belhoste

Don’t get me wrong, I love Starbucks. I love them so much that not a single week goes by that I don’t visit them at least once. It’s just that they have spoiled me for ordering directly off the menu. I go into Starbucks and I order my drink EXACTLY the way I want it and they make it for me EXACTLY the way I order it without hasseling me about how picky I’m being. My favorite drink lately is a Chai Latte, no water, no foam, and 140 degrees with maybe a sprinkle of cinnamon on top if you please. I order it and politely browse the new mugs and other whatnots around the store until they call me by whatever name I have thunk up for them to call me that day (can’t use the same name twice - that would be boring) but I can order the same drink 5 times in the same day from the same Barista - I’m not kidding about that one - it was a long day - much like how long this sentence is getting.

Where was I……..?

Oh yeah, I think I remember.

So what does that have to do with my becoming a food snob? It has everything to do with it. I now go to restaurants and order my food EXACTLY the way I want it. I went to a local restaurant tonight and read through the menu. The food all looked pretty good, but nothing sounded quite right. They had a pretty good selection of stuff, but I wanted one part of a meal but not necessarily the other. So I waited politely for the server to come back by (he had already been around to check on us three times while I read the menu - in all fairness it was a six page menu and I had to flip back and forth through various pages before I could make up my mind). When he did come back, I was ready to order.

We were with a group of people and I let everyone else go first (it was a pretty good sized group). They ordered pizza or pasta or burgers or steak - as per the items listed on the menu. It probably took abput two minuyes for everyone else to order. Then he got to me [pause for dramatic effect] and I started to order. I ordered a turkey burger, well done, on a sesame seed free bun, mayo, lettuce and tomato only, swiss cheese, with a side of ranch, no onions, no pickles, wedge shaped fries with ketchup, and an unfiltered wheat beer in a very frosty glass if you please.

The sever just looked at me and said, “that was very specific.” I just smiled and thought “oh my gosh, there’s no telling what I’m going to end up just with now.”

So we waited for our food and engaged in some lovely conversation. By and by, my tasty, perfectly chilled beer showed up. More conversation. Then the food showed up and I took a good long look at it. I poked it, opened it up, checked it, double checked it, and triple checked it. And you know what, it was EXACTLY what I ordered.

We left a very good tip!

It has been a little while since I last logged into here to check on all my wonderful readers (hi sis!). I have lovingly picked up my MBP several times over the past few weeks only to have to put it back down again shortly thereafter. Work has been calling my name non-stop for weeks now and I have been stupid enough to answer them. So when I realized that I actually had two minutes today to sit down and write a post, I almost dreaded logging into my blog. Why? You ask. Because I figured that I would have to clean out a month’s worth of spam from the comments (at least spam is consistent about their writing). I was wrong.  So when I opened up the dashboard and saw that I only had two spam messages awaiting me, I was greatly relieved and then I was a little sad. I was relieved because I didn’t have to sort through a ton of spam to find out if the filter had caught something it wasn’t supposed to (which it does on occasion). I was sad because it meant that I started to think that even the spammers had abandoned me. It was a bit of a downward spiral because I started to feel unloved and unwanted. It was short lived though, because then I remembered that it cleans itself out after something like 30 days. So I was happy. Then I was sad again because I realized that it had been over 30 days since I last logged in and imparted words of wisdom (or something resembling words) out to the world. But I am happy again now because I finally got a post finished!

Whew! That was a close one - turns out I am happy and I will try not to stay away quite so long the next time.

I work for a company that looooves to have meetings. I attend meetings to talk about other meetings that I went to and then I attend other meetings that are scheduled to talk about new meetings that will be scheduled. But since all of these meetings are with people outside of my office, they all take place via whatever telecommunications device that I have handy. Basically, this means that I am on the phone all day every day.

The company is nationwide, so I have people on both coasts to talk to. The meetings have started as early as 7 AM and have ended as late as 7 PM (now that was a fun day). Of course some of the meetings are productive, but most of them are just to pass information on to other people that didn’t get to attend other meetings. So if you were lucky enough to have made it to the first informational meeting at 7 AM, then you get to hear it all over again at the second informational meeting at 7 PM. If this company ever goes global, then I can look forward to 3 AM meetings [insert sarcastic 'joy' here]!

Now as if just having one meeting per hour for 12 hours wasn’t enough, there are times when I am required to attend two meetings at the same time (and of course neither one can be re-scheduled for someone so ‘bottom of the food chain’ like me). This has become such a common occurrence, that I carry two telecommunications devices with me at all times. Both phones are commonly in use together - this requires knowing for absolute certain which call is on which device (some information is confidential even between the departments that I work with - like I didn’t already have enough to deal with). It also involves remembering the code to mute the call for each type of conference call you may be connected to (even though it is the same company - we don’t all use the same type). I gave up trying to remember the mute codes and now I just use the mute button on my phone - which is much more reliable than my memory.

All this talking/listening on the phone has resulted in some extreme auditory related issues: nightmares where I wake in a panic to the sound of a dial tone in my ear; I swear I am still hearing certain people’s voices even after a call ends; and thinking that I hear people typing and eating even in an empty room. Oh and I now immediately cringe at the sound a speakerphone makes when it is too close to a cell phone (I honestly would rather hear nails on a chalkboard)!

I would ask these people if they have ever heard of email, but I know that they have because I have almost 900 saved work emails from the month of February alone (this does not include the 100 or so I trashed - nor does it include the 20+ per day I get personally or blog related). When do these people find the time to type up an email when they are on conference calls all the time?!?!

Oops, gotta go - I’m late for a meeting!

Time to take some time out for a good cause and it won’t take a whole lot of effort - I promise. I will even tell you what to say (well I took these from the Knot.org website, but it is almost the same thing):

5 Things You Can Say…
when someone asks you why you are wearing a White Knot or when you have the opportunity to talk about Marriage Equality.

1. I wear a White Knot because I support Marriage Equality. Everyone should have the right to tie the knot.
2. Marriage is about committed couples—all committed couples—who want to make a lifelong promise to take care of and be responsible for each other. This can only strengthen family and society.
3. Denying committed couples the security and legal protections of marriage hurts them; it’s wrong to make it harder for committed couples to take care of and be responsible for each other.
4. People can have different beliefs and still treat everyone fairly. That’s why our constitution exists to protect everyone equally, including minorities.
5. What if you were told that you couldn’t marry the person you loved? What would that do to you? And what if you got married, and someone tried to take it away?

This is something you can do easily - heck if you email me your mailing address, I will even mail a handmade white knot to you at no cost (please put White Knot in the subject line).

Found on Card Carrying Lesbian.

How do you know when it is time to step away from the computer? I know when my hand falls asleep. Recently I have noticed that my hand will start to go all numb and tingly after using my laptop for awhile. I am pretty sure that this is due to the fact that I am mouseless. I am now starting to believe that I will need to go hunting a new mouse in the very near future.

This post makes me think that I might have been spending too much time on Twitter because I had a really hard time typing over 140 characters for this post.

I just read an article about how Mathematica now has a home edition. If you are not familiar with the product, let me enlighten you a little bit. It is THE most intense math program you will ever encounter in your life!!!!! It does everything math related. Those smart guys over at Wolfram Research have thought of everything. I am pretty sure that most everyone who works there has some sort of Ph. D. I think even the receptionist has to have at least a Master’s to work there. Don’t get me wrong - I am not knocking the place. I am truly in awe of their products.

I worked at a company where we had several copies of the program floating around for use by the very smart people that worked there. I admit to having played with the program a time or two and managed to learn more about math just by trying to figure out how to print a formula than I did in all my years of high school. Granted my math skills are not completely lacking, but just opening Mathematica and looking at the welcome screen made me feel like I flunked out of Business Math (I would have said Contemporary Math - but I almost flunked out of that - while I passed Business Math with flying colors so it must be easy - oh and for the record I took Contemporary Math before my brush with Mathematica which probably would have changed the outcome at least gradewise).

Bottom line is that the whole program is great. But I seriously doubt it will be on my software wish list anytime soon. If I want to feel like my math skills are rusty, then I will just go to the grocery store and try to calculate the latest buy one get one half price promotion (okay I kid, but there are days…).

For the record - nobody paid me to write this. Although, I am open to the idea. I am also open to the idea of being paid NOT to post (not as a blackmail sort of thing - more as a stop writing those horrible run on sentences before my eyes start bleeding sort of things). However, since I am currently posting at the average rate of one rambling post a week, then I seriously doubt that I will start seeing the big bucks start coming my way for either option.

I really wish that the title of this post described a tall frosty beverage. Instead it describes the weather around here. No matter where you go or what you do it is cold. At least this year the electricity is on and the heater is working just fine (thank whatever Higher Power you may pray to for that one - I know I did). The past couple of days have welcomed us to the great indoors and kept us very much out of the great outdoors. Even the dogs have to be coaxed outside and then only stay long enough to take care of business. But like all good snow days, there has been some fun to be had. We’ve spent time all suggled up together; cuddled up with a good book; and watched movies. In case you are curious, here is the movie list:

• Iron Man (missed this movie in the theater and now I feel really bad about that - it was awesome!)
• Wall-E (saw this in the theater and LOVED it - loved it all over again on Blu Ray)
• Journey to the Center of the Earth (I didn’t watch the 3-D version, but it was still a great movie)

So that’s pretty much it. We are just bundling up and waiting out the cold. Maybe I’ll have some time to get some posts done this week. Although tomorrow it is supposed to get over freezing, so maybe not.

It is no secret as to how crazy things have been around my house lately. Sometimes I feel like I am constantly running from one place to another. So today I thought it might be a nice day for everything to slow down. America changed today, so I think I can too (at least for a little while). To that end I am taking up Yoga.

As seen on Kottke.

Just today I was asking myself what would make this world a better place? I know I probably should have answered World Peace, but I just kept thinking about food (I probably should have eaten before asking this very important question). Which led me on to the most important question in the world: “What are we going to have for dinner?” And when I couldn’t come up with an answer to that very important question (no one ever can) - other than the last can of green beans in the house, I stopped thinking about dinner. Naturally, I started thinking about dessert. All kinds of desserts: pies, cakes, cookies, and so on (I know you get the idea - it really was a never ending thought about dessert items).

I settled on something I haven’t had in quite some time - cupcakes. I haven’t had a cupcake in years. Of course, I can’t let this oversight go on any longer. I will have to figure out how to best go about making cup cakes. Hmmm…. Crap… I know I have a serious problem when the step one to solving this problem is “learn to bake” (okay - I actually can bake, but it takes far too much effort and my neices and nephews who inherited a baking gene and are not afraid to use it are not close enough by to make me some cupcakes to feed my lazy butt - but I digress). Not too worry - that was why some nice and very intelligent person out there decided to invent bakeries!

Now that I have decided that I am going to the bakery to get cupcakes, I will of course get there and I can tell you EXACTLY how things will happen:

1. I will get in the car and drive to the local French bakery (La Baguette).
2. I will get out of the car and proceed to the door of the aforementioned bakery.
3. Just moments before entering the bakery, I will smell all the wonderful chocolatey bakery smells.
4. I will enter the bakery.
5. I will go to the large glass bakery case and peer inside.
6. My tongue will fall right out of my mouth and I will begin to drool all over the large glass bakery case while they ask me what tempting treat I would like.
7. I will try to say “cupcake” but it will sound more like “murghargurghal….. chocolate” (hey no matter what - I can still say chocolate).
8. They will be very nice and put something chocolatey in the nice white bakery box for me.
9. I will pay.
10. I will go home and open the box.
11. I will eat a scrumptious chocolate treat that will probably not be a cupcake.
12. I will repeat the exercise until I can get it right AND because it is the best kind of exercise for you.

P.S. I was going to write a short cute post about the cupcake bandages that you can get from Archie McPhee, but I was too caught up in thinking about cupcakes to be able to do that. But I thought I would go ahead and leave the graphic there since it might be the only cupcake that I ever manage to obtain unless I bake them myself.

P.P.S. The cupcake bandages also reminded me of KC and Elka and since I am missing them terribly right now I thought it was a perfectly wonderful way to keep them in mind!

It seems that the color pink is getting drug through the mud:

“But some commentators now believe pink dominates the upbringing of little girls, and this may be damaging.”

Really? Are you sure? Damaging? Oh puhleeze! Pink is just another color. Like any other color before it. Girls can like pink or blue or green or yellow or whatever - it makes no difference. I will admit it. I like pink - some of my very favorite gadgets are pink. I like and have liked lots of other colors too.

In fact, for years my favorite color was black. If you want to blame a color for some damage, you might want to start with that one. At least pink is a little cheerful. But maybe it is too cheerful. Maybe we would be better off with a color somewhere in the middle. What color do you get when you mix pink and black? That will be my new undamaging color choice.

P.S. Hello Kitty has nothing to do with this post other than the fact that I think of her when I think of pink. If you came here looking to get a Hello Kitty Fender Stratocaster Guitar in Pink, then I suggest you go here.