Enjablog

Happy birthday, Squidgey! Hope y’all are having fun in Vegas!

I received my most exciting e-card ever today: exciting e-card.

This was met with confusion because I didn’t realize I had done anything that would merit congratulating. And then. I saw the text.

I rushed over to the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation website and typed in my name.

I passed!!!

And TLD passed!!!

Zina found out from TLD. The other person in our study group, TattooGirl, had to live in another state. So now we’re waiting on Maryland. And our fourth study buddy is taking the exam next spring.

I am so unbelievably thrilled. And relieved. Really relieved that I don’t have to study for this again.

WOOOOOO!!!!!

After spending a couple weeks explaining free-body diagrams, kinetic energy, and collisions at work, Boss Jr still does not like the numbers I calculated. His response?

“With not being able to prove my feelings, I used an alternative method for calculating [kinetic energies] and reaction angles.”

Feelings? You feel like my calculations are wrong? If they are wrong, just show that they are wrong and correct them. Don’t fudge numbers so you get a more pleasant answer. When you get hit by a boat, you don’t get to talk it down to a lower impact energy. But if that’s what you feel like doing…

Man, I was all cranky on my way home today because of people at work. But I just finished re-potting Basil and Gimli and I’m in such a better mood. Apparently I don’t learn because I have to keep figuring out that engineers aren’t necessarily smart. They did enough to graduate from school, but that doesn’t make them smart. And that certainly doesn’t make them competent. So. Lesson learned. Again.

But Basil and Gimli are looking good! The pot I got for Basil is taller than his old one, but it turns out it doesn’t hold that much more dirt. It’s pretty though, so it’s somewhat of an upgrade. Gimli, on the other hand, has plenty of room to grow. Which is cool, because he has 5 separate branches. I think after he gets used to the size of this pot, I might split him in two and let him branch out some. Haha, get it? Branch out.

In sad news, Spike did not survive. I had hopes for him, but I don’t really know what to do with a cactus anyway. I got a cutting from NewGirl when she moved last fall and let the end dry out like the Internets said. Then, I planted it in dirt, waited some, and gave him a little water. After a few months, nothing happened. He never took root or did anything. I kept watering him periodically in hopes that something would happen. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks something did. He got all pasty-colored and dried out.

Sorry, NewGirl… I tried. :(

Tonight was the big end-of-year turnover meeting and dinner for the engineering society I’m a member of. It was kind of awesome, in that it did, in fact, fill me with awe.

I’ve been webmaster for the local chapter for a few years now. And for the most part, no one visits the website and I’m the last to hear about stuff that typically would get announced on said website.

So, I was rather unsurprised to see that on the agenda for today’s meeting was “Web 2.0″. As discussed by 3 guys who asked me today what to do with the FTP login/password that national sent out to our section last week after the “catastrophic hardrive failure”. But they’re totally stoked about this internets thing everyone’s talking about.

By the time we get to that agenda item, we’re running about 10 minutes late and all our significant others are gathering a few blocks away for the fancy dinner. I want to move this along, but I’m also interested in what they think this is and why it’s so important to implement RIGHT NOW.

They explain that at the recent meeting for all the incoming Chairs and Vice-Chairs, the big-wigs up at national have hired some consultants to put together a shiny, new website for them. And it will be totally Web 2.0. Great… so what does that mean? Well, people will be able to see our calendar and get updates about our events.

Oh, you mean like the iCal I set up 2 years ago where people could choose to subscribe or download the whole season, or import specific events? Or the RSS feed that I was told to take down “because no one knows what that is.”

Oh, that’s right. No one visits the website. But it’ll be like MySpace. Will someone make a Facebook group for us? Will you friend me?

The Chair didn’t even know we had a calendar. Why do we need Web 2.0 again?

Happy Birthday, Anna! :)

I had so much going on in the past few days…

Thursday was Pamela’s birthday shindig at Cafe Mozart’s. Lots of fun, pretty low-key. And some really bizarre conversations going around.

Saturday, got up bright and early for the Race for the Cure. The plan was to meet Ian’s mom and her friend at the Van Dorn Metro, but they closed their park and ride area and had a sign directing people to Huntington for parking. I headed for the closest metro station that I knew of, thinking it was Huntington… and arrived shortly after realizing I had never been to Huntington and was now at Eisenhower. Thank goodness for cell phones. So we worked that out and made it in for the race as the rest of the walkers were starting.

The race went well… not much of note. Then we left to catch the metro home. First, there were too many people on the platform, so they wouldn’t let any more people through the turnstiles until after the next train arrived. Then we got stuck behind another train that broke down, so those people had to get out and the platform there was filled to capacity. They boarded our train and it was a madhouse for about 5 stops. Then, around the airport or so, someone got sick, so we had to wait for that person to get out to receive medical attention. Longest metro ride ever.

I got home long enough to shower before heading out with Ian to pick up my parents’ minivan and go to Ikea. He got two Billy the bookcases and a Hopen bed. I got a mat to put in my foyer under my bike and some collapsible boxes to help me organize. I have one for mail and one for remotes, both of which have made a huge difference already. I also got a hanging shoe rack.

We got back from there and went over to Anna’s for Sonny’s welcome home party. It was such a blast. There was loads of food, karaoke, Boggle, and so many people who stopped in throughout the evening. Fortunately, we were able to move the party inside to hide out from the heat. So, it all worked out well. And I finally got to meet Sonny’s friend-in-law, Laura, whom I’ve been talking to online for almost a year now. I think she was more enthusiastic about karaoke than Sonny was. And that’s saying a lot.

Sunday, got up bright and early to move Ian’s furniture out of the mini-van. We swiped a flatbed dolly from my building and used that to move stuff. Took less than an hour, which was much better than I had envisioned. I was definitely not strong enough to carry all the parts from the car to his apartment, so I was hesitant to volunteer, but it all worked out in the end.

From there, I got cleaned up and headed over to my parents’ for family lunch. We were celebrating the dragon boat festival, so my dad told the story for all the newbies and we ate sticky rice dumplings. And everyone was entertained by Eliana running around and getting into stuff.

Came home, took a nap, and woke up in time to go to Ian’s family dinner. Pretty low-key over there. His brother did the Chesapeake Bay swim that morning, so they were all sunburned from going out to watch. Hung out for a bit over there and then came home and crashed again.

So… This morning, I got up and got ready as usual. And then about halfway to the Pentagon, I started feeling nauseated. I thought maybe I was getting motion sickness from reading, so I stopped reading. But then I got really warm. I got off the bus to transfer and sat down on a bench. Then I had to decide between sitting in the sun and feeling feverish or standing in the shade and feeling nauseated. Not a good morning.

I stayed at work long enough to attend our department meeting, get NewerGuy set up working on his new task, and answer some questions for VTGuy. Came home, went to lie down, and just conked out for 5 hours.

Feeling better now though. Someone suggested I might have gotten food poisoning. I don’t know what it could’ve been from though because I’ve eaten with family for my last few meals and I haven’t heard about anyone else getting sick.

Hey, family. Any of you not feeling well? Hot flashes? Nausea? Maybe it was from the B.O. cake…

Happy birthday Laura and Pamela! :)

There’s a revolving door leading into my building at work. I don’t really know why, but I love revolving doors. Some days I just like to rush through and push it as hard as I can. And other days, I try to see how little I can move the door and still get through. Today was one of those days.

I got to the door and was just able to squeeze past one of the partitions into a mostly enclosed section. I then pushed softly to just get the door moving and stepped out, turning to see where the door would stop. Less than 90 degrees. I would estimate close to 60. This way, I’m conserving energy by both being lazy and minimizing heat transfer in and out of the building.

Ian and I went to Cap City this morning for brunch and it was awesome. There were the usual omelet and waffle bars. For breakfast-y foods there was sausage, bacon, bagels and lox, french toast, eggs Benedict, and more that I’m probably not remembering. On the lunch side of things there was salmon with a pineapple and mango salsa, chicken Marsala, roast beef, ham, mac & cheese (fantastic!), rice and green beans, and more. Then there was the dessert table with the chocolate fountain. It was all so good. Plus, the head chef was out carving meat, so he was telling us what everything was and what was in it. That way we could make an informed decision on which items we wanted to offer precious stomach space to. It didn’t hurt that he was a Red Sox fan too. ;)