beancounters

Taking a break

Lately, I have been feeling slightly guilty desperate perturbed because I have nothing to blog about. At first, I was going to tell you this was not my fault - the internet is just not funny anymore. But we all know that's  not true. Everyone knows there are still terabytes of LOLdoggery and Star Wars humor out there, just waiting for me.

The real problem is, my head is chock full of the un-funny, 24 hours a day. I am writing two reports - one for work, and another one in the evenings, for school. One report will keep me in good stead at Dream Job; the other will enable me to (finally) graduate. If you'd like to read a blog post about a fiscal analysis of volunteer firefighting, or the regulation of the CPA profession, by all means let me know. But after everything you've withstood here over the years, such a post might finally send you over the edge.

So, I've decided to temporarily place this blog on hiatus until the reports are completed, or at least in very good shape. I'll try and continue the weekly roundup on Fridays. I'll still be on Twitter. And in a month or two I'll send you an email to say hello again.

Wow, just typing this ... I feel so relieved!

Fair food follow-up

All in all, fair food this year was pretty tame. Down in the food court, this extra-large booth held the widest variety of exotic fare. You can see that fried Twinkies are now so ubiquitous, they have been awarded permanent signage on the awning.

The camera didn't do justice to the LED sign below the worried chicken's head, but you can just make out a chorus line of dancing frogs. Yes, the big "attraction" at this booth was FRIED FROG LEGS. And no, we didn't try them. There's only so far we are willing to go.

A little piece of deep-fried heaven

Most of the year, my family is diligent in our avoidance of any food that has been poked through with a stick and then deep-fried. But this weekend we're making our annual pilgrimage to that bastion of bad food decisions, the California State Fair. That's the day when we let ourselves indulge in one, and only one, incomprehensibly crazy fried food concept.

From previous years:

(too avocado-y)

  (scary-sweet)

(awesome)

What fresh fried hell on a stick may await us at this year's fair?! Will California take its cue from one of its Southern neighbors?

DALLAS — Last year, Chicken Fried Bacon and a Fried Banana Split took top honors at the annual Big Tex Choice Awards to pick the best new foods at the State Fair of Texas.

This year, the competition is equally innovative (and similarly deep-fried). 

Go, read all the entries and vote for the one that horrifies you most. Me, I voted for the deep-fried butter. BUTTER, people. Texas, you may keep the deep-fried butter, but please tell me more about that fried banana split. Oooooh.

Please insert money

Saw this at the college. It's probably an economic major's locker - s/he's reduced overhead costs by eliminating the middle man.

Bailin'

We must be crazy to leave. But as of 11 o'clock this morning our landlord won't let us stay here, and they're sending a team of cleaning ladies over as enforcers.

For people who have to leave in 1 1/2 hours, we're surprisingly sanguine. Most folks are sitting and eating breakfast out of the odds and ends we have left in the refrigerator. Someone's tallying what we owe each other in grocery money.  I hear a brother in-law announcing he found the nine of hearts, which has been missing for days. And there's a yellow Lab walking around with a cone collar and a t-shirt on. (Picture to follow.)

Having the laptop here has been a blessing and a curse. Lots of us have been able to check in with work during our vacation. I leave it to you to decide if this fact falls under b. or c.

In other "b. or c." news, the fact we have internet access this year has led me to out myself to my family. I showed one of my sisters in-law that blogs are not just for 20-somethings by pulling up this page. For one horrifying second, I realized she was about to see the picture of her two boys. What would she say? It could have been ugly. But all she did was laugh uproariously, then call the kids over to show them they are famous on the internet. Whew!

Hailin'

We hear it's 103 degrees in Seattle today, and about the same in Oregon. Did we accidentally switch weather? Here in Lake Tahoe, it suddenly rained on us when we were at the beach. Two nephews hid under the inflatable raft which had been propped up with chairs and bolstered with floaties on the back side. A few minutes after I took this pic, more kids piled in, sharing big plates of french fries.

Then, just when we thought it was safe to get in the water, it began to hail! We decided to call it a loss, threw all this crap in our trucks and took off for the cousins' cabin.

Chillin'

Well, the boat's not ours, but Lake Tahoe is our neighbor for a whole week. Yes, it's reunion time again with my in-laws and their (our) extended family.

The cabin we rent every year is much the same as always. Each year, we find little improvements the owners have made (with our rent money). This year, it seems some quite rickety steps were recently replaced with temporary steps. These new steps are rickety in their own right, but were easily anchored with penny nails on our first day here.

There was an emergency over the weekend, when one of my brothers in-law had a seizure. Fortunately, he was treated and released and is back in our midst. Cabin head count as of today: adults - 8; teens - 6; kids & tweens - 3. It's a smaller crew than most years. I, for one, love the novelty of elbow room. But then we have a second cabin about five miles down the road, full of cousins of the adult, teen and child variety. Tonight is the Big Potluck, where I'll secure a final head count.

Have wall. Must draw.

Question: If I took a week or so to draw wallpaper and a fireplace on my office wall at work, who would get more mad - our building manager, or the California taxpayers?

You're right; best not to take chances either way. Maybe I should launch a wall-drawing project here at home. My husband would get mad, but at least he couldn't blow the whistle on me to the Governor.

In which I manage my summer schedule

Is it July already? In trying to get a handle on my summertime, I decided to crunch the numbers to see where the time goes. Using the exploded chart feature in Excel, it's easy to identify any time-management issues.

 

As we can see, I am spending way too much time working, which severely cuts into my NCIS schedule. I have learned to prep food and eat meals during NCIS - score one for multitasking. And five percent of the time is spent with family? Well, the couch holds three people - we could easily be watching NCIS together. At least my time on Twitter is normal.

Compartmentalized beauty

Every once in a while, it strikes me just how freakin' bizarre the world of cosmetics is.I just put on a product that "tans" my legs, which get very little sun. Then I put on another product on my face and arms, to shield them from getting tan.Two different sunblocks, at that - one for the arms and a separate one for the face.

I ask you! Can you top that?

Looking up

Happy Monday. As you go about your day, be sure and look up. [Alternately, look at this collection of art on buildings. I'm cool.]

Hell.o

Hell.o, originally uploaded by 9 0 0 0.

To-do notes are so yesterday; now it's WSD

Where the hell was I in 2007, that I never learned about WSD? It's obviously a saner (and cheaper, and less copyrighted) version of David Allen's time-management technique, GTD^®.

I showed the WSD website to my mother this week.

Mom: "I've always been a practioner of WSD. My problem is RSIWD (reading shit I've written down)."

Me: "I have a worse problem: RWIWSD (remembering where I wrote shit down)."

Quick! We need to copyright RSYWD^® and RWYWSD^®!

Baby with Poodles

Kind mit Pudeln
Originally uploaded by beancounter

My highlight of SFMOMA was a sculpture by Katharina Fritsch called Kind mit Pudeln. [Click on this pic and see others in my Flickr pool.] Over 200 hand-painted black poodles stand in formation, staring inward at one baby. According to the plaque, the artist is saying that babies are born innocent but must soon journey outward through a world that is both humorous and potentially corrupt. When I saw this sculpture, I immediately knew the poodles were were wondering what they could get for a kid on eBay.

Round and round with Matisse

Matisse sculpture
Originally uploaded by beancounter

My birthday present was a trip to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We joined a tour group and learned a little about the museum's permanent collection, including this Matisse sculpture.

The highlight of my kid's day (I think - we'll have to wait until she comments to confirm this) happened when we were on the 4th floor looking at a visiting collection. We were standing in a shallow alcove, near what looked like elevator buttons. She pressed a button that said "In Use". We heard the sound of whirring machinery. Uh-oh. We walked with dignified haste in separate directions. A few minutes later, Bunny came up to me, her eyes huge, and pulled me by my elbow back to the alcove. Sure enough, the alcove had been a gigantic service elevator, and the whole bloody wall had disappeared, and we were left staring into an open elevator car filled with packing boxes. We looked around, but no docents were loping across the gallery yet to tell us off. Bunny hit the "close" button and we strolled away again.

No biggie. I say, if you're going to explore your world, you have to take some chances.

Intros

First assignment, I failed at. We were supposed to spend five minutes writing an autobiographical blurb to read aloud. But suddenly I was seized with the urge to jump up, take pics, find Tylenol and sunscreen for the back of my neck (because the spot I staked out is by the easterly window). Consequently I had no intro to read. Had to wing it. Mentioned the blog and how breeeeeliant I am so am expecting my stats to take a gigantic spike. :-)

We're up to 25 folks. Susie Bright is reminiscing. Molly the dog is looking for a lap, but every lap has a laptop on it.

When everyone stops talking, the sound of keys tapping sounds like rain.

I need food. Eyeing my escape route through the masses in the living room.

Update: Whenever Molly catches sight of Malcolm, she chases him out of the room. Would everybody who bet on Molly as alpha dog, please come to the window.

Greetings from WoolfCamp

[We need a picture right about here, don't we?]

It's Saturday, so you have plenty of time to go to Twitter Search and find all the #woolfcamp entries. We decided this will be our one-stop shop to see who's talking about what here at Grace's house.

Starting in the afternoon, when everyone's arrived (I heard 30 peeps total), we'll introduce ourselves and then break out into sessions. Two sessions per hour (?), through the afternoon & into the evening. At this point, we haven't decided what the sessions will be. Seriously. There's a big schedule chart but it's blank.

There are 2 little dogs here - Malcolm the host (a Jack Russell Terrier) and Molly, a Bisson-Poodle mix that looks like Dottie from the movie "Coming to America." There has ensued a vigorous campaign for alpha dog status. It's anyone's guess who'll emerge champion, but my money's on Molly because she's working harder.

There's one child here. He's 3 and dressed in a Spiderman costume. I love age three, when we believe (wisely) that costumes are Not Just For Halloween.

Making notes -

One store in Santa Cruz makes carries these crazy-amazing cookies. In case I don't find the store again, the website on the box is alicesstickcookies.com

More later!

Don't keep calm and carry on.

Don't keep calm and carry on.
Originally uploaded by moleitau

A vigorous response to the historic poster. The crown of wrenches is truly inspired. And hey, there's even a t-shirt available to the Brits (so far).

A weekend and a challenge

This weekend was spent on the road. Saturday I visited my mother. Among other things, we visited our favorite thrift store, and what we found was downright scary.

Unfortunately, the pics I took are still in my cell phone (or wherever pics are stored by Verizon), because Sunday I visited my father in-law. His lady friend went into the hospital last week, and by all accounts he was not handling things well. He hadn't taken his medications on time, nor eaten, etc. So the family has taken turns checking on him. Sunday was my day. Luckily, thanks to BB's visit on Saturday, my father in-law looked alert and in charge again. All his meds are set up for ease of use, he has food in the fridge, and he's back in action. All of this by way of saying I've got some truly frightening pics from the thrift store but they'll have to wait.

In other news, many people are taking the 30 day challenge - no complaining for one month. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable? What do you think?

Uncomfortably true

 

Last night I failed to attend the first meeting of Sacramento-area Twitter-users. (To read how attendees thought it went, go here.)

My announced reason was that I prefer most of my Twitter follows just the way they are: imaginary. But the real reason was that I expected it would be a whole pub full of human beings I didn't know but would be expected to talk to. And that my end of every conversation would be one long repeat of this: "Hi, my name is Pam. Yes, I use Twitter! Yes, ha-ha, old people do know how to get online. I know, right? Should you be drinking that? Don't they card here?"

Plus, I don't watch Battlestar Galactica, so what would we have talked about after I'd checked everybody's driver's licenses?

I'm kidding. I'm not really this curmudgeonly. Please do not mail me red hats.