Weird Photos of Today

I've seen this car(?) in the parking lot here at work a few times now. I finally took pictures today.
So...weird, but not really blogworthy. Until you look at the hood:
Is this Sid's truck?

Moving on, I got Panda Express for lunch. (Actually, T picked it up for me since I was violently nauseous and afraid to go out into the heat.) Point is, I love their cream cheese rangoons. Really a lot. But now I'm a bit worried:
Is there something corrosive in them? They melted the styrofoam!

There's really no accounting for the way my mind works. I've stopped trying.

Sometimes my imagination does interesting things. In church today, I had several really entertaining thoughts occur to me, and I thought I'd share.

• I was reading in Helaman during Sacrament Meeting, and Helaman 1:12 says that Kishkumen was in disguise when he murdered Pahoran, and verse 10 talks about the speediness of his flight. I swear to you, the image that came into my mind was of a man in a toga (a reference to Julius Caesar, I guess) wearing those silly glasses with the nose and mustache attached, and probably the big bushy eyebrows, too. And as he fled around a corner, the glasses fell off, and a little bit later, a wig went flying on the wind. Who says the war chapters aren't entertaining?!
• In Alma 53:15, which was part of our Sunday School lesson, Helaman fears that the people of Ammon would lose their souls if they broke their covenant of peace. Unbidden, the thought came to my mind of dementors, acting as covenant-enforcers, of all things. Would we all take our covenants a bit more seriously under the threat of the Dementor's Kiss?
• Our lesson in Relief Society was on emergency preparedness, and Val, who was teaching, made reference to the ward "Emergency Leader...or whatever you call it." I pictured this girl organizing and executing major disasters, almost like a conductor leading a symphony. I could see her bringing in the earthquakes, supplementing that with fire and/or floods. Telling the assembled "instruments" that "I need a bit more from the famine section here." I guess it's a good thing that "Emergency Leader" isn't the actual technical title of the calling. That'd just be freaky.

I have been accused of silliness when I start imaging literal interpretations of things. Silliness, or bolts of creativity sent to lighten my mood? You decide.

Pleasant News

Ok. My job for the Church is a temporary one; it only lasts for 6 months. But it seems that I have made myself indispensable, so my boss and my boss' boss have been working on getting me a permanent job for the last few months. They tell me every couple of days that they're working on it as hard as they can. (I love Mike. He's the kind of manager who works really hard for his employees. I think he views his job as facilitating our work, instead of t'other way around. He's a dear.)

Well, he called me this morning. I didn't hear the phone, but I got his message before I left. He wanted me to call him. So I did, and he said that although They won't give him a permanent slot, They did concede a year-long internship. (They're still sorting out if this means a year from now, or a year from when I started, which would make it another 6 months.) But Mike is pretty optimistic about being able to get me a permanent job by then.

Ironically, my fortune cookie yesterday told me that "Soon, [I] will receive pleasant news." Tianna has decided that she truly believes these things now.

I've actually had my own cubicle and a brand new computer for a few weeks now. I thought it was highly entertaining that I had all this official, new equipment, but not a real job. :D

Anyway, Mike apparently called several people this morning before he found somebody that had my cell number. He called Tianna. He called Jeri. He called the missionaries here in Orem. Seems that he was really excited to tell me the good news. The coolest thing was when I got in here and told the missionaries. Sis. X said that Mike had called and asked her to have me call him when I got in. So she left me "a little note:"Tianna and I both laughed. Hard.

Today's actually been quite fun. So many people are so glad that they can keep me! It makes me feel really special, and really loved. It's awesome.

How do these things happen?

On our way to Annaleise's reception on Friday (a journey fraught with misdirection and circular driving, thanks to T), we saw the Coolest Road Sign(s) EVAR. Check this out:
Please note that 4430 North is also Jens Monson Ln. is also 9850 North. And that 900 West is also 4000 West. Seriously, what is going on here? Who thought this was a good idea? "Gee, I'm putting up a new street sign, but I'm not gonna take down the old one. Especially as they have conflicting information." I mean, really. Believe it or not, this is not where T and I got lost. She has no such excuse. :)

Coincidence, or really horrible irony?

I just smooshed a bug on my notebook. I am using this notebook to write out my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow, "Words of Hope and Consolation at the Time of Death." I think Heavenly Father is laughing at me.

I get a gold star!

It's true, I do! This is the note I left Tianna on her board last night before I left work. Because why? Because I WIN!

Here's the deal. I've been working on a lengthy and complicated project at work for several weeks now, and last night, I finished it! You want more details? Very well. (This will probably get far more technical than most of you care about, so feel free to pretend that this post ends right here.) We've got serials online in a collection, but we wanted them moved to new collections, separate for Localities and for Surnames. Now, it's impossible to just move a book; it has to be deleted and reloaded. In addition to moving these, we decided we wanted to group them by volume, rather than by issue, which is how they were previously done. So I had to get the original files and combine the issues into one volume. Then I had to do the tricky part: merge the metadata. This involved some very complex work with large spreadsheets. And everything had to be just right, or CONTENTdm would yell at me. Or, if not that, it would load properly but be all screwy, with the title in author field and whatnot. Needless to say, I learned a lot about these spreadsheets and the way they have to be compiled. This generally happens in the background when we process books, so it was rather new to me.

But I finished! I combined 308 issues into 116 volumes and successfully messed around with all the accompanying metadata. They're all online and beautiful, and I'm really quite proud of myself.

What is wrong with people?!

Dear Crazy Person,

I appreciate your determination to get in touch with whoever works in the cubicle in the next row. But you're calling an office at 6:30 on a Thursday night. I'd say the odds are good that if they didn't pick up any one of the first 37 times you called, they've probably gone home for the night. Please, for the love of all that is holy, desist calling here!

Sincerely,
Driven Nearly to Distraction