Have a good weekend!

We've got a birthday party, book club, and Craig's leaving for a conference in Texas.

I'm excited for Chase's first "friend" birthday party. It's at one of those big inflatable places. He's pumped for it. Of course, I'm wondering if he's going to fit in with all the other kids. I sure hope so.

Oh, funny enough, Chase LOVES the song Real Gone by Sheryl Crow from the movie Cars. He's been trying to sing it in the car lately. It's pretty fun to see him doing that kind of thing. It's his first song that doesn't involve numbers, monkeys, the alphabet, baby bumblebees, or Dora the "Explora".

I'm back...

After MUCH prodding, I'm back. While it seems I have time to check out other people's blogs, I can't seem to take the time to write anything myself. So, here I am.

Since it's been so long, here's a list of random stuff:

• Craig finished Fred. It's a great barn/shed/garage-like building. He did a great job. I'm so glad my husband's so handy!


• We had a nice, but busy summer. Lots of random stuff. I can't believe it's over!


• Chase is now in a "regular" preschool class. He still has an aid in the class, but he's doing pretty good. It was a bit rough at first, but things seem to be settling down. He's super smart and so high-functioning that most people see him as being "just difficult". He's not flexible in a lot of situations, and they seem to forget that he's autistic.


• Cory is something else. She's got a LOT of personality and attitude, but super polite. EVERYTHING is "please" and "thank you" although, we're hearing "gracias" more than thank you. (Thanks, I mean gracias, Dora.)


• My mom's car was shot at by a potato gun on her why to the mall after picking up Cory from daycare yesterday. A high speed potato hit her window and exploded. It sounds funny, but if her window would have been open, it would have hit her in the head. What's wrong with people. Oh, and this was in town on a residential street. WTF?


• We got a new cat this summer. His name is Jing (yes Jodie, like The Jing Project. It's just so awesome, and I'm a nerd.) He looks a LOT like Mica, so sometimes it's a little weird, but Jing is much, much nicer than Mica ever was.

That's all I can think of for now. Really, I'll try to post more.

Mango

April asked why Jodie calls me that.

Jodie! Help me remember exactly what happened!

Honestly, I can't remember the exact circumstances. I know that it had to do with the "Mango" character from SNL.

I just can't recall how it started. Maybe I tried to do his voice or something. I can't imagine that I was that funny, but after the initial use, which Jodie thought was funny, it just stuck. I would sign "Mango" on my emails to Jodie.

Jodie! Fill us in with what you remember!

WICKED.
We're going to see Wicked tonight. I saw it last summer with some of my girlfriends. I really liked it, so tonight Craig, my sisters, my friend Susanne, and her sister Erin, are all coming with me. And we're going to Ukai, a Japanese Steakhouse, for dinner first. I'm excited!

(Anyone sick of hearing from me yet? This is like a record of sequential days with posts...)

Almost done

Well, I'm almost done with my help files. I have two more little topics to finish up, some edit comments, and fixing the templates.

Oh, and then make all the HTML tutorials for the Learning Center...

Ok, maybe "almost" isn't the correct word...

WebWorks (well, kind of...)

Only one more help file to finish, plus fix some formatting in the help compiler.

I have to say, one of the few things I liked about Unicrap was the tools team. We had no responsibility for how the documents were produced. If Ihad a problem, I'd go talk to Jane.

There've always been issues with Word, but now, I have to design, implement, and support the document and help styles. It gets to be such a pain in the butt.

Using WebWorks to produce, you don't just have to take extra time to fix last minute edit things in the source files, you also have to fix last minute style issues, broken references, and number spacing. Not to mention you have to figure out why it's suddenly broken, when it worked 20 minutes earlier.

I also have to say, for being a company that makes a product to create help files, they have the suckiest help. Always a joy.

Oh well. I guess this is where the "technical" part of my degree comes in.

John Denver

So, if you're reading this, you probably know me decently well. (If not, what could I possibly say that you'd be interested in?)

Anyway, as I mentioned, I'm super busy at work. I work in a cube next to a large open meeting area. To concentrate, I listen to my iTunes.

I found that I was having issues concentrating, even with my music, so I turned to the old standby: John Denver.

I have 6.5 hours of JD music in my iTunes. I've been listening to it non-stop for almost 3 weeks. I can totally get into a zone when I'm listening to JD.

I think that because almost every memory of my childhood has John Denver music as the soundtrack, my brain actually functions better when I'm listening.
Yep, I'm weird, but I'm wondering how weird? Don't other people have some music that they feel this way about?

I assume that they do...

I hope they do...

Still Alive

I'm still here, at least in body. I've been super busy since the beginning of May with work.

My product is releasing in early fall, so my final file dates are now coming, so, I'm trying to get everything done.

I just got a new Vista laptop for work and this handy little Blogger Buddy desktop gadget. So, it is possible you may hear from me more often...

We'll see. :o)