesterday's post, today is sometimes known as Christmas Adam. Just a little joke. Ha ha.

I'm listening to the Messiah quite loudly in my office as my officemate is absent and no one else is complaining. Sometimes I sing or whistle or hum along. I really can't abide other Christmas music. This is about as far as I can go to get into the holiday spirit. Oh, I might get some greenery at TJs tonight if they have a little tree in a pot.

My friend Leti and I were going to go out for lunch today but she and her son (who also works here part-time) suggested we get the others in the office together and have lunch in the conference room. They offered to run down to the Mission to get Mexican food. I am so full. I don't think I'll have room for the pumpkin pie she brought for another couple hours. I ate huaraches (corn tortillas filled with black beans), carnitas, queso fresco and fresh salsa (pico de gallo). Others ate chicharrones (pork crackling), hot red sauce, and refried beans. Arturo even got me some horchata (a rice drink) which I learned to love in Spain.

I just bought a hard drive on Amazon to back up my files at home. I thought about getting a portable drive like a Seagate's FreeAgent Go but went with a LaCie 1 TB (yes, that's terabytes) drive. While I was on Amazon I couldn't just get one thing, no, I had to fall for their buy-3-get-1-free paperback deal and get some urban fantasy books my library doesn't normally carry. Merry Christmas to me.

Day Before the Day Before Christmas Eve

Since I'll only be posting twice this week it didn't seem fair to use up a language for only two days' worth. Our office is closed from Christmas Eve through New Years Day and I don't think I'll be posting at home, though I may surprise you. Especially since the keyboard I took home from work on Friday seems to be compatible with my Mini (as opposed to mine which was all of a sudden experienced a sad painful rejection). We'll see. I often spend the holiday break in quiet contemplative seclusion.

Now that Sallie is living out here we feel obliged to get together for Christmas. Neither of us is big on the holiday but we'll eat a nice meal, sing a carol or two, watch a movie, and open what presents we have. I need to figure out how to wrap hers. I doubt I have any real wrapping paper at home. I think a newspaper or paper bag might have to do. I've been planning the meal and bought lots of veggies at the farmers market on Saturday. I'm having sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and cauliflower. I need to pick up a roast of some kind. Maybe I'll stop at Trader Joe's tomorrow. Sallie's bringing rolls and a pie from Costco. I was hoping for gravy but she couldn't find the turkey gravy they had at Thanksgiving.

I'm getting hungry. I better get going.

ostiral

The purpose of our finance training/workshop was to educate the directors of the little organizations we work with and sponsor. We have arrangements, called fiscal sponsorships, with each of the groups who came so they can receive funds from foundations and others who want to donate to a legal, non-profit organization -- a 501(c)(3). Most of the people there knew very little about bookkeeping, financial reports, and the nature of the fiscal sponsor relationship. So to get everyone on the same page, we created a presentation and materials that covered the basics about financial record-keeping and reporting and the specifics about working with us.

The participants were three people who we work with very closely, a couple who we've worked with in the past and whose mission doesn't exactly fit with us, and a set of five from a community group we are just starting to collaborate with. We had hand-outs in both English and Spanish and a woman from our office was doing simultaneous interpretation into Spanish while my boss and I presented our slides in English. It forced us to go slowly which probably improved the quality of comprehension on behalf of both English and Spanish listeners. I was probably talking too fast.

Overall I feel like I did an okay job but know we could've been more prepared. I wish we would've had the slides in both languages because our Spanish-only people were flipping through the hand-outs all the time trying to follow along. I think having professional interpretation would've helped too. Another challenge was that there were varying levels of experience and needs in the group. At the end everyone was saying they learned a lot, wanted more and can we do another training.

ostegun

I left work early on Wednesday then got home and didn't have much to do before I got picked up around 7:30pm. I maybe should've showered because the one in the hotel in Merced was quite atrocious. The controls didn't work very well; the water pressure was miniscule; and the temperature was variable at whatever setting I had it on. I watched the Travel Channel until I felt sleepy and fell asleep quite quickly after getting up a couple of times to adjust the heater setting. It was getting down towards freezing so I had turned it up high but it was too hot to sleep.

There was a layer of ice on the car when we gathered to leave at 7:45 in the morning so I put on a glove and got out my library copier card and scraped off all the windows. We avoided the "complimentary continental breakfast" that consisted of stale poppyseed muffins and an orange beverage and went down the road to Carrow's instead. I'd never been in a Carrow's and am not sure I could've distinguished it from a Denny's except I didn't see the word "slam" anywhere. I was tempted by the pumpkin pancakes but went with the bacon and onion potato cakes instead. They were a bit oniony for that early in the morning.

We headed down the highway towards Fresno and soon were enveloped in what the natives here call Tule fog. To me it's just regular fog as opposed to the fog that comes off the ocean. We don't get that kind of fog where I come from. We never felt in danger driving along at 75mph but I did start to feel a bit claustrophobic when I couldn't see very far. It cleared as we hit the metropolis of Fresno and we had clear skies from then on down to Visalia where the training was.

asteazken

Today was busy with last minute prep for tomorrow's training/workshop. I edited some presentation slides and created a new one. My boss and I went over all the handouts we need to have and he's going to finish up the presentation tonight in the hotel. I hope things go well. I'm pretty nervous about it. I'm headed home soon to pack and have supper. They're picking me up at 7:30.

Today I also had to convert our big budget workbook to the next fiscal year (ending June 30, 2010) so we can look at contingency plans if certain funding doesn't come through. Like most non-profits a huge part of our budget is personnel so when we start talking about reducing expenses to match reduced revenue it's not a happy thing.

Stephanie's car did not blow up. I was shocked. Maybe next book. Now I'm reading an Amelia Peabody mystery which seems suspiciously familiar. I thought I hadn't read it but I must've. Not like I remember how it turned out so all's good.

astearte

Just as I suspected as soon as I finished Foundation by Mercedes Lackey I wanted to read the next in the Collegium Chronicles series. It's just not fair! We spend most of the book just getting introduced to the time period and our hero, Mags, plus a tiny, teeny smidgen of palace intrigue and then the book ends. Perhaps I'll have to re-read some other Valdemar books while I'm waiting for the next Chronicle. Cuz I think it'll be awhile.

Now I'm reading the latest installment in the Stephanie Plum series, Fearless Fourteen. It's again hilarious. Stephanie just picks up the quirkiest companions. I'm almost at the end of the book and her car hasn't blown up yet. It's been tagged but not been on fire. I expect that'll happen very very soon.

We've had lots of lovely rain around here lately. I thought Sallie and I might run into some in our trip to Modesto on Sunday but we did not. It was overcast which made for good driving which I ended up doing again. I used to make Sallie drive all the time but I guess I'm getting used to it. Or I'm feeling more possessive of my car. The musical was very nice and I enjoyed singing some Christmasy songs. We might go back out for their Christmas Eve service. Sallie gets off early.

Speaking of road trips...I'm headed to the Valley for work on Thursday and we were going to leave very early in the morning to get down to Visalia for a 10:30am workshop. I balked at the 6am departure time and suggested we stay overnight tomorrow night somewhere closer to the site. My co-workers agreed precipitately and propitiously. Especially after I found rooms for less than $40/night through Hotwire. Man, I love that site.

astelehen

I've been a bit incognito at home while online since my computer appears to be allergic to my keyboard. My way around it is to copy and paste words and letters from websites to TextEdit to make phrases and words to post to Facebook. It takes awhile and it awfully unsatisfying. Lucky for me most of the games I want to play on FB don't need keyboard inputs. My trackball suffices.

I think I'm going to pack up my Mini and bring it into work to let my IT guy look it over. After the keyboard knocked it out one time this weekend it wouldn't even power up. I got it to work after disconnecting all the externals but my trackball. It's feeling a little scary. I ran Backup a couple times but don't have enough space in my MobileMe cloud to save all my photos. I need to invest in an external hard drive or some kind of backup media.

This week's language is: Basque.

föstudagur

For some reason the heat in my office hasn't been working today. The server (which provides a lot of warmth) isn't putting out enough to compensate. I may have to put on my hoodie soon. They're calling for rain and highs around 50º this weekend. I should go around and attempt to plug all the holes and leaks around the windows and sliding glass door tonight. My apartment sure isn't made for keeping the cold out.

Sallie and I are going out to the church in Modesto on Sunday for their morning service. They're putting on a play (Something's Up Down in Bethlehem) that I did years ago with the same pastors but at a different church. It should be fun to see. I need to let Sallie know I'll be picking her up a bit earlier in case we run into fog and slow traffic.

I'm about a quarter of the way into the new Valdemar book and am loving it. I need to read more slowly to make it last. The type is very large and it's not that big a book anyway. Who knows when the next one will come out...

fimmtudagur

So, Twilight. It was fun. I met Sallie at little after 10:15 at the cinema and we were the only ones there for a little while. The trailers they showed were of particularly high quality I thought. Maybe I was just in the mood to be entertained but I enjoyed them (except the one for The Unborn which I don't even want to think about).

I had heard that the Twilight movie was not that great so my expectations were low plus I really didn't have that much invested in whether it was good or not. I enjoyed the fourth book but the others were just above mediocre, IMHO. I don't even think Robert Pattinson is that cute (I much preferred Oliver Wood to Cedric Diggory, maybe it's the accent). Anyway, I thought they did a great job with the movie. The vampire special effects weren't overdone and the interaction between Bella and Edward, especially at the beginning, was quite humorous. The Cullen family for me was a mixed bag, mostly not fitting my idea of them from the books. Rosalie, especially, was a bit over the top with her venom. Also, the other high schoolers were caricatures but what can you expect in a movie that's really all about two characters. I liked Jacob and can't wait to see more of the wolves in the following movies (if they make them).

If you think you may have recognized Bella's mom and you're a 24 fan, yes, it is Sarah Clarke a.k.a Nina Myers!!!

miðvikudagur

Sallie and I are going to the late showing of Twilight tonight. I'll let you know what I think. I'm trying not to get my expectations up too high. I am looking forward to seeing Jasper. That's one cute vampire.

So I have hours to kill before 10:30pm. I'm kind of getting hungry so maybe I'll grab something here in the City and avoid the crowds heading home on BART. Sallie works until 8:30 then has some errands to run so won't have time to eat after work. I hope she has a dinner break. We might have to get popcorn and a Coke.

I think I'm going to give up on the fantasy book Sallie loaned me by Juliet McKenna. I've read a few chapters but it hasn't caught my attention. I'll give it back to her and maybe try it again when I'm more in the mood for some fantasy with a strong female. I didn't mean to check out so many books when I stopped in at the library to get my one held book last night but I perused the New Books shelf and there were several I wanted to read. Mercedes Lackey has a new Valdemar book out, Foundation, about the founding of the Heralds' Collegium. I can't wait to read that one! And I had forgotten that Fearless Fourteen was out (Stephanie Plum!). But I've started with The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday by Alexander McCall Smith from the Isabel Dalhousie series. My aunt was reading it when I was there for Thanksgiving and I didn't know know it was out. I need some way of getting alerts to when new books are out in my favorite series and by my favorite authors. Amazon?

þriðjudagur

I got to work on Tuesday and started feeling some sharpish pains in my lower back. The more I sat the worse it got when I shifted slightly or leaned over my desk. I must've strained it somehow. Maybe I was just stressed about the lack of internet at my house over the weekend.

I like a toasted bagel with cream cheese once in awhile. I get them at a little shop that also sells soup. They don't have a real toaster so they press them in the sandwich press. It makes grill marks on the bread and it actually quite tasty though slightly smushed. I like to get chicken soup there but the chicken pieces are quite large. I think it's bad planning on the chef's part. Soups and stews should be made of smallish like-sized pieces so you can get more than one ingredient on your spoon at once. The chicken is shredded too instead of chunked or sliced. It can get quite stringy.

mánudagur

I'm feeling cold so we'll be doing days of the week in Icelandic this week.

I had two major problems with my computer at home this weekend. First, I was playing Tetris and all of a sudden my computer went black. No shut down sounds, no big crackling of lighning. Just a sudden quiet. I powered up again and later I moved my keyboard to the side and it happened again. I guess no typing for me.

Then on Saturday I was reading some fan fiction and went to click to the next page and it wouldn't go. I checked my menu bar Gmail notifier and it had a question mark. I was disconnected from the internet. Oh, no! I checked all the hardware connections for the cable and cat 5 and everything seemed fine. I rebooted the modem and waited and waited and waited. Just some blinking lights. And no internet. Whatever shall I do?

It came back on Saturday night but was out again on Sunday so I spent most of Sunday and Monday reading books and watching movies and not being online. I didn't like it. I could tell my life had changed since I joined Facebook. I missed my games and seeing what everyone was up to.

petak

Crappy day today. Did I say crappy? I meant crampy. I just buried myself in my November bookkeeping and tried to ignore my malaise. It was good thing it was Friday which means fewer interruptions with fewer people in the office. My boss was supposed to be taking a vacation day but that didn't stop him from emailing and calling me. I got a set of draft financial reports over to him so hopefully that will make him happy even if I can't do the layout for the annual report until Tuesday.

I dropped by Sallie's to get her signature on our birthday card to Grandma last night. She asked if I wanted to pick something up for dinner on my way. I had eaten a later lunch so said I didn't think so but then once I got to San Leandro I was a bit hungrier. I got a load of tacos and burritos at Taco Bell. They were good. I like the crunchy tacos. We addressed and wrote notes on some holiday cards too. Neither of us really do holiday cards normally but I thought it'd be funny if she got some with a palm tree or something on them. She couldn't find that but found something similar.

I'm nearly done with Swallowing Darkness so I'm going to hop on BART and hope there aren't any graphic sex scenes I'd have to hide from my neighbors before I get home.

četvrtak

I found Tetris on Facebook last night so I lost chucks of my evening. All of a sudden it was almost 2am. It's not that uncommon that I'm up late but I may have to start setting an alarm to alert me when it's getting too late. I just get lost in the tetrominoes.

I experienced a bit of a Tetris effect this morning on BART as I was reading. If a paragraph ended with a short line, I wanted it to fall down and fit into the indent of the next paragraph. It was mildly distracting. I did fall asleep to tetrominoes falling through my mind. I think my favorite is the I tetromino followed closely by the T. I find them the most useful.

srijeda

If you don't mind a chilly day and like to avoid crowds, come to San Francisco the week after Thanksgiving. The line for the cable car this morning was practically non-existent. I haven't ventured across the street to the mall so maybe that's where all the people are. Paul and I went out for lunch today but neither of us felt up to going to the food court and braving the potential madness of the shopping, I mean, holiday season.

I rarely check my snail mail at home and as my mailbox is rather small it tends to get filled up with advertising flyers fairly quickly. Knowing my habits, my mom usually sends packages (and other mail) to my office. However, when I checked my mailbox after dropping of this month's rent check, there was a puffy envelope from my folks. It contained a wrapped present and a little award I won in college for leadership. I don't even remember receiving it.

I had left some of my things at home after I moved to California. I can't remember if I wanted to get rid of them or someday retrieve them. They happened to be in out on the south porch and weren't lost in the house fire in 2001. Mom sends me some once in awhile. I stole a photo album from her in August. I thought the collection of photos looked familiar and it was mine.

utorak

It was almost nice being back at work today, after being away five days in a row. I felt relaxed until I saw my filled email inbox. I flagged the messages and got to work chipping away at the tasks. At the end of the day, I made To-Dos for the unfinished flagged messages. There are too many!

My grandma (mom's mom) turns 95 next Tuesday. They're doing a card shower for her. I made a card in InDesign but I need to get Sallie to sign it and she's not off again until Thursday. I'm not sure it would get to PA in time if I mail it on Friday. It might have to go with only one of our signatures.

ponedeljak

I've chosen Bosnian for this week. Hope you enjoy it!

After a few months of a pretty hectic schedule I decided to take Mondays off in December. Well, not the 22nd because our office closes from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day. With January 2 on a Friday, I doubt there will be much happening that day either. I'll probably be in. I just know my boss will be emailing me during the holidays. He never stops working.

I was feeling like watching a movie Saturday and had plenty to choose from on the TV. I ended up watching two Brosnan Bonds and one Star Trek. I forgot how much I loved Star Trek. I need to watch more. I'm sure there are re-runs on all the time on some channel.