[WebMistress Note: I wrote this (with pen and paper) during my lunch hour. I’ve changed the post time to reflect that even though I’m typing it up around 8pm]

I’m sitting in the US Bank Plaza for lunch right now. It’s a nice spot for lunch as long as the weather is good. It’s a bit cool, but I’ve got my jean jacket on.

I got a ‘bug up my butt’* this morning while working on an editor for a site. I’m gonna work on re-doing the backend of my Dale Jr and Chance 2 websites. I’ve been using my installation of MT for the press reports on my Jr site, but I think I’m gonna write my own editor for it (in php). I’ve done quite a few of ‘em for a site I’ve been working on at work (mostly in ASP though … and I didn’t know ASP when I started here).

So … I’ve been sketching out what I want to do on my sites during lunch, while it’s still fresh in my head.

While I’ve been sitting here, I saw something I’ve never seen around here before. A van was driving around playing a message over a loud speaker. Something about voting for someone for governor. I think it was a Libertarian candidate or something. I just thought it was funny (and I had to blog about it … even though I’m writing this and will have to type it up later.

I’m gonna get back to my website ideas. I hope this afternoon goes as fast as this morning did. And it IS Friday, so we’ll have ‘fun hour’ from 4-5pm … woohoo

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Mood: silly

I decided to come home for lunch today since it’s Friday. But I’m gonna have to head back soon. I need to stop for gas on my way back. The main reason I came home was to track my camera. According to UPS tracking, it’s currently out for delivery. I really hope they leave it with a neighbor if they deliver it while I’m at work. Otherwise I won’t get it ’til Monday. And that’ll tick me off. I wanna play with it this weekend.

Shit … I’d better get going. Don’t know how long it’s gonna take me to get back since it’s the noon hour (I had no trouble coming home, but I left work at 11:30). And I need to get gas too. That’ll take a little time. Hopefully this afternoon goes fast. This morning did. And we’ve got ‘fun hour’ from 4-5pm today (since it’s Friday). That shortens the day.

Hopefully I don’t get rained on too much on my way back.

Mood: hyper

OMG … after today at work, I feel like my head is gonna explode. The task I’m working on is to try to figure out where a glitch is coming from in a shopping cart. I’m used to advanced beginner type database stuff. This shopping cart database is definitely advanced advanced. It uses stored procedures and functions. I thought I had found the issue at the end of the day yesterday. Guess not. I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to figure it out. This is definitely my most challenging task since I started. I liked the one where I started the site from scratch (well, from the graphic designers psd file, but I put it in html/php). This database shopping cart stuff is gonna make my head explode.

Mood: tired

Boy do I love my employers. They like to have a good time. Today was Neil’s last day. So, we had a party starting at 4pm. The guys played a little Nintendo … they were playing track and field on the Pad thingy (I don’t know the technical name for it … but I’m sure you know what I mean … the thingy you lay out on the floor and jump around on … LOL). Boy was that fun to watch …

Then we had cake. And pop too. Too bad we didn’t have ice cream. But I’m not gonna complain.

And then we had a paper airplane contest. I guess it’s something they do every now and then. They even have a trophy for the person who’s plane flies the farthest. I was in the lead ’til almost the end. Then Justin’s plane flew farther. Dang. Oh well. I guess making those airplanes out of the labels from my beer bottles in the bar helped …

It was pretty fun. I think they’re going out tonite to see Neil off, but I’m not gonna go. I need my sleep (but I’m sure I still won’t go to bed early). But we’ve got a picnic coming up in a few weeks that I’ll go to. That should be fun. I believe it’s gonna be catered. Woohoo!

Mood: okay

Fargo’s Downtown Street Fair started today. It runs through Saturday nite. Now that I work downtown, I can easily go to it during my lunch hour. I’ve only been to it a couple times in the past because I generally stayed away from downtown (because of the parking issue).

Not only did I check out the street fair during my lunch hour today, I sat at a booth for 2 hours (from 12:00pm to 2:00pm). Work had one set up, and we were an information booth too. I’m at the booth again tomorrow morning (from 10:00am to 12:00pm). It was fun. The weather was good … warm but we were under a canopy. I’m a people watcher, so I liked watching everyone. There were some cute guys that walked by. And being an info booth wasn’t that hard. It was basically people asking were certain food vendors were. We had maps that we handed out. Neither Troy nor I wanted to go back to work at 2. But Laura made us …

And we got paid today, so I’ll actually be able to get some good food at the fair tomorrow. I only got chicken strips today. I’m not sure if I’m going to get an Ufta Taco tomorrow or if I’ll hike down to get a pork chop sandwich from the south food court or if I’ll get something else. What I do know is that I’m going to get a funnel cake. I love those things. I might get a cheesecake on a stick too … I’ll have to wait and see how hungry I am.

They’ve got some interesting food items in the food court. There’s a pickle on a stick, hotdish on a stick … I think they’ll put almost anything ‘on a stick’ … LOL

And I only checked out some of the booths today. I need to browse more tomorrow if I get a chance. I do know that there’s one booth that has little wood thingies … and they’ve got COWS!!! There’s lots of nice stuff … but most of it is too spendy for me. I just need to shop around to find some good deals.

I’m trying to get Mom to come up on Saturday to check out the street fair. But I doubt she’ll come up. I might still head up there Saturday afternoon and browse some more if I don’t check out everything I want to tomorrow. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Mood: tired

I discovered today that the day goes by a lot faster if you listen to music. We can listen through headphones at work. So … I bought a really cheap ($13) CD player at Target this past weekend. I took it in today along with some CDs. The morning sure flew by. The afternoon went faster too.

It’s not that I wanna get out of there as soon as I can. It’s that I’m tired and want to get home to sit around and do nothing. I really need to start going to bed earlier. Maybe then I won’t be so damn tired all the time.

I think it’s time to burn some mix CDs from my collection to take to work.

Mood: chillin

Today has been a crazy day. It started out with me getting woken up by a storm around 5am. Not sure when it had started. I wasn’t even sure it was storming. I thought I heard rain on my window. So I got up to check. Yep … it was storming. So I shut my computer off and went back to bed for another hour or so (but of course I couldn’t get back to sleep).

Then I got to work to find out that my computer wasn’t working. Turns out the hard drive went bad (or something). So I ran it over to DakTech to get a new hard drive (since I didn’t have anything to do). I finally got my computer back around 3pm or so.

Around 4pm, we got ice cream cake from DQ. It was Justin’s and Josh’s birthdays. Nummy cake! Then back to work for about a half hour then head on home.

The way I’m taking now sure is a lot less of a headache. There are a couple of spots that back up, but it’s not that bad. And there’s no threat of getting stuck behind a train.

Tonite I need to do some cleaning up. I’ve got about 4 or 5 papers under my coffee table that I need to put in the closet. And I need to go thru the Sunday paper again (especially the ads). And I need to update my Dale Jr site and my Chance 2 fan page. And I should probably put up the Avalanche pics from this past weekend. But all I want to do is nap … I think I need to start going to bed around 9pm (but I’d still lay in bed for at least an hour or 2 before falling asleep). But I think the first thing I’m gonna do is make supper. I’ve got some chicken left over from the chinese I ordered for supper last nite. I might turn it into a salad or just eat it as is … not sure yet.

Mood: okay

Things are getting better at work. Not that they were bad or anything … they never were. It’s just that I’m getting more accustomed to how they do things with every day I’m there. Today would make would be my one week anniversary of work (I actually worked an hour last Monday, but that was it because my computer wasn’t there yet). And I’ve got half of the one projects that scared me (or maybe I should say, made me nervous) done (I had to create database tables and editors so the client could make updates … yeah, I’ve done this for my own site, but it’s done differently at work and uses MS SQL instead of MySQL). I’ve got a couple more bigger projects in my inbox and we’ve got a meeting scheduled for Friday.

I definitely like the place. I like the laid back atmosphere. Everyone is nice (and there’s some cute guys too … … LOL). They’re helpful. There’s been a couple times that I’ve been trying to troubleshoot something and a co-worker has asked if I needed help … without my asking. His desk is behind mine, so I’m sure he can see what I’m doing.

This is definitely a place that I’d like to stay long term. And I like what I’m doing. I actually like going to work (I’m just nervous some days because of the projects … you know, it’s that negative side of me trying to bring me down).

Mood: hungry

I’m trying to figure out what I want to take to work to dress up my desk. Nothing big or flashy. Just something that says “this is Becky’s desk”. That means either racing stuff or cows.

I don’t really have any racing stuff that I want to take … that’s all up on my bedroom wall. I am thinking about getting the Dale Jr mousepad I saw at ProMotorsports … not that I need a mousepad since I’ve got an optical mouse.

That leaves me with cows. I think I’m gonna take one of my little stuffed cows to work. I’ve got 2 that are almost the same … they’re only different colors.

Maybe I should take Tigger and put him on my monitor like I did at my last job. He’s sitting on my monitor here at home right now.

I think I’ll just start with the cow.

Mood: tired

Today was a much better day at work. I guess yesterday was just first day jitters. And I definitely felt better when Kelly said that she thought I did fine yesterday. I had several small projects to do (updating sites). I also got to start a brand new project. Not updating exisiting sites this time. It’s a fairly simple site, so it’s a good one for me to start with. The hardest part of it was splicing up the layout image in Photoshop … but that was because I’ve never used Photoshop before. I’ve only ever used PaintShop Pro. But I did eventually get what I need. Definitely a better day today. I feel much better.

That is I did until I was almost home from work. I was talking to Mom on the phone and my car started making some funky noises. At first, I thought I had a flat tire that had shredded or something. I pulled into the Kinkos parking lot (only a few blocks from home). Tires were fine. The noise was coming from under the hood. The noise got louder when I pushed on the accelerator. So I called Dad right away (the poor guy … I bother him way too much with my car problems). He had some ideas, but obviously couldn’t troubleshoot over the phone. I did make it home. I shut it off and then turned it back on as Dad instructed. It didn’t make the noise anymore. I called Amoco (or whatever the hell it’s called now) to see if anyone had any ideas. The guy I talked to said it sounded like an engine miss. He’d need to look at it to know. And I couldn’t take it in ’til 6:45pm. And it would cost me anywhere from $35 to $60 just to find out what’s wrong with it … not to get it fixed. I called Dad back and told him what they told me. I really don’t wanna take it in. Dad had told me to check the coolant after the car had sat for about an hour. He thinks it could be something with the coolant system. It did sit out in the sun in a downtown parking lot all day … and it’s been around 84° out today. I had the AC on when the noises started.

So this is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna go check the coolant around 6:30pm. Then I’m gonna go drive it down the street and back or so and see if it’s making the noises (I won’t turn on the AC). If it’s fine, then I’m not gonna worry about it. Dad said it should be fine if it isn’t making the noises. I sure hope so … I was planning on heading to Ma and Pa’s this weekend. But not if the car is acting up. Maybe if I make it down there, I’ll leave my car and bring Mom’s back … she even suggested that. But I want my car even if it is a P.O.S. LOL

So for now … I have no idea what’s wrong with my car or if it’ll still do it. I’m hungry. And I wanna go out tonite. Mona called to see if I wanted to go to Pete’s. The Roosters are playing. I need to get out. It’s been a while since I’ve been out. But I’m not gonna be out late since I gotta work tomorrow. I’m just glad this is a 3 day weekend.

Mood: angry