Domestic Geek

There was quite a swing of good news and bad news as I drove in to work this morning. I heard on the radio that a FedEx driver had been killed south of Larkspur when a Toyota hit it and forced it to roll over close to the Greenland exit on SB I-25. Since the KOA chopper was in the area for the crash, they were close enough to witness a dog that had fallen through the ice in a Perry Park lake. That is the subdivision where my boss lives. I passed the Larkspur firefighters leaving the scene on my way to work. I watched the first video below when I got to work and even though I knew that they had rescued the dog, I was bawling. That makes two days in a row of crying like a baby. Yesterday, I was watching Super Bowl commercials while I ate lunch and the one with the Budweiser Clydesdale foal (Clydesdale American Dream) had me turning on the waterworks.

Here's videos of the dog rescue from KCNC:
Complete Dog Rescue Near Perry Park Country Club (really long!)
Firefighters Rescue Dog From Icy Waters
Saved Dog and Owners Thank Larkspur Firefighters

I think I have mentioned that Blingo is the bomb! I won a 2nd iTunes gift certificate this morning. That makes three prizes in all. Now, if only I could win a shuffle or an iPod on there, they would totally rule.

I need a script (either prewritten or done by me) to process InDesign files into PDFs. That would so help our file workflow here. Certainly something like that exists already that can be tweaked a little. I keep trying to research that today, but I keep getting interrupted. Oh, well. It will give me something to do some other day.

I don't feel like pretending to work today. It's Friday and even though I like my job, I want to go home and play hookey. I've been just practicing Photoshop stuff—doing tutorials and stuff. It would be nice if people would help me out and send me some stuff for their ads so I would have something to do!!!!

I've been playing Sims 2 too much. Last night I dreamt that one of my sims had horrible heartburn and even though I gave it all sorts of remedies, the heartburn wouldn't go away. I woke up and realized it was I that had heartburn! Too funny.

Well, I just finished lunch, so I'd better get back to the Internet and see if I can learn anything before somebody calls my name.

My ladonnasworld.com domain expired last month. I didn't realize it until I went to make a post from work today and I couldn't reach the server! I had signed up with my old Lycos mail account, but since that has become nothing but spam, I hardly check it anymore. I almost couldn't renew the domain because I had to provide the three digit code on the back of my debit card and it is practically illegible. Fortunatley, Namesecure didn't lock me out after trying several possible combinations.

I had thought about letting it go since I'm going to try and get a new domain for my blog in the near future. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this one then. I decided that I want to keep it for sentimental reasons. Marcus bought me this domain originally for a Christmas gift. Maybe for my portfolio or something. I suppose I'll think of something to do with it when that time comes.

I've had a horrible sinus headache for a couple of days that finally let loose today. Work is going really slow. The ad deadline is the 2nd week of March and it seems everybody procrastinates almost as bad as I do. Early March will be super busy, but now.....(crickets chirping).

Speaking of procrastination (of which I am Queen), I finally got some kind of confirmation from the place at which I applied for student loan consolidation that they are actually consolidating some of the loans. I sent that damned application in at the end of June (needed to be received before July 1). It takes seven (7!) months to do paperwork? I know they had a flood of applications then, but would've it been so hard to send a card saying we've received the application and you'll hear something back from us when hell freezes over? By the end of December, I had given up on hearing from them and was starting to look into applying with someone else. I hope this takes some of the financial stress off of me caused by taking an entry-level job. I have another loan payment slated to start in either March or April. I was thinking I was going to have to find a part-time job somewhere else, but now maybe I can just get by on doing some freelance work here and there.

I installed this cool Firefox extension on my PC that allows search engines in the search bar to be deleted. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on the Mac. I need to remember to research how to do it manually.

Ugh, my headache seems to be returning. I'm going to go be a bum and watch TV from the couch all evening.

I just got this photo from one of my co-workers that he took a couple of weeks ago. Aren't you jealous of my work environment?

I'm all for any software that allows you to free yourself from the evil giant, Microsoft. Another co-worker pointed me to Flip4Mac WMV, a component that allows .wmv files to be played through Quicktime.

I don't know why I can never stick with one thing until I master it. I used to be so into web design. I wanted to be a web designer more than anything. I had a thirst for all things web-related. Now...I can't even change the look of my own site on a regular basis. My co-worker has a new MySpace account and is trying to figure out how to modify the look. The old me woudl've dug right in and would've loved to have figured it out. Now, I'm mildly curious and will dig into it if I have nothing else to do. I had thought that once I had some free time, the love of web would come back. It hasn't. I'm sure part of that is that I sit in front of a computer for 8 hours a day. The last thing I want to do when I get home is sit there for more (unless I'm playing The Sims 2 or something).

I always do this, though. Music, gardening, scrapbooking, computers, cooking—you name it. I know a little about a lot, yet master none. I need to change that. I know part of it has to do with my perfectionist Virgo nature. If I can't be perfect at something, don't do it. I also love to learn. I get easily bored and easily distracted, though.

I really want to master this graphic design thing, especially using Photoshop and Illustrator. I know I'll never be a GURU, but I still have so much to learn. I'm getting pretty darned good in Illustrator and I'm developing more confidence in my Photoshop abilities, but I want to get good enough to start earning some "real" money at this. Not just a minimum entry-level salary, but big bucks. I want to get to the point that I don't have to look for a tutorial or ask another designer's advice when I want to achieve some effect.

I just finished reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Pretty good set of books. I guess I never had read them before. I would've remembered that story. Oh, well. Now I'll have to watch the movie when it comes out on DVD.

I had a really freaky dream last night. Our new moible home park owner (whom I've yet to actually meet) had decided to consolidate the homes left in the park down into a smaller space and sell off the extra land. He took it upon himself to have all our homes moved to one end of the park, packed in tight like sardines with hardly any room between them and then proceeded to bill all of residents for the cost of moving them and updating the lots to code. There was a notice on our door stating that we had to pay the whole amount ($10,000) immediately or be evicted. I was sooooo angry when I woke up. I really hate dreams that make me angry.

Well, better get my butt moving. Lots of stuff I should be doing other than this.