hmmm....

let's see if this works. this is a picture of my desk in my second area in Lethbridge, Alberta. random, I know. mostly we're just checking this out to see if the blog here is really still alive...

v strikes back

Hi everyone!!!

I knew I should have dug some of Shae's old papers out of the recycling bin while I had the chance so I could Ebay them.

I have been MIA for a while, but Jerilynn brought me back to the fold with a very lovely and impromptu email. I hope everyone is doing marvelously well in this booming economy of ours and if anyone has a massive estate in Sonoma now, please feel free to host a reunion at your earliest convenience. Has anyone heard from Senor Bateman? No doubt he has a castle in Dubai that we could crash in for a few nights, do some indoor skiing and whatnot.

Much love to all,

Vanessa

Merry Christmas

Never eat snowflakes. I miss you all! Have happy holidays wherever you are.

She strikes again!

well friends.....Shae's done it again. Remember extremely accomplished amazing Shae Curtis? Who's seeming fountain of talents never seemed to cease? Well she posted this on facebook and I stumbled across it. So way to go Shae and add one more astounding accomplishment to your belt!

Happy Halloween!

Hi everybody!

I'm still alive! And really bad at emailing and posting to the blog, but you already knew that part. Nothing too exciting going on here, but I just wanted to brag a little about my office Halloween decorations.

This is the former occupant of my office...

Actually, he's one of those coming out of the ground skeletons and he's held up with push pins, packing tape, and a lot of wishing.

And actually this isn't my office anymore. They moved me and my office mate (you can see his desk to the left of Yorik) to the corner office.

It's lovely, with two walls of big windows where I can watch the weather and traffic patterns. The only downside is that all of that glass is cold!

This is my desk. It's huge. before I started here, this was the CEO's office. Then our company got acquired by Pearson and the office (and desk) sat empty and available for visitors until now. All of that history makes it a little strange to be here, but it makes sense for two of us to share the larger office, rather than being smushed in a smaller office.

K, I guess I have to get to work now. Love!

the importance of font choice

In Honor of Halloween

Spencer and I were in Walmart the other day, buying pumpkins to carve. I saw Lisa's twin, and as usual, went to wave excitedly, but caught myself, unlike numerous times before. However, to my extreme delight, it really was LISA! I was so excited. Her poor sister probably is so sick of me waving frantically at her, then trying to play it off like I'm fixing my hair. Anyway, we embraced and chatted for a minute. It made me miss everyone terribly.

Speaking of, don't we all miss Poe in the Dark? I considered going this year...you know, since Spencer is still a student. But I just felt too old; I couldn't bring myself to do it. I found this to commemorate the season though. It still makes me laugh hysterically.

It's about time!

Has anyone noticed? THEY FINALLY CHANGED THE ENGLISH DEPTARTMENT'S WEBSITE!! Yay! Only two years later. (Click on the link to the right to see.)

. . . I really wanted to be noticed.

Has anyone heard from Amelia?

Bejing 2008

This is in honor of the Olympics....thought you folks might enjoy. Please note that the gymnast was a competitive men's gymnast at the University of Illinois. Also the audio is very quiet. Enjoy!

Incase you didn't get my e-mail:

For my fellow nerds.

xoxo

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

vacation

I am on vacation this week and I am glad on several levels.
1. I am tired of work and need a vacation.
2. I need to catch up on my sleep because I actually have a social life.
3. It will do my social life some good to step back, evaluate, and come to its senses.

By the way, in case you couldn't guess, I am sorta seeing a guy. My friend at work set me up with his 30 year old son. Our first date was July 3rd, and we have gone out a total of 5 times. I've been invited to Sunday dinner at his parent's house and now to the family reunion.
It seems like its going a little fast for me. Two and a half weeks and now I'm invited to Bear Lake for a week of Meng family fun?

lament of a freelancer

Hello, Loves.
I almost blogged about the forthcoming experience on my personal blog, but then I realized you were the only people who would fully understand. Enjoy.

My stellar boss at the University recommended me as a logo designer for his step-daughter as she is opening a boutique in the Cache Valley Mall. I met with her and we discussed the look she wanted. She told me she wanted black, white, and pink...we even specified a pink. She also told me she wanted floral and we looked at which kinds of flowers she liked. We also discussed what fonts she liked...handwritten girly fonts and maybe a cleaner one for the subtext. We chose specific fonts. I told her I charged by the hour at $15.00 and she sent me to work. These are the options I gave her, based on her input:







That last one is my fave. She then told me she didn't like any of the fonts anymore and I gave her a list of free font sites to look at. She didn't like ANY fonts on ANY of them and wanted to write it in her own handwriting. I had her do so, then I scanned it and vectorized it. She also told me she didn't want pink or floral, and sent me a graphic she wanted to use off of some one's myspace page. I told her it was illegal to use someone else's graphic without their permission and she didn't know where she got it. So, I told her I'd recreate it. The finished product looked like this, in business card form:


Note the suckiness. EW!!!!!! I was disgusted by her handwritten logo and didn't want my name to be connected with it. Obviously, I didn't tell her this, but, hoping she'd change her mind, I gave her a few more options:




Once again, she told me she didn't like any of them; even the one's with her own handwriting. Then she told me that she didn't want black and white, she wanted the whole thing to be white, but embossed. She wanted her signage to be this way too. I discouraged her from doing so with the signage...since the whole point is for people to read it...but I was very tactful. I told her I couldn't emboss it myself, that the place that printed it would do the embossing and they usually charge a lot for custom embossing, but have a set of standard embossing plates with their available fonts on them. I told her I could make it look embossed, though. She didn't like that either.

At this point I decided to give her an invoice for my 20 plus hours of work. I knocked about 10% off cause she was my boss's daughter. The total came to $285. She was livid and exclaimed, "But I don't like anything you've done! How can you charge me for things I'm not purchasing?" I explained that as stated in the contract she signed, I charge for my time, not just the finished product. I told her that I held up my end of the bargain and provided the best designs I could, based on her wants and needs, also stated in my contract. She told me she would no longer be needing my services and would send me a check.

Two months passed without a check, or any returned phone calls or e-mails. I finally had to give her step-dad, my boss, another invoice demanding payment. She sent me a check for $280 a month later...five dollars short. I hate her.

Spencer and I went to the mall to check out how her sign had turned out..it was supposed to be on an awning. I wanted to take a picture, but it would've been waaay too obvious. It looked exactly like this:

Yep. Bradley Hand, everyone. That's right. How original! It was printed on a vinyl banner, in black and white. It was a little too small for viewing. She also cropped out my tiny copy write...which is a violation of my contract. Too bad it's not a real copy write...but she doesn't know that! Ew. Ew. Ew.

Next time I will fully review my contract with my client instead of assuming they read the entire PARAGRAPH!

Help!

Hey team!!

So I'm considering taking a contract position out in Hawaii...I'm just in the preliminary stages of this so I would like your feedback as to what sort of questions I should ask and what I should kinda expect. Anyway, you are all geniuses in my opinion so please give me some advice!

thanks! elsie

a pet for segue

So my cat has been driving me crazy because he gets lonely while I'm at work so yesterday I bought a friend for him.
Originally I wanted to get a puffy gray Persian that I would call epiphany. But I couldn't find one I wanted. So I ended up with a black half siamese short haired male that's most distinctive feature are its green eyes. He's cross eyed.
I wanted to name him jabberwocky but it really didn't fit him so his name is Oberone, and Segue is learning to deal with sharing.

Ha ha edit featurs lets me add pictures!

So here's some pictures per Mandy request: This one is a close up so you can see his wonky eye. Its actually got this blue spot on it, and he freaks out if you approach him really fast so we're thinking he can't see very well on that side. Either that or he's just a scardy-cat.

This other one shows both cats. Segue and Odin (yes that's his new name) are learning to get along. They do fight over where they get to sleep in bed, and who gets the best place in the window. According to the information I've read it may take some time for them to learn to be friends.

Wow.

Hey ladies! It's me. Well, I'm feeling really drained right now, and who blames me? Since my last post (which was when? I can't remember), I moved from Logan to my dad's, while hubby was gone for training. Then I packed up my car and drove to Oklahoma to get him, rested for two days, and we drove some more to Virginia. Seven days on the road, nine days total. (We took it easy for the little kiddo, who's almost 21 months now.)

Anyway, yeah, so we're in Virginia. Jay is going to some specialization training and I get to enjoy the beautiful spring. We got a furnished house, since we're only here three months, and it came with everything. We brought clothes and toys and bought foodstuffs. We have a nice fenced yard with room for Liesl to run, and we live in a nice enough place that I can take a walk every morning. We've been here two weeks, and I like it. I love shopping on post (or on base) at the Commissary and Exchange. The meat is sooo cheap, and our house came with a nice grill, so I'm in heaven. I grill fish and steaks and asparagas all the time, and Liesl loves, LOVES hot dogs. It's great. I also discovered this fiesta chicken and pasta recipe that comes with this unusual but so, so delicious lime sauce for the pasta that I just totally dig. It's yum-yum-yummy.

My belly is poking out a great deal. I'm due three months from now, and no, I'm not sure if I'll have the baby here or in Washington state, where we will be moving to at about that time. I'm having another girl, in case I haven't mentioned that. Please, nobody tell me their sister horror stories beause I've heard enough of those (I don't actually have a sister, and my perspective of sisterhood is not so good); so if you have a good sister story, tell me that, because I need hope. I am looking forward to having another baby, I think. I'm planning on making her blessing dress while I'm out here, along with a few blankets for her.

So, in case you can't tell, I'm a little starved for adult-to-adult interaction. Not that I don't adore my child or love being a mother. I have so much fun teaching and playing with her all day. I have met other military wives, and we have an awesome ward. (We've been to church just one Sunday, and we already have duties!) I just need a place to record stuff. So I'm starting a blog. I will email you the address when I get it up and running. It's just a skeleton now.

Okay, my bishop is on his way over now. Have a nice on!

alumni networks

Wait... "What's this?" you might ask yourself?... Could it be?

A NEW POST!

The answer, my darlings, is YES.

Aside from being neck deep in school and work and life, not a whole lot is happening. Except that Mandy and I are hiring ourselves a third writer to share our lovely office. And in part of that employee search, we contacted Kelli Cargile-Cook and Dave Hailey to help us recruit. Which resulted in Kelli sending this lovely piece of information that she insisted I share with any alumni I know:

Our alumni listserv includes graduates from Utah State’s undergraduate and master's programs, including graduates who have recently contacted me, hoping to hire other USU graduates. We'd like to strengthen this network, and this listserv is the best technology for now to make that happen.

To subscribe, go to the following web page: http://lists.usu.edu/mailman/listinfo/ptw_alumni

We use the list to send out all job notices, news about the department, and other interesting information. You should also feel free to use the listserv to make your own contacts and strengthen your personal network.

I hope you'll decide to subscribe.

-Kelli

So, out of a guilty conscience*, I post this information for all to use.

peace,
lisa

*You had all better appreciate this post. While getting the dictionary to assist my spelling of 'conscience', I broke the glass candy dish that my mother-in-law gave me, sending shards of glass into Mandy's hand and ruining a sh*tload of coveted office-chocolate.

new information

For those of you who may have been hoarding my cell phone number in the off chance you want to get ahold of me telephonically be advised: I finally got a new (local) number.
And incidentally a new handset. E-mail me at my gmail address if you want the new number for I will not post it here. I will be online more because the new handset can access the web. Right now I'm sitting in bed typing this.

fireworks, palm trees, and sunsets

Happy New Year to All!

Chels! I'm so glad that you are alive. I'd have you know that I wrote a comment on your last post weeks ago and for some reason it didn't post! I'm a little upset by this as a matter of fact but I guess that's what happens when your internet drops out basically all the time. Good news though! I think I've finally set up the internet through a provider that will actually work at my apt! So now (should anyone post) I will be able to read and respond much more quickly! I too miss our days of dancing and seduction. sigh. I guess those things just don't happen anymore when friends get hitched. It sounds like that was a fun night though! I love that they thought you were drunk.

Please note my shoes in the picture....they are actually the only thing that I bought for the whole ensemble! I found out once I arrived on the island that there is a company wide Christmas party that everybody dresses up for and I was completly unprepared! So I borrowed the dress from one of my really cute neighbors, the jewelery from my current roommate, and bought the shoes out here! I curled my own hair and then I loved turning heads as I walked around. I felt like a serious blonde bombshell (that what the Caribbean sun will do for ya!)

Holli! I love your hair. Something I'm trying to do more of this year is do things that make me happy and ignore what other people think. It's not easy and a lot of the time I fail miserably in my attempts. So kudos to you for doing what you wanted! It sounds like you folks are all getting some serious snow out there. At good luck with your brother and his now wedded state.

So the last picture I will leave you with is one that one of my friends took while we (my roommate and I) were trying to get some Christmas pictures to send home. He had a bit of a crush on my roommate and so it's basically coincidence that I am in it. But it's kinda a cool picture I think....I like how you can see the ocean.

Snow Day

Monday they sent us home from work at 10:30 because the roads were so bad, the weather was getting worse and they closed down the entire INL site. We're talking 40+ mile an hour winds, drifting snow, and white out conditions.
The roads around here come in three varities, sheets of ice, unplowed snow covered sheets of ice, and barely drying out. Its a winter wonder land.

And today is the day my brother is getting married. Come to think of it, he's probably married now.

I only have one question: Who thinks that February in Idaho is a good idea for a wedding?

Not me.

Everything's ok with me. Hope everyone is doing well.

I am ALIVE!!

Els, you are such a slut! I miss you. I miss clubbing with you at NVO. I finally got Spencer to go clubbing on New Year's Eve at Studio 600, it's an LDS standards club. Anyway, I hadn't been for so long that I forgot to not wear heels...okay I didn't forget, I ignored. I had a new pair of fabulous ones perfect for NYE. Anyway, my left ankle went totally numb and I couldn't walk! Our friends had to help me limp to the car, and I was laughing so hard everyone thought I was drunk. One guy even said, "I bet she got kicked out." It was hilarious. But Els, nothing beats teasing the men folk with you... *sigh*

Hollie, I love your hair. GREAT decision. Tell your mom you are the furthest thing from a disappointment there could be. I empathize about your brother. My brother is dating and is planning on marrying a girl he's fought with every day for the past 3 years. She treats him like crap. However, I agree with Jerilynn. My mother is weird with Spencer and it has almost completely destroyed our once-close relationship. Just grin and bear it...and vent to us. We love you.

Jerilynn, CONGRATS!!! See my comment under your sneaky announcement post. ;) I am so sorry I haven't gotten together with you. I have an excuse though. I do love you.

As for what's happening with me....I am not preggo nor do I plan to be anytime soon. ;) (I just knew that's what you were all wondering.) Things have been going well generally speaking. Spencer and I are very happy and having a lot of fun. We are finally out of the poorhouse, though technically we are still below the poverty line...but it sure doesn't feel like it!!! Things with Shae kinda got slow so back in September I took a 50% pay cut to start a temp job at the University in the Ag Science Department. I redesigned their website and they decided to hire me for the Utah Ag Experiment Station too. I lobbied for a raise and on Dec. 1st I was hired full-time and now have an excellent starting salary and benefits...very good ones. I absolutely adore my bosses and co-workers. It was a hap hap happy new year!! To celebrate, Spencer surprised me by kidnapping me from work and taking me to the Swiss Family Robinson room at the Anniversary Inn up here one night. It was a nice change from not having enough money to buy milk.

I've been having increased seizures so we're looking into some alternatives to medication. Working full-time + a heck of a lot of sedatives that aren't working anyway = not happy Chelsi. I want to have brain surgery to remove the part of my brain that's causing seizures, but first we need to determine what part that is so we can see if it is removable. This entails inducing 12 seizures in a hospital setting where they can monitor them. My parents are being less-than supportive and would rather I just be a zombie forever. Although, my mom is lobbying for a thing called a Vegal Nerve Stimulator, like a pace maker kinda thing. They implant it under my breast tissue and whenever I feel a seizure coming on, I hit this button and it stimulates my Vegal Nerve and stops the seizure! My mom is for it because apparently a lot of obese people are having them put in to help with weight control and she thinks I'll lose a lot of weight. (She thinks I'm fat cause I've gained the newly wed 15 and haven't lost it yet. For Christmas she got me the Nutrisystem diet that I didn't want. Thanks, mom.) I'm pretty excited about it...but I don't know if anyone will put it in me. Typically they are for people who have multiple seizures a day and can't have jobs, babies, lives, etc. People like me usually regulate theirs with medicine and are able to function. I however, am really sensitive to medication since mine is not a typical kind of Epilepsy. (We discovered this when I went into an overdose one time on a new medicine and was in a coma for a bit.) Anyway, Neurologists tend to look at me like, "Well, you're lucky you don't have 5 a day. Just take medicine. Who cares if it makes you really tired and depressed and you can't have kids? You have Epilepsy...so that's how your life is gonna be." It's very infuriating because that is NOT how MY life is going to be. I refuse to "live" that way. I will have a career and babies, and a normal life. I just have to find a doctor who will help me get one. Sorry, that is my lament.

Bella is doing well. We took her to her one-year checkup this month (She won't be one till April but she had a rash) and the vet said she was the best-tempered and most well-behaved dog he's seen besides guide dogs. He was extremely impressed and said we "must be incredible dog owners." I prefer the term "parents," but flattering nonetheless. She just lost her last baby tooth and all of her new teeth came in perfectly. We taught her to ring a bell by the door when she needs to go potty since she doesn't bark. She is very well-behaved and our pride and joy. She LOVES the snow in its powdery state, but HATES it otherwise. She also waves hello and goodbye and gives kisses.

We are planning to stay in Logan for a few more years. Spencer has decided he does NOT want to be a lawyer after some law classes, and is leaning towards getting a Master's in Public Administration. He wants to be a city planner and work his way into politics and in talking to many advisers, we learned a law degree might not be the best avenue for that. Jerilynn, he too listens to Rush and Dr. Laura (and Sean Hannity) allllllllll day...it drives me INSANE! ;) I'm a music girl. So, alas I don't get to move to Oregon... :( But I do love this town. :)

I love you all. We need a reunion. Vanessa sends her love and said she'd check the blog soon.

<3
Chels