Work duels

Is it just me or does sending an email claiming "Peace - accept my apologies - sincerely sent" completely erroneous when i hear than an hour later the person who sent it is trash talking me two minutes ago? That doesn't fall into the category of a sincere apology in my book and i hope not in anyone else's.

This whole mess is over a insignificant phrase on that project I worked on. Right, the project that she REFUSED to have anything to do with until after the deadline had passed. And then she went berserk over something she wanted change.

Well, i'm done being brow beaten, bullied and being pulled into the middle of her attempt to skirt around what has already been set in stone. She can make up stickers for all i care to change the phrase.

She's pretty much running uphill without any bullets. I did this as a courtesy to the company. I volunteered my help. It's not like she can make me do it. So why would i go out of my way for someone who's being a SNARKY JUVENILE BRAT?

Holiday Plan of attack

Tidy is not a word you would use to describe my house. I'm an artist. I like to spread out and look at stuff. However with the holidays creeping up fast (and guests, and projects, and, and...and), I had roughly a week to get myself organized and get all those extra little clutter piles hidden away.

Obstacle 1: Cake making supplies EVERYWHERE.

An overflowing box shoved next to my tv, doesn't count as organized. Especially when half my utensils and tools are also strewn about my kitchen in various places. Some drawers won't close creating a hazardous walkway.

Solution! I got one of those slide under the bed rubber maid bins and amazingly, everything fits in there with room to spare. I even managed to get rid of several extra utensils and now all my drawers CLOSE! Happy day!

Obstacle 2: Extra art supplies with nowhere to go!

I keep my art supplies relatively neat and organized in my lower dresser drawers. However, they're stuffed to the brim and I bought more...cause i needed them!

Solution! Another of the slide under the bed bins proved to be the solution, which again gave me room to spare after cleaning out two drawers. Now i just have to clean up all the spilled glitter.

Obstacle 3: That wonderful task of Folding clothes has reared it's ugly head again. Remember how much I hate that chore? Aka, most useless task ever that must be done! Well, part of the cleaning involved laundry which is followed by folding.

Solution: I'm using the time to go through my clothing to find items I've never worn, and never intend to so i can get them out of my apartment and off to good will. Somehow there's immense satisfaction in stuffing a bunch of ill-fitting or misshapen clothing into garbage bags.

Obstacle 4: Finish Christmas Shopping

I really only have three people left on my list but they're the difficult ones to shop for. My brother, who recently has been giving me cookies, My mom, the techi geek for whom anything i want to buy is crazy expensive and My dad, who tells me every year "I don't want anything"

Solution:......Pending. But there is still time.

Obstacle 5: Getting my house super clean for guests

This one's pretty self explanatory. Not that my apartment is Dirty per se, but you can't operate on my counters like you can at my sister's place. But with so much to do, i found myself getting distracted and forgetting to finish cleaning areas.

Solution: Enlist Super Mom. Yes, the person who spent decades teaching me how to clean properly after her training in the military, has agreed to be roped in as a final sweep after I've done all the hard work. And she works for food :) Thank you mom.

Lock and load!

After 1 week with the Droid 2

Ok so just over a week ago, I got my new Droid 2. Here's how things are going so far:

Battery Verdict so far: not a problem.

• Even after almost a whole day playing angry birds and constantly turning it on to run it down as much as i could, the battery still had some charge to it, although about twenty minutes before i went to bed, it told me to plug in.
• I then spent a day calling anyone i could think of and talking for several hours. This ran down my battery more, but it still lasted beyond the 12 hours.
• I also tried just leaving it in screen off mode for an entire day and was surprised that the battery bar barely moved.

Aps:

• Google Maps seems convinced that my location is about a half mile from where it actually is at any given time, but i did some of the calibration tests and now it's finally got it right.
• I've almost beaten Angry Birds
• I've made good used of Package Buddy and Gas Buddy, Barcode scanner (which has already saved me 30$) and Ringo Lite which has given me back my standard ringtones and alerts.
• The FAST browser was put to use looking up online inventory of DSW to help out my friend Lindsey.

Other:

• The camera took some getting used to: You have to hold it and wait for it to adjust to the lighting to get a better picture. But it still worked capturing a Kodak moment with my dad this weekend.
• One time the phone froze completely, and the other, it decided to dial numbers but not let me talk to people or for them to talk to me. Both of these issues were resolved by following the salesman's advice of popping out the battery to reset the phone. It's not a huge inconvenience but it would be nice if i didn't need to do that.

My only gripe has little to do with the phone itself: The cover that I bought to protect my investment was broken within the week and is now being held on by double sided tape. That and the phone won't fit in the charger stand I got, with the back cover on. That has been annoying.

So far, that's not enough for me to give up on the phone. I can see hundreds of uses for this little guy. I just have to get used to some of it's quirks.

Also some other suggestions: DO NOT PAY 30$ for the chargers in Verizon stores! You can save 10$ by picking it up at Best Buy . If you go online: just the chord charger (not the multimedia station) is as little as 10$ not including shipping. Heck: On Amazon You can get a car charger, a wall charger and a media cable together for under 5$ (not including shipping). Thank you Boyfriend Jon for warning me away from these crazy prices.

To Scrooge or not to Scrooge

I've told stories about Christmas time that show just how un-Christmas-spirit-like people in general can get. Remembering stuff like the woman who pulled up on a curb to make her own parking spot, and the ungrateful terror of a child who made a fuss over a broken DS, along with the most recent woman who nearly T-boned me because she was determined to have a parking spot i had no interest in...made me rather ill tempered and turned me into a scrooge for many years. This year I'm trying to stay in a good frame of mind.

I pretty much have all my Christmas gifts planned out for family and Boyfriend Jon. Friends this year are getting cookies and other edible things because i need to be cheap. The girls i babysit, i have a rather amusing plan for them which i need to get their parents involved.

This year, I decided to do most of my shopping online to avoid the insane crush of anxious bodies in the stores. Venturing out seems to be too hazardous. Pretty much the only gift I'll have to go to the store for will be my dad. He hasn't been jokingly named "The princess and the pea" for nothing. So i'll actually need to feel that one before I buy it.

For a change this year, I'm not feeling a lot of Holiday stress. Just the normal "Ack! stuff to do!" kind of stress. Perhaps i'm still coming down off of the NaNo caffeine high, but I'm just not so worried about the holidays. Nope, my freaking out seems to be limited to the prospect that Boyfriend Jon's family will be meeting my family for the first time. Now not that that is something to be about. No rational reason for it, just normal instinct of: "(insert Darth Vader theme song here)"

Good, reassuring news, though: The opportunity at work I jumped on, proved very fruitful. Despite being cautioned by multiple people I just had an instinct that it would be a good idea to be anything BUT passive on.

Our lovely graphics designer at work unfortunately was temporarily laid off this summer and, for some corporate reason that makes no sense, my company couldn't hire her back on in time to do the annual calendar. When i found out that there most likely wasn't going to be a calendar, i got my gumption up and let the people in charge of the project know that I was sure i could do it. They took me up on my word we got to work. In a matter of a week and a half we finished and sent it off to the printers. The end result was amazing if i do say so myself.

This chance I took payed off very well in two ways. 1) I got the attention of the head honcho at my company for stepping up to the plate at the last minute as a pinch hitter and swinging a grand slam and 2) the people at my company now know what i'm capable of doing in graphics, which i actually enjoy. I've already been asked if i could help out with some other graphic based projects. YAY! Could this open more doors for me? I'm hopeful, but not depending on it.

Droid

I'm getting a Droid. As an avid sci fi nut, I can't help but think of how fun it would be to have my own R2D2 running around after me.

No, not that kind of droid, unfortunately. One of the new spiffy android style phones. Which is cool all on it's own, but kind of looses its zing when compared to the ultimate little droid.

Disclaimer: These are MY opinions, and things I've found. I'm receiving NO incentives for this post.

Yup, it's time for me to join the world of smartphones. Me, I don't intuitively understand everything about these cool little phones other that i can see a lot of uses for it in my life. That, and I've done a LOT of research.

Here's a pretty quick version of how I came to the conclusion to get a Motorolla Droid 2 when I made the decision to really look into it back in September.

Where my starting point was: I currently own a Samsung Alias 2. I got this phone because i started to avidly text with a variety of different people, including my sister.

Something you should know about my family, we have a lot of terms that we instinctively say in other languages. Words that won't go into auto fill easily. My old phone kept trying to make me say things which makes no sense. That's why i opted for a qwerty keyboard and never will go back. I also got the flip phone version because my hip joint is talented and has managed to unlock every candy bar style phone I've ever owned. One of those pocket phone calls was a call to Canada. Yeah, not a happy phone bill.

My Alias has served me well. I heard a lot of complaints about the battery life but since I plug my phone in to charge EVERY night, it honestly has not been an issue. In the rare occasions when i was not able to plug my phone in at night, i typically still had some charge the next day. I never failed to get a "woah" out of people who watched me open my phone in both ways. That was always amusing.

Why I decided to change: Ok, I'll be honest. Boyfriend Jon strikes again with another AWESOME gadget that i can't totally resist. He has the Palm Pre. And he was quick to show off all the things he can do with his phone; tethering, google maps with GPS, comparing prices online right there in the store, and then he introduced me to Angry Birds. That was my tipping point. I knew i was going to get a smart phone and soon.

Initial Research: I frequently walked into cell phone provider stores and started playing with the phones for about 20 minutes. Right now I'm a Verizon customer so i started away from there (Old Italian trick my dad taught me. Start elsewhere and then bring other vendor's offers back to the place you like and see if they'll beat it). This was back when the iPhone was all the rage.

TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT. I'm neither for nor against Apple products. If it does the job well, i don't care about brand. I own an iPod and haven't had any problems. But that doesn't mean I'm just going to go buy a iPhone.

Every single sales person at AT&T tried to get me to buy that phone. After playing with in store models, being show all the bells and whistles by salespeople, and then playing with a friends iPhone, here's what i think about the iPhone.

iPhone: With the iPhone, personally, I'm not a huge fan. I instantly took a disliking to the touch screen keyboard. That vibrating thing it does when you touch a key is a big deterrent to me. Same as on the Droid X. I also missed having a simple call, end call buttons which doubled as "recent calls" and "cancel everything" buttons. The screen felt cluttered, and i was annoyed by the fact that i couldn't talk on the phone and surf the web (if absolutely necessary) at the same time. I did like the two finger zoom, huge Ap store, and video capabilities.

Palm Pre: I briefly considered this phone because Boyfriend Jon already had it. However at the time, the slider keyboard version was not available at Verizon. They only had the Palm Pixie which reminded me of a blackberry; aka Not for Anne. The Palm Pre Plus came out more recently and i was definitely drawn to its compact size. Silly women's work pants with TINY pockets. However, the tiny keyboard wasn't working for me so well.

I also did a LOT of internet comparison. Some of the best sites i found were this:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/199844/iphone_4_vs_droid_x_a_headtohead_comparison.html

http://cell-phones.toptenreviews.com/smartphones/

http://mashable.com/2009/10/29/droid-vs-iphone/

Why I chose Droid 2: I chose the Droid 2 for me because of these reasons:

1. I wanted a phone with talk and same time surf capabilities
2. Large slide out tactile keyboard (big selling point with me)
3. Google Maps is a must for those rare occasions when i get myself horribly lost
4. touch screen with two finger zoom
5. Tethering capabilities
6. Larger screen (if i'm going to have a larger phone, I wanted a larger screen to go with it)
7. 1 stop away bus application
8. syncing capabilities with Google Calendar which i use more than Outlook
9. Bar code scanning
10. Angry Birds :) (Best money spent on a phone game)

Ok so the last four are Apps, but think of them as reasons why i'm upgrading from a standard phone. For now I'm looking forward to picking up my new toy tomorrow. I've heard bad things about batteries on the Droids (and every single other smart phone) so i'll post an update in a few weeks to see how its doing. Now to name it...hmmmm.

I welcome comments, but please keep things civil. Like I've said, these are my opinions only.