Domestic Geek

On my way home from work last Friday, I was driving with the air conditioning running because it was in the upper 90s. All of a sudden, my vents were blowing hot air and I look at the temperature gauge on the dash board and I'm red-lining. I pulled over right away and turned off the engine and let the fans run. After calling and venting to Marcus, I drove over to Albertson's to let the car get really cool so I could check to see if I had antifreeze. Well, I did have antifreeze. Sh*t. I decided to try and make it home. It took me 2½ hours to get there. I would drive a bit and then pull over for a bit. I drove the entire time with my heater on full blast to try and dissipate some of the heat. Not fun.

Well, I found all of my warranty paperwork and we dropped the poor thing off at the dealer last night. The funny thing was is there was another Baja just like mine that I parked next to. At least she had company instead of being all alone all night (Yes, I'm lame like that).

Well, I got the call from the dealer this morning that she had a couple of blown head gaskets. Yippee. Apparently it's a common problem and fortunately is still covered under the original manufacturer's warranty. Whew. Of course, they have to drop the engine to get to them, so I won't be getting my car back until later this week. Poo.

The Mercury Retrograde decided to have one last go before Mercury went direct today. We got to sit in the dark at work for an hour and a half. I was working back in the file room and heard my supervisor mention that something was up because the battery backups were starting to beep. I was halfway to where I keep my purse to grab my flashlight when I found myself standing in pitch black. Oh, and my flashlight is broken. Darned thing now won't turn off. I had to pull the batteries. Apparently one of the fuse things up on a power pole blew and Excel had to come out and fix it. Marcus and I spent the time working on his servers since they were powered down (adding memory, labeling and moving power cords, etc.). What sucked was the other employees harassing Marcus as soon as the power came back that the servers weren't back up immediately. They have no clue what it takes to power up all those servers properly. *sigh*

Tomorrow starts my 10 day countdown to the final Harry Potter book's arrival. I'm halfway through book 4 in my quest to read all six previous books before the arrival of book 7.

OK, I haven't had much to complain about at work yet, but today I was really P.O.'d. Even though we have paid holidays, I was planning on working on Wednesday because I really need the money (it would've been time and a half for an extra 8 hours). I haven't had any OT in weeks and I was looking forward to getting a little extra money this pay period. I also hate taking days off midweek because it screws up my rhythm. No such luck. I was told by my supervisor that with as little work as there is in the shop right now, I wouldn't be able to come in. Dammit! That put me in a mood that spiraled downward the rest of the day.

I went to the coolest presentation on Adobe Photoshop CS3 last night at the Denver Media Group function that was definitely worth the $15 I paid to attend. The presenter was Jay Kinghorn, a local Adobe Photoshop Certified Expert from Boulder. He was very knowledgeable, personable and packed a lot of information into the hour and a half time frame we had. I could've listened to him for hours. I must say I am impressed with how Adobe is developing Bridge and Camera Raw. Having not upgraded to CS2 when it came out, I was really unaware of the capabilities for photo corrections the newer versions provide.

I also got to see a couple of teachers from Platt, a girl I knew from school as well as a former coworker from the ad magazine in Larkspur (one that I don't despise). She was telling me how she and two other designers no longer worked there (2 were laid off and 1 quit). That leaves the original two and one of them had to take a pay cut. I'm trying not to be happy about someone's business floundering, but truth be told I am just a little. I'm so grateful that I'm better off now.

On good work-related new today, on July 1st I am eligible to participate in our 401K plan. w00t! Since they'll match up to 6% of my pay, I am thinking of doing that, but don't know if I can handle that much of my paycheck missing right at the moment. I'll definitely at least have 3% put away. That's like getting a raise right there in the long run. See, I didn't have the remote possibility of benefits at that old company. Speaking of benefits and thus dental, a pretty large piece of bone worked itself out of my gums today. Ick.

There is going to be doing a full day DMG event on September 13th that I would love to attend, however since the head of my department and one of my senior coworkers were talking about going this morning, I doubt they'll let me off for it. I told him I was interested in going and since that event is 3 months away, I'll have to wait and see. I guess it will depend on how busy we are at the time.

OK, I'm off to work on my craft blog for a bit. I totally screwed something up last night and had to get Marcus to revert to an earlier version of my database. D'oh! heh.

Last week I finally got enough courage up to talk to my supervisor about getting trained to become a Prepress Operator (I'm a Preflight Technician now). Basically, they get to do the cool stuff — fixing the files, setting them up in the imposition software, etc. I had already taken the online class that taught the basics of using the imposition software and I did quite well. Well, he agreed that it was time that I start learning and he knows that I'm a fast learner. Things kept coming up last week that kept me from being able to start training, but today I finally got to sit down with an operator and start going over the basics. Yay! The guys I work with on first shift are extremely helpful and really nice, so I know I'll get the hang of it all really soon.

Our company pays a yearly subscription fee to an online prepress training organization. I knew it was time for them to renew the subscription for the service, but I didn't give it much thought. I had checked out the site for myself and had wished I had $300 so that I could learn it on my own. Well, last Friday I was given my very own login. Woohoo!

I've been signed up for 23 courses:

• Adobe Acrobat 7
• Adobe Bridge
• Adobe Illustrator CS2: What's New
• Adobe Illustrator CS: Drawing, Tools, and Text
• Adobe Illustrator CS: Layers, Advanced Features and Output
• Adobe InDesign CS2: What's New
• Adobe InDesign CS: Master Pages, Colors and Images
• Adobe InDesign CS: Objects, Shapes and Lines
• Adobe InDesign CS: PageMaker Plugin Pack
• Adobe InDesign CS: Template and Workspace Preferences
• Adobe InDesign CS: Text, Formatting and Output
• Adobe Photoshop CS2: Color Correction
• Adobe Photoshop CS2: Masking
• Adobe Photoshop CS2: What's New
• Adobe Photoshop CS: Fundamentals
• Color Management Theory
• Creo Preps 5
• Enfocus PitStop Professional 6
• FlightCheck 5.5
• Mac OSX Panther: Font Management with Suitcase X1
• QuarkXPress 6: Fundamentals
• Transitioning from Quark to InDesign CS2
• Troubleshooting Digital Files

I've already passed two of them. I decided to get the Illustrator and Suitcase ones out of the way first since I know the most about those. Next I'm tackling Acrobat, Pitstop and Flightcheck, since those are the programs I use the most during my current duties. When I get through these, I've been told there are more than I can do. Hopefully this is my chance to really show I can get this stuff and start training as an operator.

Edit: Here, I took a screenshot of my class list. Aren't those little diploma graphics the cutest when you pass a class?