Anniversaries of a sort

Today marks 7 years since I started at my 1st big-time employer. It is an interesting anniversary of sorts. I'm now 2 jobs away and probably happier career wise than I've ever been. It just took a few years of...major frustration...to earn some stripes and create the kind of career that started making me happy. Mostly. Still, I can reflect on my time in big 5 with a lot of fondness and humor. And, it helps me look forward to where I want to go...I still have a lot ahead of me. Also, I've made a month and a half with the current company. And I'm loving it. Yea! It makes life much happier to actually enjoy your work AND employer.

Another anniversary is John's bday. Tomorrow he'll be 37. This weekend his mom came out to Chicago to surprise him for his 37th birthday. We had a great time surprising John by going out to his cousin Laura & Chad's house for the dinner/night. John didn't have any idea his mom was going to be there - so the surprise part was a success. We had a fun time - and John's godparents were there, too, which was very fun. This is Emma and myself spending time with the dogs. Emma was great learning how to make the pups sit/lay down/shake/high five. She loves animals - which clearly shows in how much she loves spending time with Ella & Tycho. Barb also enjoyed seeing the granddogs. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed her time with us, too, though I feel bad because we drug her to about 10 hardware stores looking for the perfect lighting fixtures. Barb was a trooper and we had a great time. Barb also helped advise on the wall color (Ralph Lauren's Linconshire Olive) and on my choice of fingernail polish (OPI's "Romeo and Joliet" looks too black). It was a bonding and educational time.

The other chaos in my life right now- renovating the condo and LSAT class- both seem to be at a peak. The kitchen is completely impassable as we're waiting for the stain/finish to dry on the floor. The wall between the kitchen and dining room was demolished and a hole is sitting there waiting to be filled with cabinetry and a granite breakfast bar. It actually looks really great - I can't wait for it to all come together. We should get appliances on Friday and granite on Saturday! Yea! Order returns! My oven currently is sitting next to the front door...and the fridge is in the dining room. It's just a mess. Don't even get me started on the master bath- cause it's not pretty. It's one big war zone. Suffice it to say that concrete/tile technique of the mid 20th century is...quite...thick...and hard to remove. I look forward to the pretty finished bathroom I have pictured in my head... (Gracias a Marco, Luis y Juan por todo el trabajo).

LSAT prep goes fine- I am delaying until February. I plan to study more (ha?) and take the class over again to reinforce all of the theory. I have found I love the logic games, hate the logical reasoning...and I get very tired by 10pm. I am old.

Tonight I skipped the 2nd half of the class (it was a "jam" session and not an actual lesson...) and did a couple things in anticipation of John's bday...and now I'm sitting in the guest bedroom spending with the dogs. This room is now their doggie jail until the condo is complete. Tycho is pacing around- Ella is sitting under me and is shivering. Ah, dogs. Update: now Tycho is chewing on Ella's front legs....now he's making some sort of head shaking maneuver. now he is boxing. now he's eating fish food. Now he's trying to get in my lap. Back to chewing Ella.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I may post again soon- my parents will be in town for a couple nights, with brother in tow. Should be a good turkey day for all parties involved...as long as I actually have a real kitchen in time. Stay tuned.

PS- thanks again to Barb for the weekend...and for the photos. You were so fun to have here...and you've made my blog more interesting thanks to the pics.

Shelfari Sucks

See below for the text of an email I sent out to all of my contacts in my gmail account. (If you are reading this, you probably got this email...). I joined Shelfari and thought I was inviting a few friends to the site. It has a feature similar to Linkedin that allows you to see all of the contacts you have already in the site. Except, when you invite those friends, you will also invite ALL of the contacts in your email box unless you catch it.

I am incredibly frustrated and also embarrassed I fell for it AND it sent to all of my email contacts. All of them. Business, friends, frenimies, Amazon.com customer service...AGHHH. How very frustrating.

------------------------------------------

Good morning,

I apologize for the emails you may have received inviting you to join "Shelfari" from me. I received an invitation earlier this week and joined with the intent to invite a few of my friends with whom I discuss books. Instead, Shelfari invited all of my email contacts.

Shelfari offers a "friend friend" service which imports your email address book to a) determine who else of your email contacts is on Shelfari and b) help you invite those who aren't. This is similar to other networking sites, so I took them up on this. It found a couple of my friends who were signed up and I clicked on the "invite friends" button before realizing it had imported my entire gmail address book and it was sending to ANY and ALL of my email contacts.

At the time I was embarrassed and horrified. I do not appreciate random forwards or invites, I don't believe anyone does. I consoled myself thinking "No terrible harm done, one email is generally forgettable and perhaps I'll reconnect with some people."

Then yesterday, it came to my attention that a "friendly reminder" was sent on my behalf for anyone who had not signed up for the service. Shelfari began to spam on my behalf. I am personally mortified. I had no idea they would begin to spam ALL of the contacts in my email.

Therefore, I write this email as an apology and a warning. I apologize for the emails from Shelfari. It was not my intent to spam, and hopefully this will be the last email on the subject. If you do sign up for Shelfari, do not choose the "find friend" option without "deselecting all." This was a sneaky trick on Shelfari's part and I fell for it. Please google "Shelfari spam" for more information if you are interested.

Again, my apologies.

Regards,

Kimberly

FYI: To protect yourself and prevent any future Shelfari invitations, go to http://www.shelfari.com/actions/emailoptout.aspx.

We'll make great pets

Many of you are familiar with my two beloved dogs Tycho and Ella. I have posted a couple times about my freakish and lovely goldfish. I have recently added 18 pets to my condo. 17 of them are fish and one of them is a vacuum cleaner.

The 17 fish are community tropical fish- some betas, a pleco, a flying fox and some tetras. They are very cool and I love them. I picked them up last week and have been watching them every night which very quickly puts me to sleep. They are a lively bunch but peaceful, and I don't believe anyone is eating anyone else, which is very important.

The vacuum cleaner is Roomba. I love Roomba. If I ever become a professional athlete, I would court Roomba's sponsorship. If you want a pet but don't want the mess of a dog or cat, get a Roomba! I got Roomba thanks to my friend Emily- who was extolling the virtues of her Roomba which she bought off of woot.com. She emailed me a couple weeks ago saying Roomba was on Woot...so I emailed John to confer about buying one. We bought one. And now, I don't have to vacuum anymore. Instead, I turn on Roomba and he* does it for me. So, right now, Roomba is cleaning my dining room. Yea! I love robots!

As for me & life...this week was stressful but ended well. My job is awesome. I am so glad to be out of G and into consulting again. Seriously. I couldn't be happier working for a client, having the satisfaction that I'm doing good work for them and then getting feedback that I am delivering what they want from me. Yea to consulting.!

The LSAT prep is going well. I should be studying right now, but I spilled water all over my lesson 1 and 2 books. So- I'm letting it dry a bit and then back to logic. The class is really breaking my brain and how I tend to think- so I find myself doing this:

If you are Ella, you hate Roomba.
If you are Roomba, you hate dirt.
Therefore, if you are Ella, you hate dirt.

This doesn't actually work because Ella loves dirt and rolling in it...but according to the LSAT logic...I think this is correct...at least I hope.

John is in CO- things are going well for him...more on that front later. I should go check on Roomba - it is beeping at me. And I should go check on Ella. She hates Roomba so she is sequestered in the back bedroom. Otherwise she chases and bites Roomba...funny to watch, not so efficient for cleaning my floors.

-kksw

*This is very important. Emily is of the firm belief that Roombas have genders, and hers is male. After watching mine a couple times...I have to agree.

I'm writing posts. Readers, where'dya go?

So, I've been posting like a madwoman. Especially compared to the first few months of this blog. But...I'm guessing from lack the of traffic, comments from friends, emails from family and paparazzi outside my door that I have an audience of maybe 2. And that would be me checking my own witticisms at work when I'm bored and Courtney. Hi Courtney! Miss you!

So - a coupla comments tonight. Firstly, Baptiste Yoga nearly killed me tonight. I didn't realize I could sweat quite that much. I need to replenish, replenish, replenish. I may not pee for a week.

Secondly, check this: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html. Lifting directly from the article "Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work." So Wired asked a bunch of authors to do the same. I am now trying to come up with a story for the title of my goodbye email. (See ya later, I'm outta heeeerrreeee...Woman returns to mountains, less oxygen...Yes, I'd leave regardless, shouldn't you?...Don't love a job, love yourself....)

Thirdly, things going on at work are really...crazy...and just goes to show how little you can trust corporations. I learned this lesson less than a year after I started working as a corporate stevedore when my beloved company laid off most of my friends, and this was less than a month after 9/11. I know I am about to start working for yet another corporation, albeit this one is much smaller. However, my suspicions are confirmed, you can only trust yourself in the corporate world and you should never, ever sacrifice yourself or time with family for a money making machine. The machine doesn't care. Ever.

I'd like to close this on a happy note...with a little shout out to Boxer Rebound. If it wasn't for the wonderful people at Boxer Rebound, we wouldn't have our sweet, handsome boy Tycho.

If you are in Chicagoland, Illinois or southern Wisconsin, and you're considering a dog, or know someone who is considering a dog - please check them out. They will match a dog with your living situation, with your personality, with the personalities of your other pets and possibly with the personalities of the other pets you are considering. They have hearts of gold and are saints to do the work they do. Personally speaking, my life was pretty good before but has become incredibly enriched with my boxer boy.

Just look how HANDSOME he is! (Not to mention goofy, lovable, patient, stubborn, hilarious...just the best!)

Have a great rest of your week. Oh, and Happy Autumn!

Outside looking in?

Just finished watching The Devil and Daniel Johnston a fascinating documentary about an outsider artist/musical genius (?) plagued with mental illness and unrequited love...which has me thinking again about outsider art and what makes a person an outsider or an insider in the art and music world...and also checking out Daniel on iTunes...the most interesting cover of his music was performed by the Eels...quite fitting. E gives it the best of his gravely, haunting voice. In fact, as I was watching the movie, I kept coming up with different artists I wanted to hear covering his music. Don't get me wrong, Daniel does a fine job...but his voice can get a bit...tiring...even it is part of his genius.

So, then, outsider art...had me thinking about late greats like Wesley Willis and Henry Darger (both Chicagoans) who were appreciated more after their deaths than before. I was browsing the Daniel Johnston website and was looking at the art, half serious about purchasing just based on how much his art may appreciate in the future. But then...do I like it enough to hang on my walls? Is it art?

It's just an interesting question - one that I know there are phds and curators and collectors will all "answer"...what is art, what makes it outsider, and how is talent really defined...or does talent have to even be there for it to be art? What gives it that edge that helps it leap from drawing on notebook paper to $1200 masterpiece. What makes someone like Willis, Darger, Johnston or Tiny Tim an acceptable commodity?

Anyway...after some time on iTunes listening while contemplating outsider musicians...I would recommend checking out the "Outsider Music" collection on iTunes...and introducing yourself to my new favorite - the Langley School Music Project. Super surreal to hear them singing Space Oddity...

And, speaking of outside...we had a building yard sale this weekend! We sat outside for 2 days selling all of our crap at crazy discount prices. John and I made enough to pay for a movie and 2 dinners this weekend. 25% of proceeds were donated to our building...we raised over $100...enough to pay our electric bill for a month. Thanks to the neighbors who participated for making it a success. We're looking to return again in a month to sell some of John's outsider art he keeps housed in Indiana...and by outsider art I mean t-shirts and old frying pans...and maybe this little hooligan....