Archive: August 2005

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Friday - August 26, 2005

Happy Birthday + baseball news

Happy Birthday, Dad!! 'Hope the bike ride goes well.

And, while I'm here, I'll just point out for the two or three of you that might care that I've blogified my Longhorn baseball page. I will probably do that with this main index page in the not-too-distant future. 'Not sure about that. The baseball page was just screaming for the change. This one? Not quite as much. But, I'm headed in that direction. We shall see.

Posted by Joanna | Permalink

Wednesday - August 17, 2005

More bluehouse rambling

Remember my pseudo-obsession with the bluehouse? That's right, I'm still not over it. Too bad for you, eh? Their CDs are still in heavy rotation in my car. I like most of the songs quite a bit. There's a really quiet song on the big CD that kills me. The song is called "Meg's Song" and the pertinent lyrics go like so:

I'm over 90 now and I've still got my sight
My family thinks I'm losing my mind
But, maybe I keep it where they can't find it

I just love that little snippet of song. I dunno why, exactly. But, I do.

. . . .

And, in other completely unrelated news...

We got an email at work today warning of a temporary street closure on campus. The note ended as follows:

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for supporting The University in all endeavors.

Huh? When did I agree to that? Wow. All endeavors? Yikes. I must've been asleep when that happened. Heh.

. . . .

And, there's a new comic on the comics page.

Posted by Joanna | Permalink

Thursday - August 11, 2005

Why I love my iPod, nickname rambling, and longevity pay

A bit of an iPod cacophony. When I get in to work every morning, I hook my iPod up to my boom box, select a playlist, and we're off. This morning, I selected my "4 stars or more" playlist (a "smart" playlist that includes any song on my iPod that I've given a rating 4 or 5 stars, regardless of genre). The 5th song that came up was "Come on Out Tonight" by Melissa Etheridge. Very good song. It rocks. As they say. The song ended and things shifted quickly and rather joltingly to "Tennessee Waltz" by Lacy J. Dalton. Whoa! 70 to 15 in the blink of an eye. There is no radio station on the planet that'll play those two songs back-to-back. None but my iPod. And that, dear friends, is why I love my iPod. Heh.

. . . .

Pamie has a nice new design. One of the things that caught my eye as I was checking it out was a prominent link to a FAQ. I dunno if she had a FAQ on her old page or not. If she did, I never read it. So, even if it's not new, it's new to me. That first bit in the FAQ about strangers calling her Pamie sounded very familiar.

I was introduced to Usenet back in the dark ages of 1989 or so. I couldn't figure something out and someone told me about rn and they pointed me to the newsgroup I needed. I started regularly reading pertinent technical groups. Things like comp.sys.mac.hardware. It was great. You could get quick and generally very competent (not to mention, free!) help. And, in return, you'd help others. I'd post to those groups. But, not often. Sometime late in 1991, I stumbled across the rec.* and soc.* arms of Usenet. Where people talked about non-technical things. It blew my mind. It had never occurred to me that people would talk to strangers about "fun" stuff on Usenet. How singularly peculiar! The rec.arts.music.* people talked about music. The rec.arts.tv.* folks talked about TV. The rec.sport.baseball.* people talked about (surprise!) baseball. Wow. Cool. If you didn't know someone in your immediate circle of friends with an interest in XYZ, you could surely find someone on the right Usenet newsgroup to talk to about XYZ. Amazing.

Anyway, back to the point. I quickly jumped into the rec.arts.tv.soaps (r.a.t.s) discussions. I thought it would be fun to use a nickname when I signed off since other folks seemed to be doing that. I went with the nickname many of my friends use: Joey. I'd never done that on any of the serious groups. After a couple of weeks, though, strangers were calling me Joey. And, it was just weird. Very very weird. So, I quit using the Joey thing online. I think I might've even posted an explanation. I'm glad I quit using the nickname. Otherwise, I'd still be going around with all sorts of people I barely know addressing me as though they knew me well. Imagine. This might all be posted at joey.org instead of joanna.org if I hadn't come to my senses back then. Whew.

And, yes...I've been reading the various incarnations of pamie.com since shortly after it first appeared. And, no...I've never met Pamie. But, we have exchanged the very occasional email. And, I always call her Pamie. 'Cause that's how I know her. But, I sign off as Joanna. 'Cause that's just the way things are. Kinda weird, eh?

Post script: One of the funny things about the whole nickname thing is that, all on their own, the folks in the r.a.t.s group gradually came up with another nickname for me: JoJo. Nobody had ever called me that before. So, most of the friends I made in that group in the early 90s call me JoJo. And, that doesn't seem at all weird. But, that's probably because the nickname grew from my interactions with the folks in the group. It didn't just appear out of nowhere. And, that's as it should be with nicknames, doncha think?

. . . .

And, finally, there was good news from the HR folks at work today. Lately, all we've been getting is bad news from them. For example, the Legislature changed the retirement package for those of us in the Teacher Retirement System. Effective September 1, the new rules will require that I work at least an additional 5 years (possibly 9, it's a little unclear) to receive full formula benefits. Yep, more people in the pool...fewer people paying for it. I get it. That's why I also have a tax-deferred annuity. And, yada yada. Anyway, the good news. The Legislature apparently also changed the Longevity Pay scale. Currently, we get an extra $20 each month for every three years of state service. That's an extra $120 for me each month since I've been working here forever. Starting September 1, however, we'll be getting an extra $20 for every two years of service. That'll mean $180 more every month (a $60 bump). Way cool. I do not sneeze at $60. Nosireebob.

Posted by Joanna | Permalink

Monday - August 8, 2005

Campus Watch #29

From today's Campus Watch crime report:

Public Intoxication (200 East Martin Luther King Blvd.)
A UT student was found "bent forward" while exhibiting an extreme involuntary physical reaction to the over-consumption of an alcoholic beverage. Believing a police vehicle was a taxi-cab, the student flagged the officer down to solicit a ride. The student was found to be under the influence of an alcoholic beverage to the point he was a physical endangerment to himself and others. The student was given a fare-free ride, but not to his desired destination. Occurred on 8-6-05 at 3:40 AM.

"...but not to his desired destination." Heh heh. I bet not! 'Hard to believe I hadn't posted a Campus Watch report in over a month, eh? But, there you have it.

Posted by Joanna | Permalink

Saturday - August 6, 2005

Shipping miracle

Kate told me a couple of weeks ago that she'd decided to ship her old computer to me. She'd been thinking about bringing it as checked luggage next time she comes to town but decided it wasn't worth the hassle. [Aside: she bought a new iBook and was shipping her old iMac to Austin so I could set it up for her folks to use.] She no longer had the original packaging so was shipping it via UPS (getting them to box and pack it up for her) to me at work. I didn't really think about it again until I got an email message from the receptionist on Wednesday:

You have received a UPS package. There is no PO number. It is on the table in the copy room.

That's a rather innocuous message, eh? A package. The computer had arrived. I promptly forgot about it, though. We were busy and I never made it down to the office. Yesterday was the first time I'd gone into the mail/copy room since I got that message. I spotted a large and quite dilapidated box on the table and realized it was mine. It was in bad shape. I did not have a good feeling about the prospects for the computer. I grabbed a cart and took the box up to my office. I started to unpack it and then realized that I should really snap a few photos and document the condition of the package, in the likely event that we'd have to file a claim.

And, I thought back to Kate's description of her conversation with the UPS guy. It went something like:

Kate: I need to ship this to Austin.
UPS guy: No problem. We ship computers all the time.

Wow. That's a rather stunning claim. I guess it's true. I bet he's never seen one of his boxes at its final destination, though. Otherwise, he'd use more substantial boxes. And, perhaps, some of that Instapack Quick foam that molds itself to the item being packaged. Instead of that, though, I got this:

I suppose the Instapak stuff costs more than packing peanuts. But, I wager lots of people (most of them?) would pay for it. Note the corners of the box. Packing peanuts were coming out of all four of the bottom corners. It looked like the box had been used as a bowling ball. Note the "Fragile" stickers. There was one affixed to each side of the box. And, one on the top. It's impressive the way UPS deals with fragile cargo, eh? So, I opened the box. And, here's what I found inside:

I'm guessing it was packed to the rim with peanuts when it left the UPS store in Oregon. I'm guessing. It wasn't even close to full by the time it got to Austin, though. I was stunned -- actually, beyond stunned -- that the iMac did not seem to be damaged. Note that the rear end of the computer is sticking up out of the peanuts. The way the box appears to have been tossed around, it's a wonder the case wasn't cracked. And, here's what everything looked like once it was out of the box:

I brought it home in that state. I was a little afraid to cut the bubble wrap off. But, I did. And, everything seems fine. I've yet to try and power things up, though. Yikes.

Posted by Joanna | Permalink

Friday - August 5, 2005

CAP...plus I'm an airhead

I was reading the latest from Crazy Aunt Purl (whose page I found the other day while reading something Willa wrote) and came across the following:

Oh! Man! That reminds me of this really awful thing that happened yesterday. Tragedy. I actually woke up in the morning and thought it was Friday. And I was SO HAPPY. Friday! The one that ends the week and brings the wine and makes me comatose, all curled up with an ice cream sandwich and four episodes of CSI Miami Tivo'd up by my boyfriend, whose name conveniently enough is TIVO.

That cracked me up. First because I had something similar (perhaps even worse...to my mind) happen to me on Tuesday. I woke up and thought it was Saturday! On a Tuesday! On the second day of the work week, I thought it was already Saturday. Oh, the heartbreak when I realized it was only Tuesday. Ugh. Well, maybe it's not worse. I only had a brief moment of happiness before realizing that it was not Saturday. Laurie (aka Crazy Aunt Purl) did not realize it was not Friday until someone at work informed her of the situation. So, I really dunno which is worse. Thinking it's Saturday on a Tuesday (but only for a fleeting moment) or thinking it's Friday on a Thursday (for hours before being set straight by some unfeeling co-worker)? What a conundrum.

And, the other reason I cracked up was the realization that we have the same boyfriend. Hmmm. Maybe I should not have been laughing about that. Oh, well.

. . . .

While we're here and talking about what an airhead I can be, I'll relate a little something I did the other day at work. I went to the bathroom and was so completely distracted that I apparently forgot how to wash my hands. I turned the water on, got my hands wet, turned the water off, grabbed some soap and lathered up, and then realized I'd turned the water off. So, I had to get soap all over the fixture handles in order to properly finish what I'd started. Sigh...

Posted by Joanna | Permalink