Project Blues

I’m in Accounting this term. The class is split into two halves. The first half is financial accounting (e.g., income statements, balance sheets), and it was such great information that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been taught it in grade school. It was evaluated by a midterm (on which I got a 94%, grade just posted). The second half, which began the week before our winter break and ends at the end of January, is managerial accounting (e.g., budgets, projecting costs). It will be evaluated by a group project consisting of a ~20 page paper and a ~20 minute powerpoint presentation. The topic is to be some kind of business problem that we use accounting principles to solve or demonstrate. The instructor gave copious example topics and even let us look at and borrow some successful papers done in other classes.

I got lucky with my last group, despite us having one “bad seed”, and I didn’t realize how lucky I’d gotten until I started working with this group. For starters, one of my groupmates from last term kind of coerced me into this group. It was not the one I’d have chosen on my own, but it was convenient, and at the time, it seemed promising. The group has two guys in it, P & G, who are taking this class in their third year, because they missed it during their first year (for various reasons that are not failing out or something like that). It also has another guy, S, who works at my company, was in my last class, and is generally easygoing and cool…and then J, who is a gal who was in my group last term.

My problem surrounds P. I don’t know if I’m misreading him or not, but he comes off as something between a tool and a jackass. (Jacktool?) First, during our very first group get-together, in the five minutes at the end of class, he kept insisting that we needed to do an outline of the project. When I said that I wasn’t sure what we could outline given that we had no topic and no idea what we were doing (keep in mind, we were halfway through financial accounting and hadn’t touched managerial), he got pissy and said that it was the best way to start a project. I said that I appreciated that, and that I know he has lots of experience and that I’d like to see an example of what he means by an outline so that I know what he’s talking about before I devote time to it. I swear, I was more polite than I’d ever be at work…probably more polite than I’d be in life. Well, he kept on it…and no matter how many times I kept politely saying that I didn’t know what he meant or wanted us to do and would like to see even a brief example, he wouldn’t give an example and wouldn’t budge. So, I told him he could bring one that he did for the next week, and I’d be happy to look at it and contribute my own at that time. I also suggested that we bring project topic ideas for the next week, since we had examples of project ideas and it seemed like the one thing we could do easily without knowing the managerial accounting topics.

For reference, here are some of the examples given as past project topics:
• Business plan for establishing a healthy food retail restaurant at Woodfield Mall
• Analysis of upgrading shipping IT systems for major retailer
• Analysis of starting up a Paddle Tennis Program in Lake Bluff
• Utilization job costing to determine job profitability at a graphics company
• Analysis of segment profitability within a small needleworks store

So, next week…no mention of an outline…and neither P nor G (and S is out sick) have brought in ideas for projects. J is flummoxed by the whole class at this point, and she has no idea what to do. I come in with one idea I saw in the stack of papers, which was very different from the sample ideas, namely analysis of the 10K of an existing company to determine viability for the purpose of inclusion in an investment portfolio, and one separate idea that I came up with that was closer to what was given, shifting an office to a paperless workspace. (The latter idea was, by the way, my final project for my last class, albeit at a different angle, so I already had a ton of data for it.) P criticizes and rejects both my ideas. So, I (again…far more politely than I would normally be…) ask P and G for their ideas…nada, zip, zilch. Finally, J pipes up that it might be fun to do something with Starbucks’ recent store closures, perhaps analyse where they went wrong and what led to store closures. This sounded daunting to me, but P&G latched onto it, so I ran with it. During the next week, I read 3 years of Starbucks’ annual reports…and realized it was going to be damn near impossible for us to understand what happened without essentially re-presenting what a million analysts had already said. We’d have to fabricate numbers, speculate on causation…it would be more of a storytelling exercise than an analysis. We could do it, but I felt like there was some better project out there. So, for the next class, I came in with three new ideas: analysis of putting a casino into Waukegan (e.g., something the city would do to convince the state to put the new license there), analysis of a massage-based promotion for a casino, or business plan for an internet-based chocolate company. J really liked both of the casino ideas, but once again, P shot them down. Frustrated, I asked again if they had any ideas that they preferred. Nothing, nada. So, I mention that J has been complaining that her office hasn’t hired enough staff and uses an outdated paper-based system…why don’t we analyse her situation toward pushing for a more efficient solution? J gets excited about this and starts pushing for it. Finally, we get P&G on board and we’re good to go.

We’re now approaching the winter break, so I mention that I’d like for us to meet once during winter break to further solidify this idea (with more input that J promises to dig up for us once she finishes her midterm). P starts proposing a bunch of midday times. I gently point out that I work during the day. J agrees. So, I ask if we can meet at the same start time as our class, since we know we have that time free. P gripes about having to meet in the evening, so I offer to meet at 5pm on a Monday. P relents, but not without making a smartass remark about how he doesn’t understand why we can’t take an hour away from work to meet.

Um, dumbass, because it’s WORK…and while I’m morally okay with websurfing or doing personal e-mail when I have nothing better to do, scheduling a school meeting during work time just seems like pushing it to me. With web-based stuff, if something comes up, I can drop it and attend to work ASAP. You can’t do that with a meeting. I don’t bring my homework into school to do, and I don’t expect my manager’s approval of my school plan included the thought that I’d use work time to do it, aside from occasionally leaving a little early to get to class. Grr.

But…I just make a little joke about work being for work, laugh a bit, and leave it at that. So, P’s next thing is that he has the grading criteria (which we get as part of the syllabus) and he wants to do the table of contents of the paper based on the criteria. :: sigh :: Okay, it’s an approach. So, I let it go. But come on. That’s not the reason you get a grading criteria. You do the project, then you look at the criteria to make sure you covered the bases. You also check your topic against the criteria to make sure it is broad enough to meet the requirements. You don’t frame up the whole damn project against the criteria. That’s just sad, and it’s generally obvious when you’ve done it. It’s a B- effort, and I’m an A+ gal.

But at this point, I’m tired of fighting with the guy and sensitive that I’m coming off badly here, so I let it go. We end up meeting the next week, and we spend the whole conference call nattering with no value. I try three times to get us to do a task that would move us forward, like working out a project schedule, hammering out some details of the task, splitting up some research tasks…and P and J both nix all of this in favor of rambling and no decisions. ARGH! It was a waste of an hour.

A week later, I find out at the last minute, when I have other plans, that P had scheduled the meeting as a recurrence, so we were supposed to meet again at the same time. P apparently assumed that even those of us who aren’t using our work e-mail for e-mails (clearly, with Gmail domains and Yahoo domains) will somehow be able to process his Outlook meeting recurrence correctly. (Gmail added the first instance to the calendar but missed the recurrence.) I decide to blow it off, since it was just luck that I even saw the e-mail…and since the last meeting was a total bust. I figure, if it’s actually me derailing things, they’ll have a great meeting and assign me stuff to do, and I’ll feel better. If it’s not me, they’ll accomplish nothing, and I’ll have missed nothing. Sure enough, P, J, & S are the only ones to show up and nothing happens, as they decide to not meet without the rest of us.

So, P sends out a somewhat pissy e-mail to all of us, to which I reply with a polite e-mail giving the excuse I’d planned (that I hadn’t seen the recurrence). He proposes a new meeting time that is in the middle of my upcoming vacation…so I say that I’ll be on vacation then and that the group should feel free to meet without me, and I’ll catch up with them when I return. I list out the things I’ve already committed to do, and I give some “deadline” timelines that I need things by from the rest of the group, noting in one case why I’m making a deadline a little earlier than necessary (due to a prior commitment). I also say I’ll be happy to take care of whatever the group feels is best, that I feel very comfortable with the subject matter.

P responds saying that “we’ll let [[you]] do what [[you've]] committed” but will definitely want me to “do more”. And it’s hard to explain, but he really writes this in a way that makes it sound like I’m shirking or trying to get away with doing a minimal amount. And yeah, I blew off the meeting…and maybe he guesses that…but come on! I’m telling them to give me whatever dirty work they don’t want to do, and he looks that gift horse in the mouth??? Bastard. And he’s “letting” me do things? Bite me.

The fact is that I am trying my best to not run this project. I ran the last one. I’m trying to get someone else to take the lead, and P is certainly doing that. I appreciate that part. But I don’t appreciate that he’s being all tooly and asshatty about it. I don’t appreciate that he is doing the minimum necessary for the grade instead of trying to go above and beyond. I also don’t like his approach or style at all. I think he’s meeting the word of the project and blowing off the spirit, and that sucks to me.

The net of this is that I’m feeling zero motivation to work on this project. If I had a way to get out of it, to change to another group, I’d jump on it. But, I don’t. What sucks is that this crappy group is going to end up hurting my grade, and that pisses me off more than I can imagine. I’m really trying my best to just sit back at this point, wait to get a task, bat it out of the damn park, and give a giant finger to P in the process. Grr.

Laundry=yes; bathroom=no.

Our carpet on the 1st floor is dry. The basement still has some moisture, so the fans are running there. All the fans and equipment have been moved out of the 1st floor. We’re happy to have some quiet on this floor again!

We got our laundry machines hooked back up, though we still don’t have tile in the laundry room. That installation will probably take awhile. The adjuster is coming by on Monday, and we’ll get next steps from him then.

When the water damage crew came by on Christmas Eve, they noticed that we had excess moisture in the bathroom adjacent to the laundry room, and sure enough, when they ripped out the cabinet and the toilet, they found that the water had seeped under the wall and into the bathroom flooring and cabinetry. Our bathroom vanity/cabinet is ruined. The sink and associated stone is fine, but the tile in there had to be pulled up and trashed, and that area had to be dried out, too. Until that gets fixed, we have no 1st floor bathroom. If nothing else, at least we’re getting exercise running up 1-2 flights of stairs to pee!

Also, since we have this opportunity, I figure we can use it to do some updates to the 1st floor bathroom. It needed painting anyways, and we can replace the vanity base with one that is a bit more modern. We can also update the flooring and put in a better towel rack system. Right now, it vexes me terribly that the towel rack is inefficiently placed.

Pizza Palace!

I just had my best pizza palace game EVER:

Best Pizza Palace score!

I took my Webkinz to the spa to celebrate:

Celebrating PP score at the spa!

Twas the night before the night before the night before Christmas…

I don’t normally Twitter-ship, but it’s the best way to blog this:

about 10 hours ago from digsby: 5-starred Don’t Speak and Underneath It All on Hard…singing & guitar simultaneously. Only 4 stars on expert tho’
about 8 hours ago from digsby*&#@!!!! We just had a pipe burst, spewing water through the wall and all over the place for about 20 mins before we got the water shut off.
about 8 hours ago from digsby At least it was a hot water pipe
about 8 hours ago from digsby: Thank goodness (and our night owl selves) that we were awake. Otherwise, our whole house would have flooded before we knew.

Because today was to be a light day for work, I stayed up late and waited for my DH to get home from the casino. I worked on our holiday card (which is in the mail for anyone whose address I had) and used my brand new mic stand (from B* – yay thank you!) to test out my Mad NoDoubt Skillz. Then, DH got home, and we adjourned to the bedroom. While we were letting a Season 1 30 Rock ep lull us to sleep, I heard something that sounded like loud static. I thought something was wrong with the TV, but I muted it, and the noise was still there. I roused DH to take a look, and once he figured out what I was talking about, he said, “WATER!” and we ran to the laundry room. Water was spewing everywhere, like a fountain. It was hot water. DH’s chest got burned a little, as he fought his way to the source. We thought the water pipe was backing up at first or that the laundry machine’s valve had burst, so we tried to turn off the water sources for the laundry, but that didn’t stop it. DH realized that the water was actually coming out of the wall. Our hot water pipe had burst and the ensuring spewage had burst through the wall. There was 3 inches of standing water in our laundry room, soaking into our hallway, spilling into the garage. Our shoes, Pancake’s litter, and our coats all got soaked. While we were shutting off the water, we realized it was raining in our basement crawl space, and a small waterfall had formed where the crawlspace becomes a walking space.

We managed to find the main water valve cut off and shut off the water to the house, which stopped the incoming flow. Then, while I got out our handy-dandy shopvac out of the garage (best $30 I’ve spent, for all the times it’s de-flooded us) and set it up to start sucking up the excess, DH called our homeowners’ insurance to start the process of clean-up and recovery. As of right now, Homepro is setting up fans, dryers, and dehumidifiers in the laundry room, hallway, 1st floor bathroom, and basement storage area.

A bunch of my pictures, posters, and such from the old apartment got ruined. I’d had them in storage, still in the box from when I moved, along with a bunch of silverware, my old microwave, and my old toaster. I thought they’d gotten lost in the move, so it wasn’t as painful to lose them as you’d think. All of DH’s records and tax forms for the past 10 years got soaked.

But, we are thankful for what is good, despite the bad:

• (TMI alert – highlight to read) We almost had sex instead of watching 30 Rock, but I didn’t want to get messy right before bed, and I was tired. It was bad enough that we were buck naked while doing most of the initial panic and clean-up, but can you imagine if we had been mid-coitus? (/TMI)
• Most of what got destroyed this time was stuff that we had in “deep storage”…meaning we hadn’t touched it in years. It’s probably for the best that we’re cleaning it out and throwing it out. The tax forms and papers were, unfortunately, in that area because they’d gotten re-located to high ground after the basement flood last year.
• The Homepro people think that the carpet, pad, and walls will dry out. Granted, it’ll take 2-3 days of us having loud fans going…and this time it’s in our primary living and walking space instead of in the basement where we can shut it off and ignore it. Well, I guess we’ll just watch TV and “live” in the basement for awhile, as the fans down in the basement are not nearly as loud.
• We were awake. If we had been asleep, who knows how bad it would have gotten before we realized something was wrong?

For those with holiday plans with us, things are a bit TBD right now. We’ll keep in touch. Plumber is on his way, and that’s the next hurdle before we know things.

PS – Pancake is quite upset by all of this. He’s had to relocate his pooping twice in the past 12 hours. He’s currently locked away in the Iguana room, with food, water, and his box all strategically placed. I also opened the window for him, which should amuse him enough. Poor kitteh!

Hanukkah down, more to go!

We braved the storm and ORD to visit the Detroit area this past weekend for Hanukkah with my DH’s side of the family. Despite receiving 8-10 inches of snow on Friday early morning and morning, our trip to ORD from Gurnee was relatively uneventful. We’d packed two large check-in suitcases, one of clothes and toiletries and one of presents. All the presents made it to Detroit safely, with wrapping intact. (I took the risk of wrapping the presents before leaving home, because I had wrapping paper that I wanted to use up, and I like to hide the presents.) I’d shipped two of the larger presents directly to our destination, and I got up a little early on Saturday to wrap those.

The weather had prevented our Adorable Nephews (AN1, now age 7, and AN2, now age 3) and their parents from arriving until Saturday afternoon. We had made arrangements to have lunch and conversation with some friends that moved to Grosse Pointe this past year, Jim & Stacey. So, we didn’t see the ANs until after we got back. We had a really enjoyable visit with J&S, though. They took us to a great pub, and they took us on a brief driving tour of Grosse Pointe’s mansions. There are some really neat houses there, of all sizes. It wasn’t cookie-cutter at all, which I found refreshing. I mean, I love our house and our area, but the houses are from one of four layouts, some reversed or shifted, with varying trim and colors. It’s not as bad as the intro sequence of Weeds with the little houses all made of ticky-tacky, but it’s in the ballpark. On our tour, I was most attracted to the houses with towers and turrets and intricate brick and stonework. (Having done some cursory research this morning, it seems I am most attracted to a style of home called Richardson Romanesque. But, really, I just like towers and turrets and stonework. I guess I really want a castle.)

We played Bridge with J&S, and I sampled a gingerful ginger cookie that S had made. Oh, it was so good. I love ginger cookies. Do you think ginger kids like ginger more than normal people? I wonder.

J moved to take a job teaching, and it really served to remind me that my DH would be an excellent teacher. Part of me really hopes that he ends up teaching as a late-life career. But, I’m off topic.

So, after lunch, touring, and bridge, we rushed home for Hanukkah dinner so as to not displease the hostess. I quickly changed from my jeans (which had gotten wet and soaked from snow-walking) into a pretty skirt that I’d gotten during the awesome IGIGI sale. I’d planned to dress up a bit anyways, but in this case, it was motivated just as much by not wanting to have cold legs. The ANs were thrilled to see us, and we promptly (well, mainly my DH) started an activity for them in the basement to help burn off energy before dinner. The first activity was trying to catch a ball thrown by DH in mid-air, and plopping down onto a cushy exercise mat to land safely. My part of the activity was to try to catch a picture of each AN mid-flight. I got LOTS of good pictures, too. The second activity was a race around the basement (hard to explain, but it’s nicely laid out to be a racetrack), with a hurdle leap. The mat was the hurdle and the landing point. Our adorable cousin, who is the same age as AN1, joined us for the race. Then, our last activity was another mid-air ball catch, this time using an old playset as a jump point. All of this was video-d and photo-d by yours truly. Adorable cousin’s younger sister (who is just a bit younger than AN2, I think) joined us for the last activity, although her jumps were assisted by her grandpa, and her ball catches were after she had landed. She clapped and celebrated every time, though, and she would have kept doing it over and over all night had we not stopped the fun for dinner.

For dinner, I had LOTS of latkes. I love latkes. I also had some kugel, which has never been as good as the first year that I had it. It was a meatless dinner (well, there was tuna salad, but that’s out of my bailiwick), which made me a little sad. On one hand, I firmly embrace the idea that milk stuff and meat stuff should not go together, in my case for taste reasons rather than religious prescription. But, given a choice, I eat meat. Also, my MIL makes an awesome brisket. Nonetheless, it was all delicious, and best of all, I didn’t have to cook or fetch any of it.

After dinner, adorable cousin (who really needs her own moniker…maybe AC1?) led AN1 and the rest of us in a Hanukkah singalong, with songs that she’s learned at school. (Yeah, I video-d it. ) And then, she passed out papers that she had clearly written and made herself with the following written on them:

Name_______
My tradition is___________
Who:
What:
Where:
Why:
When:
(and she informed us that she forgot to put “How” but that we should add it…she also clarified that it did not have to be a Hanukkah tradition but that it should be our favorite tradition)

Her mom told us (as we were teasing her for making AC1 write out 22 sheets of paper by hand and not introducing her to the concept of a printer or copy machine) that AC1 had completely surprised her with this…that she had just asked her mom how many people would be at the party and then showed up later with this pile of papers and told her mom what she was going to do. So, I thought this was the coolest thing ever. My tradition was the (for lack of a better title) Aunt Barbara gift game, which I will get to next. But, the best part was getting to hear everyone’s traditions and what they wrote. I think AC1’s mom is going to type it up at some point. (AC1 is my friend on Webkinz, by the way. She and her mom are as into Webkinz as I am, which is cool. AN1 is getting back into Webkinz again, too, which is also cool.)

After the kids opened their presents (and it was the celebration of excess that you would expect and want for a kids’ holiday gathering), we did the Aunt Barbara gift game. The game has two parts. The first part is for the kids (and I’m told that my DH did this when he was younger). Aunt Barbara has one present for each kid and puts it in a row. Then, the kids stand in front of the presents. When they get older, she will tell them things like “2 of you are correct” or “none of you are correct”…but at this stage and age, she just basically says “nope, that’s not right” or “yes, that’s right.” Once they are all standing in front of the correct gift, they get to open it. This is an awesome tradition, and it’s one that DH and I are hoping that we can inherit at some point. It’s a logic game and a present! What could be better?

So, the second part of the game is the adults’ part, and this is really kind of like a White Elephant or Yankee Exchange, except that all the gifts come from one person (or two people, since I’ve been adding to the pile lately). The gifts are generally things that Aunt Barbara gets as freebies from the casino, or at Black Friday doorbusters, or from coupons throughout the year. That is, it’s not necessarily great and awesome stuff…but it does all tend to be useful to *someone*. It’s very rare that there’s a gift in the pile that is just an absolute dud. I will say, though, that through strategy and dumb luck, DH and I have managed to score at the exchange every time. This year, he got a rolling briefcase with spinner wheels, and I got a beautiful bracelet. Last year, I got a tea set that I adore (even if I rarely have opportunity to use it), and he got me a necklace with a pink zirconia horseshoe charm on it. I’d added a bunch of earmuffs to the gift exchange, an SD card, and a pocket kite. Last year, I added a bunch of things I’d gotten through work to the pile.

The adults’ exchange is never without controversy. This year, the controversy was that one of our uncles decided to take a gift from the pile and not unwrap it. He just left it sitting there and dared anyone to take it from him. It was an interesting idea (and a brilliant strategy) but DH and I rightly pointed out that if we allow that strategy in future years, there’s zero incentive for *anyone* to unwrap their present. The first people will always leave it unwrapped. If it’s a good gift, they’re more likely to keep it. If it’s a less-good gift, they would have gotten stuck with it anyways. So, I’m pretty sure that will get added to the rulebook for next year.

There’s also always laughter. This year’s fun exchange item was a personal massager, which AC2 (who is ~3 and female, remember) really liked and kept wanting to use on people. I’m sure you can imagine the double and triple entendres that ensued, so I won’t recap them here.

Later on, we got to see AN1 and AN2 open Wii Rock Band. We think they’ll really enjoy it, and it’s something all of them can do together, which is cool. We also got them Bobbing Bumblebee (well, mainly for AN2), and that’s a fun one.

In other holiday-ish news:

• During the weekend, I finally got around to reading through the guidebook and giving my “must do” list to DH for our upcoming Disney trip. As I expected, there are more than twice as many things I want to do at Epcot as at any other park, included but not limited to the Japanese gardens and the Behind the Seeds tour. Animal Kingdom is going to be a big one on this trip, too. The San Diego Wild Animal Park gave me high expectations, though. Also on the list, I really want to take my parents to DisneyQuest, because it is uber cool, and to Disney’s mini-golf, because mini-golf is our family tradition. I am very upset that Disney has taken Pleasure Island away, because I *loved* Pleasure Island. I loved being able to clubhop without bouncers and without cover chargers. And, there was dancing EVERYWHERE…and good drinks!
• We are planning to go on the (forever pushed back) inaugural ski day on Christmas day. Stay tuned for details.
• I am sending out holiday cards this year (in usual Amazing Mail format and in the usual closer-to-new-year’s-than-Hanumastice timing). If your address has changed since last year or if I don’t have your address and you want a card, please e-mail me your address by end of day tomorrow. Do *NOT* put your address in comments on this post, as the comments are public to google.

Calling Sugar fans

If you, like me, are a fan of Sugar from the recently-ended Survivor: Gabon, check out the Pinups for Pups calendar, which will and has featured Sugar as a model.

(PS – Moo, don’t worry about it. I got one for you already. )

Of fillings and fun

Yesterday, I had to go to the dentist for a filling. I had a cavity between two teeth. It was a very tiny cavity that showed up on my last set of X-rays (taken earlier this month). Fillings are theoretically not much fun, but my dentist is awesome as a dentist and she’s a friend to boot, so there’s actually some fun to going to her office no matter the reason.

I’d scheduled the appointment to be next to my DH’s regular cleaning, so we could both go out to lunch with dentist-friend and her husband (who is also her office manager) afterward. So, DH and I arrived around the same time (albeit in separate cars as we had separate destinations afterward). I got called in first so they could start getting me numb.

Those who have been following my tweets know that I’m sick. I’d warned my dentist that I was sick, and she said so long as I felt like I could lay back on the chair and still be able to breathe, I was okay to come in. I was able to do that, but it also meant I gagged easier than normal, so they couldn’t use the little shieldy thing on my mouth and instead had to use a suction.

Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself. My dentist has a cool new (well, new to me because she didn’t have it for my last cavity…which admittedly was at least a couple years ago) thingy for delivering anesthesia. It’s a wand that has a computer sending the anesthetic instead of an injection. It was AWESOME. You know how normally, even with topical put on first, you get this pinch and then it feels like your capillaries are exploding or something? None of that. If she hadn’t told me she was numbing me and that I might feel a pinch, I wouldn’t have felt anything. Well, my dentist also knows that redheads need more anesthesia, so she gave me an extra dose, which is standard procedure for a filling for me with her. (And honestly, it explains in part why I hated my fillings as a kid so much and went into a bit of emotional shock afterward, usually remedied by an hour of Wolfenstein 3D…I was in pain, but I thought it was normal. I didn’t know to ask for more anesthetic, and I bet I needed it then, too.) Then they left me alone for a bit before coming back to start the process. Buzz buzz buzz…drill drill drill…OUCH! I made an ouch noise, and my dentist immediately pulled out and stopped and dosed me up again. A few minutes go by and then she comes back…drill drill drill, buzz buzz buzz…switch to different drilly thing…buzz buzz OUCH! That time it was a worse ouch, too…I almost cried. Well, my dentist (being awesome) stopped again, dosed me again, and said that if it didn’t work this time, they’d just put in a temporary filling for what had happened already and have me come back in a couple of weeks, as her guess was that my cold was causing the anesthetic to wear off and/or not work even more than normal. But, sure enough, not long after that, I was right as rain, couldn’t feel a thing, and we were done before I knew it.

She took pictures of the cavity, and it was really cool to look at. So, the cavity looked really small on the outside, but inside, it was a bigger hole (another possible reason that it hurt more than anticipated). It was on a tooth that isn’t that big to begin with, and it had formed a little burrow inside my tooth. I can’t get over how awesome it was to see my tooth’s insides on the big screen. I could have watched on the TV while she was doing it, but I’m not that brave, and I do know that I have excellent pain imagination. That is, if you tell me I’m going to hurt, I will hurt, whether you actually hurt me or not. So, if I’m watching stuff happen, it will hurt me more than it would if I don’t watch.

Anyways, I’m wondering if the build-up of cold meds in my system for the past couple of days (I hadn’t taken any for 12 hours before my appointment just in case) had caused me to be running faster than normal, so my system processed the anesthetic faster or something. I honestly think it was wearing off faster than normal. My appointment was done at noon, and I was completely un-numb by 3pm. Even when I’ve had the normal-for-me dose, I remember being numb for several hours after, and I had twice the normal-for-me dose (4x the normal dose) before I was done. I had a lopsided smile at lunch, and had to eat and drink with the other side of my mouth.

After our appointments, we got to pick prizes from the prize cabinet. I got a little thingie for my dear Moo, and my DH got a pocket tape measure (which will come in handy, I think!). We had a really fun lunch, too, as always. Today, I have a nifty filling that I can feel with my tongue.

Happy Birthday, DH!

My dear husband is celebrating his 37th birthday today! Yay!

Mo’ TV, Mo’ Problems

We got a shiny, new 32-inch widescreen HD LCD TV on Black Friday. It is in our bedroom. We have AT&T Uverse, but we do not pay the extra monthly fee for HDTV. We also have a second XBox 360 up there, primarily for the purpose of watching Hulu and other web-based content. The XBox 360 puts out images in HD.

The TV has one component input and two HDMI inputs (and a few others, but they’re irrelevant to this). The XBox 360 can output in HDMI or component. The AT&T Uverse can output in HDMI or component. Right now, the XBox 360 is hooked up via component, and the Uverse is hooked up via HDMI. The XBox is working great with the new TV; it’s gorgeous. The Uverse is the problem.

Initially, we hooked up the Uverse using RCA jacks. The result was that we had several picture ratio settings available via the TV and via Uverse, and no combination worked very well. If we set the ratio so that it filled the TV vertically or horizontally (or both), the AT&T menus would get cut off. If we set the ratio to “normal”, the TV picture was distressingly small, with black bars on all sides. After consulting the internet, we decided that what was going on was that Uverse was detecting that we had RCA and attempting to put out a standard RCA-ish type feed, which the TV was then having to modify and stretch. Even though we’d change the setting on the Uverse to 720p, it would then distort the feed in a way that the TV couldn’t show properly.

So, we bought an HDMI cable online for $10 (note that these sell in stores for $60+ for no good reason other than profit). Now, the Uverse menu looks fine on the TV and fills the whole screen. The actual TV image looks fine for normal broadcast. However, if the broadcast is in widescreen, it occupies a tiny portion of the screen. The TV does not give us a “zoom” option (although it did when we had RCA cables plugged in).

What I’m trying to figure out is whether it’s worth it to go online and buy component cables and hook up the Uverse via component and the XBox via HDMI. Will that fix anything? Is that better? I suspect that, since the XBox is spitting out HD, HDMI for it will be the same experience. Does anyone else in the readership have a similar setup and experience to share? The internet is somewhat useless on this, as we seem to be rare in that we do not have HD TV, nor do we want to pay for HD TV. (Neither of us think the benefit is worth the $120+ per year cost, particularly not in the bedroom.)

Happy thoughts

A dear friend of mine (Ainsley/dreadpirateains) is getting surgery today. If you have spare happy thoughts to send toward FL, please send them. I’m sure all will be well, but happy thoughts can’t hurt.

Edited to add at 2:10pmCT: Ainsley’s out of surgery. All went well. Recovery begins.