One Week and Counting...

Alright. We've almost made it to the election. Granted, we'll also have to deal with whatever repercussions we, as a country, vote down upon ourselves, but at least we won't have to deal with all of the political ads for a while.

That said, if you're going to make a political statement, I figure you ought to make it in style.

Sure, you could blatantly point out that Romney has spoken out against any federal disaster aid in the past, and is now having "Sandy Relief" rallies (which just happen to include the showing of his political campaign ads). Or you could take the high road and be New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie - a staunch Republican - who has been openly praising President Obama's response to the hurricane. (Bipartisanship in the name of the greater good? What an idea!)

But, closer to home, there are other measures on the ballot. We've got leaders of both political parties speaking together in the same TV ad calling for a NO vote on the Voter ID (aka "Voter restriction") amendment. Again - bipartisanship for the greater good. Not sure where they all were when the amendment was being pushed through the state legislature, but let's hope that this is a case where wrongs can be righted before it's too late.

Finally, of course, there is the proposed state amendment to put a ban on gay marriage into the MN Constitution. (Yep. It's already against the law in the state, but we're voting on an amendment - which legislators have been quoted as saying is just their way to push it through to let other generations figure it out later.) I'm doing my best to remain hopeful about the potential outcome, but the more attack ads that show up on TV, the more I feel like Christopher and I really need to look into moving to Canada.

But I hadn't intended on this being a downer of a blog post, so I wanted to share a video that came across my desktop today. It's a little long (7+ minutes), but the music is great and it made me a little teary at my desk at work. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope that you will do me the favor of voting for the issues (and candidates) you feel are most likely to support equal, bipartisan, rights for all. (Not to get overly pushy, but most people I know would, for those purposes, suggest two NO votes on the MN Amendments, and a vote for Obama in the presidential election. But, of course, how you vote is up to you and your beliefs - and conscience.)

Oh. Here's the link to the video.

How To Relax?

Okay. I admit it. I think I've kind of forgotten how to relax.

Christopher and I are coming to the end of a very nice long weekend away from home for the first time in ages. I brought a book - which I've read some of. We played cards. We've watched a couple of DVDs and some TV. We've napped. I've dinked around on line.

And now there's a part of my brain saying to me "It's Sunday afternoon. You need to start getting ready for the week!"

But I don't. I don't even have to think about the workweek until sometime late tomorrow. I have a good 24 to 36 hours of not worrying about the workweek that I could still enjoy. (Since, really, my job is pretty much straight-up 9-to-5, and I don't take anything home with me.)

We still have things to do. We have a few more DVDs to watch. We have $30-worth of cheese and crackers and meats to munch on for "dinner." We have an outdoor hot tub to relish in under the almost-full-moon tonight. We have a slightly-staticky puppy to play catch with.

And, yes, I just caught myself typing up that list of things to do.

I think that this relaxation thing needs more work. Perhaps starting with turning off the computer, putting another log on the fire, and doing... well... nothing.

It's hard to blog when...

... there's a pup asleep next to you in the comfy armchair (which really isn't big enough for both of you), and you can't use both hands on the keyboard at the same time.

But, really, what am I doing with my computer on when I have a sleeping pup next to me in an armchair, anyway?

Perhaps the latter is the more important question. Longer post to come sometime when the pup isn't so comfy.

Wanderlust Daydreams

Sometimes, at work, I find myself totally unable to focus. Of course, we all get that way from time to time, but as an editor - and proofreader - that can be downright dangerous for the bottom line. 

Today was one of those days. I spent the morning working on a short (yet *so* bad) edit, and then ran a couple of errands at lunch. After the errands, I came back and... well... had my lunch. And then it kind of went downhill from there. 

I spent the afternoon taking care of small issues that would come up. I wrote some (mostly work-related) emails. I answered a couple of queries from possible clients. I even got some editing done. 

But, in and around all of that, I also daydreamed. 

I think we've discussed how studies have shown that about 6 weeks before a vacation is supposedly when people are most excited about it. They say that that is when most of the planning is happening, so it's all about expectations and no reality is getting in the way. 

But, as someone who would spend most of a lottery jackpot on travel, yet hasn't been more than a few miles outside of the metropolitan area in the past month or so - and hasn't been out of the state in about 5 months - I have to say that the closer I get to travelling the more intense the daydreaming is becoming. 

Last weekend, I spent a whole lot of cash on getting some car repairs done. Why? So that we could go away and not have to think about it. 

I've mentally been packing for about a week, even though I'm the kind of person who packs either the day of or - at most - the night before. 

I completely understand that any travel is never quite as good as the expectation. There's always something a little hinky in it. There's a CD that you forgot to bring along (well, if you still use CDs and not an MP3 player). Or you step in a puddle and your last pair of socks gets soaked. Or you eat too much and feel sick for 12 out of the 84 hours you're gone. 

But, even so... As someone who has a weird case of wanderlust which hides out under a layer of hermit-age... Let's just say that I better not try to do any difficult proofreading before I get back. 

(And, yes, I agree that "Wanderlust Daydreamers" would be a great name for a band.)

Meet-n-Greet

Christopher and I have had a couple of fairly social weekends (if you've been reading along, you know that).

And, along the way we've been meeting some new people. Which is always a little strange.

I mean... When you're a little kid, meeting new people is just one of those things you do. You meet new people at school. You meet new people in sports. You meet new people just walking down the street (assuming you're with a parent and it's safe to do so).

But, when, you get older, it gets harder to meet people. You're not constantly trying new things and being put on teams. And when you are, it frequently is because of a weird work-related thing, and you either already know the people or... well... there are reasons why you don't want to.

Yet, somehow, we've had a good time doing this lately. Kinda feels like a good day in kindergarten.

Now I'm just waiting for mid-day nap time.

A Quick-ish Re-Cap

First of all, I'm sorry that I missed blogging, yesterday. But the reason for that is one of the things that will be coming up in the re-cap, below.

The past couple of weeks have been... well... interesting around here.

Christopher had the stomach flu. I battled for a week with a cold that never quite took hold, but also wouldn't go away.

I took my car in to get a rattle checked out, and as I was paying the $58.80 for that fix, they took the time to inform me that the drips we'd been seeing on the pavement were caused by one of 3 things that were leaking: the housing around the water pump, the transmission casing, or the front struts. All of which ought to be fixed before: a) the weather gets cold; or, b) I take a long trip. Gee... It's October in Minnesota, and the next two months include a trip Up Nort' (4 hours away), and two trips to my parents' in South Dakota (5.5 hours away). So... Can't wait to see how close to zero my bank account gets after that bill gets paid.

Then there was the installation of the new air conditioner and furnace. Both of which happened at pretty much the perfect time. They went in just before our final warm spell of the year (so we got to use the a/c), and then the weather got cool so now we're using the furnace. Although... The furnace has already had a couple of follow-up visits. But - on the up side - those were free because the problems weren't our fault.

Along with the new furnace, though, was a new gas line, which was installed by cutting a hole in the downstairs bedroom closet ceiling. Leaving the entire room (and closet) and pretty much all of its contents covered in drywall dust. Have I mentioned that that's the room - and closet - where all of my clothes are? Many loads of laundry later, I've also filled a trash bag with clothing to donate to a local non-profit which helps out homeless teens and young adults. So... maybe not all bad.

And yesterday, when they came out for the final (fingers crossed) trip for the furnace, they forgot to turn the water heater back on. Which meant no hot water this morning. Unfortunately, Christopher got the brunt of that problem, since he was the first to attempt to take a shower. And after he re-lit the pilot light and we gave it some time, we were back to hot water, again. Thankfully, that did not happen on a weekday.

Yes, I know that I'm sounding like I'm trying hard to be positive about some of that stuff, but assuming that I don't bounce any checks before my next paycheck, I think we have reason to take it all with a grain of salt (or even a nice, tasty salted caramel).

And although the work-a-day world has been the usual, we've been lucking out and having really good times on the weekends. So far, in the past two weekends, we've had 5 (out of 5) very nice - and very different - dinners with lots of good friends and family. And I'm quite happy to say that one of the latest of those dinner events was last night, which is why the blogging didn't happen. (Tonight's dinner ended a good 2 hours earlier than last night's - hence tonight's blogging.)

So... Yeah... That's what we've been up to around here, plus all of the usual day-to-day stuff and trying to watch TV without yelling at any of the political ads.

How's by you?

Pointing and Clicking Until My Eyes Burn

Yep. That's what I did all day today at work.

You see, just when I was almost done with the 500+ -page manuscript I've been working on, I realized that for some reason the Spellcheck was off.

Now, as an editor, I pride myself in not really needing spellcheck. I have a pretty darned good noggin for spelling and punctuation placement. But in the midst of cleaning up the Works Cited, I noticed that I spelled "January" as "Januray" a couple of times, and so I wanted to make sure that I ran the automated spellcheck before I declared myself done.

Problem, the first: There is a way to turn off Spellcheck in Word. It's not easy, mind you, but it's possible. And the author - who was writing about a lot of people with really strange names - had turned it off for about 80% of the document. So, when I ran it, it would bounce around to about 20 incorrectly spelled words and declare itself done.

But I knew there were more issues than that. If nothing else, there were all of those strange names that it should have noticed.

So I spent about 20 minutes searching out how to turn Spellcheck back on for the whole document. And then I did just that.

Problem, the second: I didn't turn off the Track Changes feature, because I figured I wasn't making any changes to the manuscript. Word, on the other hand, decided that turning Spellcheck back on was a Formatting change. And it popped up about 10 or 20 "Formatting: Spelling and grammar check." notes in the margin of each and every page.

I probably could have ignored it and moved on, but I'm a nice guy. And...

Problem, the third: There were already so many changes on each page that I need the author to pay attention to, that I couldn't deal with him also having to slog through all of the changes that didn't matter. So I did what I had to do.

I spent all day, today - well, not quite all day, only 7.5 out of 8 hours - pointing, clicking, and accepting those formatting changes so that they would disappear from the manuscript that the author will see.

I'm happy to say that, by the time I got home, my wrist had relaxed. And so had I.