new job title

so i think my new job title (as of february 9th) is "quality engineer..." okay actually i'm not certain what my new title is -- quality engineer of something to do with electronics - tee hee :)

wednesday and the livin' is easy...

morning! it's come to my attention that i haven't even blogged about my classes yet. there are a few reasons for this:

1. i thought i was moving to mexico last week - no seriously, but as it turns out, i'm not so much. it was an exciting notion though.

2. i've hardly been to class on account of the 8 INCHES of snow and ice (or glaze according to weather.com)

3. somehow, whenever i think i have several reasons, it really only turns out to be two.

anyway, back to the subject of my classes -- i have 2 this semester, one is performance measurement (20 page research paper, group project, take home exam) with the same professor from last semester who i really enjoy. the second class is systems engineering and i think a friend of mine put it best - "he's like the talking head." unfortunately, that class meets once a week for 3 hours. or maybe that's fortunate - up for debate.

did i mention there's ice and snow everywhere? if this keeps up, i'm building an igloo...

today's to-do

courtesy of my "bad girl's rage-a-day calendar"

"Work your image with bad girl style!

Create opportunities to be seen with the big players in your office. If the powers that be are walking down the hall, start walking with them (even if you're not going their way). Say in a loud, clear voice, 'Hi, you guys!' If they laugh, you laugh. If they stop, you stop. If they run, you run, too. When people see you hanging with the big shots, they'll think you're a big shot, too."

Girl Writing a Letter by William Carpenter

A thief drives to the museum in his black van. The night
watchman says Sorry, closed, you have to come back tomorrow.
The thief sticks the point of his knife in the guard's ear.
I haven't got all evening, he says, I need some art.
Art is for pleasure, the guard says, not possession, you can't
something, and then the duct tape is going across his mouth.
Don't worry, the thief says, we're both on the same side.
He finds the Dutch Masters and goes right for a Vermeer:
"Girl Writing a Letter." The thief knows what he's doing.
He has a Ph.D. He slices the canvas on one edge from
the shelf holding the salad bowls right down to the
square of sunlight on the black and white checked floor.
The girl doesn't hear this, she's too absorbed in writing
her letter, she doesn't notice him until too late. He's
in the picture. He's already seated at the harpsichord.
He's playing the G Minor Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti,
which once made her heart beat till it passed the harpsichord
and raced ahead and waited for the music to catch up.
She's worked on this letter for three hundred and twenty years.
Now a man's here, and though he's dressed in some weird clothes,
he's playing the harpsichord for her, for her alone, there's no one
else alive in the museum. The man she was writing to is dead --
time to stop thinking about him -- the artist who painted her is dead.
She should be dead herself, only she has an ear for music
and a heart that's running up the staircase of the Gardner Museum
with a man she's only known for a few minutes, but it's
true, it feels like her whole life. So when the thief
hands her the knife and says you slice the paintings out
of their frames, you roll them up, she does it; when he says
you put another strip of duct tape over the guard's mouth
so he'll stop talking about aesthetics, she tapes him, and when
the thief puts her behind the wheel and says, drive, baby,
the night is ours, it is the Girl Writing a Letter who steers
the black van on to the westbound ramp for Storrow Drive
and then to the Mass Pike, it's the Girl Writing a Letter who
drives eighty miles an hour headed west into a country
that's not even discovered yet, with a known criminal, a van
full of old masters and nowhere to go but down, but for the
Girl Writing a Letter these things don't matter, she's got a beer
in her free hand, she's on the road, she's real and she's in love.

googlisms

ever been to www.googlism.com? put in your name, or your company or school's name, etc. and see what the internet says about you - it's pretty amusing.

Googlism for: brianna

brianna is happy again
brianna is born
brianna is a little girl with an adorable personality
brianna is a standout student at university lab high school
brianna is experiencing distress
brianna is also studying piano with lisa zdechlik
brianna is a modern feminine form of brian
brianna is just so sweet and sexxxxy
brianna is 100% dependant on me
brianna is able to still walk and talk
brianna is the youngest of three children
brianna is the daughter of wealthy parents
brianna is in fourth grade this year
brianna is our beautiful little girl
brianna is the proprietress of blackthorne cottage
brianna is the kind of heroine i doubt existed in the twelfth century
brianna is the perfect match for the sweet and gallant roger
brianna is going to be 8 in september 2002
brianna is a big help
brianna is now 4 1/2 and in preschool
brianna is 43" tall
brianna is on the school honor roll and likes to read and relax
brianna is up and ready to go with her smiles
brianna is too proud to ask labelle for help and instead sells most of her possessions at a yard sale
brianna is looking for a rest
brianna is now up to 4pounds 10ounces
brianna is in turn followed by roger and even more gabaldonesque trials and tribulations follow
brianna is doing very well
brianna is my most difficult daughter
brianna is dressed she has stopped crying and is sucking contentedly on a pacifier
brianna is in trouble
brianna is special to me
brianna is improving so much
brianna is the most guilty party
brianna is 3 years 10 months old
brianna is in therapy so she can learn to use her right eye again
brianna is very excited about being a big sister
brianna is a stunningly beautiful young woman in her early 20's
brianna is a very happy 3 years old
brianna is the daughter of a lesser king just conquered by henry ii
brianna is traveling to her aunt and uncle
brianna is still awaiting fda approval for gene therapy to continue
brianna is and always has been a very hard working person
brianna is a santa rosa native
brianna is adorable
brianna is not eligible to receive any psychological treatment for the duration of her time in jail
brianna is very inquisitive
brianna is the one with the attitude? brianna
brianna is an 8 year old from mcveytown pa
brianna is not pressured by her parents to excel in sports or school activities
brianna is a gymnast
brianna is returned to her father because of these organizations' campaigns
brianna is interested in the unfair segregation of students with disabilities
brianna is a typical wasp seen at any country club
brianna is more calm and collected
brianna is silly
brianna is a lot older than i
brianna is supposed to be young
brianna is able to
brianna is a serious student
brianna is from australia and has lived in kuala kencana since october
brianna is here
brianna is" leave the quote marks and replace brianna with your own name
brianna is fairly shouting
brianna is now getting her start in the tsrc
brianna is a beautiful young 23 year old girl with long blond hair and brown eyes
brianna is excited to work with young swimmers who love the sport as much as she does
brianna is pictured at the kid's table on thanksgiving with hayden tank
brianna is from arizona state and has just the right personality to work at the fries concession stand at epcot

odd poem from the archives

breaking glass

she says,
“a weekend of glass breaking would do her some good.”

pickle jars, those forgotten dishes with the orange flower trim, an old perfume bottle

all of them, broken.
lying in a shattered pile of
arguments,
something she should have said
relationship that ended too soon
sharp words
pain already forgotten.

i am reminded of a half an hour i spent breaking glass once.

she and i set pieces of glass
in the branches of a sapling
across the creek from where we stood
and shot them with bb guns.

i quickly learned to take aim
at the glass through the sight
to grasp the trigger
feel my index finger pulling back
the slight jolt of the stock against my shoulder,
the splintering of glass breaking apart
falling almost soundlessly to the forest floor.

soon after, her father found us,
scolded us for the shards that lay
unrecoverable amidst dirt and pine needles
he took the guns away.
not before
we discovered the absolute satisfaction in the sound of breaking glass.

tuesday wednesday thursday

most definitely slacking- my thoughts have been otherwise occupied. may or may not have big news in the next day or so- and i'm not a patient person.

classes started this week! my schedule is great, 2 classes monday afternoon-evening and 1 class on wednesdays. is fun to see everyone back again, we went to backstreet's the first night and enjoyed tasty stromboli (which i'd never had before).

cassie ("the cass") starts classes this week as well! v. exciting. am planning a large school supply shopping trip to celebrate as i have an unhealthy penchant for office supplies in general (well, unhealthy for my wallet anyway).

and the residents of 1312 are home! also very exciting, r-dawg returned complete with coca-cola sweatshirts for cassie and i both, and ted brought yummy christmas gifts.

noteable: i brought my magic 8-ball in to work to make important business decisions. should be helpful.

noteable quoteable

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."

- Herm Albright

b1-rd's and GU 11's

my stepdad always used to trick as kids by exclaiming "there goes a GU 11!" and we'd look around excitedly for some fancy model plane, only to realize he was talking about a sea gull.

which leads me to the subject of this blog: why, oh why are there sea gulls in the walmart parking lot in radford, virginia- hundreds of miles from any beach?

i'm quite perplexed- so much even, that i'd give up a handful from my bag of cheerios to the person with an answer ;)

comments are back!

Repetition by David R. Slavitt

Somewhere between the rehearsals and reenactments
there must be-we suppose-a performance we either
perceive or whimsically choose and declare as the real

thing to which past and future, knowing or not,
all along referred. That welter of repetitions
turns out in the end not to have been so free,

as meaning imposes or, like the dumb sun, dawns,
and objects that swam in an indeterminate sea
of diffident potential assume their recalcitrant

shapes. So it is with events we thought we knew
rather too well. Beginnings and endings are clear,
but middles, that murk where significance often lurks,

are tricky, and joy, which ought to be easy enough
to recognize, defies the fastest tripping
shutter or eyelash flutter and, sly, furtive,

shy as a timid child, is abruptly gone,
leaving us searching, rummaging high and low,
(those, I'm afraid, are the usual places) looking

for some faint trace or imprint. Exceptional moments?
Diversions, mostly. Experience, where we live,
is lying down each night, disposed the same way

on the same bedding we tidied that morning. The rumples
we smoothed mean more than the wretched or splendid dreams
our souls proposed while our bodies shifted or thrashed.

What's hard to see is whatever the blasé eye
assumes as we tread our daily round: a flash
of red as a cardinal crosses the sky, we'll remark,

looking up, and ignore how our path leads gently downward.

words for thought

as opposed to "food for thought" which doesn't really make sense anyway:

"change is inevitable, growth is optional." hopefully i quoted that correctly ;) that's the main idea anyway.

the low lowercase word of the random interval in which i will post one is ironic: i·ron·ic adj. Characterized by or constituting irony. Given to the use of irony. See Synonyms at sarcastic. Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended: madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker.

as in: jennifer told me this really ironic story about a dog named bear who got his eye clawed out by none other than a bear and now, one eye short of what he used to be, he ambles around, bumping into things and indifferently changes direction to amble off again.

this just in....

.. from the maintainer of blogspeak:

"BlogSpeak will be back up by this weekend, maybe..."

"BlogSpeak is currently down because the bastards that host it decided to suspend my account. I do not know as of yet when this situation will be resolved. If you don't want any JavaScript errors on your pages, take the code off for the time being. If you're pissed off because your comments don't work, I would be too. Believe me, I'm not too happy about my account being suspended either. I do have a backup of the DB from an hour before the suspension occurred. So if the server comes back up, or I have to get a new server, of even pass the duties of maintaining BlogSpeak off to someone else, everything will be in tact."

scram..

.. is the low lowercase word of the random interval in which i will post one is: scram v. to leave quickly.

as in: i am at work right now, but soon i will scram!

noteable (at least to me): i have two new poetry books and a classical music cd (music written by none other than billy joel) which i v. much enjoy to date.

said about me at work today: "some people change their hair fairly often, like 3 times in a month, but she changes her hair 3 times in a day!" and then "oh no, that's on a good day, normally it's at least 5."

tuesday

attn bloggers: i didn't remove the comments option, i think it's broken :) until then.... you'll have to listen to me in silence! mwhahahahahaha!

sunday brunch

so i lost ten of my hard earned dollars lastnight in texas hold 'em. but i enjoyed losing it, so i suppose i paid for my own entertainment. i also watched a mediocre chick flick (alex and emma), and rented chick flick #2 "real women have curves" which i have heard lots of great things about.

off to breakfast at sharkey's with the ian's :)

my greek alter-persona

Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

bloggity blog blog

yawn -- it's been a long time since i've had to be here this late on a friday - last semester i got to leave at 1:30 'cause of class...almost makes me miss class- but not quite! i don't have to go back until january 19th.

noteables:
ian made london broil this week for us - tasty stuff. highlights of the evening were definitely when jeff swirled his macaroni and cheese with the marinade that he thought was from the cooked meat but was actually the marinade from the meat in it's raw state - ewwwwww - but he's still alive, no mad cow or anything. also, cleo has tried (quite boisterously) to make friendly overtures of towards the kittens, who don't quite speak the same language. needless to say it involved lots of claws and barking. occasionally the kittens cling to the nearest set of pants and really dig in with those baby claws which makes things really entertaining.

oh, and southwest virginia has recently been blanketed in snow which reaches midway up cleo's leg- she went outside this morning and gave me a "what the hell?" look before rushing back inside.

cassie, who has abandoned me for a total of 10 days, will be returning next monday, which is nice, because i'll have someone to share bottles of wine with (priorities...priorities...)

the low lowercase word of the inconsistent time period in which i will post one is: "om" n pl. -S a mantra used in contemplation of ultimate reality.

wed-nes-day

i always prounounce it in my head like that so i remember how to spell it. seems like it's a good day for random facts such as that one.

random fact #2: i have purchased three 2004 calendars to date. one, a mini monthly calendar (dilbert) for my wall at work, the second is a full size french bulldog calendar for my room, and the third, the bad girl's rage-a-day calendar for my desk at work.

3: boca (veggie burgers) now has one with cheese included - yum yum. three cheers for processed frozen foods!

four: i took lots of pictures with my new digital camera but haven't posted them anywhere you all could see them. maybe i will.

#5: a question from the keirsey temperament personality indicator that i always find interesting: "which do you wish more for yourself? strength of will, or strength of emotion?"

seis: for some reason, being inconsistent and just a bit random pleases me today- but then am i consistently inconsistent?

The Real - by Michael Blumenthal

I want to go back to that time after Michiko's death when I cried every day among the trees. To the real.
- Jack Gilbert, "Measuring the Tyger"

When your wife Michiko died,
you wept every day for two years.
You wept at the sad movies
and you wept during the comedies,
you wept while doing the dishes
and you wept even while making love,
as if love weren't weeping enough.
You wept in the shower, as the water
poured over you, and you wept
in the garden, watching
the crocuses bloom in April
only to die again in May. You wept
at the emptiness of plenitude, and wept
again at the plenitude latent
in every emptiness. You wept
at your best friends' houses, and wept
in the tedious parlors of strangers.
You wept until you were wet
with your own juices, your tears
raining down on you like petals.
If feeling were wealth, then you
were a millionare, drenched
in its dubious dollars.
In tears of grief and of love.
Of grief over love.

happy new year

well i've missed the first day of blogging in 2004, but happy new year! played 2 rounds of LOTR risk today and won BOTH of them -- grey jazz cow and "the cass" are quite upset about it actually -- just thought i'd make that public ;) well, sort of - night night :)