Hierarchical Hand-me-downs

It's strange when you're sitting at work and hear someone else say something that sounds remarkably like something you would say.

About a year ago, when I was moved into a full-time editorial position (mostly) at work, I went through the hiring process and hired my replacement. Once she was on staff, it was up to me to also train her. Which I did.

And, since I was actually a teacher once upon a time, as well as having been a manager of various staffs along the way, I think I did a pretty good job of the training. I used some key points and worked from them, elaborating each day until the "new me" knew what was going on and could take over. (A far cry from when I started and my "trainer" handed me a packet and said "Everything you need to know should be in there. Let me know if you have any big problems.")

Just a couple of weeks ago, my replacement got a (rather sudden) promotion when someone else left the company. So last week she got to go through her own replacement's interview/hiring process. The second person conducting the interviews actually asked me if I had any of my old materials, so I sent her a list of questions I had used last year. Their interviews went quickly, and the new person started part-time today.

As luck would have it, the new person was being trained in within earshot of my desk, today, and it was funny how many times my name came up. Both as "If you have any questions, Robert can also answer them," and as "When I was learning this, Robert told me..." topics.

I guess if you have kids, and then they have kids, you probably hear them passing on advice and commentary from one generation to the next. But, well, I'm not on that track. So it was kind of cool to hear my words of "wisdom" being passed on to a new "generation" at work.

Or at least I hope it's a good thing. For all I know, I could have only been hearing the good parts, and the rest of the conversation might have been "...but whatever you do don't do it that way."

Of course, that is probably also how some families pass on stories, too.

When the Chair Collapses

There are those times when you think everything is going along great and then it feels like the legs of your chair just go out from under you.

Like when you're tilting back in your chair (in a high school class or something of the sort), and the chair suddenly starts to go. If you're lucky, you catch yourself before it goes backward. If you're not lucky, you land on the floor with a massive amount of noise.

Sometimes it happens metaphorically, like when you go in to work and before you even have a chance to settle in for the day you lose your job. (Which - although it has happened in the past, did not happen in the past week.) (I figured I should say that so my parents don't worry.) (Everyone say "hi" to my mom and dad!)

Sometimes, however, it happens literally. Like when you're sitting at the house of some friends and watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, and you lean forward to scratch one of the dogs, and the chair just... well... kind of lurches forward. And you find that the front left leg of the chair has kind of come loose from its mooring.

Thankfully, they're good friends with a sense of humor, and they immediately said that the chair was a thrift-store find, not a big deal, and headed for the "to be fixed" area of the basement.

Oh. And I spent much of the rest of the night sitting on the floor and scratching the dog. It just seemed safer.

(And, well... I feel a tad guilty about it, even so.)

Blog-kage

I've been staring at this screen for about 45 minutes trying to figure out what to write about, today. And I still have no idea.

I was going to write about how busy I've been at work - and how in the course of one workday I spent time researching current US Olympians, Renaissance art, and iconic Sci-fi movies. But after that, I got stumped.

I thought about writing something about the pup, but she's sacked out and I decided not to infringe upon her snooze by asking her what to write about.

There was a little while when I considered writing a blog simply filled with pointers to other people's blogs. But that seemed... odd.

And with all that's going on in the world of politics and human rights these days, I contemplated writing about that, too.

Instead, though, I've opted for this ramble about everything and nothing.

I'll try to be back in a few days with something a bit more pithy.

Movie Monday - Archery Season (?)

In the past couple of weeks, I've seen more movies with archery as plot points than... well... ever. How many movies? you ask. Two. Which was one more than I should have watched.

Let me get the griping out of the way, first.

What is with "The Hunger Games"? Why is it a hit? Why are we supposed to be cheering for 12- to 18-year-olds when they kill each other? Who decided that these were good books and should be made into movies? Yes, cinematically it was well done. Yes, the acting was very good. Yes, I probably would have liked it better if it was adults. Yes, it reminded me of a cross between "The Running Man" and "The Lottery." No, I'll never get those 2 hours back.

(Although... Truth be told... I spent those 2 hours - and about 30 minutes more - having dinner and watching the movie with a couple of good friends, so I'm okay with the time spent. I just wish I hadn't been spending it with that movie.)

Oh. And I went to a book club last week where we talked about the movie and the books. I started to see why the books have such a following. But, no, that doesn't mean I'm going to read them or watch the movies when they're made.

The other arrow-filled movie was much more on target. (See what I did there?) I really enjoyed "Brave." I liked the main character and her relationship with her family (especially her mother). I liked the animation and the 3D-ness of it. I liked the plot and the music and the animation. Have I mentioned the animation?

This is a Pixar movie, so we know that the animation is incredible before it even starts. But then you start to hear about it and see it and it's just amazing. The main character's hair took something like 500 different pieces of programming to get it to move just right. And then there's the fabric of the "costumes." No one is wearing smooth flat fabric. Everyone has bumpy, woven, rough cloth. In great tartans. If the world of "Avatar" had been done by these folks, it might not have re-made me hate James Cameron.

Sure, there were some odd moments. I didn't love some of the humor aimed at the younger audience members - but they probably didn't love some of the grown-up stuff, either. Overall, it was a win.

So... Ratings:

"Hunger Games" - B. The movie, itself, was really well done. But the plot and the "world" it's in... I can't give that an A.

"Brave" - A. And not just because "A is for Animation," but because it's just that good.

OH. And "Brave" has a short film at the beginning called "La Luna" which is absolutely amazing and was Oscar-nominated last year. Probably worth the price of admission all by itself. THAT I would give an A+ to.

Some Wibbly-Wobbly Stuff

I think that the passage of time really is filled with all kinds of "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff." And, with that in mind, I would have to admit that, sometimes, it's the oldies that really are the goodies.

I say that while watching an episode of "The Wild, Wild West", and enjoying the campy hijinks and wishing something like it was on the air these days.

But it's also because in the past week I've gotten to see two friends from college. (Who will, hopefully, pardon me for using the term "oldies.")

The first was in town after a family reunion, and we met up at a pub downtown before he went with friends to a Twins game (and I went to a book club to discuss a book I had not read). Although he and I have been in touch off-and-on since college, we hadn't actually seen each other in about 23 years. But Happy Hour was good. And I think we both really meant it when we said that we should keep in touch and do it again.

The second was in town on one of her yearly (or semi-yearly) trips back to this part of the country to see her family and friends. We've seen each other almost yearly since college, and it's always great to see her and her family. We also ended up in a bar, but this was a bar/restaurant and we sat and talked over dinner with one of her cousins.

Since, unlike Christopher, I didn't grow up in this area, most of my long-time friends aren't around here. They're in places like Baltimore, or New York City, or Cardiff, or any number of other fairly random spots around the globe. And while that makes for good "let's go visit X" kinds of travel possibilities, it does make it hard to sit down with most of them over a beer for Happy Hour.

But these occasional check-ins are nice. They remind me who I was, which makes it much easier to remember who I am - and who I want to be.

Chilling Out

Remember how, on Tuesday, I mentioned how nice it is to have somewhere cool to come home to on these recent hot nights?

Well... I guess I spoke too soon. You see, our A/C apparently had a freon leak. So it started to not work so well on - you guessed it - Tuesday. We think it might have been failing for longer than that but that we just hadn't noticed because it wasn't as freakin' hot out as it has been this week.

But, no matter what, Tuesday and yesterday were both days when the house temp pretty much stayed around 80 degrees. We found that the air conditioner had some ice on it, so we turned the unit off last night so that it could melt, and then turned it back on this morning. That helped... at least a little. But it still meant that we went to bed with the house at about 80 degrees, and slept with fans aiming right at us as the bedroom gradually crept up to about 84 by morning.

Today I called around to see about finding someone to come by to do a diagnostic on our air conditioner. I used recommendations from our local Ace Hardware, so I knew I was going to get someone good.

The first place was nice enough, and offered to schedule someone to come out any time after 10am. On Monday. So I tried the next place.

Option #2 took a while to call us back, but they apologized for that (the guy was apparently working in a basement - so no cellular service), and suggested that one of the other technicians should be able to come by today. So I called the second tech who did, in fact, offer to come by any time after 4 this afternoon. I said that would be great, and then wrangled myself an "early release" from work.

Between 4 and 6, the pup and I hung out and chatted with the A/C tech. He poked and prodded the house's machinery. He found ice on our coils and melted it. He put in about half a pound more freon than he thought he would use. He swapped out our air filter for us (which we were supposed to have done about 2 weeks ago - and had already put the spare "on deck" for). And, eventually, he pointed out that the temp in the house was gradually dropping.

He also mentioned that this means we have a slow leak in our freon line. And that a new A/C unit is probably going to be in our future in the next few years. And then he left, saying that we should call him back if anything comes up.

I'm not planning to jinx anything this time. We've got his number on his card, and it's also in my cellphone. And as soon as I finish typing this, I plan to knock on wood. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same.

Too Hot Tuesday

Yes, I know that it's hot pretty much everywhere in North America.

Yes, I know that I'm lucky to have somewhere to get away from the heat - my car, my office, our house.

Yes, I know that it's hot every summer.

So why is it driving everyone so crazy this year?

Apparently the weird weather is around because of a massive high pressure system that's not moving from the middle of the country, causing the heat to stay around and not go anywhere.

And my thought is that the atmospheric pressure is causing mental pressure to pretty much everyone in this part of the world.

All I know for sure is that, on my afternoon walk with the pup today, I actually started thinking "Wow, November is going to feel good."

Granted, I didn't go so far as to say that January would be good, but give us another week of temps a good 10 to 15 degrees above average with almost no rain, and I might even start daydreaming about January.