Someone buy me this door mat!

IP Relay

For anyone not familiar with IP Relay, it's a way that deaf people can still "talk" on the phone by IM'ing an IP Relay employee who tells me what the person's typing. Then I say something to the employee who types it to the person. It's genius. Except not. Keep in mind that there's like a 3 minute pause after everything that's said so that they can type back in forth. Here's how the one today went:

IP: This is Ron with IP Relay. Are you familiar with IP Relay?
Me: (sigh) yes.
IP: Good. I'll start talking as the person starts typing. (pause) Is this Dr. Grist's veterans office? Go ahead. (after you're done talking you have to say go ahead).
Me: Yes, go ahead.
IP: We have two cats, go ahead.
Me: (pause) Are they ok?
IP: Is that a "go ahead" or not a "go ahead"
Me: Go ahead.
IP: We have two cats with wet eyes, go ahead.
Me: Do you want to bring them in, go ahead?
IP: What's wrong with them, go ahead?
Me: It's hard to know without them coming in, go ahead.
IP: How much will it cost, go ahead.
Me: Again, it's hard to know until we know what's wrong, go ahead.
IP: What? go ahead.
Me: Bring them in, go ahead.
IP: Where? go ahead.

Twenty minutes later, I hung up. I think you get the idea.

Munchie!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN

YOU'VE MISSED SO MUCH!

Cocoa's owner FINALLY paid like a hundred bucks towards their bill (it only took them two months). So all that they had to do now was take their crazy dog home. That was like two weeks ago, and poor Cocoa is still here. At least we never showed up on the news like he promised we would.

Erin (the other receptionist) put in her notice a couple of weeks ago, gave me just enough time to get really freaked out about being the only receptionist, and then told us she wasn't leaving after all. Thank you, Lord.

I geeked out and put up a link to my calendar (to the right) so that everyone can see that I don't do anything besides work.

Our three year anniversary is a week from yesterday! THREE YEARS! Oh yeah. Yub it, Nance.

My neighbor goes to the vet, and she figured since she found a neighbor who also works at a vet, that I would be perfect to cat-sit for her. So I'm taking care of her cats while she's gone. They're awesome. There's this really cool persian one with more fur than a few normal cats put together. It looks like it's wearing really fluffy pajamas. I'll try and get a picture of it up here. It's named Munchie.

Thanks to The GIMP for the new header. If The GIMP were a person, I would write it love letters. And it would write back. Me and Ms. Gimp would be meant for each other.

The Photoshop Effect

Josh Groban Concert

The concert was last night at the Bilo Center. It was pretty awesome. Here's the summary...

We got there at like 7:45 so the opener had been playing for about 15 minutes. She was this crazy little African woman who danced around and sung like she didn't know she had a microphone. She was belting it.

She did her thing till around 8:15 and then took off so they could set up for Groban. He finally came out sometime around 8:40, complete with a full strings section, a set of drummers, a pianist, a keyboardist, and a guitar and bassist.

He ran through just about the whole Awake album and did a few songs (like "Remember When It Rained"...Nancy's favorite) from Closer. He sounded good. Said he had a frog in his throat and we heard him squeek a couple times but that was it.

There was also this insane violinist he had with him who played like the devil and looked like she was having an angry seizure while she was doing it. She played a solo at one point and then went into "Kashmere" by Led Zepp which just about rocked my face off.

He left after about an hour and a half and came back for an enchore of some foreign song I had never heard. Then he did a second encore of "You Raise Me Up" which had Nancy bawling. Then we went home.

More pictures:

More love from The GIMP

Click to view it large.

There goes my morning.

Crappy original:
After cropping and lots of saturation:
After some selective b&w:

Walla! Crappy pictures turned into only slightly mediocre picture. Title: "On The Other Side". Thank you for The GIMP.

Some crazy daredevil human glider...

A toast to Fig Newtons.

I love Fig Newtons.


Bet you didn't know that Fig Newtons date back to 1891 didja? They're named after Newton, Massachusetts. Originally created by the Kennedy Biscuit Company, the concept was sold to soon-to-be Nabisco in 1898.

Fig Newtons are delicious. What was once only a soft, cake-like pastry filled with fig jam has spread its wings! Variety! Nabisco now blesses us with Strawberry, Cherries 'n' Cheesecake, Caramel Apple, Raspberry, and Apple Newtons, along with the classic Fig. Way to evolve, Nabisco. Way to put the "new" in "newton".

Ever since the day I was born, I have eaten at least one hundred Fig Newtons daily. A Newton a day keeps the Doctor away. What a coinky-dink that Newtons share their name with Sir Isaac Newton, who was almost as much of a genius as Joshua Josephson, the Kennedy Biscuit Company worker who created the Fig Newton. Sounds like predestination to me.

Fig Newtons will go down in history as the snacker's snack.

Don't you want one now?

Special thanks to Nabisco for sponsoring this post.

Photo Shoot with Nancy

A Boy Scout's Dream

Here's the link.