Sights, sounds, scents...

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They say that the sense most strongly tied to memories is scent, and that basically, a specific scent is more likely to trigger a memory than sight, sound, touch, or sound. Today, I had a flashback to childhood...

Scents have some amazingly wondrous meanings...the scent of fresh pine needles takes me back to the mountains of North and South Carolina as a child, crunching around the mountains and looking under rocks to see what critter-crawlies we could find, then squealing and running away if we actually FOUND something with a zillion legs underneath them. Or, most recently, my friend Jim's place - a Christmas tree farm in CT - one of the most serene and beautiful places in recent memory.

Today I had a "scent flashback", but it was not quite as romantic. The bathrooms at the hospital where I work smell like the bathrooms at the campground where I spent my summers during childhood. I had all sorts of flashbacks to beaches, traipsing down to the beach with my sister and 4 cousins to try to build the world's biggest sandcastle for the sand art contest (we never won, and I was always so disappointed). But mostly, I flashed back to the bathrooms... with the perpetually damp, sandy floors, echoey sounds, and spider webs in the corners that I swore could entrap a child... funny how just a scent can bring those once-forgotten memories flooding back.

Next time, I just hope it's not a bathroom that triggers 'em.
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Jobbishness

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So, this seems to have become a pattern in my career... as soon as I join a company, they are bought out by (or buy) another company. It's happened - literally - in three out of four of the jobs I've ever had... and today, it happened again. This time was the closest call, though, since I started my gig last Monday, and today (6 work days later) the annoucement was made.

All good, from what I can tell, except that the joking and good humor in the world of finance-people-cubes has been all but silent today. I guess they're dreading the merger, and have heard Cube-guy-who-is-expecting-first-kid-any-day-now lamenting about how much work he'll have upcoming and they're all making bets on how fast/who gets laid off first. Kind of a bummer.

So far, I don't think this will affect my job - at least not for a while. My little corner of the world is fairly isolated, from what I can tell so far, and the uber-boss is a huge fan of the project I'm working on. So I guess we'll see.

In the mean time, the Crackberry experiment has been mildly unsuccessful. I so far have managed to turn off ALL sounds, which is great, except when people are actually trying to reach me...

And yea, blogging's going to be all about work for a while, since that's what's consuming my life right now. Work, and sleep. The 6-8am shows means a 4:45am alarm every morning, so re-adjusting my schedule is going to be a challenge that's going to take a while to get used to. So if you wanna hang out, that's cool...I just have to be in bed by 9pm. (9 pm? Seriously? Great. Even geekier than before. This is going to be fabulous for my dating life.... (*sigh*).)
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I'm on crack...

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So it finally happened...I got my first Blackberry. That wonderful invention that allows emails and phone calls to intrude on every waking moment of your life, instead of only most of them.

The first thing I asked the tech guy when he was training me was: "How do I mute it?" Can you tell I'm excited?

But I do get a kick out of Blackberry humor. One particularly favorite image is one that a conference organizer friend of mine provided. He rates speeches by how fast the heads go down in the "Blackberry prayer"...that is, when the listeners start to get a little bored, bring out the bricks, and start playing with them with heads slightly bent and hands together in front of them holding the Blackberry brick. Looks like work, but is in reality more likely a quick game of Tetris or writing an email to a friend "Wanna grab a drink after work?"

Boring speeches = "Oh, that speech was awful. He wasn't into it 10 seconds and the whole room was doing the Blackberry Prayer."

Good speeches = "She was great! I only saw a few people doing the Blackberry Prayer!"

I call them Crackberries, because people just can't seem to get away from them. And now, I'm on the road to becoming an addict myself. The good news is that now that it's on "silent" vibrate-only mode, I vow to not figure out how to change it so that it actually rings.

Meanwhile, your daily dose of cubicle conversation:
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Cube guy #1: Are women allowed to play in the NBA?

Cube guy #2: Yea.

Cube guy #1: So are men allowed to play in the WNBA?

Cube guy #2: No, cuz if you're born a guy you can't play in women's sports. They specifically put that in the rules.

Cube guy #1: Well, that brings up an interesting question. What if you have a sex change? Cuz there was this girl who got a sex change and wanted to play in the PGA, right?

Cube guy #2: I think that's why they say "born a guy," cuz you're not allowed to play if you've ever had testosterone, I guess.

Cube guy #1: Okay, that makes sense.

(um...does it? really?)
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Giving up?

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Hey y'all!

To answer a recent comment, I haven't given up blogging completely...at least, I'd like to think I haven't. Things have been *so* nutso and I just haven't been sure where to begin! So... here's the drill so far... we'll start with the boring stuff (at least, potentially boring for you...rather exciting/exhausting for me):

I've swapped jobs, and am back in production again, this time in radio. I am working for Sirius producing talk radio, which brings me back to my production roots. While I've loved writing, loved the company (and people) that I was working with (even though we really only communicated via IM's and emails), the "working from home" thing just wasn't a very good fit for me. It's far too lonely for me and my personality... so I've moved back into cubicle land, where the pretzel sticks in the break room are free, and the gossip in the cubes around me are all about getting drunk at the corporate party, someone on the brink of becoming a first-time dad, and the latest weird news headlines (like a 9 year old kid named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii suing to change her name... not kidding). This morning's cubicle-conversation, brought to you buy the guy who sits behind me and his cross-the-hall-cube-friend:

Cube guy #1: Okay, so question of the day: If you wake up and realize that you have no clean underwear cuz you just haven't done laundry yet, what do you do? Would you wear dirty ones?

Cube guy #2: Well, what do you mean by "dirty"?

Cube guy #1: Oh I dunno, just...worn once before, I guess.

Cube guy #2: I guess it kind of depends... I mean, if it was a pair I wore once on a cool fall day, to like a picnic or something, no problem. But if, like, I played hockey the night before? Well, that's kinda...you know.

Cube guy #1: Yea, I gotcha.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate being back in this bizarro world.

That being said, I didn't quite dodge a bullet when it comes to working hours. I've pulled the 6-8am shows Mon-thru-Fri, so I'll be up early (no, make that obnoxiously early) all week. Not the most ideal for me, since I'm about as far from a "morning person" as one can get. I'm optimistic that I can make the transition to morning shows (the hours start next week), and I've already tried implementing the "go to bed 30 minutes earlier and get up 30 minutes earlier every day" program. It has worked so far, with moderate success. Last night I went to bed around 9:30pm, and woke up at 4:30am. All good, except I fell back asleep until 7:30... hm, gotta work on that.

In other parts of life, the apartment is coming along fine, although the renovations process has been put on hold for a bit. The kitchen and closet are done (save for new light bulbs, painting, and need-to-pick-up-a-garbage-can-soon type things. The bathroom is next, but that's a tad difficult, since I'll pretty much have to move out for a week while that happens. Dunno how that's going to happen...but we'll let that go for now... I'll have pictures of the kitchen up soon... as soon as, well, I can.

There's loads of other news...some potential regarding a boy (fingers crossed), membership at a new gym (ouch), travels to Honduras (where it *didn't* rain this year), and the woes of changing my name...again... (*sigh*). I'm sure I'll get to all of this at some point in my blogging, but seriously, I'm glad to know that some of you are still interested in following the adventure...

In the meantime, enjoy a little multicultural chuckle from my newest hero in the whole wide world... Matt (be sure to watch the video)... http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/
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