I managed to avert a minor disaster here at work by catching the problem, knowing how to fix it, getting the approval, and fixing it just in the nick of time. Sometimes I can do a few things right in this world.

I still have lots and lots of writing to catch up on. If I can manage to avoid getting carsick I might try writing in a notebook on the way up to Canada; I can’t drive for long stretches so I usually ride shotgun when we go on road trips, except for a couple of hours of driving myself.

I managed to get an additional day off at the end of my vacation, so although we’re driving back on the 28th I don’t have to come into work until the 30th. A had suggested I take the time to relax after being in a car for 10+ hours; I told my boss it was in case something went wrong and we couldn’t drive back all in one day. Hopefully that won’t actually be the case; if it is I may turn the delay into an excuse for not being able to show up Friday, so I still have that extra day of down time.

I haven’t gotten to go kayaking in weeks now, and I really miss it. The friend who got me interested is a regular of the Manhattan Kayak Company, which offers kayaking several times a day, seven days a week, with all kinds of neat programs like CardioFitness and Kayak Polo. Around here there are just some little flatwater paddles to the same places on weekends, and I don’t have a paddling buddy to call up and say “hey, let’s go out on the water” anytime I please. I really miss it now, I’m dying to get out on the water, but I didn’t find any paddling I could do up in Montréal.

I’m not at all ready for the temp who will be coming in tomorrow to learn how to sub for me. My job is the only mission-critical one with daily tasks that can’t wait, so instead of just answering phones the temp will have to be trained and actually work while I’m gone. I have yet to update the quick-reference sheet so she’ll have (yes, I already know it’s a girl) an easier time with customers, and I haven’t updated my procedural instruction sheets since early April so I need to look over those too. It’s really strange to be the one needing a temp; I did temp work for several summers while I was in school, so I’m much more used to being on the other side.

Builder.com has a collection of interactive tools that build Javascript code according to your specifications and let you paste it into a page. They’ve got things like a sortable table (which I’ve never seen implemented anywhere), a regexp inspector, browser detective, and other useful things - I’ll probably end up putting at least one up here somewhere. (Thanks to Jenn at ScriptyGoddess for the link!)

I used to love the soundtrack to the musical Cats, and while I’ve grown out of my adoration for it I still haven’t actually seen the show. But I saw Mariann had taken a Jellicle Cats quiz, so I figured I’d do the same. (This gave me the opportunity to discover that if you highlight text on a page and then trigger the “Post to MT Blog” bookmarklet, you get that text in the entry body when the window pops up.)
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Here’s a list of shopping sites, mostly from Lucky Magazine. I’m putting it into an extended entry because it’s mainly so I have a record and can find them again. It’s in a table, though, so if you’re interested it won’t take up much space.
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Wow, one of the Playground Monitors at BlogTag picked me for today’s tag! It seems the previous site didn’t select anybody, so somehow the Monitor found me to tag and keep the game going (a good policy). If the current “IT” had tagged me, it would (presumably) have been a friend, but since it was an administrator I’m wondering how she chose me. In any event… TAG, Mariann, you’re IT!

According to an article from the New York Times, the French are doing funny things with their language: “…a popular slang called Verlan in which standard French spellings or syllables are reversed or recombined, or both.” The article says some Verlan words have made it all the way past mainstream media and “into some of the country’s leading dictionaries” - I’m sure most members of L’Académie are tearing their hair out. Reportedly using Verlan is “a metaphor of opposition, of talking back” or “a form of political correctness expressing solidarity with and awareness of the immigrant community at a time of anti-immigrant politics.”

Here is today’s Monday Mission.

1. Many children have blankets, or a favorite nubby stuffed animal that they like to keep near them for security. Do you recall what you had for your “security blanket” as a child? When did you finally give it up? What brought that about?
I don’t remember if I had a security blanket or not. I don’t think I did. I had some favorite stuffed animals, but I think I remember my mother has said I never depended on anything like that. I know she says I never sucked my thumb.
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I wouldn’t normally answer a daily question two days late, but Saturday’s 2000 Days question was so inane I had to respond. If $ were no object, would you like to be cryogenically frozen to (like Ted Williams is alleged to have done) to be awaken in the future when they had a cure to reverse the aging process?
This whole question is fundamentally wrong. First of all, Ted Williams did not choose to be cryogenically frozen; that was a decision made by his son, who likes publicity and makes a living off his dad’s name. Secondly, the words “cure” and “reverse” do not go together - you can have a “cure for old age” or a “procedure to reverse the aging process” but the phrase stated in the question makes no sense. In addition to this, reversing the aging process would be pointless: we’d have a world of infants. Having a cure for cancer might be something to freeze yourself for, but dying of old age is a good way to go. And finally, if the human body were to survive the cryogenic suspension (which experts believe is unlikely, given that the corpse’s blood is replaced with an equivalent of antifreeze and tissues are damaged while frozen), the culture shock of waking up in the distant future is more than most people are prepared to handle. People who sell the opportunity to be frozen are swindlers. I would definitely not go for that.

Much of the weekend revolved around my dad and his participation in Out of the Darkness. He and my mother came over before the event so we could celebrate his birthday (which was the 8th), and we had a little debate about Pallotta TeamWorks and their financial management issues. I had thought Pallotta TeamWorks was the bad guy and was all set to hate them, but both the discussion with my parents and the opening ceremonies changed my mind. Dan Pallotta started the organization because so many of his friends were dying of AIDS, and it grew into a for-profit company. I had wondered if he ever participates in these events he puts on - and he apparently did join in OOTD, because both his partner and his uncle have committed suicide.

After seeing my dad off on the walk, we (A, my mother, and I) went back to our house to sit around for a bit before leaving to cheer him on. We decided to station ourselves at the first “Grab and Go” food stop, and after a woman on crutches who had been behind my dad at the step-off point went past us, we decided we’d missed him. We packed our chairs and everything back into the car and hurried over to the next Grab and Go, which the first walkers were just leaving from. We waited at least an hour before my dad showed up - he’d been walking with an acquaintance who was much too slow for his taste. I had attached an old flat Mylar Hello Kitty balloon to a pillowcase and put it over a broom so he would be able to see us; I held it the whole time and I think Kitty gave lots of people something to smile about as they dragged on (two people took her picture).

It was kind of strange to go to bed and know that my dad was still out there walking around. He was lucky enough to avoid the wrong turn mistake some people had made - it added a couple of miles to their walk, which was already twenty-six miles. He walked almost the whole way, except when he had to get into a van because he was too far behind. He had sped up to his normal pace after leaving the slow woman, but he couldn’t advance enough to move up from the back. The Pallotta people like to keep everyone together, so they pick up stragglers in a “sweep” van and bring them to the next pit stop. He still managed to cover about 22 miles and nearly 52,000 steps in one night, and he raised nearly $1,500 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. (Well, it will be less after Pallotta takes its cut, but still.)

(See also the great entry my mother wrote about the walk.)

I’m terribly amused by the USA-L News post suggesting Shawn Dale Barnett is the world’s only famous deaf musician. What about Evelyn Glennie? Barnett’s website claims that he is naturally-born 100 percent deaf, and Glennie lost her hearing by playing too much percussion, but they’re both successful deaf musicians. It’s impossible to tell if Barnett thinks of himself as Deaf (Glennie does not, she tries to hush away the fact that she’s deaf) because his entire site IS WRITTEN IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Argh.