And now, today's entry will be prempted by a rant by your humble narrator on the incorrect uses of telephony.
Ring, ring [phone answers, thick Eastern Massachusetts accent guy voice starts speaking] - "Thank you for calling the local ice rink in the town next to you. If you know your party's extension, dial it now. For Rick, dial one. For public skating hours, dial two --".
[She presses 2]
[Computer lady pre-programmed by the vendor of the auto attendant begins speaking] -- "That mailbox is full. No further messages can be left in this box. Thank you for calling. Goodbye." [dial tone]
[She redials phone]
"Thank you for calling the local ice rink in the town next to you. If you know your --"
[dials one, for Rick]
"That mailbox is full. No further messages can be left in this box. Thank you for calling. Goodbye." [dial tone]
Her son may want to go ice skating, but unless mommy drives OVER to the ice rink to find out if they rent skates and have pubic skating times, he isn't getting there.
There is nothing that bothers me more in life that poor uses of technology. When the thick Eastern Massachusetts Accent guy starts talking about the local ice rink, he should immediately say "Our Public Skating Hours ARE..." Or, Mailbox number two should just be an announcement box, no opportunity for you to LEAVE a message there, but just a service announcemnt saying when the open skate times are. Or, some schmuck should come in once in a goddamn while and empty the voice mail box.
One would expect that, wouldn't one?
Recently, I called my husband at work. Instead of getting the school secretary, I got the auto attendant. Not knowing what Doug's extension is off the top of my head, I dialed "four for the dial by name directory." Everyone has a dial by name directory on their auto attendant these days. They come in pretty handy.
Doug's name didn't come up in the dialing by name efforts of yours truly.
I had to hit zero to get the operator, and got the beginning of the auto attendant spiel again. I placed the handset of the phone in the base so as not to throw it across the room. Counted to ten. Redialed.
"Blah blah School, Lee speaking," the secretary says.
"Hey Lee, Doug's extension please, but before you send me can I tell you something?" I proceed to inform her that the dial by name directory doesn't have Doug's name in it, and am wondering if she can inform someone so as to get him put in there.
"Well, there are a lot of people not in the dial by name directory. You shouldn't have gotten the auto attendant, I don't know why that happened. I was sitting right here."
"Well, that's not exactly my point. What if it were after or before hours and I had to get ahold of him, and he isn't in the dial by name directory? What would happen then?"
"Well, his extention is 4XXX, you should write that down or try and remember it. Then you won't need the dial by name directory."
"Well, that's not exactly my point. Why HAVE a dial by name directory if it isn't kept up to date with people's names. Doug's been there for like two years now. Isn't someone in charge of that."
"Yeah, I am."
Well BITCH, program his fucking NAME into the AUTO ATTENDANT. Gah! Someone, drive me over there because I'm too pissed to cope, and let me kick her ASS.
What's the point? Why HAVE anything technologically more advanced than a monkey with some post-it-notes and a Crayola crayon if you aren't going to use it and use it CORRECTLY.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled entry.
There are a couple things I left out of my last entry because it was getting too long and I had to go help Geoff while he ralphed. Not the bad mommy I make myself out to be, I guess.
I could have sat here and yelled out to the living room "Hey buddy, you okay out there?" and kept typing.
But. Duty called and I went and spent the afternoon cuddling with him on the couch.
He made it through the day Thursday, still had a fever Friday. Doug stayed home with him that day so I could go babysit Mr. Baby Ben (cranky, complainy baby that he was ... I still had a great time with him).
Saturday Geoff was on the mend and the weather was nice. There was a great deal of outdoor play. Doug took a sharp gardening tool and whacked at the ice on the porch in efforts to expedite melting. Today it is pouring and we seem to be housebound. I predict insanity taking over my grey matter by about 3pm.
Anyway -- I had meant to write about electrolysis. I started going in early January, have been about six times now. Here's the experience thus far.
Earlier I'd mentioned that I'd become a fat bearded lady, and that was, of course, complete hyperbole. I am fat. Not totally beardy. But the hair management issues on my face were getting out of control, so I figured I'd have to do something soon.
Contemplated bleaching, but realized that long blonde hair growing out of my face was just as unappealing to me as tiny little stubbly black hairs which I pluck at.
Tried waxing a couple times, only to realize I'd pulled out all the baby fine hairs which were mixed in with the thicker, darker hairs. So what I ended up with was four times the amount of thick, dark hair. Realized at that point I had to do something serious. I asked my dermatologist and he recommended electrolysis. He told me that laser treatments were faster but excessively expensive so I shouldn't even think of going that route...
I called around and found a nice lady right in my downtown. I made an appointment to go meet with her for a consultation. Her name is "Kay" for the purpose of this journal. She checked me out and said it'd probably take about a year to fully kill off the hair cells, that initially I'd need to come see her once a week but after about three months that would turn into bi-weekly, then monthly towards the end for touch ups. She showed me the machinery, the way it works, and how she uses new tips on the zapping thingy for each patient.
We laughed and joked. I asked her if she had any transsexual patients and she said they mostly use the training schools to get free treatment because full body electrolysis would break the bank. She told me some great stories about people she met. Men who have to hide the fact they get this done in their ears from their business associates, transsexual, crazy women who want their entire boudoir areas zapped (man, that's GOTTA hurt).
She got serious, no more stories of bank executives having their nostrils zapped, and educated me on how hair cells are killed. It takes a long period of time before the hair cells stop production and that plucking stimulates them (although I've heard people say that hair is hair and nothing stimulates hair growth, that if plucking was to stimulate hair growth men would do that all the time to prevent baldness...).
The price was very reasonable, and urban myths aside about hair, shaving, electrolysis and the like, I decided I'd go ahead and do it.
In just six treatments I see such a tremendous difference. It's astounding. Where I was picking at my face for a half hour a day almost every damn day and leaving it raw and red, now I spend 20 minutes getting zapped and don't have to think about it until close to a week later.
Kay is very nice and funny, and merciful. I'm a real wussbag, and so she keeps it on the lowest setting for me because I can't hack how it hurts. She told me about a prescription I can get which numbs the treated area effectively. So I may go and look into that.
Now mind you, I won't let her touch my eyebrows because that will hurt like DEATH. I'm not doing this to become some sort of slick looking cover girl model with perfect brows... If she did my brows I'd end up needing eyebrow pencil to make them look right, and I have visions in my head of a woman who volunteered at our high school who had her eyebrows REMOVED and used eyebrow pencil to draw them in. I don't want to end up like her. I'd rather leave that which I do not like in fear of what could possibly happen instead. I'm sure she'd do a nice job. But pain and fear keep me focused on the chin area, and I'll stay the course there before I venture elsewhere. And no... I will not get my boudoir area zapped. That's just too painful to contemplate.
Leigh is home from the hospital. She sent me a long and very funny email about her adventures in hospital food. I'm glad she's back home, and wish her great success in healing. Keep her in your prayers still, as in the winter any major surgery kind of thing leaves one susceptible to infection or sickness after, and we don't want that.
Got to chat a bunch more with Aaron now that he is back from the bottom of the world. We are trying to decide when a good time is to get together for a visit. He told me that folks in New Zealand were very interested in whether or not he voted for George W. Bush. He didn't, but would answer "I in effect did by voting for Ralph Nader." And then they'd get into a totally huge discussion about politics and the world arena.
Folks had told him before traveling around that he should tell people that he was Canadian instead of American. He pissed on that idea, mostly because he's proud to be American and because he knew it would be more interesting when he met people if he held his honesty.
I think I would have done the same. I'm not ashamed one iota to BE an American. Sometimes I think the things our country does politically and globally are foolish and stupid, but I wouldn't deny the fact that I enjoy the freedoms afforded me by being a citizen of this country. I think that we take ownership of our nation's successes with great pride, and we should also take the same ownership of our collective mistakes. Nuff said here about politics and my opinion.
Got passed over for another job. I'd gotten a call during the week from a recruiter who had a job that started on MONDAY (as if!) and he wanted to put me in it, so he had me come in for a full interview with him. I told him that from the description of the job, they were looking for someone with a lot more server-end experience than I had. And while MOST of the servers I've dealt with I've managed to figure out problems simply by reading a book, I have no experience with IIS or any Microsoft web serving technologies.
They liked my resume a lot, and the company itself said they would have hired me with my design experience on the spot if I had more back room knowledge.
Duh? I told you that, Mr. Recruiter Man.
But he said that based on our interview he was sure there was something out there for me and he was "going to find it as soon as he could."
Knock yerself out, cowboy.
He was really nice, in all seriousness. Thing with recruiters is, they want a warm body, any warm body, that they can shove at a client and say "Here he/she is!!! This is the ONE!" so they can get their commission. I told the guy up front this was not the job for me, but he insisted... I had nothing better to do that day. I had fun interviewing. I always do. But I am glad he didn't consider it a waste of his time to have me there...
I was once sent on an interview by a recruiter after telling her that I had no Flash knowledge. I was working at the college and looking for something new. I took a day off, went to Portsmouth NH for this interview, walked in there and the first thing out of the guy's mouth was "Blahblah Stupid Recruiter Bitch Lady told me you've got an extensive Flash portfolio. What's the URL?"
I told him that Blahblah Stupid Recruiter Bitch Lady was sorely mistaken and had lied to him, unless he was confusing me with someone else.
"Nope, she told me your name. You're my 10am, right? Yup. You're being shopped to me as a Flash guru."
I sighed and informed him that he should get on the phone and rip her a new bodily orifice, because she just wasted his time, and my time. We went through my portfolio, we had a nice interview. He thanked me for coming and let me know that they wanted a 100% Flash driven site and they needed it before I could learn how to do it, but he'd keep my resume handy in case something came up.
He must have called Blahblah Stupid Recruiter Bitch Lady and done what I told him to do, because I never heard from that agency again. Un Be Liev A Ble.
There's not much going on here, and I should go keep Geoff entertained before he breaks something out of boredom. I guess that's about it. Have a super rainy Sunday all y'all
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