Things that go BEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in the night and make you say "WTH!?!?!?!?!?!" in the day

So, yeah... it's been an interesting week... actually one day in particular.

I know I've neglected this blog for a while. It's mainly because I couldn't think of any topics that were interesting enough to write about, but I definitely found one.

So, in general, this week has been crazy. I got a ridiculous request for a TPS report (because the actual content is not worth mentioning) that was a massive fire drill with a 24 hour turnaround time that I had to organize with minimal information. Equal parts frustration and confusion. All manual and in excel, and of course it involved gathering last second information from around 20 people.

That's not the "why" of this last Tuesday, October 18th was interesting... let me just count the ways.

Evil kitchen timer. But at the time it said 4AM

It's about 4AM. I hear a random alarm go off. Groggily, I wonder, "what the heck is that?!" After all, I already disabled BOTH my smoke detector and my CO sensor because I need new batteries...

I get out of bed and follow the sound... it's one of my kitchen timers. Odd, since I don't cook often and when I do, I don't use the timer! So I'm guessing I might have hit a timer that had a 16 to 20 hour countdown or something. Either way... UGH!

Then, after what felt like 30 min of sleep... my freaking digital radio started blasting at 5:36AM!!! I want to say I remember that it does this every so often, but I KNOW I turned it off the last time I used it because I transitioned from listening to the radio to watching tv. And it was off for at least 2 full days...

Haunted digital radio, but it said 5:36AM!

What a lovely way to start off the 2nd day of the 24 hour turnaround.

So I get to work, and of course, the usual happens. My computer freezes as I try to add an attachment to an email. I got a new computer a few months ago and it is ALWAYS freezing. I was patient and let it go. But after 20 min, I noticed that even the time had frozen on the computer, so I decided to force a restart.

Ok, yay, it's working! For now...

Should I expect the girl from Ringu to come out of this???

Not that long after, and I'm not sure if my chair touched the keyboard or not, but there is a window half flashing on my screen saying that I've been holding down the "Ctrl" button for a while and asking if I wanted to make some adjustments. So I try to push "cancel", then "ESC", but realize I just have to wait.

As I am looking at this POS, not touching anything, not the keyboard, not the mouse, not anything, my screen rotates 90 degrees. I look at it dumbfounded as I have not touched it!!

My coworker who has that set up purposely, walks by and I yell at him to help me fix this because, at this point... there is some weird energy around me.

#TBT to my Inktober days

He was able to fix it for me by using a shortcut, but shoot, that required at least 3 keys across the keyboard, so even if something was stuck, it didn't account for why the other keys would have been depressed without me touching anything.

So, yeah, if that wasn't enough... I go to my start menu and in the search box, I start seeing "-----------------------------------------------" as far as it can go and then some. I click out of it and then try my excel file, where again, I'm seeing "----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------" fill my cell, even though the only thing I'm touching is my mouse. I go into the IM system, and no matter where I click, you guessed it. I looked around to see if there was a something on there, but nope, nothing.

I think my computer is trying to tell me something...

The only way I can make it stop is un-docking my computer. I told my friend and he gave me a new keyboard. Funny thing is, the keyboard I had on there was also brand new. My cordless one ran out of batteries and I was using the corded backup. Just took it out of the box and plastic wrap just the week before.

So, technology has revolted against me. I had a ghost in my machines, following me. I'd like to say that all of it stopped on Tuesday, but I had a little more randomness on Wednesday too. Again, with the even  newer keyboard, (and luckily the TPS report delivered, so at least that stress was gone...), my computer started going crazy again. Again... without touching anything, my email kept scrolling to the bottom of my emails. I captured video of this, but decided not to post it just in case of any random liability.

And for some reason, the computer kept registering that the space bar was constantly being depressed. In the start menu search box, in my excel document... Only this time, when I un-docked, it kept going... (see blurry pic above)

I had to force a restart again. I know the full moon was just over the weekend, but it seemed to have residual effects for me...

Hopefully the poltergeist decided to haunt someone else today!

A particularly Manic Monday...

Today is one of the more challenging Mondays of the year. The Monday after daylight savings, where one hour disappears into oblivion... (come back!!!)

Anyway, as I walked into work with mist lightly dancing on my face, my knees ache a little from the tennis I played over the weekend and my eyes ache from not getting enough sleep. (That's what you get for getting home after 11:30pm, staying up to 12:30ish because you couldn't sleep due to your late afternoon coffee milkshake and waking up at 6:45 by your ALARM...)

Being woken up by my alarm is the WORST... I think I have unnaturally sensitive stress receptors so I usually wake up before my alarm in a mild fear of oversleeping. So when something unexpected wakes me up, especially in a middle of a dream, I'm lethargic all day.

Even now, being awake for 1.5 hours, sitting in my work chair, I feel like a clouded veil has been placed over my eyeballs, and even a straight up caffeine IV wouldn't take effect for another hour. (That's grammatically correct, right?) Then, the sloth-like brain activity may turn into a hummingbird pace, though can't say with any certainty that it will be with any useful thoughts.
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Fast forward to 15 hours later. I made it through the day. I even went to the gym after work and then headed to the beach for the sunset since it sets around 7pm now. (The one good thing about DSL, more daylight!)

It was another lovely sunset. I've been having beach withdrawals. It's been an entire week since I've been to the beach. I know, I know... ::I'm spoiled!::

Here are a few shots from today:

"Sometimes you gotta create what you want to be a part of." - Geri Weitzman

So I've neglected this blog for a while. My bad!

I kinda feel like I don't want to post something unless there is something behind it. But then I realized something... that's too much pressure!

I have 4 drafts that I never finished that are just sitting there. Maybe I will post a few of those this year, maybe not. I guess we'll see.

In the meantime, this will be my "year in review" post, even though it's a bit late. (oops!)

Eldurairaj Union 

So 2015... yeah... as far as work goes, it is another one of those epic years of change. This year will not be any different but it's too early to digress on that topic.

As far as personal growth, it was another big one. I decided to really focus on my creative side. THAT blog got lots of love last year. I embarked on a year long #HumpDayHaiku journey that I'm proud to say I completed. And even though the writing of the haikus didn't improve my writing ability (though I'm beyond an expert of counting syllables on my fingers), the drawings that went with them definitely improved. I started out drawing stick figur-ish robots to many other things. I have to say, I found it challenging to find 52 really good themes, and I accepted that not every haiku would be better than the last.

Here are the ones I liked the best, even though others may have disagreed:

Top Left: I was inspired by the pictures of Pluto and have always loved staring at the evening sky trying to find constellations or planets.

Top Right: One of my friends took a picture of a bunch of windmills. I thought it looked cool and there you go. :)

Bottom Left: Baby elephants! 'Nuff said!

Bottom Right: Ninjas, nunchucks and ninja stars; need I say more?

 Top Left: I saw a graphic T with a whale on it and loved it. Whales are very calming, despite their massive size.

Top Right: Jase is big on lighthouses and he pulled me right along with him. I'm still looking for the one in OC. Hope it's not a myth!

Bottom Left: This is my girly side coming out. Unicorns and rainbows!

Bottom Right: This was inspired by an actual art exhibit where 1000 teddy bears were painted on canvases of all sizes. Philipp Jordan is the German artist's name. His paintings were much more vibrant than my drawing, but I still liked what I drew.

Top Left: The ocean was inspired by a drawing an instagrammer (whose profile was taken down) who actually drew a dress from a very similar pattern. I loved it and thought it would look amazing as water. This one may be my all-time favorite.

Top Right: What can I say? I love the rain. ;)

Bottom Left: I haven't been snowboarding in a long time, but it's one sport that I love. Especially when I learned how to connect my turns. (And got all the necessary padding that makes me look like I've gained 30 lbs. but shoot... at least I'm protected!)

Bottom Right: An instagrammer (anasteem) has so many amazing pictures of her daughter with heart shaped balloons. I thought it was beautiful and so I made an attempt to draw it.

Not bad, right? 12 of 52?

I also read a decent amount over the last year. The number of books may not seem like it but shoot, the number of pages show a slightly different story (3000+).

And in no particular order:
1. The Giver - Louis Lowry
2. The Martian - Andy Weir
3. Wind/Pinball: Two Novels - Haruki Murakami
4. Dance with Dragons (A Song of Fire and Ice, Book 5) - now I know you were waiting for this one if you have ever looked at my previous years' book lists!
5. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan
6. Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson

Dessert Cooking Class

I didn't go abroad but I got to see a bunch of friends. Visiting San Francisco for fun and to take pictures, Seattle to have a mini cousin reunion, DC for my good friends' wedding, Boston to see old grad school friends, local trips to SB and SD...How lucky am I to have so many people to visit? ... Very!

I am grateful to always realize when I have good people around me. It doesn't happen everywhere, and I do my best to appreciate and enjoy it as much as I can. After all, the only constant is change, right?

We'll see what this year brings!