Getting the Band Back Together

 

Last night was the first time my regular trivia team got together at our regular trivia night. We didn't get our regular table, and we're permanently missing one member (ALS, not COVID), but we had a few special guests (husband and young son of a teammate) and a decent waitress, so things were looking up. 

We were in first place at halftime and almost swept the second half. If we had written down one other Robert Downey Jr. movie on our answer slip instead of just on our brainstorming list, and if anyone on the team knew anything about The Handmaid's Tale, we could've had a perfect game, since I managed to figure out the "Name the Flick" question in the final round. 

It was nice to see everyone -- we had tried to play virtual trivia early in the pandemic, but eventually gave up.  Besides, even if we won at home, we didn't get any gift cards that we could transmute into tasty pizza for the table next week. 

Almost Back to What We Might Consider Normal

Had a lovely dinner tonight with eight other people from one of my OU alumni clubs. It was great not only to see them face to face, but also to sit shoulder to shoulder in a restaurant! The last time some of us saw each other was via Zoom around Christmas, and before that it was a socially distanced picnic in the early fall. 

Almost the first thing we mentioned as we said hello was our various vaccine statuses. I'm *just* on the edge of being officially fully vaccinated, since it will be two weeks tomorrow since I got my second dose. All of my dining companions are older than me, so they had their shots earlier than I did.

A few of them even did some traveling this year. There are a few snowbirds who tend to spend a few months each winter in Florida, as well as a world traveler who, it seems, is always headed somewhere interesting. I think one of her trips to Europe had to be cancelled during the pandemic, but I'm sure she's working on rescheduling.

Despite the recent rapid shift in the CDC's guidance on masks, we still had to wear them as we went to and from our table. Most of the other tables were full; I'm trying to decide if they were spaced six feet apart. I've never been to the restaurant before, so I don't have a mental floor plan from "the before times" to compare with tonight's setup. 

The whole reason for getting together was to plan out our group's activities for the next year. I think we basically decided to try again with all of the events we had planned for 2020-21 that had to be scrapped: blueberry picking in July, a community service project in October, and a book discussion in March. Here's hoping we get to do all of those things, and that we'll meet again next May to make more plans. 

 

Book Report: Volume 20

During quarantine/lockdown, I was looking around for more book recommendations. Hard to believe that I was hard up for ideas about what to read next, since I was already getting deluged with emails from Goodreads and Amazon's Kindle Unlimited touting new releases,  plus picking up the free Bookpage at the local library branch every month, discovering classic mysteries featured on the Shedunnit podcast, and following a handful of book blogs via Feedly. (RIP, Google Reader!) 

 

I could've tackled some of the titles I'd already bookmarked in my accounts with three local library systems, or picked up any of the dozens of physical books I have bought on the cheap at the local used bookstore over the last decade, but noooooo.... I wanted something new and different. 

I came across a title by Kelley Armstrong in one of the mystery book blogs I follow, Criminal Element. The blog entry was for the latest in the Rockton novels, and the whole setup sounded intriguing. 

I always like to start a series at the beginning, and I was able to get City of the Lost,  the first book in the Casey Duncan series, as an ebook from the library right away. I read it right away, too, and right away I wanted to know what happened next. These novels are potato chips, and all the popular slogans apply: Betcha can't eat just one. Once you pop, you can't stop.  

I was too impatient to place a hold and wait for the dozen people to ahead of me to read each 300+ page book, so I broke down and requested physical copies of the entire series. Those came in pretty quickly, so I've happily spent the last week plowing through the whole series. Can't wait for the next installment!

 

 

I Totally Want This: TMBG Science Is Real Mask

 

I already have the "Science Is Real" t-shirt* from They Might Be Giants, so why not get the mask? My credit card has been getting a workout over the last 48 hours, though — I dropped almost $200 on clothes** yesterday and then donated $250 as part of OU's Giving Day*** this afternoon. 

Hmm. Just reread the description and realized that I can get 2 for $20. Do I give the second mask to my sister? She and I were just texting about the possibility of seeing each other in person in a few weeks. She had the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine a few weeks ago, so she's all set, but I haven't had my second dose**** of the Moderna vaccine yet. She's also a TMBG fan, so this might be a fun gift for her when I do see her. 

Eh, why not? Impulse buy completed!  

* Like this one, but in blue:

** As part of my seasonal wardrobe rotation about a week ago (after the mercury shot up to the 70s for a few days but before it snowed three inches last night/this morning), after I transferred all the spring/summer t-shirts/cardigans (including my blue Science Is Real shirt!) from the under-the-bed boxes to my dresser drawers and the fall/winter t-shirts from the dresser drawers to the under-the-bed boxes, I tried on all of my pants. Everything I tried on was too baggy — !!!!! — so I was in the market for some new stuff. I went to Macy's when I was at Summit Mall for my eye exam last week, but I didn't like the super-skinny-leg style that seemed to be the only thing they had in stock. After I picked up my new glasses (my first pair of "progressive" lenses, ugh) yesterday, I went down to the other end of the mall to look at Dillard's, where I found two pairs of Levi's that I could tolerate. I also splurged on a striped button-down shirt and a white tee at Talbots, even though I needed those like a hole in the head. However, I do have a few situations coming up where I need to look presentable — I'm working at a friend's shop this weekend, and I'm going to be a poll worker for the primary election in about two weeks — so having something to wear that is not flannel pajama pants and a slightly grubby OU basketball t-shirt (i.e., the lounging-around-the-house outfit I'm wearing right now)  is probably a good thing.

*** This "giving day" concept seems to be going around, and OU scheduled theirs for 4/21. The gimmick is that you can donate any amount and direct it to a specific program that you want to support, and there are different challenges and matching gifts and power hours and social media sharing blah blah blah. I usually donate to the scholarship funds sponsored by my local alumnae chapters on a regular basis, but those groups haven't been able to host their usual in-person fundraisers. (Thanks, COVID!)  I wrote a check to one group in the fall anyway, since that's when we usually have that fundraiser. So today I donated the same amount to the other group's scholarship fund online and threw in some bucks for the band, the newspaper, the library, and the college of communication. 

**** Scheduled for May 5, meaning I should be fully protected on May 19. Yay!

A Busy Wednesday

After a few weeks of trial and error, I figured out the secret to actually getting an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine at the local grocery chain's pharmacy: Get on the the registration website just before the mass email goes out that tells everyone to go to the website to sign up for an appointment. 

I managed to make an appointment at the location that's about a 15-minute drive from the house, as opposed to the location that's about a 2-minute drive from that house (and that's really only even if you have to wait for traffic to clear before you can make the turn onto the main drag and then the turn into the parking lot). I know: First World Problems. God forbid I have to travel a little.

So, I took the first available spot (birds and hands and bushes came to mind) and was only mildly chagrined when, about twenty minutes after I got my confirmation message, a bunch of appointments at the closer location were suddenly available. Doh!

I arrived a little early for my appointment and essentially got right in with minimal waiting. 

I had no immediate side effects, so I was free to make my way a few miles down the road to the Krispy Kreme for a free Original Glazed.

After that, I decided to do my civic duty and vote early. 

I'm working at the polls on election day, so I needed to vote early or absentee anyhow. I voted absentee in the fall and was going to do the same this time around. However, when I saw my sample ballot online and realized that it only had the library levy on it, I thought it was a bit much to have to mail in a ballot request, wait for the ballot to arrive, fill it out, and mail it back for just that one thing. The Board of Elections was (sort of) on my way home from the Krispy Kreme anyhow.

So, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself for checking off so many items on my to-do list. (I also returned some library books, made an appointment for an eye exam, and did a little grocery shopping.)  A busy day, indeed.

Will Lightning Strike Twice?

My "memories" feed on Facebook lately has been chock-full of posts from pre-game, in-game, and post-game shenanigans related to attending the last 10+ years of Mid-American Conference basketball tournaments in downtown Cleveland. I can't go in person for the second year in a row (Thanks, COVID!) and it's really bumming me out to scroll through stuff like this: 

I've been listening to the radio call of the game by the regular OU broadcasters, so that's been exciting, I guess. Russ & Rob don't get to go to Cleveland to see the games in person either. They're in Athens, watching a video feed on the new jumbotron in the Convo and describing the action to those of us who refuse to log into ESPN+ or forget that the game is airing on CBS Sports Network until it's half over (read: me). (But also: I always prefer to listen to the radio broadcasts featuring the announcers for my favorite teams. My absolute favorite is when I turn the volume down on the national announcers, turn up the radio broadcast, and use the pause button on the DVR to get the words and the pictures to sync up just right.)  

The first two games of the 2021 MAC men's basketball tournament were practically blowout wins for the Bobcats, so they're going to be in the championship game tomorrow. The opponent? Buffalo. I feel as though I've seen this movie before . . . .

Even though I'll be listening from an easy chair at home instead of Standing Up and Cheering at the Q RoMoFiHo, I hope we get to paint this one green and white. Go Bobcats! 

Window Dressing

So, we got our windows replaced this week: nine new windows and two new storm doors.  I spent the day before the installation taking down curtains and moving furniture away from the windows. 

This massive hassle was compounded by having to double up on allergy pills (So! Much! Dust! because I am an exceedingly lazy housekeeper) and having to find a place to put all the stuff I moved out of the way of the workers. (Note to self: Go take the stuff I stashed in my car out of the trunk before it's time to get groceries tomorrow.) 

Plus, not having any curtains on the front windows meant there was no stopping the sunlight from reaching the kitchen and illuminating how much I have not been sweeping the floor or vacuuming the vents on the bottom of the fridge or wiping off the front of the oven. Ugh. 

I hate being in the house when any kind of repair people are there, so I made myself scarce soon after the work crew arrived. For the next seven hours, I . . . 

• Took some books back to the library
• Was complimented by the librarian on my "Talk Nerdy to Me" book bag
• Bought a replacement carafe for the coffee maker for only $10 less  -- and thirty minutes more -- than I could have completely replaced the coffee maker (Had to drive all the way across town to a place that had the carafe in stock, as opposed to getting the same machine --on sale! -- at a store five minutes away.)
• Got some ground coffee that I will probably not drink
• Got a mocha at Starbucks 
• Managed to spill some of my drink on my shirt
• Debated whether I needed to add either of these sweatshirts to my wardrobe








• Picked up some ground beef because I forgot to set out the ground beef in the freezer to defrost and I had plans to make magic chili for dinner (It was supposed to be 1 pound of ground beef + 1 can of diced tomatoes + 1 can of Chili Magic, but I didn't like the way it looked so I added another can of diced tomatoes and a small can of tomato sauce. Came out okay.)  
• Tried the new flavor of the week at Pav's (Verdict: Meh)
• Discovered that my phone's camera could focus on the ice cream cone or the sign listing the ice cream flavor but not both at once

Eventually the installation was complete and the living room curtains were rehung. However, the vertical blinds and curtains from the upstairs bedrooms (which had to be at least thirty-five, maybe forty years old) got pitched. (I'd been babying the blinds because every time I touched them some other brittle piece of plastic would fall off. They basically disintegrated as soon as I started taking them down. The curtains were still in one piece, but kind of grubby/dusty and I didn't feel like taking them to be cleaned. They had a good life, but it's over.) We also decided to pitch the (not nearly as old) blinds in the TV room. Despite knowing for weeks that we were getting new windows, I hadn't looked into getting any replacement curtains. . . doh!

During my rambling around while the windows were installed, I found some possibilities for the upstairs bedrooms. I didn't realize in the store how . . . polyester they were, though. When the morning light hit them, they really . . . glistened. You can't get a good sense of it in this photo that I sent to my sister because I took it later in the afternoon, but I'm glad I saved my receipt. 

 

I might look around at a few other stores tomorrow to see if I like anything else better. At the very least, I need to find something simple that I can put downstairs, because my vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bed sheet -- while hilarious -- is, at best, a temporary solution.  

Besides, I can't find my other TMNT sheet to use on the other window.

Welcoming All You Friends of the Feather

Tomorrow is the first game of spring training, not the first game of the actual season, but I think the words of the immortal Harry Doyle are still appropriate: 

Hello again, everybody. Harry Doyle here, welcoming all you friends of the feather to another season of Indians baseball. A lot of new faces in Chief Wahoo's tribe this year . . .

Meanwhile, I'm loving these Spring Training graphics:

 

Anyhow: First pitch is at 3:05 in my time zone, which means I need to decide whether the hot dogs & popcorn I'm fixing will be a late lunch or an early dinner. Maybe I'll open with an appetizer of buttered popcorn, followed by hot dogs and potato chips (and, okay, a veggie plate) during the seventh-inning stretch. For dessert... hmmm.  Do I have any ice cream in the freezer?

I probably should have thought through the menu better (and earlier in the week!) instead of making a spur-of-the-moment decision this afternoon when it was kind of too late to go to the store. Apparently I have hot dogs but no buns, and mustard but no ketchup. But I guess since it's only spring training, I have until April 1 to work out all the kinks. 

Resuming Old Habits

Thanks to the pandemic, I've been getting a lot of reading done. Most of it isn't worth talking about -- which is why I never leave reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, despite the many, many pleas that appear not only as suggestions from the sites/apps themselves but also as requests from the authors at the ends of the ebooks.  

Speaking of ebooks: I spent some of my Christmas money in 2019 on a Kindle Paperwhite.

I didn't really need it, but it was on sale and I was testing out a theory that I was ruining my eyesight by spending too much time looking at devices that have a backlight *cough* iPad *cough* and this e-ink display may be less strain on my eyeballs. After extensive research during 2020, I've decided that my eyeballs are probably in general decline overall, so who's to say whether the switch in devices has had that much effect either way.

Besides, from time to time I still go completely old school and get physical books. I was using physical books as a last resort, checking three library systems and Kindle Unlimited (also paid for with some Christmas money) for an electronic file before requesting an actual book from one of the aforementioned library systems. I think that's how I ended up with the hard copies of the mystery series I'm reading now, the Josie Prescott Antiques mysteries.

I'm fairly certain that I saw something somewhere promoting the newest title in the series. I like to start a series at the beginning, though, and then read straight through. I couldn't get all of the books in an electronic format, so I've been requesting them (three or four at a time)  to the local branch. 

However, since I set myself another annual reading goal in my Kindle (but not on Goodreads), I'm also checking out the Kindle editions when I can, just to get credit in my app. Yes, Amazon has gamified reading, and I'm a sucker for playing along. Taking positive reinforcement for my habit where I can get it, I guess.

The Latest Snowpocalypse

 Welcome to northeast Ohio in February..... 

While not quite the frozen tundra of harsher climes, it has been pretty snowy and cold around here for the last few days, and conditions look to be the same for the coming week. I have no need to leave the house during the worst of it, thankfully, so I have plenty of time to look out the window, drink some hot tea, and then resume reading my latest library book.  

My mother has been updating me about the various weather people going bonkers over how cold and snowy it is in Texas. That makes me laugh, because I remember how people acted when I was in Austin for a friend's wedding in early December 2016. I thought it was pretty balmy that weekend (highs in low 50s / lows in high 30s) and thus I was fairly comfortable with a fleece sweatshirt as a jacket. However, a few of the locals would not shut up about how freezing cold it was as they yanked on their mittens, scarves, hats, and heavy coats. I guess that weekend was a little unseasonable for that time of year, because it warmed up a bit for the next few days as my sister and I did some sightseeing in the area:

Flipping through some of the photos from that trip, I realize that I still haven't finished the book I read on the plane:

I suppose I can add it to the stack of reading material to tackle as I'm snowbound. 

This Is Not the Smithsonian

Of all the annoyances and indignities that 2020 had to offer, the one that drove me over the edge was losing the WiFi connection on my iPhone. 

The connection started going on the fritz in early December, perhaps coincidentally after I installed the latest software update. I tried all the "fixes" the Internet could suggest, with varying success, for about six weeks before the connection completely vanished, most likely never to return. 

During that time, I flirted with the idea of getting a new phone. All of the notices and alerts from the phone company suggesting that I was eligible to upgrade the devices on my account started to intrigue instead of irritate, although I did find it suspicious that something broke on the phone right as I paid the final installment on it. 

However, I decided that I was already paying for a data plan that I hardly ever used and I had three other devices with working WiFi connections, so it wasn't going to be an extreme hardship to be unable to immediately fulfill every whim via the small black box in my pocket.

Reader, I lasted about a week after I ran out of data. 

I suppose I could have adjusted some routines and preferences and carried on, but I had been adjusting routines and preferences and carrying on since March 12, 2020,* so my tolerance for this new bullshit was pretty low. 

Despite being sorely tempted by the iPhone 12 mini (It comes in green!), I decided it would be more practical (read: cheaper) to get the SE 2020. I compared the specs, and I wouldn't really use half of the fancy features on the 12 mini anyhow. Two days after I finally pulled the trigger and placed the order, I was unboxing the SE 2020 and accessories. (Because of course it's about a half-inch too tall to fit any of the other cases I have knocking around. Grrr!) 

After eliminating the bulk of the air bubbles that popped up no matter how carefully I applied the screen protector, I went through the usual setup process. The WiFi connected immediately, to my relief. The part I was dreading  — activating the phone service — did not go as smoothly. 

I'm sure that on some level I knew that the SIM card from the old phone needed to be inserted into the new phone, but it didn't really occur to me at the time to do that. So, I got super-frustrated when I kept getting error messages while trying to activate the new phone via the phone company's web site. Eventually a customer service chat window popped up; during the course of our conversation, the person on the other end shared that helpful hint about the SIM card switcheroo. Doh! 

Starting fresh (as opposed to installing the backup of my old phone) meant that the next few hours were spent happily downloading and installing my favorite, must-have apps as well as a few fun ones I had forgotten about over the years. (I was a bit giddy over the fact that now I have 128 GB instead of 32.)  I also selected which podcasts I still wanted to listen to (even recycled episodes of Car Talk are more interesting than doing the dishes in silence) and downloaded the recent episodes I'd missed. Then came the flurry of security notification emails, as every app I logged into had to let me know that someone using a new device logged into my account. 

Once I had everything fixed up mostly the way it was before, I had to face facts: I have too many exhibits in the Apple wing of my personal museum to outdated technology. I sent my sister this photo:

My collection of i-devices**

From left to right:

1. The just-out-of-the-delivery-box iPhone SE 2020
2. The iPhone SE (1st generation) with the broken WiFi antenna
3. The iPhone 5s with a loose screen
4. The iPod Touch with a broken display 
5. The iPod (3rd generation) that barely holds a charge  

If I were a different kind of nerd, I would figure out a way to Frankenstein items 2 and 3 into a device that has functioning WiFi and a screen that you can't peel back like the lid on a yogurt container. I would also be able to reattach whatever loose cable is making the display on item 4 into a grayish-white blur of horizontal lines. Instead, I've been able to use items 4 and 5 as digital jukeboxes by hooking them up to some clock-radios. (The setup in my bedroom involved leaving the oldest iPod constantly plugged in to a charger and connecting it to the clock-radio via the 3.5mm headphone jack. Then in the office/craft room/spare bedroom, I had the iPod Touch set up to play songs on "shuffle" whenever the clock-radio was turned on in iPod mode.) After some extensive brainstorming, I'm unable to come up with a scenario where items 2 and 3 can be of similar use. So, I'm probably going to start researching the best way to recycle them. 

Getting rid of them is going against all my hoarder tendencies, but I need to borrow from my mom's new attitude of "This is not the Library of Congress. I don't need to clutter up my bookshelves by keeping every book I ever had just in case I might want to read it again sometime." Of course, she had to repress her hoarder tendencies and adopt this approach during her Great Purge of 2017 (Drink!), which is when my parents were packing up and moving out of their home of 40 years. I misremembered it as her saying "This is not the Smithsonian," though, so hence the title of this post. (Speaking of misremembering: See also this post.)

Speaking of this post, though: Sometime during the two days between ordering and receiving the new phone, I got the idea of counting up how many i-whatevers I have had and when. Part of my research involved skimming old blog posts (like this one) and thinking (a) I'm hilarious and (b) this is helpful documentation of when things happened and (c) maybe I should get back in the habit of posting again in 2021. We'll see.   

* I was supposed to go to Cleveland to cheer on my OHIO Bobcats in the second round of the Mid-American Conference men's basketball tournament, but it was cancelled. The first of many, many, many, many, many, many things on my calendar to disappear in a puff of respiratory droplets. Thanks, COVID.   

** Not pictured: My iPad Air (1st generation) that still connects to WiFI and has a functioning screen. Although I've probably jinxed that now. 

This Week in Netflix - A Favorite Movie

Note: This originally appeared on my friend Ted's blog, but I'm reposting it here.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Watching a movie again is different from rereading a book. First of all, I like rewatching movies. Well, some movies. There are certain movies I'm embarrassed to admit that I paid good money to sit through once, but Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is not one of them. I saw it twice at the Rolling Acres Cinema when it came out and will always watch if I come across it while randomly flipping through channels. Now that Hulu Plus offers movies as well as TV shows, I have access to the whole Indiana Jones series, but the only one I've actually rewatched is The Last Crusade. 

On seeing it again, I realized how there's no wasted moment or useless information. Everything the camera shows you is a clue that pays off later. I especially love the way the prologue featuring the Young Indiana Jones gives us hints of the Adult Indiana Jones, providing backstory for loyal viewers of the series who may have wondered about the source of the scar, the inspiration for the wardrobe, or the situation that prompted a muttered  "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" ¹  

This installment of the Indiana Jones saga is famous for featuring Sean Connery as Professor Henry Jones; lore has it that only James Bond could be the father of Indiana Jones. The father-son interactions reminded me of how hard it is to look cool in front of your parental units. I mean, there's Indy, doing his action-adventure thing, literally putting a spoke in the Nazis' wheels, and there's his dad in the sidecar giving him a disapproving glare and calling him Junior. Not making it any easier is saying goodbye to your latest hookup while discovering that she was also your dad's latest hookup.² (During the rewatch, my first reaction was "Ew!" But then I thought about it some more and now I'm more than a little distracted by the idea of hooking up with Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Talk amongst yourselves for a moment. Here, I'll give you a topic: "Ralph Fiennes is spelled neither rafe nor fines. Discuss.")

Ahem. What else caught my attention? Oh yes, the bit where Indy needles his dad about forgetting the clues that will get them through the booby traps guarding the grail. Henry replies, "I wrote them down in my diary, so that I wouldn't have to remember them," which made me think of the Field Notes motto: "I'm not writing it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now." I have a ton of Field Notes notebooks because I always think I'm going to compile important notes and ideas that I'll want to refer to later, but then I realize that my handwriting and sketches are never going to look anywhere near as photogenic as Henry's notebook about the Holy Grail and I give up. Besides, keeping a diary still strikes me as such a teenage girl thing to do, and I have a hard time reconciling that concept with a bearded and tweedy Connery.

Another concept that's hard to reconcile with Connery — bearded, tweedy, or otherwise — is playing the Damsel in Distress role, but that's essentially his part here: getting rescued by the hero, bantering and bickering with the hero, causing a few problems for the hero (setting the fire at the castle! shooting out the rudder!),  finding a few solutions for the hero (revealing the spiral staircase! spooking the birds with the umbrella!), and providing the emotional stakes as the hero tackles the film's final quest. And, of course, he shows the hero he really loves him by finally calling him "Indiana." I'll show the hero I really love him by disavowing any knowledge of Temples of Doom or Kingdoms of the Crystal Skull.

---

¹ Speaking of Raiders of the Lost Ark: I also enjoyed The Last Crusade's demonstration of the advances in face melting technology achieved by the special effects department at Industrial Light and Magic. Having a desiccating corpse claw at you while its hair grows like in a Play-Doh barbershop is much creepier.

²  Fun fact: Sean Connery ad libbed the line "She talks in her sleep."  (Well, according to Wikipedia, anyway.)

This Week in Netflix: Volume 32

I haven't been to the actual movies in ages — even though I have two free passes to Regal Cinemas burning a hole in my pocket. There's not a lot in the theaters that I actually want to see, but I was interested in Obit, a documentary about obituary writers. Many people read the obituaries, but who thinks about writing them? The film is a peek behind the curtain, showing us the process for producing these summaries of someone's fourscore and ten.

Long story short, I loved it — much like The Paper, another movie about working at a newspaper and one that I have a soft spot for because I first saw it during college in a small theater filled with fellow journalism students, many of whom worked for The Post. Watching Obit definitely gave me some flashbacks to my college newswriting class, where an obituary was one of the first assignments. Plus, the footage of the paper's morgue fascinated the latent archivist in me. All those filing cabinets full of clips!

While I was watching the interviews with the various New York Times staffers who compose the daily paeans to the dearly departed, I could've sworn I read a book a few years ago about people who write obituaries. Some online digging makes me think it must've been  The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries, because it mentions Margalit Fox, who is featured in the film.

Maybe I'll request it from the library again, because I can't quite recall whether or not I ever finished it. Maybe I'll get a DVD of The Paper while I'm at it.

Alumni Leaders Conference 2017

So, I survived another ALC!

Matt and I have been going to these since 2006 ... which is why the alumni association staff asked us, along with other long-time volunteers, to be a part of some roundtable discussions on topics of interest. 

I finally took Ted's advice to cash in on/otherwise leverage the whole Jeopardy! thing and used that as part of my discussion topic:

"Can I have Alumni Engagement for $1000, Alex?"
Join longtime OHIO volunteer and onetime Jeopardy! contestant Amy  for answers to common questions about planning successful events, recruiting/retaining volunteers, and what Alex Trebek is really like. Discover the many tips and tricks she's gathered from other alumni leaders and explore ways to apply these best practices to your chapter or society. 

I was even inspired to carry the Jeopardy! theme onto one of my handouts:

The session went pretty well, I think. I essentially went through all of my old files and made a note of anything still relevant/useful. I compiled some pretty thick packets of handouts, with the understanding that it was something for people to take back and review with their chapter/society board members to determine what could be applied during the planning and execution of future events.

And, of course, I did give a quick recap of my Jeopardy! experience -- not quite as detailed as the one I gave to a friend-of-a-friend at the bar later, but with enough insider info to make it interesting. The consensus seemed to be that I definitely need to get cracking on those "Getting Salty with Alex!" t-shirts.

Oh, wait: Have I not mentioned that I've been on Jeopardy! on this blog? I suppose I should rectify that at some point.

Feeling Nostalgic

I'm listening to the audio version of Word by Word * and binge-watching  Detroiters via Comedy Central On Demand** and they're making me miss my old day job.

Kory Stamper describes the quiet hush of the editorial offices at Merriam-Webster, and I'm jealous that the marketing and sales staff are sequestered on a separate floor there. I remember the major shock to the system that occurred when those departments were added to the editorial and production departments' office space after the nuns retired and a new CEO came on board. Stamper also describes the antiquated technology and odd policies, especially with regard to coffee and to the procedure of circulating a memo instead of going over to speak with someone directly.  I remember my first months with the publishing company as being very similar.

I had another hit of déjà vu when I saw the office furnishings on Detroiters. One of the main characters has taken over his dad's advertising agency, and the office decor and amenities seem stuck in the '70s.... much like things at the Center when I first arrived. I would swear that the visitor chairs opposite the main desk (shown behind the characters in this GIF) are the same style and color as the visitor chairs in the front reception area where we were expected to take our morning and afternoon breaks from precisely 10 to 10:15 a.m. and 3 to 3:15 p.m.

@whoisJJSimmons pic.twitter.com/IuM0sFXCtQ

— Detroiters (@Detroiters) March 8, 2017

The credenza and some of the lamps in the background of this GIF also strike a chord.

West Coast, are you locked in?! #Detroiters is on right...NOW. pic.twitter.com/dfu4EWWJ6s

— Detroiters (@Detroiters) February 8, 2017

I'm sorry that I missed Stamper on her book tour, — the closest she got to me was Columbus earlier this month. She'll be in Pittsburgh in a few days, but I've got a trivia championship game that day, so I'm probably not going to make the road trip. Instead, I'll just do some discreet online stalking and catch up with news articles/radio appearances/her Twitter feed, etc.  The TV show has been renewed for a second season, so I guess I can look forward to more "I used to have one of those in my office!" moments next year sometime.




* It's read by the author, which I love in an audiobook.
** Not simultaneously. I multi-task, but not that much.

Hoarding Pays Off

I broke down and finished my taxes early — early for me, anyway; especially since the official deadline isn't until April 18 this year — and in the course of rummaging around in my various financial records, I came across a batch of savings bonds that I received as a kid.

Turns out some of them have matured (unlike the recipient, lol)  so I may as well cash them in . . . but not before admiring the artwork  — note the Bicentennial label and the punch-card holes!

I also have the original gift envelopes.

I'm probably going to hang on to those for a while, on the off chance that I can figure out how to use them in a future papercrafting project.

This Week in Hoarding

Despite today's last gasp of winter -- Exhibit A being this photo I took on my way out to the car:

-- I actually got dressed and left the house before 9:30 this morning. Mostly because I had a gift card for a free breakfast at a fast-food establishment whose owner's politics I despise with all my heart but whose tasty chicken sandwiches I love with all my stomach and it was burning a hole in my pocket. Plus, the 50% off coupon for an item at Michael's in my morning e-mail reminded me that I had been thinking about getting a water brush ever since I used one at a card-making class I took the other weekend. (I mean, I usually use my Dove blender with my watercolor pencils, and I have a bunch of el cheapo paintbrushes that would be totally adequate for the rare times I use this technique, but ... a new tool! And for half off!)

Once I got there, I spent a good hour going up and down pretty much every aisle, gazing with unfettered desire at all the things I wanted but that I ultimately forced myself not to buy once I recalled the inverse relationship between the amount of crafting gear I already own and the amount of time I spend actually using said gear for its intended purpose (as opposed to, say, "gathering dust" or "taking up all the room in the closet"). Quite proud of myself for buying only what I came in there for . . . well, okay, plus five things from the dollar bin . . . I hit the office supply store in the adjacent plaza for another exercise in self-restraint.

Thus, I spent another happy hour examining all of the porous point and needle tip options on the wall of pens, then drooling over the wall of three-ring binders and divider tabs. I coveted some notebooks and organizers/calendars -- going so far as to fondle a few and carry them around the store, again looking at every aisle, before I made myself put most of it back. I did buy two notepads, a mini-clipboard, and a five-subject spiral notebook that has not only built-in color-coordinated divider tabs with pockets but also a clear pouch at the back. (Swoon!) but that all came to less than $10. Again, I reminded myself that I have all kinds of office supplies and notebooks and binders still in boxes from my move, and I should really go home and rummage through that stuff before I go crazy buying new things.

So, I picked a box at random off of the shelf in the garage and found all sorts of fun things, like this Statue of Liberty notebook from the mid-1980s.

It's in near-mint condition -- hardly a page is missing -- but I did write "This belongs to" and my name on the inside front cover in my ten-year-old self's crummy cursive. (I'm assuming I got this in 1985 -- I remember that the Statue of Liberty renovation was a big deal when I was in sixth grade, which was 1985-86.)

This little denim change purse is probably from about the same time. My name is written inside that, too -- but neatly printed with a Sharpie in handwriting that might not be mine.

Of a somewhat more recent vintage are these labels for 3.5-inch floppy disks and random assortment of postage stamps.

I'll probably keep those, along with the various pads of Post-it Notes and a pair of Field Notes notebooks chronicling some of the monthly Pub Quizzes from 2008 and 2009. I am willing to part with the following ticket stub and exploded batteries, however, so I suppose I do draw the line somewhere.