| I had about an hour’s worth of Internet outage time today, about which I will be reminding Time Warner Cable when my monthly bill arrives. It never occurs to them to give you credit for time that they aren’t actually providing a service. I’m happy to remind them.
I worked from home today, during which time I listened to my recently acquired IBM Editor’s Education DVL (Digital Video Library) course. One of the presenters who is on my editing team (but since she works in San Jose, I’ve never met her) taught the sections on grammar and punctuation. OMG. She was an absolute scream! I was laughing out loud all alone in my house watching and listening to her. |
Imagine making people laugh while learning about these topics:
| Module Number |
Topic |
|---|---|
| Module 4A | Grammar for Editors: Subjects and Verbs |
| Module 4B | Grammar for Editors: Parts of Speech |
| Module 4C | Grammar for Editors: Objects and Complements |
| Module 4D | Grammar for Editors: Verbals |
| Module 4E | Grammar for Editors: Clauses and Phrases |
| Module 4F | Grammar for Editors: The Grammar of Parallelism |
| Module 4G | Grammar for Editors: Sentence Errors |
| Module 5A | Punctuation for Technical Editors: Commas and Clauses |
| Module 5B | Punctuation for Technical Editors: Commas and Phrases |
| Module 5C | Punctuation for Technical Editors: Colons and Semicolons |
| Module 5D | Punctuation for Technical Editors: Apostrophes, Hyphens, and Dashes |
In IBM, we can give up to six “Thanks Awards” per year, and receive up to three of them. With them, you can choose from a variety of cool things, all worth $25 or less. I tried to give Michelle (that editor) one, but she has already reached her limit of three for 2008.
I sent her an Appreciation E-card instead, and copied her manager on it.
A real gem from onesentence.org:
| Jess
His efforts were so valiant, I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was front clasp. 2008-06-06 17:12:36 / Rating: 139 / |
Kevin (av8rdude) and I worked out late in the afternoon today.
|
|
|
Cardio (Elliptical Machine) |
30 |
625 |
I had dinner at NOFO at the Pig at Five Points, where I had their Shrimp BLT, which was just delicious!
My waitress was totally distracted. At the beginning, I made the mistake of saying, “I need just a couple of minutes,” after which she talked in the back to her fellow waitstaff, with her back to me, and never once turned around to see if I was ready.
Then—oh my god—she walked out of there, didn’t look at me, went over by the bar, picked up a squirt cleaning bottle and paper towels, and proceeded to clean the glass on the front doors to the place.
I was this close to getting up and walking away, when she turned around to put the bottle back and saw me, and then just looked horrified. Obviously she had totally forgotten she had a customer. She did apologize profusely, lucky for her tip.
After dinner, I went over to Third Place, where I had a couple cups of coffee and used their free WiFi. Pros and cons of Third Place:
- Pros
- The coffee is 33% cheaper than Helios’ coffee. ($1.00 as opposed to $1.50).
- Their refills are $.65 instead of $.75.
- Their selection of (especially, sweet) snacks that go with coffee, is way bigger and way yummier.
- They have comfortable, and varying, seating choices.
- Cons
- The people who work there are “kids,” which in and of itself isn’t bad, but they (the ones working tonight at least) were loud, and don’t really get that while, yes, it’s great to work in an environment where you can have fun while you work, it shouldn’t be at the expense of the customers enjoying their experience.
- At one point, they put on some wrap music, playing for all of us to hear of course, that included words like “fuck” and “shit” and “pootang,” I think it was.
- Near the end of the evening, their Internet access dropped. (This used to happen somewhat frequently at Helios, but it hasn’t for a long, long time—at least not while I’ve been there.)
I made my flight reservations for my trip (now) to my aunt and uncle’s place, and then on to P-Town. This fuel situation has jacked up flight prices, I think. I really did not expect to pay $306 for a flight.
I booked round trip flights between here and Boston, which means that when I get there on Monday, I’ll catch an MBTA train to Providence to spend the two days with my aunt and uncle. Then on Wednesday, I’ll take the train back to Boston, and then hop on the Bay State Cruise Company’s high-speed ferry to Provincetown.
I could have done it the opposite way, flying into Providence, and then taking the train up to Boston, but I wanted to make my return end shorter; that is, wanted to be able to hop right on my flight home from Boston at the end of my trip, instead of having to take the train back to Providence to catch my flight home from there.
Once home, I logged into work for a little while, and caught up my blog.