local produce

Check this out, The eat well guide. "The Eat Well Guide is a free, online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants and online outlets in the US and Canada. Consumers simply enter their zip code to find local products that were raised sustainably, including no antibiotics, no added hormones, pasture raised, grass fed and organic."

Posted by jennj at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

the more you do the same thing over and over again the faster it gets

I am so f*ing glad that my multimedia software class is over. Today, while finishing up my final assignment, the software crashed to the point where it f*d up the file and kept looping on one frame. So, three times the charm. Yes, I had restart the project three times today. The second time I only had two text fields to add and it would have been finished. It crashed. I cried. So, the third time I decided to backup the file after I finished each frame. While I didn't have to use any of those backups, the peace of mind made it easier to focus. It only took me 2 hours to recreate the third time. Not bad, folks. Frustrating, yes. I have given my teacher an earful and I've written the software company letting them know that if they are interested in troubleshooting a horrible bug in their software, I have the defective file and am more than willing to send it to them.

I should finish my paper for my other course, but screw it. I'm a little exhausted from the crying and frustration of today.

Posted by jennj at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

happy happy

Yesterday was quite a day. We went to Blue Ginger for our anniversary dinner. It was freakin' incredible, like everyone (Hi Kris & Mike!) says and Ming was there!

Also, my company got FDA approval yesterday for a ground breaking drug. I have worked on that program pretty much the entire time I've been there and it's really satisfying to work on a drug and still be around when it gets approved (considering it can take 15 years..). That's a rare event, folks.

I'm making us a spicy chicken pasta dish right now while sipping some very good wine. This is making the work I'm doing on my final school assignment a little more palatable....life is good.

Posted by jennj at 06:53 PM | Comments (1)

*snort*

"....WASHINGTON - Seeking to placate a conservative base clamoring for tough enforcement of immigration laws, President Bush unveiled a new weapon in the war to defend the nation’s southern borders: giant, man-eating birds.

..."One of these birds can take out an entire El Camino," the President remarked, "and two should be able to handle all but the most packed flat-bed pickups and conversion vans."..."

HAHAHAHA. This guy always cracks me up.

And then his Top Ten Tuesday: What are we going to do about the high gas prices? Some of my favorites:

9) Research combustion engines that run on wishful thinking.
6) Remove environmental protections until people are too sick to drive.
2) Throw a lot of feces and see if it sticks.

Posted by jennj at 04:56 PM | Comments (0)

those wacky p*rn film plots, aw shucks

"Debbie Does Dallas" was a 1978 p*rn film about the misadventures of a young woman who becomes a cheerleader for a Taxas football team."

I want Reuters to describe all p*rn film plots from now on. "Deep Throat is an inspirational p*rn film about a young woman looking for a ten inch laryngoscope and the hijinks that ensue."

Posted by jennj at 10:09 AM | Comments (0)

smoochies!

Happy Five Year Anniversary, nbh!!

Eight total years together....

Posted by jennj at 10:00 AM | Comments (11)

wow

Reading the announcement about the Nintendo Wii made me think of a post by Ulrika awhile ago about the WA state tourism office campaign called "Say WA".

Weeee. Waaaah.

Wow.

Posted by jennj at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)

whaaa?

Some members in congress are proposing that tax payers receive a $100 rebate so that we can use it to pay for gasoline. Please don't. It will probably cost more to cut those checks than it's worth.

And did you see this?? I'm not even sure where to begin....who in their right mind would participate and who in their right mind would think this was a good idea to do at work, anyway? I understand that people are afraid of losing their jobs, but she quit, so she must not have been that afraid. And their reaction "It was all meant to be fun". Aiyee.

Posted by jennj at 10:46 AM | Comments (17)

bummed

I did not get to eat any mexican food while here. The mexican restaurant two blocks away from work is now a Benihana. So I had to settle for Italian and Chinese (which was horrendous) for lunch, respectively. And last night we went to a co-workers house and had gourmet pizza and hot fudge sundaes. *sigh* But it looks like I'll be coming back in June.....(and Schlitterbahn will be open then!!!).

Posted by jennj at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)

okay

Fox analyst named Bush press secretary.

My favorite part:
"....[Snow] wants to work with the White House press corps..."

"...Neither Bush nor Snow took questions from reporters during the brief announcement...."

Hahahaha. Maybe he'll start working with the press corp tomorrow....

Posted by jennj at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

san antonio, why do you hate me so?

What have I done to you, San Antonio?

This is now my third trip down here and the second time that my luggage was lost. I've traveled a lot. Foreign countries, all over the U.S. and I've never had my luggage lost. I fly to San Antonio and voila! it finally happens. Twice.

And never mind how much I hate Continental. Oh, Newark, you even manage to screw with me and I'm not even there! We were waiting for a plane to arrive from....Newark before we could leave Boston. We left 2 hours after the original time. Which means a totally different flight to connect to in Houston (hence my luggage loss).

And then the hotel assigns me a room on the first floor right outside the _bar_. Uh, I don't think so. I'm now in a room far away from the bar.

Next time? I'm flying JetBlue direct into Austin and driving down to San Antonio. No more connecting flights. No more freakin' Continental. I don't care that it's 45-60 minutes away. That's NOTHING for my peace of mind.

Now to go find my boss so we can go eat some Mexican food....

Posted by jennj at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)

bad hair day

I will never be so desperate for a haircut again. I will not wait until the last minute to schedule an appointment with my hairdresser. That way, if she calls in sick I still have at least a week to reschedule with HER instead of doing what I did today: seeing someone else at her salon.

I hate my haircut. Gone are the cute litte upturns in the back (she made it straight and even). Gone are the majority of layers.

*sigh*

Posted by jennj at 09:07 PM | Comments (2)

announcing!

Nbh's (& biz partner) second product is out on the market!!

It's a basic drawing program for the Macintosh called WouldjaDraw.

BUY! BUY! BUY!

Posted by jennj at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)

who ya gonna call?

Google maps put to good use: A map of where the Ghostbusters busted ghosts...hahahaha

"If someone asks if you're a god. You. Say. YES."

Posted by jennj at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)

*snort*

We've been enjoying watching Bones. The following dialogue (as best as my memory can recall) had me cracking up quite a bit:

Bones: "Voodoo is just as plausable as any other religion. What religion are you?"
Agent Booth: "Catholic. But we don't have zombies in my religion."
Bones: "After three days Jesus rose from the dead."
Agent Booth: "Uh.."

p.s. does anyone like the VW commercials showing people talking inanely and then BAM! they're in a car crash and the ad talks about the car's safety rating?? Dudes, it's creeping me out.

Posted by jennj at 09:56 PM | Comments (10)

i heart my ENT doctor

So, if you want to read about the latest adventures with my CPAP and the visit with the ENT today, click on the extended entry.

CPAP life - As you know, the first night I only wore it for 3 hours. Since then I've managed to wear it all night. I've got some adjustments to make and have a red mark on the bridge of my nose (which I'm finding some solutions to fix), but otherwise, I can tell that my sleep has improved. Nbh's sleep has improved also - we didn't realize just how much it had been affecting him too. And he says I've completely stopped snoring. Anyway, I'm making progress and feeling better about the thing all the time. Now if only my eye mask would arrive, I'd be golden.

After I saw the ENT doc today, I was crying. Tears of relief and joy, folks. Check this out: He can fix my mouth breathing. I'm a mouth breather when I sleep. He can fix my nose/sinus cavity/something and make it so that more air gets through my nose and then I won't have the reflex that kicks in and makes me breathe through my mouth while I sleep!!!! Holy sh*t, dudes. Sign. Me. Up.

Then, he can remove my uvula (which is slightly bigger than normal) and do a tongue ablation (this is a new procedure that's only been done by him in the past 4.5 years - and he's one of the leaders on it). These two things combined should make it so that I won't have to wear my CPAP _all the time_ and fix most of the snoring!! *blink*

I love the times we live in. Except for the removal of the uvula these other things haven't even been around so I couldn't even have done them 10 or more years ago. There is hope. In the meantime, I'm still cautious about the whole thing and still working on accepting that I'll have to use the CPAP for the rest of my life. No sense counting my chickens before they're hatched.

Posted by jennj at 04:54 PM | Comments (7)

little annoyances

The last thing I do before I head out the door to catch the commuter rail is wash my glasses. They broke. They broke in a way that only a soldering iron would fix. I am deficient in owning a soldering iron for some reason. Nor do I have a hot glue gun, which I briefly considered as an alternative but dismissed due to lack of availability. The thing is, the glasses I've been wearing are the backups and I don't have another backup that is suitable to wear in public. So, I called in and said I'm working from home so that I could go and see the optometrist. I now have a new pair of glasses that aren't too different from the old, except they are blue. I am also having the old ones soldered so that I have a backup in case this happens again on a day I really, really need to be in the office.

And then as I was making my plans for my last minute trip to San Antonio next week (Fiesta week!!), I was quoted some unsavory flight times, airlines I hate and flight costs. I actually picked a flight that gets me home around 10:30p.m. on Wednesday because I would rather get in late than fly through Newark ever again. Yes, folks, I had an option to get home around 8p.m., but said no because I would have to change flights in Newark. Sad, I know, but since I would have only 45 minutes to change planes, and I have no idea if I'd have to go to a different terminal, I'm not taking any chances. See this post for an explanation.

And all day Raj has been trying to sit right on my laptop as I work. Sometimes it's cute, but when he DIVES for the keyboard and I barely have time to react, it's annoying.

This is what would make him happy, but because it would not make my boss happy (re: loss of productivity), he cannot have it.

Posted by jennj at 04:34 PM | Comments (2)

gnomes!

Here's a film that I can get into: Gnomeo and Juliet. Plot summary: Romance blooms between indoor and outdoor garden gnomes. Suh-weet.

Posted by jennj at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)

survey

Nbh and I have been discussing the whole tomcruiseisnuts thing. He is of a mind that if it's possible, he'll avoid Tom Cruise movies for awhile. I have not made up my mind. I kinda want to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman in MI3 (I just won't go opening weekend, ok?). I saw the following quote and decided it was time for a poll. "We haven't told anybody," says Cruise. "It's either gonna be a boy or a girl." Uh, yeah.

Posted by jennj at 05:55 PM | Comments (12)

lovely day for a marathon

Looks like it's not too hot or too cold. Hope that's good news for the marathoners. We live two blocks from the marathon route in Natick and between the hours of like 10 and 4 you might as well forget about reaching our house or going outside except to walk to the route and cheer people on. So, good luck to the marathoners today and especially a co-worker, Dennis, who is running it for the first time!

Posted by jennj at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

skool

I try to check out the penguin cam once a day. The other day when I looked at it, I thought of the school yard:

Posted by jennj at 06:56 PM | Comments (4)

good heavens

Now this is an eye mask.

I found one that I think will work and ordered it. Check it out. It's called the TranquilEyes. *snort* I got the sage color, natch.

Posted by jennj at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)

first night

Last night was so-so. I ended up wearing the thing for about three hours and then took it off. What was really weird is that I was very, very tired when I got up. So I slept in until 8 and then called into work and said I'd be working from home today and/or taking the afternoon off.

Why was I so tired? Turns out there's this thing called REM rebound. See, my REM sleep has been so starved for so long that at the beginning of this journey it hogs all the sleep to feed itself. So to speak. Stingy REM.

I really wanted this to be one of those experiences some people have talked about where it's so positive the first night. It wasn't bad, as the mask is a good fit, so I'm lucky there. But it wasn't spectacular, either. Nbh knew I wasn't feeling so good about it so he suggested an IKEA trip to lift my spirits. We have been wanting a new piece of furniture for our kitchen, so it was a good time to go. I love the IKEA. I love it gooood.

Now I need to just find an eye mask that will work with the device....hmm...not sure where I can find non-perfumed eye masks that fit my criteria. We shall see.

p.s. thanks for all the kind words. Hugs and smoochies.

Posted by jennj at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

and so it goes....

There are five stages to grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It seems fitting to use the term grieving with regards to using a CPAP device for sleeping.

For the rest of my life I will: have to take care of a medical device that while simple has certain rules with regards to maintenance. Have to sleep with a darth vadar mask not only in my home but in hotel rooms and other people's homes. Have to purchase distilled water (for the humidifier) and replace it _every_ night (Never mind figuring out getting distilled water when on a long trip to a foreign country - I can use regular water, so a short trip would be fine, but...). Never mind the next few months as I get acclimated to the device (god, I hope I can acclimate and not be in a hell situation like I've been reading about others in online forums). Extra carry-on inconvience on the airplane. This is a change. This is a lifestyle change. It's not a "rub some ointment on it when it flares up" solution. So, therefore, I am grieving for what used to be - freedom from a mask while I sleep.

Where am I right now? Denial has been strong in me for the past week. "Oh, this is going to be GREAT! I'm just going to get a better quality of life and who knows what's in store for me! I can't wait to get the machine and just get started!" or "If I lose weight and the ENT does some miracle surgery maybe I won't need the CPAP anymore!" I believe that's bargaining.

But last night anger and depression hit. See, my appointment to get the machine, mask and talk to the therapist about using the device was this morning. And last night, I went surfing around CPAP equipment sites and got freaked out at the weird, S&M like masks. And I got depressed. Holy shit it's a lot of covering over my whole head. God they're ugly. What are people going to think of me when they see this apparatus? What do people think of me who know what these things look like? A freak? Never mind the thoughts going through my head about nbh's reaction.

My guy, Jim, showed up this morning with my device. I have to admit, I was relieved. It's compact and kinda cute (purple and silver). And the mask that he gave me? Not as invasive or big as the one that I had to put on for the sleep study or that I saw on the web last night. It's actually got dark blue straps and the clasps are a dark teal. Nice color combination. This might work.

After he left, I cried in nbh's shoulders (sorry about the snot, dude). And cried. And cried. Why me?

So I went out this afternoon (it's absolutely georgous out, about 75 degrees and sunny) and bought two big bottles of distilled water. I'm going to ask nbh to help me clear off the night stand and make sure that the power cord can make it to the power strip - We have an old house and there aren't that many power outlets. And tonight, I guess I'll give this thing a try.

I am not in the acceptance phase. In case it's not clear. But I think with the right attitude and support, I'll get there.

Posted by jennj at 03:15 PM | Comments (5)

check this fitness "tool" out

I've started going back to the gym (nbh too!).

Anyway, I just stumbled across this site: podfitness.com

It's a personal trainer on your ipod using your music. Unfortunately, they don't have it for the Mac just yet. "Sometime in April". When they do, I think I'll try it out (3-day free trial). I'll let you know how it goes. Or, if any of you try it out before me, lemme know.

Posted by jennj at 05:16 PM | Comments (2)

i hate crappy software

So yesterday I'm working on one of my assignments which involves using a crappy piece of multimedia software called EZedia. They're tech support is fabulous, but the product leaves a LOT to be desired. For example, there are no guides/grid to help me position boxes horizontally or vertically in order to make sure things are aligned properly. Jeebus. But what do you expect from a $30 piece of software?

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on a vocabulary builder. I pick nine words and their definitions, they flash up on the screen and then there's a test. I'm getting all clever and cute and decide to use words from the urban dictionary. I spend about 45 minutes finding the appropriate words and definitions and plug them in. When I get to the part of the design where I build the tests (present the word and give three options to choose for the definition) and the stupid object I have to use _cannot resize to handle definitions that are like, more than four words_. ARRGGGHHH. So now? With a deadline of today? I'm opening up my dictionary and just finding random words that have short definitions. So, no cleverness. No hipness. No theme. Screw it. Stupid software. Yes, I thought about shortening the urban dictionary definitions, but after 30 minutes, I just gave up cause only one (which I kept) fit.

Posted by jennj at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

sleepless in natick

This post is about the results of my sleep study. For those that don't want to read about it, don't click on the extended entry.

I've got sleep apnea. Actually, I had more hypopnea episodes than apnea episodes, it's just easier for me to say. How bad is it? Well, apparently anything above 30 episodes per hour is considered severe. Me? 96 episodes per hour. 96. Holy sh*t, dude. I have a copy of the sleep study, it's fascinating to see the recording of what positions that I slept in over the night...I prefer my left side, btw. Oh and here's another interesting thing: I have a 63% sleep efficiency. In other words, I'm functioning on a little over half of my sleep time.

I've been going through a lot of emotions. Depression that this is another f*king thing I have to deal with in my alredy stressful life. Depression as to how this is going to affect our bed (nbh came with me to the visit with the neurologist). Hopeful cause as I read up on things there could be some considerable improvement to quality of life. Depression that I'm going to have to sleep with a CPAP device and look and sound like Darth Vader. I've decided if there's any way I can put stickers on it or anything to make it less weird, I'm gonna do it. It's going to be hard to come to terms with having to use this device. I may also have to have something that covers my mouth. When they woke me up part way through the sleep study and put a CPAP on me that also covered the mouth I felt _very_ claustrophobic. I hated it.

The neurologist at first mentioned a number of options, including surgery, but she said that the CPAP should be tried first. However, after she examined my nasal passages and stuff, she is referring me to an ENT also. Surgery and CPAP, combined, should get the number down better than just the CPAP, but it's no cure. There is no cure. Did you know that CPAP has only been around since 1981? We live in amazing times.

The next few months are going to be quite a ride as I get the CPAP device integrated into my sleep and the hopeful improvements I should see. I'm scared. Depressed. Hopeful. Curious. Mad. I mean, seriously, it can _only_ get better. I mean, dudes, those of you who have shared a room with me? Check it out: My snoring lessened considerably after they put that CPAP device on me during the sleep study. :-)

Posted by jennj at 09:41 PM | Comments (9)

bday

Yesterday was a good bday. My boss sprung my performance review on me. Hmm. Perf. review on my birthday. Well, what the heck. He'd already rescheduled twice. Good news: three years in a row of a most excellent review. My boss gives great bday gifts.....

Posted by jennj at 08:05 PM | Comments (5)

bellweathers....

So, who was the bellweather that started the whole illegal immigration debate? Where did this sh*t come from and why is it so important now?

And Fareed Zakaria I think has it right:

Compared with every other country in the world, America does immigration superbly. Do we really want to junk that for the French approach?

Posted by jennj at 07:19 PM | Comments (19)

easter is coming

Easter dinner with the family and not sure what drinks to serve? Try these, peep drinks. I don't really care for peeps, actually. But these are cute.

Posted by jennj at 07:52 PM | Comments (6)