girl at large

What Have I Done?

Some days, there's just no escaping the feeling that I've made a huge mistake.

X-hell

I took an all-day Excel class today, and loved it. Not that I love Excel--that stuff was written by the devil--but I loved learning to understand it. We work with a beast of a spreadsheet at work for quoting (hundreds of parts, hundreds of parts, hundreds of parts, hundreds of parts, hundreds of parts) and every time I opened it, a part of my brain would physically explode. When the garish colors, non-sensical math symbols and endless rows of gibberish came up on the screen I could feel a slippery cheese curd chunk of my brain splurt against the side of my skullbone in protest. Not to mention the faint fluttering sound of my artistic soul struggling for air. Of course, the nic-fits probably contribute to this sensation, but I swear, that worksheet is the junkiest bit of business I've ever seen. Is it wrong to be itching to get to work to look at it now with educated eyes? And want to make more spreadsheets, more spreadsheets, more spreadsheets?

Worse Than Greek

I figured out, at last, what's been frustrating me at work about the flow, communication, data, information retrieval, order entry, etc...it's a PC world, and I'm a MAC! Excel. Ugh. Windows. Double Ugh. Blackberry. Ugh Ugh Ugh. Devices don't speak to each other, everything needs another ap that then needs a new ap to run...and the instructions are written in an assumptive tone, without a thought to the end user's frame of reference. Templates don't work on Blackberry, Great Plains won't email reports ....nothing is intuitive--there are rough seams everywhere. And it all takes twice as long to accomplish something half as useful. Not to mention taking twice as many people---it all breaks my golden work rule--Touch Something Once. (and only once!) HOW DO PEOPLE WORK THIS WAY?!?!?

330 West Diversey

I went to Chicago for an Easter Lunch with the Q's yesterday---the drive was fabulous, the sunshine and big blue sky a welcome change from Oregon's permanent haze. It would really perk me up, all that naturally-attained vitamin D, if I wasn't so damn tired from all the recent change. A vitamin can only do so much! The gathering was at MG and Kurt's new apartment in the 330 West Diversey building, where Mom used to live and where MaryGrace, Kurt and Patsy also lived once before. It was strange and comforting to be in such a familiar place. Grandma Mickey asked me how the new job was going: "I don't have a clue what I'm doing". Laughter. I had brought a little something for my cousin Andrew because it was his 13th birthday last time I was in town, and another same little something for my cousin Joe because he just picked his college, and a third little something because you never know if there'll be another kid there and well...you gotta be fair. There was a third kid there, a friend of Andrew's, so I gave her the gift--an iTunes card. She was at first perplexed, but then very pleased and thanked me. I shrugged and was relieved I had enough to pass around, even to the quiet kid I didn't know from Adam. It was an awkward moment for us both. An hour later I realized the grateful little girl was not a friend of Andrew's, but my own cousin Maddy!

Really?

Dad and Jamie came into town for a visit this weekend, and we had a great lunch together. Earlier in the week, I had joked with co-workers that for Dad's visit I'd just take him to Fleet Farm and then to Culver's for lunch--you know, hit all the hot spots. At lunch I mentioned this to Dad, and he said "Culver's is my favorite restaurant!" Really? Does Culver's really qualify as a 'restaurant'? Dad: "Sure it does, they have tables!"

The "To Do" List

You've got to see this! Mom is joining a yacht rally through the eastern Mediterranean. As she says, "Going down the Nile has always been on my list of things to do". On my list of things to do today? Clean some used file cabinets. Ah, the glamorous life of an adventurer.

Weather Is Our April Fools

This was the snow storm last weekend, and we're due for another tomorrow. Ah, April in the midwest!

Adventures in Turkey

Mom saw a Whirling Dervish. As a child, I thought that a 'Whirling Dervish' was an animal, perhaps related to the Tazmanian Devil. On her blog, Mom worries about tidying up before Marco arrives on the boat---she worries about keeping house in between photos of camels and dervishes and boats on a stormy Mediterranean sea. I suppose some things never change, despite an exotic locale.