For those who like pictures, I've got you covered. If you don't like pictures, you're covered too!

Can you believe I used to post something every night? I can hardly believe it. It is amazing how life can fill up your time!

Before I really get started, I just need to "vant" for a moment. The people who live above me, the loud, obnoxious ones they are, have decided that tonight is the night for throbbing drums. I don't think they are watching television or listening to music, no, both of those might actually have a decent rhythm! I think they are actually trying to learn how to play the drums at 2:30 in the morning. Whenever I mention this to the office, they look at me like I'm insane. Blah! Just venting.

On the photo front (because my goal is 5 pictures a day!), I have been doing well about 5 days a week. My camera never left my purse on Tuesday, but I managed a few shots on lunch break today. They were not spectacular in any way shape or form. To satisfy my itch, I played around with a few photos on Adobe Photoshop Elements*. Here are a couple I liked tonight (all from DM and my walking tour of Alfama, almost one year to the day, oh, how I miss Johnny and being in Portugal. The beauty of that trip calls to me in the night.)



Honestly, I think I liked these ones tonight because they are so different in tones, hues, and highlights than the originals. It's like Andy Warhol or something (which it really isn't, but I can pretend.)

Other recent creations included some more mosiacs:
Sunsets
Flowers
and Clouds

Adobe also allowed these creations (more practice in outlining a part of the picture to enhance it or enhance the remainder of the picture):
I like the last of the roses the best.

Enough of the pictures, right? I was figuring that if a picture equals a thousand words, I wouldn't have much left to write! But then, I can always be longwinded if need be. It is a gift, and a curse (homage to Monk right there).

My last couple of days have been rather busy. I arrived at work yesterday to discover I had forgotten about the job fair. All the supervisors and even upper management were running around interviewing people at great length. I did three interviews, none all that impressive. Sorry to say it, but when a person's objective on their resume is phrased the equivilent of, "I want to do more," I wonder. One of the applicants also answered a question about hitting sales goals on the job with the response, "One time, I needed a car. [Internal commentary: I was thinking the person was going to tell me that it motivated her to be a top performer on the job, but NO!] So I didn't buy shoes." We did actually get a lot of great applicants, I just didn't get to interview them. The rest of that evening, after the job fair had ended, was unproductive for me. I was completely brain dead.

On the flip side, all the energy I had lost yesterday came and brought five of its closest friends today. I was bounding all over the place, without the aid of the lovely, lovely caffeine I am so fond of drinking. Because of the excess energy, I was able to go to a teleconference today (and learned about some new things coming down the pipeline), get a couple of coaching sessions done around quality assurance, talk with a bunch of bankers, prep other calls for quality feedback, and meet with Steve to grab lunch and discuss the team's performance. With his new schedule, it is a good idea to go to lunch at least once a week to check in, see what ideas are forming in our heads, and keep our communication lines open. We always end up with full bellies and full minds. Today was subs and ice cream!

On the family front, Chip is doing well. He had to go back to the vet's a few times to get checked and this included an emergency trip to another vet on Saturday evening. Once Chip's stitches are removed, my mom is refusing to go back to our family vet. They really messed up this time and it caused quite a bit of pain for our lovely, adorable, sweet, kind, wonderful family member. Besides the fact the vet tech had no clue what she was talking about and didn't bother to double check after my mom asked her three times (causing Chip to suffer through the itch of being shaved for the surgery), the vet also, pardon my language here because there is really only one true word to define how monumental this guy hurt Chip, FUCKED up the stitching and incision which ended up tearing almost immediately and caused an infection. While the vet is a nice guy, my mom always figured he didn't graduate at the top of his class in school. Half the time he gives half-hearted guesses at what is the ailment and then looks to my mom to decide a course of action. But the good news is that the tumor was benign and discomfort aside, Chip is doing well. He's actually trying to run around the house, even with the cone on his head. As funny as this looks, I still feel bad for him. He keeps hitting the side of the cone onto the walls and flipping over his water dish when he's done drinking:


One more topic. I think. I bought some new music again (yes, it is an addiction, but I have not found the right 12-step program to ween myself from iTunes yet). What I purchased was not my usual mixture. Oddly enough, I bought the soundtrack to the movie, Chocolat. I was watching it the other evening (because honestly, it is one of my favorites). The music is mostly a guitar picking assortment and it is relaxing.

The other bits of music I got were two albums. One is a Fred LeBlanc (singer in Cowboy Mouth) album called "Double Dammit." It's older, but one I did not have. The other album is "Heartlight," a Neil Diamond album. I find that I'm appreciating his music more and more each time I hear it. If I can find the newest album, I'll buy it. Not too long ago, I bought the KT Tunstall album and a new Cowboy Mouth album. The album is called "Voodoo Shoppe" and there is a great song on the album called, "Home." It is about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Hearing the passion for New Orleans in this song helps me understand the value in rebuilding the city.

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*Adobe Photoshop Elements is an awesome program. I bought it by accident one day. While living with Adam, I wanted something to make cards. I saw this program at our local bulk retailer (yes, it might be tied to the evil retailer whose name we shall not mention) and bought it. The intended purpose didn't pan out. The program also did not run well on my old computer. So it sat in the box, waiting for me to upgrade my system and finally made it to this computer. I never did anything with it for the longest time. And then... one night... I decided to see if I could use it to remove the color from some pictures. It was then a new love was sparked.