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May 2004 ArchiveSaturday, May 29, 2004Ubiquitous Email Questionnaires1 What is your full name? Brandy Jean Agerbeck 2 What colour pants are you wearing? Coincidentally, jeans. 3 What are you listening to right now? On the Media on NPR 4 What are the last 2 digits of your phone number? 56 - same as Ross who sent to email to me. 5 What was the last thing you ate? Instant Lunch Noodles (waiting for a late client check) 6 If you were a crayon what colour would you be? Red-orange. 7 How is the weather right now? Kinda gray. Quietly raining earlier as I read in bed. 8 Last person you talked to on the phone? Jim, making plans for his birthday dinner tonight. 9 First thing you notice about the opposite sex is... I dunno, I guess most consistently first is facial expression, reading personaliy and demeanor behind the face. 10 Do you like the person who sent this to you? Indeed! I miss Ross. 11 How are you today? The aforementioned late client check was suppose to be overnighted Thursday. Still on check. So, with the holiday weekend, I'll be waiting several more days. No money. Don't want to use credit cards that I'm sloooowly paying off. Bills to pay. Even though I'm working more and more, I still seem to be perpetually broke. In a word - frustrated. 12 Favourite (non- alcohol) drink? Mountain Dew Code Red? Tastes like a Shirley Temple. 13 Favourite alcoholic drink? N/A 14 Favourite sports? N/A 15 Hair colour? Naturally, a mousy light brown. Currently, black, which I'm enjoying a lot. 16 Eye colour? Hazel. The black hair is bringing out the green, which is lovely. 17 Do you wear contacts? No 18 Siblings? One younger sis, Burgundy. 19 Favourite month? October 20 Favourite food? Edemame 21 Last movie you watched? Modesty Blaise 22 Favorite Day of the year? My birthday, beause I've learned to celebrate it by doing absolutely no work and doing whatever I want. 23 Are you too shy to ask someone out? Not shy enough. I am usually the asker and the scare-r away-er. Men say they like being asked out, but that hasn't been my experience. I'm resilient and independent enough that I don't mind them saying no, but most act too wierd to be around anymore. Phooey. 24 Favourite season? Autumn. 25 Hugs or Kisses? I get a heckuva alot more hugs than kisses, so I'll say hugs. 26 Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla. Unless it's dirt that's so dark it tastes like dirt. [skipped a few about the email itself] 30 What books are you reading? Just finished Rule No. 5: No Sex on the Bus by Brian Thacker. Memoirs of a European tour guide. Lots of drinking and "bonking" with some very funny moments and a some salient travel points. I got it at the Savvy Traveler, downtown Chicago. Been escaping with some serious armchair travelling these days. And although drunken and sex-filled tours aren't my preferred mode of travel, it was entertaining. Next is a book from the library about geography. 31 Whats on your mouse pad? Concentric yellow green ovals with matching coaster - from the Container Store ages ago. 32 Favorite board game? Rail Barons. 33 What did you do last night? Threw a little pity party from lack of client check, then thoroughly escaped day dreaming and researching the year long trip around Europe I'll take someday. 34 Favourite smells? Ylang ylang, lemon, grapefruit 35 Can you touch your nose with your tongue? No. 36 Favorite flower? Tulips. Or big, bright Gerber Daisies. 37 What's the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? How can I sleep longer? I'm often woken up by the blinding morning sun, so I curl up away from it. 38 Favourite web site? Besides my own - IMDB.com or Netflix.com 39 What is the one thing you have always wanted to do? Know 5 languages or more. 40 What song can you always listen to no matter what? Sir Duke - Stevie Wonder posted on 5/29/2004 03:11:19 PM Wednesday, May 26, 2004Eng Lit 101Ok, want to see how unread I am? A friend posted this to her Live Journal with the instructions to bold what you've read. So, here goes: Beowulf Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart Agee, James - A Death in the Family Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March Brontė, Charlotte - Jane Eyre Brontė, Emily - Wuthering Heights Camus, Albert - The Stranger Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard Chopin, Kate - The Awakening Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage Dante - Inferno de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying* Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury* Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust Golding, William - Lord of the Flies Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter Heller, Joseph - Catch 22 Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms* Homer - The Iliad Homer - The Odyssey Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt London, Jack - The Call of the Wild Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain Marquez, Gabriel Garcķa - One Hundred Years of Solitude Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener Melville, Herman - Moby Dick Miller, Arthur - The Crucible Morrison, Toni - Beloved O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night Orwell, George - Animal Farm Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49 Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye Shakespeare, William - Hamlet Shakespeare, William - Macbeth Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Sophocles - Antigone Sophocles - Oedipus Rex Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair Thoreau, Henry David - Walden Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Voltaire - Candide Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five Walker, Alice - The Color Purple Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse Wright, Richard - Native Son * My high school English teacher was darn fond of Faulkner and Hemingway, but we didn't read these. I felt like we talked about Faulkner's Barn Burning for months. Guh. I just don't have any attention span for fiction. Never have. I'm a non-fiction kind of gal. I'd rather be learning something than be entertained or escape with fiction. Sure, I'll escape with films - but those are 90 minute doses and I can make stuff while I watch. posted on 5/26/2004 11:25:39 AM Friday, May 21, 2004 Lillian Durand at 30,000 feet for the first time A Milestone for Lilli, Diane and Me I was in Pittsburgh the past couple days working with and for my friend and colleague Diane Durand. She headed back to Chicago with me to meet up with her hubby Peter, also my friend and colleague, to visit family in Chicagoland. This was Lillian's, their daughter's, first flight at three months old. Not only did Diane get on my flight on standby, but there were open seats that allowed the man sitting next to us to sit in the row behind us, giving us the row to take over. Things were looking good. But because the Chicago weather is still very stormy, we were delayed four hours. Thankfully, some of that was going back to the gate, so Diane and I could get lunch. Lilli was a super trooper through all of it. Folks around us were apprehensive seeing a baby board near them. She hardly made a peep. She was awake a bit and vocal in a happy way, and only cried once for maybe two minutes. So, all of our first babied flight was a successful one. The only trauma was getting off the plane at O'Hare were the airport was completely packed with surly people. Diane felt a bit overwhelmed by all of the humanity. And we had the tried feeling of being nearly at our destination, versus the anxious anticipation of all the people at the gates, trying to get where they are going. Now I'm looking forward to a weekend of watching Netflix movies and doing nothing. I haven't had a truly slothful weekend in months. The weather report looks like storms all weekend. I'll be happy to be here, but also thinking about the insanity at O'Hare as they try to get people where they are going despite the weather. posted on 5/21/2004 05:30:11 PM Tuesday, May 11, 2004Road Warrior or Road Whipped?I like traveling. I like the limbo of trains and planes and buses. I've got business travel down to a pretty sedate science. And then I went to Boston. Yesterday afternoon - I can't believe it was yesterday afternoon - I headed early to the airport. I've been cutting my arrivals close, so I allowed loads of time. I got to O'Hare in time to get on an earlier flight. I was on the 3:38 flight, that was running late. Okay, still had me on the plane before my original flight. We boarded. We got on the tarmac. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. The captain told us that because of weather, Eastbound flights were restricted. Assuming that this was going to be a quick 2 hour flight, I packed one book that ended up not holding my attention and NO cd player. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. The captain told us we were second in line to take off. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. The captain told us that a tornado was spotted 20 miles from the airport and we were going back to the gate. Wow. 2 and a half hours on the runway. I was happy to go to the gate, because it meant I bought and ate food and bought candy and magazines to entertain myself. An hour later, we boarded again. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. We moved a little. We waited. Finally, a man sitting behind us said, "Are we driving to Boston?" I consumed the Martha Stewart Living in 15 minutes. Too little to read. Jane magazine was filled with lots of tiny (I'm talking 6 point font) blurbs to read. Oh, and I'm in a middle seat. I lost track of time because I was trying not to stew, but we sat on the plane for at least another two hours before we... Took off. There was applause. After a flight just over two hours long, we touched down at Logan at 1:09 AM. You heard me right, 1:09 AM. I was advised to get a shuttle to my hotel in Newton, but I figured it was too late. The shuttle was $16. My cab was FIFTY. Either that shuttle was a bargain or I got royally screwed by my cabbie. Unfortunately, at that point I was leaning towards the latter. I get to my hotel at 2 AM. Very, very glad that I don't have to be "on" for my very focused graphic facilitation work until the afternoon. But I still needed to be downstairs to meet the woman coordinating the event by 7 AM. The frickin' numskulls at the hotel give me room number 670, out of SEVENTY rooms on the floor. Yep, I get in at 2 AM bemoaning to the front desk clerk about the tornado in Chicago and they give me the VERY LAST room at the end of TWO hallways. Idiots. I'm pissed off enough by the time I get to my room that I am just too angry to shower. Normally, I would shower to relax and sleep better. But I knew that in my state I'd be like a cranky cat to get wet and it wouldn't relax me in the slightest. Therefore, I set my alarm for 6 AM and got to sleep at 2:30 AM. Yep, a resounding 3.5 hours sleep. I wake up and look like hell. My eyes are red. I shower. I get dressed. I meet the woman organizing my event. She's lovely to work with and gives me an escape clause for the morning. Given that I'm facilitating/graphic facilitating the afternoon executive breakout group, I feel I need to listen to the state of the company speech by the CEO and the future of the industry speech by the co-founder. Both are good speakers, but I am barely keeping my eyelids aloft by the end of it. I duck out during the case study (too detailed and specific to be a loss for the strategy session later) and get nearly two more hours sleep. Mercifully, I wake up a couple times before my alarm, which means I feel like I got bonus sleep. I'm feeling more human. I facilitate the afternoon session, but it's heavy on the drawing very light on the talk. I introduced myself as the quietest facilitator they'll ever meet. The conversation is interesting and I captured it well, though I was pretty much a graphic facilitator, not a facilitator. With no previous client or industry detail, it's tough to stop and ask leading questions. Thankfully, the woman running the event, the two aforementioned speakers and a couple industry analysts kept the conversation brisk. And I think I did a good job capturing the concepts and progress of the conversation. 7 foamcore boards fulls in 2.5 hours. Lots of content. I had to hightail it out of there and said goodbye unceremoniously, snapping digital photos. The shuttle was 45 minutes late. I had plenty of time, but it put me on edge. I wanted an uneventful flight home. I got to the airport and as I was self-checking-in a woman rudely interrupted me, and told me that since I was going to Chicago I had to go to the counter, that there were delays. I shoulders sank and I tried not to anticipate anything. It took a lot of thought to concentrate and confirm that the plane I was stuck on was indeed just last night. They were still trying to catch up from the Chicago delays last night. Another woman put me on an earlier flight. Yeah, I've heard that before. We were sitting on the runway again, because of weather in Chicago again, but this time it was an hour. I tried to suppress my whininess about wanting to be home. I was in an aisle seat and I made my way through the flight resting and reading Business Week (for the not too fascinating IDEO article) and Metropolitan Home (lots of gorgeous stuff to look at). The taxi line was a block long, but moved quickly. My cabbie was a moron and missed my exit and clearly had no idea where he was going. He didn't stop the meter and was totally oblivious. For the first time ever, I underpaid a cabbie and told him why. The only bright spot was the warm, night air hitting my face in the back seat and the dice covers on the locks. I got home and my apartment was the same mess I left it 34 hours earlier. My travel luck is pretty good, but that itinerary was a doozy. Lessons learned/confirmed: [ ] Wear black. I knocked over my empty can of bloody mary mix and the last drops of it fell down my pant leg. I thought I was safe. [ ] Bloody mary mix doesn't soak into rayon, it sits on top looking like vomit. [ ] Pack light always. Never check bags. Amen, amen, amen. [ ] But I did decided to trade my smallish duffle for a medium backpack - big enough to carry my toolbox of graphic facilitation supplies but considerably smaller than my big mama travel pack. I think I've already found just the ticket on eBags -- [ ] Backpacks are my best friend. I hate being lopsided and love having my gear behind me. [ ] Dansko clogs are not only great for standing work, they are darn fast and easy to take on and off for security. Granted, if not for the staples, I wouldn't have to take them off, but still they are fast and easy. [ ] Don't worry about something until you truly have to worry when it comes to traveling. I didn't let me mind eat itself contemplating a cancelled flight. The flight was nine hours later, but not cancelled. [ ] No matter how short the flight, bring entertainment just in case. [ ] Window seat, window seat, window seat. Enough. That's enough commentary. It's done. I'm home. I am very deservedly sleeping in tomorrow morning! posted on 5/11/2004 10:46:05 PM Monday, May 10, 2004Be It Ever So Humble...I am so glad my friend Anne told me about the documentary Home Movie. It was delightful. It's about 5 very unique houses and their owners. It's the kind of movie I recommend knowing next-to-nothing. Just go rent it. Go now! But I will say, the man on the houseboat, Bill Tregel could be my father's Cajun twin. I like Bill's philosophy, "Everything in life is hard, but it's only as hard as you make it, ya know?" And I totally appreciate his choice in stirring implement when he was boiling a big pot of crabs - a hockey stick. And he obviously is his father's son. His father, "Papa Gator," said about work, "We don't have no one working here. Whatever we do, we get done. but you'll be surprised how much you will do in a day when you get sit and do it." La-la-love it. These houses totally fall under on of my all-time favorite categories - Amazing Places of Singular Vision: Ella's Deli The Forevertron House on the Rock The Madonna Inn Musee Mechanique Museum of Jurassic Technology Weeki Wachee Springs And on a related note, behold the Ball of Paint! posted on 5/10/2004 11:10:26 AM Friday, May 07, 2004Phones.I love all technology but phones. If you call my voicemail, I suggest emailing me instead. It's the introverted side of me. I want to deal with communicating on my own terms in my own time. And while I dislike talking on phones, I loathe cell phones. Living in the city, they are ubiquitous. I am trying to learn to not get completely riled up by numbskulls on their little talky boxes on the trains, on the street, in restuarants. Talking too loud and talking about either nothing, or crap too personal it makes you embarrassed for them. I wish I could remember the interview I heard with a man (likely on NPR or Charlie Rose) that pointed out the more accessible, easier and cheaper the communication tools, the less we say. When you handed a man on horseback a letter, you said something, because you never knew if it would make it's destination and the journey to the recipient was really something. It's obvious from the blather overheard that cell phones are far too accessible, easy and cheap. And those friggin' ringtones? Gah. I hold on to a delusion that cell phones are a fad and that people are going to tire of them and that my ride on the train will get quieter again. That being said, I bought a cell phone yesterday. Wait. Lemme explain. I bought a pre-paid Virgin Mobile cell phone to ONLY use with clients when I travel. I'm traveling more and public phones are going the way of the dinosaur, so making due with my calling card, isn't working. Thus the phone. And those friggin' ringtones? After hearing the either ultracheesy or amazingly jarring standard tones on the phone, I went on Virgin Mobile's site and started listening to ringtones. It was a surprisingly entertainly endeavor. Early on I found my choice, but I kept looking and listening for at least a half hour. It was an interesting decision making process. It had to be something I liked, something non-jarring for my phone phobic nerves. I coulda went for a laugh or an ironic choice, but this phone isn't going to ring in front of people who know me enough to be funny to anyone but me. And since this was a phone that could ring in front of clients, I didn't want anything that made me look like knob. Songs that make good ringtones: Cake's The Distance, Squirrel Nut Zipper's Hell, The Breeder's Cannonball, Aha's Take on Me, The Beatles Across the Universe, The Kinks' All of the Day and All of the Night. Ringtones who's presence made me laugh really, really hard: The Smiths' Girlfriend in a Coma, The Clash's Rock the Casbah - which made me think "Man, If only they had One Night in Bangkok." - 20 minutes later - Murray Head's One Night in Bangkok. Ringtone that make me gasp: Law and Order theme First choice if I had a life with more intrigue and adventure: The Saint Theme Second choice: Vince Gauraldi's Linus and Lucy First choice: Theme from a Summer's Place (Instrumental) posted on 5/7/2004 10:51:25 AM Monday, May 03, 2004Identified GiftedThings are good but sorta odd. My ex-boyfriend Kent is finally moving. We moved into this apartment building together in 1996. When we broke up, I moved into another apartment in the same building, then a third when that one was too small. Kent's been in the same apartment for 8 years. He bought a condo, because it's condo buying time in his life. He called and said, "There's some stuff you might want in your filing cabinet" So, I went to see what was lurking in the forgotten cabinet that acted as his microwave stand. I had remembered that there were sewing patterns, but there was so much more. My favorite is the paper clipped collection that my guidance counselor handed me when I graduated. Tests from K through 2nd grade. So charming and distant. I read from the "Elementary Cumulative Record": "Father's Occupation: Auto Body Mechanic. Mother's Occupation: Hairdresser." Kent: "It says that?" Me: "What?" Kent: "You dad's job." Me: "But that's what he did then." Kent: "Out of Body Mechanic??" Me: "AUTO BODY Mechanic." And on a form my mom filled out a form when I entered kindergarten. The statement read: Will you please take the time to suggest anything that you think would help us understand your child better? We need your cooperation in helping him [him??] grow physically, emotionally, and socially, as well as mentally in our school. COMMENTS: My mom wrote: Brandy cries easily, she is trying very hard to get over this. She is doing well. Yep, as a child I was afraid of everything. I was very introverted and shy. I loathed day care, because I thought the other kids were noisy aliens. I'd get super nervous about being called on in class. I still get slightly nervous when I anticipate my turn to speak. I've learned to balance my introversion. I am definitely, definitely one of those people happy to be an adult and to be taking care of myself. No nostalgia for childhood here. Anyhow, on a competency skills test in 2nd grade, my teacher wrote "Indentifed Gifted." On that form, there's three columns: Competency, Reinforcement Needed, Reteaching Needed. All little green marker circles were in the first column but the one identifying differences between fact and opinion. Ha! That one needed reinforcement. posted on 5/3/2004 10:04:14 PM |
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