Stuff and such on Superbowl Sunday
Whee, alliteration!
Last week, the mother bought a new tree for the cat. The existing tree(house) is eight years old and taller than me - I shall have to scan in a pic of it from my apartment in Mississauga. Anyway, it's still in excellent condition save for a bare patch on the house roof where the carpet was shredded down to the wood, but my kitty, he ain't graceful and he's getting old, so the tall tree with the smaller platforms was getting a bit difficult for him to navigate. Which is critical because as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we've moved his food dish up onto a tree platform so that he has to actively want to eat instead of eating because it's right there. (This, btw, has worked beautifully. Best idea ever.) So, enter the new, half as tall tree with nice big platforms. The old one was picked up today by my co-worker and her husband. She was happy about it before, but totally thrilled when she actually got here and saw it, hee. It really is a cool piece of furniture and her excitement made my mom happy. Anyway, with the small tree moved into the corner where the old one was, there is no longer a place for the cat to sleep in the sun in the middle of the window (where the tree had been hanging out all week), so the mother decided a second small tree was required and we have just gotten back from purchasing it. The poor store kitty was asleep on it and she had to pick him up and move him, awwww. Nibbs is now sprawled in the last bit of sun in the dead centre of the living room window, like the utterly spoiled brat he is.
Never let it be said that cats don't rule the universe. :D
This past week has been interesting. I had my bi-annual appraisal on Thursday, which was, as N speculated, "sparkling." I was more or less expecting that, though it was better than I had anticipated, which is always nice. But I mean, I know I do my job and do it very well. I've not had a post-graduate employer who was anything but disappointed that I was leaving - my last employer in Toronto was willing to bend over backwards for me, in fact - and not too many prior to that, either. (Only one, actually, and that was technically actionable for the way they let me go, but I was much too fucked up at the time to follow through on that. I did, however, receive excellent references so go figure.) Anyway, I was sort of dreading the part where you're supposed to set goals for yourself for the next appraisal period, for obvious reasons, but as it turned out, we came up with stuff that was surprisingly relevant. There's a library at work and there are a few titles dealing with adult learning, and she also directed me to a particular web site where I can take little courses on computer stuff. They have a few things that are Vista-focused, so that's immensely useful in terms of me learning my way around WS. Also, I used my gmail instead of my work email address to sign up, so I may be able to continue accessing it for a while regardless. ;-) But yes, these are excellent things and I am pleased.
She did ask me one stumper, though: how DO you motivate a content person? This is a question I've asked myself for years and never been able to adequately answer. Because it very much does apply to me - I get in a comfort zone and it's very difficult to pry me out of that, and to make me actually act on the things I talk about instead of just daydreaming about them. It's like my current life situation. I've been thinking about doing something like this for a long time, and the reasons that it got put off were valid, but still, it took a combination of things to really push me into moving forward: losing my car, with all that entailed; making concrete plans that gave me a specific deadline; and having people I can count on helping me. That last is perhaps the most difficult simply because it's hard for me to put so much faith in other people. But it's good. I'm good. I'm learning. :-)
On the technology front, I'd come to the conclusion that iTunes would be the best fit for the laptop, since I despise WMP and the software I have on the desktop is now a legacy programme. And was sold to Yahoo besides, who're about to be gobbled up by Microsoft, so that'd likely land me right back at WMP anyway. So, iTunes it is. Thus, after perusing what sort of cheap mp3 players are available and concluding that they are all CRAP, and anything that's actually worth even considering is over $50 anyway, I caved and bought an iPod Nano yesterday. Just a wee 4 GB model, so it's silver, and for the moment I have an uber cheap clear plastic case that's got crystals on the front. Blingy, lol. It has no music on it yet, because I haven't got anything moved onto the laptop yet (that's today's task, along with making sure that everything non-critical on my desktop has been transferred to the external HD (critical stuff was transferred immediately upon installation, of course)), but WS has a MiniSaint companion now. Hee. I blame linzeems for teaching me to name my electronics, btw.
I am, for no particular reason, having a good day.
Oh, and one more thing: If you use a laptop on public/unsecured WiFi networks, read this. Apparently there's a rash of new hacker technology that makes it pretty easy for the person on the other side of the café to sidejack your specific connection and see exactly what you're doing online. Your "https" pages won't be visible - where you type in your password - but in most cases, once you've gained access to your passworded account, the pages are all "http" and therefore not secured, meaning someone could gather all of that subsequent information about you. Eep. There is a solution: Hotspot Shield from AnchorFree. It's freeware that "creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop and the wireless router. This impenetrable tunnel prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over a wireless network. Which means you remain anonymous and protect your privacy." Very good thing to have.
Last week, the mother bought a new tree for the cat. The existing tree(house) is eight years old and taller than me - I shall have to scan in a pic of it from my apartment in Mississauga. Anyway, it's still in excellent condition save for a bare patch on the house roof where the carpet was shredded down to the wood, but my kitty, he ain't graceful and he's getting old, so the tall tree with the smaller platforms was getting a bit difficult for him to navigate. Which is critical because as I mentioned a few weeks ago, we've moved his food dish up onto a tree platform so that he has to actively want to eat instead of eating because it's right there. (This, btw, has worked beautifully. Best idea ever.) So, enter the new, half as tall tree with nice big platforms. The old one was picked up today by my co-worker and her husband. She was happy about it before, but totally thrilled when she actually got here and saw it, hee. It really is a cool piece of furniture and her excitement made my mom happy. Anyway, with the small tree moved into the corner where the old one was, there is no longer a place for the cat to sleep in the sun in the middle of the window (where the tree had been hanging out all week), so the mother decided a second small tree was required and we have just gotten back from purchasing it. The poor store kitty was asleep on it and she had to pick him up and move him, awwww. Nibbs is now sprawled in the last bit of sun in the dead centre of the living room window, like the utterly spoiled brat he is.
Never let it be said that cats don't rule the universe. :D
This past week has been interesting. I had my bi-annual appraisal on Thursday, which was, as N speculated, "sparkling." I was more or less expecting that, though it was better than I had anticipated, which is always nice. But I mean, I know I do my job and do it very well. I've not had a post-graduate employer who was anything but disappointed that I was leaving - my last employer in Toronto was willing to bend over backwards for me, in fact - and not too many prior to that, either. (Only one, actually, and that was technically actionable for the way they let me go, but I was much too fucked up at the time to follow through on that. I did, however, receive excellent references so go figure.) Anyway, I was sort of dreading the part where you're supposed to set goals for yourself for the next appraisal period, for obvious reasons, but as it turned out, we came up with stuff that was surprisingly relevant. There's a library at work and there are a few titles dealing with adult learning, and she also directed me to a particular web site where I can take little courses on computer stuff. They have a few things that are Vista-focused, so that's immensely useful in terms of me learning my way around WS. Also, I used my gmail instead of my work email address to sign up, so I may be able to continue accessing it for a while regardless. ;-) But yes, these are excellent things and I am pleased.
She did ask me one stumper, though: how DO you motivate a content person? This is a question I've asked myself for years and never been able to adequately answer. Because it very much does apply to me - I get in a comfort zone and it's very difficult to pry me out of that, and to make me actually act on the things I talk about instead of just daydreaming about them. It's like my current life situation. I've been thinking about doing something like this for a long time, and the reasons that it got put off were valid, but still, it took a combination of things to really push me into moving forward: losing my car, with all that entailed; making concrete plans that gave me a specific deadline; and having people I can count on helping me. That last is perhaps the most difficult simply because it's hard for me to put so much faith in other people. But it's good. I'm good. I'm learning. :-)
On the technology front, I'd come to the conclusion that iTunes would be the best fit for the laptop, since I despise WMP and the software I have on the desktop is now a legacy programme. And was sold to Yahoo besides, who're about to be gobbled up by Microsoft, so that'd likely land me right back at WMP anyway. So, iTunes it is. Thus, after perusing what sort of cheap mp3 players are available and concluding that they are all CRAP, and anything that's actually worth even considering is over $50 anyway, I caved and bought an iPod Nano yesterday. Just a wee 4 GB model, so it's silver, and for the moment I have an uber cheap clear plastic case that's got crystals on the front. Blingy, lol. It has no music on it yet, because I haven't got anything moved onto the laptop yet (that's today's task, along with making sure that everything non-critical on my desktop has been transferred to the external HD (critical stuff was transferred immediately upon installation, of course)), but WS has a MiniSaint companion now. Hee. I blame linzeems for teaching me to name my electronics, btw.
I am, for no particular reason, having a good day.
Oh, and one more thing: If you use a laptop on public/unsecured WiFi networks, read this. Apparently there's a rash of new hacker technology that makes it pretty easy for the person on the other side of the café to sidejack your specific connection and see exactly what you're doing online. Your "https" pages won't be visible - where you type in your password - but in most cases, once you've gained access to your passworded account, the pages are all "http" and therefore not secured, meaning someone could gather all of that subsequent information about you. Eep. There is a solution: Hotspot Shield from AnchorFree. It's freeware that "creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop and the wireless router. This impenetrable tunnel prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over a wireless network. Which means you remain anonymous and protect your privacy." Very good thing to have.