pocket of joy in a black hole of malaise.

Switchfoot releases their new CD tomorrow. Can't wait. And then their tour tickets go on sale... and I'm going to Cleveland with Rachel to see them... it has been way too long since I saw them last... I think they came to Ichthus in 1999... (I missed them when they showed up in 2001...)

If I knew this morning how poorly I was going to feel when I got to work, I might have called in sick. Fitful night o sleep last night, in part thanks to my dog, general malaise, overall feeling of "BLEH."

Chad asked me if I could be anywhere in the world right now, where would I be? I said I would be having an Americano at City Dock in downtown Annapolis, reading and discussing and people watching and sailboat gazing, and maybe someone like Freya or Lisa would be there with me...

Incidentally, Chad said he was standing outside the University here in Lexington sipping coffee with a friend and remarked he wished he was sipping coffee in City Dock in Annapolis right then.

What can I say, great minds think alike.

Plus, my brother-in-law is just plain awesome. Put it this way: he owns a bright blue pair of Saucony Jazz Nylon Suede shoes. They don't even make them in that color anymore. And they're my favorite shoe.

stretching for sunlight

stretching for sunlight, originally uploaded by krisde.

photo shoot at Ms. Hughes' garden.

basking in its glow

basking in its glow, originally uploaded by fotobutterfly.

me, in Pensacola, enjoying a beer from the great state of Texas. Shiner Bock.

i read today...

"You are not here merely to make a living... You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."
-Woodrow Wilson

"Every day when you wake up and take a breath, that's where your responsibility begins."
-Jon Foreman

friday at last.

so i was remarking to a friend that i think labeling people can create real problems. specifically in the realm of politics. i have a true distaste for when political or other such labels encourage one to act in a specific way because of the label, irregardless of who was labeled or who did the labeling or whether the label is an accurate label or not. Let me give an example or I will confuse everyone. Let's say I label someone "Republican." I say, "Joe Schmoe is a Republican." Chances are, most other people who call themselves "Republicans" will automatically assume they will agree with Joe Schmoe. And chances are those who call themselves "Democrat" will not. These are premature assumptions, since no one has met Joe Schmoe or talked to Joe Schmoe about his stance on things. Even worse is when someone rejects or accepts blindly anything out of so-and-so's mouth. Just because of a label.
For a practical example, just because I voted for George W. Bush twice doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, everything he does, or how he runs his administration. On the flip side, anyone who dislikes the President shouldn't automatically reject and oppose his every move. Granted, a critical eye is needed. We don't abandon reason. Neither, however, should we just get on a bandwagon simply because it feels virtuous to join a subversive opposition, nor should we keep silent because it's just plain easier to go along with the masses rather than challenge the masses and/or the instituted authorities. I've seen and read way too many examples of people who just like picking fights when there is really not a whole lot to pick a fight about, and likewise other instances where a majority stays silent when voices crying out in the wilderness are needed.

so today is Friday. at last. a long, slow, boring week. I am really craving just vegging out and being a bum. Maybe do some reading. Maybe sleep a whole heck of a lot. Maybe watching a couple movies. All this travel and running around and having things on my "to do" list is wearing me out. What a nice feeling to have not a single thing to do! To just relax, enjoy the present. Oh, how nice it would be to live without planners and watches and phones... this sort of feeling makes me want to take a fast from communication and technology. Fast from T.V., from cellphones, from going out in traffic, from alarm clocks, from the internet... just me, good books, good food and drink, the sound of the breeze out my window, the stars above, and a continual song of prayer and quiet rejoicing in my heart...

I Dream by Paul Colman Trio

I closed my eyes again and I fought this traffic jam
And I tried to slow this engine down
But just like all last night I felt injustice bite
One body one chance one country at a time
And no rewind button
I dreamed of things I'm yet to be
And of angel wings that carried me
From suffering and agony to eternity

I dreamed that you were next to me
And all your scars refused to bleed
I dreamed that love and peace had power
Over fear and bitterness

I dreamed I saw a million angels
Coming forth to rescue me
Singing welcome home my faithful servant
Tantalizing images I dream

The sky was like an angry bruise
That wouldn't let the sunlight loose
And bring us healing and take the swelling down
And these were years of insurrection
Condemnation and disconnection
Refusing to believe that you'd paid the tab for me
And unhappiness is here defined
To know the truth but to stay behind
And to burn your invitation to the promised land

I dreamed the dove of peace was chosen
Over fear and weaponry
I dreamed someone could raise a family
Never fearing tragedy

I dreamed I saw a million angels
Intercepting evil schemes
Love and comfort never ending
Everlasting images I dream

I dreamed I saw a million angels
Breaking through the clouds of grey
The sweetest sounds of hallelujah
Came and stole these blues away

I dreamed I saw a million angels
Coming forth to rescue me
Singing welcome home my faithful servant
Singing words I long to hear

sorta bluish?

so it's like a blue green. not sure what i think. it'll stick for now. attempted to make improvements to font size and tried to have post titles stick out more as a way of divisions...

incase anyone was wondering, i just like spanish. maybe i'll rotate the languages to throw everyone off.... brou ha ha.

if you don't want your site linked on my sidebar, you better tell me...

so i had this crazy dream that my friend lauren and i were taking trains down the eastern coast of south america... then somehow we took a plane to skip over a country named "soqay rohay" - close enough, i read it on a map i was looking at. lauren commented she was glad to skip that country, as you could tell from her map, it was a blank nothing. so we went on to arcatania, a country north of rohay on the map but southern in latitude... we ate at a street restaurant. lauren amazingly ran into someone she knew in arcatania, since she's a crazy world traveler and knows people everywhere, and i tried to order an alcenia sandwich (apparently it had spinach, turkey, broccoli, and sausage on it) and a coke in broken spanish and the cashier laughed at me... so then we were headed to catch a boat to africa where we could travel up africa's eastern coast. it was undecided if we'd do train, bike, or foot. we were hoping to finish our travels in 2 weeks.

i usually don't remember my dreams, and even now, i've forgotten most of it. complete randomness.

flickr update

ok- just a little FYI - i've changed my flickr account some. basically, i originally signed up for flickr so as to have a way to post pictures to this blog. it started out with some really boring photos of my life in lexington: apartment, workplace, dog, etc. then i posted photos other friends wanted to see: weddings, dog, travels, etc. many of these photos i did not take. and since for a long time i was without a digital camera, i only posted other's digital photos, not my own. hence, my flickr account became a hodge-podge of worthless images (worthless = unartistic) or images i couldn't take credit for.

so i've opened a new flickr account with a different location to be filled with these worthless but worthwhile for someone else type photos.
www.flickr.com/photos/fotobutterfly

also, this frees up my original account to be devoted to photos that i can personally take credit for, where i can post photos that i've both worked for and worked on. feel free to (and please do!) comment on them, and i will be adding more very soon, i promise! i just took a whole card full of shots while away last weekend.
www.flickr.com/photos/kristimeador

both sites are still under construction/revision...

this service announcement was brought to you by the ashland diversion project: seeking to put the gainful back into the employment.

my 2 week goals

1. Spend less than $30.00 on food.
2. Manage on one full tank of gas.
3. Finish reading Hosea.
4. Finish the last 20 pages of If on a winter's night a traveler.
5. Research at least one grad school.
6. Purchase ticket to see Switchfoot in concert in Cleveland.
7. Take post-work naps.

ay yi ye

yea, don't ask.

songs that describe my life in the past 36 hours or so:

"If you're on your own in this life/the days and nights are long/When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on/Well, everybody hurts sometimes/Everybody cries."
-(deep thoughts from...) R.E.M.

"He is my Light and my Salvation/whom have i to fear/in His secret place i'll hide and pray/that i might hear a simple word/o how i would have despaired/if You had not come found me there/i can lean against Your throne and find my Peace/find my Peace." - Jennifer Knapp

weddings are too much stress. and they're never even my wedding.
communicating with people is also stressful. but essential. good communication that is. i have been lousy at communicating well for the past couple of days.

SO... my new best friends! i must give a shout out o' love to you for calling me on my road trip. Thanks to David Ferrell and Kevin O'Barr (even if you did call 24 hours late, and I missed your call, I still got the message! Thanks!) Double thanks and love to LAM who woke me up, because I was oversleeping on Thursday night!! I left KY by 11:41pm.

I also talked to a few other friends who said they wouldn't mind if I called them late at night or who didn't know I was driving all night, like Jake and Freya and Lauren and Joseph. So travels went well, I arrived in Destin about 9:30am Central time. No flooded bridges, no evacuees attempted to hijack my vehicle, no severe gas shortages or hour long waits, though they had signs posted. Ironically, the further south I went, the cheaper the gas was. $2.60 in FL as opposed to $3.29 elsewhere in KY! And everyone was so worried... well, I wasn't. Yes, I'm glad I proved them wrong. ;P

picture highlights will come shortly.

other musings:
sometime in the next 5 years i want to take another trip down to FL and drive on Route 331. Route 331 between Montgomery, AL and Florala (border town) is a pretty interesting drive. There are not a lot of places to stop or even pull off on the side of the road. Speed limit varies between 25 mph and 65 mph. But it is one of the most interesting drives for the things you'll see. I was always in a rush on this trip and didn't do any stopping... but I want to go back and spend all day on that drive (which normally would be about a 4-5 hour stretch) and photograph it. You'll see rusting school buses being subsumed in a sea of kudzu, boarded up building and gas stations that still have signs standing posting old gas prices, random mom n pop shops that sell antiques or what appears to be just junk, houses that look like they're always having a yard sale but you wouldn't want to stop incase you were wrong...., BBQ hole-in-the-wall places or restaurants that specialize in catfish and country vegetables, rest stops that look like barns, open air airplane hangers backing up to the road and the strip appears to be nothing but a field, boiled peanut stands, pecan and peach stands, marshes, actual white clapboard churches (some of which are actually in trailers), and curvy roads. did i mention i love the south?? so, hopefully, i will travel there again (maybe with a friend) and turn my words into pictures to give you a real glimpse of this part of the country.

and now I'm at work, desperately wishing i were sleeping instead at home, and feeling metaphysically nauseous.

btw: i'll be playing around with the appearance when i can.... don't mind me.... ;)

color color everywhere

color color in your hair... i mean... nevermind...

so...
my sister complained about the color of my blog hurting her eyes. i started playing around with the color schemes, and found that all the other combos i liked were equally bright and annoying (if annoying is what you could call it)... that's to say, i liked them, but chances are my blog readers would not. i like the bold colors, but if you have an opinion on it, let me know. (as in, if the color scheme gets in the way of you visiting my blog.... ;)

i am off this weekend for fun in the sun. hopefully a miracle will happen and gas prices will plummet (HA)... I will be seeing friends and photographing a wedding... the pressure is on! yikes.

and my offer still stands, call me between 10:30pm and 9:30am EST and you'll be my new best friend ;)

a little more than my two cents...

I am increasingly becoming interested in hearing about the war in Iraq from the perspective of both Iraqis and Americans - whether journalists or soldiers - who are actually in Iraq. I distrust the popular media and journalism on the front pages which seems so detached. I don't just want the facts, I want the opinions of those in Iraq. Do the Iraqis support the American occupation? Do the soldiers believe in their mission/support their commander-in-chief? Truly, I think it doesn't necessarily matter what I say. I can fill my mouth and head with lots of ideas and passionate feelings and such, but what if they're just ideas? I'm not living out the war, the reality of bombings in my city on a daily basis, with such close proximity to myriad threats, including death. I don't want to just espouse ideas that have no founding in truth or reality or have a distorted view of what is The Good.

That said, I am aware that not even every solider or every Iraqi will feel the same about the U.S. occupation, or the war, or even would support the removal of Saddam from power, as seen here. Not to mention, some people in Baghdad (Sunnis) may be particularly hostile, seeing as how they have gone from a thriving lifestyle thanks to Saddam, to one where electricity goes out, running water is sporadic, and other such realities of wartime... this situtation I think is the result of the anti-American feeling behind this blog.

There are several noteworthy journalists chronicling the lives of soldiers and Iraqis alike. One, Stephen Vincent, was recently killed. You can still read his articles and postings here.

Another journalist I got hooked reading, who records on both paper and film real instances of urban fighting and reconnaissance in Iraq is Michael Yon. He recently has been following one LTC Kurilla, and details a really interesting string of events in the streets of Baghdad here.

This same site, and this same Kurilla, is made mention of on The Fourth Rail, a site I found thanks to another great blog maintained by two Iraqi brothers, 24 and 35 years old, who live in Baghdad - their site is called Iraq the Model, so check it out.

But the group of well educated gentlemen who write for The Fourth Rail site made this comment about Kurilla:
"Kurilla represents the engaged commander: drinking tea in the homes of the people on his watch, working hand in hand with the nascent police and security forces, and showing the best of the Western Heroic Ethic in the streets." - quote from The Fourth Rail
Check out their site, and the article this quote came from about how to define victory (esp. in relation to what is happening in Iraq... are we being successful?) After reading Michael Yon's log of Kurilla getting shot, and reading a lot of the history about this guy, I have come to the conclusion that he is one of the few who is a true warrior, and I use the word warrior in the best sense of the word: brave, courageous, daring, compassionate, who truly will root out the evil personally and would willingly lay down his life for his fellow men, American and Iraqi alike.

(side note: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends..." - John 15:13)

I also realize there are many people who are true warriors and heroes on the battlefront. I think of many of my friends from The Naval Academy in Annapolis, who attended a school so externally and formally unlike my college choice of St. John's across the street. And yet I truly admire them for their commitment, discipline, and selflessness. Sure, I met a few who were arrogant, pretentious. Unavoidable naturally. Several who disdained the St. John's education and way of being. However, I feel closer to the situation in Iraq by talking to people who know that they may very well be going to Iraq themselves shortly, once they have mastered flight school and training and all.

While I was in Pensacola visiting Laura Moore ('04) I enjoyed having snippets of conversations with 2ndLts Michael and Chris. Chris made an interesting comment. He said that of all the military academies, the Naval Academy is the most liberal... and even then, the Naval Academy is roughly 85% Republican. He strongly thought that most Americans don't really care about the soldiers, and cited Ms Sheehan, mother of a fallen soldier, as an example. He thought her son would be appalled by his mother's crusade. Any soldier would be appalled to have their sacrifice, their service, which was 100% voluntary to begin with, be degraded by opposing the purpose to which they entered the service in the first place... I can understand grief, but you do a disservice to your loved one's legacy by seeing their death as meaningless or unnecessary... they - the soldiers, the fallen soldiers - knew the risks, knew the sacrifice that might be demanded, knew who their commander-in-chief was and willingly put themselves under their commander-in-chief's direction.

I think freedom is necessary. I wish war were not.

Even though, again, not all servicemen would agree with these thoughts of mine or a fellow enlisted man like Chris or Michael, I am inclined at least to trust their voices over the media's and any other war-opposing, Bush-opposing individuals who have valid points but are sadly drastically more detached, as I am, than those who live the life of a soldier, albeit a soldier in training...

Other worthy mentions to check out:

The Messopotamian written by a dentist in Baghdad. He has interesting ideas.

Or Major K, a National Guardsman/Reservist training the Iraqi army, whose site I have only read a little from after finding it via Iraq The Model

works wonders.

I think it’s a miracle that I’m alive. Considering how many nights I drove cross country without sleeping alone makes this breath a miracle. Sleep, as I know many have experienced, can sneak up on us and seize us suddenly, and is quickly becoming a major cause of accidents and fatalities on America’s highways. But I think I’ve beaten sleep at its own game: I have outwitted sleep, the temptation to sleep when driving, and the occasional and dangerous drooping of the eyelids behind the wheel. All this, thanks to the Tootsie Roll Pop.
You remember the commercials, well, at least I do. The owl decides to find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop. He ends up crunching in, giving up the quest for the precise number of licks. The result: the world may never know.
I know how many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Roll Pop. I tested it over the course of one middle of the night drive through desolate and deer filled Montana and North Dakota. It takes roughly 1185 licks. Now, granted, I was determined to find the number of licks it took not just to reveal the first bit of the tootsie roll center. I pressed on to the higher, more time-consuming challenge of discovering how many licks it would take to completely rid the tootsie roll of the sugary substance covering up its pure state. I’ve debated the semantics of the question “how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop” with various challengers to my licking methodology, but when it comes down to it, the licking was my antidote to sleep.
I’ve tried coffee, I’ve tried music, singing out loud to music, rolling down the windows and opening the sun roof, even pinching myself to bring my mind to a more alert state. I’ve consumed more frappuccinos and cokes and pixy stix and sweet snacks and salty ones, all in attempting to find some cure to that nagging sleepy feeling. I am sure I’ve put on a few pounds overnight while sitting behind the wheel of my beloved and faithful car, Dart, unwilling to stop and stretch, unwilling to go to a motel, my eye on the prize of the next destination. 28 hours of driving in a row was the particular stretch of time in which I met the Tootsie Roll Pop.
I first purchased the single Tootsie Roll Pop at a run of the mill gas station in some podunk town out west. I was surprised to see a gas station carrying something as simple as a Tootsie Roll Pop, mixed in there with the more attention grabbing king sized candy bars. I probably had not had a Tootsie Roll Pop in over 10 years. I began my drive again, unsuspecting of the greatness of the discovery that lay ahead.
It was late. Past 2am. My only traveling companion was sound asleep in the seat next to me. Here comes the music. The stretching and re-adjusting, cracking my neck, and checking all the mirrors comes and goes. I’m still stuck in this gray seat, still stuck behind the wheel. Not another car on the road ahead, none behind, and the oncoming headlights of a fellow middle of the night traveler only come around once every ten or fifteen minutes. Blackness to my left and right, trusting in the headlights to help guide my way along the curvy highway, somewhere in Montana. Nothing interesting to even look at. This was bad. The yawning commences. So I take a sip of my coke and grab for a snack: the Tootsie Roll Pop gets chosen at random. I peel off the wrapper and pop the sucker in my mouth.
Nothing surprising about the taste. No sizzle like Pop Rocks, no changing flavors or colors. Standard, cherry taste. I began to lick this thing, and then settle on letting it sit in my mouth for a moment. But only a moment: I soon discover the great threat this poses to my image and self-consciousness, that I could get caught drooling with this thing in my mouth. The idea of sticky, sugary cherry red goo dribbling down my mouth as I drove just didn’t appeal to me. So after a moment, the pop has to come out of my mouth. It can’t just sit there dissolving slowly. I have to intentionally lick this thing to diminish its size and reach the treasure in the center. But licking a Tootsie Roll Pop is no simple matter. You can’t go too fast or you’ll rub your tongue raw. You can’t take your time or the drool could come, or worse, while holding the pop in one hand you could easily sticky-fy anything it might bump up against while out of your mouth. No, to be safe, you have to continue to lick this pop, mindful of speed and intensity, and you can’t drop it unless you want stickiness to infest your car seats and floorboards. Licking a Tootsie Roll Pop while driving forces you to focus your attention on this task. You can’t zombie out while licking a Tootsie Roll Pop. Your mind must be engaged, your faculties engaged, in order to both enjoy the pop and prevent the aforementioned sticky situations. My mind, taking in the road before me, must also simultaneously actively remember to continue licking the Tootsie Roll Pop. This process is not completed quickly, and unlike Mr. Owl, if you resist crunching into the pop’s center before licking the outer covering, it could take a very long time to finish one of these suckers. And if you count your licks? Your mind becomes engaged in an activity on a whole new level. There was no way that I was going to weave off that roadway or struggle to keep me eyelids propped open. The Tootsie Roll Pop was a real Charm.

(I later used the Tootsie Roll Pop on subsequent all-night drives around North America, so it’s been solidly road-tested. I went out a couple days ago and purchased a whole bag, and noticed they’ve introduced a new flavor! Watermelon. The fun continues!)

Speaking of being charmed… it would be charming if you’d consider giving me a call this Thursday night sometime between 11pm and 10am EST. I will be trekking all night, by myself this time, to Destin, FL. Talking on the phone also works wonders when driving late at night, so long as you’re not in heavy traffic or winding mountains. So give me a call. I’ll let you know how the Tootsie Roll Pops are holding up. And I’ll owe you a favor someday. ;)

you always wanted to know...

what my life was like at work... (which in my book begins when i wake up. waking up is work in of itself....)

*****

6:30am: phone alarm goes off. I turn it off. I’ve had about 6 hours of sleep but it feels like I was sleeping for 40 minutes. Groan.

6:40am: phone alarm goes off again. The dog is staring at me, waiting for me to get up. I return to a random dream that of course I can recall nothing of now.

6:43am: ok ok ok… I’m up.

6:44am: stare out window. No rain. Yet. Time to shower.

7:01am: I can’t find a non wrinkled shirt to wear. Thanks to me, who left all my laundry, some not entirely dry, crammed in a basket on my couch for 36 hours because I refused to put it away yesterday. I hate putting away laundry. Definitely not gonna do it on a Sunday.

7:11am: I turn on my tv to see if New Orleans went under yet. This is perhaps the third time I have turned on my tv all year to watch something other than a movie.

7:17am: Dang. How did it get so late? Technically I should leave my house in about 18 minutes. This never happens.

7:22am: I eat a bowl of cereal. The puppy waits for me to give him the leftover milk.

7:25am: I start ironing a shirt.

7:31am: brushing teeth. Stare out window. It’s raining. I will forego drying my hair.

7:33am: traipse out into the wet with the puppy. He doesn’t like it and quickly comes back inside.

7:37am: I grab my stuff, brown bag lunch, water bottle that I fill with ice cubes, cell phone, etc.

7:39am: Can’t find dog.

7:41am: Dog is hiding under desk. I coax him out, and he makes me feel guilty for ordering him to go to bed by hanging his head down low. I’m such a sucker for the puppy dog eyes.

7:46am: I’m sitting in my car, driving to work. “Nuisance” by John Reuben is on the radio.

8:00am: I pull in the parking lot. Half of the parking lot is blocked off as they are showing off the new racecar that Valvoline is sponsoring. I don’t really care.

8:03am: I’m slightly out of breath and my sore muscles from moving Saturday are reminding me they’re still sore after I walk up three flights of stairs to the fourth floor.

8:05am: computer on, I’m sitting down, pulling up email. I beat my co-workers to work for once.

8:10am: I read my email from gmail.

8:20am: I read my email from work. Check out the headlines from the Wall Street Journal from the daily newsletter.

8:32am: I flip through a couple blogs I check everyday. I make a comment to someone’s blog.

8:50am: I send a fax.

8:52am: I pick up the morning mail drop off.

8:55am: I’m back at my desk. Internet surfing commences.

9:25am: Quick thought flashes through my mind that I might have something to do this morning. I check my work calendar. The only thing scheduled today is “Jeans Day.” I had no jeans without gaping holes in them, so I wore my corduroys and sauconys today. Nothing further to do.

9:27am: I check my personal calendar. Make some notes on things I have to do this week. Back to the internet.

9:54am: I have now read articles about hurricane Katrina, the Iraqi constitution, checked the forecast, looked at random flickr.com photostreams, visited more blogs, contemplated commenting on a stranger’s blog and decided against it, and then became bored. I decide to start writing this log of my day, just for kicks. I need something to keep me busy for the next 7 hours and 6 minutes….

9:59am: I’m caught up on my day. Back to internet surfing. I decide I’ll try and be productive. So I will try to find a spot to go camping next weekend at Cumberland Falls, then maybe, just maybe, make my long awaited goal list for the next year that has, itself, been a goal on my to-do list for about 2 weeks now…

10:06am: My stomach is growling.

11am: I just finished reading an essay, was distracted once by a phone call for co-worker #1. The sky outside that I glimpse through the mini-blinds of my boss’ office is beginning to lighten. My goal list remains unwritten…

11:01am: I think circling the department is in order. My muscles are still sore…

11:08am: Announcement comes over the loudspeakers… strangely reminiscent of grade school… telling everyone to grab a free hot dog and see the cars in the parking lot at 11:30am. Tantalizing offer, really.

11:34am: Finished reading the Automotive Newsletter by email. Did you know that lightweight trucks will be expected to have 28.4 mpg by 2011? Further, did you know Honda is thinking of turning to V-8 engines? And did you know that Subaru plans on introducing a minivan? Doesn’t my job sound so exciting??

11:45am: The department’s intern stops by my desk and we talk about our respective weekends and tofu. She’s a vegetarian and hates it. I’m decidedly not a vegetarian and like it.

11:52am: a car’s engine is roaring outside. Hmm. Maybe I’ll check this out… on my way to leave the building for lunch. Errands on lunch include the bank and stopping at my parent’s house. Loads of fun.

12:57pm: back at my desk. Why did I decide to run my errands today? It was POURING rain. Go figure. It will probably be pouring all week thanks to Katrina. Wooha. My feet are excessively wet. And I didn’t even have the right computer disk with me when I ran my errand, so I have to run the errand again tomorrow. I’m such a dork.

1:08pm: wrote an email to a friend.

1:20pm: stumbled across more random websites.

1:55pm: make copies for co-worker #2. I am the collating, stapling, sorting, copying, paper loading goddess. What would they do without me?

2:08pm: I made a post to my blog, the first today, and this day-long log will be my second when I put it up. I’ve decided to end this log at 5pm, because really, a.) who really cares??, b.) I’m boring myself so I know how you must feel, c.) this is to exemplify the depth of my boredom and seemingly pointless occupation, whereas life gets juicy and interesting after 5pm… so those details would have no place on a blog about boredom plus, d.) I like to leave you in suspense wondering what is so fascinating about my life after 5pm that you don’t get to read about. If only you knew…

2:25pm: finished writing 2 emails… to friends. Received a new update from Automotive Weekly announcing the resignation of some CEO. Clearly it was a memorable headline.

2:42pm: chit chat with co-worker #3. Open up a Word document to start typing my goals…

2:44pm: … goals page remains blank. Boss approaches my desk. Requests I get him organized. This entails, this time, in making cover sheets and dividers with labels for information on Distribution Companies. Time to “get busy.”

3:38pm: Finish “getting the boss organized.”

3:40pm: Second mail run of the day.

3:52pm: make copy of report for co-worker #4. Return original report to executive fella across the hall. Oh-so-exciting. I think I took 40 paces total. I have now “done” (if chit chat counts) something for every co-worker in my department except one. Co-worker #5, Alan, remains aloof and quiet at his computer two cubicles away. He’s actually my favorite co-worker, so you can imagine my immense sadness he hasn’t asked me to update the annual plan percentages or scorecard database or run a trend analysis for him. *sigh.*

4:25pm: Complete my search for a flash drive for co-worker #1. Purchase flash-drive online.

4:43pm: finish a rough goal list. It is very poor and sorely lacking. Probably reflects my extent of clarity, which is also sorely lacking…

4:48pm: boss’ wife calls, take message for boss who has disappeared. Haven’t seen him in about an hour.

4:52pm: sadly, I realize writing this litany of inanities is what made this day pass by tolerably well, and with some interest, albeit minimal at best…

4:53pm: transfer call to boss’ voicemail.

4:54pm: let’s review. How many hours did I work today? Technically, I’m paid for 8. how many were hours were spent being productive for the sake of Valvoline? Mmm… somewhere in the neighborhood of 119 minutes, or slightly less than 2 hours. And that’s being generous. Wow.

4:58pm: Now, approximately 10 hours and 15 minutes later, after amassing over 1,401 written words which delineate the substance of my day, I am shutting down my computer and going home…. Stay tuned for the next installment of the exciting adventures of an administrative coordinator at the Valvoline World HQ: how to man-handle worthless jammed staplers and hormonal beeping Lexmark printers…

love these guys.

I can't wait until September 13th!

Speaking of which... anyone want to go to Cleveland or Chicago for a concert???

sadly, that's the closest they'll get to me in KY... :(