Work Doodles

I lost a drawing on my desk.  Losing drawings means it is officially time to clean my desk.  While digging through stacks of papers I ran across some meeting notes and "back of envelope" calculations with some random doodles. They honestly have me wondering what was going through my head at the time instead of what should have been going through my head.  I know flint stone and paperclip came from a book I was reading at the time (but why a singing paperclip?).  The light bulb is beyond me.



"Sharp" flint stone and what appears to be a dampened wave

Light bulb, a great idea amidst rough calculations

Singing paperclip "wah wah waaah BOOM"

Douglas Adams - 61

Today Douglas Adams would have been 61.  He passed away on my birthday (May 11) in 2001.  I will always remember the day I found out.  It was some time past May 11 and I was at a Creeper Lagoon show with Amanda S.  We were talking to one of the musicians from Creeper and having a coherent conversation.  It seemed to me as if out of nowhere this guy spouts out, "Douglas Adams in dead"!  Obviously something spurred this thought but I was too shocked with his comment to think of anything other than finding out the truth.  That evening I verified the sad truth.  Douglas Adams was dead.  I can never listen to Creeper without thinking of one of my favorite authors.  Maybe that's not a bad thing.  (Google honored D.A. with a Doodle today).

I find it fitting that today my mantra is, "Don't Panic".  I have a couple of deadlines in the next 24 hours so I will repeat this to myself until I'm done.  But as always, we're never really done at the deadline, so I part with this quote, a dear Douglas Adams favorite...

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Year In Review - Part I

I only have a few days left of this year and since this year has sucked so royally, next year, the big 2010, will be grand. One can only hope.

As today is my Friday, I'm feeling pretty good. I thought that I'd get started on my year in review. To say I don't know where to start would be completely cliche, but true. It's not that I did so much that I can't even begin; rather, I just don't remember. Lucky for me (and you), I wrote a blog this year!

Instead of recapping all that has happened in the year, I'll simply start with the topic of "Downtime- What I Did to Recharge". Wonder where I got this great [modified] idea? Well, check out this fellow here!

I Blogged at stephysite and hoklife!

There are the obvious things to make myself physically "unwind" and these consist of Nyquil and diphenhydramine. A lot of Effexor helps too!

I've spent some time this year "getting in shape" which translates to "tearing up my knees". I ran a couple of 5k's and tried to regularly stick to jogging that allows me to think alone while physically exhausting myself. The best benefit is the endorphin high.

Doodling has become a new "stress reliever" at work. I suppose it started one night after talking to @ironstef about zentangle. I recently purchased a lovely handmade [out of used books] journal to store my doodles. The lovely journal was made by @thefancylamb

Reading is always high on my list of things to do. It serves so many purposes (keeps the mind fresh with ideas and knowledge, kills the time on the bus, lulls me to sleep, tells me amazing stories, gives me things to talk about, and relaxes me). This year I've read more than most years because I've used public transit about 75%-85% of the year; which happens to be where I do most of my reading. Here is a small list of what I read in 2009:

• A Dirty Job
• Fool
• Blood Sucking Fiends
• You Suck
• The Twilight Series
• Let the Right One In
• Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible
• Broken

Want some words? Here ya go...
jump the couch: A defining moment when you know someone has gone off the deep end. Inspired by Tom Cruise's behavior on Oprah.
Chrismukkah: the holiday mixture for Hanukkah and Christmas.

NaBloPoMo Day 25 Post 25 - #Doodle

A doodle for your time!



Happy Thanksgiving!

Word...
skeezy: Used to describe a dubious and dirty or vulgar individual. A combination of "sketchy" and "sleazy". Think in terms of a used car salesman!

Quotes, Stories, and Other Things

Some quotes and stories, perhaps for your amusement!

• "Well, if you take that away, it's gone"-nameless engineer
  [Really?]

• Person 1: "...decontam?"
  Person 2: "Deacon Dam? What's this?"
  Person 1: "No no, DEE-CON-TAM..."
  Person 1: "Hmm, Deacon Dam, I don't know where this is."

• One fine summer day, Eva and I ate lunch at a place called Johnny Rocket's [or something of the sort], where they have really cool jukeboxes sitting on every table. Place a nickel in and choose a lovely 50's-60's genre tune with lunch!
  
  As it always goes with the two of us together, a small child was drawn to our power. [It happens often that children are drawn to staring at us, creeping over seats or under tables to look closer, have a chat, or even steal some food. We've grown accustomed to this behavior, so this incident here was no big deal]. A small boy, maybe 3-4 years old decided he wanted to play music. Of all the tables in the diner, empty or not, the boy chose to venture towards us with his nickel. He braced himself against our table doing a slight heaving motion to reach the box. He was literally hovering over our food and drinks struggling with all his might to get to play a song. His mother finally notices and gathers him up with much effort. He was determined to play a song, and not on any jukebox, our jukebox! I do not recall if he ever got to play a tune!

• Eva and I were eating dinner at a lovely place called Noodles & Co. one fine afternoon before catching the English Beat show. As we are minding our own business having a conversation Eva notices a small child creeping ever closer to us. We both began doing the side glances by the time he was sitting next to us staring. I turned to say hello to find the boy, Damien, very chatty. It didn't take any time to jump onto the "oddity" boat by asking me, "why is your head so small?", to which I could only laugh and cry a little!

• "..For the rest of us who generally live vicariously through the interactions of our 72 dpi avatars..." -@FrankieP

• "Gramma was hot....but that baby...uh, well not so much" -Amanda

• ...the past few years I had to tone down because of sexual harassment issues, but I used to be the kind of guy that would flirt with every female I worked with except for one. One day she called me on it and said that she'd use the excuse 'not my type' except usually 'not my type' means I think the husband looks like the kind of guy that would shoot a naked guy in the back if he saw him running away..." -anon

• "Yesterday we were talking about MPR calculations for a person taking a drug therapy. Basically its to measure a person’s adherence to their medication. Well the calculation is a rolling calc and is constantly moving.
  
  So we were talking about the Depression Medication Adherence and how the calculation is always moving. So Bobby is trying to explain how “the window for it is always moving”; Pete looks at me and says “that’s so they can’t jump out of it!”...-anon
  

• In reference to my loading diagram plans..."your work is pretty, but it tells me absolutely nothing" -Jim [thanks buddy, gave me a good laugh]

• A doodle...

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word...
Dirty Third: A synonym for the Dirty South; derived from the terms "Dirty South" and "Third Coast".

Still Alive ... My Dreams Encourage Otherwise

I had a [sadly] pleasant dream about the suicide rates of engineers and exam takers. I also have a vicious canker sore. I think these are both signs of severe stress. [Those are among other stressors I shall fail to mention here.] The good news though, is that with this level of stress, mosquitoes will leave my ass alone.

Now, on the note of asses I would like to mention to you that my language is part of me; as are my topics. I realize these may be inappropriate at times. If you find this to be the case, don't read anything I write. Simple answer! If you think your mom doesn't want you reading it, then you are probably too young to be on the computer.

Despite what you may believe, I am in a decent mood today, music is helping [as we speak, a little Sunday Girl by Blondie]. I think I'll recap how my week has been going thus far though...

...Monday, a day of meetings and an impromptu conference call...

Webex...woo...	Excitement!

...that led to the following...

Reminder Doodle	Random Phone Doodle
What??

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Yesterday I sat in meetings from noon until when I left and didn't get to pee at all, mind you this was after drinking loads of tea all morning! It produced the following kind of doodle...

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So now here we are on Wednesday and my brain is sucked dry so I wear the funkiest thing I can find, completely by accident...


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It's okay though. I've made it through some very rough days lately. Lots of crying, lots of anger, lots of stress. If I can get through this alive, I'm sure I'll have plenty more stories to tell.

I plan on blogging later to include some quotes of late; perhaps a story about me, eva, and odd children.

Please comment and leave me a link of some good comic, some interesting story, or even a video (music or show).

Thanks!

Word...
peace easy: A lovely combination of "peace out" and "take it easy" for those too lazy or too busy to say both. Double the meaning, half the time.