Aww... Hail...?

It hailed today. Not nearly as much as it did last summer (when we had ice floes in the street and holes in all of our basement window covers), but still enough to be a little freaky.

I've never understood hail. I mean... I understand the physics of it and how/why it happens. I just don't understand why it exists in the grand cosmic scheme of things.

The weirdest thing of all for me is that, since hail almost always happens on really warm days, you end up with little ice balls in the yard when it's summer-y out. I can't get ice to stay in a soda while I drink it, but the hail sits in the corners of the yard for hours.

Rain makes sense. Drizzle makes a little sense. Fog is cool. Snow is, basically, winter rain. But hail. Hail is weird.

Closer... But Still Vague

Alright. I realize it's been a few days since I updated you on my work situation (and the whole Project Lead position possibility). Well, that's in large part because I hadn't been updated in quite a while, either.

Last week, on all three of my days in the office, my boss was in and out of meetings. When he wasn't in meetings, he was frequently in his office on the telephone with the door closed. I honestly don't think he was avoiding me, he was just oblivious.

Finally, as I was about to leave on Thursday, I shot him an Instant Message (because I knew he was at his desk even though his door was closed), and asked if he had time to meet with me. He didn't. He asked if I'd be around after 3. (No. I was done for the day, and my parking meter would be expiring.) He asked if we could meet on Friday. (I don't work Fridays.) He suggested we schedule a meeting for this morning. (We did.)

So, at 10:30 this morning, I found myself back in his office. Only this time I was much more relaxed. Much more willing to just let whatever he had to say kind of flow over me. And flow it did.

The flow started with "It seems a lot of the people who have been here longer really want to take on the website work I was talking to you about." (Okay. Gee. Wonder what that means...?)

Then it moved through "E is going to be taken off of her current position and taking point on the website, so some of what she current does is going to be up for grabs." It took a strange detour around "R is going to be moving entirely into sales, so I'll be hiring someone to come in as an Office Admin to take care of all of her old tasks -- as well as a bunch of the stuff that S will be leaving behind when she leaves the company." Oh, and before disappearing down the drain, the flow swirled to a stop with the facts that T, A, and M might all be shuffling what they do to some extent.

This all came at me within about the first 3 minutes in his office. It felt kinda like being hit by an ice floe, as opposed to just a nice water flow. Or maybe more like that massive blob of algae that's been floating in the North Atlantic but no one could figure out. I thought I was understanding what this meant ("Sorry. No job to offer. Go back to your desk.") but I wasn't entirely correct.

You see, next came a discussion all about how -- although each of these other people would be working on the writing-intensive projects we had been talking about 2 weeks ago -- he's thinking I might get to do some writing since they "will probably need some writing done for them." (No. Really? Let's see... We've got two completely blank websites being written by people who barely put sentences together in email. The target audience is people who know -- or at least should know -- good language. And he thinks the project leads might need some writing help? Who knew?)

But wait... There's more...

Since all of these people are going to be taking on other tasks, someone will need to be picking up the slack. The new Office Admin person will pick up some of it, but apparently -- if I'm interested -- I could also pick up some. Yep. I'm being offered the chance to pick up some of the tasks that no one else wants to do. Boy. How do you pass up a job offer like that?

Especially when you're also told that if the websites don't produce enough traffic to generate more business, everyone might go back to their old jobs. So, in 3 months or so I could be back to 15 hours per week of book orders.

Imagine how you would feel having all of that come at you in about 10 minutes. I think my brain was on overload for the next half hour of more.

Which brings me to the few bright spots I was able to pull out of all of this: (Please go with me on these as being bright spots. I can only support the Pollyanna attitude if I have help.)

1) I'll be moving to full-time hours. (Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.)

2) I'll be getting a bump in pay. (Small, yes, but still a bump.)

3) My parking will be subsidized AND in an off-street parking lot. (I think I'll be paying about what I currently pay for 2 weeks of short days for a full month of parking.)

Things I don't yet have answers to (but thanks for asking):

a) No idea if this means I'm going to be salaried or hourly.

b) No idea if this means I'm eligible for health insurance. (If you know anything about this, let me know!)

c) Not a frickin' clue what my new job description/components will be. (Granted, this is kinda the same as where I am now...)

So. Yeah. That's where it all stands. On Wednesday I give him my answer (as well as a list of any days I know of when I can't work -- probably a bunch of Fridays, just 'cuz).

After all of that, I think I need a Technicolor Pollyanna moment. (Which, happily, also makes this my Movie Monday posting. :-)

One More "Time"

After finishing yesterday's post about my watches, I realized that I should probably come out with full disclosure.

You see, it's not just watches that I like. It's any kind of chronometric gadget. Especially analog (as opposed to digital) ones. We had chiming clocks when I was growing up, and I loved winding them. And my parents still have a cuckoo clock which they got in Germany probably about 50 years ago. (At least I think that's where/when it's from. I'm sure I'll hear about it if I'm wrong.)

I started picking up different clocks a few years ago. They are remarkably cheap pieces of artwork, and they come in all different styles, shapes, colors, you name it. I think a square metallic one from IKEA was the first one I really bought just for looks (it's the one that reads 5:06 in the second picture, below). But then I picked up an "antiqued"one. And, somehow, like with the watches, people started to give me clocks.

I was given one from the Museum of Modern Art which simply has a single red ball on it marking the passage of time (bottom left in the second picture, below). And I was given one with a chromatic wheel on it, where, as the seconds pass, the color wheel is altered.

Unfortunately, after a while, I decided I needed a way to answer the obvious question "Why all the clocks?" when people came over.

Okay. Yes. I do like to be on time. But my main fascination with the clocks (and watches) is, admittedly, aesthetic. I just like the way they look. But people look at you funny when you say something like that. So I came up with a way of explaining a large number of them.

You see, since I've moved a lot in my life, I decided to put up a cluster of clocks so that I could keep track of what time it was in different parts of the world. That way I knew what time it was when I tried to phone people. (After all I didn't want to wake anyone up, right?) And, since that "used up" 5 of my clocks, I figured that was a good start.

** Timezone Cluster Sidenote ** In case you're wondering, they are set to the times in: (starting on the left, top to bottom) Paris; London/Cardiff ; Hanson, Idaho; and LA/San Francisco. The one on the right is local to Minneapolis (and East River South Dakota). For some reason, it's really easy for me to remember the time in Baltimore and New York, so I don't have one set to that timezone. But if I get a new one, that's what it will probably be set to. ** End Timezone Cluster Sidenote **

How many clocks do I have? Well, not counting things like the ones on the TV, VCR and such appliances, I can easily count 10. And, no, none of those are Christopher's. They're all mine. There are the 5 in the "timezone cluster" (above) , 1 chiming clock on the shelf, 2 clocks in the bathroom (one is a radio), 1 in the pantry, and 1 in the bedroom.

In case you're wondering, I am very glad that we only change the clocks twice each year. It takes me a good half-hour to do, and I invariably forget one. (And I can never remember how to change the time on my car clocks, but that's a whole different story.)

Watches and Clocks. Nothing like functional accessories that also look good.

Oh, and that "helping me be on time" thing is nice, too.

It's About Time

Or, more precisely, it's about timepieces. These timepieces, to be exact:

I'm not sure when I started finding watches so interesting. (Which, come to think of it is kind of ironic.) I do know that there was a time in college when I wore 2 watches at a time (no pun intended), but I haven't done that for quite a while.

But, along the way, I started collecting watches. Not that I went out and bought them, but I just sort of started to have them show up in my life. And, no, I also did not shoplift them. One was handed down to me, a few were gifts, and I probably did buy a couple of them.

I'm not like the people who collect shoes and wear a different pair every day, though. In fact, there are long periods when I'll only wear one specific watch for weeks at a time without switching to another. Which is probably why -- as my collection gradually became smaller as one suffered a broken winding stem, one lost its crystal, the hand-wound got over-wound, the non-Fossil fossil watch simply stopped, and the Timex simply wouldn't run (but I don't want to send it back to Timex, because they'll probably just replace it, when I just simply want it fixed) -- I didn't immediately get them fixed.

But then Mickey's arms stopped moving. The Cat could no longer decide to Play, Eat or Nap. The London Underground wound down (that's really fun to say). The pocket watch went back into the pocket to stay.

Eventually, the Theory of Relativity stopped being relevant. The new Disneyland one stopped. And the Kodak-sponsored Olympian had its photo-finish. (In an a twist in the space-time continuum, the Relativity watch was actually last to go, even though it's not the farthest right in the picture.)

Suddenly, I was down to just one working watch. And, while I really like the tank-style and all, something needed to change.

I grew up working in my Dad's Drugstore, and I hate paying the folks in mall stores close to $10 per watch to change the batteries. So today I took the life of my thumb into my hands, grabbed a small pair of scissors and started popping the backs off my watches. (I am happy to report that I only drew one small dot of blood.) With my list of batter numbers in hand, I headed to Batteries Plus, where the guy behind the counter only did a couple of double-takes when I put 7 watch batteries on the counter.

Back at home, re-powering the watches went pretty smoothly. I may have dented the back casing of one of them which didn't watnt to close, but overall it wasn't bad. And as I flipped them over, I got to see them all running, again.

So now I have 8 working watches. Only 5 more to go. But I guess, for now, 8 will have to do.

Updates

In case you've been following along and wondering about some of the things I talked about last week, here are some follow-up points:

1) I still have no news about the new position at work. All week my boss has either been in meetings or out of the office. At least today he stopped by my desk to verify that I would be in tomorrow and said "We should talk." I have no idea if that's good or bad. I'll let you know.

2) I have not, yet, gone to a movie this week (my movie-going night is usually Tuesday), but I have plans to go to see the latest Harry Potter flick on Friday. So that should give me something to talk about next Monday.

3) The friend of mine from Idaho (whom I saw last week in Stillwater at the Teddy Bear Park) emailed me this morning to say that they made it home. Her younger child was actually even okay with it all until about the South Dakota/Wyoming border, at which point he apparently started crying because he wanted to get home. I don't know how she does those long drives with the kids. Or how my parents did them with 4 kids in the station wagon.

4) Have I mentioned that I've been playing "Pub Trivia" at a local establishment (well... in downtown Minneapolis) on Monday nights? I missed this past Monday, but Christopher and a friend of ours still took first prize. Which is really cool, since most weeks there are 4 of us on a team and we struggle.

5) The weather is GORGEOUS this week. Okay. So a lot of people are probably upset that it's not warm enough, but I love this weather. Sunny. Breezy. Highs in the 70s. This is why I moved back to this part of the country (from Baltimore). The winters may be frigid, but the summers are definitely a good pay-off!

And, with that, I'm going to shut off my computer and enjoy the evening. HOPEfully I'll have a few, more substantial, updates tomorrow.

Shooting Stars

Alright. I promised the other day that I would talk about the new Transformers movie, as well as a new John Barrowman sighting. So here you go:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. If you go to it expecting... well... another Transformers movie, you'll be fine. If you expect anything else, you'll be disappointed. Shia LeBoeuf does well as the hapless anti-hero. Megan Fox is fine as the scantily-clad (and way too hot for the hero) heroine. And the rest of the human cast are fine. Shia's family is great. And there's even a very very small shot of Matt Iseman (the "Go-to Guy" from Style Network's "Clean House"), if you pay attention to one of the scenes with Josh Duhamel in it. And, yes, there's two Autobots (the good guys) who are just as racist-ly drawn as all of the critics are saying. But, again, if you've seen any of the hype, you know all this, already.

It's loud. It's fast-paced. Lots of people and robots get shot. Lots of things blow up rather spectaculary as the non-shot people and robots travel all over the globe. And it's best to not try to figure out how you get from point A to point B, let alone getting to point C. But it's fun. Overall: A-, because they spent way too much time showing us the "conversion" of the machines from car to robot. Waaaaaayyyy too much time.

And now on to John Barrowman... In case you've forgotten who that is, I give you this:

Through the miracles of modern technology, I was able to catch Season 3 of Torchwood last weekend. I will say here and now that I do not plan to say anything about how I was able to watch it (although I gotta tell you that if it were up to me and technology I wouldn't be seeing it for another couple of years, at least). But here's the deal: for whatever reason, the folks at BBC1 had decided that this year they weren't going to run a full series of the immensely popular show but, instead, show a five-night miniseries all in one week. We did them one better: we watched it all in one night.

I had forgotten how many people died in the course of Series 1 and Series 2, and I found myself floundering a bit at the beginning as I got my bearings. But then I got caught up in it all and although I was kind of tired, there was no dragging me away before watching all 5 hours.

Don't worry. For any of you who might be Torchwood fans, I won't be giving you any spoilers. I will only say this: The story was captivating, compelling, and completely unexpected. Unfortunately, after the 5th hour had ended, I was left with the feeling of having eaten a wonderful meal out at a fancy restaurant with friends, which had been spoiled by everyone leaving and sticking me with the bill. It was that feeling of "I really enjoyed our time, but I'm not sure I ever want to see you again."

And it was made all the harder because John Barrowman is still dreamy. +sigh+ But, to paraphrase a friend of mine out in Baltimore: Some [stars] are like that -- You can't live with 'em, you can't shoot 'em.

(Oh. And I do want to see them again. Really. Just not right away...)

Seeing Signs

For those of you paying attention, you know that the past few days have driven me into a rather large period of existential angst. The whole "What am I worth?" question is never a fun one.

During such times, I find that I enjoy getting as many opinions as I can. I ask friends and family for their thoughts. And I occasionally check out my horoscope and cast about for any other signs I can find to point me on my way.

Christopher was off from work on Friday, and since that is one of my current days off as well, we decided to make the pilgrimage to see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" with a friend of ours. Since we had experienced some technical difficulties while watching "Star Trek," we got to go to this one for free. We set off from home, and about half a mile along the drive, my dashboard came to life with the brightest dashboard light I had ever seen: the CHECK ENGINE light.

Since I haven't experienced that in the 10 years that I've had my car, I turned to Christopher and asked what I should do. He reached into the glove compartment and flipped through the pages. We had two options: "Steady CHECK ENGINE" and "Flashing CHECK ENGINE." Flashing CHECK ENGINE meant, basically, "stop what you're doing, don't use your accelerator, get thee to a repair shop." On the other hand -- the lucky hand -- Steady CHECK ENGINE simply meant "you may have something wrong in your fuel line and you probably ought to have it checked out."

So, we headed for our late afternoon matinee, and I breathed two sighs of relief. One that my car was parked. The other that the movie was free (and parking was only $2). As many of you know, I tend to talk about Movies on Movie Monday, so I'll get into that, tomorrow. For now, we'll jump to...

After we got home, I started looking online for the closest auto repair shop. I'd had really good luck with a Firestone when I lived in St. Paul, but after I moved southwest, they moved northeast. That put them out of my driving distance (especially when I was already questioning whether my car would make it). Luckily, there's a Firestone not far from us, so I checked with them. They're even close to food and a mall, just in case. And -- the most important thing -- they had an opening first thing on Saturday morning.

No surprise, I started Saturday dropping off my car. I hung out for long enough to have them present me with the "Recommended Service" lists. Sure. It started with 2 "must-dos" which were the things causing my CHECK ENGINE light to come on. But then it went on to some items which are periodic maintenance, and ended in a list of items that included such ridiculously small things as changing the wiper blades. The good news? I turned down about 80% of the list and saved myself about $900. The bad news? The other 20% was all about my fuel system and the anti-knock system, and comprised about 40% of the total originally recommended price.

Okay. That's a long story, all to circle back around to the idea of seeing signs. Horoscopes can be bad things. If you read them in the morning, they can be self-fulfilling prophecies. (You know... If it says "Today you'll have trouble focusing at work," you might end up spending your day at work thinking "I can't focus, but that's okay.") Consequently, I usually read them in the evenings. Here is the main line from my horoscope from yesterday: Today the troubles you have in getting from one place to the other are more likely to be self-caused. What do you think? Does dropping off my car to have it fixed qualify?

And, since I'm fine with giving credit where credit is due, I certainly know that the bill from Firestone was a huge sign for me regarding taking on the new project at work. What do you think?

** Oh. And on Monday I may also have my first John Barrowman story in quite a while! **