bicycle

I'm super excited about State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, a book that is "resurrects an effort from the 1930s, when the WPA created the Federal Writers' Project, commissioning America's writers to describe their states." Many of my favorite authors have written chapters for it. Alas, it's not out until September.

But... Joe Sacco writes about Oregon! Carrie Brownstein about Washington! Mohammed Naseehu Ali about Michigan! (Okay, I'm not familiar with that last author. Must research...)

And just a pile of other folks I love like Dave Eggers, John Hodgman, Sarah Vowell, Anthony Bourdain, Susan Orlean, Jack Hitt, David Rakoff, and Alison Bechdel -- I am besides myself with joy! And impatience!

So, of course, I've been trawling worldcat looking for the original State by State project. I've found a title or two about Oregon:
Willamette landings, ghost towns of the river. (aka Willamette landings)
by Howard McKinley Corning;  Federal Writers' Project (Or.)
worldcat link - Multnomah County Library
979.5 C81

Oregon, end of the trail
by Writers' Program (OR)
worldcat link - Multnomah County Library
917.95 F29

oh, and fun fact for you Portlanders - US 30 is the Oregon Trail! It runs... from the Missouri River... to the Pacific Ocean!
The Oregon trail : US 30 : the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean
by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration.
worldcat link (three libraries own this; none on the Oregon Trail, natch. 2 of them are in the Netherlands!)

Michigan, a guide to the Wolverine State.
by Writers' Program (Mich.);  Federal Writers' Project.
worldcat link

I've managed, in 4 days, to lose 12 pounds.

Monday, I weighed 237.6 and I was very unhappy about it.

Today (Thursday), I weigh 225.0, and I look like hell.

Nothing like a dose of the stomach flu. I seem to be past the feverishness, and a lot of the pain/achiness. Unfortunately, my body is still very unhappy. And my sweetie has just come down with this, and vomits within an hour of ingesting any water. Oh yeah, he's pretty. Oh my.

I'm well-enough that I'm hungry and really wanting social contact. I'm right now on a clear liquid diet until I can start keeping things down. And given that I'm not keeping things down, I can't leave the house, really. (Though I may go to the store, because I can't stand it).

I got a copy of Mapplethorpe's Lady Lisa Lyon, which I had had in the 80s and have been obsessed with getting over the last year, and a copy of the History of Lesbian Hair, which is not about history or hair at all - and I'm tired of them both. I've watched all the library videos. I've read Mefi and askmefi and ravelry, compulsively read everything about I can find about my hot-topic issues of librarianship and trans-sex/gender issues and queer stuff and knitting (which if this were handwriting would be surrounded by hearts and flowers). There's more, there's always more. But I just want to be away from the house. Well, dagnabit.

A few weeks back, my transmission ceased working while I was climbing a hill on Highway 26. I got to the top of the Sylvan exit, and the car would move no more.

A lot of hand-wringing followed, and I ended up having the car towed out to a transmission shop in the suburb where I'm working these days. A grand later, and a replaced clutch, I drove it back home. And then the electrical entirely cut out. So I took it to a well-regarded shop in town. Another grand later, they say it should be able to limp along for another 30 to 50 thousand miles. Given that I drive about 6 thousand miles a year, that's a quite a long time.

I drove the car home, and the next time I got in, my check engine light was on. So I bring it back in. It can't be a big deal, right? Actually, it appears it might be.

I've been a little anxious lately -- I think I'm not getting enough exercise, not seeing enough friends, probably not getting enough sunlight -- just in general. I've been having a hard time shaking it. And this just doesn't help!

1. 

   I'm still free. What about you?
   When you accept a job that asked for an HTML hand-coder, maybe you should bone up on HTML before you get there
2. When your temp supervisor asks what text editor you use, "the blogger window" is not the correct answer
3. Your temp cow-orkers should not be able to smell you before they see you -- it's always a good idea to wear clean non-smelly clothes, and to take a shower with soap before you go to your temp gig
4. Don't tell your temp supervisor about your blog
5. Don't blog about your work at ZZZ
6. Don't offer to edit the writing that you're supposed to code.
7. Don't edit the writing that you're supposed to code! I don't care how wrong it was!!
   
8. If you weren't given server access, don't ask for server access
9. Please don't ask what the *.php means.
   
10. Don't web surf
11. Don't assume you're on a temp to hire position... especially if you don't know any HTML and the position opening is Webmaster.
12. Don't ask the same questions over and over again. Take notes. The temp job will give you paper & pen if you ask.
13. Don't beg for a job, or mention that you've applied here before and been turned down.
    
14. Don't just use things at the temp work station, or check out stuff in the drawers
    
15. If your temp supervisor gives you a style sheet cheat sheet, use it.
16. If the temp supervisor mentions a style sheet, that means you shouldn't put font tags and align attributes in your HTML.
17. Don't set your own hours at the temp gig. It's presumptive.
18. Double-check your work.
    
19. Don't tell your temp supervisor that you need the money. Guess what? We're all working for money.
20. Don't decorate your temp work station
21. Don't demand a working phone at your work station
22. Don't expect your temp supervisor to critique your work
23. Don't get freaky when the temp supervisor says there's no more work, and don't ask if it's something you've done. The temp job doesn't exist to give career counseling.
    

I've been on a campaign of spring cleaning, of trying to lighten the load of my hoarded stuff in the house. One of those things that I hoard is magazines (well, paper of all kinds), so for the last couple weeks, I've been trying to bring two magazines a day into MPOW's magazine exchange. Today I'm giving myself 5 minutes on each magazine, and I'm going through an ancient issue (May/June 2005) of Rockrgrl, where I found a mention of the beautiful Emiliana Torrini. I remembered her video (and parts of this song) but not her name, which is infuriating.

Another interesting female musician profiled in that issue is Sharon Jones, who seems to have suddenly gained indie fame. I love 100 Days, 100 Nights -- it sticks in my head like a Sugarbaby. And I love how retro the video looks.

This is my current favorite LOL cat.
moar at i can has cheezburger

Speaking of Jesus Christ, it's a lion moments, I got all excited about riding my bike to work today... but then I couldn't get the back tire pumped up, and I was so very sad. So I trudged out to the bus stop, got on the bus with my favorite bus driver... and watched a triple-trailer-truck run a dead red light, turning out in front of the bus. The bus almost hit the truck, the bike in the bike lane almost hit the truck. Fun.

Since it is going to be T-day tomorrow, and since I'm still not in too great of a mood, let's play the gratitude game:

• I'm grateful I have a four day weekend
• I'm grateful I don't have to work during my four day weekend (unlike the last two weekends)
• I'm grateful I'm going to get to stop at the bike shop on the way home
• I'm grateful I'm going to get to pick up the scooter on the way home
• I'm grateful Sweetie has done the grocery shopping.
• I'm grateful he probably won't mind if I bring the bike into the middle of the living room to figure this crap out.
• I'm grateful we have some good stuff to cook over the next couple days
• I'm grateful for LOL cats

This is cats be sneaking a sammich
a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/02/28/cats-be-sneakin-a-sammich/">

And this could well be our Nigella...

My day was going great, until I got into work. A manager who is demanding and always somewhat blaming had left a voicemail that one of the web sites that her web dev had created had the heading rising up into the header (header: logo and global navigation; heading, the main title of the page), and since it was a template problem, it was my problem. I opened my email and there was an email from the web dev who works under this manager -- he had forwarded on her email about how the template was broken.

So, I looked at the web site in question, and there was a hack there that hadn't been (fully?) tested -- he hadn't actually followed the template, nor had he looked at the CSS to see why particular elements might be there.

So why am I still thinking about this? I wrote an email to the both of them mentioning what was happening, and asking the web dev to please follow the template. I was polite, but I wasn't overly nice. And now I feel guilty.

I need to learn how to stand up to bullies in some way that feels good and reasonable to me. I'm working really hard to stretch my skills and learn new things, I'm ready to grow into more responsibility, and yet, things like this, I don't have anyone here I can ask...

So I've been sulking about this for several hours that I really need to be putting toward constructive work. Ugh.

I have achieved blog admin rights. I believe it was in table: mt_author, that I changed is_superuser from 0 to 1. All I know is, I seem to be able to access everything.

Thank you again, Steve, for looking out for me!

So, I had a breakthrough this morning after making the previous post. I went into the database, into table mt-permissions, and added myself with blog administrator permissions. (Interestingly , I was in there multiple times with various roles -- but never blog admin)

That caused an error: invalid permissions for author 1 at lib/MT/Author.pm line 354.

I went into mt-author and made myself a superuser, so I don't get that error any longer, however, I'm still not blog admin.

I'm guessing the next step is to update the permissions and authors tables so that I am blog admin before I'm any of the other roles. I'm going to export that data from those tables and I'll post that in the hopes that I'm on the right track.

Thanks again, Steve, for offering to take this to QA.

Any useful input is appreciated, including info on paid support if there is such an animal for individual users at 6A.