We used to have an electric stapler at my office… well actually that is to say, we used to have an electric stapler that worked at my office… now we have one that doesn’t work, so after the electric stapler stopped shooting out staples, about 4-5 months ago, I went back to using an old fashioned stapler – with an arm that you have to push down on to staple things. Pushing down whilst holding a paper underneath the stapler arm is a little harder than just holding papers under the stapler and having it do the pushing down on its own, but I keep myself in pretty good shape, so I’ve managed so far. My stapler upped the ante a little over 2 weeks ago though, when I started having a little trouble ramming the unused staples to the front of the unused staple chamber (Don’t I have such an amazing vocabulary when it comes to the stapler anatomy… I think I must have a secret dream of working for Swingline … Swingline makes staplers… THE BEST STAPLERS… unlike the staplers that we have at my office… the piece of crap on my desk is made by “Bates” who the hell are they ?… they obviously could use someone like me at their factory to tell them about the proper anatomy of a stapler…).
Anyway, The lazy rammer spring added a third step to the stapling process… not only did I have to hold the papers under the arm AND push down with the stapler… now I had to tap the nose of the stapler on my desks a couple times (to help slide the unused staples forward) before moving onto the aforementioned stapling procedures… on Monday though, stapling at the Menlo Park Shamrock office just got a little too Podunk even for me… ‘cause the spring in my stapler wore out completely, so now to staple something I have to open up the staple chamber, physically push the staples to the front with my finger… or a pen… I prefer using a pen ‘cause its no fun when the staple chamber snaps shut on my fingers… so now to staple something I have to ram the staples to the front, tap the nose of the stapler (on my now dimpled) desktop, gather the papers together and then push down… AND THEN I do the two table taps, get the papers together and push down on the damn arm… so at this point I think at this point it is actually easier (and safer) to go without the stapler entirely and just install the individual staples to my paperwork by hand… or maybe I’ll get a new stapler… I think that our Xerox machine is set up to add a stapler that would actually staple things as I print them… so then I wouldn’t even have to gather the papers together it would be 0 step stapling… God what opulence that would be ! I think I will just have Jose get me a Swingline next time he’s at office depot though.
Another kinda Podunk thing happened to me on the way to work today. I was riding along on my bicycle just about to start onto the Dumbarton bridge (which is about 2-3 miles from my office) when my pedal stopped turning… “weird” I thought to myself as I awkwardly continued along as best I could: peddling fine with my right food and fumbling to keep my left foot balanced on it’s pedal as it circled around…It was like trying to stand still on a log in the river… just very unnatural, and just when I was starting to get a system down, the left pedal just fell clean off. I could kind of see that might be coming, so I just casually stopped my bike, walked back, picked up the pedal and screwed it back on… “Phew problem solved”. It was too easy. It was like I went around putting pedals on my bike all the time … so I got back on my bike and for about 15 seconds I was sailing along thinking I am just super handy dandy and should have my own bike fixin’ show or something… and then the pedal again stopped turning and again fell off. “Hmm maybe I didn’t screw it in right the first time” I thought, so I went and grabbed my pedal out of the road and squatted down on the right side of my bike to inspect how that pedal was managing NOT to fall off. From what I could tell, it seemed to be screwed in the same way as I had just screwed in the left pedal and I don’t know how many ways there can be to screw in a pedal, so I slapped the left pedal back in the same exact way this time being sure that it was as tight as I could possibly make it. Still though, about 25 seconds later it stopped turning… and fell off…
At this point, I figured since I was only a couple miles from my office, and I would be going downhill for the second half of the bridge, I might as well just ride it the rest of the way with one pedal and fix the problem later on… so I rode a few miles today with only one pedal… and I got a few “what’s wrong with this picture” looks from other bikers, but by the time I got here I was pretty good at using the little nub that comes out of the crank as a pedal and I was even a little early to the office… I must say though, it required a lot more effort to be constantly kicking the crank nub rather than just being able to rest my foot on the pedal. (sorry I think I have much better terms for stapler anatomy than bike anatomy) I never really thought about how important pedals are before… or how important it is that they turn as you push them, but it is really important… and I guess the answer to the age old questions… “ how many Jillian’s does it take to screw in a bicycle pedal” is > 1.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
My Left Pinkie
My co worker, Jose, bought bagels last Saturday and he said that I could have one whenever I wanted, so yesterday I decided to take him up on it... but, there were only 4 bagels and I didn't wan to be overly greedy by having a whole one myself, so I decided to just have a half. Being the great conservationist that I am I figured that I should not get a plate or the table dirty by cutting the bagel on a solid surface. Instead I thought I'd save the water that it would take to wash a plate or the table and just hold the bagel over the trash can and saw through it with the extremely dull bread knife that we keep at my office... needless to say my super conversational intentions resulted in the senseless waste of the several blood soaked napkins and bandages that I used to try to damn the river of blood that was rushing out of my partially severed pinkie finger after I failed at cutting the bagel without a cutting board . I guess partially severed might be a bit (a tiny bit) of an exaggeration but there did seem to be guts oozing out of my finger along with the blood... it was really quite gross and disturbing.
I think overall it was a positive experience though... I now have the motivation I need to look more seriously into furthering my culinary aspirations by finding a knife skills class... or at the very least I'm going to look into watching a you tube video or something about knife skills ... and also from now on I'm going to think more seriously about tearing breads and similar products in half rather than using a knife whenever that is possible... but I think I have also gained a much deeper appreciation for my left pinkie and all that it does for me...
I never really thought about it before, but a lot of the really good letters on my key board happen to be over there in left-pinkie- ville... not to mention "caps lock" and my favorite shift key... hell i didn't even realize that there was another shift key over there by my right pinkie until just now when I looked down to see what letters were over by my left pinkie. Every a and q in this blog entry... and every other blog entry I've ever done have been brought to you by my good old left pinkie. and every symbol and capital letter have been as well.
Another thing that I have realized since I took it upon myself to cut open my finger is how easily your blood can be rerouted within your body. Every time I make a sudden movement or clench any muscle on my body, now my blood just seems to swish around until it finds itself right there In my left pinkie. A second ago, for example, when I was reaching down with my left hand to pick up a fallen post if from the floor all of the blood in the right side of my body seemed to make a B line for my left had there by making my wounded pinkie throb and ache and sting- just a little.
I must say though, I do think my body is doing a great job of putting things back together right . The informatory response has been really tremendous. So many good little white blood cells have rushed into my pinkie that it's felt like a little heater ever since I cut it... in fact so many of my little immune system warriors are on the scene right now that I can barley feel my left pinkie at all its just so jam packed with goodness. I think I've blogged about it before, but I just really have a great immune system. I know that sounds arrogant, but I think that the very fact that my clumsy mind has not managed to kill me off yet speaks volumes of the greatness of my immune system.
SO in summation Jill + Knife + good intentions = Jill - left pinkie... almost
I think overall it was a positive experience though... I now have the motivation I need to look more seriously into furthering my culinary aspirations by finding a knife skills class... or at the very least I'm going to look into watching a you tube video or something about knife skills ... and also from now on I'm going to think more seriously about tearing breads and similar products in half rather than using a knife whenever that is possible... but I think I have also gained a much deeper appreciation for my left pinkie and all that it does for me...
I never really thought about it before, but a lot of the really good letters on my key board happen to be over there in left-pinkie- ville... not to mention "caps lock" and my favorite shift key... hell i didn't even realize that there was another shift key over there by my right pinkie until just now when I looked down to see what letters were over by my left pinkie. Every a and q in this blog entry... and every other blog entry I've ever done have been brought to you by my good old left pinkie. and every symbol and capital letter have been as well.
Another thing that I have realized since I took it upon myself to cut open my finger is how easily your blood can be rerouted within your body. Every time I make a sudden movement or clench any muscle on my body, now my blood just seems to swish around until it finds itself right there In my left pinkie. A second ago, for example, when I was reaching down with my left hand to pick up a fallen post if from the floor all of the blood in the right side of my body seemed to make a B line for my left had there by making my wounded pinkie throb and ache and sting- just a little.
I must say though, I do think my body is doing a great job of putting things back together right . The informatory response has been really tremendous. So many good little white blood cells have rushed into my pinkie that it's felt like a little heater ever since I cut it... in fact so many of my little immune system warriors are on the scene right now that I can barley feel my left pinkie at all its just so jam packed with goodness. I think I've blogged about it before, but I just really have a great immune system. I know that sounds arrogant, but I think that the very fact that my clumsy mind has not managed to kill me off yet speaks volumes of the greatness of my immune system.
SO in summation Jill + Knife + good intentions = Jill - left pinkie... almost
Monday, January 4, 2010
The start of another year
I rang in the new year at my parents place in Oxnard. My friend Megan slept over on new years eve and we watched TV and gave ourselves facials and just chatted and hung out. It was nice. I haven't had a chance to hang out with Megan alone much since I started dating Tony and it felt very low key with no pressure to have to go out and do something like it seems to when one of us makes a trip to see the other. It felt like we were roommates again. ( I had lived with Megan in San Francisco for about a year when I first moved to the Bay Area).
Megan said that she wanted to sleep in on New Year's Day... and since she usually sleeps until 11:00 AM or later I figured I would have the better part of New Years to myself. I decided I would take that time to try to do something nice for my parents.
We had had a fire in the fire place on New Years eve, so when I woke up on New Years day I got dressed and headed over to the beach (about a block from my parents house) to find some drift wood to replace what I had burned. It was a gorgeous morning ! When I got to the beach I could see the Channel Islands, which are about 30 miles off the coast of Oxnard, clearer than I had ever seen them before. I could even make out some of the larger trees and bushes on the island. Normally there is so much fog and haze that you can't even tell there are Islands across the water at all.
After enjoying the view for a minute I got to my task at hand - the firewood. It didn't take me long to spot a perfect log just at the edge of the surf. It was big enough that if I chopped it up it would build 2 fires for my parents, but it didn't seem to big to carry. I hoisted the log on my shoulders like a yolk and carried it back to my parents house. By the time I got there my sandy wet shoulders told me that this was not going to be immediately useful as fire wood, so I set the log in my parents garage to dry out, changed into a dry sweat shirt and headed back to the beach to look a little farther up the sand for some DRY firewood (this time I had a camera in hand - to get a photo of the lovely channel Islands).
Only about 10 or 15 minutes had passed since I had just left the beach, but already a haze had began to from and the view of the islands was much more obscure than it had been on my first trip. Though, the islands were little more than a dark outline at that point, I took a picture anyway, just to prove to myself (or anyone else who might doubt it) that there were in fact islands off the coast of Oxnard shores. I had to walk a little farther to find any decent sized driftwood in the dry sand, but I finally came upon a few pieces that looked like they would make for a couple of good fires. There were to longish pieces of wood and 3-4 small ones. The whole load combined was much lighter than the first log that I had carried, but it was much more awkward to carry. I ended up shoving the two longer pieces of wood under my arms and balancing the smaller ones on top like a primitive forklift.
Surprisingly no one looked twice at me as I ambled back to my parents house. I guess the neighbors are used to seeing this sort of thing from my father though. He is always ready to carry a good piece of driftwood home for a fire... or decorative garden ornament. I must say there is something very satisfying about hauling your own firewood home. It's a good practical down home work out... my feeling of satisfaction was somewhat diminished after I set down my second load of wood though and I realized that there had been dog shit all over one of the logs and it was not on my sweat shirt... but overall I still felt like I'd accomplished something.
I wanted to keep the productive feeling going, so I changed my shirt... again and made myself a pumpkin curry for lunch which I thought was quite tasty... Megan woke up just as I was finishing mine, so I felt a little guilty that I hadn't waited for her to eat lunch, but there was plenty to go around. We had a lazy roommate style afternoon and then I took Megan back home to Thousand Oaks. All and all it was a pretty uneventful day, but I thought it was a good start to a new year.
Megan said that she wanted to sleep in on New Year's Day... and since she usually sleeps until 11:00 AM or later I figured I would have the better part of New Years to myself. I decided I would take that time to try to do something nice for my parents.
We had had a fire in the fire place on New Years eve, so when I woke up on New Years day I got dressed and headed over to the beach (about a block from my parents house) to find some drift wood to replace what I had burned. It was a gorgeous morning ! When I got to the beach I could see the Channel Islands, which are about 30 miles off the coast of Oxnard, clearer than I had ever seen them before. I could even make out some of the larger trees and bushes on the island. Normally there is so much fog and haze that you can't even tell there are Islands across the water at all.
After enjoying the view for a minute I got to my task at hand - the firewood. It didn't take me long to spot a perfect log just at the edge of the surf. It was big enough that if I chopped it up it would build 2 fires for my parents, but it didn't seem to big to carry. I hoisted the log on my shoulders like a yolk and carried it back to my parents house. By the time I got there my sandy wet shoulders told me that this was not going to be immediately useful as fire wood, so I set the log in my parents garage to dry out, changed into a dry sweat shirt and headed back to the beach to look a little farther up the sand for some DRY firewood (this time I had a camera in hand - to get a photo of the lovely channel Islands).
Only about 10 or 15 minutes had passed since I had just left the beach, but already a haze had began to from and the view of the islands was much more obscure than it had been on my first trip. Though, the islands were little more than a dark outline at that point, I took a picture anyway, just to prove to myself (or anyone else who might doubt it) that there were in fact islands off the coast of Oxnard shores. I had to walk a little farther to find any decent sized driftwood in the dry sand, but I finally came upon a few pieces that looked like they would make for a couple of good fires. There were to longish pieces of wood and 3-4 small ones. The whole load combined was much lighter than the first log that I had carried, but it was much more awkward to carry. I ended up shoving the two longer pieces of wood under my arms and balancing the smaller ones on top like a primitive forklift.
Surprisingly no one looked twice at me as I ambled back to my parents house. I guess the neighbors are used to seeing this sort of thing from my father though. He is always ready to carry a good piece of driftwood home for a fire... or decorative garden ornament. I must say there is something very satisfying about hauling your own firewood home. It's a good practical down home work out... my feeling of satisfaction was somewhat diminished after I set down my second load of wood though and I realized that there had been dog shit all over one of the logs and it was not on my sweat shirt... but overall I still felt like I'd accomplished something.
I wanted to keep the productive feeling going, so I changed my shirt... again and made myself a pumpkin curry for lunch which I thought was quite tasty... Megan woke up just as I was finishing mine, so I felt a little guilty that I hadn't waited for her to eat lunch, but there was plenty to go around. We had a lazy roommate style afternoon and then I took Megan back home to Thousand Oaks. All and all it was a pretty uneventful day, but I thought it was a good start to a new year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
