>Clearing the Backblog

Last Updated on: 25th April 2012, 08:22 pm

>Hope you folks like these random posts, because with all that time I didn’t write, I’ve created quite a, well, thought backblog. I’m sure I’ll be able to write something more focused soon. But until then, have a pile of thoughts.

Remember back in another random post, I said I forgot something? Well, I remembered it, and keep forgetting to write it down, so I’m writing it down now. What was it again? Just kidding.

Has anyone else noticed that, among all the phone drones out there, the Swiss Chalet delivery phone drones are the most humourless of all? I could swear they turned their human trainees into cyborgs to be more efficient. When they pick up the phone, they greet you with something that sounds like “hellothankyouforcallingswisschaletcanihaveyourphonenumberstartingwiththeareacodeplease?” Huh? What? Where? who? I’m still stuck at Hello. Even if you make a joke, there is no laughter, there is only “nextitemplease?” Everywhere you go, you’re going to get someone who sounds like a zombie, but this is a consistent thing with Swiss Chalet. I think the lady who sold me Chalet soup when I had that brutal cold was the last of the humans.

Can I mention how much I hate hate hate writing big collaborative reports? I mustn’t be a team player or something, because I can’t stand having to come up with ideas that we both agree on, and then wrangling them into something resembling intelligible english. For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been working up at the university doing an audit of various areas of their website to tell them how well they work with JAWS. The way it works is I work in tandem with a guy with functioning eyes, and when I have a problem, he tries to tel me what he’s seeing in comparison to what I am. Then, we have to write a big report to explain it to the powers that be. Seems simple enough, right? I wish!

Every time he gets his hands on it to edit in his input, the input he adds is either riddled with errors and redundancies, cannot be called decent sentences, or all of the above. I spend more time editing the jabber than adding new input. I showed it to Steve, and after the third sentence, Steve was confused beyond belief, and he knew what I had been doing for the last six weeks. Fixing the report was so brain-sapping that I said to Steve that my brain felt like it needed to write blog posts for nourishment. Well, we know how many of those got created, don’t we? If only we always got what we wanted.

Note to anyone about to take a plane anywhere: Do not watch the show called Mayday before you go. You’ll wonder if flying is such a great idea. That show is fascinating, but lord you realize how much human error goes on, and then you wonder why there aren’t more crashes. Air traffic controlers that don’t seem to understand the gravity, ha ha, of “we are out of fuel,” engineers that are eyeballing up parts to see if they fit and they don’t, pilots punching the wrong entry points into their autopilot and, quelle surprise, getting lost. Ug. You wonder how good an idea it is to put your life in their hands. *Tries to remember* did I watch Mayday before I went to San Rafael? I know I thought about things in it through the whole plane trip. But maybe I’m just neurotic. But the show makes you realize how rare a true mechanical failure is. they’re most often caused by human error.

And because people love dog stuff, I figured I’d throw some more doggy tidbits in. I learned yesterday that Trixie is not a fan of being splashed by a truck driving through a puddle. She backed up, spun around and shook her whole body to get the water off. I just couldn’t stop laughing. Yep, I’m heartless.

Remember when we called her Visa? Well, now she’s upgraded to Visa Gold because she really goes out of her way to be, well, in ours. Holy crap. Silly girl moves and ends up more in the way than before.

Also, remember how, in the mornings, she’d get up and flop like a fish on the rug? Well, now she’ll do it on the bare floor! Trixter, doesn’t that hurt? But if you’re having fun, knock yourself out…well, don’t do that. That’s what I’m afraid will happen! She also will shake her whole body, but she’ll be right next to the couch, so she’ll wack right into it! One day, she decided to shake her head the way she does, and I heard a loud click! Dad said that was the sound of her head hitting his knee! Ouch!

I have learned to respect that thumpy tail and its distructive power. We had to more firmly attach the basket we have on the door to catch the mail because she had wagged into it so hard! That, combined with her womping her head off it made it all crooked.

I wish I could record the noises she makes when she dreams. Sometimes, she wags her tail in her sleep. Other times, she makes these itcy bitcy barks. I have to wonder if she’s having a good dream or a nightmare. If only I could speak Trixie.

Next week, the guy who does followups for the school, who is also the guy who interviewed me last year, is coming to see me and see how Trix and I are doing. He’s coming at 5 at night so we can walk through Friday rush hour. Really putting Trixie and I to the test, isn’t he? I’m a little nervous, a lot excited, and a little nervous all over again. I want to hear him say that we’re doing well, I pray I haven’t let some things slip, I want some pointers on some things, and I hope he doesn’t think those things are stupid. Hopefully I’ll have a story or two from that.

I think that’s about it. Holy crap that was a huge post. Hope it wasn’t too long and drawn out.

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