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Hi(gh) from Puerto Rico
• Thursday, November 17, 2005 • 11:14 AM
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I just got a phone call that should get some kind of award. I answered the phone and a guy who calls a lot (he always says, "I'm calling from Puerto Rico!") was on the line. So, I said "Hi". And he said, "No,not yet, but I want to be!". Oh man. The whole office is laughing.
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Robotic Arms + Chili = My Day at Work
• Friday, November 11, 2005 • 8:48 PM
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This morning started with a trip to the book warehouse. As it turns out, Jenn and Tim got to go, too. Jenn especially wanted to go; I was considering asking our boss if she could go, when he suggested it himself. It was so much fun going together. We piled into my car and headed to the book warehouse. We ended up going in the wrong door and accidentally walked right into the warehouse part. We just kind of stood there in awe for a second. Then we had to call the book rep to come find us. It was a little embarrassing that we were lost in their packing center. But, at least the rep didn't seem irritated; he is very very nice. I'm still not sure why we chose that door... but all three of us seemed to think it was the right one.
The warehouse was even more fantastical than I had imagined. There were all of these conveyer belts forming a complex book bin super highway. Metals bins of books travel on the belts until they get to these three story tall mega-shleves. A huge tower with a robotic loader arm lifts each metal bin and places it on the shelves. I think that they said that there are 7 million books just in this part of the warehouse. The robotic loaders are computer controlled. The books are placed on the shelves in random order; instead of having an alphabetical or similar system, each has a barcode that is scanned stored in the computer's memory and is associated with the bin location. Only the computer knows where a specific book is located. This system is 99% accurate. It was really amazing, and completely mesmerizing, to watch the big robotic rig stuffing bins on and retrieving bins off of the shelves. Besides the huge computerized "library" there was another huge three story book storage area. This one looked like a huge library built inside a metal frame. The walls were made of wire mesh. It was filled with books and people carting books. These books have to be hand picked from the shelves. In the packing area there were huge machines with giant rolls of bubble wrap. It was really amazing.
When we got back to work, we had even more fun. Today was Chili Day at work. The little kitchen was like a crock pot museum. Cindy made little tags for each kind of chili; they looked like little display plaques. There was white chili, chili con carne, venison chili, and my personal favorite, vegetarian chili. There was also a very delicious vegetable soup. I contributed home-made sticky buns. I got up at 5:30 to bake them, so they were even still warm. There were all kinds of things to go with the chili, like crackers, cheese, onions, and sour cream. It was a delicious day at work. A large part of the afternoon was happily unproductive. Though strangely enough, all of the little problems I had with the book list resolved themselves today, so for being a festive day, I still ended up getting quite a bit done.
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A Wonderland of Books
• Thursday, November 10, 2005 • 11:10 PM
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I have to make a special trip to pick up a book from the warehouse tomorrow for an instructor. Our book rep offered to show me the big book warehouse while I'm there! I found some pictures of the inside! It looks like a fantastical book playground, there are twisty slides, chutes, and conveyer belt looking things. Aww, I'm fascinated with mechanized stuff. I suppose it's super nerdy to be so excited about a warehouse full of books, but I'm totally excited!!
 
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Paling Autumn
• 7:06 PM
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My lunch hour was particularly pleasant this afternoon. It was cold out, but the sky was very clear and the sun was bright. The warm sunlight filled the kitchen while I ate my grilled cheese sandwich.
The sun was streaming in on my Amaryllis. It was a clarified and paling autumn light. It filtered through the glass, and through the papery red petals of the flowers, displaying their fine nets of capillaries.
 
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Perpendicular Peril
• Wednesday, November 09, 2005 • 6:47 PM
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There is this parking spot at work that is right next to the back entrance. It is often open when I come back from lunch. It is on the edge of the lot, in the corner. You don't notice when you are pulling in, but when you are trying to back out, you realize that you are backing up only inches away from perpendicularly parked cars. I put my car into reverse and turned my head around to back out when I saw a Jaguar parked inches from my backing car. There was someone waiting to get my parking spot. They had to wait for me to back slooowly out, only to fall into the trap!
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Big Pumpkin = Fat Squirrel
• Tuesday, November 08, 2005 • 12:04 PM
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Last night, I made a vegan pumpkin pie with tofu in it. It turned out pretty yummy. Outside, there has been another kind of pumpkin eating going on. A once skinny little squirrel has been busily eating away at our our pumpkins on the porch. He has eaten completely through to the middle of one of the pumpkins, spilling it's belly of seeds. He's been eating up the seeds, and has started munching on another pumpkin. He's much fatter now. MUCH fatter. He has trouble running up the porch railing when we startle him, looking out the screen door at his activities. He is not scared by Mr.Mister, who seems to not mind him at all. Mr.Mister has been spending nearly all of his time camped out on a chair we recently got for the porch, about two feet from the munching squirrel. They completely ignore each other.
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Delicious So Far
• Monday, November 07, 2005 • 10:22 AM
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Today has been pretty tasty so far. I made rice pudding last night so that I could have a little to take to work for breakfast this morning. It is pretty good! I cooked basmati rice in rice dream. I put nutmeg, cinnamon, a little spectrum spread, and dried cranberries on top this morning. I meant to put a little brown sugar on top, too, but I forgot. It was still good anyway, though I would def. not leave it off tomorrow. I made a big pot so that I can enjoy it for several days. Yum! Mao likes it, too. She kept trying to stick her head in and take a bite. I pitied her and gave her a taste. Unusually enough, she really likes it!
When I got to work, I put the pudding in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it up. Though, maybe I should use a different container next time. I used my Japanese bento box. There is something printed on the bottom in Japanese. I sure hope it doesn't say "Do not microwave".
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Good GOD!
• Thursday, November 03, 2005 • 7:50 PM
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We have pre-made web responses at work so that we don't have to type the same email over and over. The other day, I was looking through the web responses looking for one to notify an instructor that the book they want to use for their class has gone out of print. I found this one:
Good ________! I regret to inform you that the text used in course _______ is currently out of print.
I'm sure that the person who wrote this intended something like "morning" or "afternoon" to go in the first blank. But, I immediately thought of "GOOD GOD! YOUR BOOK IS OUT OF PRINT!!!". Maybe the instructors would respond sooner if I used that....
Or I could toy with their emotions and write: "Good news! Your book is out of print!".
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Really Bad Eggs
• Tuesday, November 01, 2005 • 6:54 PM
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Yesterday was a strange, yet highly amusing day at the office. There were lots of eye patches and hooks. Bill made a "peg arm" out of some nunchucks from a previous costume. Cindy had a fake parrot on her shoulder. Tim was wearing pirate pajamas.
And this was before the Halloween party. But, really, when we did go to the party, we won third place in the costume/skit contest. Which means our department gets free bagels! Whoo hoo. Everyone knows pirates love bagels. We had a skit that we worked up, literally 10 minutes beforehand. It involved a lot of singing of "Yo ho, Yo ho! A Pirates' life for me!" and "Arrrrg! AAAARRRG!!". It was great. After the department competition, there was an individual competition. The winner was a guy dressed as King Tut who did the ENTIRE Steve Martin King Tut skit. He even PLAYED THE SAXOPHONE. It was amazing. It turns out that he is a computer science instructor who is usually a very quiet person...
Here's the whole scurvy crew. Needless to say, not too much work got done. In fact, everyone was moaning about how much work they had to do today to catch up. Haha. And yes, that is an inflatable alien dressed as a mummy in the background.
This is the boss. But we call him Cap'n.
 
Here's all of my Halloween goodies, ready to go to work. And of course, the Jolly Rogers I made for everyone. They turned out pretty good.
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