Resolutions of 2011 - How'd I do?

As per my post of last year, these were some resolutions for 2011.


1.  Become more healthy, by eating better and being more active.
2.  If the above doesn't help to lose weight and slim down, then buy some shaping undergarments that will make me feel gorgeous and slender on my wedding day.
3.  Be neater around the house but putting things away more immediately after putting them down.
4.  Try harder to keep in touch with old friends who live in other cities.
5.  Try to keep the ratio of ordinary conversations to wedding conversations to an appropriate level.  I will endeavor to remember that some people truly do not care.
6.  Be more original in my cooking, and allow hubs-elect to help more.
7.  Take more photographs.
8.  To give my dogs as much love and affection as is humanly possible.
9.  To finish re-upholstering the sofa, so that I can sit on it without thinking about how much more work there is to do.
And because 10 seems like such a nice, round number: I will stop playing Angry Birds when I should be being social.


So, it seems healthy to review how I did on those points.


1.  Become more healthy, by eating better and being more active.  I did pretty well on this one.  I've let it slide a bit recently, but I am very pleased to think that I will never regret not getting in shape for the wedding.  I did, and it was awesome.  But I do need to make sure I hit the gym again more regularly.  The business is consuming my lift right now.


2.  If the above doesn't help to lose weight and slim down, then buy some shaping undergarments that will make me feel gorgeous and slender on my wedding day.  I also bought some shaping undergarments, so win-win?  The important thing I think is that after I started getting in shape, I started feeling great about myself and didn't worry about fitting into the dress (as much.)


3.  Be neater around the house but putting things away more immediately after putting them down.  Brandon might argue I have made very little progress on this one.  I believe I took steps forward...but maybe I do still leave shoes around.  However, it would help if we actually had enough storage space for all my things.


4.  Try harder to keep in touch with old friends who live in other cities.  Fail.  Very sad.  But with all the weddings etc, I did see more people than previous years.  So hopefully that keeps going.


5.  Try to keep the ratio of ordinary conversations to wedding conversations to an appropriate level.  I will endeavor to remember that some people truly do not care.  Well by default, this will get better.  No idea how well I actually did last year though.


6.  Be more original in my cooking, and allow hubs-elect to help more.  Yes!  I definitely did this, and the wedding gifts that were cooking related have greatly increased my artillery.  And case in point, Brandon made dinner tonight.


7.  Take more photographs.  Yes, but I will continue to take more.  I am also in the process of hunting down a darkroom, to go back to making prints.  This is very therapeutic for me, and will decrease the number of ranty posts I am sure.


8.  To give my dogs as much love and affection as is humanly possible.  Done.


9.  To finish re-upholstering the sofa, so that I can sit on it without thinking about how much more work there is to do.  Yes!  With Mom's help, but I am very grateful that it is finished.


10.  I will stop playing Angry Birds when I should be being social.  Ha, I haven't played Angry Birds in months.  I do of course play a ridiculous amount of MahJong.....




Next week, I'll post what I've been thinking about for next year.  Its going to be big :)

Oh, Christmas Tree

As a part of the whole married thing, I have been making an effort to document more "family" events.  So, here is us picking out the family Christmas tree, complete with 'rents.

Aw look at them bond...

and then, we decorate it!  note, my husband is 6'1.
Yeah, its a whole lot of tree.

On foot, and underfoot

Found here.  Tokyo people - street crossing by Simone Marchetti.

I used to drive everywhere.  My next-door neighbor and I, who were close friends in highschool and did all the same afterschool activities, used to drive into school separately, only to park right next to eachother.

But now I've been a pedestrian (only) in several different international cities as an inhabitant, not a tourist, and I can safely say I would avoid driving for the rest of my life, if possible.  Since we still live in the burbs, and many of my hobbies involve moving used furniture or large homemade letterpresses around, this doesn't look like a goal attainable anytime soon, but I can dream.

What does affect me, every day right now, is the general vehicular attitude towards pedestrians in general, and also the stupid thing other pedestrians do when they're not paying attention.  For example, I am super careful never to cause a car to slow down when they have the right of way - if I go early at a crosswalk, it is because I can clearly see no one is coming, or I understand the light pattern enough that I am sure I will be able to cross safely.  This morning, I was able to cross the street before my signal, because I was paying attention and had the right timing. 

The three numbskulls behind me, however, succeeded in blocking the cars in the left turn lane (who had an advanced green) because they were too late to follow me and decided to anyway.

Le sigh.  In DC every morning, cars try to run stagnant yellows/early reds at major pedestrian crossing intersections.  Sometimes these vehicles are even city buses.  And every time, the herd of pedestrians at the crosswalk comes out at their signal, and leaves the idiot driver stranded in the intersection.  Horns blare and tempers fray, and it makes everyone's morning just a little worse.

And don't even get me started on cyclists.

Bad Apple

A little while ago, good friend of mine and I went to the Georgetown Apple store during our lunch break.  My friend was super excited to finally get her baby back - a 17.5" Mac Book Pro, with all her files on.  There had been a problem with some faulty chips, but they were going to replace them, plus the m/otherboard, for free.  Great!

So we catch the bus to Georgetown, and are both excited to be out of the office at lunch.  We stroll into the store, and one of the greeters sends us back to the "genius bar" - I find Apple so damn pretentious sometimes - and we are greeted by a surly college-aged kid, who has possibly realized that working at the Apple store over the holidays was an unwise decision.

My friend explains her computer is ready, he checks her name on the list, and explains that they have a different first name associated with the repair.  My friend clarifies that the computer was purchased by her mother, and that that would be her mother's name.  Kid replies: well do you have any ID with that name on you?  Now, logically, since she has just said this is her mother's name, A) if she did, would it be right to hand her the computer? And B) nobody carries their parents IDs around - but most of us can forge a signature on demand.


After he decides he can accept her word (and own ID) that yes, it is her computer, he trundles off to the back to get it.  He brings it out to us at the counter, pushes it towards her asking her to turn it on and check to make sure its ok, and then pulls out the invoice, which says Balance Due $982.16 at the bottom.  He then says, "there appears to be a thing here."  When we look at him blankly, he clarifies: "there appears to be a thing associated with the repair." My friend exceedingly politely points to instructions on the invoice that indicate she is not to be changed for the repair.  Kid is very flustered, tells us he has to speak to a manager, and snatches up the computer and walks away.  My friend has not even have the chance yet to verify the computer works, and this kid brings it with him like she's going to steal it?  And then he keeps leaving it in random places around the store, so we feel obligated to watch him to make sure noone else decides they'd like to steal it.

After 10 minutes of this nonsense, he brings back the computer, plus the old invoice with a receipt stapled to the back.  Again gives her the computer, and the invoice, and asks her to sign at the bottom.  This makes me very nervous, as the invoice still says $982.16 at the bottom, so I flip it over to check out what it says on the random receipt.  And the receipt on the back has a large voided item for the repair, but the balance due is still $10.

So we ask him about it.  Our conversation:

Us: What is this receipt?  Why is there still a balance due?
Him: Don't worry about it.
Us: Umm, no really what is this $10 about?
Him, now angry:  I said, don't worry about it.  It's for me.

At this point, my friend has still not managed to turn on the computer, but she has signed the invoice, so he snatches it away and puts it into a filing cabinet into the wall.  We stare at eachother, a bit stunned, and watch this guy just saunter away.  At which point we flag down the nearest staffmember and ask if they have a form we can fill out to give customer satisfaction feedback.

That produced immediate effect, but only on the two staffmembers who had been near us but not helping us...to their credit, they jumped on the fact that we were clearly unhappy and did their best to offer anything they could think of to deter us from sending the manager negative feedback.

But the piece de resistance: Chris becomes aware of the hubub, and comes over to have an additional conversation with my friend.  You would think this would be to make an effort to apologize.  You would be wrong.

Chris:  The $10 on the receipt is because I am only allowed to void 99% of a line item cost.  So I had the $10 leftover.
My friend:  Thank you - but you didn't have to be quite so rude about it before.
Chris: I wasn't being rude.
My friend: You definitely were.
Chris (the rest of this conversation is approximate, but he truly uttered these exact words):  Well whatever, I don't care.  We're worth like billions of dollars.

At which point he walked away, and my friend penned a brilliant letter of complaint to his manager that wasn't nearly as harsh as the one I would have written.

I have no words/typing of random letters to explain the indignant noises both of us were making on the bus back to our office, but we must have a sounded like a pair of drunk hippos.

But if you ever go to the Apple store in Georgetown, try to steer clear of Chris, because he will do his best to ruin your day.  Or at least your lunch break.