Month: May 2011

There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute

Yesterday at work, I printed a Very Important Document to the shared color printer down the hall. As my company is as cheap as possible, we’re not to use the color printer except for VERY Important Documents, so this was a very big deal.

As I waited for the dulcet tones of the finicky color printer processing my job, a message popped up on my screen. The printer manager was reporting that the “Waste Receptacle is Full”

Um. Ok. I didn’t know printers came with their own waste receptacle, but fine.

I walked to the printer and following the directions on its tiny LED screen. I opened the right flap. I pulled out “tray B”, and emptied tray B of a gooey black tarlike substance, replaced tray B, closed the flap, and heard the printer begin to warm up.

Ah, here we go. My beautiful full color document is just moments away!

“Printer warming up….”

So I waited. And waited. I wondered if I should wrap a sweater around the poor thing because it was clearly really cold if it needed twenty minutes to warm up. I mean, it’s hot like the bowels of hell hot inside our HVAC impaired office, but this little color printer must have a metabolism issue.

When it was finally reporting it had imbibed a hot toddy and was raring to go, I listened again for the sounds of the machine working, filled with happy anticipation.

Another message popped up on my screen. This time is said “Toner is low. Please replace.”

*sigh*

Fine.

Back I went to the machine and again followed the directions on screen. I lifted the main assembly, figured out which toner compartment was low, dropped several blocks of wax toner into the slot, thus using up the last of the supply, and closed the lid.

While the machine drank another hot toddy and shivered its way back to health, I took the empty box over to the group admin so she could order more.

Finally, the printer shuddered and shook and petulantly spit out my document.

This morning I needed to scan a document. Well that requires the big multiplex copier, printer, scanner, fax, coffee maker, photo booth, lube oil and filter change machine in the breakroom and shared by the whole floor.

I figured I was safe…this was just a scan. No toner or paper or other consumables would be required on this one! Scan, send. Easy peasy!

Nope.

I walk to the printer, lay my document in the feeder and immediately a message pops up on the screen.

“Scans may not be clear due to dirt on the lens. Please follow the directions below.”

So I followed the directions and I opened and shut doors and flaps, and found a little wiping tool and I slid it down the lens and then I cleaned the whole damn thing up and shut the doors and flaps and waited the twenty minutes and finally got my freaking scan.

The machines. They know. Evidently no one else on the floor will give them TLC, but I will. They line up and come to me for blessings, ministrations and tending to their wounds.

I’m Mother Teresa of Xeroxistan.






Image is a still from the fabulous movie Office Space.


Off To A Slow Start

Here we are at Monday again and I’m making a rather slow moving entrée back into the world after a rock-star fun sort of weekend.

I imbibed just about one too many San Francisco Cable Car drinks at the Fairmont hotel and felt very retro with martini glass in hand. A Cable Car is the sort of beverage that tastes so good and then drops you on your arse.

Meaning, I loved every bit of that ride.

Since I’ve most certainly streamlined a few brain cells right on out of the ol’ noggin, I’ll use my friends at Unconscious Mutterings as a place to start this blogging week off right.

Without further ado, this week’s list of free association words:

________________________


  1. Trumpet ::

    2. That reminds me of that old joke blues musicians tell….

    “What’s the range on a trumpet?”
    “Oh, about two hundred yards.
    “Two hundred yards? What are you talking about?!”
    “You know, when I throw it over the piano, past the accordion, through the banjo…”

  2. Love ::

    3. What I felt for the world after I’d drained my second Cable Car beverage.

  3. Routine ::

    4. It was nice to break up my dull work-a-day routine (that has me worn down to a nub) for a weekend of jolly debauchery.

    It was much needed.

  4. Infringe ::

    5. I may have infringed on The Good Man’s personal space when sleeping off both a wine tasting and a Fairmont cocktail party. I do tend to snore…and spread out, whilst in my cups.

    Thankfully he was doing much the same. It was all good.

  5. Misgivings ::

    6. Ah misgivings. What I had the next morning upon remembering that my middle aged self can’t rebound like I used to. The sun screamed in the windows, the reflux shouted in my esophagus, and I found a bruise on my arm that I can’t recall how I obtained.

    So I was a bit low the next day. At breakfast, with my hair falling down in my eyes, as Roger Miller would say, I was unsure I was gonna make it through the day. Two eggs over easy with sausage and a pot of coffee and suddenly the day started looking a lot better.

    Then I took a nap.

  6. Establish ::

    7. And so, upon leaving the Fairmont, I had to establish just what a classy broad I am by setting my brand new glass “environmentally friendly” water bottle on the floor while I fiddled with my bag. I accidentally nudged the bottle, knocking it over. Once it hit the polished marble floor it shattered.

    Reeeeal classy.

  7. Stupefy ::

    8. Like liquefy. Only stupider. Or something.

  8. Constipate ::

    9. Not even going to touch this one with a ten foot pole.

  9. Conjure ::

    10. And so after the most fun I’ve had in a good long while, this morning I had to conjure up the ability to go back to work. It was all gray cubicle walls and “did you get that cost savings report done yet?”

    I sat at my nondescript desk with no Cable Car in hand and sighed the sigh of the responsible grownup I am for forty (plus) hours a week, planning my next adventure.

  10. Miscellaneous ::

    11. And thus ends the latest of my miscellaneous posts about miscellany.



(Isn’t that lovely? I yearn like a lovesick schoolgirl just looking at it.)





I wasn’t the only one having way too much fun at the Fairmont…this greeted me in the restroom off the lobby. Hell even I wasn’t having this much fun….





Photos by Karen Fayeth, taken with iPhone4 and the Hipstamatic app.


Delicious Vindication!

Long time readers might remember back to February when I discovered that the San Francisco Giants organization had, ahem, “borrowed” one of my photos from Flickr, cropped off my watermark, and used it for a Twitter Valentine’s ecard.

We had a pretty good debate here on the blog and in my real life about whether or not I should be mad, and whether or not I should do anything about it.

Ultimately, I decided to rise above and let it go (The Good Man, on the other hand, has been unable to either forgive or forget).

Call me to easygoing, but I was just honored that my photo caught the eye of the organization, but I really was bummed about the lack of credit.

Well….fast forward to yesterday.

I received this note in my inbox:

___________________________

From: {name redacted}
Subject: Aubrey Huff Photo
To: < karen @ karenfayeth dot com >
Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 7:53 AM

Hi Karen –

We’d like to use the Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell photo from the SF Giants Victory Parade in today’s show Intentional Talk. Please let me know if there are any issues with doing so. We can of course offer a courtesy.

Thanks!

Best,

{name redacted}
Manager, Music & Media Clearances
MLB Network
One MLB Network Plaza
Secaucus, NJ 07094

___________________________


Well, I first did a Google search on the name of the MLB person, and found them to be legit. Then I replied that I would be happy for them to use my photo, I only asked for credit.

MLB readily agreed, and that was that.

And so WHOOOOO with a double WOWZA on top, sure enough, my photo made it onto the show.

Intentional Talk is a daily show hosted by Chris Rose and Kevin Millar for MLB TV. On Wednesday’s edition, they had San Francisco Giants player Aubrey Huff as a guest.

Below are links to the entire segment in two parts. My photo shows up in part 2, at around the 5:58 mark.

Part 1: http://ow.ly/4O1nH

Part 2: http://ow.ly/4O1FO

I am seventeen kinds of pleased that the MLB has turned out, in this case, to be an honorable organization. They did right thing by an amateur photographer.

I’m pretty gosh darn proud, really.

Just for reference, here is the MLB worthy photo:


Now That's Bromance




On the day I took that photo, The Good Man said “You’d better watermark that. There’s something about that photo…I just have a feeling.” Smart kid, that Good Man o’ Mine.


And Then There Was The Time…

So after having a confession yesterday about my snake flinging incident, commenter Andy D mentioned that if I’d slung the snake directly onto instead of simply near my mom, that likely I’d remember the conclusion of that story a lot differently.

Which reminded me of yet another story that took place at that family vacation house near Ute Lake.

My dad was an avid hunter and we always had guns in the house. Since my dad didn’t want us to be either scared or a little too curious about the guns, he made sure we all knew how to shoot each and every one.

On the small bit of property we owned in Cuba, New Mexico, there was a tree that had been felled by lightening. It was a huge tree, and it made a really good location for target practice. Whenever we’d go camping, my dad would bring along guns and each kid (and mom too) all had to take a turn. Dad supervised while we learned to load and shoot the gun.

I was shooting my dad’s deer rifles from a young age. All this is by way of saying that I grew up fairly comfortable around guns.

So ok.

My brother had himself a BB gun when he was a teenager, and when he went off to college, that BB gun was left at the Lake House. For a while, around age 12 or so, I adopted that BB gun as my own. It had seen better days, but it worked fine and there was a big box of BBs available for my “ping!” pleasure.

I liked to shoot the gun mainly for the sound of the BBs pinging off the side of something like the old metal sided chicken coop.

Not the most ambitious of kids, was I.

On the property was a telephone pole. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, that telephone pole was covered in a very thick layer of tar. When the baking heat of a New Mexico summer day would get going, that tar would soften into a gooey mess.

So in my eleven year old mind, I had the brilliant idea that if I shot BBs at the tar covered pole, they’d stick. Wouldn’t that be so cool?

I filled the BB gun full to the brim and got to work out back shooting at that pole from a fair distance. I wanted to make it sporting. Now, hitting a decently narrow pole from a good distance is tougher than you may think. Or at least it was for me. What I lacked in aim, I made up for with single minded focus.

Well, so there I was, pumping BB’s in the general direction of the telephone pole, and my mom, wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, was working out in the back yard pulling weeds.

You can see where this is headed, right?

Sure enough, it was only a matter of time before I pulled the trigger, my aim was a bit off the mark and I…

Yes, I did.

I shot my mom in the arm.

She was, as the saying goes, mad as a wet hen. Quickly enough, a big red welt began rising on her right arm.

Let me just tell you this: I was no longer allowed the use of that BB gun. I was done. For good.

Flinging a snake? I got off easy. Shooting my mom? My oh my. I was in quite a bit of trouble which included a “talking to” from my dad.

That’s never good.

And so in the course of two blog posts, I’ve created quite the Mother’s Day meme.


(I did not, in fact, shoot my eye out. I shot my mom. Whoops.)



Photo is a still from the movie, “A Christmas Story.”