Spring is about change

What is it about Spring that makes you want to get organized, clean up, get rid of clutter? Why do I start feeling restless this time of year, tired of being cooped up inside, sick of TV? I guess it's the opening up of windows and the fresh air -- still fresh even if it's raining outside.

I woke up on Saturday morning and felt invigorated to unpack some more boxes, go through papers, throw a lot of crap out. Last week during our impromptu, unseasonable "Summer" weekend, I very much enjoyed sitting out on the deck reading and listening to music. I've been taking the dogs for walks around the neighborhood after work and Fitzie and I are on week 3 of obedience training at the Nashua Petsmart. It's great to get out of the house on a weekend, but it's especially been a hoot just to go there every week and socialize with all the dogs and let all the people we encounter admire and fawn over him. Anyway, more and more as Spring burgeons I'm enjoying cleaning up and getting out more. During the Winter it was lovely to be cozy inside with the dogs piled on top of me with a fire going and the latest Netflix delivery, or "Grey's Anatomy" installment playing. Not that I don't enjoy these things during this time of year too, but I also feel motivated to clean up and get some fresh air.

There have been some recent changes at work as well. There was a big personnel change on the project where I am assigned. Basically, all the major business project managers and sponsors have left the group or moved into different roles. This has been stressing me out quite a bit over the past couple of weeks just with the uncertainty with everything and what this was going to mean for me. But I finally had some information about who I was going to be working with and had a meeting first with the head of the tech group I'll be aligned with and then with the entire group later in the week. They all seemed great, very open and with good communication and I really feel like I will be integrated with the daily workings of the business and with the end users like I never had the opportunity to be before. So, I came away from last week encouraged and excited about these new changes and the opportunities they represent.

I just posted this picture again because I really like it. I'm also amazed ... Fitzie was a fraction of his current size when it was taken.

Matt Lauer

I had a dream this weekend that I was tooling around with Matt Lauer in a Mini Cooper. Now, that was a fun dream. heh.

This is what is happening in my yard RIGHT NOW

(You can't really see it falling all that well in the pictures, but trust me, is is!) Crazy snow on April 15th. Woo!

It's April 12th

Can someone tell me why there is about 3" or so of fresh snow in my yard? This is some crazy shit. Seriously.

ARGH!

It's been a bit of a crazy week at work. I have my usual project work going on, there have also been some new-customer-related meetings and activity to supplement my regular work. Plus, they are going through a major personnel upheaval in the group with my current project. So because of all of these changes, I have the added tasks this week to create process flow documents for a bunch of the reports I've worked on over the past year. So, this is pretty time consuming and a bit stressful because of the time crunch outside of my other work, so I thought I'd get a jump on some of it for today by working on one of the bigger flow charts last night from home. Okay, so I finally finish it at 11 PM, come into the office this morning and go to drop it into the document this morning and I can't open it! Turns out that the version of Visio I have on this machine is incompatible with the version of Visio I have on my home machine. ARGH! I mean, it's not the end of the World, I'll just complete it from home a little later, but still ... ARGH! Sheesh.

Work. Is. Good.

So I had a short meeting with one of people I'm writing a series of reports for the other day. I know that this part of this project is particularly high-profile. It's not anything that looks so impressive on the surface to the lay person, just a bunch of columns of numbers. But there is a lot that is going on under the surface to pull all of this data together. Many different data sources are involved, lots of pulling of bits apart and lots of putting bits together, lots of analysis and various other moving parts to put everything together into one, seamless-looking output. Anyway, the professional portfolio managers know the value of what they're looking at and the portfolio manager that I spoke to the other day just gushed on & on to me about what a fantastic application this is for them. He actually said, "this is revolutionizing how we manage and invest these (big magilla company) plans" (big magilla company being my words, of course). He also said that the data has been going directly to the Senior VP, head of this entire trading division. Wow. I was blown away (and a little impressed with myself, to be honest). It's especially nice because too often you don't hear much unless something goes wrong. It's truly deeply satisfying to know that people are getting lots of immediate benefit out of something that I actually created. Woo!

Shelton Kang

Shelton & Linda in November, 2002

I've wanted to write something about the passing of Shelton Kang before now, but I don't really know how much I can add to what Julia wrote, she spoke about him so perfectly and beautifully. I will say that Shelton was a genuinely nice person who always saw the best in people. I never heard an unkind word come out of his mouth. He was a man who, despite his limitations, really knew how to get the most out of life. After losing his wife Linda suddenly and being diagnosed with congestive heart failure himself, he could very easily have just stayed home and used it as an excuse to give up and wallow in misery, but not Shelton. He reinvented himself and started a walking program, ultimately walking four marathons and countless half-marathons and other races of varying distances all over the country. Everywhere he went he made friends and spread actual joy. How many people do you meet in life who spread actual joy? He was just a sweet, sweet man who enjoyed life & people. And he was a total dog lover, which always makes someone pretty great in my book.

The news of his passing struck me particularly hard for some reason and I'm not even that sure why. I knew Shelton, I probably saw him about once or twice a year in a group setting. In fact, I had just seen him a couple of months earlier in Boston. But I didn't see or talk to him often enough to really consider him one of my closest friends. Maybe it was just that buoyant spirit of his, it seemed like he would always be around. Or maybe it was just that he always should be around.

Finally: my completed living room bookcases

Spring Snow April 5th, 2007

Oh and

On an unrelated note ... I'm finally finished with the antibiotics (feel like I've been on them constantly since January). I think I'll have a beer. At last.

Weird Freaking Dog

So, very recently Fitzie (who is being neutered tomorrow, btw) has taken to peeing in Lola's food bowl. He doesn't pee in his own bowl, nor the water bowl, always just her bowl. Bizarre. I guess he's trying to tell her something. Poor Loly-girl. I made him eat of of the pee bowl tonight (I washed it first, of course).

Tax Woes

I am really annoyed. I had an appointment scheduled with a CPA for late this afternoon to help me with my tax preparation since my financial picture for 2006 is pretty complicated (between moving from NY to NH, relocation benefits, selling property in NYC, buying property in NH, higher salary, bonus, rolling over IRAs, etc.) Anyway, I was looking for CPAs in my town and had found her name somehow and sent her an email inquiry to possibly set up an appointment. In the email I briefly sketched my situation and she wrote back, “I don’t do NY tax returns”. Okaaaaay. So I wrote back and said, well I was really only living in NYC for 2 weeks in 2006, but could she perhaps recommend someone else? She writes back, “Well, I guess I can help you”. Gee thanks, don’t knock yourself out or anything (it’s not like I was insisting that she help me or anything, I just asked for a local recommendation). All of this tax stuff is stressful enough, do I really want to deal with someone who is so lukewarm about working with me? Anyway, not knowing who else to contact, I made the appointment.

So, since I have the appointment for late this afternoon, I go to the trouble to make sure that I get to work early so that I can work a full day before having to leave to make it to her office on time (which is conveniently located around the corner from work). But what happens? I get an email from her around 8 AM stating that she has to cancel because she’s not feeling well. WTF??? So, obviously she doesn’t really want my business. Frustrated, I vent about this to a co-worker and he suggests that I contact my realty office and see if they can recommend someone. So I do. It ends up being a good idea because they recommend a CPA firm (raving about them in the process) who I call and who goes out of their way to accommodate me (scheduling me in on a Saturday) and who also, when I mention the NY aspect of my situation, says, “No problem! We can deal with any state”.

I sent an email to the first CPA chick that says, “I’ll just make other arrangements then. Thanks for your help.” I haven’t heard back from her. I’ve got to wonder how someone like that is able to run a successful business. So unprofessional. She could have just said, “I’m sorry, I’m not very comfortable with the NYS stuff, but perhaps I can recommend someone else for you”. How hard would that have been? SHEESH.

toe

This is what my toe looked like when I took off my sock tonight. Gross.

Yet Another Pug Picture

It Never Freaking Ends

So, I went to the dentist on Monday and apparently I have a number of problems going on in my mouth. In addition to the needed root canal and abscess, I apparently have some major decay around the tooth adjacent where I had a root canal about two years ago. They're not even sure if they're going to be able to save this second tooth. All of these problems stem from this ill-advised bridge my former dentist talked me into getting years ago and I am finding myself quite bitter about it right now.

Anyway, the root canal doctor managed to get me in this afternoon which really ended up being a good thing because once she opened up my tooth, she said that the decay and infection was more extensive than it had appeared on the x-ray. She seemed to think if I had waited much longer, I could have lost that tooth too. So, I had the root canal today, but am still finding myself in pain which I hope is not an indication of the problems with the other tooth. I have to go back to the first dentist in a week or two to have him finish the work on the RC tooth and to evaluate what we're going to do about this other one. I am so ... I don't know, depressed, overwhelmed, stressed about all of this. And of course my out-of-pocket costs for all of this work is going to be in the 1,000s. TG for insurance (at least they'll be paying for some of this) and TG that I'm debt free! If this had happened two years ago I would be screaming and crying and completely freaking out & panicking -- at least I can pay for this. I'm not happy about it and some of my home improvement plans will have to be put on hold this year, but at least I don't have to go into debt to do this. At least it's not going to completely wipe me out.

To add insult to injury, tonight my cell phone was ringing. I could hear it and I realized that it was still in my jacket pocket. So, instead of just letting it ring, I jumped up and ran for it, vaulting over something on the floor and catching my toe on the corner of a chair in the process. Now I'm afraid I've broken my toe! Oh and that phone call was my father. I have no doubt he was calling about having me send him more money out of our trust account, I've already had to do that twice in the past week and that seems to be the only reason he ever calls me lately.

But I'm not bitter, no, not at all.

It's Always Something

Spent the weekend in pain as it seems that I have another abscess in the area where I need a root canal. I've been putting it off and I guess I've just put it off too long. I called the root canal dentist and the soonest they can get me in is April 6th. ACK! In the meantime, I've made an appointment for this afternoon with another local dentist as I really don't feel comfortable going back to the "Super Cuts-esque" place that I went to the last time. I'm hoping this new dentist will maybe be able to get me in someplace sooner, or at the very least will have some good drugs to prescribe. UGH!

I'm SUCH a worrier

Seriously. I wish I could just stop. I go through these periods of intense anxiety sometimes that I just can't seem to shake off. It seems to get worse as I get older. A number of things contribute to this, lack of confidence/self-esteem issues, growing up with a mother who worried about everything, probably having too much time on my hands. Worry, worry, worry. I. Just. Can't. Stop. Sheesh.

Signs You're Getting Old

It must be a sign that I'm getting old when I actually prefer Mondays to Fridays. Used to be, Friday was my favorite day. Usually the weekend would start on Thursday with Happy Hour and then on Friday it was out directly after work until all hours, Mondays were to be dreaded. Nowadays, by Friday I'm tired and running down on energy, yet Mondays are fun! I'm well-rested, re-invigorated with energy and enthusiasm for the work at hand. I always seem to get a lot done on a Monday and the day just flies by. Preferring a Monday to Friday ... what's up with that?

The Puppy is getting so big!