lalalazor

Important life lesson...

2008-11-12T16:52:52Z

Failure = learning

Aw yeah, I'm hott.

2008-09-18T16:56:13Z

It's one of my aspirations in life to be a missed connection on Craigslist. Here are the ones I'm watching for tonight.

Girl at the Library
The fact that it took you 10 minutes to figure out how new bookdrop works was absolutely endearing. And the way you jumped when it finally sucked your book in was adorable. Maybe we can get together sometime and reminisce over the old style hole-in-the-wall bookdrops.

Toyota Chick!
Your sexy green '94 Toyota combined with your wet black hair (at 11:30 in the morning!) compelled me to shout out the window of my car, "YOU'RE NOT MARRIED, ARE YOU?". You lied and said you were! Maybe you just didn't want to get into an altercation with the woman in my car that you mistakenly thought was my girlfriend. Maybe you were flustered by my wit and poise. Whatever it was, I won't hold it against you that you blurted out a lie about your marital status. Contact me and you can come clean.

Saw you at Sendik's
You: Goth chick with cool rings, OMG pwnies t-shirt, and romaine lettuce.
Me: The tall guy stocking the pumpkin display.
I can tell we have a lot in common. I, too, love Nintendo and My Little Ponies. Would you like to play Magic the Gathering sometime? Let me know!

Happy!

2008-05-22T19:34:40Z

The PICC line is out!

2 Short Stories

2008-05-04T16:42:20Z

#1

I was getting the 3rd of 21 daily doses (21 days, not 21 doses a day. That's just crazy talk!) of intravenous antibiotics this morning. I was sitting and reading and my arm was propped up on a pillow. I reached a pause in the book and I glanced at my arm just in time to see a bubble of air slide down the hose and disappear into my arm.

In times of great distress, I tend to freeze up while my mind races through all of the terrifying possibilities.* Air in my veins! Is my heart going to stop? There's got to be some kind of failsafe or something or people would die from IV's all the time. Maybe it's not a big deal. Am I going to die? How long will it take? A couple minutes? This afternoon? No. There's got to be some kind of valve or siphon or something to keep air out. I'm probably going to die. Shit.

By this time the nurse had disappeared to care for some other patients. I don't have a call button or anything and I'm attached to a machine that plugs into the wall, so I'm not going anywhere. Besides, what's she going to do? Suck the air back out? It's long gone now. A ticking time bomb waiting to explode my heart. For my own sanity I decided to believe that there had to be some sort of mechanism built into the PICC Line to prevent air from entering my veins. Yeah, that's it! Everything would be fine.

A couple of minutes later my bag of antibiotics emptied and the machine started beeping as normal. The nurse came to unhook me and flush the line. There are two hoses hanging out of me, a red one and a blue one and the medication all goes in through the blue one. When she flushes them she sucks a bit of fluid out with the syringe then injects saline. This time, when she sucked the stuff out of the red one I saw my good friend Air Bubble pop out. Turns out, that's what the red one is for.

The End

*Yes, I know, it was stupid not to have gotten the nurse right away. Like I said, I froze.

#2

As we were driving home from the hospital we saw 2 geese and a whole gaggle of baby geese crossing (and by "crossing", I mean "standing in the middle of") the road. I'm guessing one of the geese was the father. I had no idea that geese parent in pairs. I thought Dad just ran off to let Mom do all the work. Turns out I was wrong.

The End

I'd like a do-over

2008-04-24T18:23:37Z

I managed to embarrass myself within 30 seconds of getting out of bed today. I awoke to the sound of our back screen door opening. The dog started freaking out, and Roger was in the shower. I got up feeling kind of pissy and thinking that we got some sort of pamphlet from the Mormons or something, but I figured I'd better go see what was going on just in case someone was trying to break in through the back door in broad daylight. One never knows.

Keep in mind, I don't have my contacts in so I can't see a thing. I'm in my pajamas, my hair is all over the place, and I probably smell bad. Anyway, I open the back door, looking down to find the package or whatever it is, and there's a PERSON! I jumped about 10 feet in the air and actually yelped. Like a scared little girl. When I jumped, the lady at the door jumped too. She was probably trying to decide if I was going to try and kill her or if I was just going to run away. Then she was all like "I'm from the gas company! Here's my badge! See!" and she's waving the badge around like it's going to fend me off or something. Fun times! I started laughing and told her I hadn't heard her knock and she startled me. She told me she didn't knock, she rang the doorbell. Then I got to tell her the story of how the previous owners of the house took the doorbell when they left, hahaha! I'm not crazy! Really!

So she checked our gas meter for leaks, asked if she could see our dog (sure, he's huge and crazy, but if you really want!), and left. I went back to bed and tried not to die of mortification.

Progress

2008-04-03T03:42:30Z

I started lifting weights again today. It felt awesome.

Antibiotics

2008-03-11T22:42:28Z

I'm on antibiotics. Here's a picture of the pill I'm taking. I've included a penny for scale.

lalalazor @ 2008-01-16T09:51:00

2008-01-16T15:51:23Z

"Some days you wake up and immediately start to worry. Nothing in particular is wrong it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble."

Jenny Holzer

House: 6 billion, Us: 1

2008-01-08T19:39:06Z

Yesterday sucked. Today is on its way to sucking.

When I came home from work yesterday I looked down in the basement and there was a huge puddle of water at the base of the stairs. It was so unexpected that my mind couldn't process what was happening. I just stood there with a dumb look on my face while Roger, who somehow managed to figure out what was going on, ran into the basement to shut off the sump pump.

Here's what happened. It's so warm here that all the snow is melting. It's raining too, and the ground is so wet that it squishes when you walk on it. Our sump pump was working hard yesterday. Really hard. In fact, it was running constantly. Unfortunately it broke yesterday, and as it ran (constantly) it sprayed water out into the basement. The finished, carpeted basement.

We worked until 2 in the morning to move everything out of the basement and clean up all the water. We've got piles of stuff in our kitchen because we couldn't put anything wet on the hardwood floors in the rest of the house. We sucked water out of the carpet for hours. I'm still sucking water out of the floor today.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I also managed to get electrocuted. I still don't understand how that happened. I had been taking some stuff out to the garage and as I reached to shut the door my hand got electrocuted. Somehow the rails that the door travels on got charged and zapped me. It was about 5 minutes before I could unclench my fist. An hour later and I could finally feel all of my fingers.

I guess, in the end, we were pretty lucky. Nothing really got ruined except for one very outdated book. The water stopped short of our entertainment center, so all the expensive electronics are fine. The sump pump was fixed with a simple $1.75 part. (Why!!! Why didn't the previous owners just buy a new part instead of just taping it together, or whatever they thought they were doing! Why!) And there was only one electrocution despite the computers, lamps, extension cords and other electronics sitting in puddles of water.

Despite all the adversity, we did manage one small victory. This fall there was a corner of our basement where water was trickling in a bit. We extended one of the gutters hoping to carry water farther from that corner and it looks like it worked. It was one of the few spots in the basement that was bone dry.

I'm just a little frustrated.

2007-12-24T18:19:09Z

It's been a month (and a day) since I last posted, and I'm logging on now just so I can complain. Good times!

It's Christmas Eve. I was planning to do some quick web updates for work, then go to the grocery store (even though it's going to be a mad house) and clean the house. Right. In reality I've been working since 8:00 and still have about 3 hours of work to do because Dreamweaver is being a crazy bitch!*

So... I'm looking for a web design program that doesn't suck. I could just hand code everything, but I catch stupid mistakes much faster when I have the design view window. I also really like the autocomplete when I'm closing tags and things. Maybe I could try Coda? I'm open to suggestions. Anybody? ...Bueller?

*If you must know, I'm attempting to upload files to the site and Dreamweaver is convinced that random files on my computer have permission problems and/or don't exist. There are no permission problems. The files do exist. I can upload them with no problem using Fetch. Also, Dreamweaver is telling me that my css file uploaded when it clearly didn't. Where is my css file?! I hate you!

Finally!

2007-11-23T19:04:28Z

Guess what I got in the mail. Helvetica the Movie! Yay!

lalalazor @ 2007-11-15T18:00:00

2007-11-16T00:00:22Z

Here's my horoscope for today:

You may get bored with yourself these days because it can seem like everything is about work. Of course there's more going on in your life, but just keeping up with your responsibilities can take a lot out of you now. Don't try to make any big changes; for now, keeping up with your daily routine is enough.

If only I was actually keeping up with my daily routine.

A list of all the things I've been in order to make money.

2007-10-31T16:36:59Z

Babysitter, dog poop picker upper, data entry person, day care worker, old person aide, copy shop monkey, photo studio assistant, university slide collection archivist, photographer, graphics assistant, musician, graphic designer, web designer.

She didn't make it.

2007-10-27T17:29:43Z

When Leeloo came home last night she was awake, but still pretty lethargic from the anesthesia. The vet told me to keep her in her travel cage with a hot water bottle, to offer her water and honey every couple of hours, and to keep a close eye on her. I was really worried, but she seemed to be getting a bit better every time I checked on her. At about 10:30 I refilled her hot water bottle, and offered her some honey, which she took. She was wriggling around a bit and she actually bruxed at me. She was seeming a bit more like herself. Comforted, I set the alarm for midnight and went to bed.

I woke up a little before the alarm went off and went to check on her, but it was too late. She was gone.

My heart is broken. I don't know what went wrong, and I can't help feeling that I failed her somehow. I knew this was a possibility, but I certainly wasn't ready for it.

We buried her this morning. It was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time. I can only hope that she knows I did my best for her, despite what happened, and I hope she knows I'm sorry that she suffered like that. I'm sorry I made what turned out to be the wrong decision.

Leeloo (or Leelow as the vet techs like to call her)

2007-10-26T21:17:20Z

The vet called. He says she's doing great. I'll be picking her up at 5:30.

A post about my dog.

2007-10-04T19:05:08Z

Leo's been having some trouble in obedience classes. He's great practicing at home or at the park, but when we've been in class he's stubborn and squirrely and completely distracted. It's frustrating, but I'm ok with it because he's still very young and I don't really care how he acts in class as long as he behaves at home.

Anyway, yesterday was our last night in the basic class. They had us do a review of all the things we had learned, a sort of final exam, and I braced myself for the inevitable appearance of psycho dog. As soon as we started heeling he did his usual excited jumping around, but then he settled in and heeled like a pro. He's even started to listen to the instructor. When she calls out "right turn!" he'll react faster than I do and bump me to the right. If she calls out "about turn!" he'll cut in front of me. Not that pushing me around is technically correct heeling, but it's progress.

So then we worked on come and front a little bit, which he has down. Then we worked on a finish from a front which starts with your dog sitting in front of you facing you. When you tell him to heel he walks to your left, turns around, and sits on your left facing the same direction as you. A little challenging, but I figured it wouldn't be too tough. My dog's smart.

So they teach you to do this by grabbing your dog's collar and basically dragging him where you want him to go. Leo has issues with being dragged around by his collar, so in the past the exercise would go like this. I say heel and calmly reach for his collar, he senses something's up so he shifts all his weight to his hindquarters and starts going limp (I call this the toddler maneuver). I grab his collar and start dragging him around and he starts gnawing on my hands or the leash or my clothing, whatever he can get his mouth on. By this time I'm too engrossed in my own dog to look, but I'm imagining all the other dogs calmly sitting in a perfect heel position while every single human in the class rolls their eyes at me and my dog. I harden my heart and keep dragging and he starts flailing his legs around and rolling on the ground. So now the leash is tangled around all his limbs and I begin the slow process of disentangling everything while simultaneously being chewed on by my own dog. Once he's untangled I make him heel with me in a circle. When I stop he stops next to me and sits. Good dog! Then I wipe the drool off my arms and pretend like nothing happened. What? He's sitting in the right spot, isn't he? Who cares how he got there!

Yeah. That wasn't working out, so I've been teaching him at home with treats and it's actually been going really well. He did it in class last night when I asked (which I really wasn't expecting), so we didn't have to wrestle each other. It was a nice change.

In fact, he did everything really well last night. When I said "down" he hit the deck rather than sniffing the ground, chewing some grass, and then slowly sinking down and carefully hovering so his elbows don't touch the ground and then popping right back up again. When I told him to stay, he held his stay even when the instructor walked past with a squeaky toy. He didn't even break his stay when a bunch of dogs from the off-leash class got loose. He barked and growled, but he stayed where he was. It was amazing, and I was super proud of him.

At the end of the night we got a little diploma and on Sunday we start the next level of classes. He'll probably revert back to psycho dog, but I'm going to allow myself a little glimmer of hope.

A Question

2007-09-19T15:59:20Z

If you bought a loaf of bread and within 24 hours it was covered in mold, would you go back to the store and complain?

Geeking Out

2007-08-28T20:33:01Z

Guess what, y'all! Helvetica the Movie is coming out on DVD in November. Hooray!

The Trials and Tribulations of Buying a House - or - We're Never Doing this Again

2007-06-21T16:42:57Z

The first house we tried to buy scarred me for life. After our offer was accepted we started picking out paint colors and talking about the things we'd plant in the yard. We figured out where all our furniture would go. We were so sure we'd get the house that we even adopted a puppy! Then we had the inspection and everything fell through. The seller, for whatever reason, wouldn't take care of the (extensive) problems and decided to take the house off the market.

We lost a substantial amount of money. The money we paid for the general home inspection, and the inspections by several specialists, lost vacation time and my lost wages because of all the time we spent out at the house, and worst of all, the lost interest rate on the mortgage. Rate locks are specific to the home (something our lender neglected to tell us, and something that lost them our business). By the time we found the second house, rates went up by .5 to .75 percent. That's a hell of a lot of money on a 30 year mortgage.

So, even though we found another house, Roger and I had been keeping pretty quiet about it unless someone asked a direct question. We refused to take boxes home and start packing, and we absolutely would not discuss things like paint color or furniture placement. I figured if we got too cocky the house would burst into flame and collapse while being devoured by termites. While we watched the house burn we'd get a call from our broker letting us know that our loan had been denied, but he had good news! We were approved for $8,000 dollars, which is more than enough for a modest yurt and a plot of land in Siberia.

Thankfully, none of that happened. The inspection showed no serious problems other than a small roof repair and the fact that we'll need the roof replaced in the next year or two. We talked with the sellers and they agreed to take half the price of the roof replacement off the price of the house, which made us quite happy. On Tuesday everything fell into place when our loan was officially approved. We did a happy dance. We took boxes home from work to start packing. We picked out paint colors and we checked out a book from the library about restoring old cape cods. We close next Tuesday!

Things I love that I sort of (but don't really) feel guilty about.

2007-04-19T16:23:09Z

Skipping work on the first real day of spring
Playing video games for 8 hours straight
Leaving dirty dishes on the counter for a week
Poking my rats on their bellies
Long hot showers
Dessert
Cheese
Sleeping late

A Dramatic Reading

2007-04-08T16:59:10Z

This is the best

I Am a Nerd

2007-03-21T19:11:14Z

I would like to see a movie about a font. Helvetica, to be specific. All I need is a plane ticket to one of the far away cities where there is a screening.

Helvetica is the ideal typeface in many ways. It's like the color blue, it can be neutral, it can be bright and full of personality, it can be cold or it can be warm. It's whatever you want it to be. A documentary about it would be fascinating to see.

Stuff

2007-03-16T03:23:04Z

Before I start... dude! Where is the goat! Ok. Anyway.

I know I'm late to the party here, but I hate hate hate Internet Explorer. Is it too much to ask that a browser be standards compliant? I'd like to use some CSS here! And maybe a couple of transparent pngs! I had things working in Firefox and Safari and Opera in less than 20 minutes, but then it took me the rest of the day to write stupid crappy Internet Explorer hacks. Whatever Bill Gates. You suck.

Good Deed

2007-03-08T14:38:13Z

Today I taught a techy how to set the clock on his microwave.

The hardest part of these entries is picking a subject.

2007-02-24T22:16:17Z

I keep opening this here livejournal page meaning to write something, but I always end up just sitting here staring at the screen. Things I've been meaning to write about include but are not limited to:

Puppies
Headaches
Losing 30 lbs and the resulting body dysmorphia
Quitting my crappy job
What I've learned about food lately
Guitar Hero
Blah
Blah

But I'm not going to write about any of that right now because I'm not a very good livejournaler.