Jan & Dean

Jan Berry passed away yesterday at the age of 62.

I had the pleasure of attending a concert, on their first tour, since the 1966 accident. It was a very emotional night when they sang "Dead Man's Curve". The song has long been associated with the duo and the devasting accident that left Jan partially paralyzed and unable to speak. I don't believe there was a dry eye at the Hartford Civic Center when they performed the song. At the end of the song, the crowd cheered with a 10 minute standing ovation.

Spring Has Sprung!!

What a fantastic spring day. The doors and windows are opened wide. Clapton's Unplugged blasting from my CD player. I'm blues boppin through the housework and getting the spring cleaning done. Oh Brother Where Are Thou will follow Clapton as house work music. Then, just to confuse the neighbors, vacuum to Vivaldi. If I get everything done today, I'll mellow out tonight with a margarita, and Loreena McKinnett.

Bumbles is outside enjoying the day, soaking up some rays. Last night he brought home a friend. I swear this cat told the neighborhood about the "nice lady with lots of good food". Both cats zoomed past me as I opened the door. While the cat looks well fed, it seems to be afraid to get too close. This one is with with a few black patches. Hence the name my neighbor gave it -- Patches. Sorry but that name is just not creative enough for me so I'll change it :) I bet none of you realized I'm running a boarding home for wayward kitties.

"Laugh Of The Day"

This morning I sat quietly at home, enjoying my morning coffee and reading e-mails. When I look at the clock, it was 7:00 and I still hadn't showered and gotten dress. And so began the frantic rush to get ready for work. I never cease to amaze myself, in 20 minutes, I showered, dressed, brushed my teeth, made my "travel coffee" and headed out the door.

To my surprise there was very little traffic as I sped off to work. Don't tell anyone but I was doing about 75 the whole distance! It's about a 5 minute walk from the parking lot into the building today I was doing a fast walk and made it just in time to punch in and not be marked late. As I walked through the office I looked at the clock. Something isn't quite right - did someone change the clocks? Yep, it was only 7:00 AM and I didn't need to be here until 8:00 AM.

Oh well, atleast I can enjoy my coffee and have a chance to relax before the rat race starts.


Note to self: Finish first cup of coffee before looking at the clock!!

Have you ever noticed some "bloggers" take the written word too seriously to notice when people are being funny? To those people I say, lighten up and laugh once in awhile. Life is too short to take seriously all the time!

Adoption

As I noted in a previous post, there has been a VERY friendly kitty hanging around. It runs down the road to greet me when I come home. It's outside my door when I leave in the morning. It has even come into the house a few times. I talked with my neighbor yesterday and apparently when I don't see the kitty it's because SHE has brought it inside. During the snowstorm she found the cat huddled next to our dryer vents trying to keep warm and dry.

This morning, I found the cat on my front steps, shivering and hungry so I let it inside. Since I still have food and kitty litter, I decided the kitty will stay inside today. The cat went through 2 cans of food before I left the house! I just have one really major problem -- I'm allergic to long haired cats!!! Because of this, I don't know how well the kitty is going to work out being in here.

Don't ask me if it's male or female --- there is too much fur to tell at a quick glance. At the moment, the kitty is playing "cat in the bag" in the kitchen and having a great time! It managed to find the catnip stash while I was at work. It's a long-haired pale orange cat - very pretty, very friendly and very affectionate. As for a name, well it has to be unisex for now so I'm thinking of "Bumble". It would be named after the snow monster in "Rudolph". Then again, I may come up with a completely different name.

I guess I just broke my promise to myself! Only time and allergies will tell if kitty gets to stay or not.

Strange Happenings

Apparently I have recently been adopted. Stay tuned for further details.

Video Voyeur - Norwich/Colchester CT Searcher

I have noticed my site has been found several times by a person/people searching for information on a video voyeur in the Norwich CT area. Curiosity has gotten the best of me and I would like to know if you are looking for information regarding Ronald LaMontagne. I wish I had more information than what is posted but I don't. The State Police never contacted me after I gave my statement. If you happen to have information on the case, that I have not mentioned. I would appreciate hearing from you.

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I've been keeping myself busy at work and at home. Yes, I do miss Smokey but I'm feeling MUCH better about my decision and enjoying no kitty underfoot in the kitchen. A new kitty in the neighborhood has been hanging around and greeting me every day. It's a lovely cat - very friendly, talkative, light tan and long-haired. The cat runs up to my car as soon as I get in the driveway, walks me to the house. It even comes inside to visit for a few minutes and then leaves. There is no chance it will become a replacement for Smokey. I'm allergic to long-haired cats. Besides, I think the cat belongs to a neighbor. I just think it's funny the way the cat greets me and visits. Last night, the cat saw me coming down the road and ran to my driveway.

This week was a comedy of errors for me. Most of you know I love to bake and I also decorate cakes. We celebrated a co-workers birthday yesterday and I volunteered to bring the cake. On wednesday evening I mixed up the cake batter, poured it in the pan, only to discover the pan required TWO cake mixes. At 7:45 pm, I found myself getting dressed and running to the grocery store for another cake mix. First mistake - always buy TWO cake mixes for large cake pans.

Thursday night was for making the frosting and decorating the cake. From past experience I have learned to mix only one batch of frosting at a time. I've blown the motors in two mixers trying to save time and double the frosting batch. I mixed the first batch and frosted the cake. Knowing I wanted green as the main color, I made the remaining frosting dark green and decorated all the borders of the cake. Then it was time to mix the 2nd batch of frosting. I had all the ingredients in the bowl and was adding the powered sugar. That's when I realized error number two - always read the recipe!!! I was so used to making a double batch of frosting, I had doubled the amount of water needed. Of course I don't keep extra baking ingredients on my shelves, so another 8:00 pm trip to the grocery store was necessary.

Finally all the frosting is made. The next color I needed was a light shade of purple. Having only the basic colors - red, blue, green, yellow - I knew mixing red and blue SHOULD give me purple. Well that didn't happen Thursday night. It came out the most disgusting shade of brown I have ever seen!!! That bowl of frosting went into the trash and so did my thoughts of how to decorate the cake. I needed light purple to make Forget-me-nots or violets.

At this point I have a cake frosted in white with green borders. If I use red as a secondary color, it beomes a Christmas cake. Yellow alone doesn't look good on a white cake. Blue just doesn't go well with green. Brainstorm hits! BALLOONS!! Red - yellow and blue balloons! I mixed a little of each color went to work. Since I was only going to use a little of each color I opted to not use a pastry bag. Instead I filled a decorating tip with the frosting and pushed it through with my finger. Gee, I forgot just how well food coloring works on fingers.

Finally, Friday morning arrives - the cake is all decorated and I'm wrapping it in plastic for the trip to work. After the cake was wrapped, I looked at it to wondering if it would make it to work in one piece. That's when one more minor error jumped out at me. I spelled the person's name wrong!! At that point I said "fuck it" and prayed no one would notice.

After all that I went through to make the cake, decorate it and get it to work, no one was hungry enough to eat it!!!! We had a "pot luck" lunch and everyone was full from all the baked ziti, salad, kielbasa, chicken wings ..... Around 3:30 I made the birthday girl cut the cake and hand it out. She brought 1/2 the cake home with her.

"It's Over"

I brought Smokey to an emergency clinic and she was put to sleep today. The Vet said she was very dehydrated, showed definate signs of a stroke and quite possibly experiencing kidney failure as well. She couldn't be completely certain without testing but the signs all pointed in that direction. Knowing there really wasn't much I could do, I had her put to sleep.

I know she's happier now and no longer lonely. It's just going to take a lot of tears and major adjustments for me to get past this.

"Not a good weekend"

For the last several months I've been very concerned about my cat, Smokey. She had lost a lot of weight and the move seemed to have a large effect on her. Suddenly she was in a new home and minus her two playmates, Demitasse and Binky. She was very lonely and depressed without her playmates. She wandered around the apartment, yeowling and looking for them. I know her hearing was going and the yeowl was probably what she thought was a meow.

She had started to get used to being an only cat and having me home all day when I started my new job. When I came home at night, she would be at the door crying for me. That's the same place she would be when I left in the morning.

Last Thursday, I fed her and we went through our morning ritual of her crying at the door as I left. When I came home, she seemed to be walking a bit strange, sort of staggering and not very vocal. I didn't think too much of it, fed her again and went about my business. Before I went to bed, I noticed Smokey hadn't eaten her food. She can be very picky and we occasionally go through these "I'm not eating that" fights. Smokey has discovered, I can be just as stubborn as she is finicky and usually gives in.

By Friday morning, the food was still there, so I put down fresh food. She sniffed it and decided to drink her water instead. When I returned home on Friday, the food still hadn't been eaten, now that's not like Smokey to not give in. I tried fresh food and she still turned her nose up at the food and instead drank water. At this point I knew something wasn't right with Smokey. Just to be certain I went to the cupboard for a can of people tuna. She NEVER turns down people tuna but she did this time.

In the meantime, Smokey is holding her head strange. It's hanging down and she looks up at me through the corner of her eyes. She appears to be having a difficult time walking, it's more of a stagger, and she only walks a few feet at a time.

I spent Saturday, doing housework and trying to get Smokey to eat ANYTHING. She has turned her nose up at all food. She does drink a little water but that's all. I tried giving her chicken broth (Jewish penicillin) and she won't touch that either.

In my mind, I know what has to be done and I just can't handle it. Seeing her suffer is heart wrenching but so is having put to sleep. Smokey is 14 years old and I've had her since she was 4 WEEKS old. Her sister, Bandit, was put to sleep several years ago, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Having gone through this before, I can't handle it again.

So, here I sit, knowing what MUST be done and I can't do it! Just writing about it has me in tears and thinking about something a lot stronger than coffee for a morning drink.

Bad Me!

Shame on me for not taking a few minutes to update my blog. I've been keeping pretty busy at my new job. I don't get home until after 5:00 and then I spend atleast an hour sorting through e-mails and making my Scrabble moves. By the time I finish that, dinner is ready and soon I'm off to bed.

Last weekend, I attended a "spur of the moment" wedding. My sister-in-law called me about 10 days prior to announce her dad (Bill) was getting married. Bill and his fiancee, Carol, were going to get married by a JP and then tell the family. Well they changed their minds and wanted a small church wedding with a reception at my sister-in-law's house. Everyone pitched in to make the wedding and reception a success. I made about 80 finger sandwiches (ham salad and chicken salad) for the reception. Since they were trying to save on the costs and didn't require gifts, I also played wedding photographer. Now I'm waiting for the pictures to come back to see if they came out ok. I'm having them put on CD and will also set up a webshots page for the couple. This will allow them to share the photos with family and friends much easier than having reprints made.

Many of you know I cruise with lots of friends from on-line. Every year there are several "land parties" where we gather for a "meet and greet". This year, I'm planning the first ever New England Bash and it's going to be held in October. Many of the cruisers want to be in New England during the fall folliage season. I started to set up a web page with all the details for the cruisers party. So far it looks pretty good. I have my own folliage pictures but if anyone has some good folliage pics they can e-mail to me, I would appreciate it. Make sure you tell me where the picture was taken. Some cruisers may ask me these questions. Also, if you know of any great spots for leaf peeping, let me know and I'll include it on the web page.

Busy time

It's great to be busy again! After months of job searches and sitting at home, I now look forward to a busy schedule. By the time I get home from work, cook and eat dinner there isn't much time to do things like housework. I spent yesterday doing just that -- housework. Cleaning, laundry, trips to the bank, grocery store and video store took up most of the day. It felt great being able to balance my checkbook and pay bills with out worrying I'll have nothing left over for groceries!!!

I finally rented "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and watched it while doing laundry and cooking dinner. Excellent movie, as usual though, I liked the book more than the movie. I also rented "Dreamcatcher". It's based on a Stephen King novel by the same name. It didn't do well in the theaters but most of King's movies don't do well in the theater. I've read the book and enjoyed it, now it's time to see if I like the movie. If I do, then I'll probably buy a copy and add it to my King Collection of books and movies.

Today will also be a busy day. I'll be meeting Colette in Middletown about 10:45 and we'll be attending a Psychic Fair. There is a shop in Middletown, The Knight People, that has a psychic fair the first sunday of every month. Whenever I attend, I make sure to get an appointment with Dee. She's the most popular reader and in my opinion, very accurate. There have been things Dee predicted that I thought would never happen in a million years. After the reading we're going to lunch and catch up on some "girl talk".

After Middletown, it's a drive up to Suffield and install a web camera for Wig and set up AOL software for Bill. I've never set up a web camera before so it should be an interesting challenge. Then it's a walk across the street to the Super Bowl Party. I'm not a sports fan but I do love a good party and I'll watch some of the game. I'm not sure I'll stay for all of the game since it's about a 30 minute ride home and I don't like starting my work week being tired.

Great Neighbors!

This morning, I was prepared to offer a neighbor cash if he would clear my driveway and sidewalks with his snowblower. I went through my regular morning routine and still didn't hear the snowblower running, so I headed out the door with shovel in hand. When you aren't sure which house the neighbor lives in, it's not nice to go knocking at 6:30 am. I shovelled a small path to my car and by the time my car was cleared off the guy (Wayne) was out with the snowblower. I went over and introduced myself and asked if he could do my sidewalk and driveway. He explained he was already late for work but would be happy to do it when came home. That was fine by me, my little car wouldn't have a problem getting out of the driveway.

When I arrived home, about 5:30, my driveway was clear, sidewalks all clear. It was great!! Wayne was outside using a shovel on his back walk so I went over to pay him. That's when I found out, he had just gotten home and didn't do my driveway and sidewalk. My neighbor, Debbie, shovelled everything!! I immediately knocked on Debbie's door to thank her and pay her shovelling. She refused to take the money. I need to find a way to say "Thank you" to her and I'm open to suggestions.

In the meantime, Wayne has agreed to do our driveways and sidewalks for the rest of the winter!!! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!

As I was getting ready to leave work yesterday, I FINALLY figured out why I can not connect to the Watkins Intranet. The connection that was being used is so antiquated, I had only heard stories about the connection and how it worked. It was the dust bunny connection!! They link together for a direction connection to the server in Lakeland, Fl. Unfortunately, I can not recreate the connection since these were version 2.7 dust bunnies and they were tossed out when I cleaned. The current version is 352.7 and no longer contains the static electrical current necessary for the connection.

BUSY first week!

This week has been FULL of work to do. Not only am I learning new jobs (time card/payroll, cash deposits) I'm also secretary to the Terminal Manager. Between last night and today, he had 2 dock performance meetings, one all day budget meeting and a customer appreciation dinner tonight. I spent yesterday locating, updating and printing (on paper and overheads) various charts, graphs and agenda for the dock meetings. Then it was onto gathing budget (actual and projected) information for the all day meeting, setting up a few spreadsheets (thankfully no calculations) writing the agenda and creating identical folders for all the managers that would be in the meeting. I was doing all this while attempting to fix the intranet connection for my computer --- it's still not working!

When I arrived at work today, my first call went to the Help Desk -- my password was locked out for some reason. About 30 minutes later I placed another call to the help desk about my intranet connection. A gentleman from the networking group finally called back about 9:30 -- we spent TWO HOURS!!! trying to get my computer to a "custom" intranet logon screen and finally gave up. Neither of us has a clue how my predecessor was connecting previously. We set up an terminal emulation program so I can sign onto the mainframe and process the cash deposits. However, the time card/payroll function is a network based program. So, until I get a new computer, I must use someone else's PC to access the software.

After I finished "playing" with my PC, it was back to the learning phase at another computer. The time cards/payroll is suppose to be done by 10:00 but because of the computer problems, we've been late. Today we finished up about 1:30, just in time for the Watkins Birthday Party. They opened our terminal 4 years ago today. There was a pizza party and cake for lunch today. The afternoon was spent creating placecards and a cheat sheet for tonight's customer appreciation dinner.

Now for the fun news. I had the pleasure of breaking the news to my new boss, the PC I have WILL BE REPLACED within the next 6 months, by corporate. All those documents (HUNDREDS OF THEM!!) I have been complaining about, must be weeded through and either deleted or saved. Watkins is currently going through the same process I went through at International Paper. They are replacing old PC's and installing new ones with Windows 2000. Any software we are currently using (hmmmm bar code scanner software) will need to be upgraded as well. Thankfully he was very understanding and said my predecessor was afraid of corporate doing just what they are now doing. He will contact corporate and try to obtain a schedule so we can be prepared for the new PC.

Oooooo I'm having so much fun!!

Great First Day!

The morning was rather slow but interesting. I spent about an hour filling out forms. You know all those tax, health insurance, life insurance, 401k, disablity forms we so dearly love. The rest of the morning was spent watching video tapes about Watkins, phone etiquette, customer service and proper procedures for hazardous waste handling. The hazardous waste video came with a test that I needed to pass. It's not as easy as it may sound. Mostly because it's not just the proper handling of the material as much as what information must be included on the shipping papers and it must be in the proper order. Of course, I probably will never need to use the information but everyone must know the procedures.

All that took me right up to a few minutes before lunch. That is when James (HR Manager) finally showed me that I have desk. There isn't any place close enough for a 30 minute lunch but the usually order out and one person picks up for everyone. They do have a lunch room and there I met a few of the guys that work on the dock.

This afternoon was spent CLEANING my desk. Tomorrow I will be armed with 409 and paper towels, to complete the cleaning task. There was a guy in the position previously and he apparently didn't clean. Everyone else has nice clean work areas --- not so with this cubicle. I'm also "special", I have the only PC that works as a stand alone or on the network. Yes, I will be "tweaking" this PC and cleaning up the hard drive before I create more data. They do not have internet access via their network, which surprised me. However, I have a dial up modem and will have my own internet access. I haven't been shown what they have yet for dial up access. Sorry Vic and Bonnie but I won't be doing many Scrabble moves during the day.

I couldn't have hand picked nicer co-workers. There is also a good possiblity these people are crazier than the zanies I worked with at International Paper. I will definately fit in there!!! They are all extremely friendly, joke around with each other and just plainly have fun during the day. That was something I picked up on when I interviewed and my first day proved my thoughts to be accurate.

The commute this morning wasn't as bad as I anticipated. The roads were in better shape and I forgot today is a holiday. It was about a 35-40 minute ride but tomorrow will be a better judge on the timing.

Now for the funny part of my day. When I returned home, I had a message waiting. Apparently Henkel-Loctite is still asking for me and wants to know if I am happy at my new job. I guess they didn't take me seriously when I said I really don't want to work 3rd shift. The money at Henkel is really good but sometimes it's just not about the money.

Watkins

Today I start working for Watkins Motor Lines. Currently I have a severe case of the first day jitters and "let's skate into work" today shakes. Mother Nature decided to show me the bad part of my 35 mile commute on the first day of work. My car is in the process of de-icing itself, while I sit cozy and warm inside.

I am more nervous about starting at Waktins than I was at Scan-Optics. That could be simply because the job at Watkins is not working in IT. I'll be an Administrative Assistant at Watkins. While I am certain I can do the job, it's still a new challenge for me and there is always an uncertainty when faced with a new challenge. One aspect I am looking forward to is "playing" with PowerPoint. While I have viewed presentations, I haven't been involved with creating them.

Well, I guess it's time to put on the coat and head out the door. Cross your fingers for me today!

Dilemma

Here's a dilemma for you.... With all your honor and dignity what would you do? This test only has one question, but it's a very important one. Please don't answer it without giving it some serious thought. By giving an honest answer you will be able to test where you stand morally. The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation, where you will have to make a decision one way or the other.  Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous. Please scroll down slowly and consider each line - this is important for the test to work accurately. You're in Florida...In Miami, to be exact. There is great chaos going on around you, caused by a hurricane and severe floods. There are huge masses of water all over you. You are a CNN photographer and you are in the middle of this great disaster The situation is nearly hopeless. You're trying to shoot very impressive photos. There are houses and people floating around you, disappearing into the water. Nature is showing all its destructive power and is ripping everything away with it.

Suddenly you see a man in the water, he is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken away by the masses of water and mud. You move closer. Somehow the man looks familiar.

Suddenly you know who it is - it's George W. Bush!

At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him away, forever. You have two options. You can save him or you can take the best photo of your life. So you can save the life of George W. Bush, or you can shoot a Pulitzer prize winning photo, a unique photo displaying the death of one of the world's most powerful men.

And here's the question (please give an honest answer):

Would you select color film, or rather go with the simplicity of classic black and white?

Do I feel like an ass!

I came home straight home tonight, to wait for my new laptop to delivered. I need to install Cox Internet before I can bring it to Scan-Optics for them to install VPN and install their software.

While waiting for the delivery, the phone rang. It was Michelle in HR at Scan-Optics. They have apparently hired my replacement and she will send me a paycheck for last week and the two days I worked this week. She was under the impression the VP had spoken to me (no, had not!) and told me they weren't ready to have anyone to start working from home yet. He had mentioned it to me last week, but I was under the impression everything would be in place for me to start working from home, on the 19th.

So as it stands right now, I no longer work for Scan-Optics and won't be until someone gets off their ass. Needless to say, I believe I just spent $1200, on a laptop, needlessly!! They way this has been handled has not left me with a warm and cozy feeling. Michelle left it with "We'll call you when we're ready to set people up at home."

I AM NOT A HAPPY CAMPER!!!!!!!!!