step away from the hand eating machine

Yes, I'm blogging from work; yes, this is not an appropriate use of work time except I'm waiting for about 3 different things to finish and can't handle anymore tasks simultaneously in the workspace of my brain.

So, as I mentioned earlier I made my decision about which team to work for, and I find it absolutely fascinating but maybe that's just the geekette in me.

I'm getting out of the world of placing an order (cart, checkout, etc) to move to the world of fulfilling an order. In specific, I'm writing software designed to make everything flow through the systems and get from the people picking the stuff off the shelves out the door to the trucks waiting to deliver it to our wonderful customers. In other words: packing.

It's completely different compared to what I've spent the past 2+ years of my career here doing and I figured I'd go for it. I mean, who doesn't want to travel to Kentucky or Nevada or Tokyo to see different fulfillment centers and look at machines and try them out? I know I certainly wanna see how factories process boxes and talk about glue temperatures in meetings and how to regulate them via software. I really do find the entire process management aspect fascinating.

So it's not something you can see anymore like when I setup the messages and shut off ordering to Louisianna after Hurricane Katrina on the customer facing website, but every day software that I write will go into effect making sure our boxes are packed with the right stuff on time.

But if we get your shrinkwrap wrong, or we put things in way too big of a box, or give you the wrong packing slip - please, for the love of Yvette - don't let me know unless we do it repeatedly! I'm not the one who's there getting my hands stuck in machines.

The way I ended my lunch meeting with my manager's manager today was with her saying "oh, good, then you know how to deal with childlike people who are tempted to stick their fingers in the electrical outlets to see if they're working." Bloody brilliant!

how to focus on food for 7.5 hours straight

Apparently it's impossible to pick your own apples in the state of Washington which seems mildly wrong considering the location - but it did make for a good adventure yesterday. I went out with some friends thinking that the farm that said you could pick apples would let you pick apples - they did, from a bin.

So instead we went into their lil' Ma 'n' Pa garden and did some good old veggie picking: string beans, purple broccoli, some random radish, purple potatos, garlic and carrots. We also went bin diving for some apples. And then on the way home, grab some chicken and the makings for the pie crust, etc.

Then you go home and wash, chop, stir, peel, boil, bake, talk about baking and cooking, stir, fry, sautee, steam, etc. And eventually you end up with the most sinfully delicious dinner ever followed by one of the best apple pies ever.

I have never seen that many purple veggies - the potatos and cauliflower were fascinating to me especially since they became more purple as they were cooked. And I like cauliflower, I go through minor stages of cauliflower lust - however, this is beyond the wonderfulness of white cauliflower since there's just so much more yummy flavor.

Yum. So now I'm sitting here having just eaten a slice of apple pie for breakfast, and it's utterly delcious. And what do people do when they realize they have an entire second pie and have been talking about food for over 7 hours? They drink tea and plan the next night's dinner. So tonight we're having pie for dessert, however, we're having some combo of Indian food for dindin which we're cooking beforehand.

Here's my ode to food. Food is good.

mundane life

So, I think I'm good at causing whirlwinds whereever I go. I never seem to be bored. Then again, most people would call my average Saturday or Sunday (sometimes both) boring when I do nothing. Perhaps this is because I just don't seem to know how to not be busy or try new things.

Now that I've recovered from the robbery - new laptop for home and for work, found my old craptastic digicam which is fine now that I'm back in the States, and am slowly making up a wishlist of media stuff and other little things I lost that I'd actually like back - well, things are still busy.

Between running around with friends like a madwoman, being a bad person and forgetting a friend's birthday, reading on the beach... and finding a new job!!! Well, yeah, excitement abounds.

I found a new position within my current company that I'm attempting to get. But corporate politics are a rather entertaining thing. Who won't step on whose toes; a manager (my manager's manager) coordinating the move for me who doesn't know me at all since he started while I was in Dublin; a crapload of possibilities for lil' moi who's terrible at making decisions; people pestering me about what's next. Let's just say that it's been fun (although my bladder told me to stop getting free coffee offa these people finally!) and I've learned a lot about the company - and frankly, it does my ego good - but sheeshush people. Hoops are everywhere and they're color coded but someone's dog ate the key.

So I'm just pottering along telling the truth in a straight forward manner that catches some people offguard (manager's manager) and now that I've decided what I want, well, I think I can certify myself as being clinically an insane masochist. I think I've said this before about a ton of things - but rather than going for the uber-easy team (one I'm practically been on before, it just has a new manager), or the somewhat easy team (the one I've worked with a lot on various projects - just not directly on their software), I'm going with the team where I get to start my connections from scratch. Oh yes, I've decided that I want "a challenge". Now, Yvette, let me remind you of all the other challenges you've undertaken in your life: college, move to MD, move to WA, move to Ireland, Semester at Sea, traveling alone in France, training an entire team of people technically senior to me in general tech experience, teaching.. but nooooo - apparently you're still young and stupid and want another challenge.

So here's to my new challenge. It's not official yet - but let's just say that I think that when someone mentioned going to a meeting about glue, I was sold. That's just too funny. "What'd you do today Yvette?" "Talked about the proper temperature for glue" Yeah. That's just so wrong.

some people think the states are so safe...

So I've been told so many times that people are glad I'm back in the states because the states are so safe. I have proof otherwise.

This past holiday weekend - my first spent in Seattle - the house that I rent with 2 of my friends was robbed. One of my roomies was even home when it happened and had no idea, but thankfully he's ok.

So, petty crime and possibly even dangerous crime occurs everywhere. I'm lucky that this time it was petty crime (granted, it's gonna cost me a ton - they got 2 laptops and a camera as the main stuff, and then some other things like DVDs and CDs of mine). I'm lucky that no one was hurt, but let's say that it makes you question your safety anywhere.

Y'know, I was never of the mind that I'm safer in the States. You're not particularly safe anywhere if you don't take the proper precautions. And I have proof. I hadn't been in the states for 14 days when this happened.

So yeah, I'm at a loss for what happened and I'll never get my stuff back in all likelihood.

I'm ok - my roommates are ok. Yeah, I'm a little spooked and it's hard to adjust even though I got a new toy (new laptop - yum). But there's so much paperwork, so many questions, so much to think about - so yeah - it's not done processing in my head, but I'm here and I'm ok. Just thought I'd share a bit.