At my job, there come times when the computer side of me really comes through in heavy doses, and for the profession I'm in, it's completely appropriate. Maybe some people aren't cut out for it, or maybe they just need a little guidance. Here's one thing that normal people don't think about.
Someone was hitting what we refer to as an "edit," which is basically a warning that tells a biller that a claim has an error that needs to be addressed, and there is text with this to tell the person what the problem is. One such edit dealt with information in a field required to be alphanumeric data only. I don't remember the data there, but let's say it was "43A 766892". A true geek will notice the problem right away. Normal people will not. Can you see it?
If I said ASCII character 32, you might look at me funny, but character 32 is neither alpha nor numeric. Character 32, however, is between those quotes up there. What is this character? Why this, of course: " ". It's a space. The info above is "43A(space)766892". Depending on your programming language, spaces are equally acknowledged and ignored. In BASIC, C++, JavaScript, HTML, and lots of others, you can put in spaces till your heart's content, and it won't care in the least. But in our internal language, and the one the edits use, spaces are significant and acknowledged. This means that that non-alphanumeric character cannot be used.
Bored yet? I'm moving on.
Had a lot of fun yesterday in that it was a very good day, and I felt very vaidated at work. Optimus Prime and his wife are puttnig down an offer on a house, and he's become absolutel impossible at work. I've already warned the boss that he'll be completely unproductive for at least a month, and the validation? She said, "Well, it's a good thing we have you then." Ah, it's nice to be loved.
Then again, she did warn that he better be productive. After all, he has debt now.
Moving away from work, though, maybe Poopy Pants...er, I mean Sassy Pants has come to a euphoric realization. The other night, I'd had it with the poop and told her that if she continued to do this, we'd have to go back to diapers. She was heart broken at the prospect, and lo and behold, the very next day, I got a joyful call at work that she's pooped in the potty. Yeah, weird thing to blog, but dang it, that's some seriously good news. Really tired of those stinky skid marks.
Rock Girl is improving on Guitar Hero. I worked with her a few nights ago on the game and getting her rhythm down, and she not only completed the song she was working on, but completed the encore and got out of Tier 1 on the easy level. I was very excited for her. She tried one of the Tier 2 songs that she'd heard before, and got 57% through it, which is really good for having only just started playing it. She still has her moments of frustration with it, but she's getting the game down, and more importantly, feeling that rhythm.
The Queen went shopping the other day for Easter dresses for the girls and was able to get the younger two covered, but Rock Girl was more difficult, since the only dress she liked wasn't in her size. One thing we've noticed about her is that her taste in clothes will differ from The Queen's as she gets older. She seems to be less and less about the "pretty" aspect of clothing choices and going for more of the trim varieties of dresses. I can't think of another term for it; hopefully, the Queen will comment and clear up the confusion... I know what's in my head, but let's face it -- I'm still a guy and have no clue about these things.
I would be remiss not to say SOMETHING about The Socialite, but right now, she's just growing in knowledge more than size. She's still very little and can curl up in our arms when she wants to be cuddled (and she's the only one who wants to be cuddled, really). She loves, loves, loves to watch movies, so our movie nights are just a thrill to her, and when it's her turn to pick a movie from Blockbuster, she's just on cloud nine. But don't get me wrong, she also loves watching Tom and Jerry.
Last night was really nice. We had a movie night with everyone to watch Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I love being able to watch movies with them for the first time. It's fun to see their wonder at some parts and have them jump into our laps in other parts -- sometimes they just get "scary" at the movie. The film was rated G, but it was actually really good. Quite cute in some places, but very much a Willy Wonka of toy stores film. Lots of fun to watch and follow along with.
The Queen enjoys reading another blog out there about a Pioneer Woman, who she and her friends term "P-Dub." P-Dub apparently likes posting recipes and such, and last night we had a lasagna that stemmed from one of this woman's recipes. It was very good. It was spiced just right, the cheese portion was realy good, and The Queen put it all together really well. After all, the maker has more to do with the product than the recipe writer, so credit to the Queen on a dinner well done. We ate it during the movie; gotta love that too.
I skipped out on my weekend job last week due to my being ill, but I know it's looming for this weekend. I'm not looking forward to it. I tried to get some extra overtime at my main job to not have to go back to doing "someone else's job," but the boss said I couldn't get that much, so I'm taking what I can to get out of there a bit quicker. Of course, like a klutz, on Sunday when the manager at the world's largest retailer called me and asked if I should be working on Sundays, instead of saying "well, that's really inconvenient for me," I said "I can work Sundays, but it's easier not to, but I can if I'm needed." Dumb, dumb, dumb!
I'm counting down the work nights though, figuring it on a 3-day weekend basis, and including this weekend, I'm down to 23 nights. It would be 24, but I'm not scheduled for the upcoming Sunday. I know the The Queen isn't likely looking forward to this weekend either since she prefers I be home with her and active on the weekends (instead of sleeping, as I need to when I work nights). Frankly, I'd rather be spending time with them too, but you do what you gotta do (a principle in total deference to the work avoidance people).
As always, though, we'll make it through, and come out with flying colors. Everything is actually going so well that I'm a little afraid of what's going to break. Something almost always breaks when things start going this well. I'm almost all caught up on the bills and such to where I can cut back to one job. My relationship with the family is awesome. I enjoy the main job I'm doing and it pays well enough. I'm not looking to jinx anything, but clear sailing is not something I'm used to. I pray for it all the time, and I would love to have some clear sailing for a little while to allow me some time to rest. Maybe God is finally smiling on me and setting the trials aside to let me enjoy what I've been given for a time.
There are other trials out there for me, but they are more or less waiting to be accessed and are more like dreams to me than trials. I can't get into them until all the life trials calm down, so don't be thinking that I will be idle once everything calms down. The drama will continue, but in a different way. I can't wait.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Work Avoidance
It's an epidemic. Worse than the flu or the ebola virus. It's a state where people are employed for a reason, and instead of doing their job, they hand it off to someone else ASAP... whether they should or not. Please forgive my vent. I swear I'll post something else today to make up for it.
This is especially rampant at the world's largest retailer, both from an internal employee standpoint and a customer standpoint. Perhaps you've heard this before: "I don't know; I don't work in this department." And then, they make absolutely no effort to help. The internal slogan (as I call it) goes like this: "Somebody else will do it." How many somebody else's does an average store have? Not very many.
Now, don't get me wrong. Verbally, they do not in any way endorse this policy. No, no. They talk about going out of their way to help the customer, and nonsense such as that, but internally, "somebody else will do it" is non-verbally blessed by management as well. If, God forbid, finishing your job will create overtime, personal responsibility goes out the window. They will literally say to "leave it; somebody else can do it." Pathetic.
This carries over into my other job as well. It's not as prevalent, but it is there. I work in an area that not a lot of people (acknowledge to) understand, and so any time something along those lines emerges, the tickets involving it get shot right over to us, whether it actually applies to that process or not. One just today had absolutely nothing to do with my primary responsibility, but the item had that classification on it, so to me it came. I can't count how many times I've explained the process to another department who won't do their job until I convince them that what needs to be done is their responsibility. And by convince, I mean get a lawyer and make a rock solid case for it...or that's what it feels like.
I know... Why aren't I doing these things I feel like others should? Well, in business, everyone has a specialty and certain responsibilities. These responsbilities are delegated to those who are most likely to be able to do them in the best manner possible. Those same people are also likely trained in some way to do that job well or they've received internal training to do it. This "other department" does something I know very little about, so when I get one of their tickets, I don't know how to resolve it except to send it to them. The avoidance I'm referring to involves people who do know how to do the same things or are training in the same areas, but choose to push work off onto other people just so they don't have to do it.
One such issue involved me doing something that really wasn't even my job to do, but it was for someone who called in. I helped to align this person's print image once, and so when they couldn't print all of a sudden, they called me. Their program was wanting to save a pdf file instead of printing it. Well, this means one of two things: file isn't associated with the app, or no app present to associate with. She handed me over to her IT guy...wait, an IT guy. Isn't he supposed to know this stuff. Oh, wait, it's our product, so clearly it's our issue.
He asked about it being blocked by a pop-up blocker, so I had to tell him where in Internet Explorer that was. He couldn't get the file to load, so I had to not only suggest reinstalling the app, but tell him where to find it (the app being Adobe Acrobat Reader, the singular most common free program on the planet). Then it would download, so I had to tell him when to unblock the file download ability in the IE security settings. Why am I doing this for someone who should be qualified?
Anyway, I guess my rant is over. Sometimes, people just really tick me off. They duck their responsibilities all over the place, and those who are responsible for themselves and try to take care of people (i.e. do their job) end up picking up the slack for the slackers. I don't mind slacking now and again, but I do it when I know I can. It's an ongoing issue that I know will never end. Even since I've began this post last week, more things have cropped up where people avoid taking work that should belong to them, so I just deal with it and do what they should be doing.
While it makes the boss love me, it's also a bit frustrating being the repository for all the tickets that no one wants to finish. I get it and complete it in a few minutes. On one occasion, the ticket was three months old. I did it in 5 minutes.
Well, I better get back to work.
This is especially rampant at the world's largest retailer, both from an internal employee standpoint and a customer standpoint. Perhaps you've heard this before: "I don't know; I don't work in this department." And then, they make absolutely no effort to help. The internal slogan (as I call it) goes like this: "Somebody else will do it." How many somebody else's does an average store have? Not very many.
Now, don't get me wrong. Verbally, they do not in any way endorse this policy. No, no. They talk about going out of their way to help the customer, and nonsense such as that, but internally, "somebody else will do it" is non-verbally blessed by management as well. If, God forbid, finishing your job will create overtime, personal responsibility goes out the window. They will literally say to "leave it; somebody else can do it." Pathetic.
This carries over into my other job as well. It's not as prevalent, but it is there. I work in an area that not a lot of people (acknowledge to) understand, and so any time something along those lines emerges, the tickets involving it get shot right over to us, whether it actually applies to that process or not. One just today had absolutely nothing to do with my primary responsibility, but the item had that classification on it, so to me it came. I can't count how many times I've explained the process to another department who won't do their job until I convince them that what needs to be done is their responsibility. And by convince, I mean get a lawyer and make a rock solid case for it...or that's what it feels like.
I know... Why aren't I doing these things I feel like others should? Well, in business, everyone has a specialty and certain responsibilities. These responsbilities are delegated to those who are most likely to be able to do them in the best manner possible. Those same people are also likely trained in some way to do that job well or they've received internal training to do it. This "other department" does something I know very little about, so when I get one of their tickets, I don't know how to resolve it except to send it to them. The avoidance I'm referring to involves people who do know how to do the same things or are training in the same areas, but choose to push work off onto other people just so they don't have to do it.
One such issue involved me doing something that really wasn't even my job to do, but it was for someone who called in. I helped to align this person's print image once, and so when they couldn't print all of a sudden, they called me. Their program was wanting to save a pdf file instead of printing it. Well, this means one of two things: file isn't associated with the app, or no app present to associate with. She handed me over to her IT guy...wait, an IT guy. Isn't he supposed to know this stuff. Oh, wait, it's our product, so clearly it's our issue.
He asked about it being blocked by a pop-up blocker, so I had to tell him where in Internet Explorer that was. He couldn't get the file to load, so I had to not only suggest reinstalling the app, but tell him where to find it (the app being Adobe Acrobat Reader, the singular most common free program on the planet). Then it would download, so I had to tell him when to unblock the file download ability in the IE security settings. Why am I doing this for someone who should be qualified?
Anyway, I guess my rant is over. Sometimes, people just really tick me off. They duck their responsibilities all over the place, and those who are responsible for themselves and try to take care of people (i.e. do their job) end up picking up the slack for the slackers. I don't mind slacking now and again, but I do it when I know I can. It's an ongoing issue that I know will never end. Even since I've began this post last week, more things have cropped up where people avoid taking work that should belong to them, so I just deal with it and do what they should be doing.
While it makes the boss love me, it's also a bit frustrating being the repository for all the tickets that no one wants to finish. I get it and complete it in a few minutes. On one occasion, the ticket was three months old. I did it in 5 minutes.
Well, I better get back to work.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Old Man and the Cards
Before I move on from the Army and get into the horror that was Allison, I thought I ought to step back a minute and hit on a few things that did happen in the military that are worth mentioning. Sure, I said not a lot happened, and when it comes to the band, itself, it stayed pretty consistent. I imagine if I were actively blogging it as it happened, it would be pretty interesting, but as I'm going in arrears here trying to remember what happened, it probably would get old fast, since I'm no good with details.
But you know, I hit on it briefly in the other post, and I figure I should expand on the other love I had in the Army: Magic: The Gathering. The collectible card game from Wizards of the Coast that I've since sworn I would never play again. And I won't. I won't buy any cards; I won't participate in any games. It ate through paycheck after paycheck and I just can't handle it. But at the time, it was fun.
It was me and Hi Speed that played, and we frequented only two places during our time. One was a game shop where people played the game, and I bought cards off some little kid who always seemed to have weird and interesting cards to get rid of. They didn't much like him selling his cards in the shop, so I said once we needed to discuss deer in the woods (as in bucks, haha), and it stuck.
Our other haunt was a shop owned by an old man, hence we called him The Old Man. This guy seemed to enjoy our company, but he was serious about his business (though he did let me get away with trading a mana barbs for a double land -- yeah, no where close in value). We did buy a ton of cards from him, even though he discouraged it from the beginning. Being the kids we were, we didn't listen.
It wasn't long before Magic became our life. We went to local tournaments, but really didn't do any good, because those guys understood the value of having extra cards in their sideboard deck. To give a brief explanation there, tournament Magic decks usually have 60 cards, and they are permitted a sideboard deck of 20 that they can switch out cards for between rounds (of which there are usually three). My "rack deck" (called as such because the artifact known as The Rack did the majority of the damage) was near unbeatable until someone pulls a black protection out...then I was toast. Happened more than once, so I stuck to non-competitive play.
Most of our games happened at this game shop until the Old Man put up a table for play at his, and we went over to his place as well. It was a lot of fun and served to pass the time when we weren't playing gigs, and I wasn't performing on stage.
Another thing I did with my spare time was watching musicals on stage. While I was in the military, I watched all of the following shows: Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Cats, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Assassins (those three within 24 hours of each other), Grease, Blood Brothers, and I could swear there were a couple more. I performed in Camelot, Oliver!, Amadeus, and City of Angels. I was all about the stage during this time.
Naturally, the performance that The Queen quite enjoyed the tale of was my part in The City of Angels. I was the bass singer of the jazz quartet, and the part was really quite enjoyable. But the part that cracked everyone up with remarkable consistency, and which got laughs every night was the fact that the show contained a street scene in which the quartet chronicled the search of the detective Stone for the girl, and for this scene, I was in a dress, made up, and everything. It really scared people because I apparently looked pretty good. Couldn't say how true that was, but the fact was that I did do eight performances in that getup, which was only for one song. For the rest of the show (before and after), I was dressed as a male, so I had to throw all that mess on between songs, and then strip it back off before my next entrance. It was nuts.
Not to mention the fact that due to my inexperience with make up, I did have to explain to at least one person I worked with (who had not seen the show -- three of them had) why I still had eye liner on the next day. It was pretty whacked.
The reason for this devotion to the craft was due to my continual work on my first musical. I sought out others to write lyrics for me, but in the end, I finally got an old friend from high school to agree to write lyrics, since he'd written some lyrics in high school that I composed some music to. At the time, he was going to OU, pursuing a degree in musical composition (although he may have been in something else at the time). We'd known each other since we were freshmen in high school and were sort of competitors on trombone at times. At present, he works with his parents on their farm, so we'll call him Farmer.
While I was at the SOM, I was driving with my mother and she commented that a local mega-church had ousted some higher ranking people in their church for disagreeing with the beliefs of the main pastor. I don't know about you, but that had all the makings of a delicious story. So I concocted this tale of a church where they sacrificed someone, and someone in the church threatened to go to the police and the high priest killed him right there. A tabloid reporter comes in to report on the town, but meet someone there she knew from when she was younger. She gets wrapped up in the church and almost killed, but her man rescues her, which ticks off the high priest. The priest hires a bounty hunter to bring her in and get her man to come in too. In the end the hero kills the high priest, but not before he shoots the girl. The end.
The story went through a myriad of revisions. I started writing the lyrics myself, and then went through those other people before I got Farmer in on it. He turned in the opening number and I loved it. Several songs were written during this time as well as the majority of the actual spoken parts of the libretto. Trouble with that was that while I had an easy job, he was going to college and quite busy, so he couldn't devote 100% of his time to writing like I could.
By the time I left the military, which is as far as the rest of this narrative goes, we'd written maybe half the show, and it was rather stalled at that point. I was frustrated with the lack of progress, and Farmer was frustrated at my frustrations. Would we finish it? Eventually. But that happens quite a bit later.
My next audition for the theatre was too close to my military departure and was not meant to be. I've never auditioned for anything since. I've wanted to, and maybe when my life settles down a bit, I'll show the locals how to really act, but for now, I'm off the stage and behind the desk. The tale here goes on like so many others, but those are tales for another day.
But you know, I hit on it briefly in the other post, and I figure I should expand on the other love I had in the Army: Magic: The Gathering. The collectible card game from Wizards of the Coast that I've since sworn I would never play again. And I won't. I won't buy any cards; I won't participate in any games. It ate through paycheck after paycheck and I just can't handle it. But at the time, it was fun.
It was me and Hi Speed that played, and we frequented only two places during our time. One was a game shop where people played the game, and I bought cards off some little kid who always seemed to have weird and interesting cards to get rid of. They didn't much like him selling his cards in the shop, so I said once we needed to discuss deer in the woods (as in bucks, haha), and it stuck.
Our other haunt was a shop owned by an old man, hence we called him The Old Man. This guy seemed to enjoy our company, but he was serious about his business (though he did let me get away with trading a mana barbs for a double land -- yeah, no where close in value). We did buy a ton of cards from him, even though he discouraged it from the beginning. Being the kids we were, we didn't listen.
It wasn't long before Magic became our life. We went to local tournaments, but really didn't do any good, because those guys understood the value of having extra cards in their sideboard deck. To give a brief explanation there, tournament Magic decks usually have 60 cards, and they are permitted a sideboard deck of 20 that they can switch out cards for between rounds (of which there are usually three). My "rack deck" (called as such because the artifact known as The Rack did the majority of the damage) was near unbeatable until someone pulls a black protection out...then I was toast. Happened more than once, so I stuck to non-competitive play.
Most of our games happened at this game shop until the Old Man put up a table for play at his, and we went over to his place as well. It was a lot of fun and served to pass the time when we weren't playing gigs, and I wasn't performing on stage.
Another thing I did with my spare time was watching musicals on stage. While I was in the military, I watched all of the following shows: Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Cats, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Assassins (those three within 24 hours of each other), Grease, Blood Brothers, and I could swear there were a couple more. I performed in Camelot, Oliver!, Amadeus, and City of Angels. I was all about the stage during this time.
Naturally, the performance that The Queen quite enjoyed the tale of was my part in The City of Angels. I was the bass singer of the jazz quartet, and the part was really quite enjoyable. But the part that cracked everyone up with remarkable consistency, and which got laughs every night was the fact that the show contained a street scene in which the quartet chronicled the search of the detective Stone for the girl, and for this scene, I was in a dress, made up, and everything. It really scared people because I apparently looked pretty good. Couldn't say how true that was, but the fact was that I did do eight performances in that getup, which was only for one song. For the rest of the show (before and after), I was dressed as a male, so I had to throw all that mess on between songs, and then strip it back off before my next entrance. It was nuts.
Not to mention the fact that due to my inexperience with make up, I did have to explain to at least one person I worked with (who had not seen the show -- three of them had) why I still had eye liner on the next day. It was pretty whacked.
The reason for this devotion to the craft was due to my continual work on my first musical. I sought out others to write lyrics for me, but in the end, I finally got an old friend from high school to agree to write lyrics, since he'd written some lyrics in high school that I composed some music to. At the time, he was going to OU, pursuing a degree in musical composition (although he may have been in something else at the time). We'd known each other since we were freshmen in high school and were sort of competitors on trombone at times. At present, he works with his parents on their farm, so we'll call him Farmer.
While I was at the SOM, I was driving with my mother and she commented that a local mega-church had ousted some higher ranking people in their church for disagreeing with the beliefs of the main pastor. I don't know about you, but that had all the makings of a delicious story. So I concocted this tale of a church where they sacrificed someone, and someone in the church threatened to go to the police and the high priest killed him right there. A tabloid reporter comes in to report on the town, but meet someone there she knew from when she was younger. She gets wrapped up in the church and almost killed, but her man rescues her, which ticks off the high priest. The priest hires a bounty hunter to bring her in and get her man to come in too. In the end the hero kills the high priest, but not before he shoots the girl. The end.
The story went through a myriad of revisions. I started writing the lyrics myself, and then went through those other people before I got Farmer in on it. He turned in the opening number and I loved it. Several songs were written during this time as well as the majority of the actual spoken parts of the libretto. Trouble with that was that while I had an easy job, he was going to college and quite busy, so he couldn't devote 100% of his time to writing like I could.
By the time I left the military, which is as far as the rest of this narrative goes, we'd written maybe half the show, and it was rather stalled at that point. I was frustrated with the lack of progress, and Farmer was frustrated at my frustrations. Would we finish it? Eventually. But that happens quite a bit later.
My next audition for the theatre was too close to my military departure and was not meant to be. I've never auditioned for anything since. I've wanted to, and maybe when my life settles down a bit, I'll show the locals how to really act, but for now, I'm off the stage and behind the desk. The tale here goes on like so many others, but those are tales for another day.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
An Engaging Night
Most relationships have a defining moment; something that marks whether that relationship will ultimately succeed or fail. It will be something that also defines the strength of the people involved to the point that when they emerge from it, respect is no longer just a word, but something that has been bestowed and earned. In the drama that followed in our lives, we both earned respect from nearly everyone in how we both were able to handle our individual parts of what was to ensue.
June was to own two very defining moments, exactly one week apart. The first was the defining moment of a commitment to each other; the first step to spending the rest of our lives together. The second tested that commitment to a greater degree than any thought either of us were capable of.
Early in the month, the Queen and I had done some serious shopping for an engagement ring. Being that I wanted her to get what she wanted, we went together. Once we were set, I held onto it until the most opportune time. After all, there was one very important thing that needed to be done before the official question could be popped: I had to talk to her father.
As much fun as I tend to have with the names on here, I pondered a very long time as to what to call the Queen's father. There was no single name I could create that could convey the respect I have for him, nor the position that he holds in both our lives. I honestly tried, too, but in the end, I have to simply call him the Queen's father, and leave it at that. I don't want to risk being either inappropriate or disrespectful to him, because both he and the Queen Mother have been very good to us throughout our lives.
Of course, my most vivid memory of that day when I asked for his permission to take his daughter away from him was him eating the remaining ice cream out of a blue bell half gallon tub. I was very nervous, and let's face it, he's a big guy. Big, as in power lifter big. Inotherwords, he could benchpress me with very little effort. The Queen was out of the room, so I spouted my question: "Can I marry your daughter?" His response: "I don't know. Can you?" The joke ended there. He was deadly serious going forward.
What is the most important thing to a father? That his little girl is cared for. That who she ends up with not only respect her but respect the family as well. He told me he would always be there for us and to never screw him over or take advantage of his goodwill. Then he called the Queen in and asked if she knew about this. She said we'd talked about it, but that was it. He spoke to both of us briefly about responsibility and what we were getting into.
I did promise to take care of her, and I have always tried to. I cannot say I've always done right by them, but I can say I never intended to do anything wrong. As we were leaving, Darth Vader, who was 19 at the time, came running out. He also urged me to take care of his sister, or he would be most displeased. Ok, he didn't say it quite like that, but it fits my character name for him.
So we went out. We went to the pool hall where we'd gone so many times before. I remember she was wearing these Tigger overalls she had. I liked them for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she just looked cute in them. Don't ask me about shirt color -- be happy I remembered the overalls.
Anyway, we played a few games of pool and were going to head of to eat something. I had given a lot of thought as to how I would ultimately "pop" the question. I figured I'd have a little personality about me, but still try to maintain the romantic positioning that she seemed to want. I figured I'd do it after playing pool and before dinner...while walking to the car.
In line with my personality, as I walked around the car to let her in (the way I had to open my doors was to open the driver's side door first, and then reach across and unlock the passenger side door), I tripped over my own feet, landing quite conveniently on one knee. I dipped into my pocket for the ring. It took a moment to do this, apparently, because she asked if I was ok.
I popped back up, box open and asked her to marry me. Her hands went to her face. She was smiling behind them. She said yes. I rose to my feet and put the ring on her finger. She threw her arms around my neck, giving me another yes for good measure.
While I don't remember for certain where we ate after that, I would surmise that we ended up at the Olive Garden, since that's where we went for the special occasion. My memory leads me through the nervous tension that lead up to the moment, and then fades quickly once it happened. While I've worked through this, I've found that to happen with remarkable consistency. Isn't it odd that we vividly remember the trials of our lives, but seems to stop the movie as soon as the triumph happens? That's probably why stories end so quickly after the climax -- nothing interesting happens afterward.
But we know that interesting things did happen afterward. The trials were destined to continue, and even now, so many years later, are the trials starting to turn into more triumphs. It's been a long time since that boy and that girl promised themselves to each other, and thinking of their faces etched with hopefulness makes me think about how much I had to learn about so many things since then. Life changes so quickly, and memories disappear into the past so easily, and yet, when I picture that couple -- the couple that the Queen and I were on that June day -- I cannot help but smile. For even though we're not the people that we were then, I also know that those people are still inside of us, and every once in awhile, we still feel the euphoria of that day -- that day when everything was right, hopeful, and the world was at our feet.
June was to own two very defining moments, exactly one week apart. The first was the defining moment of a commitment to each other; the first step to spending the rest of our lives together. The second tested that commitment to a greater degree than any thought either of us were capable of.
Early in the month, the Queen and I had done some serious shopping for an engagement ring. Being that I wanted her to get what she wanted, we went together. Once we were set, I held onto it until the most opportune time. After all, there was one very important thing that needed to be done before the official question could be popped: I had to talk to her father.
As much fun as I tend to have with the names on here, I pondered a very long time as to what to call the Queen's father. There was no single name I could create that could convey the respect I have for him, nor the position that he holds in both our lives. I honestly tried, too, but in the end, I have to simply call him the Queen's father, and leave it at that. I don't want to risk being either inappropriate or disrespectful to him, because both he and the Queen Mother have been very good to us throughout our lives.
Of course, my most vivid memory of that day when I asked for his permission to take his daughter away from him was him eating the remaining ice cream out of a blue bell half gallon tub. I was very nervous, and let's face it, he's a big guy. Big, as in power lifter big. Inotherwords, he could benchpress me with very little effort. The Queen was out of the room, so I spouted my question: "Can I marry your daughter?" His response: "I don't know. Can you?" The joke ended there. He was deadly serious going forward.
What is the most important thing to a father? That his little girl is cared for. That who she ends up with not only respect her but respect the family as well. He told me he would always be there for us and to never screw him over or take advantage of his goodwill. Then he called the Queen in and asked if she knew about this. She said we'd talked about it, but that was it. He spoke to both of us briefly about responsibility and what we were getting into.
I did promise to take care of her, and I have always tried to. I cannot say I've always done right by them, but I can say I never intended to do anything wrong. As we were leaving, Darth Vader, who was 19 at the time, came running out. He also urged me to take care of his sister, or he would be most displeased. Ok, he didn't say it quite like that, but it fits my character name for him.
So we went out. We went to the pool hall where we'd gone so many times before. I remember she was wearing these Tigger overalls she had. I liked them for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she just looked cute in them. Don't ask me about shirt color -- be happy I remembered the overalls.
Anyway, we played a few games of pool and were going to head of to eat something. I had given a lot of thought as to how I would ultimately "pop" the question. I figured I'd have a little personality about me, but still try to maintain the romantic positioning that she seemed to want. I figured I'd do it after playing pool and before dinner...while walking to the car.
In line with my personality, as I walked around the car to let her in (the way I had to open my doors was to open the driver's side door first, and then reach across and unlock the passenger side door), I tripped over my own feet, landing quite conveniently on one knee. I dipped into my pocket for the ring. It took a moment to do this, apparently, because she asked if I was ok.
I popped back up, box open and asked her to marry me. Her hands went to her face. She was smiling behind them. She said yes. I rose to my feet and put the ring on her finger. She threw her arms around my neck, giving me another yes for good measure.
While I don't remember for certain where we ate after that, I would surmise that we ended up at the Olive Garden, since that's where we went for the special occasion. My memory leads me through the nervous tension that lead up to the moment, and then fades quickly once it happened. While I've worked through this, I've found that to happen with remarkable consistency. Isn't it odd that we vividly remember the trials of our lives, but seems to stop the movie as soon as the triumph happens? That's probably why stories end so quickly after the climax -- nothing interesting happens afterward.
But we know that interesting things did happen afterward. The trials were destined to continue, and even now, so many years later, are the trials starting to turn into more triumphs. It's been a long time since that boy and that girl promised themselves to each other, and thinking of their faces etched with hopefulness makes me think about how much I had to learn about so many things since then. Life changes so quickly, and memories disappear into the past so easily, and yet, when I picture that couple -- the couple that the Queen and I were on that June day -- I cannot help but smile. For even though we're not the people that we were then, I also know that those people are still inside of us, and every once in awhile, we still feel the euphoria of that day -- that day when everything was right, hopeful, and the world was at our feet.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Backyard Chainsaw Massacre
I love chainsaws. They make the cutting of wood very quick, easy, and almost effortless. You know what my favorite feature of a chainsaw is? Those little adjustment nuts that are on the side at the back of the cutting blade. They make it easy when you have to reattach the chain when you inevitably kick it off the blade by cutting. You hit one hard spot, and zip! Your chain's off. But thank goodness for those little nuts. If those weren't there, I'd have a heck of a time getting that chain back on, which would have made those 4 or 5 times taken even longer.
Seriously, though, it was a weekend where I was equally sick and sent out to work by the Queen, who needed a bunch of trees that had been annoying her removed from the premises. You see, after the big, nasty ice storm, there's debris all over the city, and there's to be a debris pickup sometime in the coming days to help deal with the mess. In response to this, we're not only ridding ourselves of the debris, but all the other unwanted trees left to us by the wonderful horticulturalist wanna-be who previously owned our house.
She loved her trees. God bless her, she really did. When we moved in, the front yard had seven trees in the yard along with at least one rose bush, five trees and 2 rose bushes along the front next to the road, and at least fifteen trees in the back along with 3 or 4 more rose bushes (and she even took a couple more of the rose bushes with her!). The neighbors called our house "the jungle" due to its over-abundance of plant life. The insurance company wouldn't even insure it unless we promised to clear up the brush next to the house.
At present, the back yard has four trees, the front has two, and we're going to move the rose bushes from bordering the driveway to somewhere else. I did fail to mention the two trees next to the driveway, but they're not moving yet.
Today, after this weekend where I didn't go into the world's largest retailer at all due to my illness (it was a legit call-in, I promise), I am really, really sore. My arms and shoulders hurt from using the "effortless" chainsaw. Actually, I used two chainsaws -- one gas and one electric. The electric one gave out when it (apparently) stripped a gear. Now the chain won't turn at all. The gas one was doing fine until I tried to cut down a tree in the back yard at its base, and it would cut through it. The Engineer supposes that since we're number three on the list who have used this chain, it is likely dull. Sensible, says I.
What is more dull than a well used chain, however, is waiting for a game from Gamefly. This service is very much like Netflix and Blockbuster Online in that it ships X games per month for any system based on how much you pay for it. But where in three months we'd get 2 per week, sometimes, with the other two with a killer turnaround time of three days between shipments, with Gamefly, we had reduced our subscription to one at a time, and in the month of February, got only one game for our money because not only did it take forever for a game to go back to the company, and forever for them to receive it and then ship another, but our last one got lost in the mail. So for what we put out to play five games over three months, we could have just bought a couple of them down at Vintage Stock or off eBay and be done with it.
While this isn't the worst deal we'd run across (after all, it would have been very cool to turnaround a game a week or so), it didn't quite measure up to the other online services such as Netflix and Blockbuster, which to me, was very, very disappointing. We figured it was due to them not having enough distribution centers or something, so maybe someday, if they can keep it going, they can get enough centers to handle shipping here to the middle of the country in a reasonable time frame.
The final word(s) for the moment: poop drama. That's right. Sassy Pants is still Poopy Pants. For the love of God, what is holding her back from that last stage of potty training? Shooting for diaper threats, but who knows if that'll pan out. We still have some diapers on the premisis, so fortunately we don't have to buy any, but I really want her to put that in the potty, and not in her pants. It's very, very frustrating.
Seriously, though, it was a weekend where I was equally sick and sent out to work by the Queen, who needed a bunch of trees that had been annoying her removed from the premises. You see, after the big, nasty ice storm, there's debris all over the city, and there's to be a debris pickup sometime in the coming days to help deal with the mess. In response to this, we're not only ridding ourselves of the debris, but all the other unwanted trees left to us by the wonderful horticulturalist wanna-be who previously owned our house.
She loved her trees. God bless her, she really did. When we moved in, the front yard had seven trees in the yard along with at least one rose bush, five trees and 2 rose bushes along the front next to the road, and at least fifteen trees in the back along with 3 or 4 more rose bushes (and she even took a couple more of the rose bushes with her!). The neighbors called our house "the jungle" due to its over-abundance of plant life. The insurance company wouldn't even insure it unless we promised to clear up the brush next to the house.
At present, the back yard has four trees, the front has two, and we're going to move the rose bushes from bordering the driveway to somewhere else. I did fail to mention the two trees next to the driveway, but they're not moving yet.
Today, after this weekend where I didn't go into the world's largest retailer at all due to my illness (it was a legit call-in, I promise), I am really, really sore. My arms and shoulders hurt from using the "effortless" chainsaw. Actually, I used two chainsaws -- one gas and one electric. The electric one gave out when it (apparently) stripped a gear. Now the chain won't turn at all. The gas one was doing fine until I tried to cut down a tree in the back yard at its base, and it would cut through it. The Engineer supposes that since we're number three on the list who have used this chain, it is likely dull. Sensible, says I.
What is more dull than a well used chain, however, is waiting for a game from Gamefly. This service is very much like Netflix and Blockbuster Online in that it ships X games per month for any system based on how much you pay for it. But where in three months we'd get 2 per week, sometimes, with the other two with a killer turnaround time of three days between shipments, with Gamefly, we had reduced our subscription to one at a time, and in the month of February, got only one game for our money because not only did it take forever for a game to go back to the company, and forever for them to receive it and then ship another, but our last one got lost in the mail. So for what we put out to play five games over three months, we could have just bought a couple of them down at Vintage Stock or off eBay and be done with it.
While this isn't the worst deal we'd run across (after all, it would have been very cool to turnaround a game a week or so), it didn't quite measure up to the other online services such as Netflix and Blockbuster, which to me, was very, very disappointing. We figured it was due to them not having enough distribution centers or something, so maybe someday, if they can keep it going, they can get enough centers to handle shipping here to the middle of the country in a reasonable time frame.
The final word(s) for the moment: poop drama. That's right. Sassy Pants is still Poopy Pants. For the love of God, what is holding her back from that last stage of potty training? Shooting for diaper threats, but who knows if that'll pan out. We still have some diapers on the premisis, so fortunately we don't have to buy any, but I really want her to put that in the potty, and not in her pants. It's very, very frustrating.
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