Category: peculiar

From a Different Angle

Today at lunch, I took a quiet, solo walk on the walking path near my office. Since my walking partner was too busy to come along and my iPod battery was tapped out, it was just me alone with my thoughts.

A dangerous combination.

Being without distraction makes me more observant of everything going on around me. For example, the blue nosed ducks that have arrived as the weather turns colder. The squabbling Canada geese. The flatfish skimming the bottom of shallow waters in the lagoon.

And the humans. Oh those wacky humans.

As I rounded one corner of the path, I saw two guys in business suits taking photos of each other. They were standing by our iconic tall building with the company logo on top. This is a not unusual sight, really. In fact, I think for some of my coworkers in Asia, having a photo from headquarters posted on their internal directory page is a badge of honor.

Since so many people have that photo on their page, everyone is trying to get the different, quirky and odd take on the same photo so they can stand out a little.

This came to mind as I noticed one of the guys posed awkwardly with his finger pointing up. The other was splayed out on the ground, almost in the water, camera pointing up, coaching his subject “a little to the right…a little up…a little more…”

I know what they were doing. They were trying to replicate that cheesey internet meme where through the magic of perspective and photography it looks like someone is holding up a bridge or touching a seventh wonder of the world.

Like this:



Image from homdoc74‘s Flickr photostream

Only with an office building. I have to admit, they weren’t being shy about this at all. They were really going for it. I kind of felt bad for the guy laying on the ground wearing a full dark suit. That’s going to be a weird one to explain when he gets back to the training room. (there’s a sales training going on this week and there are a TON of dark suits wandering around)

I’ll bet the photo will look cool. But the set up looked goofy as hell.

Something akin to this:



Photo from PhotographyUncapped.com



In This Technological Age

Considering how nomadic the people of the world have become – moving streets, cities, states, countries at a whim – you’d think the art and science of moving would have improved.

But really, it hasn’t changed much since the settlers moved west in covered wagons. It’s still just your stuff, a lot of cardboard boxes, a big truck and some muscle.

That’s it. No better. No improvements.

I need some razzle dazzle technology here, people. Can’t the finest minds in Silicon Valley and beyond get on this?

If they can build a better toilet and build a better thermostat then they can build a better moving system.

Let’s think beyond the cardboard box, people!

I’m talking about something like Star Trek transport. Push a button. Boom baby, your crap is at a new address.

Or levitation. Alakazam! Your sh*t’s in the truck!

Or wiggle my nose Bewitched style and it simply happens. Move house and cook a post roast, all in three shakes of a nariz.

Something better than boxes and packing tape rolls that always run out just at that crucial moment.

*sigh*

I say all of this as I take in the view at my home. Boxes everywhere. The Good Man and I wondering why we both have so much crap. Wondering if we can cull it down more. Wondering how in the heck we are going to get this all done.

Moving sucks.

However.

Because perspective is a lovely thing, on Monday, I was chatting with a coworker who also has an upcoming move. We were talking about packing and shredding and donating and both of us were tut-tutting and shaking our heads at it all.

He asked me “how far is away is your new house?”

“Oh, a few miles,” I said.

“Imagine being me moving 6,000 miles. To a new country.” (he’s moving from Dublin to San Francisco in two months)

So ok. He’s got to pack all his crap into wooden shipping boxes. Talk about space limitations! Talk about a man who could use an easy transporter.

Ah well. Hand me the bungee cords. Let’s get back to work.






Today’s Theme Thursday topic is: view

Photo from Lavazza Article


Welcome To My New Year

While we haven’t quite yet passed to the end of 2011, I’m already in progress on what will surely be the biggest change to impact my new year.

You see, the Good Man and I are moving house.

It’s not a big move, just a few miles away. But we are moving to a much larger place with two, count them TWO full bathrooms.

I experience waves of joy at that thought.

As the landlord is completely renovating the place (we get to move in with all new paint and floors and appliances, yay!) we won’t actually move until later in January.

But…

Here’s the thing. I have lived in our current spot for almost eight years. The Good Man moved in almost five years back. But for me, eight long years. That’s a lot of time to accumulate crap.

A lot of crap.

Over the years, I may have been accused by friends and family of having difficulty with throwing things away.

Ahem.

I’m not a hoarder. Much.

I mean my place isn’t floor to ceiling with newspapers I can bear to part with, but the extra large storage space under my current place IS full of all manner of stuff that should have been thrown away or donated long ago.

It’s a lot.

The Good Man is fairly organized and keeps his stuff pretty tidy. He goes through everything about once a year and culls out, cleans out and donates.

Me. Not so much.

So laying ahead of me, I have a fabulous future with a shiny new home. It has a fireplace! And a deck. And an actual living room.

Surrounding me, I have boxes and bags and barrels of crap to sort through.

I pledged this week that I’m off work to clean out everything under the current house. So instead of enjoying my bright future, I am lost in my past.

Today I went through a huge box of papers, bills and receipts. This is my personal weak spot. For some reason I think I need to keep every receipt I ever get. The Good Man has me on a rehab plan so I don’t keep doing this.

But today I shredded the original registration papers on the Jeep I bought in 1995. The State of New Mexico charged me forty-eight dollars to register the first car I bought with my own money. I miss the days of forty-eight dollar car registration.

I traded in that Jeep on a new one in 2001. So I kept an almost seventeen year old document on a Jeep I sold ten years ago from from a state where I no longer live.

It’s like that.

I remember talking to my mom in the year after my dad had passed. She was going through everything they owned with plans to eventually sell their house and move somewhere more manageable.

In the stuff, she found a box of papers that my dad had kept. In this box were bills and receipts that dated back to the first year of their marriage. They were married for forty-five years.

Mom fired up a burn barrel and alternately cried and cursed while disposing of the stack of paper that had (unknown to her) been a part of her life for her entire marriage.

Today, as I shredded, I thought about that. I though about how mad The Good Man would be if I died and left him with all of this crap to sort through.

I have to strive to be better, to get rid of stuff more often, to keep my piles of crap under control.

This move is good. It’s a good idea to force myself to clean out my mess. It’s a good idea to have a new start.

My future is bright. But I gotta sort through my past first.






Image from The Magic Forest.

This is an early entry for this week’s Theme Thursday fun. This week’s theme = future.

That There is a Winner!

As the Holiday season draws to a close, just two days now until “The Big Day” those of us at work come together for our annual “What Did You Get From The Suppliers?” comparison event.

As I started my career working for the government, I rather enjoy being in private industry where we can accept small tokens from the companies we work with.

Now let me just say, I’m usually the big loser in these competitions because I work with the telco commodity. Those companies are as cheap as the day is long.

I thought I had a pretty good entry this year for Worst Present. I got this tacky plexiglass picture frame that sits in a weird base and when I put the plastic part into the base, it immediately broke.

And then, I got ANOTHER one in the mail the next day. Their sales team clearly didn’t coordinate.

So I brought that out and declared it the worst gift of 2011.

But I got trumped and trumped hard.

“Oh NO!” I heard from the corner. “I can beat that.”

Beat that, she did.

Behold:






Now, it helps to know that the recipient of this present is a very classy, stylish girl from the City. She’s quite Coco Chanel and Jimmy Choo.

To make this gift even more charming, it was handed to my coworker while still wrapped in the plastic shopping bag from the Dallas airport.

Obviously I had to concede the race. I reboxed my broken plexiglass frame in defeat.

By the way, the lady with the worst gift is also the winner of the most and best gifts too. She works in temporary staffing. Those suppliers fall all over themselves to give stuff away at the holidays.

I need to consider working in a new group. This annual defeat, even in the worst category, is gosh darn humbling.

And for as ungrateful as I may seem, I really do enjoy the little trinkets our suppliers send.
.
.
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Especially when it is a box of See’s candy.


The Laws of A State Named Denial

So. Here we are. The eighth day of the month. No big deal, right? Just like every other 8th day of any other month.

People keeping saying something about an “event” or some something or other coming up at the end of the month.

I have no idea what they are talking about.

I’m sure it’s nothing. Some fake internet celebration like that one day where everyone was supposed to leave their bank and go to a credit union.

You know, I keep trying to schedule meeting for the last two weeks of the month but everyone’s calendars are busy! I mean, all day, every day.

There must be a training session or something.

Weird.

I cannot imagine what in the heck must be going on. This is just another simple ordinary month. Nothing special going on. Just another month in the year.

Not sure why, but there is a tree that has sprung up down the hallway from my office. Must be the company plant-care team trying something out. Perhaps I’ll call them and say I think it’s in the way. Hard to walk around it.

And the mail team must have dumped off some lost packages over there, because there are all of these boxes by that dumb tree.

I mean, we’re all trying to do a job here!

The grocery stores sure are playing bouncy music lately. Lots of bells. Maybe that’s the new trend in music? Sometimes it’s horns. Or heavy electric guitar. But these days, bells.

Seriously, am I missing something? It seems like everyone is up to something but I don’t know what.

Nope. It’s just another day in just another month and nowhere NEAR the end of the year because that cannot possibly be.

It’s like April, right? Of 2003? Or maybe 1999?

Because time cannot possibly be moving this fast.

It just can’t.

It can’t it can’t it can’t!!!

Greetings from the State of Denial. Population: Me.




This non-event thusly satisfies today’s Theme Thursday word: event