Some Time Off

My week off is flying by - I've been to a movie, practiced my piano (Amazing Grace still sounds like Amazing Crap), I road tripped to Omaha with the Knit Wits, I cuddled on the couch all day with my herd of kitties and I have avoided answering my phone, email, text messages and IM's. I'm officially on vacation. This is the first time in days I have picked up my laptop.

Zoey is healing nice and getting her energy back. She's nested in the corner with her favorite quilt for the past few days. She'll get her staples out in a few weeks.

New Year's Resolutions to be posted shortly.

In the meantime - one of my latest and favorite pictures of Boo Boo trying to get the last little bit of water out of his dish:



In the background you can see my spinning wheel. It was my favorite gift for Hanukkah this year but it's not entirely put together yet as Zoey chewed up one of the pieces and we had to order a replacement piece.

Happy Holidays!

I returned home about an hour ago from visiting my family in Portland. It was a great weekend.

We started the weekend off by celebrating the end of Hanukkah:




2 days, multiple flights, a 3 hour drive and one speeding ticket later my parents finally arrived. It was almost comically to hear their story and we all struggled to keep a straight face as they shared their frustrations with us.

Since I travel for a living I’m used to cancelled flights, delayed flights, sitting on runways, screaming kids on flights, overbooked flights, overbooked hotels, rental car places running out of cars to rent; you name it, I’ve been there and done that more times than I can recall.

Every morning during my visit, my cute niece Erika would ask me if her sweater was done yet. I was able to finish it yesterday:




It was a great weekend that made the bad week just a memory…

Ended one of the toughest week's of the year in a nice way - with my family in portland.

Zoey returned home today after having emergency surgery on Wednesday. She only had a 25 percent chance of survival - she came home with thirty staples in her and three layers of stitches.

In other bad news, I severed ties with someone who I thought was my best friend, someone who I thought I was going to start a company with someday and someone who told me he was always honest and trustworthy. He proved himself to be a liar and someone I will never trust - not in business and not in life. I may have to interact with this individual professionally but through choice and maturity I will manage.

Everyone has choices in life. He chose to be the biggest disappointment.

Thought this was funny...

Are you a consultant or a whore?
(idea) by Reverend Screwdriver (2.4 y) (print) ? Mon Mar 19 2001 at 21:41:31

A question I often ask myself during times of anger, doubt, and 2AM server failures. Often this is a difficult distinction to make, for the reasons below:

1. You work very odd hours.
2. You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.

3. You are paid well but your pimp gets most of the money.

4. You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room

5. You charge by the hour but your time can be extended for the right price.

6. You are not proud of what you do.

7. Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.

8. It's difficult to have a family.

9. You have no job satisfaction.

10. If a client beats you up, the pimp just sends you to another client.

11. You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.

12. People ask you, "What do you do?" and you can't explain it.

13. Your family hardly recognizes you at reunions (at least the reunions you attend.)

14. Your friends have distanced themselves from you and you're left hanging with only other "professionals."

15. Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.

16. Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they get for the money.

17. Your pimp drives nice cars like Mercedes or BMWs.

18. Your pimp encourages drinking and you become addicted to drugs to ease the pain of it all.

19. You know the pimp is charging more than you are worth but if the client is foolish enough to pay it's not your problem.

20. When you leave to go see a client, you look great, but return looking like hell (compare your appearance on Monday AM to Friday PM).

21. You are rated on your "performance" in an excruciating ordeal.

22. Even though you get paid the big bucks, it's the client who walks away smiling.

23. The client always thinks your "cut" of your billing rate is higher than it actually is, and in turn, expects miracles from you.

24. When you deduct your "take" from your billing rate, you constantly wonder if you could get a better deal with another pimp.

25. Every day you wake up and tell yourself, "I'm not going to be doing this stuff the rest of my life."

A true event in my day

I was on the phone with an individual today, trying to assist with a simple task - at one step he was prompted to hit any key to continue.

He asked me, Where's the any key?

The sad truth - it was a highlight to my day.

To A Certain Individual:

It's amazing how in an instant I lost absolute respect for you. Months of respect and admiration gone.

Continue to claim that core principles, trust, morals and ethics mean everything but next time have your actions match your words.

I will never view you the same again.

"Enjoy the life and path you choose for it is our choices that determine the path we take."

My own quote I made up tonight to describe how much distaste I have for you.

The good, the bad, the interesting, the ugly and catching up.

The good

I’m currently in flight back to San Diego after 72 quick hours in New York City. It was great to be in New York City, not because of the shopping, the sites or shows but because I was able to reconnect with two important individuals I only talk to every few months at the most and only see every few years. We had a great brunch in Chelsea with my best friend and former boss Matt. He was my plus one for my trip to the Bahamas. From there, I separated from my friends and went to my college roommate’s place to hang out with her and catch up for a few hours. I haven’t seen Olga since her wedding almost 3 years ago in Charleston and it was great to just sit on her couch and talk for hours. Olga looks the same as she did 10 years in college – same tiny size and same sweet personality.

I had a blast with my friend Renee who graciously allowed me to crash with her for the weekend. We had so much fun just hanging out together. Renee is one of the few people I can spend 24/7 with and never get bored or aggravated.

The bad
Long Story

The interesting

Even longer story

The ugly

I had to do one of the toughest parts of my job last Thursday and be a party to the termination of an employee who broke company policy. It was horrible. Imagine having to break up with a boyfriend you actually like but for reasons out of your control things had to end. Imagine that times a factor of ten and that was my experience. It was draining emotionally and just really sucked because I really liked this individual.

Catching up

I finished Audrey’s cool blue cabled hat on my flight tonight from Newark to San Diego. I will take a picture and post to the blog shortly. I wound my socks that rock yarn with the assistance from a former employee of mine who just resigned from my company and just happened to be on my flight. He felt so demoralized having to help wind brightly colored yarn. I made sure I wound the yarn extra slow since he hated every second of helping me.

I’m back in San Diego for what could be my last week. I have enjoyed the project and the team and will remember this project fondly. If only I could find a way to take the ocean and weather with me.

Portland, Oregon is my next weekend’s travel spot. I still have to finish Erika’s sweater – one and a half sleeves plus button bands. It should go fast – just need some time to work on it.

I can’t wait to see the Portland side of the family. I will have officially seen everyone in my family in the last week minus one brother and sister in law. Sheer miracle for my family as most of travel every week – it was by coincidence that my brother Steve and I were both at clients last week in San Diego. We were able to meet up a few times and it was great to just catch up.

Joe

Below is a picture of my team member Joe who is sporting a stocking cap that I made for him. It's hard to see the detail in the stripes but they are navy and brown:




Joe rolled off my project this week - I will miss him greatly. He was only on my project for a few weeks but he added a huge amount of entertainment and humor. On a serious side, we witnessed an elderly woman fall down a flight of stairs last week and he sat with her, talked to her and comforted her until the ambulance came. I have a huge amount of respect for Joe and know deep down he's a great guy to the core.

Joe is a leukemia survivor. He had a bone marrow transplant 6 years ago. He was only given a 30% chance of survival. Joe was my age when diagnosed. I couldn't fathom going through radiation treatment, chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant nonetheless to be given only a 30% chance of survival.

Joe played football for ASU and USC - he's very athletic, very driven and very talented. Throughout a few meals together Joe told me of how he had to learn how to walk again, how he spent 6 agonizing months in the hospital and just how thankful he is to be alive.

When Joe was diagnosed with leukemia he sold his possessions and started a non profit organization for bone marrow testing. It was through one of his bone marrow drives he found a donor. From the time he was diagnosed he was given 3 years to live. He found his donor 2 years and 8 months after being diagnosed.

I have the pleasure of working with many individuals, it is the nature of my industry. Throughout my years I hold a very select amount of coworkers near and dear to me, Joe is now on that short list of individuals. He is someone I will be friends with for life and someone I will always respect.

December Adventures and Disappointments

Hard to imagine that it's already December 5th - this year has just flown by. I keep saying that I'm looking forward to 2007 and what it brings but I am very thankful for the people, memories and events of 2006.

The next few weeks bring many cross country adventures. Besides working in beautiful San Diego, I have other adventures planned. I will be travelling to NYC next weekend for a holiday party followed up by a weekend with the Portland side of the family. I'm hopeful to have Erika's sweater done by the time I arrive. I figure between trips from SD to Iowa, Iowa to SD, SD to NYC, NYC to SD and then SD to Portland should be more than plenty of time to finish the sweater. I need to figure out pretty quickly between buttons or a zipper for the top down cardigan. I'm leaning towards a zipper since it was on my "to do" knitting list for 2006 but due to time on the road, buttons may win out.

I'm so excited about NYC next weekend. We are hopeful to catch a Broadway show and maybe a carriage ride in Central Park. The holiday party is at a fantastic restaurant - the toughest part will be figuring out what to wear.

Onto the disappointments (this section is more of rant):

1. I'm disappointed that I'm again sick - I woke up with the start of a cold yesterday morning that has blossomed fully into bronchitis overnight. I'm disappointed how quickly I got sick.

2. I'm disappointed in how often I have been sick over the past few months. I'm pointing fingers at turning 30 - I'm usually so healthy - it's annoying to be sick.

3. I'm disappointed that there aren't more hours in the day. I continually find myself saying I wish I had more time. Life is going by fast and I have so much left to do.

4. I'm disappointed that I have to take a 2 week break in piano lessons while in NYC and Portland. I'm really looking forward to becoming proficient.

5. I'm disappointed that stress terrets takes over more often than it should. I'm far enough in my career and old enough to know better.

6. I'm disappointed in myself for all the people I tell "I'll call you right back" and then I don't get around to it. Shockingly, I blow through my 3000 minute cell phone plan every month. For anyone socially who is around me on a Friday knows my phone rings non stop. It's not that I'm a social butterfly (way too girly of a description for me), it's just that work is currently all consuming.

7. I'm disappointed that I am not a bigger risk taker. This is one of my biggest resolutions for 2007.

8. I'm disappointed that I can't mask dislike for someone. If I don't like you, I have been told it's rather obvious.

Through all the disappointments, I can say that I'm proud of my integrity. At my core, I have morality, discipline and honesty.


It's been a rough few weeks - I really look forward to my December travels but I look forward the most to a week at home over xmas, preferably entirely on vacation.

Cheers to stream of consciousness blogging.

Guns N' Roses and a picture of my closet

The Guns N' Roses concert was awesome despite what the reviews and papers say - the night basically went like this:

Arrive 7:30am with a no name band playing

8ish Suicide Girls perform (pretty cool and really well received by the thousands of drunk men)

9ish Sebastian Bach performs (I saw him perform at the same venue when I was in 7th grade - just a few months prior to Skid Row's mainstream popularity)

10ish Another no name band who doesn't take breaks between songs as the crowd is booing so loudly they are afraid to stop between songs

11ish Waiting for GNR

Midnightish They bring the Suicide Girls back out to stall the crowd who by now has started sobering up and is irrate that GNR hasn't started. Naked girls are booed off stage and fights break out.

12:30am More stalling, crowd almost starting to riot

12:45am GNR finally starts and it's just awesome

2:45am We leave as we're just exhausted and still have to drive back to Des Moines.

3am - heard the show ended just after we left

In the end, Axl wasn't apologetic for his diva activities but it didn't matter - the show was awesome and I had a great time. I'm more motivated now to learn how to play piano after hearing one of my favorite songs live - November Rain.

Here's a picture of Axl Rose taken on my cell phone, it's not great:



Onto my closet - most people hang clothes in their closet - I air out hand dyed yarn that smells of vinegar (vinegar sets the dye):



I have enough Schaefer yarn for 2 blankets - one kit I bought yesterday and the other I have for about 2.5 years. They are the same kit just different colorways. I'm excited and want to start yet another project but I'm trying to be disciplined that I need to finish Erika's new sweater and my dad's Big Wool Sweater prior to starting either blanket. So many half finished projects around my house.

With some quiet time today I am hopeful to catch up on my expenses, my email and have some quiet time with my herd of abandoned cats. We're all cuddled into bed trying to keep warm while it's 15 degrees outside.

Blogging from the gnr concert - this may be a first but at almost 11:30pm gnr is yet to start. we've seen the suicide girls, sebastian bach and are currently being tortured by a no name group while we wait for gnr. 4 opening acts later and with many booing drunk people, I wonder if gnr is going to show. news at 11 for further details...