ResolvedI am proud to be an Episcopalian today.
When your life feels overwhelmed by minutia, sometimes it helps to find a high place to gain some perspective.
I just spent the last two hours tossing and turning trying to get to sleep, and I was all worked up over a meeting tomorrow morning during which I am sure I am going to get grilled about something I have no control over. I am sure the customer is going to be unhappy, and the call is going to be rather uncomfortable. I got up and emailed my boss asking for his support on the call, and on my way back to bed I noticed the stars out my bathroom window. I took a moment to reflect, and came to realize that in the grand scheme of things, none of the things I'm busy stressing over really matter. The worst possible scenario that I'm facing is that I might lose my job if this project really goes south. It's very unlikely, but it IS the the extreme of the worst that could happen. The funny thing is that losing this job wouldn't actually be that bad. I am stressed out and burnt out and could really use a break. The big realization that hit me was that the stars could give a crap about our planet, let alone my stresses and my project. What matters more than anything else is that I am alive. I have people I love in my life. I am blessed in ways so numerous that I can't possibly count them, and most importantly I have the love of GOD. Next to that, the struggles and strifes of my life are but trifles. I can put my burdens down, stand tall, breathe deep and easy, and relax. The burdens I choose to pick up again are significantly lighter now that a fresh perspective has been gained. Time for rest.
I spent most of sunday stripping 6-8 layers of paint off of my medicine cabinet. The silent paint remover (google it) is awesome. The thicker the paint is the better it comes off. It's especially cool to take a swipe down to the wood after only having the tool over it for 30 seconds or so. The cabinet will be ready for sanding and paint after just a little bit mor picking paint out of the crevices. I'm including a couple of pictures. The first is a dry run of the cabinet sitting in it's hole in the wall. The second is a closeup of the stripped wood. Now if only it didn't burn you when you touched the wrong parts. :( otherwise it's awesome.
90% awesome. 10% suck: 5% is cost of living, 5% is traffic.
In the tone of the Guiness commercials. Today I installed 2 6' x 4' x 2' shelf sets in my kitchen nook. I can now easily reach all of the stuff i have stored there plus all of the stuff that I have stored on the other side of the room. Those shelves aren't part of the long term plans for the house but they serve their purpose brilliantly right now. I am attaching some pics. Next: the stripper. The infrared paint stripper that is. :)
So
here is an article about some guy wrecking his car that is worth approximately 1.5 Million dollars. Big deal right? The street is
here. What is only
minorly interesting is that I stayed in a hotel
here for several weeks before I rented a house in the area, and I bought my car across the street from that hotel, and I have driven on that stretch of road many many times. I
thought the names sounded
familiar. Small world.
Duane
As another side note, Pinewood has studios in
Shepperton, and several Bond films were filmed there their studio is
here. (just a little northwest of where my hotel was) To quote
their website:
Over the years the Pinewood Studios Group has accommodated some of the most spectacular moments, memorable stars & ambitious sets on screen;
Batman, Lara Croft, James Bond and Superman have all walked our corridors, while our stages and back-lots have become ice palaces, Cambodian tombs, space ships and Paris Opera Houses.
That the
lottery is a tax on people that can't do math:
"I realize I don't have a chance, but nobody's got a chance. So the way I look at it, I have a 50-50 chance -- either I win it or someone else wins it," reasoned Barrie Green, 60, after buying a single ticket Monday afternoon at the Merritt Restaurant and Bakery near his home in Oakland.
"Good luck, sir," said cashier Weida Han, who chose not to explain to Green that his odds of winning -- and being able to quit his job driving cars to auctions -- are 1 in 175,711,536.
Radio stations come and go. Generally the ones that are good stay around. A while ago the bay area got a new radio station called
MAX FM. It was pretty cool. They played a REALLY random mix of songs with no repeats during the day. It was kind of like having your iTunes library on shuffle. I heard a lot of songs I knew, but had entirely forgotten about.
A couple of days ago, as I was jumping between stations on a commercial break, I noticed a country song playing on MAX. I thought nothing of it and skipped to the next station as I don't really like country. After the third time this happened, I knew something was up. Today I happend to skip to MAX during station identification. Sadly MAX has become WOLF, a country station. Sigh. Now I'll have to come up with a new station to put in spot 4 between
Alice 97.3 and
Energy 92.7... and until that, I get country whenever I skip. Yuk.
There's nothing quite like shopping at costco in suburbia on a saturday morning.
