Thank goodness for all the typing games in elementary school, as well as my love for computers, email, instant messaging, etc. that have helped me to do so well with the keyboard.
93 words
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Change is Good
Yesterday I officially decided to move into The Cold One's old bedroom, now that she is gone. The only thing I actually got moved over was my bedding, so I slept in there last night. I rather enjoyed it. I did not have a street light shining directly on my pillow where I wanted to lay my head. There's a giant mirror on the opposite wall that reflected the window, so I fell asleep gazing at the moonlit sky, even though the window was technically out of my view. The mattress was quite comfortable. I didn't even mind the bed being up against the wall, even though it has been years since my bed has done that. It's slightly taller than I'm used to, so I actually have to hop just a bit to get in bed... noticed only when I was getting in and out of bed to hit snooze on my cell phone this morning... but I think that's ok since it makes me wake up just that much more. Also, the sun shines quite brightly through the window. It's so much easier to wake up when your bedroom is bright and sunshiny. Also, I knew immediately in which snooze the Heartless Siren woke up. Before I couldn't hear a thing in her bedroom while I was in mine. Now I am much closer and woke up to the sound of Jim Dale's voice in the air. I was quite proud of myself when I figured out exactly which book and which part of the book she was listening to within about 1.5 sentences. I love Harry Potter.
I think I will enjoy this bedroom.
I think I will enjoy this bedroom.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Grammar lessons
Things I am currently working on:
Incorrect: The table needs set.
Correct: The table needs to be set.
Incorrect: I'm doing good.
Correct: I'm doing well/great/tired.
Incorrect: My hoodie sweater is dirty.
Correct: My hoodie sweatshirt is dirty.
Incorrect: The table needs set.
Correct: The table needs to be set.
Incorrect: I'm doing good.
Correct: I'm doing well/great/tired.
Incorrect: My hoodie sweater is dirty.
Correct: My hoodie sweatshirt is dirty.
The World May End Soon
Subway's 6" Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich typically sells for $4.59 (at least, that's what the Subway I went to listed the price as). For only $.41 more, I could upgrade to a footlong. Talk about a great deal. So, obviously, I did it.
Here's the really crazy part. I ate the entire thing. I may even still be hungry.
Here's the really crazy part. I ate the entire thing. I may even still be hungry.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Pining
Today I was really late getting into the office becuase I had a meeting at BYU. After the meeting I had to stop by my house to grab my iPod cord to do some research for my boss. As I was walking into the house, I turned on the sprinkler (might as well let my lawn drink while I'm home), then I paused to listen to the sounds of children playing outside, then grabbed the mail, then walked in the house. I was overcome by the desire to just be home. I wanted to clean the kitchen and weed the garden. I was ready to go plant flowers and play outside. I had no desire to grab the things I needed and go back to work. But, I did it anyway. I was responsible that way. [sigh]
As I left, I drove by Kiwanis Park and saw a bunch of kids flying kites. Ok, let's be honest, I don't know how to fly a kite. I'm not sure I've ever gotten one up in the air and had it stay. But I love watching them. Watching kids fly kites all over Temple Mount was one of the most fun things about sitting on the roof at Eche Homo in Jerusalem. I remember Brother Jr.'s friend coming over to fly kites in our field, but I was too little, so they wouldn't let me fly them. So I watched. As I watched these kids fly kites today, my first thought was, "I want to be outside watching kids fly kites."
I don't think this summer is going to be good for my job. The warmer it gets, the more I itch to be home and outside. The more I want to be outside, the less I want to go to work. Now, don't get me wrong. I love my job. I couldn't ask for a better job; I really couldn't. This has absolutely nothing to do with me not liking my job. Rather, it simply has to do with me not wanting to not be a working woman for life. I don't know how anyone who reads my blog could doubt this about me.
As I left, I drove by Kiwanis Park and saw a bunch of kids flying kites. Ok, let's be honest, I don't know how to fly a kite. I'm not sure I've ever gotten one up in the air and had it stay. But I love watching them. Watching kids fly kites all over Temple Mount was one of the most fun things about sitting on the roof at Eche Homo in Jerusalem. I remember Brother Jr.'s friend coming over to fly kites in our field, but I was too little, so they wouldn't let me fly them. So I watched. As I watched these kids fly kites today, my first thought was, "I want to be outside watching kids fly kites."
I don't think this summer is going to be good for my job. The warmer it gets, the more I itch to be home and outside. The more I want to be outside, the less I want to go to work. Now, don't get me wrong. I love my job. I couldn't ask for a better job; I really couldn't. This has absolutely nothing to do with me not liking my job. Rather, it simply has to do with me not wanting to not be a working woman for life. I don't know how anyone who reads my blog could doubt this about me.
Beatrice, 1
The Cold One has left me. It is very sad. I weep.
But she gets to live in London and tour Europe. I can't fault her for that.
Upon leaving me, she also left one of her dependents, Beatrice, in my care. I think this might be fun. Beatrice came to us last year. She and her sister, Viola, lived out on our back porch. When I got home from Jerusalem, The Cold One was in Florida and had left me instructions to please take good care of them. I had not yet developed my green thumb with plants. In fact, I was even really bad about taking care of my garden. Needless to say, I forgot to water them and they nearly died. Luckily, The Cold One came back and saved the day. Nursed back to health, they bloomed beautifully for the rest of the summer. When winter came, they were moved inside where no one actually expected them to live. We had prepped ourselves all summer to let them go when the weather got cold. Miraculously, they survived. The Cold One was very attentive and talked to them quite often. Spare Oom became the PICU (Plant Intensive Care Unit). Several other plants of mine that were dying got moved back there for Cold One to save. Over the winter, I developed my green thumb and started saving plants instead of killing them. Soon most of the plants were moved out of PICU and into to the rest of the house. Beatrice and Viola stayed in PICU, due to their fragile state.
Sadly, Viola became infested with bugs and we had to let her go before she spread the disease to the other plants. It was a mournful day. Beatrice held strong, however. She is one tough cookie. That doesn't mean she was healthy, by any means. Although she had new growth, she also had many dead or dying leaves and stalks. Sadly, much of the new growth was at the end of the dying stalks.
This morning, The Cold One officially moves out, placing Beatrice in my care. In my first move as Caretaker, I decided to give Beatrice a hair cut...cut her back so that she can grow more beautifully. I figure if the dead parts were gone, she could focus her energy and strength and nutrition more on the living parts. In order to make The Cold One's separation more bearable, I have decided to document the life of Beatrice whilst she is away. Thus, here are pictures of Beatrice's hair cut.
Here is Beatrice, post haircut. She's looking a bit sparse, but we're hoping for her to fill out again as summer comes and we can move her outside.
Note all of the trimmings around her. Also, please note the brownness of the trimmings and the greenness of Beatrice. This is happy. The pile next to her reminds me greatly of when I get a hair cut and it looks like there's a dead cat on the floor. I think Beatrice and I are kindred spirits.
Until next time... pray for Beatrice.
But she gets to live in London and tour Europe. I can't fault her for that.
Upon leaving me, she also left one of her dependents, Beatrice, in my care. I think this might be fun. Beatrice came to us last year. She and her sister, Viola, lived out on our back porch. When I got home from Jerusalem, The Cold One was in Florida and had left me instructions to please take good care of them. I had not yet developed my green thumb with plants. In fact, I was even really bad about taking care of my garden. Needless to say, I forgot to water them and they nearly died. Luckily, The Cold One came back and saved the day. Nursed back to health, they bloomed beautifully for the rest of the summer. When winter came, they were moved inside where no one actually expected them to live. We had prepped ourselves all summer to let them go when the weather got cold. Miraculously, they survived. The Cold One was very attentive and talked to them quite often. Spare Oom became the PICU (Plant Intensive Care Unit). Several other plants of mine that were dying got moved back there for Cold One to save. Over the winter, I developed my green thumb and started saving plants instead of killing them. Soon most of the plants were moved out of PICU and into to the rest of the house. Beatrice and Viola stayed in PICU, due to their fragile state.
Sadly, Viola became infested with bugs and we had to let her go before she spread the disease to the other plants. It was a mournful day. Beatrice held strong, however. She is one tough cookie. That doesn't mean she was healthy, by any means. Although she had new growth, she also had many dead or dying leaves and stalks. Sadly, much of the new growth was at the end of the dying stalks.
This morning, The Cold One officially moves out, placing Beatrice in my care. In my first move as Caretaker, I decided to give Beatrice a hair cut...cut her back so that she can grow more beautifully. I figure if the dead parts were gone, she could focus her energy and strength and nutrition more on the living parts. In order to make The Cold One's separation more bearable, I have decided to document the life of Beatrice whilst she is away. Thus, here are pictures of Beatrice's hair cut.
Here is Beatrice, post haircut. She's looking a bit sparse, but we're hoping for her to fill out again as summer comes and we can move her outside.
Note all of the trimmings around her. Also, please note the brownness of the trimmings and the greenness of Beatrice. This is happy. The pile next to her reminds me greatly of when I get a hair cut and it looks like there's a dead cat on the floor. I think Beatrice and I are kindred spirits.
Until next time... pray for Beatrice.
Green Thumb
Uffish Thought and dimmi are both not good for me. I've become quite obsessed of plants as of late. It started when Chillylint introduced me to Plant Day up at the COB. Then she started giving me starts of plants. This combined with a start Sister had given me slowly became an obsession. I believe we have 8 plants in our cubicle at work. I have 10 at home, plus several starts working on becoming plants, though I think I'll give those away.
Now that it's starting to become warm outside, I've been itching to start my garden, but it's way too early to plant most plants, as the last chance of frost isn't until sometime in May. I've stemmed my urgings a little by looking at flowers that will survive this time of year and almost went and bought some (though time ran out. This is scheduled for sometime this week instead). I've dragged several people out to my garden and pointed out flowers growing in there, where it needs to be weeded, back over to flower beds where we have these really cool succulents and made Laser Jock dig up a giant thorny plant that attacked my poor bare foot. I've also taken to watering my sadly dead lawn again. Also, I dug up all my carrots from last year, so if anyone wants any carrots, I have lots.
Then Uffish and dimmi go and blog about starting their garden inside! Who does such a thing? This is a thought I had never before considered. But reading their blogs, the suppressed urges burst out and I am now the proud owner of a starter kit, not quite full yet. (Maybe I'll get some flower seeds?) It is now growing Roma Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Onions, Green Peppers, Carnival Peppers, Banana Peppers, Broccoli and Sunflowers. When it gets later in the season, I will plant Green Beans, Peas, Potatoes, Green Onions, Carrots, Beets, Zucchini, Pumpkin, Oregano and maybe more Strawberries outside. I've decided to give up on Corn this year. Also, I think I'll give up on melons.
I am becoming obsessed with plants, methinks.
Now that it's starting to become warm outside, I've been itching to start my garden, but it's way too early to plant most plants, as the last chance of frost isn't until sometime in May. I've stemmed my urgings a little by looking at flowers that will survive this time of year and almost went and bought some (though time ran out. This is scheduled for sometime this week instead). I've dragged several people out to my garden and pointed out flowers growing in there, where it needs to be weeded, back over to flower beds where we have these really cool succulents and made Laser Jock dig up a giant thorny plant that attacked my poor bare foot. I've also taken to watering my sadly dead lawn again. Also, I dug up all my carrots from last year, so if anyone wants any carrots, I have lots.
Then Uffish and dimmi go and blog about starting their garden inside! Who does such a thing? This is a thought I had never before considered. But reading their blogs, the suppressed urges burst out and I am now the proud owner of a starter kit, not quite full yet. (Maybe I'll get some flower seeds?) It is now growing Roma Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Onions, Green Peppers, Carnival Peppers, Banana Peppers, Broccoli and Sunflowers. When it gets later in the season, I will plant Green Beans, Peas, Potatoes, Green Onions, Carrots, Beets, Zucchini, Pumpkin, Oregano and maybe more Strawberries outside. I've decided to give up on Corn this year. Also, I think I'll give up on melons.
I am becoming obsessed with plants, methinks.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Addedum to Monsters
So, the whole point of writing the Monster Book of Monster post was because as I was thumbing through one page at a time, I would look at the first line to see if it matched the first line of the digital page. Every once in awhile the top line would only be the last few words of a sentence at the end of a paragraph, and they were really entertaining. The only fun part of the whole thing, really. (Well, except the fact that I love a good puzzle and being able to conquer this book was rather happy for me.) They were so amazing, in fact, that I wanted to share them with the world. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure:
- persistent romantic legend
- beer at that time
- there had Moses, b. 1652
- eagle neck quarter
- persistent romantic legend
- beer at that time
- there had Moses, b. 1652
- eagle neck quarter
The Monster Book of Monsters
You thought the book in Harry Potter was bad? Well, I found the Muggle equivalent. You can see the book here.
I walked into work sometime last week when Elder Pretzel stopped me and told me he had a project for me. He then handed me a book. It was a relatively small book, bound in black, with "Supplement 8" stamped in gold on front. It didn't look like it could possibly be all that scary, so without a second thought, I took it from him and asked what the project was. This was a bad idea. I should have called in sick that day; I should have walked past him and pretend I didn't hear his plea. Sometimes, I am simply too nice. It didn't take me long to figure out that there was a serious problem with the binding of the book when he started to show me the page numbers that counted down instead of up. I took the book back to my cubicle and sat down to do some serious investigation.
I ended up making a copy of the title page and putting post it notes all over the book to indicate where new chapters started and whether the pages were going left to right or right to left. According to the title page, there are two chapters numbered IV. Luckily, none of the actual chapters in the book were numbered, so I just ignored the numbers in the Title Page and used 1, 2, 3, etc. Also, please note on the Title Page that IV is Genetic Information, then three chapters later (VI... which 6 is not three chapters after 4) is Titles, explanation. Now, look at the actual page it is found on. The two chapters are on the same page in the opposite order. Then, when I got to the Hereditary Societies, I had no idea if they were going from left to right or right to left. I could see no logic behind the sorting of them. Finally I had to take it into Polar Aunt who is much more of a genealogist than I am, and she showed me how they really were in alphabetical order.
Finally, three days later, when I finally had it figured out, I took it back to Elder Pretzel so that he could rescan the book in the correct order. He finished and I grabbed the folder of tif files and replaced the folder with the old scans I had from before when they scanned it out of order. Then I started to build a digital table of contents. Well, true to craziness form, only one section of the book had page numbers, so trying to paginate (the process of making a spreadsheet with a row for every page, listing the page number, any page heading, and the chapter it belongs to) was nigh unto impossible. Finally I made the executive decision to break the rules and skip pagination and do it on the fly while Kofaxing (the process of cropping and adding metadata to a book).
Next step, import files into Kofax. This I did, then started cropping. Halfway through cropping I realized that for one section of the book, every other page was a repeat of another section of the book. It's like a handful of pages were duplicated and inserted into every other page. Lots of troubleshooting later, it turns out that when I replaced the old book with the new book, it decided to be ridiculous and kept some of the pages of the old book and put them in the new book. I have no idea how this happened since I replaced a folder with a folder, not files with files... but somehow, that's what happened.
Today I came into work, determined to finish this book. So I sat at my computer, clicking digitally through the book one page at a time, while turning the pages in the physical book one at a time with my other hand, deleting the pages that were wrong. Three times through the book later, I finally felt confident that all the pages were correct.
Next came Validation. This is the module where you enter the page numbers, page headings, and chapter headings. You typically do this with the digital table of contents created earlier, but since I skipped it, I was making it up as I went. It wasn't too bad, actually, except for one small thing. The Chapter Heading field is a sticky field, meaning, you only have to type "Chapter One" in one page, then it will stay there for every subsequent page, until you change it. Then it will change for every subsequent page, etc., etc. Now, once it is in a page, it will stay there until you manually change it. So, if I entered in "Chapter One" for 20 pages, then realized it changed to "Chapter Two" for the last 10 pages, I would have to go back and manually change that field for every incorrect page. Hey, guess what I did? [rolls eyes] I thought I had them all fixed, though.
After finally finishing this nightmare of a book, I released it and begged The Heartless Siren to load it, even though she was done loading books for that collection for the day, simply so I could blog about it and link to it. She did. Bless her. I started blogging about it and opened the link to the book only to find that in one page I had typed "Sanders To Caesar" and the rest of the pages in that chapter got "Sanders to Caesar".
Another thing about chapter headings. What CONTENTdm (the hosting site) will do is look at the chapter heading in the metadata and create a folder by that name. When it gets to the next page, if the chapter heading is exactly the same, it will put that page in the same folder. If the chapter heading changes in the slightest, it will create a new folder by that name. So I had two chapters. "Sanders To Caesar" had one page and "Sanders to Caesar" had eight pages. So I fixed it. (Good thing I was blogging about it, eh?) And just now, as I went to count how many pages the second section had, I realized that I had combined the chapters incorrectly and it went page 61, 60, 62. That's right, I can't count. So I just fixed that. And now it's indexing. And, of course, I just realized that Heartless and I learned today that you don't have to index after changing the structure of a page. Brilliant. 15 minutes of waiting for an index for no reason.
The book is now complete, happy and fixed. If you find any problems with this book, please never tell me. I might throw it at you.
I walked into work sometime last week when Elder Pretzel stopped me and told me he had a project for me. He then handed me a book. It was a relatively small book, bound in black, with "Supplement 8" stamped in gold on front. It didn't look like it could possibly be all that scary, so without a second thought, I took it from him and asked what the project was. This was a bad idea. I should have called in sick that day; I should have walked past him and pretend I didn't hear his plea. Sometimes, I am simply too nice. It didn't take me long to figure out that there was a serious problem with the binding of the book when he started to show me the page numbers that counted down instead of up. I took the book back to my cubicle and sat down to do some serious investigation.
I ended up making a copy of the title page and putting post it notes all over the book to indicate where new chapters started and whether the pages were going left to right or right to left. According to the title page, there are two chapters numbered IV. Luckily, none of the actual chapters in the book were numbered, so I just ignored the numbers in the Title Page and used 1, 2, 3, etc. Also, please note on the Title Page that IV is Genetic Information, then three chapters later (VI... which 6 is not three chapters after 4) is Titles, explanation. Now, look at the actual page it is found on. The two chapters are on the same page in the opposite order. Then, when I got to the Hereditary Societies, I had no idea if they were going from left to right or right to left. I could see no logic behind the sorting of them. Finally I had to take it into Polar Aunt who is much more of a genealogist than I am, and she showed me how they really were in alphabetical order.
Finally, three days later, when I finally had it figured out, I took it back to Elder Pretzel so that he could rescan the book in the correct order. He finished and I grabbed the folder of tif files and replaced the folder with the old scans I had from before when they scanned it out of order. Then I started to build a digital table of contents. Well, true to craziness form, only one section of the book had page numbers, so trying to paginate (the process of making a spreadsheet with a row for every page, listing the page number, any page heading, and the chapter it belongs to) was nigh unto impossible. Finally I made the executive decision to break the rules and skip pagination and do it on the fly while Kofaxing (the process of cropping and adding metadata to a book).
Next step, import files into Kofax. This I did, then started cropping. Halfway through cropping I realized that for one section of the book, every other page was a repeat of another section of the book. It's like a handful of pages were duplicated and inserted into every other page. Lots of troubleshooting later, it turns out that when I replaced the old book with the new book, it decided to be ridiculous and kept some of the pages of the old book and put them in the new book. I have no idea how this happened since I replaced a folder with a folder, not files with files... but somehow, that's what happened.
Today I came into work, determined to finish this book. So I sat at my computer, clicking digitally through the book one page at a time, while turning the pages in the physical book one at a time with my other hand, deleting the pages that were wrong. Three times through the book later, I finally felt confident that all the pages were correct.
Next came Validation. This is the module where you enter the page numbers, page headings, and chapter headings. You typically do this with the digital table of contents created earlier, but since I skipped it, I was making it up as I went. It wasn't too bad, actually, except for one small thing. The Chapter Heading field is a sticky field, meaning, you only have to type "Chapter One" in one page, then it will stay there for every subsequent page, until you change it. Then it will change for every subsequent page, etc., etc. Now, once it is in a page, it will stay there until you manually change it. So, if I entered in "Chapter One" for 20 pages, then realized it changed to "Chapter Two" for the last 10 pages, I would have to go back and manually change that field for every incorrect page. Hey, guess what I did? [rolls eyes] I thought I had them all fixed, though.
After finally finishing this nightmare of a book, I released it and begged The Heartless Siren to load it, even though she was done loading books for that collection for the day, simply so I could blog about it and link to it. She did. Bless her. I started blogging about it and opened the link to the book only to find that in one page I had typed "Sanders To Caesar" and the rest of the pages in that chapter got "Sanders to Caesar".
Another thing about chapter headings. What CONTENTdm (the hosting site) will do is look at the chapter heading in the metadata and create a folder by that name. When it gets to the next page, if the chapter heading is exactly the same, it will put that page in the same folder. If the chapter heading changes in the slightest, it will create a new folder by that name. So I had two chapters. "Sanders To Caesar" had one page and "Sanders to Caesar" had eight pages. So I fixed it. (Good thing I was blogging about it, eh?) And just now, as I went to count how many pages the second section had, I realized that I had combined the chapters incorrectly and it went page 61, 60, 62. That's right, I can't count. So I just fixed that. And now it's indexing. And, of course, I just realized that Heartless and I learned today that you don't have to index after changing the structure of a page. Brilliant. 15 minutes of waiting for an index for no reason.
The book is now complete, happy and fixed. If you find any problems with this book, please never tell me. I might throw it at you.
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