it's the little things

How could I forget one of the biggest highlights of my trip?! On Friday morning we drove one of my brother-in-laws to the airport in Tulsa (about an hour away), which gave us the opportunity to dine at one of our favorite (and badly-missed) fast-food restaurants, Taco Bueno! We gorged ourselves on burritoes and tacos until we couldn't eat any more. YUM! (Pretty decadent after eating a big Thanksgiving meal the day before, huh? Anyone else feeling like a big Butterball this week?) ;)
I was recently watching an episode of King of the Hill and in one scene there was a Taco Bueno restaurant in the background. This made me smile, realizing that anyone who had not spent much time in Texas (which is where I'm from) would probably not notice it. I guess that's one of the reasons I enjoy that show so much...there are so many elements just like that, little "Texas-isms" that wouldn't be obvious to the casual observer.

accentuating the positive

It has been a typical Monday morning here. It started out with a cold, heavy rain on the way to work. Then, as I expected, there were lots of problems waiting for me once I got here. So, since time is short, instead of grousing about the week that I wasted spent at my in-laws in Oklahoma, I thought I would accentuate the positive and show you a few of the pleasantries of my trip.

I was greeted each morning by a beautiful sunrise:

I was like a "dog whisperer" to these two little stray pitbull pups. This effort was not much appreciated by the residents who didn't like me encouraging them to hang around, but it was the thing I looked most forward to each morning, after the sunrise:

It is a coincidence that my husband's parents and my parents all grew up within about a 20 mile radius of each other (although they were never acquainted), so while I was there I was able to visit the cemetary where my grandparents and aunt are buried and put fresh flowers on their graves. It was very sad for me because we just lost our grandmother 3 years ago this January, at the age of 91. But I was happy to be able to go and pay my respects, especially at this time of year because Thanksgiving always reminds me of her and all of the years that we spent together.

It's funny, there are many aspects that I dread when making this trip, but at the same time I noticed that this year I felt an odd sense of comfort in the routine. I guess when going to the same place from year to year, and finding the same people are there behaving in exactly the same ways, that in a strange way I am comforted by the predictability of it all. But more than that, from so much of my family's history taking place in that part of the country, and from the many happy times spent there with my siblings and grandparents, I feel such a strong resonance when I am there. In some ways I feel like I am home, and it's a very different feeling than when I am anywhere else.

P.S. We didn't get home until late Saturday night. I was hoping to spend Sunday catching up on some long-overdue email (no internet all week...argh), but unfortunately this was pre-empted by all the unpacking and trying to get things ready for the coming week. So my apologies, I have been thinking about you throughout the trip. Hopefully this evening will be a little less busy and will allow me time to catch up (fingers crossed).

love & marriage

As I've said before, I really love my job... most of the time. One of the things that led me into engineering in the first place was a passion for solving problems. I love a good challenge and to me there's nothing more satisfying than that "ah-hah!" moment when you finally figure out the solution to a problem that you've been toiling away on for hours or days, or sometimes even weeks. But occasionally a problem can go on too long, or the nature of the problem itself can be so confounding, that it takes much of the fun out of it. This has been the case for me the past several weeks. Part of my job as an integrator is the "marrying" of hardware and software into one blissful, happy union. I've been thinking about this lately and how it is in some ways similar to a real marriage. In the beginning everything is exciting. Granted, the initial integration effort can be challenging and stressful, much like planning a wedding (as I'm sure my project manager will agree *wink*), but once it's all said and done, the end result can be pretty exhilarating. That is, until the honeymoon phase is over, and you begin taking each other for granted. Suddenly little problems start popping up here and there. Then the little problems escalate into bigger ones. You start questioning why you ever got into this relationship -- no, wait...that's not how it happens. :) Okay, so I'm not really there yet, but I have just about exhausted my patience (at work, not at home ;). The particular problems I'm chasing right now (two different problems in two different labs) are the kind that are intermittent and generally take several hours of running before they occur, which means that I get to spend hours and hours making slight changes, and then waiting...and waiting...and waiting...to see if it makes a difference. All while vying for large contiguous amounts of lab time, which can be difficult to get. And then, just to add insult to injury, I come down with this gawd-awful cold that has migrated from my head to my chest, then back to my head again (the preferred location), and, as of this morning, now in both head and chest..doh! (And thank you all for the well-wishes, btw. I would have loved to take some time off and rest, but due to the lab-scheduling issue and my own masochistic sense of responsibility, it just wasn't to be.) Fortunately, I'm one of those lucky people who rarely ever gets sick (knock wood), and when I do, I swear it's this exact same illness, about once every 2 years....so yeah, I'm a big baby about it when it strikes. With any luck I'll get well just in time to make our long and arduous Thanksgiving pilgrimage (pun intended) to the in-laws (about a 12-hour drive...what fun--but nothing that compares to what happens after we get there). ;) Oh, the things we do for love!

wah!

I hate being sick.

I hate being sick at work even more.

Home in bed soon (I hope).

self-amusement

"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused." ~Unknown

In spite of the computer problems, I did enjoy a couple of good laughs at myself this weekend. The first was yesterday evening, when Macy and I went to see Saw 2. Just as the movie was about to start, a couple and their little son (who appeared to be about 3-years old and was wearing a mohawk) came in and sat down on one of the front rows. Macy noticed and pointed them out to me, and then we both looked at each other like, "WTF?" So I sat there, shaking my head a little in bewilderment at why anyone would bring a 3-year old to an R-rated horror movie like Saw 2 (and remembering how grisly the first Saw movie was). But after a few moments of silent judging, I had to laugh at myself as I recalled a certain someone (me) whose little mullet-wearing 4-year-old son loved the Nightmare on Elm Street movies back in the late-80's. Oh, forgive us young parents, we know not what we do! heheh (You'll be relieved to know that as I matured, so did my parenting style, and I'd like to think that my son made it through relatively unscathed. And besides, we come from a long line of horror-movie enthusiasts.)

My second moment of amusement was last night, as I was heading downstairs to our basement. Every since the dreaded mouse incident, I am imagining mice at every turn. I am afraid to go into the basement (which, by the way, is a completely "finished" basement...berber carpet, painted walls, not that much different than the rest of the house), and I won't go down there without taking my cat Tiki, the great mouse-hunter, with me. And then when I do, I creep around every corner, turning on lights and making noise as I go...you'd think I am expecting rabid wolverines to be down there! Now, I suppose being afraid of mice isn't all that unusual, but it is a little funny considering that I had a 6-foot boa constrictor named Alice (pictured here) as a pet when I was 18-years old, along with several other snakes and a couple of small alligators (caimans)...and that Alice's diet consisted of live rats which I had to personally procure and deliver to her each week.

Yeah, I guess you could say I've changed quite a bit in some ways. :)

computer woes

Grrrrrrr. I've been slaving all weekend, piecing back together my laptop which decided to give up the ghost Friday night by way of the dreaded "blue screen o' death". Could there be anything more annoying? (And the answer is yes, of course there could be, but not to me this weekend...grumble grumble.) It was all so innocent...I installed the latest Divx bundle --> restart --> (happy, optimistic feeling) --> blue-screen-of-death --> (sick, not-so-optimistic feeling) --> then followed all of the recovery options that Windows had to offer, none of which worked (of course). I finally had to resort to re-installing the OS because the laptop would not accept anything less and I had no hair left to pull out of my head. @$#&!! Thankfully, I had recently backed up this particular computer, including screenshots of my desktop, programs, and serial numbers (brilliant!), so recovery was mostly just irritating and time-consuming. I did lose about a month's worth of email though. harumph. But you know, the funny thing is that I cannot tell you how compelled I am to re-install the DivX bundle, an almost irresistable urge because it should have worked fine the first time. I keep telling myself that the crash must have been a fluke...but do I dare tempt the fates again?