OK, so we nearly have a kitchen floor. My uncles came over this morning and helped my dad put on our new (temporary) kitchen floor while I went to a tea with my aunt Ellie at the fancy-schmancy (and beautiful) Altadena Country Club. The tea was nice and I enjoyed spending time with my aunt Ellie. I also went shopping for new towels for our new bathroom today (even though the bathroom is yet to be finished and there's currently no place to hang them--I kept the Boy Scout's motto in mind: Be Prepared). One of the places I went was Strouds in Pasadena because I saw a sign that they were having a going-out of business sale. So, I went there, thinking I'd get great bargains, but I was really disappointed because everything in the store was only 10% off. I'm sorry, but if you're going to advertise a going-out of business sale, I expect mark-downs to be at least 40-70%. After I finished shopping, I painted the second coat of the paint in the bathroom. Dad let me choose the paint, but I have a feeling he bought the wrong color. I could have sworn I chose a more dusty-orange color (to sorta match the tile in the shower), but this seems to be a pinker color. Oh well--at this point, I don't care much anymore. I just can't wait until we have a complete house again.

Yesterday I left work early to go to the career counselor ("the doctor"). It was a really positive experience. I guess on my way there, I was hoping and praying that Graphic Designer didn't come up on the list of careers I should look at--I guess because I tend to feel like vomiting when I think about what a logo should be like, etc. So, I went in and she had the results from my test prepared for me. We first went through this series of charts that showed me who I am and what sorts of qualities I have and whether my qualities are balanced. For the most part, I seem to be a very balanced person, but the charts showed that I display weakness when it comes to communication, assertiveness and something else that I can't remember right now (oh! planning--that I may not look at the negative outcome when I plan stuff). All in all, I thought that they were very valid points about myself...things that I should work on, perhaps. The charts also showed that I have a strong sense of value for myself, have a very strong desire (10/10 to be exact) to be altruistic, that I have a great desire for autonomy and that I have a dislike for structured environments. Then, after we talked about me for a long while, she showed me a list of general career categories that I would fit well into and general career categories with which my personality does not match. "Art, Design & Media" was in the list of careers that would not be suitable for me, as was "Sales & Marketing." Interesting. Some of the general career categories that would be suitable for me were "Interpersonal Professional" and "Altruistic Occupations," as well as others. Some of the careers I remember being listed were librarian, anthropologist, criminologist, social worker, upholsterer, hand engraver, clergy, youth worker, educational/vocational counselor, among other careers. So, seeing these other careers was both exciting and scary. Exciting because of the hope of doing something new that will suit me better and scary knowing that I have an uncertain road ahead of me. It is also a little scary because, although my dad is not really one to hinder me and insist I do things I do not enjoy, I have a sneeking suspicion that he will not be pleased of my choice to leave the art world. I think he just thinks I'm so good at art--why would I ever want to leave the field? I think what I am discovering about myself is that I love art, but I hate doing it for other people. Yesterday when I got home and shared the results with him, he sort of made this guffaw when I said that the results said I shouldn't be in arts, design & media, as if to say that the test shows nothing. For me, though, I kinda see it as a validation of these feelings I've been having over the past year or so, wondering even if I found a new design job--would I still like it? One thing I know for sure is that this year especially I have decided that I will not live a life where I just settle for whatever life throws at me. I think I deserve a life way better than settling, no matter the hardships which lie on the path. And, I think everyone who reads this blog also deserves a lot more in life than what they often settle for because it's easy or because it's what society wants.

Last night I went to Joe Carroll's apartment for a Cream Soda tasting. Just so you know, "cream soda" is not a euphemism for anything but "cream soda," as some had thought coming into the party. No, we blind taste-tested 11 different brands of cream soda and rated them on which we liked best. I don't normally drink cream soda because it is SO sugary, so I was surprised the enormous variation that cream sodas have. It turns out that I prefer Stewarts cream soda, with A&W cream soda running a close second.

Oh, and I looked up the weather that I should be expecting in Atlanta in the coming days...not pretty--thunderstorms the whole week long.

The Friday Five looks hard today. Questions like these are hard for me to answer and I even get a little tense because the questions seem so important that I should have good answers for them (even though I don't), etc. And then Terrence came in to say good morning and give me some money and he looked at the questions and said that they were easy. Sheesh. Ok, here's my best attempt:

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?

When I die, it is my hope that people remember my attempt to live a holy life--loving God, loving others, executing justice, giving mercy.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:35-40).

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?

Hmm...maybe going all the way to Thailand by myself (well, with a group of strangers).

4. What about the past ten years?

Probably being the valedictorian in college.

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?

Take your time to grow up--don't hurry through life.

As you can see, this morning I had enough time to re-do the Medieval Bestseller's look. I guess I've been wanting to change the look for awhile now (because it was so dark), but because I had souped up my template with the comments and the counter and all of the links and stuff, I've been reluctant to do so. The kicker that made me consider change was that the Crippler told me (when we saw the Mraz show) that he doesn't read my blog because it wasn't easy to navigate. SO, because I trust the Crippler's opinion, I made the change. Hope you like it.

Yesterday was quite a bad day. I have been uber frustrated at work ("what's new?" you ask) because there are major politics things happening between my boss and the head of the engineering department. Major. And I'm sort of stuck inbetween and I hate it. So, there are emails going back and forth and it's just...difficult to work in this kind of environment. Also, I've been putting together these binders for our sales guys for SUPERCOMM that started out being this simple thing but has turned into this big headache. It'd be nice if they got done by today (because I have to ship them there), but yesterday my boss added more stuff to go into them because he did not clearly communicate what he wanted, and so now hopefully it'll get done by tomorrow. Thankfully, our receptionist is helping me assemble the binders, so that is a big stress reliever. THEN, after this bad day at work, I got my haircut (which is quite lovely) and then I went to my watercolor class. On my way into my watercolor class, I dropped my palette and all of the watercolor tubes went flying everywhere. Fortunately, my teacher's youngest son (I'm going to guess that he's about 4th grade--maybe sixth) happened to come out and he helped me pick them up. Then, I walk into the classroom, put my stuff down, and go to fill up my water jug. On my way back from the seat to my desk (probably 10 feet or so), I dropped the water jug all over the floor. My classmates were nice enough to help me wipe up the spill.

But today, so far, today has been ok. Not without its annoyance--I got a call from Walmart again today. It seems that "my" Walmart account is past due $800 or so. Seeing as how I have never been to Walmart in my life (and refuse to go), it's clearly not my account. Now I have to determine if this is the same Walmart account that I had fraud on just last year (that somehow didn't get zeroed out) OR if it's a completely new wave of fraud onto my name (in which case, if it is, I don't understand why people pretend to be me and go to Walmart--can't they go places more exciting?!). I should find out more tomorrow, after I go home tonight and get my police report and documentation for this whole stupid mess.

Tomorrow I'll also be going to the career counselor. A friend at church has a friend/relative who does career counseling, so I called her up two weeks ago or so and had her send me this questionnaire that I had to fill out. It was a bunch of different sections, all made up of eight statements that you had to rank from least to best/would most like to do. The statements I remember are "I would like to work for someone I respect," "I like to make things beautiful," "I think my opinions are always right," "I would like to make a lot of money," "My goal in life is to help people," etc. It was a hard test because some categories I liked all of the options and in some I didn't care for any of the options. Well, tomorrow I'll meet with her and I guess we'll talk about what the computer says I'm supposed to be doing. I am quite interested in the results--not only because of my work frustration, but also because I don't see how the answers I put indicate at all what sort of career I should be going into--in fact, it seems to me that the answers I gave are all quite jumbled. So, we'll see.

Next week, I'll be in Atlanta. I think I'll probably still blog while I'm there--I think it'll be possible for me to do so. They have the internet in Altanta, right? :) At any rate, I bought a book from Frommer's about Atlanta because I want to use my time wisely while I'm there. See what the city's about on someone else's dime, you know? I haven't gotten too far in it yet (perhaps I can study some tonight), but I'm fairly certain that I want to see a Braves game while I'm there...probably on Wednesday night. Anyone been to Atlanta? Any recommendations??

Woke up late today...exactly an hour late, actually. So, I got ready really quickly and stopped by Jamba Juice for a quick breakfast and got the energy boost. I'll have you know that I am feeling really energized this morning, but I bet it's more because of the extra hour's worth of sleep rather than the powdery stuff Jamba puts in my drink. Then, on my way from Jamba to the freeway, I had this brilliant idea: there should be mailboxes on freeway entrances. I have about 12 pieces of mail that have to go out but I couldn't take the time to go by the post office or whatever because I was already running late. So, I fleshed out the idea a little bit further. There's no way that a mailbox can be either in the metered lane or carpool lane on a freeway on-ramp. Some people are just S-L-O-W when dropping their mail into the mail slot. Plus, at some point (at regular intervals, I'd hope) the mailman is going to come by and is going to have to stop in the lane to clear out the mail from the box. Clearly, the mailbox cannot be added to existing on-ramp lanes. BUT, what if a third lane were created that had a mailbox. It would be known that the lane would be slower to get on the actual freeway, but an invaluable service is being provided in that time that you wait. That lane would also have the option of being closed off (maybe with a gate?) so that the mailman can enter, press a button in his car so that the gate would close and keep him safe while he takes all of the mail out of the mailbox. Then, when he's safely back into his car, he'd press the button again and the lane would enter and those who needed to drop off their mail can start doing so. BRILLIANT!!! Let's get started implementing this!

Last night, along with cleaning my room (I'm not satisfied yet--work yet to be done), I stained a new, small bookcase that we recently bought to hold our DVDs and stuff. That was fine and I still have to do the clear coat or whatever, but now I have all of these spots all over my body where the stain landed--on my fingers, arms, legs and feet. Some of the spots look like birthmarks and then some of the spots just look way out of control. I thought they may have come off in my shower this morning, but no dice. I happened to have an acetone felt swab in my desk (for removing nail polish), and that worked nicely in removing a lot of the stuff on my left hand and arm, but I still have the rest of my other arm, my legs and my feet. I think I'll have to go to the drug store and buy some exfoliating stuff and maybe more acetone swabs.

ugh. I hate Tuesday mornings that act like Monday mornings. Nothing in particular has been wrong today, I just have the overall desire to be at home. Perhaps it is because I did not achieve my goal this past weekend: to totally clean my room. In fact, I hardly even started on my room. Instead, I cleaned the living room. See, cleaning is really hard when you're in the middle of remodeling because things are already displaced and homeless. For instance, everything that used to be in our bathroom is now displaced...we have no more medicine cabinet, so all of the things that we'd normally place in our bathroom are partly in my room, partly in Joey's (yet none in my father's...hmm...). But now, in a fit of I don't know what, my dad completely tore up our kitchen floor yesterday. Hmm...seems to me that we're not finished with the bathroom yet--why split focus and tear up the kitchen floor as well? [sigh] It's exhausting living in a house that is incomplete. Hopefully this madness will stop soon.

This weekend was a blur. I guess it started on Friday, when I saw the Matrix Reloaded at lunch (and felt incredibly guilty about it until I returned from lunch noticing that no one missed me). My review for the Matrix Reloaded: should have stuck to my guns and not seen the movie. Was not impressed and couldn't wait for it to be over...I guess I'm just not into movies about kung-fu or whatever and that show the future as being this scummy, screwed up, hopeless sort of place. I definitely will not see the third. Later on Friday night, I went out to dinner at the Olive Garden with some old friends, Jennie, Heather and Kristie. It was good to catch up.

Then, Saturday was just crazy-busy. Too much so, even. In the morning, I saw mostly all of Down With Love--left with about 10-20 minutes to go before the end, because Shane needed me to be at his house earlier than originally stated. Down With Love was good, although I found it kinda slow in some parts...it's your average girl movie. Then after the movie, met up with Shane to go to a wedding in Redlands--two Caltech grads. The wedding was cool--we barely made it before the bride walked down the aisle, but the best part had to be that the wedding favor that was given out was a box of Nerds candy. Ok, it wasn't the best part, but I liked how they did something fun & light-hearted. Then, I left the wedding (sans cake--hope it was marble cake, then I won't feel bad) and raced down to Irvine to catch the one-man show of MacHomer: The Simpsons do MacBeth with Lisa, Mike, Amanda, Jared and Tom. MacHomer was pretty good--it's amazing that the same guy did all of the voices and wrote the script and did the whole show without an intermission, etc., etc., etc. Overall, there was no need for me to know the actual plotline of the actual MacBeth because there was a plot summary of MacHomer in the program. (Thank goodness I didn't spend any time doing that!)

Then, on Sunday, I was really tired. Got up, went to church & taught Sunday school to 2nd & 3rd graders. After church, I saw Bruce Almighty with some friends. (I helped many movies gross money this Memorial Day weekend!) I liked Bruce Almighty, but was disappointed, as I always am when I see a Jim Carrey movie. I'm not sure why I wasn't totally pleased with this one...but my dad thinks I'm crazy because he loved Bruce Almighty. Then, I went to my swing dance class (Ryan, they're starting again soon) and am horribly behind because last week (when I was absent) we learned how to kick. And, this week, we danced in the closed position the whole time, which kinda throws me off because I'm used to the open position. So, it was kinda hard and I felt definitely clumsy. Then, on Sunday night, I watched X1, which is good, but not as good as X2.

THEN, yesterday I cleaned, but didn't clean enough. Not only is it hard to clean when you're remodeling, but it's also hard to clean with Dad & Joey constantly in the way. So, tonight I think I'll go home and clean my room. Hopefully I can get everything done. The problem is that I have so many papers lying about that I need to read, but just don't have time to do so...

Ok, so here are a few pictures from my trip. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from my day in New York on Sunday, but that's probably just as well, since I ate a soft pretzel from street vendor immediately when I got there and was sick the whole time in the city (later on, back in NJ, I threw up six times from that one pretzel...word of wisdom: next time you go to NY, stay away from the pretzels). My thoughts on the east coast is that it's beautiful. I don't really understand why New Jersey is picked on--seemed like a beautiful place to live (although, I mostly only stayed in the area surrounding Princeton). There were lots of trees & greenery and stuff--maybe it's because they have these weird things called "Townships." From what I can gather, Townships are like wannabe cities. Not actual cities (because there are actual cities), but wannabe cities within cities where they have their own volunteer police & fire departments and stuff. Kinda weird. Other weird things about New Jersey: you can't pump your own gas, you can't buy alcohol in the grocery store, there are no signs on the freeway, their freeway is called something strange like a turnpike, they call the beach the shore, you have to pay to go to the beach in the summer--I could probably go on and on. I think I could picture myself living in New Jersey (even though they're weird), but I don't think I could picture myself living in New York City. I don't exactly know why (because I liked it a lot), but I just don't see myself living there. I loved Central Park and didn't even get to see all of it. Central Park is bizarre because you're in this city where there's not a lot of greenery and everything's all packed-in and then you cross the street and it's like you're in a totally different place. The subway is kinda scummy, but not so much that I refused to go on it. Uh...what else? We also went to Ground Zero and I didn't think it was that great. I thought that the hole should be much bigger--certainly there wasn't 7 buildings in the space of that hole. But Times Square is much larger than I thought it would be. I loved walking down the sidewalks of NYC and found the city to be totally navigtable. I wanted to go to the Upper West Side (only because I've watched You've Got Mail so many times), but we didn't have time. I'm sure one could spend quite a long time just touring NYC--much more than my measly 5 hours or so. I'll have to go again sometime to take it all in.

So, here's my question to you all for the day/weekend: If you only had four days to show someone Los Angeles, what would you do with your time? (For those who have never been to LA or have only visited, what would you like to see/recommend seeing?) My brother's girlfriend is visiting in two weeks or so and Dad and I talked at length with him about it last night with ideas of what he could take her to see/do, but I'm curious to know what you all think. Let me know. :)

This morning I got a caricature done of my face as part of a retirement present for our Vice President (ssh--it's a secret). This marks the second time I've gotten a caricature of my face and, in both instances, the caricaturist (different people) said I have an "interesting face." Not sure what that means... I actually don't like the way my caricature turned out, but I actually don't really like caricatures, so it could just be my predisposition.

I am tired again today, but thankful for the upcoming 3-day weekend. Let's see--not much for plans this weekend, other than tomorrow--wash my car, see a movie, go to a wedding, and see a play (MacHomer: The Simpsons do MacBeth). I don't know too much about MacHomer, but I do know it's a one-man show. I guess it would help if I knew a little something about MacBeth, but I don't, so I may have to go and either rent and watch the movie tonight OR go and buy the Cliffs Notes and read them tonight. Hmm...

I anticipate that I'll have time to put together a page with pix from my NJ/NY trip this afternoon. Check back sometime around 4. But, for now, you'll have to settle with the Friday Five:

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

This morning, in my sleepiness, I used Crest with Scope instead of my normal toothpaste. It was nasty. I normally use Arm & Hammer Peroxicare. I love this toothpaste and highly recommend for you all to at least try it.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

I am not picky with this--they're all the same to me. Just so long as there's some toilet paper there, I have no complaints.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

Today I am wearing Roxy flip-flops. Other days I'll wear Simple, New Balance, LL Bean, and Teva.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

I am not picky with this, either. Depends on my mood which kind of soda I feel like. Somedays are clearly rootbeer days and there's no way around it. I guess if we're going for the age-old question Coke or Pepsi, I choose Coke. Actually, I like Caffiene-free Diet Coke the best.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

Up to last year or so, I didn't chew gum because the thought of it kinda grossed me out. I have since gotten over that and love to chew Eclipse Spearmint gum. Peppermint is ok, too. I like how it has the initial crunchiness of Chiclet gum but also has intense mint flavor.

Ahh...for the past three hours or so, I have enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. Today marks the day when all the booth graphics are inthe hands of the printer, all of the datasheets are corrected and being sent to another printer, all of the booth-staff shirts are being embroidered, all of the give-aways have been ordered, all the things we need to ship to the show are being packaged--basically, everything crucial for the show is out of my hands. Sure, I still have some items to take care of (lead cards, a white paper to layout & print here, some binders with frame pictures to assemble) but for the most part, it's done. All that's left to do are these little tasks before I pack my bags and see SUPERCOMM for the first time. How am I going to reward myself for all of this hard work that I've done these past two weeks? Go home at a regular, decent hour! I think I'll be skipping out of here in about 10 minutes or so. This past hour I've been cleaning off my desk, which is almost completely clean.

Tonight I'll be seeing Jason Mraz in concert with the Crippler, his bootlegger friend Craig, and his middle school guidance counselor friend Julie. Met Julie at the last concert--can't even remember who we saw...hmm...oh, Everclear--she's a pretty cool girl. She's part of the Hyundai family because she drives a Santa Fe. I think that Craig (look at how many DMB shows he's taped!) will probably have to go undercover, since I don't think the HOB allows bootleggers. The last time I went to a show at the HOB where Craig taped (Better than Ezra, I think), there's this one point you can totally hear Tyler talking. Makes me laugh. Ok! There is a time for everything and the time right now is the time to go home.

I have wanted to post so badly over the past few days but haven't had the chance. Thought I'd do a quick post tonight on the iMac (so forgive the typos--sometimes the keyboard is unresponsive) in case I don't have time to post tomorrow at work. I'll post about the rest of my trip to NJ/NY later on this week--the camera is finally working, so I should have some photos to post (including my paparazzi-shot of John Nash walking on the campus of Princeton).

So the big news of today is that I, Jennifer Diane Smith, have finally made it. I now have a corporate credit card. It arrived in the mail yesterday, I think. (Dad is sitting next to me on the other computer and is checking his email while listening to his iPod--no wonder why I'm told I'm a little bit odd...I come from him!) I guess they ordered one for me because we have this tradeshow coming up in three weeks (yipes!) and I guess I need to be able to pay for the hotel room, etc. As I was activating the card tonight, I was reflecting upon how last year at this time, I had very little credit history. I think the extent was my miniscule student loan (~$3000) and two department store credit cards. (made it very easy when going through my records when my identity was stolen last year to figure out what was mine and what wasn't mine) Now since the beginning of this year, I have done considerably well in adding to my credit history--new car, real credit card, and now a company credit card. I just have to remember the wise words of of Uncle Ben in Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility."

Also, today during lunch I went to exchange my defective cell phone. To do this, I had to go to the mother of all Cingular stores--the HQ in Temple City. First of all, I got directions using Yahoo! Maps and it totally sent me in the wrong direction. I think I am going to be a Mapquest girl from now on. Then, after getting lost and having to ask the guys at the Chicken King where this place was, I rushed over to trade-in my defective phone. Wait, let me rewind because I think I didn't share the details of why I am doing this in the first place. For the past few months, after charging my phone a whole night, by the time I finished typing in the first phone call I'd want to make on it, the phone would go to "Low Battery." Then, these past couple of weeks, even if I had full service, the phone would drop calls at its whim. Frustrated and wanting an operable phone while in NJ this past weekend (didn't happen and my phone died literally as I stepped out of the airport), I stopped off at the Cingular store in Monrovia before my plane flight to buy a new phone. The guy behind the counter almost refused to sell me a new phone because he said that the phone I have is defective and that I needed to go to the main store to exchange my phone for free. SO, I went to the HQ today and tried to exchange the phone. Jonathan (the Cingular guy that I talked to today) said that my phone wasn't defective and that it was just the battery. He took my phone in the back and came back and informed me that he both exchanged the battery AND replaced the inside of the phone (whatever that means. He told me to give it a good charge tonight and it should be just as good as new tomorrow. Well, I can already tell that I am dissatisfied. First of all, most of the settings on the phone are totally pared down and different than what I had on my old phone. My ringtone is gone (I think I have like 5 to choose from--all bad and I can't download new ringtones on my phone), the phone is on the smallest font size setting and the font is FREAKING HUGE (which really bothers me), I only have one game (as opposed to three on my old phone--I guess it's fortunate that I only tried to play them once), amongst other things which I will probably find tomorrow. Plus, they charged it a bit at the Cingular store before I left and Jonathan told me that the battery was at a "healthy level" and it died (died!) within three hours of when I left the store. So, if it dies tomorrow (or even by the end of this week), I am definitely going to march into the HQ and demand a new phone. (ok I'm nice, so I'd probably just ask for a new one politely) As you can see with all of the bolded words, I'm fairly passionate about this.

I imagine that by the time I get to work tomorrow morning, I'll have 3000 visitors to my site since the beginning of April. Not bad! (I wonder how many of those hits are mine...) Also, I contacted a career counselor and she mailed me some test that was kinda hard where I had to rate things I would like to do, but the questions were all kinda nebulous and I read into them probably too much. So, I'll mail that back, she'll put it through the computer, and then we'll meet to discuss the results. I'm actually kind of nervous.

And finally ("quick" blog entry--yeah, right), my brother came home for the summer yesterday. We're already seeing the fruits of his return--he set up a router in our office today so that someone can be on the internet on both the iMac and the G3 at the same time.

Got back this morning--don't really have time to blog because I'm quite busy catching up with work. Probably will have time tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday to post more about my trip/my life.

To tide you over, here are some searches that people recently did to end up at this site:

On Yahoo: "Flonase and LASIK" (I placed 16th)

On Google: "sore throat hurt when I sneeze" (I placed 9th)

On Google: "baby shower cake Pasadena" (I placed 4th)

and finally...
On Google: "song barbie dreamhouse woke up" (I placed 2nd).

A belated Friday Five:

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?

Actually, I like any kind of water. I prefer tap water at room temperature but am hardly ever served that because people are water snobs. My grandpa's girlfriend used to own Sparkletts, so that's what we buy when we buy bottled water at the store. Noticed this past weekend that the bottled water of choice in NY/NJ is either Fiji water or Poland Spring water.

2. What are your favourite flavor of chips?

If we're talking potato, Salt and Vinegar. If we're talking tortilla (I prefer tortilla), I enjoy both plain and hint of lime. I tend not to like orange-colored chips but that's what everyone always buys (BBQ, nacho cheese, etc.), so I'll still eat them.

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?

Hmm...does this include baking? If so, for sure banana bread.

4. How do you have your eggs?

I hate eggs--I even hate to be around people who are eating eggs (egg breakfast on the plane this morning--yuck). If I have to eat them, I like them scrambled until they're burnt with some ham mixed in (although I really only eat the ham).

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?

Uh...let me think...I guess KC made pancakes for breakfast in NJ before graduation. They were good, as pancakes go. I'm not a fan at all of breakfast foods, so they have to be really good for me to like them. I'm much more of a continental breakfast kind of girl--give me a bagel, some fruit and yogurt and I'm happy.

Went to see the university & seminary today--very pretty--after breakfast in downtown Princeton. Saw John Nash and have a picture to prove it. He looks nothing like Russell Crowe. We're frantically getting ready (well, ok, Debbie is) for the Baccalaurate. Not sure if that's spelled right, but don't have enough time to look it up. Get this--you can't buy beer or any alcohol at the grocery market. You have to buy it from a liquor store. So, we went to this fancy schmancy market (kinda like Wild Oats) and bought all of our groceries and then we had to go next door to buy some beer. How inconvienent! Uh...what else? Dunno, but I'll probably write later.

HELLOOOOOO from New Jersey! It is currently 8:33 a.m. EST, which means it's 5:33 a.m. PST--thank goodness it doesn't feel like it. Right now the Wahes are dropping their kids off at the bus stop and then we'll go out for breakfast and I'll get to see the university, the seminary, and the graduate school. Looks cold and windy outside but I have protection.

Ok, don't have much time--stuff to do before I leave at 11 am this morning. Someone did an AOL search for this and found my blog on the 4th page. Weirdos out there, I tell you!

My cell phone needs to go. Not my number or anything, but the physical phone. At first I was really happy with my cell phone, but for the past few months, if I push a button on the fully-charged phone, it goes to "Low Battery." Now, for the last couple of weeks, it has been dropping calls at its whim. So, I'm going to try to go to the Cingular store down the road right after work/right before heading down to LAX to see if I can buy a new phone today and keep my old number. I don't know if that's an easy or complicated process, but it needs to happen.

VICTORY IS MINE! My booth graphic was unbelieveably better than their booth graphic, so we're using mine. Yea! Ok, so now I gotta do work.

Ok, so here I am at work. So far, so good. Except for the past couple of weeks, my palms have been really sweaty. My palms never get sweaty. Yesterday in the late afternoon, my boss called to tell me that he and the president have completely renamed the stupid alarming product family. Before he got off of the phone, I told him my frustration with all of this crap with the PR company and how I don't feel I have anything to design, etc. and he was very understanding and apologized because he didn't want it to appear that the PR company was doing all of the design because he wants me to do the design. So...I feel better in my relationship with him. Now I have to motivate myself to work really hard and accomplish as much as I can before I leave this Thursday.

KC called me this morning to finalize my travel plans and to let me know that it's really cold and might possibly rain this weekend. I am so excited about leaving and taking a few days off to spend with friends on a completely different side of this country (that I've never been to before). I leave on Thursday afternoon and come back on Monday morning, and I probably won't blog during that time, but you never know.

Ok, so this is the Jenny angry & frustrated post. If you want to read the Jenny "everything's ok - no problems here" post, scroll down. But, if you really want to know what I'm struggling and dealing with, buckle your seatbelts.

Just got off an hour-long phone conversation with my boss and the retarded PR company. [sigh] I don't even know where to begin. The engineers absolutely hate this product name that we came up with for our new system management alarming product family. I happened to come up with the name, but I recognize that I don't really know what the product is or all of the facets, so it's not as if I take it personally when they say they don't like it. For awhile they didn't come up with anything else, so we went with my name and the retarded PR company designed 50 gazillion stupid logos and from them my boss and I picked out three. THEN the retarded PR company came to my work and met with the engineers to show them the stupid logo designs and there was this big fight over this stupid name for some products that people might not even buy and then the engineers started suggesting different names in a rapid fashion to help meet the deadlines that we're all facing because of this stupid tradeshow. So, that brings us up to speed to this morning. Part of the call was discussing these new names that the engineers came up with. Now the friggen retarded PR company won't budge and insists that the alert name is the best name on the planet and that it fully describes the product even though the engineers at my company who created the stupid product insist that it does not describe the product whatsoever. Basically, the PR company is pulling the "we're right because we're this independent PR agency who knows everything" card and they don't understand that this stupid little name for this product (that people may not even buy) will create a huge faction within my company. [sigh] And here I am, just wanting some work to do. Amazingly enough, the engineers have been very supportive with my request for work and actually have given me content for quite a number of the graphics for the show. As Stephanie can attest, this is quite impressive for just having given them the responsibility to create content last Friday morning. So, I have this work to be doing but I can't do it because my boss is allowing the friggen retarded PR company to design the master tradeshow graphic--or at least attempt to design the master tradeshow graphic to see if they can do anything better than what I have already designed. Meanwhile, this belittles me and my attempt and my whole friggen position--what does my boss possibly want from me? Obviously, he doesn't want me to be the company's graphic designer as I AM DOING NO DESIGN. SO, on the phone I told their creative director (whom I officially think is pretentious and not that talented and I do not like him at all) that I need their master design ASAP because I already have content for the graphics and I would like to get started on creating them because I won't be here starting Thursday. So, I asked when he could possibly get this done so that I could get started and he said late tomorrow afternoon--ok, and give me...hmm, let me add this up...ONE DAY to create the friggen graphics? SO, I said that was a little bit unreasonable (especially considering if there's changes that need to be made to their master design, so that's another day taken) and reiterated that I already have content and that I would like to work on them as much as possible before I leave. Of course, they know that I'll be out so they're clammoring to waste time so that they can create all of the graphics and then stick the company with a $10,000+ invoice. Well, he finally agreed to get me something (mind you, not the fully created master file, but an IDEA) by mid-day tomorrow. ARGH. THEN we started talking about our e-markeing campaign and they are recommending (mind you, they get $3,500 just to recommend stuff for us to do--not by actually doing it) to send out two HTML emails to the show email list. SO, they will be creating these two HTML emails because they have some "super special" proprietary system. ONE of these emails will cost my company $10,000 (not including the list price from the show, which is probably $1,000-2,000). I would HOPE that we would be given a break on the second email, but I'm sure it's not a 50% break. Effectively, for this show, my boss will probably end up paying these retarded jerks my whole salary for the year to do this stuff that I can be doing (and in some instances, have already done). I am so pissed off--so much so that I want to cry but I can't.

On a conference call with my boss & the PR company. I don't know if I can take this anymore! What am I doing here????

I still have not called my friend KC to settle plans for my trip to New Jersey. I was going to call yesterday but then realized that the time I was going to call (9 p.m.) probably wouldn't be the best time to communicate with the east coast. That time change can be tricky if you're not used to thinking about it. I'm waiting for a call from my boss this morning (to decide on some stuff for the upcoming tradeshow), so perhaps I'll give a call to KC & Debbie after my boss and I talk. Ideally, I should have called them yesterday after my dance class. It would have been about 8:30 or 9 p.m. on the east, which would have been perfect. But, I thought about that at 9 p.m. PST, so...there went that idea.

I have this awful feeling inside of me because I know that I should be busy. And I know that I will be very busy in the coming days (where I'll have to stay after work to get some work done, I'm sure), but right now there's nothing for me to do but wait. Argh...I hate waiting. So...I guess I'll just write in my blog.

My weekend was fine--Friday night I hung out with my dad. I think I was just really tired from a stressful week. Then, woke up on Saturday morning and took a walk around the neighborhood and got all itchy (as I usually do when I take a walk outside) and then went to brunch and then fed the homeless and then went and saw Everclear at the Wiltern, my absolute most favorite place to see a concert in LA. It is so beautiful. I saw Everclear with the Crippler and his friends Jennifer and Julie. The Crippler met Jennifer while working at the library in high school and I've met her before at his birthday bashes. BUT, I learned something new about her this time--she was in the army. I was shocked when I found out--she's very petite and normal and kinda girly and yet she was in the army. I even asked her if some angry soldier came up to her and yelled something like, "On your knees, SOLDIER!" in her face and she said that it happened and that she was all sorta valley girl-ish about it ("Like why's this guy yelling in my face?"). She also said that boot camp was overrated. It was really interesting. Then, the Crippler met his friend Julie online on the Better than Ezra message board. She's from Fresno but lives in Long Beach and is a middle school guidance counselor. So, of course I told her all about my recent crisis of career and how I have thought of the idea about becoming a guidance counselor for high schoolers but how I don't want to be the person in school that everyone hates (everyone in my high school hated our guidance counselors) and she said that most students love their guidance counselors. Huh--that was news to me. All I remember about Mrs. Hurst, my high school guidance counselor was that she had this weird flap of skin just beneath her nose.

Then, on Sunday, I went to church and then just sorta went home, paid bills and meandered around the house and answered some email until it was time for my swing dance class. I'm really sad that I'll miss my swing class next week. They have a make-up day, but I won't be able to go to that either because it'll be the Wednesday after I get back from New Jersey and normally I'd have my painting class but instead I will be going to another concert with the Crippler--this time Jason Mraz at the House of Blues. The Crippler, being the alright guy that he is, burned me a copy of his CD so that I will at least be familiar with the material for the concert.

Alright, my boss has yet to call back but I now have work from the wonderful engineers!!!

I am so bummed--I just posted about the Everclear show at the Wiltern and about how they had cool audience participation (Steve from the audience commanded the stage and played "Santa Monica" really well) and how Longshot and the Exies opened for them and how I really liked Longshot (punk band from Portland, OR) and how they had a really awesome girl drummer.   Then, I posted about how I went for a walk this morning and itched all over  and where I scratched the hardest on my stomach, I have these really little purple dots now and how this always happens and I wondered if I could be allergic to the air.   And then I posted about how I went to go and meet Stephanie for brunch at the Old Town Bakery in Pasadena and when we got there, we found out that it has closed for good and that I loved that place and consequently think that this economy is crap.   Then I posted about how it is Bryan's 27th birthday today and how by the age of 27, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space and about how Mike's birthday is tomorrow and that on May 11th, 1981, Bob Marley died at a hospital in Miami.

But you wouldn't know all that because stupid blogger or stupid IE for the Mac lost my post. Grr...

Ahh...almost the weekend. This weekend I'll be feeding the homeless, seeing Everclear and...that may be it. I kinda forget if I agreed to do anything else. OH! Also, brunch with Stephanie and my swing dancing class. Today I picked up my slides and scans from Artworks in Pasadena. This means that I can both submit my contest entry to Watercolor West's annual exhibit as well as start making my website with all of my product photos that I had made when I graduated from school. I still am unable to access my aol mail through their webmail server, but when I went home yesterday I old schooled it and actually opened up the AOL program. And I just realized (amidst a few stressful days of work) that next weekend I go to New Jersey to see my friend graduate! So excited! (but I guess I should call him or his wife to figure out the plan, Stan)

And, I don't have much time, because I'm super busy with work lately (show coming up, you know), so here's the Friday Five:

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?

Yes, I would consider myself to be organized because I am a type-A person and I like to control my environment and how it runs.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?

Every year (ok, for the past couple of years), I buy some calendar organizer thinking that I'll use it for sure this year. Hence the Edward Hopper day planner I bought this year. I think I have opened it once. Day planners/organizers/what not just don't work for me. What usually happens is that I keep all of my activities in my head and then (if I happen to be at work or if something is a long time coming), I'll also write it down on my Lonely Planet 12-month calendar.

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?

Uh...somewhat. The magazines that I have yet to read are now in a pile six inches high and I have a stack of stuff to be working on to the left of my left hand. Then, on my right hand are other items that I worked on yesterday but still may need to address. I'll look at this stack first.

4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?

No, it does not matter to me.

5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?

Hmm...Well, when I was the interim youth director at my church over the summer of 2000, it was really hard to go through the youth office and try to organize it for the person who was yet to be hired because I did not know what he/she would think was useful and not useful, so it was a lot of guessing.

By the by, I am pleased to note that someone searched on Google for "the longest arm hair" and found my site to be #2! ...I am wondering--did one of you submit this search? Afterall, who EVER searches for "the longest arm hair?"

First thing is first: Happy Birthday Ryan! Ryan turns 25 today (well, in actuality, he was born in the former Yugoslavia, so his birthday was technically yesterday). By the time P. T. Barnum was 25 years old, he bought a "160-year-old" slave woman and began a career in show business. Also, by the time he was 25, Fayette, N.Y. farmhand Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He claimed he translated the Book of Mormon from some golden tablets revealed to him by the angel Moroni. Also, on this day, In 1886, Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invented the flavor syrup for Coca-Cola.

This morning has already been a busy morning. Somehow, I woke up extra early this morning in order to be a part of the Burbank Mayor's Prayer Breakfast. I am pleased to report that the pastor of my church was the keynote speaker at the prayer breakfast (he being their third choice after Lloyd John Ogilvie and Billy Graham's daughter--not too bad). Having attended now both the Los Angeles Mayor's Prayer Breakfast and the Burbank Mayor's Prayer Breakfast, I note with interest and sadness that there is not much praying going on at these events. BUT, there are wonderful messages given. Today Ross was talking about Romans 8:28-39...I left this morning really thinking and contemplating about the end of verse 31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Ross reflected upon when he was a young boy living in Niagara Falls, being totally afraid at the awesomeness of the falls and how one day, around when he was 5 or 6, he realized that God created those falls and is so much bigger and mightier. And if God loves us and considers us much worthier than the sparrows or the other created things of this world, then who can be against us? Who is mightier than God? So, even when we are against our very selves, the Lord who created us and cares intimately about us, is for us and can conquer our division in a mighty way. Lately (as in this past year or so) I have really been trying to believe what I read in the Bible beyond head knowledge that I spew out whenever it is convienient, but to believe so much in what I read that it shows through my thoughts and my actions before I can even speak of this knowledge.

With that being said, I wish the Lord would do something with AOL. I have been unable to answer my email through their web interface for the past two days because their webmail server has some sort of issue. It has been very frustrating to lose my main personal email contact over a few days. (It's very lonely just getting work emails...)

NPR's Morning Edition has been doing a wonderful series on Cannery Row--I think in specifics about Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck's best friend (this week is his 55th death anniversary). Being a major John Steinbeck fan (maybe I'll try to read his complete works this summer, or at least make it my goal for this next year), my ears perk up and I get so excited hearing about anything regarding John Steinbeck; his work, accounts of people who knew him, accounts of the region he wrote about. Uh--lunch calls.

I just finished a meeting and now I feel as if it is lunch time, when in actuality it is only 10:30a. Later on today I have another meeting with the PR people, but this time they're coming to see us and hang out with us and our engineers in a meeting. I am trying not to get stressed out with the planning for our upcoming tradeshow. It seems to me that everything is all jumbled and stuff and it's hard for me (being a type-A person) to not get myself all worried about it even though it's not my fault and that I have been doing all that I can to help out.

The day before last I got a letter from my German relatives (my grandma's sister & her husband) in the mail. I started writing them about a year ago or so and each time I receive a letter from them I get really excited. It turns out that my grandma's sister doesn't like to write much, so her letters to me are really short (which probably makes it easier for her husband to translate into English) but her husband also writes letters to me and his letters are consistently really long. I think he may enjoy using his learned English in translating and composing letters. I guess this past time I wrote them I asked them what it was like to grow up in Nazi Germany. Their responses were very interesting, especially her husband's recollections as a young boy being forced to participate in the Hitler youth and being in a hospital that was bombed. It's kinda hard to read his letter and get the full meaning (since his English is kinda broken), but very interesting nonetheless...

Last night I was feeling kinda crummy sporting a headache that lasted through the day. So, I took it easy, stayed home (with the exception of going to the grocery store, which I have been meaning to do for the past month or so) and watched TV. As I sat and watched, I felt really guilty--shouldn't I be doing something better with my time than watching ABC's Bloopers show? I guess the 9 o' clock hour made me feel a little bit better about myself because I decided to watch the History of Baseball during the depression on PBS. Being quite the baseball fan, I found this show to be very interesting and was immensly enjoying learning and watching more about one of my favorite sports. And then my friend Kurt called, which was ultra cool because Kurt recently did something very inspiring to me: he quit his job. He just couldn't take working for his company anymore--he couldn't take being underemployed. So he quit last Friday. I guess he tried to call his boss and his boss' boss, but both were unavailable to take his call, so he sent an email saying that he didn't want to work there anymore and that his company truck and stuff was in the parking lot. I haven't talked to Jennifer yet, but I imagine she's probably a little stressed out by this move. But I find it to be ultra inspiring. Dad and I were talking yesterday and he wondered if I expected that there may be another layoff come post-SUPERCOMM because (to my knowledge) there still is a lack of purchase orders. I said that I didn't know and haven't heard anything about all of that, but if there is another layoff, I hope that this time they use their smarts and lay me off.

You're not having fun yet until you start talking about design with people in HR on a Monday morning.

It seems that deviant left arm hair that was growing at the pace 1,000 times faster than the rest of the surrounding arm hair on my left arm has jumped ship. Yesterday I was looking at my forearm and I no longer noticed the arm hair that I was growing. Since my arm hair is really light blonde, I started grabbing all of my arm hairs on my left forearm to see if I could find the deviant hair that I have been growing since the beginning of this year. Normally I just pluck it out when I see that it is growing at an abnormal rate, but this time I decided I'd see how long it would grow. I guess the answer to my question is that it grows to be 2.5" long and then it realizes it's alone in this world and jumps ship. RIP, deviant hair.

This past weekend was filled with movies. Friday night I saw X2 with Jason & Heather Brey. Get this: Jason bought tickets for the three of us online to view the movie at the AMC in Pasadena. So, we go over there, pay the $6 flat rate for parking and then go to the theatre to see our movie. Heather and I stood to the side while Jason went up to redeem our movie tickets and he came back saying that they had sold our tickets. The tickets we already purchased. SOLD. Our tickets. The ones we already bought. They said that it was a glitch that had never happened before and they refunded the ticket price by giving us vouchers to see another movie, but still. So, we went back to the car and tried to find a different theatre we could find X2 at and, with Marian's help, found out that both Mann theatres in Glendale were playing the movie. Drove over there and saw that all of the showings were sold out unitl Saturday morning. Our last hope was to see the 12:30 a.m. showing of X2 at the Burbank AMC 6, which was not sold out. The movie started a little bit late, but it was GREAT! I am surprised that I liked X2, since I don't normally like these superhero action movies. I typically think they're lame...maybe because I was never into superheros. I was really only into Barbies. Plus, I like really slow movies that make you think and that are about feelings. But I actually really liked X2. I liked it so much that I think I want to rent X1 so that I can figure out who is who and what their power is and whether they're good or evil. Then, on Saturday night, I took my dad out to see Bend It Like Beckham (which, even the second time around, makes me want to become a footballer in England).

Yesterday I had my second swing dance class. It was fun and I only danced with a few people from the class last week. There are a lot of people in the class ranging from my age to senior citizens. I have found that I like dancing with older men better (we rotate partners) because they are considerably better at leading. Since I can't really hear the music to know when to make the exact steps, leading is crucial to my understanding of how to dance. Plus, we are learning all sorts of fancy moves (like yesterday we learned the "man skin turn") and we women won't know what to do unless the man is very emphatic in his leading. At any rate, I really enjoy my class and I'm thinking of going dancing maybe this coming Friday night. Maybe. We'll see.

Speaking of weird, someone found my site on the google.lt site by searching for "scary pics from drug addicts life." I also did the search but was unable to find my blog (thank goodness). Also, wouldn't it be weird if instead of asking people if they were free on the 22nd of May if they would instead ask people if they were free on the 177th day of the year?

On my way to work this morning I stopped to get an ice blended mocha coffee drink at Kelly's Coffee & Fudge Company. Funny thing is that it vaguely tastes like coffee & chocolate and instead tastes a whole bunch like bananas. Weird.

Yesterday, when I arrived at home after work, I saw this really pretty Mini sitting outside of my house. It was a metallic grey (not silver) with a white roof and lots of chrome. I thought to myself, "Wow--that must be one of Chris' friends." Chris is our next door neighbor who always has friends over to his house because I think he's making a video game and he's young and single and so there's always people over at his house. Well, I walk in the house and my dad, just getting out of the shower says to me, "Did you see my new car?" And I was like, "NO!" (Background info: my dad has been wanting to buy a new car for the past two years or so, but he has to wait until he's finished paying Joey's education.) And he said, "Yes--I bought it used. What do you think? Go ahead and take it for a test drive." And he hands me the keys. So I'm thinking I can't believe that my dad bought a car and decided on the Mini. But my dad's just this sort of impulsive guy from time to time when it comes to buying things. For example, he was away at one of the bowl games this past January and he returned home and our TV was all of a sudden doing this weird concave curvature thing and he just went out and bought a new TV because it conflicted with him watching the rest of the playoff games. So, buying the Mini wasn't entirely out of character. I went out to the Mini and opened it, sad inside, put the key in the engine and...stalled. Eventually I got it out of first gear (it was hard to drive!) and took it for a spin around a couple of blocks. I think the whole time I never went above 30 mph (I get really nervous with new cars, plus, I was stalled probably like 7 times around three blocks)--I might have gone into third gear. As I drove up back home again, my dad comes out of the house and says, "What do you think of my new car?!" And I told him it was hard to drive. Then we both took it for a test drive. The difference between my dad and I is that a.) he never even stalled the Mini once and b.) he is not afraid to test drive the car by going like 50 mph in a 30 zone. Overall, it was really nice to sit in the car (excellent visability!) and ride. But during the course of the ride, I start looking in all of the compartments and discover that the guy my dad "bought" the car from didn't care to take any of his stuff with him. And then I find the registration and discover that it's my dad's friend's car. So, my dad fesses up and tells me that his friend Rod dropped it off at our house while he went to go see the Laker game with some other guy. I was a little bit disappointed, but most of all embarassed that I fell for one of my dad's ploys again.

In other news, I started cleaning my room last night. I am pleased to say that it is approximately half-clean. The bed is made (fresh sheets and all), all of the clothes are folded and put away and there's considerably less stuff on the floor. Yea! I am considering not doing anything tonight so that I can finish cleaning my room. Pathetic.

I can't believe it's already Friday (and thus time for the Friday Five). It seems now like it's Tuesday. My sense of time is whacked.

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.

"Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.

"Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle (even though it is nothing like my actual childhood) and that song that they always play at wedding receptions that is sung by a woman (but not Faith Hill)...Stephanie, I think one of your friends had that song at her wedding--I know we've had this conversation before.

3. Name three songs that turn you on.

"At Last" by Etta James, "More than Words" by Extreme and "Crusin'"by Huey Lewis & Gwyneth Paltrow (cover of the Smoky Robinson song).

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.

"Stir it Up" by Bob Marley, "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls, "All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket and "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2.

5. Name five songs you couldn't ever do without.

Hmm...this is hard...I hate questions like this. "Joking" by the Indigo Girls, "One" by U2, "Can't Find My Way Home" by Blind Faith (watch out, lots of pop-ups), "Crazy" by Patsy Cline and "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Annie Lennox.

I have a feeling today is one of those days where I just shouldn't be allowed out of the house. Woke up, looked around at my bedroom and became disgusted (it is so messy), got ready for work. Drove into work and discovered that I have a stain on the front of my shirt. I thought to myself, "well, perhaps I can take one of those Shout wipes and try and clean the stain so that it's less noticeable." Fortunately I still had one left in my desk, I started cleaning it and after awhile I looked down once it had dried and realized that it didn't really take the stain out AND it created a larger stain where I used the Shout wipe around it. [sigh] Also, this morning, I attempted to braid my hair in a "let's pretend my hair is longer and thicker than it is" fashion and is now currently a mess (but messy hair is in, right?). My hair is probably the longest it has been in a number of years (let's guess since about 1999), but is still just barely above being shoulder-length and is apparently not yet ready for braiding. But right now I am listening to my birthday CD and thinking about how to go about starting to create my own website (starting with the easy parts), so at least that's good.

Went out with Ryan after my painting class last night to get a free scoop at Baskin Robbins. I got Butter Pecan, a flavor I would not normally get. Apparently, Ben and Jerry's had their free scoop day the day before last. That's not very good planning. Nor good advertisement--I didn't know about either of these free scoop days...