Beautiful California

Part of my lack of blogging this past week was due to a rather insane work/meeting schedule. There was a bit of traveling involved to get everywhere I needed to go. Then, Mike and the kids and I hit the road for some holiday travel. I learned/relearned a couple of things. I learned that my new car does not have the kind of lumbar support that I need if I spend half my working day in the car. And I relearned what a beautiful and amazing place California is.  I started my travels on Tuesday, going from Sacramento to Roseville to attend an evening meeting. Sacramento, as the capital of California, is a good-sized city. Not on the scale of San Francisco or Los Angeles, which is what I think most people picture when they think of metropolitan California. But we’ve got a nice little downtown and midtown and miles and miles of suburbs. I haven’t taken a picture of downtown Sacramento in a long time, except to document how insanely smokey it was during last month’s horrendous Paradise fire. So, these are not quite representative photos, but here’s a glimpse of downtown Sacramento.

 

From my evening meeting, I traveled straight up to South Lake Tahoe, where I had a meeting scheduled  on Wednesday.  I was scheduled to participate in an interview for a project there. I’m hoping we win, both to have a project up in Tahoe again and to just have a new project to work on in 2019. (Like I really need another one? No. Yes? Maybe. Never know with schedules when you’re the consultant.) I’ve had a project to work on in either the Tahoe Basin or just outside it in Truckee since I started this job eight years ago. It’s nice to go up from time to time, see my co-workers in the Basin and enjoy the beauty of Tahoe when I can. Not that I often stop and see much when I’m up there for work. But hey – an occasional shot out the window and through the car windows is nice.

Then, if you can imagine it, I had to fly down the mountain Wednesday afternoon to try and make the last half of an event I had already scheduled in Roseville that evening for the professional society I belong to. Impossible timing, but I made it!

On Thursday, I was back in the car for a meeting in Yuba City.  Luckily for my back, the straight shot up the freeway meant I could put my cruise control to good use. Driving through California agricultural fields is probably the most common drive in my life. Growing up in a small ag town, going to school at an ag school (Go, UCD Aggies!) and even living in Sacramento, which is surrounded on most sides by ag fields, is natural for me. I think no matter where I have lived in California, I could drive less than two miles and be in the middle of open space or agricultural fields. They are, perhaps, some of the most beautiful sights in California. Especially when you consider how many crops they produce and how many people they feed. And how vast the ag land in California is. Definitely NOT what most people imagine when they think of California. But drive through or over the center of the state, and that is all there is. I don’t have a good picture of my own. I was zooming to and from meetings, remember. Here’s a video of a flyover over Sutter County’s rice fields. The fields were all flooded during my drive. Funny to me that Sutter County is next to Yuba County, but Yuba City is the county seat for Sutter County. Always confuses me.

And finally, the family and I hit the road and, today, found ourselves enjoying some tide pools near the ocean because, yes, California is one giant coastline and we ALL live next to the beach, don’t you know. 🙂  I jest, but I am lucky the ocean is less than three hours away from me. And tonight was a spectacular display of beauty.

Welcome to California.

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Musical Inspiration – Sad and Lonely

Deja vu all over again.  I was looking back at the last few blogs I wrote – oh so long ago.  And from July 2011:

I sat in front of my computer after a long 12+ hour work day, after listening to some insightful questions from my sweet nephew about how many hours I work everyday and how often I work this late, after eating some warmed over canned chili with much too much sharp cheddar cheese, after daydreaming about welcoming Sweetie back home on Saturday after his long work trip away from home, after taking my blood pressure and marveling at the startling increase in numerals from my blood pressure reading last night……….and I sat in front of my computer and switched on my iTunes and asked my music “What do I want to listen to right now?”

And I have to laugh because tonight (March 2012) I was feeling wiped and slightly demotivated after working a 12+ hour workday (which is short these days), eating microwaved pizza that I missed eating with my nephews because I was working too late, wishing fervently that Sweetie was home already from his week-long work trip away, and marking a noticeable increase in my blood pressure from my February reading. Yes, that’s how my evening went tonight.  So, I thought “Might as well.”  I opened iTunes, turned on shuffle and hit play. 

And my music replied:

Sad and Lonely

Does my music know me or what?

Sad and Lonely (Daughter Darling)

Did they tell you I’d be boring?

Do you know where to order the next morning?

There is no guarantee

That when you wake up, you’ll be able to breath

So I’ll throw you moonbeams

Ill make you kick and scream

Oh then baby I’ll make you smile

Then I’ll make you bleed

Sad and lonely

Don’t you look so sad

You know it can’t be that bad

Just consider it to be

Another way you’ll see me

Did you forget your place of ambition?

I’ve seemed to move you from your only position

You’re so afraid of my reality cause it burns your eyes

Makes you sad and lonely

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Musical Inspiration – Long Long Way to Go

I sat in front of my computer after a long 12+ hour work day, after listening to some insightful questions from my sweet nephew about how many hours I work everyday and how often I work this late, after eating some warmed over canned chili with much too much sharp cheddar cheese, after daydreaming about welcoming Sweetie back home on Saturday after his long work trip away from home, after taking my blood pressure and marveling at the startling increase in numerals from my blood pressure reading last night……….and I sat in front of my computer and switched on my iTunes and asked my music “What do I want to listen to right now?”

And my music replied:

That’s my Phil!  Hmmmm……sounds about right. 

Long Long Way to Go

While I sit here trying to think of things to say
Someone lies bleeding in a field somewhere
So it would seem we’ve still got a long long way to go
I’ve seen all I wanna see today

While I sit here trying to move you anyway I can
Someone’s son lies dead in a gutter somewhere
And it would seem that we’ve got a long long way to go
But I can’t take it anymore

Turn it off if you want to
Switch it off it will go away
Turn it off if you want to
Switch it off or look away

While I sit and we talk and talk and we talk some more
Someone’s loved one’s heart stops beating in a street somewhere
So it would seem we’ve still got a long long way to go, I know
I’ve heard all I wanna hear today

Turn it off if you want to (turn it off if you want to)
Switch it off it will go away (switch it off it will go away)
Turn it off if you want to (turn it off if you want to)
Switch it off or look away (switch it off or look away)

Switch it off
Turn it off

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Loving California: Positive Changes

So, I’ve posted a few things that I miss about Maui.  I thought I should post a couple of positive things about my life away from Maui.

Paying bills.  Being able to pay bills is a very positive thing.  I am immensely happy to be paying off all my bills.  The last couple of years on Maui were slow ones for my side of the pay check contributions.  Work from California was barely trickling in and I was working less than half time for many months.  Bill balances were carried over, much to the consternation of Sweetie (and my father if he was watching me around that time).  I didn’t love it either, but it was easier for me (than Sweetie) to just ignore the monthly charges.  I fretted but felt that I would get my feet back under me eventually.

Now that I am back to a full-time job with a steady full-time paycheck, I am loving being able to pay my bills and start socking away money every month.  *sigh*  Nice.  Not that I don’t have new stresses from said full-time job.  But I remind myself how nice it is to pay off my bills.  And that helps.  I have a couple of personal loans I’m paying back and it feels good to be able to do that also.  I can still stress about money if I think about it.  Especially given the long list of house projects that Sweetie and I are compiling.  Some optional.  Some probably soon-to-be mandatory.  Think sewer pipes.  Fun times.  But at least I don’t feel overwhelmed on a weekly basis.

So, much as I miss the laid-back loveliness of island self-employed living, I can appreciate some of the benefits of the daily grind.  Given that I’ve landed in a nice workplace with some interesting projects to work on, I’ll keep my nose to it until the day I become a professional poker player.  ha! 

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Step Away from the Politics

No…….not *politics* politics.  Never fear, my friends, I will never completely shy away from disgorging my own brand of political opinion onto the screen from time to time.

No, I’m talking about what I am relearning about as I jump back into the world of the crowded workplace:  Office politics.

For the most part, I can put my head down, do my job, and enjoy time away from the office with some great people who have remained my friends for years.  But I’m coming to the impression that there is at least one person in the office I need to watch my back around.  Not because this person dislikes me or has any reason to question the quality of my work.  I think.  But because I think this person is a very shrewd political player.  Of course, I don’t love this impression.  I am fighting the urge to try and confirm or disprove it.  I wonder what the motivation is (actually I think it’s obviously a well-honed self-interest).  But then I think to myself: Stay out of it.  I’m relatively new again.  The political wheels that are turning started before I came around and there is nothing I can do about them. 

And so, I won’t worry too much.  I’ll try and disengage my inflated sense of empathy for other people and just do my job.  Regular politics take up enough of my limited brain space.  The work place is for work. 

And the consumption of chocolate. 

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The Life of a Blog Entry Stuck in Draft…

….hello.  I am a lonely Blog Entry.

I am trapped in Draft phase and this crazy lady won’t let me out.  I am usually alone all day and night.  Sometimes she pops in to change a word, rearrange some punctuation, or delete half of me.!  But mostly I am alone.  Sometimes she cheats on me and starts a completely different Draft.  I don’t hate the Other draft.  I know it will get the same treatment as me. 

But wait!  Arghhh!  No!  She posted something!  She posted something meaningless and yet, here I still sit.  I am not meaningless!  I am interesting.  And I have information you might want to read!

But here I sit. 

And wait.

Guess you’ll never read about the ups and downs of trying to plan for the future.

You may not even know that my author flew the coop last week.  Took off.  Of course, I still see her because I am in some “cloud” that manages to follow her around wherever she goes.  Even if she flies to California on a moment’s notice.

Why would she do that?  Well, it’s not really my place as a simple DRAFT to pry, but between the e-mails flying around the cloud and the clicking on corporate websites, I’m hearing consistent chatter about things like “job openings”, “resumes”, “interviews”, and things of that nature.  There were phone calls.  I think there was even a Skype session.  Whatever that is.  And then I thought “Well! We got that over with, didn’t we?  Silly interviews are over.  Surely she will finish ME now!”

But no.  Of course not. 

Instead of calming down and going back to life as usual, she seemed to flutter around in even more of a frenzy and before you know it, I have to track her down in California.  Seems technology can only go so far with these interviewer types.  Personally I think that meeting in person is a little old fashioned.  But what do I know? I’m just an electronic Draft! 

So, here we are.  I’m ignored again in favor of things like “second interviews” and “quotes from moving companies” and……don’t even get me started on how verbose she can be in her e-mails to some dude about such mundane things like “our future.”  *yawn*  Your future will be fine lady.  But Blog Entries are NOT like fine wine.  We don’t age well on the shelf.  We get outdated.  We go stale.  We don’t like to be ignored!! 

Maybe somebody should start a letter-writing campaign.  “Free the Trapped Blog Entry!”  Release the stale words full of yesterday’s news, ambiguous rhyming words, and ranty venom.

Or not.  I can stay up here in the unread Draft clouds in the sky.  It’s certainly well-populated.  In fact, I think that “Script of the Century” just winked at me. 

I gotta go.

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