Thursday, April 9, 2009

On the move

Lots has happened since last I blogged. P got a great job in the Boston area, I got into both doctoral programs I applied to, I was offered (and am taking) a fellowship at one of them… It’s a year of happy change.

Now, after nearly six years of making our way in Manchester, we get to go home to Boston. First step: sell the house.

As we are gearing up to sell our home, we had to find a realtor. We met with two in total. After meeting the first one, we should have just stopped, as we both liked her a lot. But we thought it can’t hurt to interview a second one to get a sense of different styles and see what two sets of professional eyes thought of the house.

Here are some excerpts from realtor meeting #2:
Realtor: [seeing my Smith College hat] Did you go to Smith?
Me: No, my wife did.
Realtor: Oh. My niece went there.
Me: Really? Is she -
Realtor: [cutting me off]: Gay? Yep. She’s gay.
Me: Oh. I was going to ask if she was also a super dedicated alum. They all seem to be very dedicated… But, um, ok.


Realtor: The couple in one of my houses is getting divorced. It’s like they have blinders on, and can’t see what’s in front of them. And they are holding on to everything even though they really should get rid of it if they want to sell the place.
Me: [wondering why we are even talking about this, and trying to close the topic]: Well, you won’t have to worry about that with us.
Realtor: I hope not! After fighting for all of those rights!


Realtor: [takes out camera and starts to show me pictures of her recent trip to Florida] This was the view from our deck.
Me: [stunned silence, actively thinking about how to end the conversation]


I'm calling realtor #1 today to move forward.

And this is only the beginning of the adventure!

Friday, January 9, 2009

So much for the cut off jean shorts and van halen t-shirt

I've posted before that I work on the set of "Office Space." Cubicles, TPS reports, weird office interactions...

Below is the verbatim directive on dress for our Boston office's holiday party:
"Festive Attire is usually seen around the holidays, with the mood of the party being Semi-Formal. For her, it means to choose looks with a bit of sparkle or holiday bent (i.e. a beaded sweater with black pants, a red silk blouse with a black skirt, short dress).

Dressy Casual calls for dressed-up versions of casual looks. For him, it could be trousers and a sportcoat, for her a dressy pants look or a short dress. Jeans, shorts, T-shirts and other casual looks are not appropriate for Dressy Casual."

Monday, December 8, 2008

Typical Monday Morning

Before I begin, allow me to acknowledge that I recognize the below events are a sign of a life pretty well lived. As a good liberal Democrat/NY Jew, I feel I need to start with a little self guilt. And, given that I haven’t slept much in the past few days, this entry is just as much about capturing the events for posterity as it is for sharing the stories.

And now, on with the show.

I made it to work today. That, my friends, is an accomplishment. This past weekend was a whirlwind, mostly due to my father in law getting remarried and the surrounding events. I came in to the office slightly hung over, majorly fatigued, and with the hopes that it would be quieter than home.

Last night was the actual wedding and reception. It was a rather intimate, and quite elegant, affair. Honestly, the only downside of the night was the DJ, who only played songs that made me feel like I was at an 80’s Bar Mitzvah (think “Shout,” “Twist and Shout,” “We Are Family” and any other overplayed song you hear at these types of events). I would have been a better DJ. For serious.

P’s siblings were split between various tables, which I was initially nervous about, as it meant I’d have to pull out the shiny interactive me, as opposed to the quirky introverted me… These things can always be a crapshoot, and I am quite certain I am not the only one who has war stories of the people that were altogether inappropriate, dull, or otherwise incompatible.

Turns out I didn’t have to worry at all in the department, as P and I spent a large portion of the evening speaking with our table companions. The couple across from us were fantastic. New York dwellers who love living in NY. One of them was a writer for, well, let’s just say a TV series P and I kinda worship. And to her credit, she was cool with periodic gushing about how much we loved her show. On top of that, she and her fiancĂ© were genuinely cool people. Thus ensued lots of clever jokes, funny stories, and general revelry.

I think I want to be their friends. I have a bit of a crush on their personalities.

Having brought the Wii with us to our hotel room (which I think is an entirely reasonable thing to do thankyouverymuch), we invited them back for some intro to the world of dorky gaming. Luckily, they were just as tired as we were, and didn’t take us up on it (although I totally would have played – being tired has never gotten in the way of my ability to indulge in a video game), although they did come by with their sweet dog to make an introduction.

We’re totally in.

P and I got to bed around 1am, and were up by 7:15 to squeeze in a few more minutes with sibs who live far away. I dragged my bum out of bed and into the freezing cold morning. A muffin helped calm my tummy from the past evening’s activities.

We got home to the reminder that our roof is being repaired today. Great for the house and all, but entirely unpeaceful if you want to have some quiet time before reengaging with the outside world. Our poor kitties were all hiding under the beds, and looked at us as if to say, “Are you going to kill us now?”

I went to go hop in to the shower to wash off some of the aforementioned revelry, only to discover that the roofer was working directly above the skylight in the bathroom. I wasn’t so much in the mood for a nudie show, so I skipped the shower and threw on work-ready clothes.

Truth be told, I kinda dressed up today because in my head tardiness is offset by how well you are dressed. It isn’t logical, but it makes perfect sense in my head.

So let’s do a brief recap: late night, with lots of good food and perhaps some alcohol involved, chatty chatty with new people, up early, no shower, loud banging as if the ceilings are about to fall in due to work on the roof.

My only chance for quiet was to head in to the office. As I am getting to my car, the woman who cleans our house every couple of weeks pulls up. I could swear this is not her week to come, and our house is a total disaster from having just arrived home yet not unpacked one iota. Could she show her friend around the house, who is going to be cleaning on her behalf while she visits family over the holidays?

Of course, I say, trying not to blurt out the fact that I wish her luck poking her way around the mail and other papers that’s been tossed about thanks to the freaked out cats, the laundry that is awaiting folding, and the sheer amount of crap that is all over the porch from the roofers.

I got out of there pretty quick, and found respite in cubicle land. Never did I think I would hear myself saying this, but it was actually more relaxing to come to work.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Your cube farm or mine?

Today I received the following email:

Attached is a listing by department of teams in [current office location]. As part of the planning phase for the [new office location] buildout, I would like to ask each person to review this list and be sure that your name is listed with the correct team. If there are any revisions please let me know. After this list has been validated we will sit with each department to map out seating arrangements.

What I learned from this email is the following:

  • The official names of each department for those that work in this office (which changes frequently enough)
  • Who works in what department (which changes frequently enough)
  • My office is moving

I guess that's the official nonofficial word that we're packing up our cubicles and heading to new ones in the near future!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

We don't need no stinkin' mouse

As I am sitting here individually copying every single class I have ever taken past high school into a centralized application system (which I should write about in full someday, if for nothing else than posterity of this annoying task), I am finding that I am lacking in knowledge in the Mac keyboard shortcut arena. I am, if I may say so myself, a fairly expert user of keyboard shortcuts in the PC realm. I scoff at the mouse at work. On our home computer (a Mac Mini, which I love outside of this keyboard shortcut thing) I am less savvy.

So I turned to our friend Google for some help, and was provided with any number of pages that gave me the help I need. The learning has begun.

I thought to myself, "self, you've created a handy keyboard shortcut one pager for your friends. It's just as good as any of the sites you've seen. Why do you keep it hiding on your computer, where no one can find and benefit from it?"

So, here you go. A listing of all the keyboard shortcuts for your PC life. Note that these should work in most Microsoft Office programs, and in some cases (like ctrl+P) they are fairly universal.

Nerdcore, beatches!

ctrl + A = Select all
ctrl + B = Bold
ctrl + C = Copy
ctrl + D = Change font
ctrl + E = Align center
ctrl + F = Find
ctrl + G = Go to (page)
ctrl + H = Find/replace
ctrl + I = Italics
ctrl + J = Align justified
ctrl + K = Insert hyperlink
ctrl + L = Align left
ctrl + M = Indent
ctrl + N = New file
ctrl + O = Open file
ctrl + P = Print
ctrl + Q = Reset paragraph
ctrl + R = Align right
ctrl + S = Save
ctrl + T = Hanging indent
ctrl + U = Underline
ctrl + V = Paste
ctrl + W = Close window
ctrl + X = Cut
ctrl + Y = Redo last action
ctrl + Z = Undo
shift + → = Highlight letter by letter right
shift + ← = Highlight letter by letter left
shift + up arrow = Highlight line by line up
shift + down arrow = Highlight line by line down
ctrl + shift + → = Highlight word by word to the right
ctrl + shift + ← = Highlight word by word to the left
ctrl + shift + up arrow = Highlight paragraph by paragraph up
ctrl + shift + down arrow = Highlight paragraph by paragraph down
ctrl + → = Jump word by word right
ctrl + ← = Jump word by word left
ctrl + up arrow = Jump paragraph up
ctrl + down arrow = Jump paragraph down
ctrl + home = To beginning of document
ctrl + end = To end of document
ctrl + enter = Page break
ctrl + pgdn = To bottom of page (or to next tab in Excel)
ctrl + pgup = To top of page (or to previous tab in Excel)
ctrl + del = Delete word by word
ctrl + backspace = Backspace word by word
F2 key = Rename file (in some programs and on the desktop)
F1 key = Help
F3 key = Find file (on desktop)
Shift + tab = Go back one tab (or field by field)
ctrl + [ = Decrease font size by 1 point
ctrl + ] = Increase font size by 1 point
ctrl + alt + del = Emergency exit, view task list to end stuck programs
alt + ← = Go back a page in Internet Explorer
alt + → = Go forward a page in Internet Explorer

Others:
- in Microsoft outlook, hit ctrl + M to check mail
- in Microsoft outlook, hit ctrl + N to create new message
- in Microsoft outlook, hit ctrl + enter to send message

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

All Hallows Eve - in the middle of the day

Manchester is a weird town. It’s a place where I’ve watched a man shout “ah, shut up!” at a passing ambulance’s (apparently annoying) siren. It’s a place where the local motel has a sign reading “Stay for a night… Or a lifetime.” It’s a place where, if I walk or ride my bicycle to work, people are astounded.

I only live about two miles from my office.

The political aspects are fun, as we are an epicenter of sorts for the NH primaries, as well as the presidential race in general. It’s certainly true that you are provided with multiple opportunities to meet any candidate on any ticket. The day after the elections, however, it is as the circus left town, pulling up the stakes and hurrying out on a midnight train. Even they don’t want to linger. Then we are just left with the town itself.

I’ve been here for nearly five years, and I can’t wait to leave.

One of my ongoing peeves is the insistence on “celebrating” Halloween on the Sunday before, in the middle of the day. Thus, last Sunday, (October 26), from 1-4pm was the “official” time for trick or treaters.

We also celebrate the fourth of July on July 3rd.

This year’s non-Halloween Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. It was broad daylight. It was not Halloween. As a result, there wasn’t much Halloween spirit in the house minus our two black cats. Who, incidentally, were sleeping in the sun as it was the middle of the day.

The amount of kids that show up varies year to year. In our early years here we stocked up on candy (which we put in a special cauldron, even) only to have three kids show up at the door the entire time.

Two years ago, the neighbors’ grandson (who I’m guessing was around 12 at the time) came to the door dressed in a basketball jersey, big jeans, and sunglasses. I asked what his costume was and he said he was a rapper, pointing to a stretch limo parked on the street. Apparently his grandfather had rented it/borrowed it from one of his potentially crooked friends (a blog story for another blog day) as the cornerstone of his costume.

He was trick or treating for candy, but wasn’t going to walk? No effort and all the reward? I was not impressed. I thought I’d make him work for it, which was admittedly not the nicest thing I could have done. I asked him to show me his skills. Give me one small rap. Show me something in character. Even I can bust out the lyrics to “Jump Around” or numerous other 90’s gems upon command.

He looked at me quizzically and pointed at the limo again. No rap emerged.

I still gave him a full size candy bar, as that’s the kind of girl I am.

Slowly but surely we’ve cut back on the candy purchasing, until this year, when we finally didn’t bother at all. All we had to work with was some leftover items from a night of making s’mores.

(As a side note, that meant we had both plain chocolate bars and peanut butter cups. Try branching out with the s’more making components– delicious!)

And, well, you know where this is going… We had a small crush of kids this time around, all looking very cute in their various witch, ghost, zebra, action hero, etc. costumes. I tried to avoid them, but I made the mistake of stepping onto the stairs (I’d been hiding upstairs), thus exposing a living human being to the eyes peering intently through our front window.

I opened the door to at least 10 kids eagerly hoisting bags at me, and I didn’t have enough for all of them. I made some sort of silly joke about how they were going to crush my entire supply, and then tried to pick those kids that looked like they were holding lesser-full sacks. I ran out completely, and some kids simply had to go without.

Not without candy, mind you. They seemed to have plenty of candy. Just without candy from me. Still, I felt pretty bad that I had to look in their little eyes, shrug my shoulders, and simply wish them a Happy Halloween. Even thought it wasn’t Halloween, and they weren’t looking for my good wishes. They just wanted the sugar.

It was a small costumed nightmare, and I am so happy that this is my last year of this silly non-Halloween Halloween.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Marching band - A way of life

I took a different route to work this morning, and on my way passed by a sight that took me back in time: the local high school marching band was practicing. They were in a local park next to a very busy road, giving them an ever changing, yet ever present audience to show off their evolving formations and semi-rehearsed songs.

All through middle and high school I was a bit of a band geek. I played (and still play, sort of) both the cornet and the trumpet. First the cornet, as that is what my brother played. Then the trumpet, as it turns out only my brother played the cornet.

Where I went to high school, marching band was a big deal. If you wanted to play in the regular band, you had to play in the marching band. As a result, we had just under 200 kids in the group, which in a school of 800 is significant. Our band leader was a traditionalist, favoring old standards (“Old Man River” comes to mind), rather than the more contemporary stuff (“Eye of the Tiger” comes to mind, as, after all, it was the late 80’s/early 90’s). And we always stayed in long straight lines, unless we broke off into lines of eight people to make circles. This was cause for lots of teenage angst, as we wanted to be the cool marching band (think “Drumline”), but we did what we were told.

What we lacked in panache we made up for in numbers.

I think I could still do some of the routines if pressed. I could certainly play several of the songs, along with our fight song and alma mater.

A highlight each year was going to the annual Marching Band Festival, held at Hofstra University. It was a total showcase of good, clean dorkiness, and we took it very seriously. Extra rehearsals (two a days!), extra practicing at home, lots of chatter in the cafeteria…

It was a televised event.

As the biggest band, we often went last, and we stormed the field each year with our time-honored entrance of running on to the field in precise steps, with eight steps equaling 10 yards. Each step was counted off in a mumbly way, except for when you hit each 10 yard line and the final stop, at which point you shouted.

If you can imagine, it sounded something like this:
ONE two three four five six seven eight
TWO two three four five six seven eight
THREE two three four five six seven eight
FOUR two three four five six seven eight
DOWN!” (<-- = stand at attention)

The hometown crowd loved it. Man, those were heady days.

Oh – the uniform. As with any marching band, that was a critical component. Ours were a bit brutal – dark green wool pants, matching blazer, a thick vinyl overlay for the jacket with a big “H” across the chest. Plus, a stiff green and white top hat where the requisite tall plume was attached. And white gloves. It was head to toe boiling hot, particularly on Memorial Day, where we marched in the hot sun for hours.

I will say that the polar-ready uniform did come in handy in the winter months. For example, we played at a Jets game every few years (see where marching band can take you?) and I remember it being particularly frigid there. I am sure I had some sort of hot-coals-in-my-pocket contraption to keep my fingers from chipping off my hands.

I went to look up the uniforms to show you what I mean, but apparently they’ve changed it up a bit. Here is what they look like now. Lucky them.

About Me

Jodi
My honeymoon consisted of a three week trip touring some of the great rollercoaster parks east of the Mississippi. I have a freakishily good memory for song lyrics, which is both a blessing and a curse (unfortunately the memory extends itself to insipid lyrics as well). Go ahead - test The Knowledge. I have Tivo. I love it.
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