Psychotomy

Actually, I have no idea what caused it but …

apparently, K bit someone at camp today. I don’t know if it was a person, or another dog, or himself, or what. They weren’t clear on the phone. Except that they will have to ban him from camp if he does it again.

He’s bit a handful of people before, but it’s usually been due to one of the following:

• Door aggression
• Attacked by another dog first
• Pissed off by the other dog

This time, however, they make it sound like he just walked up and bit them. Which I doubt, strongly. My best guess is the door agression thing, since they’ve had so many new hires lately i doubt they’ve all been well versed in K’s little psychosis.

But someone might have reached in to stop a fight again. Or he could just have bit another dog that attacked him. We called the trainer to ask her to work with him some more. I’m afraid he’s acting out b/c babe’s getting all of what used to be his time. But it’s not like babe’s going anywhere, so I may have to start taking him on big long walks. Daily. Won’t that be fun. Get up at 6:30, go to work, get home at 5, take K for 2 hours, make dinner, spend 10 minutes with babe before he goes to sleep …

Oi.

Of course, it’ll save us a bunch of money not spending 60$/week on camp … but not really how I want to save money.

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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I work in government contracting. I did at my old job too. My dad did it for 25 years. So you could say I have some experience and familiarity with the precepts and issues involved.

The contract I’m at now, went up for a recompete in June. What that means, to those outside the Government Contracting circles, is that the government went out to look at who was interested in doing this job for the next 5 years (3, 5, 7, 2, I don’t know the actual term on this contract), and had them all put together presentations and make their cases for why they should be paid to do it. Who is the best for the least, a balancing act.

We’ve won this contract for the last half dozen times or something. So no one was worried, happens every few years, and we always get picked. But gov’t regulations say they have to give 60 days notice of end of contract and what the company plans to do with the employees. So end of June we get notices. “Come end of August, you’re all fired! Come back in two weeks, see if we meant it” b/c two weeks was when the winner would be decided.

Meanwhile 4 weeks later, they haven’t decided, but that’s OK. If they were changing they wouldn’t be dragging their feet.

Except, apparently, without that being true. B/c we lost that contract :o and now everyone’s scrambling. The new company had interviews (ad offers) the week after the decision. My company? still saying they’ll see what they can do, there’s interest, blah blah blah. But no garauntees. Nothing, except a severance package if they don’t OFFER you a position. within certain guidelines to make it “equivalent” but …

from what I understand (and the lady explaining it wasn’t sure of the details) it’s like 25 or 50 miles from current place of employment (it’s already 25-50 mi from my freakin’ house people!) and no more than 15% less $$$.

Wait. You want me to turn down an offer (with a 10% raise :o my dad was floored when he found out i had the hutzpah to ask for more money) in order to WAIT for the POSSIBILITY of an offer (hell, interview) that will be even LESS convenient (and more costly) to get to, and you want me to do this with a 10% pay cut and a smile?

Yeah. Eff that. I took the offer at the new contractor. So, whilst I may not think my job is the bestest bestest ever, I’m signing up to keep doing it!

And even better, with that 30 years of contractor history? I’d never heard of the company, and my dad had heard of it in passing during one of the mega bids (where a couple big players and a bunch of smaller contractors make teams and compete rather than one-on-one). Turns out their medium-sized , which is why I hadn’t heard of them (I know most of the big ones and some of the mediums). But at least their not small, like my last company. And they’re fortune 100 best places to work or whatever. So apparently the employees are happy. Or silenced before they can speak out :o

Posted in: work by attriel /
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Well, what else would you call a non-vegetarian vegetable?

Last weekend we were having dinner with my parents. Actually, I think the conversation started before we went out, but whichever. Something comes up about vegetables, and I allow as how I don’t, personally, like the “vegetarian vegetables.” This is my own name for them, but it refers to all those vegetables that come in large quantities cheap, and thus are in all the vegetarian recipes. Tomatoes. Squash. Zucchini (which i’m told isn’t a squash). Cabbage. Bell peppers. Mushrooms (which I still say aren’t a vegetable at all).

First my parents start arguing with me. They tell me I’m wrong. About what I like to eat? Then they start arguing with me about the fact that those aren’t in vegetarian recipes. Vegetarian recipes have broccoli, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, spinach, yadda yadda. Sugar snap peas? wtf? those don’t come in ANYTHING but chinese carryaway!

Eventually we established that in the US, at restaurants, vegetarian dishes tend to consist primarily of the things I named. Even my mom was looking at my dad like “wtf?” Then I comment that I like most other vegetables, like artichokes, asparagus …

Then my dad cuts me off and says “those aren’t vegetables!” Uh, again with the WTF? Apparently those are elitist vegetables. Snobby, hoity toity, rich bitch vegetables. I’m guessing b/c they didn’t have them in India, so he was introduced to them until later.

So my family has 3 classifications of vegetables:
Vegetarian (squash, tomato, bell pepper)
Elitist (artichoke, asparagus, brussel sprouts (I was going alphabetically, dammit!))
Carnivorous (spinach, kale, broccolli, peas, beans)

I mean, seriously. What would you call that third category? Carnivorous or Bourgeois?

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Actually, this post is just a placeholder. Some friends got me 24 beers for my birthday. All different stuff. So I’m going to review them over on Kitchen Dragons as I drink them.

I’ll probably put bullets up linking over.

Actually, this post is here b/c I can’t remember what it was that I WAS going to post this morning. So I’m killing time and posting the various things that i remember thinking about posting. But this wasn’t it.

Posted in: Kitchen by attriel /
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So, the nondescript empty box arrived yesterday afternoon.

Of course, I won’t be able to get to a UPS site to ship it back until like tomorrow or something stupid :/ then it’ll take a week to get there, then some amount of time to “fix” and probably another week to get back to me. *sigh* a couple more weeks without the X :(

in the meantime, i picked up mario and zelda on the wii retro stuff, to play with whilst i’m out of the X, since i can work it with des on my lap.

and the fact that i TOTALLY suck at it means i don’t have to worry :o

Posted in: games, general by attriel /
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It’s a great song! MWAHAA!!!

Voldemort Voldemort Oh voldy voldy VOLDEMORT!

Posted in: general by attriel /
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So last week, Microsoft announces that they’re going to extend the xbox warranty to 3 years for the “Ring of Death” “general hardware fault” (what’s amusing is that there’s a DIFFERENT error “hardware fault” … which means this is specific yet generic :o)

I think ‘neat, so i have two years in warranty for that’ and don’t really pay any attention

then sunday the 360 freezes on boot for kiir. and when we reboot it RoD’s. so then i spent time looking things up and trying various reboots (ah the standard microsoft solution. “try rebooting. no? try unplygging, replugging, then rebooting. no? try unplugging, waiting 5 minutes, then replugging and rebooting. no? uh. try rebooting twice in a row??”) no luck. pulled the drive and the wireless adapter. left it sit for a bit. still no.

so i sent am email via their support site. no response for two days. since i never even got an automated “you’re in our system, we will get back to you soonest. kisses, bill” message, i decided either that didn’t work or i botched my address. so yesterday i called. and then i called back after desmond went to bed so their system would actually tell me my options rather than resetting with “i’m sorry, i didn’t understand that” every time he cried out :o

half an hour on hold (damn i’m glad it was an 800 # and it wasn’t our cell phone) they’re sending me a plain brown box. i’m to send it back full, and unmarked. then they’ll send me a replacement/fixment/whatever. ment.

wheeee.

and of course i bought overlord a week prior, and i keep wanting to play my NEW FUCKING GAME!!! *sigh*

wii sports just isn’t the same, yaknow?

Posted in: games by attriel /
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How White and Nerdy Are You?

go me, it’s my birthday! go me!
running man!

;)

The White and Nerdy Video ;)

edit: Now in LEGO!tm !!!

Posted in: general by attriel /
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So, baby’s changing table is coming apart. the dowel connects keep popping out , which makes me leary of how secure it is for babe to lay on when changing, jaknow?

so i figure i’ll glue it back together. i meant to pick up wood glue or something at target, or look at my options at least. maybe hit home depot later this week for something. kiir reminds me we bought super glue a couple months back for another task (one of her ceramic fairies’ wings snapped … i still need to do that step, oops)

great! so i clear off the table, lay it down, realign everything. open the tiny superglue tube and squeeze some in. now, i’m expecting some kind of gel-like substance. b/c the box says all this good stuff about how a gel-like bonder is best. instead i keep getting stuff that looks like water (and flows like water) … but whatever.

I put some on, i press the pieces together … pop apart again as soon as i let go … ok, i’ll hold it longer … no … OK, i’ll try this side, maybe put on some more, that kind of thing …

I learned two things during this:

1) super glue isn’t worth SHIT! it don’t adhere a damned thing you want it to!
2) super glue is quite strong, as long as you’re accidentally bonding your fingers together! CRAP!

then i soaked my hand in nail polish remover and decided it was time for a beer instead. screw this. I’ll by something else, or maybe screws :o

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so i had a weird one last night

we’re traipsing through a snow covered wood, kiir’s with other peopel further back and K and i are going ahead to try to catch a boat (ship? big mast, high keel. wood and sails kinda boat) and convince them to wait for everyone else coming behind us …

then a couple of white wolves are kicking a four-square ball back and forth and it buries into a snowbank. k goes looking for it and the one wolf snaps at his neck and i have to reign him in b/c i’m not convinced he can take a pair of wolves (although they only seemed concerend that he was going to steal their ball (which is as big as K …))

get to a deserted town and see the ship burning at the dock

Posted in: general, k-line by attriel /
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