Happy Valentine's and Other Things

Like Happy 200th, Mr. Lincoln.

My! I have been away for a while! This week was simply exhausting! Balancing work and school and life in general somehow didn't go very smoothly.

My boss was gone the first couple of days this week to spend time with a dear relative who is not doing well. On Tuesday, I did more work on the colossal amount of filing in Document Control. While sitting down next to an open drawer, I noticed something unwelcome about the lower drawer that was thought to be empty. The person that had just quit last month had stashed there a stack of documents in no order at all. This was the second time now that I had found something of this nature, so I thought I'd look in more "empty" drawers to diminish our surprises later. And I found two drawers stuffed to the gills with large, rolled, hardware drawings. The most important thing we keep. I showed my co-worker, who is heading the department now, and we decided to look through every drawer and we found six or seven more stashes of things that should have been filed, ranging from 2006 to 2008. So my boss came back on Wednesday, the next day.

She took it rather well, but was very sad, and disappointed in that employee. Now I don't mind filing at all... I find it rather relaxing actually, because it's straight-forward, no nonsense work that you can see get accomplished. But my boss didn't want me to work on it because of a time-charging issue. I was caught off guard by this, and got rather mad. I felt like walking out. I think a lot of that had to do with the way she told me, and me being so tired from class the night before where we worked on a new program called 'Lightroom' and my machine didn't work. But I did finally download and start Photoshop on my own laptop for the first time this night. That was an accomplishment in and of itself!

Thursday went much better. I got some sleep, and was prepared for what I had to do. It was a very long day however. I got to the University a little later that evening than I wanted to, and realized when I got there that I left all my prints at home. So, in earnest speed, I proceeded to the lab and printed off four prints, adjusting a few things on two of them beforehand as well. Class is always great when we do critiques, and that's what we'll be doing for the rest of the quarter and the next. After that, there was a little demonstration on mat-cutting, and then we watched a bio on a National Geographic field photographer... what a life! yikes! exciting but excruciating, both physically and mentally... and they say it's glamorous! Thy guy would leave his wife and three kids at home for weeks on end to photograph all over the world. He got deathly sick once, and usually had to work in harsh, miserable conditions. But he loved to work and photograph, and he was great.

Friday I went right to work to make up some time from leaving for class, like usual. It was very busy at work. I finished up all my tasks from Thursday and managed to get something else done too. After a quick lunch of chicken noodle soup and garden salad, I headed off to Kenmore to explore some riverfront and photograph. Aaaah! It was great! I have so many that I'm pleased with, it's going to be hard to choose which to print. When I got back home (after the sun was gone) my sister and I went to Woodinville to poke around at Target. We stopped off at Taco Time for a brief dinner, and then continued on. I ended up coming out with two new knight figurines, both Schleich models. I have a weakness for historical-looking knight figurines. One is a crusader on horseback, and the other is an archer kneeling. Both were very different from the others I have, and they are very cool. You've got to hand it to the Germans. They make great stuff! Crusader figurines always make me think of my Senior Seminar at the U... History of the First Crusade... very interesting, engaging and fun class.

Monk was pretty darn good tonight! Sad, for sure, but very well done. Loved Monk's reaction at the video at the end... liked how he's enduring doing things he doesn't like... climbing in boxes, getting hugged... the magician was great too! I CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!! If they let us down this time, I will give up hope for sure.

It's way past my bedtime... 2:03 AM as I type...
Good night! Good morning! Won't you be my... valentine?

Jp