Three Things...

1. The inversion is so nasty... the smog/pollution index thingamijigger says that we are currently 3-4 times WORSE than LA. I walked out of Target tonight and I could actually TASTE the air. Gag!



2. I watched the COOLEST thing while I was checking out at Target. The store security had been running around the store the whole 30 minutes I was there.. playing with their walkie talkies and hiding behind displays and fixtures. I knew something was going down. I had walked in to the building with two snotty girls.. who were acting kind of weird, but I didn't really think anything of it. I happened to be walking to the register and one of the girls was walking out at the same time-- not to the checkout, but to the doors. Just as she crossed the threshold, the cute security guy made a mad dash to the door. He confronted her and it appeared, asked her politely to return to the store. She resisted and was "helped" back into the store. She continued to resist and two cops came and handcuffed her!!!! Is that so cool?? It was really hard not to stare and watch the whole drama scene play out. My cashier was just as distracted. It was pretty amazing. You Go Security! anything you can do to keep the cost of my wonderful Target merchandise to a minimum is okay by me!



3. I'm refinancing my house! I started the process today and did some pretty fancy negotiating. They are going to drop my interest rate from 7.124% to 5.347% or something or other... and the only cost was for the appraisal. They told me it would be $410 for the appraisal!! My jaw dropped... until I asked around about a reasonable rate for an appraisal and found that $300 is about the average. Well, I told the guy that the appraisal cost was a roadblock. He asked me what I was willing to pay, and just grabbed $100 out of the air. He talked to his manager, and they approved it! I was shocked and grateful. With any luck, the paperwork will be all done and I'll have a much lower mortgage payment with in a week and a half!

* picture is from the walkway at Buchart Gardens in Victoria, BC. Awesome trip!

A Poem that Touched me today

I found this poem eons ago in a book I read as a teenager. Web searches for it in the past have been futile, but today, it magically appeared. :) I must have been in sore need of it today.

He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,
Of night and light and half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet;
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

The new room!

I tried to take pictures of the whole room, but alas, it isn't big enough to get more than corners.
And I actually got halfway moved back in before I snagged the camera. Here's one corner.. where the gray meets the white and brown/purple wall.

This is the opposite corner from the first picture. Notice, the doors have not been re-installed. I need to buy one new one.

Here's another one trying to highlight the new flooring.
It feels SOOOOO Good! :D

Feeling a bit artsy with this one. This was on Hug Beach on the Oregon Coast. I took it on my trip back there the beginning of October.

I'm pretty disppointed though. I have seen so many people have success with Picassa for uploading a whole slew of pictures to blog about. My previous post worked with Picassa, but my last few attempts have failed miserably. Austin thought perhaps it was a glitch with the updated Blogger. I'll have to take a look at the blogger notes to see if anyone has found a fix for that problem.

oh baby! does that have "geek" written all over it or what?? Gotta love it.

This is a very Austinish entry, isn't it? I just feel like rambling for a while. Work today was interesting. We have "office days" twice a month. There are seven designers in my office, and we are spread hither and yon through out the work week-- either working from home or meeting with faculty at other campuses or just making ourselves available for general questions. These "office days" are an attempt to build some cohesion and help us stay focussed on some higher level activities, rather than course support on a day to day basis.

I've been conducting these since November, and I've always tried to make sure that the things I plan are of value to the other folks in the group. We decided to read a book and have discussions on it. Once the "business" portion of the agenda was over, we really didn't have much time for the book discussion. What we did have was really good though-- at least I thought so.

We've been migrating to a new content management system, and the general feeling in the office has been like The-Little-Engine-That-Could trying with all her heart to make it to the other side of the mountain. Now that we are there, we can all use a little down time to enjoy the Vista-- oh dear BAD!! joke (the new system is called Vista). That's so bad i'm almost tempted to erase it, but I'll leave it for writing therapy sake!

So, now, i'm home.. after spending an hour at the gym, and cancelling my gym membership (effective on Feb. 15th). I need to make a plan to really initiate an At-Home program. First I'll get my Spare Oom finished so i have someplace to store my exercise ball and weights and all that fun stuff. The only things left in there are to paint the lower half of the walls, and purchase storage shelves so stuff can be moved back in.

You wanted pictures. :) Here we go!
This is the most adorable picture of my Grandparents. I took it at Thanksgiving.
They are wonderful, inspirational people to me.

Love you Grandma and Grandpa!!

Gold Nuggets

Found this one while browsing a friend's library this weekend-- thanks Wade!!!


From the chapter titled "Swords and Scabbards" in the book "The Power of Truth" by William George Jordan:

"The man who does not dare follow his own convictions, but who lives in terror of what society will say, falling prostrate before the golden calf of public opinion, is living an empty life of mere show. He is sacrificing his individuality, his divine right to live his life in harmony of his own high ideals, to a cowardly, toadying fear of the world. He is not a voice, with the strong note of individual purpose; he is but the thin echo of the voice of thousands. He is not brightening, sharpening and using the sword of his life in true warfare; he is lazily ornamenting a useless scabbard with the hieroglyphics of his folly.

Life is not a competition with others. In it's truest sense it is rivarly with ourselves. we should each day seek to break the record of our yesterday. We should seek each day to live stronger, better, truer lives; each day to master some weakness of yesterday; each day to repair past follies; each day to surpass ourselves. "