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Columbian necktie

September 10, 2008 – 10:23 am

This is the only photo I took of our vacation

I took an actual vacation from work, but now I am back and I am trying to determine if the time off has made any difference. So far today it seems that all the work I left before is still here, plus a bunch of stupid crap that has piled up in the mean time. I don't mind it so much since I can pull the "hey, I just got back from vacation and I am swamped" for the next week or so. I suppose the fact that I don't mind this means the vacation succeeded in relaxing me adequately. I blew off just enough steam to once again resume my cog-in-the-wheel status.

In two weeks my office moves downtown, which would be interesting if it didn't mean I will have to start dressing up for work. I think I have to start wearing ties and shirts that tuck in. Does anyone know if they make pre-tied neckties that can be buttoned in the back? Not a clip-on, which is pretty obvious, this would be something that would look like a real tie from the front but be easy to attach in the back (the clasp would be covered by the collar). I looked for this but I couldn't really find any; doesn't this seem odd? Why do people waste valuable time tying their ties every single day? I thought about just loosening the knot so I could put it back on, but this tends to rumple the tie. Is this a million-dollar idea the corporate world has been waiting for?

Anyway, I'm back. Our vacation consisted of a short jaunt to the Greater Cleveland Area, to visit some people up there and generally not do anything. The highlight of the trip was holing up in the lovely Super 8 motel, eating junk food and watching cable television. Of course after 3 days of this, we were both totally sick of junk food and agreed that even with 60 channels there was absolutely nothing to watch (although we could almost get by on just Bravo and Animal Planet). We hung out with my sister's family and finally got to see lifelong friend James' new house. We hit up Corky & Lenny's, Tommy's Diner (soy milkshakes!), Aladdin's (best baba ever), and drank free Starbucks the entire time using the gift cards our bosses had given us last Christmas. We ran through the endless aisles of Giant Eagle and the non-crowded Whole Foods, went to the mall and bought some clothes, and remembered to swing by Big Fun on the way to the airport to buy some crap (actually I bought some tin crickets to help train the cats to do my bidding). In short, we lived like Ohioans, if only for a short time.

There is something to be said for sequestering yourself away from your life. I kind of scoffed at that sort of thing in the past, but the older you get, the more necessary it may be. Even if we hadn't gone to Cleveland, we could have booked a room at some local fleabag motel to get out of our house for a couple days. The remainder of our vacation was spent at home, and although we got a lot of work done on the house, that's exactly the problem: you can't sit at home and do nothing. I've tried before but sooner or later I find myself weeding, or fixing something, or god forbid, cleaning. In that Super 8 with the uncomfortable headboard and nonexistent maid service, we were forced to actually do nothing, which is harder than it sounds.

Anyway, when we returned to Brooklyn we set about out our tasks, which included hitting the newish Ikea. We've been in our house for almost 2 years and we still haven't bought any furniture or anything. My night stand is a storage chest; Jeannie's is a chair. Our couch (a gift from our pal Sean M, who has basically outfitted our entire home with his hand-me-downs) once was an elegant fixture from the 50's, but it has been used to the point that it cuts off leg circulation when you sit on it for a while. I don't know that I ever had any political issue with the opening of the Brooklyn Ikea, but if I did, I forgot all about it when I realized we could outfit most of the house for less than one couch from Room and Board.

Ikea was nice enough, we picked out tons of stuff, then came home and bought it online. Annoyingly, a few items were not available online, so we'll still have to go back there at some point. The shipping costs were also outrageous, but we still came in several hundred bucks below my intended ceiling. Who knows when we actually will get the stuff, this doesn't seem to be their strong point.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Cleveland, Good Stuff, Motel, Ohio, Vacation | Comments Off

Dead eyes feeding your dead dead brain

August 26, 2008 – 1:10 pm

Oh god, life is passing me by! And by 'life' I mean summer. Summer kind of sucks for adults, especially when the weather is nice out, like it has been lately. Sure, most of the summer was super hot and I honestly didn't mind coming to my windowless office to bask in the air conditioning that forced me to bring a sweater to work. But it's been so temperate lately, I have been increasingly despising that force that drags me back into this hell hole every day.

Or maybe it's just because my job sucks.

Of course, some would disagree with me. Most of the time I don't have all that much to do. But in the past few months I have had to work like never before, often without much guidance. If I was doing work I cared about, this would be an awesome opportunity to really dig in and test my skill set and grow as a person. Unfortunately those jobs that would provide this rich, philosophically pleasing experience (Kittenhugger, Freestyle Rapper) do not pay the bills. Instead, I'm doing work I don't like for people who demand too much out of us.

Meanwhile I gotta deal with unhelpful tech people who always treat my questions with this weird threatened defensiveness, as if helping me do my stupid job somehow robs them of their elvish secrets and render them only +2 strength and agility. They're cagey and refuse to answer questions straight. They do ask me to call them, but frankly, their English is bad and their phone connections are scratchy and I fear this would be even more intolerable.

Clearly I'm feeling burned out. The remedy: vacation! It's been a year since the last one, and this one promises even less work than the last one! Yes, I'm actually hoping to have no contact with the office while I'm out. Of course, it's pretty doubtful this will be possible, but I swear I won't check my email until I return.

And where does the burned-out web grunt go to unwind? Cleveland, Ohio! Yes, one of the most sought-after cities for people looking for an immersively relaxing experience, Cleveland is synonymous with luxury and sheer happiness. Who can stay stressed out while the soothing fingers of the Cuyahoga river caress their aching muscles? Who can refuse a third helping of zebra mussel salad? Who can resist the temptation of that part of town so relaxing it's called 'The Flats'? I'll be flatlining in no time!

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Famliy, Friends, Vacation | Comments Off

It's business time

July 30, 2008 – 12:29 pm

I've been back from my trip for almost a week now. I keep trying to think of something interesting post about the experience, but every time I try I just feel tired. I'm sure that Singapore and Hong Kong are fascinating places but I didn't have any time to see any of it. The work schedule was relentless, leaving me little time to do anything of interest. I do gotta say, if ever you need to take a 16 hour plane ride, make sure you fly at least business class and under no circumstances take an American airline company. For some reason the US doesn't know how to make people comfortable on long flights. I had to take a United flight from Singapore to Hong Kong, the shortest flight of my trip at 4 hours. The trip was no uncomfortable, I had lots of leg room and the plane was also basically empty. But compared to the amenities on the Singapore Air and Cathay Pacific flights I took, it was like riding a bus across the ocean. Cathay Pacific in particular provided individual chamber-like seats that basically force you to lie down and watch movies for 20 hours straight, while stuffing you full of food and offering you a selection of whiskeys. If I win the lottery, I'm booking a series of consecutive flights, so I can spend weeks in this state, without ever getting off the plane. Even the turbulence felt pretty good.

Anyway, now I'm back and have exponentially more work to do, plus I'm feeling residual jet lag effects, and the construction work on the floor below my office continues unabated, the pounding and drilling louder than ever before. I should have stolen those noise-canceling headphones they handed out!

Photos of my trip

By Jimmy Legs | Comments Off

We sail tonight for Singapore

July 18, 2008 – 12:39 pm

I'm off to Asia for a week! What an exotic location to go sit in a faceless office building and share Powerpoint presentations! I am pleased to see it will actually be hotter here than this equatorial city. I have a side trip to Hong Kong that will also afford me much opportunity for board room-gazing and airport line-waiting. If anything interesting happens, I'm sure I'll post about it. If you don't see anything here for the next week, you'll know why.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Business Trips | Comments Off

With the quickness

July 11, 2008 – 10:35 am

Today's office phrase I would most like to ban for the rest of the century: "Quick Question"

Offense: It is always a lie, and an impudent lie at that, since in its two-word phrasing it defines the shortest possible time spent reasoning and responding. Yet, the questions and the people who utter this forbidden phrase always end up taking forever.

A true quick question would be, "Should I get out of your face?"

YES.

Or, "Am I annoying you?"

YES.

By Jimmy Legs | Also posted in Bad Stuff | Comments Off