I was born and raised in Rhode Island. I did move away for 10 years while I "grew up", but moved back to the area. One of the things I never did was spend a night in Newport, RI. It was the posh touristy area that natives tend to avoid. . .unless of course you worked there in the service sector or you had rich family that had a "summer house" there. . .but it was a friend's 30th birthday so we got a room at the Newport Marriott and went out for a very tasty dinner.
This Marriott was pretty posh, and my sister claimed it got a 3.5 stars out of 4. It was too expensive to stay in, but it was about twice what I would normally pay to stay in a Marriott. The staff was great, very kind and courteous, but that only goes so far. . . this was far from my dream hotel. One thing I need when I sleep, 'specially in a different bed, is a total absence of noise and light. The curtains for the room, while very thick, did not fully come together and left an approximately 1/2" - 1" gap between them for light to come through. So in the morning, I was getting slammed with sunshine when all I wanted was to sleep in. . .and the noise? Noises from all over, other patrons taking showers, the refrigerator kicking on, kids running around outside thumping up and down the hallways, et al. Though I'll give them one thing: I could not hear anyone else's television or conversations. So all they need is a clip to be able to clip the curtains together, and a way to baffle the noise from the water lines being used, and we'll be set. Oh, and a lease to keep the kids from running around outside.
When I finally made it back to my room this morning sometime past 3am, the Sunday Providence Journal was in front of every door. So I picked up my copy and brought it inside to read when I woke up. That was nice of them. But what I did miss was a handy list of what the hotel provided, nor did the clerk that signed me in tell me. Like what time was check out? Was there free coffee and donuts / pastries in the lobby (or other area of the hotel) in the morning? If so, what time were they being offered? What were my check out options (I didn't know about their express checkout: I was going to just go to the front desk when my sister called the lobby for both of us)? And why did they fry the banana peppers that came with our fried calamari (not that I didn't like them fried, it just made it harder to find them so I could have one with a bite of calamari)?
And the one last gripe I had about the place was the coffee in the room. Oh, the make-it-yourself coffee was tasty (well, drinkable), but the number of sugar packets and individual creamers was. . .lacking. So there were two coffee filter packages with 4 cups worth of coffee each. With this little set-up was a small triangle cardboard box. No label on it, but I opened it as I was hoping for sugar. And there was sugar. . .two packets of sugar, two creamers, two packets of fake sugar and two stir sticks. There were two of these little triangle boxes. So enough sugar and creamer for 2 cups of coffee the way I like it. . .and enough make-it-yourself coffee filter packets for 8 cups of coffee. . .umm. Somehow this math isn't working out. Ohh, I prolly could've gone to the trouble of calling the desk to get some more delivered, but I shouldn't have to. Even if I used one sugar and one creamer per coffee, that is still only enough for 4 cups of coffee. . .and these cups are small at only 5 ounces (or so they claim). I like at least two huge cups in the morning. . .lets see, I just measured the volume of my cup and it comes in at a huge 14 ounces. There is a fridge in the room, they could put the cream in there and then leave a thing of sugar packets out like they do in restaurants. . .if they are so worried that someone will steal all $5 worth they could just increase the price of the room by $5, I don't think anyone that stays there would really notice. . .
On the way back to the West Bay I managed to snap a couple pictures of the bridge, one actually came out not fuzzy:
NannooNannoo
Was Is the name of my stuffed bunny from when I was a kid. Yes, Nannoonannoo. Pronounced Nan-new-Nan-new. I don't know if I got the name from Mork and Mindy. Yes, I barely remember that show, but I do remember it. For some reason when I was a kid, I thought it'd make a good name for this pink bunny:
I remember when I broke my arm when I was in first grade, and when I went into the operating room (they had to knock me out with a general to try and set my broken bone), bunny came with me. I was scared and holding on to him. In the room the nurse took him and told me he'd still be with me and sat him down by my feet to my left where I still could see him. . .before they knocked me out. So bunny is over 25 years old. Here he is with me when I was in the hospital with my broken arm:
He used to have plastic flat rods to keep his ears straight up, but after a few years holes appeared in the tips of his ears and while I tried to keep the plastic in his ears, it fell out and got lost. So now his ears just flop around. I trimmed his fur around his eyes so he could see better, and mom would occasionally wash him for me so he wouldn't get too dirty. . .its about time I throw him back in the washing machine.
I trimmed off his tag so I don't know where he originally came from. I know he was an Easter gift from my Grandmom & Grandpop Tucker. . .one Easter they gave us stuff sheep in the same garish pink for me and blue for my brother. . .my younger sister got yellow. We each got the bunnies for Easter, and as bunnies were my favorite animal as a kid, I loved it. I still have the pink sheep too, but I didn't carry it around with me like I did the bunny.
And I just realized that my stuffed bunny is older then some of my coworkers. . .oy.
Online Auction gripes. . .
Ahhh, eBay. Online auctions. I used to use Yahoo!Auctions before eBay became the "big" thing with online auctions. . .when I auction off something I set up a webpage with my "rules" for auctions (i.e. payment forms, shipping methods, when payment is required, etc). See, this was before paypal, back when checks, money orders and cold hard cash where the payment methods. I would say on my "rules page" that cash was acceptable (American money that is), but I make no guarantees that it would arrive and if it didn't, don't get mad at me for giving you a negative payment for failure to pay.
I always ensured I had payment before shipping the item off. . .and once I got payment, I wrote the winner and told them I received payment and was mailing their package off. I would then give them positive feedback: for I had received payment and their end of the bargain was complete.
So imagine my astonishment when I got an email this morning from an eBay "power seller" that I had won something from. I had payed him with paypal, so he had instant payment. Did I receive a positive feedback at that point? No. A couple days later I got a note from USPS that an item was delivered to the apartment complex's office and was being held for me. . .as I don't get home from work until after the office closed, I thought I'd wait until the weekend to pick it up. Well, the weekend came and went. I was pretty busy, so I didn't get around to picking up the box or whatever it was for me. . .as the USPS had not written down who the package was from.
I hadn't even got a chance to go get the package when this "power seller" emailed me this morning:
Thank you for purchasing (name of winning auction deleted). Please leave feedback for me on eBay and I'll do the same for you. Take this opportunity now and help build a better eBay community.
Yeahhhhhh. Right. Umm. So I checked the feedback left for me: nothing from this seller. What the frak arse? Why should I leave feedback for you first? I paid you. And I paid you quickly thanks to paypal. . .so why the heck should I give you positive feedback before you leave me feedback?
I always leave positive feedback for the seller of an auction I've won - once I've gotten the item. It just happened that it took me a while to pick up the package. The seller had his money, why shouldn't he leave me a feedback? Why should he wait for me to leave feedback first? Is he afraid that I'm going to leave a negative feedback so he wants to ensure that he can "retaliate" if I do? Ahh, I just went through his feedback and that is what he did with one of them . . .as the buyer left negative feedback on Sep-17-05 and he responded with a negative retalitory feedback on Sep-21-05 09:51. Ahh, another buyer left negative feedback on Aug-10-05 23:45, and
this seller responded with a negative feedback on Aug-11-05 09:46. Umm. Another buyer left negative feedback on Jun-27-05 08:16 and was given negative feedback in retaliation on Jul-08-05 09:22. . .lets see, this seller has 6 total negative feedbacks, and so far 3 of them he has given a retaliatory feedback. Umm, one more? A seller left him negative feedback on Jan-31-05 18:51 and he responded with a relatitory feedback on Feb-01-05 17:40. . .next one? The buyer left negative feedback for him on Dec-21-04 13:11 and was given in return a negative feedback on Jan-04-05 17:08. . . maybe the final one is when this stupid seller was "burnt" and decided to go to his "you first" policy on feedback? Lets see. . .umm. No. That was the first negative he got. . .as I skipped the most recent negative feedback given to him by a buyer on Jul-21-06 10:59 and his negative feedback response on Aug-01-06 11:20. . . Well jackass, I'm not like you. When the other party lives up to their half of the agreement, I give them positive feedback. I don't wait to see if they're going to shit on me so I can just shit right back on them without a good reason.
And eBay? I'm sure they could set it up so the buyer has to leave feedback first before receiving feedback from the seller. When the seller pays, their half of the deal is completed. If the buyer leaves feedback (with or without just cause) after the seller has left positive feedback, then the seller has the right to respond to this negative feedback on their feedback page. They can also take their case to the eBay authorities (though if they are as good at that as they are at shutting down illegal auctions, then I guess the buyer is stuck with the response on their feedback page). Though this only works with the case of paypal - if the buyer resorts to a personal check / money order then the buyer does have to wait. . .but if they don't want to wait, they can set up their auction to accept paypal only.
Sellers like this are dicks, and if I knew about their being a dick before betting on their auction, I wouldn't bet in their auction and give them my money. . .so the lesson learned in all this? eBay's system of feedback needs work. That and double check the feedback of the seller before you bid: if he is a dick, do you want to give him your money?
Sweet Merciful Crap
A few things:
This is the best thing since grated cheese: Icy Hot patches. Slapped one on my back and ohhh, cold! ahhh, heat! Feels good on my back, helps to ease the dull throb.
And another cool thing I've discovered? Google Webmaster tools. . .I was just curious who is linking to my site, and what pages on my site they were linking to. . .Like there are over 700 pages linking to various pages on the site. Most of those sites are either blogs or wikipedia "grab" sites - as they grab wikipedia's article on Cerebus, they also grab the link to my site. But it showed me that some people were linking to the old name of my links page, linkshome.html, instead of the new one, links.php. So I threw up a holder redirect page. I should go into my site and delete all html pages that don't have a "matching" php to go along with them. . .
Odd email #1: I've gotten some nice emails from fellow Cerebus fans over the years, telling me thanks for the site, etc. Now today I got my first odd email:
> -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: Your Concerns have been responded to. > From: "Tucker Stone" <tucker-nospamhere-@nospamherefsantangelo.com> > Date: Mon, February 05, 2007 12:20 pm > To: <cerebusfangirl@nospamhereatcerebusfangirl.com> > > By calling you a liar. And putting your name in quotes. -Factual Opinion Moderator.
I almost deleted it at first, before I even read it, as the subject line seems very spammy to me. But then I opened it, and realized that no, it wasn't spam. . .or maybe it was. Maybe it was one of those spam emails that just want you to respond to their email so they know they have a valid email addy. . .I dunno. It was a very odd email. So I did a search for the email addy on google. . .nothing. So I just went to the website, and found out where Mr Stone works. . .umm. Don't care about that. So I searched for "Factual Opinion Moderator" and a blog came up that started to ring some bells. . .umm. I wondered. Is this in response to a comment I put on a blog? So I went to the blog entry, "The Factual Opinon: Cerebus Volume One".
Ahh, yes. There it was. The comment in question. . .so I not only responded with another comment, but an email of my own:
> -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: RE: Your Concerns have been responded to. > From: margaret <cerebusfangirl@nospamherecerebusfangirl.com> > Date: Mon, February 05, 2007 6:15 pm > To: Tucker Stone <tucker@nospamherefsantangelo.com> > > Well, anyone who can use logic can plainly see that the words "Cerebus" > and "fangirl" should never meet as the two are remincinsent of matter > and anti-matter and if the twain shall meet, the end of the universe > would be nigh. > > take care, > margaret > http://www.cerebusfangirl.com
Hopefully my odd sense of humor comes out, as I took the comment to my comment and the subsequent email to be a joke of sorts, a strange jaded humour sort of joke, but an attempt at the haha never the less.
Ouchies!
Ohhhh, my back. . .
At least this morning, my lower back was aching. Augh. 800 mg of Ibuprofen later, it was down to a dull throb, manageable. I'll need to grab some icy hot next time I go shopping - as I thought I had some, but I thought wrong when I went to look for it in my bathroom cabinet.
And I finally had a non work related dream. . .though people from work, and from a fictional teevee show, did appear in it. And I could, and did, fly once again. So it was nice to wake up to the memory of that this morning. . .
All I needed was a Jack!
So this past week at work I was invited to the annual JP Texas Hold'em "tourney". A $30 buy in (gotta pay for pizza and drinks) to play some cards with some friends. The past two years I didn't go - I'm not one for crowds and I've never played before (except the two / three player "games" with my sister and her then bf now husband). . .that and they seemed to be guys only and I thought I was being invited just for politeness sake. . . .but this year when a female co-worker said she was going along with another new female engineer I said sure . . .what the heck.
So the game started at 7:25 pm with three tables of seven players. On the second hand I went in and did some betting, and got taken for a couple hundred worth of chips. . .ouch. I was trying to keep up with the concept of blinds (big and small) and how the betting went before a card was "burned" and the "river" card laid down. . .so I started playing conservatively - or maybe just a bit smarter. So the next time I went, I made sure I had something. . .now I can't remember what this was, but it won me a couple hundred worth of chips. And a couple hands later I was in the 2nd table with on three remaining from my table. . .
At the next table with a bit of luck and some decent cards I managed to take out the chip leader from our first table and the other remaining player from our table. I was then somehow in the final table of 8: then my first big play: a landed a pair of aces in the draw. w00t! I hid my excitement and tried to reel some more bids in before I went all in. . .but he went all in first. . .umm. What did he have that he felt so confident to do that? Whatever, it couldn't be pocket aces. So covered him and called. It was just us two now. He flipped his two cards over: pocket kings! The table murmured. . .and I flipped over my cards. The table gasped. If he got a king on the river I was screwed! And the river card came over: some lower number card. I won! One more from the final table down. . .we were down to 7 players . . .
Other players got the boot, while I had not a great play, but a very fraking lucky play. I drew a queen and ten, off suit. I decided to see where it would take me. The flop landed me a straight draw: a king, a nine and some other low number card. Umm. I started betting high, trying to get people to fold. No one did. . .the fourth street card? A low number card. Frak. The next to me bids high, so I push all in. Frak it, perhaps I can scare him off - he could cover me if he wanted, but I was hoping just to get the pot. Nope, he called me. I flipped over my cards while he flipped over a pair in hand. . .
I said "come on river card, give me a jack!" And the river card came: a jack! I hollered in excitement, which might have pissed off the other guy a bit, but what a rush that was. . .I could sense the other players who had already been taken out standing around the table watching, I just kept my head down while I counted my chips so the other guy could pony up the chips to double my chips and give me what was left in the pot. . .
Another close hand for me was almost winning with a pair of deuces (one in hand, one on the flop), but the other guy in also had a two and a higher card so he took the pot. . .crazy. . .and then it was down to five of us left and I was big blind, $200 in chips. I had to stay in as I had only about $400 in chips left. . .So when the flop gave me a 3 / 5 off suit I knew I was fraked but what else could I do? I went all in - trying to scare the others off and take back at least the blinds and keep my chips. . .but the guy beside me was almost in the same situation so he went all in and then the chip leader prolly thought he could take us both out so he covered us both and called. . .
And while I was hoping for the long shot, a straight draw, I got shit. . .and both me and the other guy were taken out by the chip leader. . .
It was a fun run while it lasted. . .I can understand now why people play, it was a lot of fun riding the emotional roller coaster of winning and losing. . .'specially the winning part.
Exhausted. . .
I've only worked three days this week, and still one to go . . .and I'm exhausted. Not really physically as my muscles aren't sore, but I am tired. And my brain feels like someone rubbed it on the cheese grater until it was tiny little bits and pieces on top of a pasta dinner. bah.
Today wasn't too bad at work - I wasn't called out to the manufacturing floor every 15 minutes like I have been the past 2 days. I was just sitting at my desk, trying to do work and more work would come. And more work. And more work. . and they were all non-compliance reports. . .::sigh:: As I left at 5:05pm (yes, I leave pretty much "on time" as I get in every morning any time from 7:15 - 7:30 am), the second shift dispatcher came to my desk pushing a cart of jobs. . .all on NCRs. . .two big totes and 3 medium totes later, I had two more jobs written up for stupid stuff. . .
::sigh::
I was trying to get proof to show that the sky wasn't falling, we were just reaching too high and occasionally as happens when you step on the tippity-top step on the ladder, if you try to jump to reach further up in the air, you'll fall down. . .but we didn't fall down that far, just bruised our lip on the upper step and landed on the 2nd to top step. . .
So setting the planned yield for 90% or higher then yelling "it's all going to crap in a hand basket" as the yield temporally drops to 85 - 89%, to me seems like an over reaction of Bostonian Police Department proportions. But whatever. Now I'm searching for a solution to the couple of lots that had a small yield lost. . .though I think I know what the problem is, but I can't really prove it. . . it just is gut instinct. . .but yet, I don't want it to colour my investigation into the problem. . .as it could one of any number of reasons, or a combination of reasons.
::sigh::
And last nights dreams sucked. They were all, all, work related. It blew. I woke up during the night tossing and turning, dreaming of sitting at my desk. Went back to sleep to dream of some other work thing, then woke up to go to the bathroom and went back to sleep to dream of more work. . .I better have much better dreams tonight. .
Mooninite = bomb?
Are we really so afraid of the things in the dark that when we hear a
noise in the day we jump halfway out of our skin, point the gun at the
noise and take a shot at the cat? 'Cause that is all it was, just the
cat making a noise.
Yes,
Boston got its panties in a twist over. . .not really a joke, but a PR
push for publicity. And they got it. Big time. What you think if you
saw this:
while
driving down the street? I'd look up, go what the hell is that, looks
kinda cool, and keep on driving. It would take me all of 5 seconds. The
same amount of time it takes me to read those "welcome back sgt smith!"
signs that people hang on overpasses welcoming home their soldier. I
have no clue who or what that thing is, as I don't watch teevee. .
.I've heard of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but don't know that the above is
the character Mooninite. To me it just looks like some silly neon sign.
But
the Boston Police Department thought it was a bomb. . .now really. A
bomb? The fraking thing is glowing like a neon sign. I think most bombs
would be hidden away so they can go off when they are supposed to, not
so the police can easily find them. . .but the mayor had this to say:
"I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner
Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred
during the response to today's incidents," Menino said in a statement.
"Boston will look to coordinate our efforts going forward with
Cambridge, Somerville and any other affected agencies."
Well, you brought that upon yourself eediot. Anyone with any common sense can look at this:
And
think bomb? Really. Common sense. If people are so scared nowadays of a
terrorist attack that they'd think some silly block giving them the
finger is a bomb, then why do they even go outside? Stay inside, don't
expose yourself to anything. Much safer that way you know.
And for those curious, ya gotta love the internets as the video of the guy posting one of the above figures is on you tube:
and one of the displays is on eBay going for $5,000 (with one bid so far!). And it is kinda funny that these "displays" are all over the news: giving us all the bird.
Monday? Wha?
Ohmygawd. It was another one of those days again today at work: non-stop paging and questions all day. I think I sat at my desk for a total of 15 minutes today. It was insane. I feel totally beat. I need a vacation from my return from my vacation. . .even if it was only one day. Stuff did get moved off my desk, and other people helped out - as my boss moved two jobs and gave some other jobs to one of my teammates.
But it wasn't the amount of work on my desk - it was the sky falling altitude of the people out on the floor. I was down on the floor looking at one job when someone who had a "sister" job asked me to mark up the traveler for the same thing (don't get me started on that, it was something they should know how to do, as we had been making this part for a while). Sure, I'll mark up the traveler, no big deal. The operator stood there, watched me write on the traveler, we talked about it for a couple minutes and I left. About a half hour later I was paged by the area supervisor. The operator who I just marked up the traveler for about 1/2 hour ago had "issues" with how I marked up the traveler. . .he didn't understand it was what I gathered.
Umm.
His issue? I used the "European" style of making a zero, you know the one with the backslash / thru a 0 character? I guess he couldn't handle it. I didn't want to just write 0 as I was afraid they would confuse it with the O.
::sigh::
We give these people prints: a picture of what the part looks like. . .he could've looked at that. . .heck, this guy has done this job before, he knows what to do. . .
It just gets me how the operators "forget" how to do a job they've done numerous times before. . .getting called to the floor for stupid stuff like that just makes me wonder. . .though I didn't go down to to talk to the operator about that one, as I just flabbergasted. I talked to the area supervisor who said he'd take care of it. . .why the fuck did he even call me? seesh.
That was the one that got me the most today. Though the one where I found the technical document in less then two minutes when someone else looking for it couldn't find it, so we emailed the customer asking them if they could send it to us. . .when all I had to do was log on to their website and clickclickclick. Umm. The website is difficult to navigate as it has a backasswards way of finding technical documents, but you get used to it. . .kinda. At least I got used to it enough to find what I was looking for in a few minutes. . .that was a good one too. . .
::sigh::
And don't get me the sky is falling! the sky is falling! attitude. . .like everything is going to explode if I don't drop whatever it is I'm doing and jump on their problem. . .or even if I do jump on their problem, I have to have some time to think about it, work up a plan of action and have it implemented, I just can't shit good parts out of my tookus. . .
But whatever. . .tomorrow is already Wednesday. And for all my griping, I do like my job. Sometimes my coworkers, or the customers, or myself, just make me scratch my head, but at least the day went by super quick. . .
