Frog and Goat

I’m wearing a freaky hat and our psychedelic Halloween display is in full-on mode so where are the kids? For crying out loud it is almost 6pm.

Update: 8:45pm–6 kids. Disappointment and way too much leftover candy abound.

I found this site today. The only word I have for this is Gadzooks.

We decided to create a popular game (that shall remain nameless) using PowerPoint for one of our courses. If you’ve ever watched teevee, you’ve probably seen this game. Some of the trainers use a paper version of the game but we decided to go electronic. Without having the ability or the resources to create something in Flash, we chose PowerPoint. It is a tool that all of our trainers know how to use and I slammed the game together in one day whereas I’m sure it would have taken a lot more time had we been able to get our resident Flash-meister to create a game for us.

We have squares that change colors when used, we have screens that move to mimic the real game, we have constraints built-in so there can be no “oops” moments. The game, in short, rocks. This is some of the most fun I’ve had in awhile at work.

Yesterday started a little earlier than I had planned. I’m in a training this week and planned on sleeping a little later. The phone rang early and it was my mother. My grandmother died early Monday morning. This last year has not been a good year for her and I believe she’s in a much better place now. I was torn about whether or not I should write about her death here. I decided to go ahead with it because she was interested in technology. The better-half and I would take the laptop over and show her pictures of different things we were working on and for her 90th birthday soiree my mother and I made a slide show that really went over well. My grandmother liked it and everyone at the party got a chuckle. It seems fitting to write about her death here in that context. She may have thought it was cool to be on the internet.

And, this choice of photos? From the slide show. It got a lot of laughs, especially from her.

I know this is not shocking news, but isn’t Donald Trump one smarmy MF? I don’t watch his show and I don’t watch Martha’s riff on his show. In fact, I don’t watch reality TV…I know the world is filled with morons, I don’t need to watch them on TV.

What I can’t stand is the fact that Donald was all hype and good will back in the summer when Martha’s riff on his show was announced. Now that those ratings are in the toilet he’s slamming her to anyone who will listen. I bet he has lots of really close friends. Or Not. I have a brilliant idea Donald, why don’t you go back to 1983 and stay there? The hair, the young wife, the so-called empire–whatever, dude.

I’ve been assigned two courses where I’m the primary developer and both courses are officially On Hold. I hope I don’t get a reputation as The Course Killer. I’m currently reading eight courses to decide if any parts can be moved to an electronic format. All of them are currently viable classroom classes so they won’t get the automatic kiss of death from me. I did make a note yesterday that one “seems like a weak course”. I wonder what the appropriate dress is for a course funeral?

I unlocked the office door this morning and the alarm started chirping. Thankfully I didn’t curse which would be my normal reaction since I thought someone was already here and the alarm should be disabled already. My co-worker was standing right there at the alarm. The alarm had been going off for about 20 minutes. She’d been stuck at the panel trying to turn it off and had already talked to the alarm company several times. Of course, when I came in, I tripped the alarm again. Good Morning Neighbors! Hope you weren’t trying to sleep late. No wonder your rent is so cheap you’re next door to the people who have problems with their alarm.

Campus police showed up and the officer walked around with me while I opened and re-locked all the back doors–we have 3 of them. We concluded there is a ghost in the wiring and the officer left. Although when I mentioned I didn’t want to walk down in the basement (no door down there anyway), the officer didn’t say he’d go down there with me. He wished us a good day and left. So far, no boogeymen.

I just finished paying a couple of bills and licked the envelopes shut.* I’m getting over a cold and I just licked the envelopes. Those envelopes are now slathered in germs. I know germs only live so long in the world, but it made me think about what other people may use to seal envelopes and I was a little grossed out.

*Yes, we still pay some bills the old fashioned way.

The better-half and I watched this last night (I know, we’re wild and crazy on the weekends) and it was better than good. If you can catch it on a repeat showing, I highly recommend it.

The sun is out and the sky is blue. That’s major news around here. We went from no rain to rain and then drizzle for a week. The grass which had turned crackly and brown has rebounded and is once again leggy and brilliant green. If the trees could just start losing their leaves, it would start looking a bit more like Fall. At least the temperatures have moderated.

Yesterday I left work early because Typhoid Mary did, in fact, pass her cold on to me. When I told her I was leaving yesterday she looked surprised that I said she had successfully passed her cold on and that she should feel better by the end of the day. She wondered if I was experiencing problems with sinus pressure. She’s one of those Boomers who likes to take the credit for a job well done but passes the buck when the job involves gobs of snot.

Last night I watched The Haunting. I’ve seen it before and it creeped me out again. It is one of the best horror movies ever. Psychological and loud bumps in the night. It was on Turner Classic Movies On Demand so the movie was framed by Robert Osbourne. He has a magnificent voice.