Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Monday, March 16, 2015

it's a nice place to visit...

(warning - work related blog post)

One of the unspoken portions of the new years resolution that I made to blog more was to blog about work LESS. So far, pretty good, but today I'm blogging about work, although I do have other things that I'll mention so it's not exclusively about the jorb.

Back in November our company acquired another station (the local NBC affiliate). Lots of changes have come about as a result of this, weighing, I suppose, on the positive side. (I'm still employed, the station's prestige has improved....um.)

The NBC station, of course, had it's own facilities that it was broadcasting out of, and for a while, we were splitting the duties in two buildings. That (mostly) changed this past Friday, when the higher-ups decided to move all of the sales and traffic staff (that would include me) over to the NBC-building. (The master control, promotions and production staff are staying behind at our old building until the new one can be renovated to fit them all.)

Moving, as I have often said, sucks. Even (especially??) when it's your place of employment.

The NBC building is located in a highly industrialized, very ugly part of town. It's about one block away from the homeless shelter, and directly across the street from a cemetery. "At least our neighbors are quiet."

It's not all cons, though. The new location is (slightly) closer to our house (approximately 29 minute drive rather than 35 or 36), and the inside of the building is nice, in areas. The main breakroom (there are two, possibly even three) is an actual break room  - tables, chairs, several refrigerators, vending machines, a working sink... and there are picnic tables and gazebos to eat outside if you want (I might do that tomorrow - several other coworkers did today, and this is the time of the year when it's actually nice enough to do that). All of us that came over to the building received an office (although they are all inside with no windows, and they look like doctor's offices from the 1980s...), and we also now have security badges in order to get in to the facilities.

Today was our first day in the new place.
Highlights included:
Passing the parking lot on the way in, and having to circle back around. (I have no sense of direction)
Hearing the news-copter take off and land. (it's loud)
Momentarily worrying when the high school that is right down the road got evacuated by the Hazmat team because a student brought some chemicals to class (nothign wound up happening, other than the email from management alerting us to the possibility of needign to evacuate).
NOT HAVING PRINTERS ALL DAY. (this was a huge deal, as about 90% of my job involves printing emails out) the IT department was working on it all day, but when i left this afternoon, it still hadn't been resolved. We'll see what tomorrow holds.
Not having phones for 50% of the day. (not as big a deal, but annoying)
Missing my window.
Dreading the eventual bus ride(s) in, especially since I will now need to transfer, and also walk somewhat to get to the station, and walking involves going through the previously mentioned not-so-great neighborhoods.

So, that's that. I'm sure I'll adapt and get used to this new situation/location, but for now the newness is still fresh and I'm all prickly about it.

In other news, we bought the board game King of Tokyo yeseterday, and did a family run thru last night (Harper won - her strategy was to not go into Tokyo at all. hahaha), and today Silas & I played it some more (I won one game, he won the other) Pretty simple game, especially once you get into it, and it's fun, too. I really do enjoy playing our board games, want to do that more often.

Sunday, March 01, 2015

vacation recap

I've been on vacation this past week, and it's been pretty enjoyable overall. Some of the highlights (note that Stephanie's blog already covered this, and with photographic accompaniment):

Last Sunday (February 22nd) was when we made the drive out to California (the main portion of my week off was to be spent in Anaheim). We left Las Vegas around 4pm, but due to the amount of traffic also making that drive at that time, and the insane rain storm that accompanied us along the way, we didn't make it to our hotel room until almost 1am. Super stressful drive. The battery light in the van came on twice, and a semi drifted into our lane, and even with the windsheild wipers on high, the rain was so thick that visibility was near zero.
We ate dinner at a Denny's in Baker, where the waiter ignored us for probably 20 minutes longer than he should have, and then after we left I confused a fake owl on the roof of the building for a real live one.  (It was funny if you were there. Or if you were me, I suppose)

Monday was a better day, as the majority of that day we were in Disney's California Adventure. Highlights from there:
Getting a fast pass for the Cars Racer ride (I forget the real name, and am too lazy to look it up either on google or on Steph's blog entry).
Riding the Cars Racer ride (I see why the line typically gets up to 2 hrs. It's a fun ride. But the fast pass TOTALLY worth it)
The Tower of Terror. It was my second time riding it, so I at least knew what to expect, so it wasn't AS frightening as the first time I rode it with Harper two years ago. But this time I went alone, so all in all, I guess the terror level balanced out to about the same. Still a great ride.
Also watched one of the parades.
And we bought an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit antenna topper for the van. (We finally got around to putting that on the antenna today.)

Tuesday the 24th was the 17th anniversary for Stephanie and I. We used the magic morning feature of our tickets, meaning we got to go into the park an hour before most of the rest of the world. Of course, since Disneyland is EXTREMELY crowded,  and many other people also have Magic morning passes, we really only got about 15 minutes of Magic Morning. But it was a good day. I rode the teacups (and even got in the purple cup, which according to internet lore, is the fastest of the teacups), rode Space Mountain (only Steph and I - the kids didn't want to), had a new Star Tours experience (C-3PO was our pilot!)and had super expensive food all day long.

Wednesday was our final day in Disneyland, and we used it to hit ToonTown and re-ride faves from the previous day (Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain (Silas finally decided to go with us), Pirates) We also bought a stroller for that day, because carrying Silas around for two days in a row was wrecking havoc on my muscles.

Thursday we checked out of our hotel and drove thru LA, where we didn't meet Rhett & Link (from Good Mythical Morning), but after Steph mentioned the idea, it was all I could think about while driving. We arrived in San Luis Obispo late afternoonish and spent the evening walking around downtown and hitting the usual spots (Boo Boo Records, the bookstore next to it, the bench outside of BBR) At Boo Boo we picked up the new Guster CD (not bad), the new Decemberists CD (I liked this a lot), a rarities CD from Ben Folds  Five called "Naked Baby Photos" (mostly pretty good, but has a number of highly skippable tracks), and the Frozen soundtrack. There was also a farmers market going on, and we checked that out, buying a package of awesome strawberries and some organic raw milk. That night, though,after dinner (awesome burger from Margie's Diner), my throat was starting to get sore. Uh-oh.

Thursday night into Friday morning I didn't sleep AT ALL. Or, it seemed that way. I know I must have slept some, because I had some dreams about plants that were used by politicians in San Luis Obispo to manipulate time and reality. The dreams became increasingly complex in plot, and would probably make a pretty good story. So, at least that good came out of it. But I was feverish and my throat got worse as the night progressed.

Friday mornng I was defintiely feeling sick, but the only thing on the agenda was to visit the beach, and i was well enough to not call that off. It was a little chilly (especially when the wind blew) but it was till a prtty good day at the ocean. sand castles were built and ruined, and I did force myself to completly submerge myself into the Pacific. (We forgot towels, so once i was finished playing in the ocean, I spent hte next 30 minutes waiting for the sun to dry me off)
We began the drive home around 3 (I think?) and with dinner and carsickness stops, we managed to get home a little bit before midnight. (Highway 58 is much less crowded than the freeways, but it's like that wanted to make that road as windy as possible. Mission accomplished, roadwork crews!)

Yesterday I didn't have to go anywhere (Stephanie had some cookie booths to attend, though) so I spent the day trying to recoup from this sickness.
Today I've been doing mostly the same (still have a cough and my throat is still a teeny bit sore), and now in just a few minutes we are all heading otu to do more Girl Scout Cookie booth selling. (Um, that's selling of Girl Scout Cookies, not selling the booths.)
Amazingly, I haven't checked my work email at all. I'm afraid to look, honestly. But, I figure it'll be there when I get back to it tomroorw. All in all, a good vacation.