Blinding Flash of the Obvious

I am standing in the kitchenette at work, warming up the flavor-of-the-week-whatever-was-on-sale-for-Five For $10-chicken-pasta-veggie-thingy today and noticed something.
I mean, I notice a lot of things. Clearly, this blog is full of them, but this one came like a flash.
Like many a corporate kitchenette, we are stocked with the usual trimmings: a slew of microwaves for the aforementioned lunches, a fridge that is constantly being cleaned out and threatening notes about Tupperware being posted, a sink that never gets used, the dark water makers posing as coffee machines and vending machines.
We have two machines. One for snix-snacks. And one for sodas.
I was staring off into the distance, willing my lunch to cook faster than the 4 minutes and 30 seconds it needed when I saw on the vending machine numbers braille dots.
You have all seen them. The raised dots to assist people who cannot see. This is nothing new.
But it dawned on me.
Dots on the numbers don't do you any good if you don't know what you are selecting.
There is no voice service that says "B6 - Super Nacho Dorritos" or "E4 - Mini Donuts with Chocolate Coating".
So how on earth is a blind person suppose to actually get value from the dots on the numbers?

Maybe I am just out of it, but this to me seemed, well. Odd.

Now Listening: Color the Small One by Sia

Genetic Crap Shoot

Let's start off today with a big shout out to the Jayhawk nation!!

Now, let me caveat before I get accused of jumping on the bandwagon.

1. I rarely watch college basketball -- except during the madness and mostly post Sweet 16, unless either Creighton or KU make it.

2. I almost attended KU -- went to high school 30 minutes from Lawrence and spent more than a few spring breaks hanging out with Julie and gang.

3. In the cross state rivalry, I always pick KU -- even though my sisters are K-Staters.

4. KU could possible have one of the cutest fans ever -- and therefore gets my vote. Her name is Sam and how can you argue with this:

Plus, the game was actually pretty freakin' fun to watch. So Rock Chalk and all that.

In other news.

Gas is stupid expensive. I paid $3.17 a gallon the other day. Cost me more than $40 to fill the BUG. Yes, THE BUG. I feel for all those gas guzzling SUV kids. This has to be painful.

I know I am getting old when I can say I remember when gas was like, a buck a gallon. $5 at the pump made a dent. Which was good, because that was when I was in high school and didn't have any money. So I will get off my "back in the old days, things were better" soapbox and move on.

I am finally starting to surface from the insanity of the last few work weeks. You know it is bad when you are getting more than one text message with a "Are you alive?" message. Back to back 90 hour weeks tend to kill the social life pretty much across the board. But hung with Nate, Martine and the boys on Sunday -- been ages since I had seen them. Saw Carissa and Annie last night -- had drinks with Liz & Liz on Friday night. So, I am getting there. Just in time it would seem as I have the next three weekends booked with weddings, baptisms and charity events.

Which means the spring season is in full bloom. Sorta. The blooms in my yard are currently still buried under the piles of leaves that I sorta never got around to raking up last fall. Nothing like being 2 seasons behind on your yard work. Sure the neighbors love it.

In other WAY good news, Patrick is on his way home. For all I know, he might be back already. I just know that Saturday he logged in from Kuwait, so thanks god. The relief of knowing that he is out of harms way is just too much to try and explain. Here's hoping he will finish out this tour, cash in his GI Bill option and figure out what he wants to be when he grows up --

Had my annual physical exam today. Which is always pleasant, especially at 7:15 in the morning pre-coffee. I don't bring this up in an TMI way -- which it sorta is but deal. But because he started off with the usual, how are you? anything new? how's your mom doing? And yeah.

Went from there. So we had to have the whole genetic screening conversation. There is a particular gene (BRCA 1 & BRCA 2) that can be a pre-cursor towards you ultimately getting cancer. And they can test for it. Many high risk (and I am HIGH risk) women choose to do it. I have chosen not to. For a number of reasons. Number one, who wants to get a test telling you you are going to get cancer and then spend every day of the rest of your life wondering if today will be "the day"?? No thanks, I have plenty to keep my occupied, don't need to be expending energy on something like that. Besides, unlike other, if I did have the gene, it's not like I am going to start lopping off body parts -- some women do. Mastectomies, Hysterectomy, the whole she-bang. Of course, you would do all that and still get cancer in your toenail or something. Made props to Courtney for that little nugget. Not to mention all the other family aliments that basically make me a walking time bomb. Good times.

And besides, in my Mom's case, a mastectomy wouldn't have made a difference.

So after this heavy conversation, I got to go to work. All before 8 AM.

And the really ironic part -- didn't realize it until later this morning, all this conversation about cancer, my mom and she passed away 7 months ago today. Seems crazy.

Ok - so now that I have brought everyone down with this great health talk, on an already gloomy and rainy day -- lets move on.

New topic:
meghan dating 101

I found a new dating site.

nomoredates.com

Yes -- it's called irony. Look it up.
Stumbled across it while playing online the other day. It's all about finding a relationship, not just going out on a bunch of dates -- hence the name.

You have to be at least 25, and they have ensured that you have to be pretty committed to sign up.

It took like 45 minutes to get through all the questions. And this was on Sunday. I haven't had a match yet. Which means (in my mind anyway) that either this site is so new, there is no one else in Des Moines registered or I truly am not compatible with anyone.

Let's go with option #1 for sanity's sake.

Stay tuned. More to follow.

Now Listening: Common Ground: The Best of Contemporary Irish Music

VFW or Work

We have a security guard in our atrium here at work. His primary job -- aside from the hourly stroll around the perimeter of the atrium that he makes -- is ensuring the safety of the people inside the office. This is accomplished by making sure people are wearing their ID badges and whipping out the label maker for creating Visitor passes. Oh, and calling people when pizza gets delivered.
Suffice it to say, should something of serious concern take place, I am not sure that Gary is mobile enough to really do anything but fling the label maker at someone.

This week Gary got a friend. Don't know his name, just been sitting there with him at the desk for the last few days. And every time I walk by I catch snippets of conversations that sound something like this..

"...well, he was on a Merchant Marine ship in the south pacific somewhere when..."

"...Agent Orange was dropped and BOOM..."

".... so his ordnance was wet and... "

And so on.
Our front atrium has turned into a VFW. They just need a really bad jukebox and some PBR to make the picture complete.

Work should be calming down soon. I think I am up to 80+ hours this week. Which I love. That does mean that I will be taking a day or two off here soon. Whee.

Now Listening: Play by Moby

Who is the fool?

I feel like I bitch about the weather an awful lot.
I do.
But really for only about 4 months out of the year. January through March are fair game for complaining around here.
So today is April Fools' day. I was reminded of this about a ga-zillion times by the prattling DJ on the radio this morning as I was getting ready. And I only listen to this station in the AM because they normally keep the prattling to a minimum. So I do my thing, get all ready to go -- have a cosmic battle with my closet in order to find something that didn't A) make me look like a cow or B) break the office dress code too much -- head for the door and it's snowing.
In April.

let me break that down one more time---
IT WAS SNOWING IN APRIL.

I challenge all those people that insist that global warming is a fraud.
Move to Iowa. We will change your mind.
Still working ass-crazy hours. I have forgotten what my house looks like -- except the bed and the shower. Those are the only two rooms I see.

Boys are still wicked dumb.
And that's all I gots.

Now Listening: Lemonjelly.ky by Lemon Jelly