Nine Notery Notes from a Nattering Notary Nut

1) I forgot about WW, and I’ve got countless fascinating pictures, NTS, but I CBA (or CBB to us USans) to chain myself to some arbitrary calendar theme, so there.

2) Truck was broken into this morning, broad daylight, elementary school parking lot, they took her Zumba backpack. Bastards. What’s sad is there are shitloads of people who spend the same energy on stealing stuff as the rest of us do earning it because, well, it’s what they know.

3) A Burner is having a birthday party soon with a white theme. I don’t own any white clothes. It would be weird Burner clothing anyway, so I guess this will mean another investment in my small but growing costume wardrobe. Perfect would be a top hat and tuxedo made all out of faux white fur, but I can neither afford that nor a new car, so will improvise. How ‘bout white long underwear, with a black hat and black boots at either end? Hmm, no, not silly enough.

4) They remodeled the gym and I used it yesterday, all new-smelling with its recycled-tire flooring and banks of brand new machines. I asked that blonde, you know, the one who can do pull-ups? She said they spent three hundred grand. That’s nice, but given the economy or at least a broad impression of same, and given our relentless hiring slow-down, it seems kind of odd, but somehow I expect there’s a tie-in to health insurance costs. Besides, in a business where it costs a billion dollars to open a factory and it will kill your business if you do not open a factory so the money’s spent regardless of how the DJIA is behaving, a few tenths of one million spent on employee health and morale may not be so much.

5) It’s kind of cool that a guy I worked with over ten years ago recently showed up in my division and he’s still a nice guy, just looks ten years older (grayer, wider). As do I.

6) Acronyms are way overused. So are abbreviations, but everyone calls them acronyms even when they are really just abbreviations. Acronyms are a subset of abbreviations, people! Anyway, within a few hours of each other, BFM and BFM both showed up in entirely different contexts. BFM means Bus Functional Model, whereas BFM means Burst Frequency Mode. These are fair uses of abbreviations (or initialisms, really), I just thought it annoying I had to ask what they stood for TWICE, because I don’t remember shit like that if I don’t use it. I guess that’s true within any language. Now, of course, and for the next few days until I forget them again, I will know which is which from the context. Then I’ll start mixing the words up.

7) I get decompressed soon, yay! In 1999 I was moved into a cubicle roughly six feet by eight, down from the standard eight by eight or whatever. They compressed cubicles back then rather than build yet another office building. Good thing, too, because now, with the company actually smaller than it was and those old-style rapid hiring frenzies in no way conceivable, an extra office building would be a four-story albatross. All my moves since then were into similarly undersized boxes. Now we’re fixing to decompress, and for the first time in eleven years I’ll be in a bigger cell. Yippee do da day. I’ll have room for more piles of shit. What I REALLY want is my very own Cone of Silence.

8) I emptied more of “my” shit out of “her” garage last weekend and wound up with seven boxes full of old National Geographics in my Jeep for several days until I had time (last night) to rearrange my storage unit and make room for them. Expect a report soon (or not soon) on the January 1947 article about Cuba. Oh, and a peek beyond the Rhine, where homelessness and malnutrition are being addressed with unmatched efficiency and compassion.

9) I am oddly, if irresponsibly, envious of people back east who are sitting out a blizzard. Not of the people in general, and certainly not of people who are homeless, or whose homes are insufficient and uncomfortable, or of people who have to go out in it for reasons that cannot brook a postponement, such as their work or other commitments. I’m only envious of anyone who can stay at home and doesn’t absolutely hate to. I like my little home, my cozy one bedroom apartment, and I’d like nothing better today than to have a good reason to stay in it and “work” remotely and dick around with other projects I never seem to have the time for. Yes, projects. I didn’t put a workbench in the breakfast nook for nothin’. As for “working” remotely, it’s rather enjoyable, the only downside being that it only takes a few hour-long conference calls (which I average seven or eight a week) to run my cell phone minutes over the free limit and cost me money. No, I didn’t expense it back. Prolly could have, I’ono.