Tubin

The death knell of LJ?

2009-10-27T02:23:33Z

I enjoy LJ for a couple of reasons.

The most important is the chance to follow along with the writings of my friends in distant places. But more and more of those have moved to FB or elsewhere. In many cases, everything I see posted here is also posted in FB. I will keep looking here as long as those last few haven't made the move.

The other is that LJ has been a convenient vehicle for keeping up with a number of things via RSS feed.

But I'm irritated that the RSS feed appears to have been down for days. I've missed multiple episodes of my favorite webcomics and I'm going into cheezburger withdrawal!

Is it time to find some other RSS feed reader and drop LJ entirely?

testing...

2009-10-24T22:56:27Z

Haven't seen anything new on LJ all day. Odd? Are they broken? Will this post appear?

Promoted!

2009-09-23T22:53:58Z

Today my group went out to lunch to celebrate birthdays - mine, last weekend, and my boss's earlier this month (not celebrated earlier due to Ramadon).

On our return, we met briefly in his office so he could give me my birthday present: a promotion!

My new title is "Senior Physician Systems Analyst". I was an applications analyst before. The titles are all just words, I suppose, but the new title was created just for me so, like Tigger, I'm the only one!

My newest co-worker is a Physician Systems Analyst, though, so no doubt he'll make good and get himself promoted to senior at some point... at which point I'll be happy to share :)

The title comes with a bit of a raise, which seems to prove that it's actually a promotion, not just a rephrasing. And, they're moving my group before long, and in the new space, I get my own office! (that's sort of but not entirely related to the promotion)....

Likin' the world right now...

(Since there's just one of me, I suppose I could say I'm THE Senior Physician Systems Analyst... saying "The senior..." makes it sound more exalted than it is, probably...)

Oh, and I've apparently reached a point where I remember to post to Facebook long before I remember to post here, so most of you probably already saw this news...

Electrical woes

2009-08-23T17:06:50Z

Yesterday was my revved-up "I'm gonna accomplish something!" day. So I set out to pull the carpet from the third bedroom (which we use as an exercise room)... a job which required clearing up rest of house so there was room to put furniture from that room, moving said furniture, then starting the dusty, gross task of pulling out carpet that's got at least 15 years worth of dirt, spills, mildew, etc ground down into it.

Midway through the task, there's a popping noise from somewhere, and a few of the household lights get brighter while whole swaths of the rest of the house go dark. And a bit of a burnt smell. Oh, dear.

The circuit that supports the internet connection seems to be dead, so after doing the standard checks (crawl through attic looking for anything smoking or burning, check box for blown breakers or signs of damage, go through house cataloging what's affected and looking for signs of damage), I used the phone to google for an electrician with weekend hours. Found a pleasant company with good BBB ratings and arranged for someone to come out.

Before the electrician got here, a Reliant truck came cruising down the street. Seems the problem was some fairly serious incident at the transformer, not at my house. One phase of our two-phase power was out. The burning smell was probably something in my house reacting badly to the unbalanced power (the remaining phase was running slightly hot at 140 v instead of the 110-120 we expect). It took them over six hours to repair it.

Meanwhile my electrician appeared, did due diligence to make sure the house wouldn't burn down, and while he was out there we discussed several other things I've needed to do for the house. He wrote up a contract for us for bringing the circuit box and ground wire up to code, installing a whole-house surge protector, and dropping a couple new circuits into key areas of the house... we will do that work next week. So it wasn't such a waste of his time or ours.

That's our excitement for the week, I guess. Today I will finish the carpet job...

Story of the day since I haven't posted in a while

2009-08-12T03:27:36Z

The hospital where I work has a large indoor atrium area, with a central fountain, big sunroof, scattered tables and chairs, guy playing the piano, etc. A pleasant place to pause if I have a little time between meetings.

So today I was sitting at one of the tables, with my back to the fountain. I hear a woman behind me, bitching at her kids: "Don't play in the fountain! I told you not to play in the fountain!" *splash* "See, I told you you shouldn't play in the fountain or you'll fall in and start bleeding like that man did!"

So I spin around to see that an elderly gentleman has tripped on the edge of the fountain and fallen in. And lazy Mom - in addition to not bothering to restrain her own children - hasn't made a move to help him.

So of course a half-dozen others of us did help him, got him out of the fountain and into a wheelchair and down to the ER to be checked out (and given something dry to wear) and got staff in to clean up the puddles of water, and so on. And the whole time I'm involved with this (staying around long enough to ensure the cleanup was complete, so no one else slipped in the water), whinyMom was there in the background, berating her brats.

I'm sure they'll turn out wonderfully. In sociopath terms, that is.

Seussian glop for dinner

2009-06-19T02:04:20Z

One of the dishes I make in advance and heat up during the week is this sort of florentine-ish stew - chunks of chicken, browned with some masala spices, then stewed with onion, mushroom, spinach, cream cheese, and chicken broth. It all comes together into this savory, creamy sauce which is very tasty over a pile of egg noodles.

But you know, when it's just come out of the fridge to be reheated, it looks less smooth and creamy and more... gloppish. Green and gloppish. And when I drop a big scoop of it into the bowl it sort of falls with a hearty glorp.

It really does look like the generic green gloopy food you might include as the horror cafeteria item in some real-life or cartoon comedy....

Groningen?

2009-06-10T04:19:18Z

Looks like we'll be going to the Netherlands for Thanksgiving week. Anyone know of any fun stuff to do in Groningen (the uni town) or in Amsterdam (in Winter)? Would we need a vehicle? How about good places to stay in Amsterdam?

Hey, I haven't posted in weeks. This seemed like a conversation-starter. Less boring than work, street reconstruction, fence-building, housework, and the other sorts of things that seem to occupy my time lately.

Dreams and events!

2009-04-12T14:05:59Z

I dreamed last night that a strange cat had kittens in my bedroom closet. They were really cute kittens. I spent the entire dream scrambling around trying to find appropriate food and drink and so on for Momma-cat, who I figured must be starving to death if she'd been trapped in my closet having kittens without anyone knowing.

Oh, and nicoleallee and johnbrandon had their triplets last night!

Their names are:
Tadpole
Teddy-bear
Jim-Ben

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise....

Ah, Competence...

2009-03-18T03:38:42Z

Early this AM, someone at my employer emailed a solicitation to sign a political email petition. To a large usergroup - not the whole institution but to a mailing list that included a fair number of directors and VPs.

Yup, you know what happened.

A half dozen emails saying "please remove me from this mailing list" appeared, before the first "please stop hitting reply all to ask to be removed" started appearing.

You know the routine.

I'm happy to say that the guy who maintains the email list caught the whole thing within 20 emails. Killed the list, so no further posts could be sent. Then a few hours later a email went out from the powers-that-be which very publicly spanked the individual who had started the whole thing for (1) using a user group list inappropriately, and (2) sending a politically-oriented email at work. There was a strong implication that such behavior can be considered a firing offense.

Competence and a politics-free workplace: Perhaps that's why Methodist was ranked #7 on Fortune's "Best Places to Work" report this year?

State of the me plus some notes of no interest to anyone but me

2009-01-24T18:39:11Z

Receipts I have sitting around for things I planted in the garden (as best I remember...)

Daffodils - a total of 100 bulbs, most of which seem to be coming up, planted in the beds near the garage, also some in Koshka's bed. These were purchased at Sam's and were produced by the Van Zyverdan company. They're the kind that have several small flowers on the stalk rather than one big one.

Muscari (Grape Hyacinths) - purchased at the garden show, 25 total planted over by Koshka's bed and near the garage by the Satsuma tree (also purchased at the garden show). Some have come up but no flowers yet.

Leucojum - 8 bulbs - planted over by the new pomegranate tree (all from garden show) - just planted a couple weeks ago so wouldn't expect to see anything yet.

There was another sort of bulb that I planted around 25 of but I seem to have misplaced the note about it. So will document it when I find the note... or just have mystery flowers in the yard. Wouldn't be the first time that happened!

The new job is great and keeping my busy - and in the interim I've managed to get the contract in place for the roof replacement (work to be done when the shingles arrive) and get the wood mostly painted for the fascia repairs, which will be done at the time the roof is done. Also have navigated Christmas, New Years, and Inauguration festivities as well as various birthdays and other fun. Now am trying to shovel out all the piles of paperwork and clutter that somehow accumulated while I was doing all of that. I don't quite understand how my house manages to get progressively messier when I'm not here doing anything in it!

I made a New Years resolution to exercise every day. So far I'm on track with that. I do a 2-hour yoga session every Monday night, I meet with the trainer for a half-hour at the gym on Sundays and Wednesdays, and I do 40-minute cardio (usually walking on treadmill with occasional forays into jogging) with K on all the other days. Occasionally on Wednesday night I'll do cardio at the gym for a half-hour in addition to the workout with the trainer - that's generally either a recumbent bike or eliptical machine.

Now back to cleaning up. Just felt guilty that my last LJ post was in December and it's almost February! My "ceramic" anniversary is coming up...

New job!

2008-12-10T22:17:14Z

Whew, I haven't posted in a while! My thoughts these days seem to fit better into the one-line format that is twitter/facebook.

But...

I just accepted a new job. This is a Good Thing as the old job went away in August and I've been scraping along with short-term contract work since then.

I will be working with Methodist Hospital System* in a new department that basically helps clinical staff - particularly physicians - work effectively with IT. Down the road is a big planned electronic medical record implementation; in the meantime there's a slew of interesting projects involving automating standard computerized order sets in the hospital, setting up "single-sign-on" systems, and so on. They're actually paying me a tad more than I made at my last job and the benefits are clearly better. And hopefully working for a massive hospital system will be a bit more stable than working for a startup!

I go in tomorrow to do all the paperwork, get my ID photo taken (resisting a friend's suggestion to wear a Santa hat in the photo) and do the employee health thing (shot records, etc). I officially start work on the 22nd December!

*assuming I can pass their drug test this time... I've been avoiding poppy seeds most carefully in anticipation

Criminal Meme

2008-11-11T19:12:55Z

From ciaracat

If you saw me in a police car, what would you think I got arrested for? Answer, then if you want, post to your own journal and see how many crimes you get accused of.

(No fair looking at other comments first.)

Share the love...

2008-11-04T16:12:24Z

By way of la_directors

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment.
2. Post a reasonably sized picture in your LJ, not under a cut tag, of something pleasant - something that has nothing to do with politics .
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

Last week I constructed this rope-wrapped pole to let the beasties climb something indoors. Here you see Gracie has found the top while Judy watches from below.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Oh, no, Brer Bear, don't throw me into the briar patch!

2008-10-23T15:21:34Z

The insurance adjuster looked at the stain on my ceiling, poked around the attic a bit, sauntered around the yard, and stomped around the roof for a while.

Then came back inside. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. There actually wasn't that much wind damage, but because of the age and condition of your roof we're just gonna have to replace the whole roof."

Oh, darn. My 30-year shingles are at least 25 years old... I'm so disappointed that they're going to be replaced.

He goes on "Did you notice that some of your screens and shutters are wind-damaged? They'll have to be replaced."

I said "No, I really hadn't noticed a problem", thinking "um, my screens and shutters have been in terrible shape for years - how would I know if they had additional damage?"

So they're going to work up a price for replacing my ceiling, replacing my roof, replacing the section of damaged fence, replacing the shutters and screens, and reimbursing me for removing the tree that fell (because it fell on the fence... ).

I'm not complaining. As long as I'm out of a job it's a relief that someone else is volunteering to pay to fix some stuff around here. No doubt they'll lowball the cost of all those repairs but if they include cost of labor, and I do the work myself, I'll probably do fine...

Now if I can just get a job!

Enron prep part 2

2008-10-16T18:03:19Z

Preparing for a career at Enron (part 1)

2008-10-16T18:02:52Z

In the mood for mischief....

2008-10-07T15:50:57Z

This will keep her from getting any work done!

2008-10-07T15:50:28Z

another test

2008-10-07T03:26:37Z

this is also only a test.

Testing

2008-10-07T03:23:42Z

This is only a test.

Piece o' the Berlin Wall

2008-10-06T21:06:24Z

Many years ago a friend who was living in Germany at the time sent me a chunk of concrete, painted on one face, which was supposedly a piece of the Berlin wall.

Apparently there was a whole tourist trade of selling bits of random concrete as bits of the wall, so no guarantee this is truly what it's billed to be.

The thing has rattled around my various homes ever since, tucked into a drawer or box somewhere.

I think I kept it because of sentimental feelings about the person who sent it to me, not because I'm particularly attached to the idea of preserving a little chunk of the wall. Plenty of museums, etc, have preserved enough of the wall to keep it in our memories.

My friend has probably forgot she ever even sent it to me.

I'm thinking of just tossing it into the garden rock pile. Any opinions about what I should do with it?

Progress - state of the Tubin.

2008-10-02T02:10:55Z

I had a relatively productive day - breakfast with friends then got some paperwork done, then yardwork, mostly pruning. I got someone to take my big pile of plant pots off my hands. And did some cleaning indoors. And baked quiches.

On the job hunting front - finally things are starting to pick back up after the storm. With luck that will mean new interviews and maybe eventually an offer somewhere?

In the garden: the city picked up the last of my enormous pile of brush. Between the shade from the brush pile and the gouging from the thing they used to scoop up the pile, my front lawn is pretty trashed. I also think my little magnolia tree is dying. So.... resod with St Augustine, or is there a cool native grass that would do well on a sunny lawn space? Or non-native - wonder how Zoysia would do?

Also thinking of planting some dwarf fruit trees to replace the magnolia in front and the big tree in the back. My neighbor grows oranges, grapefruit, and lemons; I have had good luck with my meyer lemon tree. I am wondering what else would grow in our climate and what varieties are recommended. I suppose I should look up the county extension office and see if they have any lists.

Inside I have managed to back up all the computers onto the big backup drive, and am working on burning all our CDs onto it. Next goal is to get the wireless printer server working. Then research about sound system - can it all be run through the computer into a network of speakers throughout the house? Since I can listen to music on an iPod, does it really matter?

Also digging through clutter - anyone want an 8-year old HP multimachine printer/scanner? How about an even older epson laser printer? How about a pile of used video tapes - feel free to tape over the assorted episodes of Smallville and Buffy... How about a large chipper/shredder that didn't sell when I put it up on Craig's list? This last I'd like some cash for; the others are for the taking. While I pull out all the clutter and reorganize, the house looks like the hurricane passed through indoors!

And pie crust - have started making quiche regularly (K really likes it) but was using store-bought pie crusts. Then at the store last week K bought crusts that were all broken into pieces - too many pieces to jigsaw them back together. So I just wet them down a bit, rolled them into a ball, then rolled out the ball into new pie crusts. Didn't seem so hard and I thought "Isn't a pie crust just flour, water, oil, salt? Maybe I should be making my own." So need to solicit peoples' recipes for easy-to-make crust.

On my to-do list are: getting the roof checked out for storm damage, getting the sprinkler system repaired, getting estimates for replacement windows, landscaping purchases as hinted at above, and finish the massive indoor cleanup. The idea is to get it all in order before someone hands me a new job.... hopefully not too much longer!

Our territory has changed. This requires close inspection!

2008-09-25T14:25:12Z

We are all intrigued by a new toy.

2008-09-24T03:14:59Z

I haven't posted much lately because...

2008-09-22T22:07:55Z

I'm trying to get a lot of stuff done, and am getting some stuff done, and am also diddling a bit with facebook because my brother talked me into an account and then I got sucked in.

The big tree in the backyard, the one that was rotten down to the base as it turns out, is now a big pile of wood on the front curb. That's a good thing. What should I plant in its place? I'm considering either a new big shade tree (starting with an itty-bitty one) or a couple of smaller fruit trees.

The new toilet is in. That frees me up to go back to re-doing the other bathroom.

The new backup drive is now networking properly with the other machines in the house, so I can start a backup protocol. I plan to use the drive to store backups, and also as a music server. For the former, I am still considering backup software for both Mac and PC - anyone have something they like? For the latter, I would like a program that would look at folders A and B and update B with any files that are present in A but not B - I'm aware of a couple freeware options for PC, but any good utilites like that for Mac?

I need to have someone look at the roof, which means collecting the names of decent roofing companies. I need to have the foundation re-evaluated (did a year ago and concluded to check again in a year to see if the movement is active) so need names of good foundation companies. I plan to replace the windows with double-pane, so need some good window installing companies. The exterior of the house needs paint - need names of painters. And the sprinkler system seems to be broken and needs some revision to adapt to my somewhat changed landscape from when it was installed nearly 10 years ago. Fortunately the people who did it back then appear to still be in business so that's one less set of recommendations to get.

And I continue to try to find ways to thin out clutter in my home without sending my husband into a panic. Meanwhile I just got two large boxes from the Texas department of health containing posters, stickers, brochures, pins, and various other advertising materials for infant vaccination - an important subject to be sure but if they'd noted the indication that I'm not currently in practice they could have sent those to someone who might use them. So I either have to add them to the "clutter to be dealt with" pile or toss them in the trash, either of which irritates me right now.

Oh, and I still need a job. Everyone I'd interviewed with before the storm seems to have disappeared.

I was fairly cheerful through the storm. Maybe today's sense of angst and overwhelmed-ness is just accumulated from days when life was actually more stressful but I didn't have time for stress?