Carol's random babble

Oftentimes my train of thought takes some interesting paths. I start at one topic, slide to another and before you know it, I've taken a completely different direction. Kind of like surfing Wikipedia . Usually, though, these thought paths have some kind of logic. Something I'm doing or something that I'm thinking about has a connection to the next direction, and I can usually follow them back to the original thought. Today, however, I'm stumped. I was making macaroni salad. Making pasta of any kind usually makes me think of Kingdom of Loathing , where two of the classes of adventurers are pasta-centric (pastamancer and sauceror). This also led me to think of church, because we have potluck this coming Sunday (which led to me thinking about my talk, about printing out the article it's based on and some printer issues at work). Then it came out of the blue. The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band . Really? A Disney musical? C'mon brain - where did ...

Just one, actually. Cayla and I are going over to visit my niece Suzanna, whose fiance, Chad, has a rat. This rat needs a new home. Cayla has been asking for a rat for about 4 years. I might relent. I went to Earl May yesterday and looked at cages. There are several options, but I only really considered two of them. One is quite vertical and has ramps for the rat to run up and down. The other one attaches to the top of a 10-gallon aquarium and also has ramps. The little bit of research I did says this is good if the room has drafts, but this type of habitat has to be changed more often. I'm still ambivalent. I mean, a rat ! I shudder at the thought. I grew up in old houses mostly - where, yes, we often had mice. And we (Kent and I and the girls) lived in a mobile home that was fine for several years but suddenly got mice one winter. So, I'm still trying to overcome that prejudice. We'll see. I need to find out about the cost for a youth conference this month - still h...

I have read four Quirk classics so far: "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters," Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls" and now " Android Karenina ." "Android Karenina" takes one of those books you avoided reading in high school and adds a bit of steampunk, intrigue, conspiracy and alien threat. I initially had to overcome some resistance (it's Tolstoy!), but once that obstacle was cleared, I enjoyed reading "Android Karenina." In fact, I actually laughed out loud when Matryoshka's nature was revealed in Part Two, Chapter 14. The themes include: marital faithfulness and infidelity, humans' dependence on technology, and threats to humanity. These threads weave in and out, bringing the reader to a conclusion which surprised me. I fully expected that the unfaithful Anna Karenina would suffer some illness or accident that would require her to merge with her Class ...

I have them often. Sometimes I write them down - today this blog post will have to suffice. Background info: I work at a newspaper where we use Macs with OS9 and use QuarkXPress 4.1 for layout. We also have PCs with a proprietory word processing software that pulls in AP content as well. We have new Macs now, with QuarkXPress 8. There will be a bit of a learning curve this week as people begin using the new computers and new software. In my dream, it was the day we were to get the new computers hooked up. But in my dream it was more than computers. The whole newsroom was changed: There was an area with bunkbeds arranged in a square with a couple of loveseats and a table or desk in the middle - I called that a dorm room. There were college students sitting around in this area. There was an area with files and a person who transported the files - it was very different from our hardcopy library system (file cabinets with file folders), but approximately in the same area. (I say appr...

Cayla made the bus this morning ... I'm sure she would rather not have gone, but I didn't suggest it and wouldn't have allowed it. I told her to take her camera, but I don't think she did. She's just glad her days at good ol' PMS are done (yep, Phillips Middle School). She doesn't want any reminders of her two years there. I said that in the unlikely event she returns to this area to raise her children (she's so anxious to get out of this town I think she would vow never to return) that they would not go to this school (the district is building a new middle school). That degenerated into a discussion of the whole green project the district insisted that the middle-school kids participate in, wasting their time (in Cayla's opinion) and for nothing, because only one suggestion was considered. Cayla said that the teachers were told to make time for this project - having the kids help design the new middle school with "green" aspects in t...

So ... Sims 3 Ambitions expansion pack came out on Tuesday and I bought it on Thursday. It's installed and I got a household that I had made previously set up in a house in the new neighborhood. I haven't had much time to play yet, and I have to build up their skills to get them to the point where they can do the things I want them to do. Why is this so important? Well, besides the fun aspect, I used Sims 3 (this household) to get footage for a video that I put together for my web multimedia class for the spring semester. I did the video and got the grade, but there were glitches. We think it's because the speed on the Sims 3 clips is faster than the default speed in Premiere Pro (the software we were using). So I have to redo the video for the instructor to use as an example for future classes. And I wanted to have my "mad scientist" have the inventing skill and be able to build some things to enhance the video. The video is for "Skullcrusher Mountai...

I was sleep deprived, running late and exhausted. I asked Kent to drive me to work twice. That means four trips into town for me, plus two for Cayla (she needed a ride to school and to be picked up because her class went to Adventureland. I also didn't have time to take a supper break at work the second time I went. So, I worked from 4 to 10:45 p.m. with only a bag of chips, a soda and a bag of M&Ms (coconut flavored). I was starving when I got off work. I asked Kent to take me to Hy-Vee, and I did some grocery shopping. I had something to eat when I got home, and played a little on Facebook, and now I'm going to bed.

I haven't made my list yet, so haven't crossed anything off. I stayed up too late last night (as always) and overslept this morning. (7:38!) Kent took Cayla to school. I went back to bed for a couple of hours, then played around on the computer for awhile. Played some WoW with Amanda. Took Cayla to YW, but they were meeting at the (outgoing) YW president's house instead of church, so I had to take her all the way across town again. Then back to the east side of town to Mom's to download some Big Fish Games for her. And back to pick Cayla up. Now I'm tired, but kind of want to play either Sims 3 or WoW. For now, I'm going to change into my pajamas and see what I feel like.

That's the theme for June at NaBloPoMo . I am full of good intentions. I always want to fulfill them, but get caught up is daily grind, silly stuff and inconsequential things. I need to focus. I need to set things in order. I think I need to take the advice of experts - I need to figure out my goals and what steps are needed to achieve them. I'll start with a to-do list. Crossing accomplishments - however minor - off a list makes me feel like I'm actually getting things done. And it's good to keep track of what I'm doing, especially at work.