Posts from — March 2008

Written on my Treo while waiting at the doctor’s office yesterday.

I’m at the doctor and its taking forever. What’s that about? Why do we put up with doctors running late (all the time) but not other folks? Is it because they’re saving lives and the rest of us are just making websites or doing peoples taxes or ending world hunger?  Why is it socially acceptable for a doctor to be late?

If I had an appointment with a client and I made them sit and wait for 30 minutes, you can bet they would call my boss furious that I had wasted their time.  But my appointment was at 1:45, I didn’t get called into a room until 2:20 and here I sit at 2:45… still, I have yet to meet this doctor.  And I’m in a johnny.

That just adds insult to injury. I’m a first time customer -er, patient - and still I don’t get the courtesy of at least pretending I’ll see a doctor at some point this afternoon.

I can hear a nurse singing outside my door, and people walking by, and what I am assuming is the voice of the doctor I’ve yet to meet.

Someone took my blood pressure and weighed me and measured my height.

How long should a person have to take out of their workday for a doctor’s appointment?

If you’re paying attention, you know I’m fascinated by folks’ Google Chat Status. They things they post, the frequency, if it makes any sense at all…

I keep track of the good ones. And some of the not-so-good ones.

1. pavolv’s dawg
2. back in boston. it’s cold here and I miss my hut
3. Hugs for the Jenn?
4. frofros.
5. out to lunch
6. poly’s fucking anna
7. i wanna be Gilligan
8. YES WE CAN CALL FROM HOME http://my.barackobama.com/page/contact/splash/callri
9. stop this war. Our moment is now.
10. Little Rhody!! Yes we can!! (check out this involuntary contributor’s writing here)
11. ride ‘em, Cowboy!
12. cocktails are funner
13. will the moat keep McCain away?
14. ouch. and not in a good way.
15. I trust Vermont to answer that red phone at 2 a.m.

Penelope Trunk is a Strip Blogger. At least according to Jonathan Fields. (So are a few other folks, including Naomi Dunford over at IzzyBiz, which I so enjoy.)

She writes about her recent trip to the divorce mediator:

At this point, I think my husband is going to tell the mediator about how he gave up his career for the kids and me and he is totally disappointed. But instead he says to me, “A lot of people I talk with say that I am being abused by you.”

I am shocked. It’s a big allegation. But I say, “A lot of people I talk with think I should get rid of you.”

There is no way I have that kind of chutzpah. 

I talk a big, loud, decent game, but when it comes down to it, I’m sort of a wimp. 

I’m trying to be less wimpy.

Folks reading this, I suppose, will be the judge of that, over time.

I’m watching Offbeat America. I never watch it.  It’s usually crazy houses and their owners’ motivations.

Today, it’s a guy who carves heads (they’re saying it’s like Easter Island.) in rocks that wash up on his property from the Hudson.
The Moai statues at Ahu Akivi, Easter Island. Photo: Jason Devitt.

Easter Island House, HGTV

When asked why, he says he loves it.

And besides… there’s so many rocks left.

For my friends who never believe me when I tell them not to use this phrase (from http://www.meghan-mccarthy.com/articles_sayings.html):

Rule of Thumb -No, this phrase is definitely NOT “P.C”! Who knew? “Rule of thumb” derived from the days when woman were sometimes beaten with a switch. To be “kind” the switch could not be thicker than a thumb’s width. This was made law in 1782 when an English judge stated that men were allowed to beat their wives but that the stick could not be thicker than one’s thumb.

A few years ago, I started to write a book.  Or something that might one day turn into a book.  But I lost my drive.

Part of it was that I was scared.  What if I wrote this thing, and it actually got published, and people I know actually read it, and they thought it was stupid. Or poorly written. Or a waste of their time. 

Or worse, what if they read it and thought all of those things, and I didn’t know it?

Writing is scary.  Some people write journals.  But there’s always that wonder, that fear, that someone might find it one day.  Even if you’re writing fiction, or semi-fiction, if you’re not ready for the world to see something and it gets out there?   And really, it might.

But who gives a sh*t? 

Unfortunately, I do.  When I was writing, I was worried all the time that once I was done, people would read it, specifically my friends who I would look to for advice, direction, opinions, and they would think

Stupid.

There’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Who cares?

Why did she write this?

Those are the reactions that would keep me up at night.

Granted, they are different than the reactions that the journal-writer fears, but they are based on the same concept. 

Fear that someone is going to read it and see something about me that I don’t want them to see.

But I figure it’s time to get over it. It’s time to bite the proverbial bullet and give myself a kick in the creative ass and see if I can’t get the book done. 

Who knows if it will ever go anywhere.  And who knows if it’s any good.  Or if it will ever be any good.  I hope it is.  I hope it will be.  But I’m never going to find out if it’s good, or stupid, if I don’t do it.

If you’ve read my About, you know this blog was created to give me a little jump start, to get the creative juices going and my fingers moving.  Hopefully it will translate into something that looks like, to me anyway, a finished product. 

If nothing else, I’ll write more, I’ll think more, I’ll read more.  That’s a good thing.

I recenly found this online - The Happiness Project - and decided to take part. If you are interested, here are The Guidelines

1. How do you define happiness?
   My definition of happiness has to do with satisfaction.  Feeling like you’ve done a good job, made someone’s day, enjoy your life. 
2. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?
   As a child, I wondered a lot why the other kids were happier than I was.  So, perhaps as a child I would have been around a 5. Up until recently, I hadn’t gotten much higher than that 5.  I was content. Definitely not satisfied.  Now, I am satisfied.  With my life, with my work, with my relationship. Now, I’d give it an 8.5
3. What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)
   Every day, I try to remember how good I have it.  I have a nice place to live, food, a great job, wonderful friends and a fantastic relationship.  It’s a pretty consistent feeling, now that I’ve found it.  Actively thinking about all of those things makes me smile.  The most tangible form of happiness.
4. What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?
   The primary detractor of my happiness is me.  I allow people to upset me, situations to get me riled up… letting things make me nuts is my biggest downfall. It’s also the reason for the biggest dips in my happiness scale.  What do I do to lessen the impact?  Deep breaths, remember that everything is relative, and attempt to get a grip.
5. What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?
   Try to keep on with the things I’ve found that make me happy.  To remember how much I enjoy my life and the people in it, and actively take a part in cultivating those things. 

I work for a web firm.

Somehow, this means to everyone in my life that I am their personal Geek Squad.

For my friends who wonder about things and think I know the answers, here is a good tutorial I found on Google Tutor on how to Clear Google Search History to Maintain Your Privacy:

In Internet Explorer

The search history that displays in the search box on the Google homepage is stored by your browser, not by Google. You can clear the history or disable this feature entirely by following these steps:

1. Go to the “Tools” menu
2. Select “Internet Options”
3. Select the “Content” tab
4. Within the “Personal Information” area, select “AutoComplete”
   • To clear the current history, click on “Clear Forms”
   • To disable this feature entirely, uncheck the “Forms” box

You can also delete individual entries from your search history by using the Down arrow key to highlight a previous search and then pressing the Delete key.

Read the complete post if you use Firefox…

I’ve been spending some time in Colorado lately, just south of Denver.

It is beautiful there. 

As an east coast kid, I am used to the ocean, humidity and the rushing around. 

Visiting Colorado, I am completely taken by the mountains, the clean air (sans humidity), and the slower pace.

It’s a little strange at first, how nice everyone is.  The people at Starbucks (well, this is sort of true anywhere in the country, or at least anywhere along the route we took to drive from Rhode Island to Colorado this past summer) are SO, SO nice.  They want to chat. 

The speed is a little tough to swallow, for an efficiency lover like me. Or rather, the lack of speed.  In Boulder, getting a cup of coffee, my companion and I were the only people in line.  I told her what I wanted and then went hunting for the restroom. After finding it, and relieving myself of the previous 3 cups of coffee, I found her, still standing in line, waiting for our coffee. 

What did we order? 2 coffees.  Both black, because it’s the kind of place where you put in your own milk/cream/sugar.

But the people behind the counter were so nice.  It almost made me forget how ridiculous I think it is to wait 3 minutes for a cup of coffee.  Maybe I need to reevaluate.

I  have horrific allergies.  I sneeze and sneeze and sneeze.  Dogs, cats, bunnies, dust, pollen, trees, grass (I love fresh-cut grass; it pains me to no end that I become an itchy mess to sit on it)… you name it, I  sneeze at it.  But the allergens are different out there.  Or something like that, becuase the first thing I thought the first time I visited Colorado:

I can breathe.

Now, that’s not always true.  The altitude makes it a little challenging for me to do things like, say, climb stairs without gasping for breath. However, it’s getting better each time I visit.

What doesn’t change is my awe of the mountains. 

Flying in now, instead of driving (as I did the first time) it’s a totally different kind of awe. 

Driving out, it was a face-pressed-against-the-windshield, WOW, kind of awe.

Now it’s the HOLY CRAP THOSE ARE BIG kind.

Either way, the wide open space makes me feel a little better every time.

This is my biggest flaw.  Well, my biggest flaw that I am willing to admit right this second. 

According to Dumb Little Man (loving him lately), in his article Becoming a Better Listener

Avoid Planning Counterarguments: It is a natural response to automatically start planning a counterargument as soon as something is mentioned. As hard as it may seem, don’t. Mentally record your disagreement and formulate a response later after the whole message has been received.

If I could turn my brain off while the other person is talking (well, not totally, just the part that is planning the counterattack… the listening part can stay on) I would be a much more reasonable human.

I’ve been working toward being a more reasonable person, all around.  It’s hard, when you grew up in a world where someone was right, just because.  It’s one of the downfalls of being told how fantastic and smart you are all the time by your parents.

You’re convinced you know everything.

WaterFire Providence is looking for volunteers, according to the Providence Daily Dose. 

Last season, I had the pleasure of a boat ride through the canal, with the Waterfire folks, courtesy of one of their board members.  It was fantastic.

I am a big fan of Waterfire and what it does for the city.

What I am not a big fan of is the way folks from out of town (including other Rhode Islanders who never come “downcity”) who behave as though nobody actually LIVES in the city. 

I was a RISD student when WaterFire started, and my clearest memory of it all is having some jerk’s car towed from the Industrial Design parking lot becuase he illegally (not to mention he wasn’t a RISD person) parked in the handicapped spot.  (He wasn’t handicapped)

He was irate when he returned to find he car was towed by a bunch of dirty 20-somethings.  Maybe he won’t park in the handicapped spot again.

Taken recently at the Mystic Aquarium by my colleague, Marc Ardizzone. And perhaps a baby seal.  They get big though.

Beluga whales are cute too, but also a smidge big.

Not an eel though, they scare me.

(All photos in this post taken by Marc.)

I’ve been watching way too much HGTV.

Today on Buy Me, Steven and Lee wanted to sell their house. They hired an agent, poor sucker.

There wasn’t one moment in the show that I rooted for the sellers. They were snotty, distrustful, and really, not very nice. The house sold; they cleared what they wanted at the end of the day.

The sellers’ comments at the end of the show? They felt they sold the house in spite of the agent.

I agree with the agent: the sellers, willing to blame anyone but themselves (their home had one shower and tub… in the basement) they asked him to reduce the asking price. And they sucked. Sucked.

Perhaps their crappy attitudes will bite them in the ass, when they realize their entire country (they were in Quebec) and the US will get to see what Asshats they are.

Now, on Hidden Potential… these people (the Shermans) are delightful. I’m rooting for them.

I can’t wait until the end of the half hour to see which house the Shermans decide on.

Orbit Gum’s new commercial for cleaning a dirty mouth.

Another stellar word(s) of the day.

Just wait until the next installment of Google Chat Status…

Pavlov’s Dawg.

Now that’s quality thinking.

Says Jocelyn Macedo, in her post on the HR geek blog.

What are YOU doing to develop your career

1. Don’t overcomplicate it.
2. Don’t be a victim - take charge.
3. Step One: Self awareness.
4. Get out of your comfort zone.
5. Learn how to Team.
6. Don’t hold back - Be transparent.
7. Manage your brand.
8. Every day is an interview.

I think #3 is most important. Personally and professionally.

I had a long conversation with a relative the other day about her less than thrilled response to other folks’ behavior. I told her that is was her own expectations that were disappointing her. She said I should stop blaming her. I’m not blaming her, I’m asking her to take responsibility for her role in the disappointment. If you want to have a relationship with someone whose behavior you don’t like, you don’t have a lot of options, short of telling them they suck, or sucking it up yourself and learning to deal with the behavior.

Now, I don’t think that you have to deal with all of the sucky people of the world, and put up with being treated like a doormat. But if there is that person that you just can’t let go of, and they insist on being an Asshat (ha! I knew I’d get to use it!) you just have to let it go. Or change your mind and let them go.

Or tell them they suck and hope for the best. Chances are, though, someone has told them they suck before…