508 compliance has never looked this goodThis is my brain..... in part, at least.

Friday, July 24, 2009


I'll endure the rain / I will wait an hour more
 

  1. Daycare crisis resolved. Yay! We found a school that looks like it may be a better fit for us, and is way cheaper (which was surprising). They (by what can only be the grace of God) had *1* spot in their infant room. All of the other good places were full, or even had waiting lists (I was told at one school they would have room for a 6-month old in February. Which is more than 6 months from now). So we're very glad it worked out. There was much stress in the interim.
  2. Tonight is Parents Night Out. So Chad and I are going out, sans baby, who will be in good company with other little children. No clue what we're going to do yet - dinner or something? At the very least, we're going to go somewhere and pretend that we are real people and not worry about the stroller or when the baby ate last or if she's getting fussy (unless she's so fussy they call us to get her). That's the plan, anyway.
  3. Tomorrow is scrapbooking day again. Yay for getting out! We'll see how much I get done (I need to print more pictures...)
  4. It looks like our insurance will pay for the leaky windows. So yay for that... now we just have to get the work done. And figure out how to do it while still living in the house, since we'll pretty much need to rebuild the back wall of the house. Lucky for me, Chad gets to deal with the logistics of all that.
  5. I watched The Watchmen this week. I don't know what I expected, but that sure wasn't it... at the end of the movie? I still wasn't sure exactly what the point of it was, or who was a good guy and who was a bad guy. Or if there even were good guys and bad guys. And what was up with Dr. Manhattan's super-anatomically-correct nakedness? Anyway. It was ok, but not really great. Maybe if I read the graphic novel or something, it would have made more sense.
  6. I found out this week that not only did the guy who plays Jim Brass on CSI have a bit part Mrs. Doubtfire... he was also in 3 Men and a Baby, and a ton of other random stuff. imdb.
  7. Leverage is in it's new season, and I think it's just as good (or maybe better?) than last season. Funny stuff - when I have time for TV :-)
For more 7 quick takes posts, go to Conversion Diary.

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posted by Deedee 1:16 PM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008


He can settle any sea / But it doesn't mean He will
 
It's amazing how life can be so crazy that you can barely stand it, and are stressing about every little thing... and one more thing happens (like, say, you have to evacuate the city because you're pregnant and they locked the freakin' hospital doors)... and suddenly, for some reason, everything is ok. I mean, everything is on its head, but suddenly I'm ok with it.

So here's what happened. My dad was in the hospital, I was stressing about going home, and then my Granny broke her hip and went into the hospital. I was pretty stressed about everything, and just barely managing to hold it together. About an hour after I heard about my Granny (this was Wednesday night)... They announced the evacuation orders for my county, excluding Pearland itself. After some looking, I found out that our "voluntary" evacuation for Ike meant (among other things) that the hospitals were locking their doors. So, Chad and I decided to leave, with no great idea where we were going to go. I slept that night, drove to my office to grab my computer, and spent the rest of the day trying to help Chad get the house ready to leave. We left about 5pm, after boarding most of the windows, and packing the animals, our photos, and enough clothes to last us through Sunday.

Monitoring the traffic leaving Houston, everything to the north and west was close to gridlocked. So... we headed east down I-10. Other than two pretty serious traffic jams due to accidents (slowing us an hour each time), the traffic wasn't that bad at all. Although it was extremely difficult to find a drive through place that wasn't closed and boarded up.

We started looking for a hotel room in Baton Rouge, which was a lost cause, really. We headed north up I-55, and when we got to Jackson without finding a hotel, we gave up. Chad and I took turns driving and sleeping, and we made it into Southaven about 6am on Friday morning. Crazy stuff.

Friday, we slept a little, ate Abner's, then went to the hospital so that some people Chad's mom works with could give me an ultrasound, which was awesome. They did both 2d and 3d ultrasounds, and got some great pictures of the little one moving about, sucking its thumb, and being difficult by covering its face. It was really cool, and made the trip pretty worthwhile.

Saturday, we got up early and drive to Huntsville, and visited both my Dad and my Granny. We had a good visit, and Daddy seem to be doing a little better. He's walking without a cane, and he was really glad to see us (and the baby). That night, we headed back to Southaven, intending to leave for home in the morning. But once we arrive in Southaven, we discovered that we could not go home. I-10 was blocked in places, and the authorities told us to stay where we were. We knew Pearland was hit kind of hard (friends lost a great deal of their roof), but that our house was at least intact, and not leaking through the roof.

So we sat back and tried to enjoy the "vacation". Each day, we made plans to come home the next day... but between the roads and the authorities, we didn't get to come home until Thursday. I ended up working remotely some, to keep from getting to far behind, but JSC was closed the entire week.

When we got home, we saw first hand how our house fared... we lost our fence (half the neighborhood did as well), and our shed (with the grill and everything in it), and (we discovered later) a little water got in around the windows on the back of the house. This may mean replacing all the windows and the back door, and replacing all or part of the drywall/insulation in the bedroom (and maybe part of the carpet). But overall, we didn't fare too bad. We have power, water, and gas, so we're all good. We even have groceries at the store, finally.

Traffic, however, sucks. My 45 minute commute has morphed into a 2 hour commute. But since that's my biggest complaint, besides finding contractors to fix the house, I can totally survive.

And I'm far less stressed about everything else, and more centered, which makes entirely no logical sense. But I'm enjoying it, while it lasts. :-)

Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace be still
He can settle any sea
But it doesn't mean He will
Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child
~Sometimes He Calms the Storm, Scott Krippayne

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posted by Deedee 2:24 PM
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006


New Homeowners
 
So since my last post:
  1. Chad and I bought a house. We are now the proud owners of a gianormous house, plus the gianormous mortgage payments to go with it.
  2. We started moving. Sort of. As in, we can't finish moving until we have Intar-Web at the new place, which will be like, Saturday.
  3. Steve Irwin died, which was sad. (I hope the american media leaves his family alone for a while).
  4. They finally annouced the date/time that the evanescence tickets for houston go on sale. (ironically, it when I should be at the new house waiting on the cable guy. Chad can take first shift waiting, I guess, whilst I sit on ticketmaster until they start selling).
  5. I bought the most awesomest china cabinet eVar at a garage sale for $75.
  6. I convinced Chad to let me paint a wall in the living room. I bought awesome blue paint for the wall... and should maybe start painting tomorrow, assuming I can find a suitable ladder (didn't think about the whole 9-foot ceiling thing ahead of time).


That is all. I mean, I'm sure it's not, but I have to be up in like, 6 hours. So it is for now.

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posted by Deedee 10:03 PM
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Friday, August 11, 2006


Life, the Universe and Everything
 
So I have a great deal of extra time today. at work. (Not that I haven't done work... I just finished a task that I originally told my boss would have to wait until September when I come back). I hate killing time at work.

I finish up here Friday, August 18th. And I have Orientation starting Wednesday, August 23rd. Classes start Monday, August 28th. And we close on the house September 1st. And I come back here part time somewhere around September 12th.

So between now and when I finish up here, I have a few (mostly superficial) loose ends, project wise, to tie up. Between now and orientation I need to buy a backpack (the laptop carryin' kind), buy other misc school supplies, buy some more shoes, get my hair cut (trimmed), and maybe get my nails done. Between now and when the house closes, Chad and I need to pack like mad. Between when the house closes and when I start work I have to finish as much moving as possible while still attending clases and putting in the required number of research hours. And between now and when I start work, I need to retrain myself to sleep less, get up at 6am, and put in 12-13 hour days.

Seriously, this working part time thing... I honestly don't know how people manage to work and go to school at the same time. I mean, my brother does it, and other people I know do it, and most of them manage to keep good grades and stuff... but I'm just not sure where the time comes from, y'know? I drafted my work/school schedule, tenatively based on the classes I want to take. It involves me leaving the hosue at 7am, and getting home between 6:30 and 7:30 (unless I have a doctor's appointment, or these's too much traffic, in which case I'll have to put in some extra time somewhere...). So basically, I'm going to have around 3 1/2 to 4 hours every night to 1)Do homework, 2) cook and eat dinner, and 3) do any other activity that I would normally accomplish on the weekends (spend time with my husband, go to karate, play DDO). Yeah.

oh yeah, pictures of the house, without carpet (it has carpet now, but we don't have pictures of it).

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posted by Deedee 10:31 AM
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Thursday, July 20, 2006


Overview of a "typical" day...
 
So since I never have anything interesting to blog about, I thought I'd outline a typical day so that you people know what I do all day (you know, the stuff that's too boring to blog about).

Sometime between 5am and 6:30am (depending on how ambitious I am being), my alarm goes off. I hit it about a hundred and fifty times before getting up, because it's really hard to get out of the most comfortable bed in the world. I end up actually out of bed between 6am and 7:30am (typically, closer to 7 or 7:30). I try and find something semi-professional to wear to work (why doesn't the laundry wash itself?!)... let the dogs out... stumble into the kitchen and make sammichs. Two sammichs, one for me and one for Chad. Both with low fat cheese and lean lunch meat (because we're trying to eat healthy or something). I pack the rest of my lunch (fruit, yogurt, and propel fitness water), and somehow manage to grab a muffin or some other kind of vaugely healthy breakfast food while running out the door.

I drive. For like, an hour. And listen to an audio book (just finished: "Blink: the power of thinking without thinking", by Malcolm Gladwell). Then I finially get to work.

After having to show or swipe my badge three times at three different places (I mean really... you would think we were military or something), I make it to my office... And sit down at my computer. Where I stay, working dilegently, for you know, 8 hours or so. Currently, I'm working on a variety of projects that include icons, gui components, and trying to make sense of way too much source code written by way too many different people. Interestingly enough, one of my projects has generated enough interest that I'll be making presentations on it to two different groups of people in the next month. Typically, I eat lunch at my desk, because I think it's stupid to burn an hour on lunch when I'm eating a sammich by myself anyway.

Then I drive. For like, an hour. And listen to an audio book. (next week: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleline L'Engle).

I get home and let the dogs out and cook dinner (why don't the dishes wash themselves?!)... typically, we finish eating dinner just in time to go to karate or go sign on to the computers and roleplay. Unless it's Monday or Friday, when we either end up watching a movie or finding some other way to totally waste time.

Then I try and go to bed. I have the best of intentions of going to bed at like, 10pm, but I hardly ever manage that. I make it to bed between 11pm and midnight...

So yeah. I am totally blogging from work right now, because if I didn't blog from work, I would never be able to blog.

I have still only logged like, 10 hours on Kingdom Hearts II, which makes me sad. I played for an hour and a half the other night while Chad was playing Civ 4 with Brian, and all I really accomplished was making my thumbs hurt. *sigh*

This weekend, our time will be taken up by lusting after the house we want, and watching Clerks (on DVD on Friday night) and Clerks II (in the theater on Saturday).

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posted by Deedee 3:14 PM
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Thursday, July 13, 2006


Interfaces, Internships, and... Houses?
 
If HCI had an equivalent to X-Games, this project would be part of it. Ultimate HCI... move the computer into the brain!

So my intership is going amazingly well, considering the fact that I don't think I've really accomplished much. Everyone else thinks I have accomplished a lot, and I suppose that's what counts. I'm giving a presentation to upper level management the first week in August on my work with Common Components, and I have the potential to keep this job in some form or another during the school year. Which would be cool, but might actually require me to, I don't know, move to a planet with 30 hour days.

And we're thinking of buying a house. Torn, actually, between buying something sensible and, you know, cheap... and buying the house we really want. We're looking at about a $50k difference between the two, which is, interestingly enough, the price of a 2007 Shelby Mustang GT500. (not that we could get both... I'm just saying is all). We should figure something out, pretty shortly, I hope. The possibility of continueing my internship has changed the situation some... So yeah. Decisions are more complicated when you are a grown-up, I guess.

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posted by Deedee 11:35 AM
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Thursday, January 19, 2006


*Happy Dancing*
 
For several reasons. One, I got a second onsite interview with the company I interviewed with on Monday. And completed a second phone interview with another company.

Two, we live in a house, not an apartment, so I can listen to angsty girl music much louder before the neighbors hear (I think all our neighbors work, too... since we don't own this house our names didn't get added to the "new faces in the neighborhood" section of the homeowners newsletter, I guess they don't have to talk to us or something).

Three, the moving company is paying for the stuff they broke (theoretically, anyway), and we should be able to like, set up the office, and wash clothes and stuff, in a couple of weeks.

But right now, I'm going to go pick up my dry cleaning, and maybe go look for a black blazer at the mall (Kohls didn't have any in my size).

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posted by Deedee 3:49 PM
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Sunday, August 28, 2005


 
I'm tired. But life is pretty good right now... guess it evens out.

So Chad's taking the job in Houston (in case there's like, anyone left who hasn't heard). We move to Houston officially in January (right after the new year). Yay! Having a job means we'll have money ... not that we're going to buy a bunch of stuff with it, in theory. it'll just be nice to know we aren't broke, and be able to actually start some kind of retirement or something. Or buy me a new Shelby Mustang. Or something like that. ;-)

So yeah. We'll have insurance, too. Yay!

Not sure what I'm going to do when we get out there. My choices look something like htis at the moment: go back to school for a PhD in CS; go back to school for a MS/PhD in Psychology; get a job teaching; get a job programming; or take up watching soap operas and eating bonbons.

We get to go out to Houston and look for a house at some point... I think in October. not sure if we're buying or renting yet... so many decisions.

Alanis is awesome. Just in case you wondered.

School is great this semester, although I have a huge amount of work to do. I htink graduating should be less work than the rest of school, but it's not. I still have to schedule my comps and stuff, so they'll give me my dimploma. *sigh*

Anyway. I might be called to go and socialize here in a few minutes... when the vampires are done vampiring. although my socializing will probably be cut short, as everyone here will be drinking, and I don't know enough people in the group to really feel like drinking. That, and I'm dead tired. one drink would put me out like a light ;-)

Hopefully, this will publish, and I'll be able to post again soon.

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posted by Deedee 12:11 AM
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