Crazy, Busy Work and SIMHG Drama

So, work has been extremely busy. I have to say though, for the most part, it’s been a “good” busy. More and more I am enjoying the interaction with my team and a lot of the new stuff that I’m learning. A couple of months ago we went through a big reorganization where a couple of parallel groups merged with ours. One group in particular my team has always worked very closely with and it made quite a lot of sense to me that we eventually should be part of the same team. I feel that the change has already been beneficial, we’re all working together better than ever before and the communication has improved greatly.

Once the merge happened, I stepped forward to my manager (who is also now the manager of the newly merged group) and volunteered to help out with some of our new operations responsibilities. Most likely I would have been asked to do this anyway, but at least I maybe get credit for also volunteering! (I was eager to do so though) In any case, I’ve been very excited and enthusiastic about all the new stuff that I now have the opportunity to learn and take on. It’s adding quite a load to my workload, but this is all very interesting work and is overall increasing my value to the team and to the company.

One of the down sides, however, is that I now have to be on-call for a weeks time, every four or five weeks. The on-call shift is from 8 AM to 8 PM and I have to be able to respond and deal with situations within a very short period of time. The worst part of this is the 5 PM - 8 PM part of it, the weeks that I’m on-call means that I will be unable to plan or really do anything much outside of work because of the requirement that I be available until 8 PM. That is a bummer.

I did my first on-call rotation a few weeks ago and it was completely harrowing. Most of the days I was paged throughout the day, all the way up to 8 PM. Because this is all so new to me (and because I am also not yet UNIX literate) it was extremely nerve wracking because in most cases I had absolutely no idea what to do. I expect it all to get much easier as I learn and become competent with this stuff, but in the meantime, it’s really an anxiety-producing situation. The operations guys who are new to our team (but who has been doing this alone up until now) have been absolutely fantastic about training and helping throughout this process. I would be lost without them. As an added note, these two guys have been alternating their on-call weeks for at least the past year (if not more). So each has been on-call every other week -- that means that these guys have not been able to have a life for two weeks out of each month! Anyway, they’ve been available and helpful and uncomplaining about it all. Well, I guess it’s in their best interest to make sure that everyone is up to speed, so that they can have some of their lives back.

Along with myself, we have a new technician who joined our staff a few months ago through a program our company has in Ireland. The idea is to hire promising people over there straight out of college and then put them in a kind of bootcamp for a year. They are then offered up as candidates for hire at various business units throughout the company. I have been working with NG (New Guy) to teach him some of the stuff that I do and am mentoring him on a project with one of our customers and he’s also learning the operations stuff, so we have both been spending a lot of time sitting in the cubicles of the operations guys.

Anyway, so NG has had his first week of on-call rotation, I have had mine, the two operations guys have had at least one rotation each over the past couple of months and supposedly SIMHG (Self-Important Meeting Hijack Guy) is also supposed to take a turn. I think this is SIMHG’s first week of on-call, but since he is generally so absent from the rest of the team (I mean, I don’t believe that I saw him AT ALL for the entire month of November and for part of the month of October), I’m never quite sure.

Okay, so here is my rant (you KNEW that there was a rant):

I was scheduled to be on-call for next week (yes, that’s right, Christmas week). NG was supposed to be on-call for the week after. However, NG already had had plans to go back to Ireland for the holidays before the whole on-call thing started, so we have to rearrange things and cover his week. So, one of the operations guys was going to take his week, but then asked me if I would switch weeks with him because he is expecting a house guest and wanted to be able to spend time with him. So, no problem, we confirmed and sorted everything out today and then updated my manager so that he knew the on-call schedule was changing and that everything was going to be covered. I then spoke to mgr about my plan to use my remaining two vacation days for the year. I was waiting to schedule them because I wanted to have the on-call plans sorted out first, because I obviously can’t schedule the time off if I have to be on-call. So since OP (Operations Guy) wanted to switch, I am NOT on-call next week, but will be the week after -- I scheduled for those two days off for next week. Mgr said “okay, no problem.”

Okay, so once we had everything straightened out and I had cleared my vacation days with my manager, I sent a calendar item to the rest of the team to let them know what days I will be out. Well! I received an email response (just to me) from SIMHG with a piece cut & paste in from the on-call spreadsheet informing me that I need to switch my on-call responsibilities for those days and that he is also planning to be out then (in other words: don’t ask him to cover).

Well, first of all, does he think that I am so stupid or irresponsible that I would not check and account for the on-call schedule? Secondly, where has he been during all of our on-call training and conversations? He is the LAST person I would ask. Lastly, he was off Thanksgiving Week, he is now also off for Christmas Week? If we all have to share operations support, why does he have the privilege of having all the holiday weeks off? The more I think about his email, the madder I get! He is NOT MY MANAGER!

I think that I have to come up for a nastier name for him than, “Self-Important-Meeting Hijack Guy”. Seriously.

Things that have frustrated or pissed me off today:

* Receiving a meeting request for tomorrow (which also happens to be my birthday) for 4:30 PM.
* Listening to SIMHG pontificate endlessly on hours & hours of back-to-back meetings (starting at 8 AM, going through noon)
* Receiving yet another email from my father dictating the special sell circumstances for some stock or another on the trust account (of course this is not readily apparent or straightforward through the customer interface, so I have to find some time to call someone to help me figure it out. Like I have time for this. And heaven forbid he call just to chat or find out how I am or whatever.)
* Being on meetings endlessly and having to drop the phone to go to the Ladies Room. I don't know how men make it through hours & hours of these things without a bio break. How does that work?
* Meeting that has already been going for 1.5 hours ran over because they decided to hijack the first part of it for another purpose.
* Finally giving up, I put the phone down on the desk, run to the LR, get back to my desk, only to find that the meeting is STILL going on. Curses.
* Meeting goes over by 30 minutes.
* Realizing that this is yet ANOTHER day that I'm not going to be able to make it out to ride.
* Realizing that when the new on-call rotation starts (next week for me) that there are going to be whole weeks where I won't be able to schedule riding at all.
* Realizing that a certain software tool has changed considerably with a new release and I have to completely relearn how to use the damn thing.
* Dribbled coffee on myself.

Another Rant

I know that I’ve written about the guy in my office who I like to call, “SIMHG” (Self-Important Meeting Hijack Guy). I haven’t mentioned him in a while because, well, I guess I don’t want to sound too bitter – or maybe I just don’t want to encourage my own bitterness (not to mention my paranoia) by fueling the flames with endless rants about him. Plus, that gets a little tedious and repetitive. In general I’m trying to keep more of an open mind. But this morning he just irritated me beyond my capability to hold it all in. It was just a small, stupid, unimportant thing, but it had me steaming a bit and it’s a great example of the small ways he tries to exert his supposed authority and superior knowledge everyday.

Here is what happened:

Through a link in an email, I went to a site where an agenda for a meeting I was attending was posted.

I was denied access.

The default “Request for Access” form came up. I wrote in my justification for this access and hit the “Submit” button.

• Our documentation sites all function in a similar way. Users are given access, if you go to a page and are denied access, a form pops up asking for justification to see the page. Upon submission, the page goes off into cyber space to whomever has been set-up as the administrator for that page. As a user you don’t see where it goes, just that you’ve sent off a request. Typically what will then happen is you’ll get a confirmation email that so-and-so has given you access to the page you’ve requested (not sure what happens if you’re denied, probably a similar email with the information).

The next thing I know, I get an email confirmation from SIMHG that I have been given access to the page, but with a personal note that says, “I’ve given you access, but S or A should be the administrators for this page.” In other words, why in the Hell are you bothering me with this request? You should have contacted these other people.

First of all, I have no control over who the form gets submitted to. Once the button is hit, it goes off to the person who has been set up as responsible for the page, but as the requestor, you don’t see who that person is. Secondly, if it went to him, then he must be the default administrator for the page (despite his assertion in the email that someone else is), and how would I be able to change the direction the request went in, or even know to do so? Lastly, how is it my responsibility to know who the administrators are of a page I don’t even have access to?

Wouldn’t most people have just given the access and then looked into changing the property settings for the page if you felt you were receiving these requests incorrectly? Or if he wanted to be difficult, he could have forwarded the request to the person who he felt should be handling it, but where was it my responsibility to figure all this out? ARGH!

For what it’s worth, this was my reply to his email:

“Thanks. I just responded as prompted by the document-page, so I think the site must think that you're the admin.”

As I said, it was just a simple, stupid, unimportant thing, but I feel like this is a guy who takes every possible opportunity to assert his overbearing arrogance onto everyone around. An occasional misunderstanding is not a big deal, but there are a myriad of little ways that he does this on a daily basis and it gets extremely tiresome after a while. I feel so defensive all the time around this guy! It’s like I have to decode everything he writes or says for all the hidden slights & slaps. Or maybe I’m just crazy. Gah.

Rant: Benefits Fair

So, my company is having a benefits fair since we’re in the enrollment period for next year. And, because there are significant changes happening for 2010, there is a good line of people before each table waiting to ask important questions about how they will be affected. So there I am, stacked up behind people in front of our HMO table and the woman who is holding up the line is asking the rep repeated questions about whether Lasik eye surgery is covered.

Really? You think that your HMO is going to cover your Lasik?

Not satisfied to take no for an answer, she continues to ask more questions about this procedure that the rep obviously can not answer, thus holding up the line for people who have legitimate questions that need to be answered. You’d think that she would have more pressing concerns about her health coverage, but I guess not so much.

What is wrong with people? SHEESH.

Ads on Facebook

Okay, can someone please explain to me why Facebook thinks that I should date "Seniors"??? I keep getting this ad on the sidebar:

"Date Active Seniors -- Meet senior singles near you at seniorpeoplemeet online dating. Join free!"

I mean, WTF??? I know that I've gotten older, but I didn't think that I was actually in Senior Dating territory. At least not yet anyway. SHEESH!

A Note to the Woman Whose GINORMOUS SUV was Blocking the Exit from my Complex this Morning

Does your kid really need a ride, personal escort and cushy spot to wait for the school bus when:

* It's 60 degrees outside.
* It's clear and sunny.
* The walk required to the school bus stop is (at the most) 0.1 of a mile on a private driveway.
* There are other kids to walk and wait with.

I mean, your kid does realize that we all used to walk the entire 10+ miles to school, barefoot and through 3 foot drifts of snow, uphill in both directions, right?

Sheesh.

Things I’ll Never Understand

Why, when I use my debit card at the card reader machine at the grocery store (or the gas pump, or wherever), it asks me first what the card type is to be, such as credit or debit. Yet, I am still prompted later in the session for my PIN, regardless of the fact that I selected “credit” for card type. I then must go through the added step of canceling or continuing from the PIN prompt screen. Why even ask the user to select card-type anyway? The machine can tell what kind of card it is, I would think the only purpose would be to bypass the PIN prompting if you want to use your debit card as a credit card. But I have yet to find a machine anywhere that doesn’t ask for PIN, regardless of the card-type selection chosen at the start of the transaction. This is just one of those stupid little daily things that make absolutely no sense to me. Why, why, why?

What Was I Thinking?

Do you ever get yourself ready in the morning on a sort of autopilot, only to arrive to work and suddenly realize that you're completely mis-matched? Well, it happened to me this morning, I still can't figure out exactly what happened really.

This is what I'm wearing:

* brown suede shoes
* darkish brown pants
* this sort of olive-y, greenish top
* black cardigan

The bottom half would have been okay with a different top, and the top half would have been okay with a different bottom. But together? Not so much. Now I'm going to feel all out of sorts all day.

You Know What Pisses Me Off?

"Regular" commercials on a DVD. WTF is that all about???

Big Brother Really IS Watching!

Received a nasty-gram today from EZ-Pass. Apparently I was clocked going through the EZ-Pass toll too fast one day and I've been warned that repeated offenses could result in the revocation of my EZ-Pass privileges -- GAH!!! Next they'll be monitoring your speed through EZ-Pass on just the general roads & highways. Is nothing sacred?

A Note to All Those Clueless Drivers Out There:

If you're driving along the highway, and you come to a section of the road where the broken white line becomes a solid white line, it means that you are meant to stay in your lane and not just change it at will. This is not merely a suggestion, but an actual LAW. How come so many people don't realize this??? Sheesh!

More about Early Morning Meetings

So, as part of my sleep rant last week, I also ranted about this guy in my office who just loves to schedule these 7 AM meetings. He says that it is to accommodate the people in India, and I’m sure part of that is true, but I suspect that his real motivation is to provide himself another method for self-congratulation. Not to mention a way to clue others into how devoted he is, how hard he works. I know a lot of hard-working people at my office, but for some reason the work-load of this particular person always seems to be called to my attention. That makes me suspicious that he’s perhaps done a very good job of creating this image for himself. But, I’m willing to admit that I’m a suspicious sort, and this guy is not exactly my favorite team member.

Anyway, so last week was the debacle of the last minute canceled 7 AM on Tuesday, which got rescheduled for 7 AM on Thursday. We had the meeting on Thursday and ran out of time, so it was stated then that a follow-up would be scheduled for sometime this week (of course another 7 AM meeting). Well, I didn’t see an invite and was wondering about it. Last night I went to my riding lesson, came home, took care of the dogs, changed, made dinner, ate, etc. Finally about 10 PM I got around to checking mail. Well. There was the meeting invite, sent at 5:34 PM (conveniently about 10 minutes after I had signed off) for 7 AM this morning. Am I the only one who thinks this is F*ed up? Bad enough to schedule a 7 AM, but at least give a little freaking warning!!! Luckily I checked my mail, and I usually do, but sometimes I skip over things if they don’t appear critical, or to concern me immediately or directly, especially when I’m checking things by BlackBerry.

I tried to get to bed as soon as I could, but I just can’t go to bed right after eating dinner, and I need a little down time to unwind too, after a busy day. So I know the lights didn’t go off until midnight. I think I slept pretty well, in general, until 4 AM when I was suddenly awake and worried about going back to sleep so close to the time that I had to get up. So I pretty much laid there until I got up at 5 AM. Finally got up, got ready, took care of the dogs, came to work, getting here at 6 AM. Yes, that’s SIX O’CLOCK AM.

I am so freaking pissed and also a little paranoid. First, there was absolutely no reason for the last minute meeting schedule. He knew last Thursday at the conclusion of the first meeting that a second meeting was going to be necessary. This is not an emergency. Couldn’t he have planned a little better? It shows a real lack of respect for other peoples’ time. As I’ve stated before, 7 AM meetings are really rough on me on the best of days, I really appreciate having a little notice so that I can plan for them accordingly. I realize that sometimes shit happens and something needs to get scheduled suddenly, but that is not the case with this stupid meeting. A part of my paranoid self wonders if this was done on purpose, with the hope that I’d miss the meeting invite, especially since it was sent right after I went offline. But that’s my normal paranoia at work. Coming to work this morning felt like the middle of the night. Black as midnight and quiet, it was almost eerie to be in the office so early, no one at all was around. The vents weren’t even on, nor were the cafeteria people around yet – I’ve figured out that the earliest you can get coffee here is about 6:30. Anyway, I can see already that this is going to be a brutal day. I just have to now try to get over my pissed-off-ness and move on. I sometimes have a little trouble with that, I’m willing to admit it.

Update 8:45 AM: GAWD! It's not even 9 AM yet. Shoot. Me.

One Phrase I am SO Sick of Hearing!

If I hear this phrase one more time, I swear that I'm just going to scream:

Working families

As a single person who has chosen not to have children, nothing can make me feel more marginalized, more invisible, less considered or valued in this society than that simple phrase. It makes me completely insane. It's like if your are single, and especially if you don't have children, the worries and concerns of this economy or this society do not apply to you. Or maybe it's just that no one cares about your worries and concerns, or your problems. It's sort of ironic that my life choice puts me in a situation where I have to pay more taxes, while the life choices of "working families" put them in the position of paying less. Yet somehow the politicians and the news media just love to cater to that "family" demographic as if they are the only members of our society. Or the only ones that really count anyway.

This phrase was bandied about quite a bit during the election, but I thought that it would maybe be put to rest for a while. Not so, I just heard it again on the news this morning. I guess I had better get used to it, because I'm sure it's not going to go away. But I sure am sick of the phrase and also the bleatings of parents over this economy. How do they think people who aren't parents feel? At least they have a tax break and many solutions will be geared towards them. I'm just expected to shut up and foot the bill, I guess.

Jenny Craig Freak

So, I blew off the Jenny Craig appointment that I had scheduled on Monday. It was a holiday and I felt like I just couldn’t deal at all, so I just didn't go. I’ve never done that before. I knew that I more or less had enough dinners left in my freezer to make it through a week, but not enough breakfasts. I considered just waiting until next week for the next appointment because breakfast has never really been much of a problem for me and I could eat oatmeal and yogurt for a week. But I decided that it was better to try and fit something in.

So, I called JC yesterday to reschedule and the woman who answered exclaimed and gushed, “oh I am SO glad that you’re going to reschedule! It means that you’re sticking with the plan!!!” (yeah lady, whatever) This implied that she was just oh SO excited about my commitment to the program, the crazy freak, but it of course came across as completely insincere. Do people really fall for this crap? I knew exactly who this woman is, she is nuts and I always try to avoid her when I go to the center. When she told me that Sue (my usual counselor) was not in yesterday, but that there would be “someone” available to see me, I just knew that it was going to end up being her.

I was right. Once I got there and realized that I was going to be dealing with her, I told her flat out that I was not going to be weighed by her. She wondered that I didn’t want to know how I did – does she think that I don’t own a scale? The last thing I wanted to do was hash out my lack of progress with this completely insincere person who I can’t stand. At least Sue is low key and real, I just can’t stand phonies. When she realized that she was getting nowhere with me on the scale thing, she dragged me into an office and started gushing and exclaiming over how great I look and about how much weight I’ve lost. It was all a bunch of total bullshit. Then she launched into the whole “what are your motivators for losing weight” thing and I just completely shut down. I had been talking to her and trying to be polite, really biting my tongue trying not to snap at her. But when she came out with this, I just stopped and said, “You know? I really don’t want to do this. I just want my food”. Yes, I was a total bitch, but I couldn’t stand one more second of it.

I mean, as I’ve written before, I know that this is just some BS Jenny Craig rhetoric and that they’re scripted to ask this kind of thing. But I have many varied and personal reasons for wanting to lose weight and to get fit. I am certainly much more athletically minded than anyone in the JC office and my goals have very little to do with wanting to wear a size 2 dress or whatever. Absolutely nothing anyone in that office is going to say or ask is going to make me wake up and suddenly think deeply about some life changing reasons that had never occurred to me before. That is just never, ever going to happen with these people and especially with some silly phony like this crazy woman (and, by the way, Sue had told me before that there have been a lot of complaints about her, so I’m not the only one who feels this way).

My reasons and motivations for losing weight aren’t really all that private, frankly. I mean, I certainly discuss them enough here. But I just have no desire to sit in a room and go over them with some clueless, ridiculous, stranger who is just reading off some stupid script and wants write my answers down on a piece of paper so she can enter it in a database to prove that she “did her job” or whatever. No freaking way. This is my life, my life and my problems or issues are not open to you just because you have some stupid script to follow. I’ve been doing this for a year now and I’m just exhausted and these kind of BS questions make me even more weary of the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a Jenny Craig fan and I think the program works. It certainly has worked very well for me for about 50 lbs. But I really could do without silly, phony people like this woman and their canned questions. I really just don’t have the patience for any of that at all, at this stage. I wish I could just go in there, chat a moment with the counselor of my choice, get my food and leave already.

Early Mornings ... GAH!

So there is this guy in my group who likes to schedule these 7 AM meetings. He says that it's to accommodate the India folk. Whatever. Anyway, 7 AM is really rough for me. As I've written before, I very often don't sleep well and I also have some pretty long days during the week. I mean yesterday, between work and riding and running and training and whatever was about 14-15 hours before I was able to even start to wind down a bit. It was a loooooong day, and on very little sleep too. So there was a 7 AM meeting scheduled this morning. I woke up already hassled and rushed. Flew through my shower and then stood in the middle of the room not knowing what I was going to do. Do I manically throw on my clothes and race to work and try to get myself booted up in time for the meeting? (Which means I really have to be at my desk by 6:30 AM.) Do I work from home? Nah, I really don't want to do that. I'm already working from home on Friday. Okay, I'll get ready, do the meeting from home and then rush to the office. I hate doing that. So much frantic rushing around. Rush to get ready and get booted up, rush like a crazy maniac to shut everything down, pack up and get to the office once the meeting winds down. And then I'll have the rush back home in the afternoon to work the last couple of hours from there, because I have riding scheduled tonight. But I feel that's still the best option.

So, I frantically try to get myself booted up, logged in through VPN, logged into the online meeting site only ... I can't find the meeting on the list. Go to my calendar and it's scheduled for tomorrow??? WTF? Cursing, I frantically shut everything down, pack up the computer and make a mad dash for work, getting here at 7:30 AM. Turns out that the meeting had originally been scheduled for this morning, only someone moved it to tomorrow at the last minute. GAH! Which means that I get to go through this whole thing all over again tomorrow morning. Somebody just shoot me.

It's Official, I've become that Girl

I was up .6 of a pound on my scale this morning. I am feeling extremely demoralized right now. I really don’t want to be one of these people who sits and watches every gram of weight fluctuation and allows what the scale says each morning to determine whether I’m in a good mood for that day, or a bad one. I really don’t want to be that girl. If I just felt that my weight was trending down, even if it was a super slow downward trend, then I wouldn’t be so upset. But this … blows. I think the worst part of it is that I’ve gotten to a point where I feel like I truly don't have any control at all over my body. At least when I was fat (well, fatter) and eating what I wanted and not exercising I always felt that I was one fitness regime and a good eating plan away from where I wanted to be. There was hope in my heart. But now … now, I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want my world to be all about going to work and exercising constantly when I’m not working. I’ve been there and sleep/work-out/work/work-out rinse, repeat is a recipe for burnout (for me anyway). Just the thought of it now completely depresses me. But really, it seems like that may need to be the next step for me if I expect to lose any more weight. I had really expected that this would fall more under fine-tuning to get me beyond my initial goal, if I wanted to pursue further weight loss, but at this point it seems as if I’m going to have to get very aggressive to move forward even a little bit now. Perhaps even my initial (and what I felt, generous and extremely realistic) goal is a pipedream at this stage in my life.

I have a Jenny Craig appointment this afternoon and I know that this will be upsetting as I watch the scale there inch up even more. I have a training appointment today too and weigh-ins are never pretty after that – I tend to retain lots of water after strength training. So the news on the scale will probably be even uglier than it was this morning. I honestly feel like crying now. I just feel so frustrated and helpless.

I'm Hungry!

I HATE being hungry! ARGH!!!

Stoopid #@%&*$! diet thingie. Sheesh.

Catching-Up (yet again)

General

I know, I know, I know, it’s been forever since I’ve written. I really have a terrible time with myself during the holidays. I seem to go into a real slump and almost actually kind of fall apart from my birthday through the end of the year. I think it’s getting a little worse every year too. So, in addition to depression and an uninspired attitude, I seem to lack motivation for things like writing blog posts and working out and other stuff that I should do, or need to be doing.

This year with the state of the economy, the company layoffs and changes in the air, a general “unsettledness” feeling of my world has all contributed to my funk. Add to that, little to non-existent immediate family in my life, loneliness (and really, I am generally NOT a lonely type person at all, it just only seems to rear its head from my birthday through the holidays), a little bit of work burn out and I’ve been a bit of a mess. I know it’s a transient feeling though, and since I had a bunch of vacation time left to use, I now have a nice break from work to enjoy, thus I know that this is a temporary feeling for the most part. I’ll get through it okay and will be more positive once January hits. In the meantime, this time off is helping to give me a bit of a breather.

Holidays

Nothing much is new. Christmas came & went and it was pleasant enough. I spent Christmas Eve at one of my cousins who lives close to me. We had a smaller group than at Thanksgiving and I felt it was more fun that way, in my opinion anyway. It was very relaxed and casual and fun. I brought all three dogs with me for the first time and all behaved wonderfully and got along very well with the other dogs there. So I think I’ll be doing that again. Christmas day I just spent alone at home and that was okay. It was more like a lazy Sunday at home watching movies and reading than any kind of holiday, but it was nice not to have be running off anywhere, or worrying about work.

Since I didn’t get much in the way of presents from family, I decided to buy some gifts for myself. I’ve done this for the past few years and it really has helped me get through the holidays a bit. Anyway, this is what I got myself:

• A necklace.
• A sweater.
• A lamp (for the living room to replace a lamp that was bent).
• A new goose down comforter.

I don’t feel like I went overboard too badly. Of course, there are a ton of sales going on, so I have to be careful to keep my itchy fingers off the keyboard and away from the online stores that are the most tempting to me, lest I lose control and go into a spending frenzy. It wouldn’t be the first time after all.

Real Estate

I have this ongoing interest in real estate. I just can’t seem to stop myself from looking online at a couple of the towns near where I live that I love. Anyway, I recently saw a pretty affordable cottage in one of my favorite towns. It’s the town where one of my cousins live (where I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas this year) and also where the riding stables are – it’s actually pretty much around the corner from the Winter barn. It is on this nice quiet road and there is conservation land with wooded trails up the lane from the house (perfect for running and/or walking the dogs). Anyway, this is one of the tougher towns in the area to get into. Traditionally unaffordable, I don’t usually see much, if anything, in my potential price range, and especially never something that I actually like in that range. Well, I had been going back to this listing again and again and then drove past the house a couple of times. Finally, I contacted the realtor and set up an appointment to see it. I was very upfront about my situation, didn’t want to waste her time, but she was willing and I felt that the amount of time I was spending looking at this listing online, I had better finally just see the place. So I went on a sunny day and just loved it (as I knew I would). It’s a little cape, but very open and airy and it was flooded with sun throughout. Big, 3/4 acre back yard, screened porch, lovely big family room with French doors. It’s not perfect, of course. It could use some kitchen and bathroom updating and there is no garage or deck (there is a patio though), and a lack of a garage is a huge bummer in New Hampshire! But I loved it still, it was very charming and most of all, I could see myself living there.

So, I spoke to the realtor very seriously about my options. She is familiar with the homes in my neighborhood and knows well what I would be dealing with in trying to sell. She said, surprisingly, that my type of place tends to sell quickly. I have my doubts, but whatever. I also find it hard to believe that I would be able to sell it for enough to be able to buy the other house. Still, it may be worth a chance to see if something happens. The realtor suggested that I put my house on the market with a contingency that I would need to find suitable housing. Then, if all the planets align and the timing is right and I can sell it fast enough and for the right price, then perhaps it would work out. If not, there is nothing really lost, although there is the inconvenience factor to deal with.

Anyway, I don’t know. It’s completely unrealistic and probably even a little bit crazy to even be thinking of this. However, this may be the only time I’ll ever be able to afford to buy into this town too, so maybe it’s worth a shot. I can’t stop thinking about the house and it’s making me a little nuts. Well, if it’s meant to be, maybe something will happen, if not then, oh well.

Well, for what it's worth, here is a picture of the house and the backyard:





Rant

So, while Christmas shopping (online), I placed an order for a present for my father (and his wife) with Sturbridge Yankee Workshop. The site took my order, took my payment and sent me an online receipt. After ordering, I realized that the tea lights shown on the item page were separate and had to also be ordered. So, no big deal, I called up the customer service number, gave them the order number that had been generated a couple of minutes before and added the additional item. No problem. Until a few days later when I received a paper receipt in the mail with an (oh, by the way) notation that the main item is back-ordered! Most online stores will let you know before you actually place your order that something is on back-order so you have the option of maybe choosing to not order it. This is especially helpful in the week before Christmas when one might be ordering something as a GIFT. But to let you know days later by MAIL when it’s too late to now order something else, after even speaking to someone on the phone right after placing the order who perhaps could have mentioned the back-order issue, WTF kind of way is that to run a store? I’m still freaking pissed off and I feel like there is really nothing that I can do about it. What a shitty way to run a business.

Another Rant: why do I always, always, always end up behind the problem customer on line at the grocery store? I pick the one line where the person in front of me doesn’t have an overflowing shopping cart, only to have that person paying separately for each item and then with all kinds of complicated coupons and credits that no one in the store can figure out how to apply? Why, why, why???? SHEESH.

Horses & Riding

I’ve been riding in two lessons/training sessions a week and can ride two additional “free” rides a week. I feel like I’m slowly making some improvements, but I still get really frustrated with myself. Sometimes when Lulu and I do a jump course I feel like it’s a wild, wild west round – slightly out of control. It seems a little worse in the indoor ring too because, being smaller, the jumps seem to come up much quicker, so there is less time to organize and balance and slow-down between fences. So I’m working on gaining balance and control and maintaining a steady pace, even attempting for a slow pace. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m working on it. I participated in a jumping clinic a few weeks ago with an upper level eventing rider and I felt that to be somewhat helpful too. Not that she said anything much different from what Alison has been saying, but I find that sometimes getting the additional perspective can help drill concepts into my head. Anyway, I had the opportunity to talk to her a little bit after the clinic and I asked her specifically about my position over fences. It had been somewhat bad (or at least, not ideal) when I first started back to jumping, but she said that actually this was pretty good. So I think I’ve made some progress there. Still, I have plenty of work to do, I’m never going to be able to move onto bigger jumps or more complicated courses until I have better control. I love Lulu’s enthusiasm, but I have to learn how to harness it better.

On the flat I feel like I’ve made a little more progress. Lulu does not have the ideal conformation for riding round, on the bit and in a frame and she can be a little stiff to bending and to engaging her back, so it is not an automatic thing with her. Still, with work she DOES do it, it just doesn’t happen easily or automatically. This has been a real learning experience for me and is really helping me re-develop some of the more subtle riding skills that I had forgotten. It’s not perfect yet, typically, with work, I’ll get a few great strides of a great, round, on the bit frame and then we’ll be off again, or she’s tossing her head or resisting in some way. Still, I feel like it is getting better, the good strides are becoming more frequent and of longer duration, so I feel that I am beginning to get it somewhat. I’m actually kind of glad that Lulu is not easy in this regard. An easy horse and I’d more likely be sitting pretty and not contributing as much to making it happen and thus not actively learning and really getting it as much as I feel I am with this work.

Yesterday I had a make-up lesson with another of the instructors in Alison’s barn. I had ridden with Danielle only once before, right after I started leasing Lulu (it might even have been that first week). Anyway, after our training session yesterday morning, Danielle complimented me and said that she can see that I’ve made A LOT of progress since that first time with her. So I felt very good about that, and felt like she was sincere. She also put me through such a tough flat lesson too. I worked incredibly hard the entire hour, we didn’t walk even once, it was complete work from start to finish. Even though it was about 30-32 degrees, both Lulu and I were completely drenched in sweat when it was over. But I felt like by the end of the hour she was giving me a much more consistent “on-the-bit” rounded frame than when we started the hour. It was deeply satisfying (even if not as exciting as jumping).

If I can continue with the riding work as I have been doing, I feel like I could possibly be somewhere by late Spring. Maybe not ready for any real competition, but at least more competent and a little happier with my skills on a horse.

So, that's it in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting in my life to write about, but there you have it.

Another "WTF???" Moment

So, I had to plan an 8 AM meeting today so this guy in India can learn how to do this migration that I do, so that he can someday be a back-up for the team. We've been having trouble scheduling it because the requests usually end up having to happen in the afternoon or evenings and that time frame doesn't really work schedule-wise for people in India. Anyway, so I finally had a request for one that could be done first thing in the morning. Great, so I quickly sent a meeting invite to India Guy and to another team member who also wanted to learn the process.

Team Member replied to the invite requesting that I move it to another morning. Uh, no, this is a request from the customer, the migration has to happen as scheduled, they need the stuff in place by 9 AM. (Does anyone READ anymore? I put all that into the meeting invite). And then I had a tentative acceptance to the invite from India Boy first thing in the morning.

So 8 AM comes and I dial into the meeting and start the screen share. I notice that both India Boy and Team Member are both logged into the screen share, but no one is on the phone part of the meeting yet. I give it a couple of minutes and then IM India Boy. I ask him if he's having trouble dialing in, and he writes back, "I'm dialed in already". Oh, so I figure something went wrong so I say, let me hang up and dial back in then. In the meantime I've already started this migration because it takes a full hour to do. Anyway, so I dial back in and there is still no one on the meeting. I IM India Boy again and he says, "oh, I'm only available for the screen share part of your meeting, I'm dialed into another phone meeting." Turns out Team Member is doing the same thing! Okay, is it me or ... WTF??? How on God's Green EARTH did he think he was going to understand a 100 step process by just watching some random screen share with no subsequent verbal explanation, while also participating in a completely unrelated meeting. W. T. F. People make me crazy.

Under the category of "WTF???"

Today. Pretty much empty gym. All treadmills are free. I get on one and start running, not even a minute later chick comes by and gets on the treadmill directly beside me. Right. Next. To. Me. Out of six treadmills! I mean, WTF??? Maybe after living in a city for so many years I have a different sensitivity to personal space issues or something, but ... sheesh!