Janet’s Webpage

Co-workers can be such a pain sometimes. For that matter, so can supervisors and managers.
For the past two days, I got nothing but headaches. All I did was fight fires, and get blamed for them. My mod’s finally reviewed, approved, approved again with changes, submitted, then changed again. Now, I think I’m about 25% done with this year’s assignments.
People are quitting left and right, especially the A Team. They had the best new hires retention rate for years until now… I guess everyone starts looking for a new job once they reach their 5th year.
Rondi from the C Team moved to Glenard’s group recently, so I hear the latest news from her. Second hand news from Rondi makes headlines at my group. I’m always the first to know which engineer gave their 2 weeks (or “2day”) notice and which manager got fired from drinking at lunch. Makes the days more interesting.
Even with all my complaints, I still love my job and I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to work in nuclear. Some people who quit simply moved to another state (and I assume I’ll probably meet them again in the future), others change industry altogether (and I don’t think I’ll ever see them again.) The whole situation provides hours of entertainment while we muse over who’s gone where to do what and for what reason.

I got my PE wall certificate today. Actually, this was the 2nd wall certificate I received. I ordered two. The first one arrived by itself and I had to call to complain that there was only one copy.
When I opened the envelope today, I was pissed off. The certificate was warped since it’s been raining all day and the water soaked through the envelope. I’ll have to make another call…
Here’s the thing: If this really were just a piece of paper with a fake gold seal on it, then I shouldn’t be paying $27 plus tax and shipping for a 9″x12″ sheet. Seriously, the only reason why they can charge an incredible amount of money is because the paper represents something much larger than the physical material. However, a warped piece of paper is just a warped piece of paper. And I want my money back!

I was browsing the web, trying to find famous motto to adapt as my own. It’s actually not that easy cause… I guess I don’t get inspired very easily.
Here’s my favorite so far:

Ils sont fous ces Romains!

Which means “These Romans are crazy!”

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Let’s do some housekeeping. Because much is going on and I’m feeling talkative right now…

I’m really starting to like my new car now. I remember when Dad got his Lexus IS, he talked about all those new features that make a car just so much more enjoyable. Now I understand what he means.
I make Jason sits on different spots in the car. For example, if we go from the house to the store and he sits on the left side, then on the way back he has to sit on the right side. Just to even out the wear in the back seat.

The new fish tank isn’t doing so well. Correction, the new guppies aren’t doing so well. The glofish I got are thriving, but the guppies keep dying in there for some reason. I’ve been going to the pet store so many times to get new guppies that they start to remember my previous purchases. The weird thing is, Mom’s tank (with all 36 fish) is doing really well still. I’ve been thinking about moving the guppies from Mom’s tank into the new tank, but I’m afraid of breaking the eco system in there.

Jason’s going to Katina’s place during the day now. School’s started here and all his friends at Starz are gone. SO and I decided that he shouldn’t be stuck with 3 year olds, so we opted to send him to Katina’s. Individual care beats day care any day.

We went to Bill and Mary’s on Saturday. Glenard, Katina, and Logan went also, and all of us went on the boat.
Jason isn’t a big fan of tubing, but he went on there anyway with Glen. We stayed pretty late and we all had a good time.

See more pictures on the Photo Album.

When Jason arrived earlier this summer, we planted watermelons and carrots together.
The carrots are starting to grow, but the watermelons have really taken off this week. Here’s the picture of Jason’s first watermelon. It’s tiny!!

Jason and I went to see the Simpson’s Movie tonight. Then I went back to see No Reservation, which I walked out of.
We both had a good time.

Work’s been going much better now. My mod’s been postponed again… Seriously, I’m NEVER going to get this done, but it’s okay cause I don’t have the urge of going back to the office every evening now. And life’s better that way.

I got a book from the library, the biography of Benjamin Franklin, and was listening to it with Jason in the car. Needless to say, Jason got real bored real quickly and started asking me questions on who this Benji fellow is. I told him that he discovered that lighting is actually electricity, invented the bi-focal, and the Franklin stove.
Jason told me that Ben Franklin must be a big show off, otherwise he would have just called the stove “a stove” instead of calling it “the Franklin stove”.
* * *
This evening, I went to the office and called home. Jason picked up the phone. I told him that I want to tuck him in bed so I don’t want him to go to sleep before I come home.
I said all this in Chinese, so he asked, “You don’t want me to eat dumplings?”
Note: “go to sleep” (chiu shiue jiow) and “eat dumplings” (chi shui jiow) sounds similar.

Has this ever happen to you before?
You start at a buddy’s website, reading his/her blog and empathizing with whatever that’s happening in his/her life. Then you browse around and you notice that your buddy’s got links to his/her buddies too. So you go to the buddy’s buddy’s website and repeat the activity. By the time you’re at your friend’s friend’s friend’s friend’s website, the blogs start to get real entertaining because there is no way for you to relate to this 4-times-removed-friend’s life. Thoughts such as “Is she/he for real?” or “What DOES this person do all day?” or “Wow… that’s shameless…” pop into mind.
But then you feel really guilty because, somehow, you feel related to this person just because you followed the trail of links on blog sites.

Flickr (my photo hosting site) changed its uploading scheme, so it took me a few days to get these pictures uploaded. Anyway, here it is.

When I was picking up my new glasses today, I realized that I really need a new purse. I had about 7 things in my hands by the time I walked out of the store and it would have been much simpler if I just had a bag.
Ever since I retired my old Coach bag (Soho small flap black leather, the original version of this one), I haven’t been able to find a replacement. So I went to Macy’s to look at their Coach handbags on sale. I was going to get a tote (the Hamptons pebbled leather medium carryall) that I’ve been thinking about getting for a year, then I saw the Carly leather demi. Truthfully, the picture looks better on the Coach website, but I really like it nevertheless. Especially since I got it 50% off!
I was dumb enough to walk into the Coach store after getting my bag at Macy’s… I thought, “what they heck, it’s in a Macy’s bag and no one would notice, right?” WRONG. Right after I walked in, the shop girls started asking me to show them the Coach bag I got from Macy’s. They were spiteful enough to tell me that the bag’s been discountined for about a month. Whatever, I got a great deal.