Work has finally upgraded us into the 21st Century by finally migrating us to Windows 7. The upside is that I have a new laptop I'd thought mine would be fixed - I needed a new power cable and a few of the keys on my keyboard didn't work, meaning I had to take a Spongebob roll-up keyboard with me when I went to meetings - but turns out it was out of warrantee, so they figured it was better to issue me a new one. The downside is they're much more locked down now, so I can't download my LJ client, among other handy little things I use, because it's not approved software. Sigh. I knew it was coming. So I'll just have to use the page.

I feel like Tumblr is making me forget how to write. The truth is I don't get much time on the family laptop (I just don't feel like hearing all the grumbling), so I'm using my Nook most of the time lately, and typing on it is really a pain in the ass, especially there. But here, I must have made a dozen placeholders for posts on topics that I haven't written. I thought I'd get some of them done while riding the bus the last three months, but I used the time to reread the original Sherlock Holmes instead. Haven't quite gotten through all of it, but nearly.

I think my last post was when the car blew up. We only got it back last week. It turned out it wasn't just the head, it was the long block - which meant the entire engine had to be replaced.  A week on each end was due to our having to come up with money for a deposit and to pay it off (so much for our tax refund - we still had to get a loan). We looked into buying a used engine, but they came with no guarantees, and John's experience with two used transmissions in the Kia's predecessor (one of which only lasted a couple of months) made us opt for new parts, some of which must have had to be shipped from Korea. John is a good haggler though, and they gave us about a 15% discount for taking so damn long.

With the price of gas though, I think I still should take the bus, even though there's no longer a route down the street my office is on and I have to walk a mile each way to the stop. I really don't mind the walk, but between it and still having to transfer, sometimes it was taking me two hours or more to get home. The Starbucks at my transfer point was getting way too much of my money.

Btw, if they ask, don't let them put two teabags in a Grande sized reusable cup. It's nicely strong, but $3.55 is too goddamned much for a cup of tea. And when I asked for a tall amount of water with one teabag in it, so it wasn't too weak, it took me five minutes to get across to the guy what I wanted. "ok, so you just want hot water? You want one teabag and no water?" I finally had to take the cup, show him there was a line inside for Tall, and tell him only fill it up to there, and no farther. Sheesh.

Anyway, I keep meaning to test out my son's bike to see if it's something I could ride the two miles from my first bus, thus saving the walking time and having to transfer, but I keep forgetting over the weekend.

Huh, this page says I can still send stuff to FB; I thought FB wasn't allowing that anymore.

Well, it appears I have an unscheduled day off - which I'll probably use as one of our mandatory unpaid leave days we have to take once a month.

Just before I left last night, the power went out for about 30 seconds, but when I left the building, I noticed that the big diesel generator was running - it's a bit strange, as it sounds like a big semi running inside a building, with even a truck's lidded exhaust pipe coming out of the roof. Outside the builiding, there were a bunch of police cars with light on parked along the road, the streetlights were out, and I noticed the traffic signal to the west was out.

When I came in this morning, the generator was still running, but inside the building only the emergency lights were on; the phones worked, but the outlets didn't. Barely anyone was still in, and word was that if the power wasn't back on by 10:30, we'd be allowed to leave and either take a vacation day or work at home. My work laptop's batteries are kaput, so I can't really work if there's no power outlet, and there are no openable windows, so the building gets really stuffy really quickly with the air off. Unfortunately, we also have freezers downstairs with a lot of biological samples in them, which were beginning to get a bit fragrant.

Anyhoo, the power was not on as of 11:45, so here I am. That's fine, 'cause I've got neverending stuff to do here too.

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I'm not sure it was "celebrated" - I was in Sacramento for a PFMC meeting, it was the day before payday so I was broke, had to decline when invited out to both meals, and went back to my hotel room to have canned kippers, instant noodles and an orange for lunch and dinner. Well, it was a Doubletree, so the hotel gave me a cookie when I checked in, as well. Whoopee-snort.

But I did go out and find a geocache that evening so I got a little "souvenir" for Leap Day on my geocaching profile. And I dropped off a travelbug I picked up in La Jolla, so it can travel farther. Unfortunately, I realized after I dropped it off, it came from Central/Northern CA to begin with (Sonora, which isn't too far from Sacto). I headed across the street to find another one, but it seemed to have been muggled, and the mall security truck came by and flashed their lights at me, so I got spooked and came back to my room. Probably just as well.

Dammit, it bugs the hell out of me that expensive hotels charge $10/day for internet access (which the Council no longer covers your expenses for) unless you go to the lobby, while cheap places like Motel 6 and the Quality Inn where I stayed when I was up there earlier in February, give it to you free.

So glad runsamuck has that job now. Apparently they're very impressed with him as he does good customer service (used to win Secret Shopper awards when he was a meat-cutter), and have offered him another day a week if he wants it, but the other night guy is senior and he doesn't want to step on any toes when he hasn't even been there two weeks . They did say they're going to have them alternate every other week though.

But the Kia needed a brake job which ran almost $600, so that's where his first couple paychecks are going. And Angus and Avalon both had colds, which he caught, so now he's sick - and it always takes him longer to get over. *Sigh*

On the fun side, I found out there's a geocache at his store. ;p

Well, runsamuck survived his first graveyard. This is going to take some getting used to, by both of us. However, once he's done training, he's only going to have three days a week, because the other, senior, night guy asked for an additional day. Which is actually ok, for now.

And this is how tough it is right now - if he'd quit, as he was considering, there's already a stack of applications an 1½" high of people waiting to take his place; people with college degrees, coming in in suits to fill out an application.

The commute is pretty tough, and this really wouldn't work out if he didn't have the bike. I was a bit worried this morning because it was raining - the first rain in a long while, which makes things slippery, but he made it fine.

Good grief, June is almost over. How did it fly by so fast?

The second week of June I had to go to a PFMC meeting in Spokane, WA. If you're wondering why a body having to do with mostly ocean-going fishing meets occasionally on the eastern side of Washington (and sometimes in Idaho), the answer is "salmon." Which I have nothing to do with, but salmon drags everything after it. My flight had a transfer in Seattle and I had a 2½ hour layover between planes. tikistitch was kind enough to come down and meet me at the airport and chat between planes; we got some dinner and I hope I didn't babble at her too much - I really didn't expect that glass of wine to be so big, especially at an airport, and it turns out I'm really a lightweight lately. I brought her a little Stitch something from Downtown Disney she'd mentioned she couldn't find, just in gratitude for all the fun I've had reading her Mythklok stories. Really great to meet you, Pam, and thanks for putting up with me!

( Boring fisheries shtufs... )

( Geocaching, whee... )

I thought we were having some kind of bug invasion, but there must be some sort of training course for pest control technicians here today. There are about sixteen bright yellow trucks from Western Exterminators (all with their company logo, a guy in spats, sunglasses and a top hat, with a mallet behind his back mounted on the back end), a good six from Orkin, and a couple of other termite control companies in the parking lot.



ETA: Turns out it was a trapping permit test. One of the admin staff told me some of them have taken it about 6 times - but apparently it's fairly difficult.

My work family (and people here do seem like a family, especially those of us who've been here a long time) not only made a donation in my dad's name to the American Heart Association, but also sent us a tree seed from Seeds of Life. It's a Canyon Live Oak, a native Californian, as he was, so it's very appropriate. They even grow around Oxnard and Moorpark, where he was born and grew up.

We planted it in its biodegradable pot a couple of weeks ago, and the acorn is sprouting! Very exciting!

I don't know if we're going to be able to plant it here at the house, once it gets big. I'm wondering if maybe the Shipley Nature Center in Central Park might let us plant it there? Then it would still be here in HB, and we'd have a nearer place to go and visit.

Looking for depictions of Native Americans swordfishing for a presentation for work and came upon this story, which is based on the Chumash legend, namely that the swordfish speared whales and threw them on the beach, thus providing people with food.

Swordfish Story

Swordfish seem to be a bit cruel, but then so do a lot of large predators.

Speaking of predators, I see there's a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie coming out - the mouse people just sent me an email alerting me to the fact, but a day or too ago while looking for something else, I stumbled across a year-old blog entry saying that it may or may not be based on one of my favorite Tim Powers books, On Stranger Tides - which is also the subtitle of the movie. Apparently he sold the movie rights to the book to Disney back in the 80's. While this is one of their franchises I've been pretty pleased with, I hope they've adapted the story adequately. While it has none of the same characters, I can see a lot of parallels between them.

Also, I know getting up and walking away too fast can give you a head rush. I just wish it would occur a little closer to my office chair rather than when I'm halfway down the hall to the bathroom...

Met one of the admin staff coming out the door as I was going in and noticed she had a supportive boot on one foot - she told me she'd been wearing high heels, stepped in a sprinkler hole and broken her ankle. Ow. But it went well with her other black sneaker with florescent pink laces.

She also warned me there was a skunk around the building that had already sprayed one person; the maintenance guys had already shooed it around the other side of the building where there aren't any doors, though. That's a brave guy; although she originally used the word "chased," she amended it to "ambled." In other wildlife news, there is a mother mallard raising about eight ducklings in the building's atrium. They paddle around in the fountain and must be eating whatever bugs and things are in among the plantings, which they hide in whenever anyone goes out there; the maintenance staff had been giving them a little extra but one of our biologists got after them about the prohibition on feeding wildlife. Mom can fly in and out, but I wonder if the babies going to be there until they learn to fly, too? I'll have to see if I can get some pictures of them before they leave.