Geekout Wednesday
First, a body horror update:
The Mister doesn't have The Herp! Apparently it was just a really badly infected crack in the corner of his mouth (ouch and eeeeew). It's almost totally healed up now, and we've resumed normal schmoop levels.
In other news: I don't hate (mostly) everyone (much) today.
Today feels like a parenthetical (rather than asterisk-laden) day. Y'all have been warned.
(I'm still trying to start a trend of the "air parens" - distant cousin to the "air quotes" - where you hold your curved hands around your face like parentheses when you say something slightly tangential to the current conversation.)
(Still hasn't taken off yet, but it's just a matter of time!)
(Hey, it's better than my "air ..." (and so on's - three fingers fanned out horizontally). ... right?)
Also: Excel is kickin' my ass!
So for whatever reason (cost) my current employer hasn't upgraded from Excel 2000 yet. I consider myself at about "advanced" to "expert" level in my use of Excel (more or less - the knowledge has been gained as needed over my many years as an Office Monkey®) and would really, really like to take some classes on the whiz-bang features that I just know are almost within my reach... but even the most basic advanced class covers 2003, and I just don't want to look at those color-coded tabs if I can't use them, y'know?
So until we all get to ascend to the latter half of this decade software-wise, I just keep googling my current problems and haunting the Excel user boards (... I know! They're my people, but it doesn't mean I want to be seen in the lunch room with them...) for solutions.
This week I learned about INDEX() and MATCH() and OFFSET and EOMONTH. Two dimensional lookups! (Which makes the latent math geek in me cringe because what? My previous spreadsheet work was for a single point in time and space? Really?!)
Unfortunately, my five lines of formulae chunks break whenever anyone else tries to use the spreadsheet because of the way Excel treats dates. The super friendly, equally- (if not more) Excel geeky IT guy is also looking in to it. We're kinda stumped. He said I might as well go ahead and start learning virtual basic, which to me is like going fully over to the dark and geeky side. We're so close! Why won't it WORK?!?!?
Finally: yeah I know, I'm not at all consistent with my Wednesday themes. Permanently theming Hump Day just seems wrong somehow - I mean, why commemorate the middle of the week? My favorite is still Box o' Kittens Wednesday. Hope we get another one of those soon....
This will hold me over until then:
The Mister doesn't have The Herp! Apparently it was just a really badly infected crack in the corner of his mouth (ouch and eeeeew). It's almost totally healed up now, and we've resumed normal schmoop levels.
In other news: I don't hate (mostly) everyone (much) today.
Today feels like a parenthetical (rather than asterisk-laden) day. Y'all have been warned.
(I'm still trying to start a trend of the "air parens" - distant cousin to the "air quotes" - where you hold your curved hands around your face like parentheses when you say something slightly tangential to the current conversation.)
(Still hasn't taken off yet, but it's just a matter of time!)
(Hey, it's better than my "air ..." (and so on's - three fingers fanned out horizontally). ... right?)
Also: Excel is kickin' my ass!
So for whatever reason (cost) my current employer hasn't upgraded from Excel 2000 yet. I consider myself at about "advanced" to "expert" level in my use of Excel (more or less - the knowledge has been gained as needed over my many years as an Office Monkey®) and would really, really like to take some classes on the whiz-bang features that I just know are almost within my reach... but even the most basic advanced class covers 2003, and I just don't want to look at those color-coded tabs if I can't use them, y'know?
So until we all get to ascend to the latter half of this decade software-wise, I just keep googling my current problems and haunting the Excel user boards (... I know! They're my people, but it doesn't mean I want to be seen in the lunch room with them...) for solutions.
This week I learned about INDEX() and MATCH() and OFFSET and EOMONTH. Two dimensional lookups! (Which makes the latent math geek in me cringe because what? My previous spreadsheet work was for a single point in time and space? Really?!)
Unfortunately, my five lines of formulae chunks break whenever anyone else tries to use the spreadsheet because of the way Excel treats dates. The super friendly, equally- (if not more) Excel geeky IT guy is also looking in to it. We're kinda stumped. He said I might as well go ahead and start learning virtual basic, which to me is like going fully over to the dark and geeky side. We're so close! Why won't it WORK?!?!?
Finally: yeah I know, I'm not at all consistent with my Wednesday themes. Permanently theming Hump Day just seems wrong somehow - I mean, why commemorate the middle of the week? My favorite is still Box o' Kittens Wednesday. Hope we get another one of those soon....
This will hold me over until then:
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