just for fun

Saturday, June 30, 2007

exciting week

andrew had a job interview last monday. it went well. since it was a go'ment job, we aren't looking to hear from them for a little while more but have high hopes.

then andrew had his pt test with national guard on friday. he passed all tests, some with remarkable gains. he shaved over two minutes off of his two mile run time, down to 15.15. hooray!

and i've taken on what is more or less a part time job, but with my company. so i do this one job, monday to friday. and now i'm doing a second job only on saturday. today was my second saturday and i think its going to work out well. i'm finally getting the experience and additional training to be able to work on the projects that really interest me rather than the stuff i currently get assigned to do. i'm happy (over worked and tired) but happy.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

irritation

i've been very cranky at work this week.

it started with some paperwork that someone sent in. it was half blank so i asked them to fill in all the blanks. they sent it back the next day. still blank. so i asked again but tried to give more specifics: fill in this, this, and this. they sent it back the following day. still blank. i tried a different tactic. i asked them to double check and make sure all the info was accurate. they sent it back today. the blanks were initialed. but still blank. why would you do that?? in what universe would you think that was ok??? i don't know if the person is purposefully trying to be frustrating or if the person is honestly mentally challenged.

and then i had a couple rounds with payroll.

in ky, the labor laws say that if you work over 40 hours, you get time and a half. most states stop at just that. but some states allow for time and a half for any day where you worked over 8 hours, even if you don't get up to 40 for the week. nv is like that. only no one told me that until april. it really only makes a difference on weeks with holidays or vacation days. it was a big fat struggle to get payroll to switch me from the ky system to the nv system. in the meantime, half this year's paid holidays went by and i didn't get my couple extra dollars.

next week is going to be a paid holiday and when i entered my time for tuesday, i realized payroll had switched me back to the ky system. i emailed my boss and asked her to look into it and we found out today that there are sneaky exceptions to the nv laws. the over 8 hour thing only applied to people who make less than time and a half of minimum wage. since i make more than that, i do not qualify for the per day ot. obviously i ran right to the internet and googled nv labor commissioner and found out that payroll was right. i shouldn't get this extra pay, and since i never actually did, i don't have to feel bad.

my problem isn't that they took this away from me moments before i was finally going to actually be able to receive it or that everyone else in the company has been getting it all along even though they shouldn't. (though i did make sure everyone else had already been changed. that i wasn't the only one not getting it). my problem is that payroll had no intention of telling anyone about the change. they changed how the majority of the company is getting paid and how much their paycheck is going to be without ever mentioning it to anyone. of all the people effected, i think i'm the only one who knows. so come payday, there are going to be a few surprised and probably ticked off coworkers.

Friday, June 22, 2007

i burnt my forehead with the curling iron this morning.

i seriously don't think i've done that since middle school.

Monday, June 18, 2007

smelly

apparently someone in my office thinks that the women in the office smell bad. on the bathroom counter, there are two different scented soaps, three different air fresheners (two spray and one candle), and four different scented lotions. i think that is more fragrance options than there are women in the building.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

i assure you it was an accident

somehow, without meaning to, we've set up our lives in this house such that all the air conditioning vents blow on me and not on andrew. my dresser. my side of the bed. my placemat at the table. i'm the cold natured one. i enjoy the hot like an ovenness of las vegas. andrew is the one who sweats in the winter. but now we've been here six months and i like having my dresser where it is and i like my placemat on that side of the table so i don't really want to change. but i sure wish we'd noticed that all the air conditioning was blowing only on me before i was set in my ways.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

maple isn't just for breakfast

i really like sweet things, but not in the way most people do. i actually have a low tolerance for sweets so i like to mix a little sweet in with other things. i don't want to gorge on a whole pie; i'd rather toss some raisins into a caserole. at the same time, andrew really watches his carbs making sweets quite a challenge in our household. i was thrilled when we found a sugar free maple syrup at walmart. its great on pancakes and lots of other stuff too!


maple glazed salmon

1/4 cup maple syrup
2 T soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t garlic salt
1/8 t ground black pepper
1 pound salmon



in a small bowl, mix the maple syrup, soy sauce, garlic, garlic salt, and pepper. place salmon in a shallow glass baking dish, and coat with the maple syrup mixture. cover and marinate salmon in the refrigerator 30 minutes, turning once. bake salmon uncovered at 400 for 20 minutes, or until easily flaked with a fork. enjoy!

Friday, June 15, 2007

work funnies

its been a stressful week.

on monday we remembered that andrew's insurance with the army ends 6/16. yeah. monday was 6/11. there aren't really enough days in between those dates to process something like work insurance but we more or less got it to happen.

and then along came wednesday. some changes that are abrewin at work seem fairly foolish to me, but clearly i'm not in charge and therefore do not know the big picture. i learned about most of the changes at lunch on wednesday and then that evening came home to discover my apartment complex has dug up all the grass. we picked this place because of its green space. i don't know if they are replacing all the grass with new, hardier grass or with faux grass or with decorative rocks. its just been bare dirt for two days while i've mourned the dead grass. and the complex worked so hard to grow it too. the sprinklers come on several times a day. the maintanence has to mow a couple times a week. all for nothing now it would seem.

but there have been a couple of bright spots in the week...

as you might have noted in the above paragraph, this is vegas and its a desert and there is no grass. so my boss flies over to indiana for some work stuff. she ended up taking the red eye into louisville. she tried to sleep some on the plane so as it was beginning its decent, she groggily started to wake up. it was about six in the morning, sun just about rising. she looked out the window and said, "wow that's a big golf course!!" (because of course, here the only grass is on the private expensive golf courses). and then she felt very foolish when she remembered that in most places in the world, things live and grow and there is grass just on the side of the road because that is where grass usually lives. she made the mistake of telling me and i've had a great time telling everyone i know.

then there are a couple of coworkers that occationally comment on my eating lean cuisines for lunch. honestly, i find them tasty. they are not expensive. they come in a lot of flavors. they are basically good for me. and best of all, they do not require effort on my part. but i do actually enjoy eating many of them. so the other day, i did my usual lunch routine. i finished up and was walking back from the kitchen. a coworker in one of the office i passed by commented that someone's lunch smelled very tasty. as the only one who brings their lunch, it was clearly mine. i smiled and said, "just a lean cuisine!" and he said, "i just really need more than that. i need a big manly cuisine!" and his secretary leaned over to me and whispered, "more like a pudgy cuisine..."

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

he is such a sneaky boy

andrew took my car yesterday saying that he was going take care of all the regular maintaince stuff. i just assumed he meant oil change or tires rotated or whatever it is that boys think should be done to cars. instead he put in a new cd player! mine had been broken since before the move (that was a long drive with no cd player...) and he was all sneaky and found one on ebay. its the exact same cd player so i didn't even notice when i got into the car except all the radio presets were reset.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

well i'll tell you what's in reno

not really a whole lot actually. but the not-a-whole-lot-parts of it were nothing like vegas, so its ok in my book. i've been to reno several times in the past few years, and its always struck me as a fairly ok place.

it was great to see trees and water and feel a cool breeze and see whole subdivisions of houses with absolutely no stucco siding.

we flew up on monday and while i worked all week, andrew roamed the comic book shops and bought them all out of business. as i suspected he would. on wednesday we drove up to tahoe. the mountainous drive was painful to me. i did not, however, go into actual hysterics as andrew kept pointing out how close the rental car was to the jagged clifts. the rental car was fun too. toyota avalon. i really liked the temperature controls. you simply picked the temperature you wanted your side of the car to be (kind of like the sleep number bed. andrew was 68, i'm 72.) and the car just magically turns on the fans or the heat to make that temperature happen. it snowed on us so the car did actually have to do some fancy shmancy temperature changing. yup. its june. and it snowed. i had to run to target and buy more sweaters. on the last evening, we decided to through a few dollars into the gambling coffers. naturally andrew won all his back, and then some. i gave up gambling a long time ago as i would be better off to just light the money on fire and watch the pretty flames.

here's some snap shots of the week:










Sunday, June 03, 2007

what's in reno?

andrew and i are heading to reno tomorrow. i'm working there this week and he's planning to explore the town (really that means: raid their comic shops since we've already pilfered all the good things in the ones here in town.) there are also some mini golf places there. for some reason, there aren't any in vegas. there were some. they've all been paved over and are condos now. i'll tell you about all our other adventures when we return.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

helping to fix sick kids

andrew and i attended the 2007 JDRF (juvenile diabetes research foundation) 'journey to a cure' hope gala at green valley ranch casino. it was quite fun, the food was nice, big bad voodoo daddy was the evenings entertainment. there was a silent action, a live auction and a raffle. we didn't bring anything home but over $700,000 was raised for research and that was exciting too. obviously there were some really rich people there. and naturally they were the ones to make the society page of the newspaper rather than andrew and i. a friend of mine did take our picture, so here it is...