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- Wed, 20:01: today's basket https://t.co/BSVh5EaGRl http://t.co/ELbwhysbkJ
Jan. 29th, 2015
Today is a blank slate. Nothing I have agreed to do or need to do. The laundry is done and even the trash/garbage is mostly down in the dumpsters. I've got plenty of good food in the house. All is organized and under control. It's a wonderful way to face the day.
I will go swimming at 11.
This time next week my brother will be here. I'm deliberately not making big plans. Just lists. I think a lot of what he wants to do is get away and experience urban. He and his wife live in the same building that houses his PC repair business. While it's quite handy and economical, he has said that not having any place to completely get away and wind down, does get to him now and again. And he loves the urbanity. Just walking around 'experiencing the city feel'. There is a lot of experiencing to be hand on foot out my front door. It will be nice for him to just head out on his own and find what he can find and see what he can see.
So I'm just making lists of ideas and suggestions. I've got a good start. I'm looking forward to spending some good visiting time with him.
I am also looking forward to the Super Bowl being in the rear view mirror. I'm really weary of the the Seahawks being the reason for or the cause of every single tweet and fart in this town. I'll be relieved when it is over. Win or lose, I suspect come Wednesday of next week, there will be a rally of some sort. If they lose, it will likely have no impact here but if they win... while it won't send 200,000 people to my neighborhood like it did last year, there might be some impact. I'm ready and I will use it to mark the many Seahawks free months ahead.
I will go swimming at 11.
This time next week my brother will be here. I'm deliberately not making big plans. Just lists. I think a lot of what he wants to do is get away and experience urban. He and his wife live in the same building that houses his PC repair business. While it's quite handy and economical, he has said that not having any place to completely get away and wind down, does get to him now and again. And he loves the urbanity. Just walking around 'experiencing the city feel'. There is a lot of experiencing to be hand on foot out my front door. It will be nice for him to just head out on his own and find what he can find and see what he can see.
So I'm just making lists of ideas and suggestions. I've got a good start. I'm looking forward to spending some good visiting time with him.
I am also looking forward to the Super Bowl being in the rear view mirror. I'm really weary of the the Seahawks being the reason for or the cause of every single tweet and fart in this town. I'll be relieved when it is over. Win or lose, I suspect come Wednesday of next week, there will be a rally of some sort. If they lose, it will likely have no impact here but if they win... while it won't send 200,000 people to my neighborhood like it did last year, there might be some impact. I'm ready and I will use it to mark the many Seahawks free months ahead.
Old tech. Ugh.
Jan. 29th, 2015 02:40 pmSo... my swimming pal, Julie, came onto the pool deck this morning gunning right for me... 'Tell me about music players for the water!!' She had done enough research to be cornfused.
It turns out the only real choice is color. Which color of iPod Shuffle do you want.
There are a million (well, 25ish) waterproof mp3 players out there and I bought and tried every one of them in order to avoid anything that required iTunes. All were total fails. Some didn't work as described but most weren't loud enough and only lasted about a month or so.
Those that were totally dead I put into a shoebox when I finally caved and got the iPod Shuffle. They have been in that shoebox now for more than a year.
I told Julie all of this and she wanted the shoebox. She's a big recycler so it didn't surprise me. And, honestly, I'm glad to send those lame ducks to a new pond.
I thought, since it is her birthday tomorrow, I'd try to get at least one set up - fully charged with some podcasts and some music on it. That turned out to be non trivial. I could get some charged but then the computer wouldn't recognize them so no way to add any content. I got one recognized but the sound was so bad it wasn't worth even trying. I finally found a cable that had a little more ooomph and got one charged with some content. Whew. I added a couple of different kinds of waterproof headphones and put all the stuff in a bag with a bow.
She'll be at early morning swim tomorrow so I'll take it to her then. I suspect she'll pull her hair out trying to make any of them work well enough but 1. She has TONS of hair (a big, beautiful curly mop o' hair) and 2. She knows (cause I told her) that the only real option is the iPod Shuffle.
Deliver me from old tech. I admire anyone who has the patience to deal with it. I sure don't.
---
In other swim news, I have slowed down and my swimming is taking up more lung than it was.
I used to wear a counter and would do 36 laps (72 lengths - a mile) in about 55 minutes. I stopped using the counter and just started swimming for 55 minutes. Today I put the counter back on and, turns out, I'm only doing 31 laps in that 55 minutes. And when I get out of the pool, I'm huffing and puffing. By the time I get showered and dressed and to the car, I'm gasping.
So... Counter goes back into play every day. Let's see if I can get my mile back. And, I'm going to start using my 'as neededed' inhaler every day before I hit the water. Let's see what all that's going to do!
It turns out the only real choice is color. Which color of iPod Shuffle do you want.
There are a million (well, 25ish) waterproof mp3 players out there and I bought and tried every one of them in order to avoid anything that required iTunes. All were total fails. Some didn't work as described but most weren't loud enough and only lasted about a month or so.
Those that were totally dead I put into a shoebox when I finally caved and got the iPod Shuffle. They have been in that shoebox now for more than a year.
I told Julie all of this and she wanted the shoebox. She's a big recycler so it didn't surprise me. And, honestly, I'm glad to send those lame ducks to a new pond.
I thought, since it is her birthday tomorrow, I'd try to get at least one set up - fully charged with some podcasts and some music on it. That turned out to be non trivial. I could get some charged but then the computer wouldn't recognize them so no way to add any content. I got one recognized but the sound was so bad it wasn't worth even trying. I finally found a cable that had a little more ooomph and got one charged with some content. Whew. I added a couple of different kinds of waterproof headphones and put all the stuff in a bag with a bow.
She'll be at early morning swim tomorrow so I'll take it to her then. I suspect she'll pull her hair out trying to make any of them work well enough but 1. She has TONS of hair (a big, beautiful curly mop o' hair) and 2. She knows (cause I told her) that the only real option is the iPod Shuffle.
Deliver me from old tech. I admire anyone who has the patience to deal with it. I sure don't.
---
In other swim news, I have slowed down and my swimming is taking up more lung than it was.
I used to wear a counter and would do 36 laps (72 lengths - a mile) in about 55 minutes. I stopped using the counter and just started swimming for 55 minutes. Today I put the counter back on and, turns out, I'm only doing 31 laps in that 55 minutes. And when I get out of the pool, I'm huffing and puffing. By the time I get showered and dressed and to the car, I'm gasping.
So... Counter goes back into play every day. Let's see if I can get my mile back. And, I'm going to start using my 'as neededed' inhaler every day before I hit the water. Let's see what all that's going to do!
2nd to last pair
Jan. 29th, 2015 03:01 pmYears ago... like early 90's, I bought a pair of Dearfoam slippers at Sears. After wearing them a couple of days, I realized they were THE perfect slippers. So I went back to Sears and bought a half dozen pairs. Towards the end of the season i got nervous that they would be discontinued so I went back and bought all they had and then went online and bought all they had there. Total of probably 20-25 pairs of slippers.
Really. And I'm not ashamed. They truly are the perfect slippers. They don't last forever though.
Today, I decided it was time to break out a new pair. And I discovered that after this pair I have on right now, there is only one left. They did, in fact, discontinue them just after I made my last buy. And I've never seen any others like 'em.
I was hoping to outlive my stash and while that could still happen, it's looking less likely. I will take exceedingly good care of these and hope maybe I can stretch their life a bit. Otherwise, I will just enjoy an exceedingly good run.
They are soft - top and bottom so I can cross my legs and they don't feel any more intrusive than socks - and don't flop off. Not my favorite color but the last pair are red.
p.s. Thanks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
letmesaythis for pinging me about the photo!
Really. And I'm not ashamed. They truly are the perfect slippers. They don't last forever though.
Today, I decided it was time to break out a new pair. And I discovered that after this pair I have on right now, there is only one left. They did, in fact, discontinue them just after I made my last buy. And I've never seen any others like 'em.
I was hoping to outlive my stash and while that could still happen, it's looking less likely. I will take exceedingly good care of these and hope maybe I can stretch their life a bit. Otherwise, I will just enjoy an exceedingly good run.
They are soft - top and bottom so I can cross my legs and they don't feel any more intrusive than socks - and don't flop off. Not my favorite color but the last pair are red.
p.s. Thanks
letmesaythis for pinging me about the photo!The work me
Jan. 29th, 2015 08:06 pmI had a question/comment on one of my entries that asked what I did in my work life before I retired.
My first job was when I was 16 one summer when I worked as a dress shop assistant in a manufacturers outlet store owned by friends of my parents. I sucked at it. (The beginning of kind of a theme.)
During my last year of college I started working as a newspaper reporter on the Wheeling News Register. I switched over to the morning paper - the Wheeling Intelligencer after graduation. After about a year or so, I got a job at a big paper - the Pittsburgh Post Gazette - which I lost before I started due to a strike.
It was winter and it was cold so I moved to South Carolina and got a job as a reporter/photographer for the Aiken Standard. It was a 5 day a week paper in a wonderful little town and I loved it but the pay sucked pool balls and I wanted money.
So I decided to go into sales and launched a 'hire me' campaign that was really fun. I ended up at IBM where I went through their sales training which was extensive and difficult and I was the first woman in my branch office (following on the heels of the first black). But, I made a lot of money even though, I sucked at it. I was skirting on my 'the only girl' ticket and I knew that wasn't going to last so I quit.
And moved to Southern Pines, N.C. and opened up a business finishing people's needlework, making dresses, and teaching macrame. Really. I picked Southern Pines because they had a weekly paper and advertising would be cheap. It was and I managed to even buy my first house.
Then I got married and moved to Charlotte, NC because my husband worked at the newspaper there. I got a job as a legal secretary because I could operate their word processor (I had learned during the IBM years). But, I totally sucked as a legal secretary. No spellcheck and I couldn't spell worth a damn.
I then found a job as a marketing manager for a perfectly charming non profit performing arts theater in downtown Charlotte. It was really a fun gig but, again, no money. So... one of the board members was the Communications Manager at the local IBM plant and he hired me.
I did internal communications writing and speech writing. I loved it. I moved to NY/Connecticut where I did speech writing and marketing coordination for IBM's real estate division. Another fabulous gig. Then I got a chance to work for a very cool guy I admired greatly and moved to Minnesota where he headed up the development of the AS/400 and I wrote his speeches and helped him 'sell' the lab.
Then he got a big shot promotion to Northern California and took me with him. This time I managed a team of communications people and speech writers.
And then I decided I wanted to live in Arizona and my manager was gracious enough to send me (and fund my job here for the first two years). The job sucked but OH how I loved Seattle. Then they moved my job to Phoenix. They gave the choice of moving to Phoenix or taking an incredibly generous buy out. Gimme the money.
I got a job with a small PR firm that lasted all of 3 months. I sucked at it. By that time, I had discovered the web and web pages. It was 1994 and the internet was still kind of a secret in the business world so my skills were in pretty high demand and the guy at the PR firm who fired me (it was actually pretty darned mutual) suggested I go to work for myself building websites for businesses. Which I did.
And then the web got more complicated and I was losing ground since my only teacher was me and I suck at teaching. So I went to work for Microsoft and building one of their first internal websites.
Then the dot com era bloomed and I got head hunted by a start up who's offices were across the street from my house. Trade in my 40 minute commute??? Heck yeah. Then that dot come blew up and I looked around the neighborhood and found another one kitty cornered from the first and went to work there.
After a couple of years I got laid off and found work doing contract web work for this guy and his contracts were with Microsoft. I did that for a couple o years until I found a better guy and did the same thing for him. (Those two guys later went into business together which always kind of amused me.) I worked out of my home coding pages for Zune and then for Microsoft.com.
And then I got laid off. I had been thinking about retiring anyway so I did.
And that's the whole story.
My first job was when I was 16 one summer when I worked as a dress shop assistant in a manufacturers outlet store owned by friends of my parents. I sucked at it. (The beginning of kind of a theme.)
During my last year of college I started working as a newspaper reporter on the Wheeling News Register. I switched over to the morning paper - the Wheeling Intelligencer after graduation. After about a year or so, I got a job at a big paper - the Pittsburgh Post Gazette - which I lost before I started due to a strike.
It was winter and it was cold so I moved to South Carolina and got a job as a reporter/photographer for the Aiken Standard. It was a 5 day a week paper in a wonderful little town and I loved it but the pay sucked pool balls and I wanted money.
So I decided to go into sales and launched a 'hire me' campaign that was really fun. I ended up at IBM where I went through their sales training which was extensive and difficult and I was the first woman in my branch office (following on the heels of the first black). But, I made a lot of money even though, I sucked at it. I was skirting on my 'the only girl' ticket and I knew that wasn't going to last so I quit.
And moved to Southern Pines, N.C. and opened up a business finishing people's needlework, making dresses, and teaching macrame. Really. I picked Southern Pines because they had a weekly paper and advertising would be cheap. It was and I managed to even buy my first house.
Then I got married and moved to Charlotte, NC because my husband worked at the newspaper there. I got a job as a legal secretary because I could operate their word processor (I had learned during the IBM years). But, I totally sucked as a legal secretary. No spellcheck and I couldn't spell worth a damn.
I then found a job as a marketing manager for a perfectly charming non profit performing arts theater in downtown Charlotte. It was really a fun gig but, again, no money. So... one of the board members was the Communications Manager at the local IBM plant and he hired me.
I did internal communications writing and speech writing. I loved it. I moved to NY/Connecticut where I did speech writing and marketing coordination for IBM's real estate division. Another fabulous gig. Then I got a chance to work for a very cool guy I admired greatly and moved to Minnesota where he headed up the development of the AS/400 and I wrote his speeches and helped him 'sell' the lab.
Then he got a big shot promotion to Northern California and took me with him. This time I managed a team of communications people and speech writers.
And then I decided I wanted to live in Arizona and my manager was gracious enough to send me (and fund my job here for the first two years). The job sucked but OH how I loved Seattle. Then they moved my job to Phoenix. They gave the choice of moving to Phoenix or taking an incredibly generous buy out. Gimme the money.
I got a job with a small PR firm that lasted all of 3 months. I sucked at it. By that time, I had discovered the web and web pages. It was 1994 and the internet was still kind of a secret in the business world so my skills were in pretty high demand and the guy at the PR firm who fired me (it was actually pretty darned mutual) suggested I go to work for myself building websites for businesses. Which I did.
And then the web got more complicated and I was losing ground since my only teacher was me and I suck at teaching. So I went to work for Microsoft and building one of their first internal websites.
Then the dot com era bloomed and I got head hunted by a start up who's offices were across the street from my house. Trade in my 40 minute commute??? Heck yeah. Then that dot come blew up and I looked around the neighborhood and found another one kitty cornered from the first and went to work there.
After a couple of years I got laid off and found work doing contract web work for this guy and his contracts were with Microsoft. I did that for a couple o years until I found a better guy and did the same thing for him. (Those two guys later went into business together which always kind of amused me.) I worked out of my home coding pages for Zune and then for Microsoft.com.
And then I got laid off. I had been thinking about retiring anyway so I did.
And that's the whole story.