Got the Jimmy Legs

February 18, 2009 – 4:44 pm

You tried to swallow it but couldn't follow it

I keep forgetting to blog, or ramble on at length, as the case may be. Now that I can't access blogger from work I rarely post, since when I'm at home I am fulfilled with litterbox-scooping and cat-medicating. Our newest foster cat is actually with the vet right now, we suspect he swallowed something indigestible or he has some kind of virus. I really hope they figure out the situation fast, not only because I hate to think of him stuck at the vet's but also because they charge an ungodly 'boarding' fee for overnight stays. Not to belittle the industry but damn, vets have it made! They can basically charge whatever they want and almost never get called on malpractice. That, and the fact that their charges can't complain about their bedside manor. I'm selling them way short, and if I wasn't so squeamish about guts I'd probably be one, but again, damn!

Anyway, back to blogging, the increased filtration by my company's network finally forced me to learn about aggregators, so now I happily use Google Reader to read most sites; this allows me to read all the blogspot blogs I like, nicely circumventing the ban. Of course it makes your blogroll look like a bunch of spammy emails and you realize that once you strip away the photos and fancy layouts, most blogs are kind of boring. Especially when you can't read the snarky comments, that's where the real action is most of the time. Lucky for me, Brownstoner is still unhindered by my network's prejudices, those guys crack me up.

I should take my site off Blogger anyhow, since they've been deleting people's music posts without telling them. But again, why would I use up my free time doing computer stuff better suited to my hours on the clock? Anyhow, I think I might be able to blog this site directly through Flickr … there may be a lot more pictures on this site soon!

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Bad Stuff, Cats, Job, Web | Comments (3)

January 29, 2009 – 6:49 am

You ate yourself out of house and home

I took an actual sick day for the first time in years. Sure, many a time have I stayed home ill, only to end up working as much as usual thanks to the magic of VPN. And I intended to do the same yesterday, my laptop all set up and retrieving email after email. But I just couldn't stay focused long enough to do anything, so I went back to bed and proceeded to sleep for 7 hours.

I can't tell yet if I'm over the illness, which had no symptoms other than 'exhaustion.' I kind of suspect stress had something to do with it but that doesn't really narrow it down much; stress is pretty central to living in New York. Not that I mind it most of the time, but there's the stress of jamming onto a subway car to 'win' a good seat, and then there's the stress of producing corporate websites whose target audience may or may not exist. Plus meanwhile, all around me people have been getting laid off left and right. My morale is soaring.

Today I'll go into pay the piper, to catch up on all the work I missed yesterday as well as whatever they throw at me today. This double-whammy effect is what usually keep me in the office no matter my condition, but I'm hoping that my time out yesterday will have some positive attitudinal effect. Maybe I won't mind all the work if I'm feelin' positive! Yeah

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Health, Job | Comments (7)

January 27, 2009 – 5:20 am

Even the muggers are off the streets by eight

So I'm back from Singapore again, another business trip of dubious utility. I didn't have too much trouble adjusting to the 13 hour time difference while I was there, but I'm having a hard time getting back on schedule here. I keep waking up at 5 AM and it's annoying. I guess I should think of something practical to do. Barring that, I can write a post. Singapore was nice and warm, and I finally checked out Little India and had some really good vegetarian Indian food. It's nice to wander into a place and look around at the buffet to see nothing but vegetarian food just as a matter of course. The only thing to worry about is what stuff had butter in it, but when in Rome …

Which is another annoying thing: my company hanged its web filter process AGAIN, so now my website is no longer blocked. Yay; however, they now block all blogger related sites, so I can't get to the control panel to post new entries. Grrr. I think if I had MT or WP or something I could do everything through my domain and not have this issue. But the likelihood of me sitting around, figuring out at long last how to put together a real blog seems small. I guess I'll just have save up my A-material for early-morning posts like these! Lucky you.

While I was gone our little kitten got neutered and vaccinated, so soon he'll be on the adoption market. He won't have any trouble finding a home, he's super cute and very gregarious, plus he has a funny, froggy little voice. Quite a package. It almost seems unfair to have such an easy case. Most of our other adoption cases were much harder, but adopting out a friendly 4-month old kitten sounds like something we could do in our sleep. Let's hope so, anyway.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Adoption, Job, kittens | Comments (3)

January 6, 2009 – 11:43 am

There's more to life than books, you know

A woman I used to know once told me, "I used to read books all the time, for years. And I loved it. But in the past year I figured out that all that reading didn't do anything for me. It didn't make me a better person, it didn't illuminate the human condition, it didn't do anything except take me out of my life for a few hours. I don't read at all anymore. And now when I think about it, I think … I want that time back."

I'm paraphrasing/rewriting history, of course, but you get the idea. At the time I sort of agreed. I too had spent a lot of valuable time reading books and whether I liked the book or not, it still took up time. After a few years I got back into reading and now read with some frequency. Part of why I feel like I wasted time is due to my revelation that I was reading a lot of highbrow stuff and darn it all, I just don't like that stuff. So most of what I read now is a bit further down on the pulp scale: nonfiction mostly, with an ear for the lurid, some educational (true crime, how to survive in prison, etc.) That helped a lot. But I also tend to read only when I'm on the train or before I go to sleep. As Charlie Brown once commented, "When I have absolutely nothing else to do, I enjoy reading." It's something like that.

Anyway, my point is, I think I used to read because I thought it would elevate me somehow. Maybe it did, but I don't think I liked the person it was raising me to. That is, I think I wanted to be a pompous doofus; I may have been a pompous doofus in many cases. Possibly this was not reading's fault, but a lot of the time I think my choices in life have been based not on what I truly wanted, but what I thought I should want. My friend's comment about books just put a fine point on that thought for me. And it makes me wonder how many other things still dictate my decisions (for instance, do I really care about nicely finished hardwood floors?) I suppose societal pressure is a necessary force to keep us from going cannibal or something, but when I think how much of my time has been spent in its service, I get annoyed. I want that time back.

But then again, who's to say if left to my own devices I wouldn't spend 23 hours a day on the couch, watching King of Queens marathons? Maybe I can't be trusted to run my own life. Not completely. Maybe there's a nonfiction book on the subject.

By Jimmy Legs | Posted in Ponderings, Tedium | Comments Off

January 5, 2009 – 10:47 am

I look at the floor and now I don't see you anymore

The last two weeks were supposed to be a vacation but at some point we decided we would be doing some of our long-ignored home improvement projects. Originally we intended to replace the kitchen and hallway floors with new hardwood flooring. But in making the preparations for this, we realized that underneath the plywood floor (which we had painted 2 years before) there existed a totally viable hardwood floor! Once we determined this floor was in good enough shape to use, we abandoned the new-floor idea and set up to refinish. We are having professionals from https://floform.com/professionals-can-help-remodel-home/, come and help remodel our kitchen.
To get there, however, we first had to knock a bunch of plaster off the fireplace and remove the brick hearth form the front. Once we did this, we realized he had to remove the walls on either side of the fireplace since it stopped a few inches before the brick started. Meanwhile, the hallway needed to have its ugly tile removed.

The hallway isn't much space but all of it was covered in linoleum tile. Jeannie took most of it off without much trouble before realizing there was ANOTHER layer of tile below it. This layer had been applied with so much adhesive it was literally pouring off the edges of the tile; the paste never really dried and was reminiscent of a quarter inch of the gunk they put on flypaper. Jeannie's sister came over to help and spent basically 24 hours chipping away at it. After much effort and injury on the part of the Purvis sisters, the tile was finally banished. The plywood lifted up relatively easily, leaving us with the pine subfloor (which was actually in pretty good condition). If that second layer of tile hadn't been there, we could have had the project wrapped up with a few days to relax afterwards. Instead we spent Friday to Sunday in refinishing hell. Friday we sanded, Saturday we stained, then Sunday we put 4 coats of polyurethane down. I guess it's good we did it so rapidly, if only because the cats were getting antsy being locked up in the bedroom for three days.

There's still a lot of work to do, but at least the floors are done. Of course, most people will tell you to do the floors last, since crap will invariably fall on it during other projects. But considering how much time the floor took, we didn't have much choice, we'll just have to be thorough with the dropcloths and whatever other prophylactic devices we must employ to protect our nice new floors!

Other upcoming projects include: painting the walls revealed around the fireplace, fixing the brickwork I broke on the fireplace, painting the kitchen walls because they're nasty, placing/replacing quarter-round molding and doorway thresholds to cover up shoddy edge work on the floor, and painting the banister because there's too much damn paint on it and it's too banged-up to bother getting it professionally done so we're just painting it dark brown and hoping in dim light it might look like finished wood. Also planning on getting a Top Master locksmith to come and replace the outside door handles since the current ones are starting to look rusty. Otherwise should go visit Access Locksmiths. Fun Times Accomplished!