Shallow Thoughts by Brittany

Portland Musings

2010-10-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

I am on a work assignment in Portland from the beginning of October until the end of year. I’ve only been here a week but it is quite different than Texas and it is causing me to wonder about several issues.

Questions I have about Portland:

1) Are the people sitting on the street homeless or just doing that because they enjoy it?
2) Didn’t they stop selling Doc Martens like 10 years ago?
3) Are people allowed to drive SUVs here?
4) Am I the only person here who likes eating fried foods and tex-mex?
5) Does it snow here?
6) How long do you have to not wash your hair for it to turn into dreadlocks?
7) Do bugs live in the dreadlocks mentioned above?

I’m sure the list will get longer as time goes on.

Oh how I love my job so much

2010-09-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

Conversation I had with my client yesterday as I was trying to do something he asked me to do:

Me: I need to pdf a few documents from your system but I don’t have pdf factory pro on the computer you provided me. Can you help me with that?

Client: Here’s some CDs. You can get them off our system and then pdf them on your computer. Hope that helps!

Client (what he was really saying): I could pdf them and send them to you which would take me all of about 4 minutes, HOWEVER, you are not worth my time and even though you are charging me by the hour I would still like to make your life as difficult as possible so here are some CDs so that you can save the docs, transfer the docs, pdf the docs and then send the docs back to me. Thanks and gig ‘em!

Random Post

2010-07-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

I realized that I have been posting one a month and since it's July 31st and I haven't posted this month I feel like I should to keep my streak going so here are some random comments on my life recently.

I went to Hawaii at the beginning of July for fun, relaxation and my birthday! It was crazy expensive but so worth it. I got to relax, go snorkeling with sea turtles, drink, and do a lot of nothing. Only two bad things were 1) I got incredibly sunburnt to the point where I was concerned I had done permaneant damage to my back (i don't actually think i did) and 2) I went with a group of girls which ended up causing some drama but I guess it happens.

I went to Dallas twice for work for less than 48 hours each time but one of the times I got to see my good friend Mandy, the whole reason I blog once a month in the first place. She wrote out a list of goals for me that I am trying really hard to follow up on. Unfortuantely, I have trouble with one more than the others and it's the one that will probably send me to hell. Oh well.

Random thought of the month: Why do people live in TX in the summer? It is a mystery of life to me. It's much to hot to live here and you would think after 24 years I would be at least semi used to it by now. It has caused me to decide that I really, really want to move away from Houston though. We'll see what happens with that.

So that is just a glimpse into my life. Not really a blog post but at least there's something for July now!

Dallas Wedding Weekend

2010-06-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went to Dallas to be in the wedding of one of my best friends from high school. I had Friday and Monday off for Memorial Day so I drove to Dallas on Friday for a weekend full of activities.

Friday was the lingerie shower / bachelorette party. I didn’t know anyone else besides the bride in the wedding (or even invited to the wedding really) so the whole thing was a little awkward at first but as the weekend went on I became friends with the other bridesmaids and they were fabulous. At the shower, Gretchen’s mom fed us some amazing 7 layer dip and tacos and then it was off to Billy Bob’s to hear Rich O’Toole play. We completed Gretchen’s list of things to do (including getting a guy’s underwear which she wore for the rest of the evening). The bride had a little too much to drink so we headed home early with a bucket for her to puke in and a bus driver who had no idea where he was going.

Saturday was the bridal luncheon with more delicious food including some amazing quiche and chocolate cake. I then snuck away for a break and saw another good friend from high school and college, whose wedding I was in 2 years ago, Mandy. Mandy proceeded to force me into spending money shopping and I got a fabulous hat that I can’t wait to wear. I then headed to the rehearsal where we got yelled at for not paying enough attention and for having a long wedding (which ended up being very short). We then went to Rick’s Chophouse for dinner and it was AMAZING! Best sirloin I think I’ve ever had and the salad was phenomenal.

Sunday was the big day which started with getting my hair done. Mandy had graciously offered to put my hair up instead of having me spend $95 on an updo that I would wear for 5 hours. Thanks Mandy! It looked fabulous and then we went and got our makeup done which also looked very nice. Our next task was a trip around Dallas to find the bride a bra, a quick bite at Mickey D’s and then off to the church to get ready. I was so terrified my dress wasn’t going to fit but luckily we got it zipped up and it only hurt a little bit:) The wedding went off without a hitch and it was off to the reception in downtown Dallas (where I got to catch up with another HS friend, Erin), then off to the hotel to hang out and then off to bed.

Monday I had lunch with my mom and then headed back home for a few hours of relaxation on Memorial Day. It was a full weekend that ended up being a lot of fun but now I need a vacation from my long weekend!

Work Etiquette

2010-05-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

General rules of thumb to remember if I am ever in an authority position at work:

1) Do not ask people to come to my office at 4:30 pm and give them work to do that must be completed the same day. Especially when they have sat around and done nothing all day, the project has been around since the morning but I chose not to tell them about it or if it’s not actually an urgent request. The sky will not implode if we wait until tomorrow to do it.

2) I am not actually better than the people who have been working less time than me. I know that we have slightly different titles and on a project I may be the one in charge but I probably shouldn't give them grunt work I don’t want to do and then sit on the internet all day doing nothing. It's not very friendly.

American Idol Rant

2010-03-23T19:10:00.000-07:00

I have been an American Idol fan since season 1 and I have always loved the show. Even when they added a fourth judge or during the terrible, never should have happened Taylor Hicks season- I watched every episode.

Tonight though they hit a new low, and it makes me wonder about the sanity of the Idol producers. The reason for this- Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus was tonight's mentor to the contestants. Hannah Montana. Really?!? She is 17, cannot sing, act, talk properly and is a little bit of a slut. How she became famous is a mystery to me but what in the world qualifies her to mentor the contestants. Is there really no one else that can talk to these people? Barry Manilow was better than this. Miley performed once on Idol and sounded terrible during the entire song. I got to think that these contestants were a little insulted or amused by her critiquing them.

This season has not caught my attention (I kind of miss Adam Lambert and his crazy performances) and with tonight's episode cutting to Miley every 4 seconds I just turned the channel. That's a first for me and Idol and makes me a little sad.

2010- Not going to be my year

2010-02-03T19:29:00.000-08:00

I bought a new car a couple of weekends ago and two days later Toyota issued a recall of the car saying it's an out of control deathtrap (I think this whole Toyota thing has been blown a bit out of proportion- but it's still not great news). This was after I had just totalled my other car and all within the first month of 2010- which was clearly not going to be my best year. I was telling my co-worker about all this and she pointed out that maybe it was my 'bad luck' year according to the Chinese zodiac (she's from China) so we googled it.

Google did not help make me feel better. It turns out this is my bad year! I was born in the Year of the Tiger and 2010 is also the Year of the Tiger. Apparently, when it's your animal year again it's bad luck for you, something I did not know! Technically the Chinese New Year doesn't actually begin until mid-February but I've decided that it's just going to be all of 2010 so I am now preparing for 11 more months of bad happenings.

I was told by another co-worker that wearing red helps deflect the bad luck so I'm going to try that as well as crossing my fingers, throwing salt over my shoulder, getting a lucky rabbit foot and praying that my luck turns around! If the rest of the months follow January it will be an incredibly interesting year:)

My Car Wreck

2010-01-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

I got into my first car wreck and decided to go all the way with it and completely total my car. I was driving down Highway 290 in dear old Houston, TX when a few cars in front of me a ladder fell off a truck (1st lesson of the day- don't drive behind a car carrying a ladder). The cars in front of me came to a complete stop and although I braked hard, I hit the car in front of me (in my defense it was raining at the time and I slowed down a lot). Everything was okay at that point, though, just some slight damage to both of our cars, when from behind a car came flying and hit the back of me.

This was the point that I hit the car in front of me so hard my air bags deployed, windows shattered, I flopped around the car and the guy in front of me hit the two cars in front of him. Needless to say my car no longer had a trunk.

I must say I find those pictures a little impressive and a little terrifying because many think I should be hurt much more than I actually am. It ended up being a 7 car pileup and somehow I was the only one even slightly hurt and that was just a bump on the head and bruise on my arm. I did go to the hospital though to get checked out and had my first cat scan, ambulance ride and experience of getting taped to a gurney. I had to lie on the highway as the rain came down and we waited on the ambulance, but a cute paramedic saw fit to crouch over me and guard my face from the rain, while I got to stare at his crotch.

My coworker was in the car with me (he ran a marathon two days later so he was fine) and stayed with the car as it was taken to the wrecker and his favorite part of the entire story is the number of shoes that somehow fell out of my car. I tend to live in my car and apparently my trunk was my second closet. Since the truck was no longer, every time they moved my car more shoes fell out of it. The cops even suggested I sold shoes and ended up counting at least 12 pairs on the highway, some of which were saved and some that weren't. (2nd lesson of the day- clean my car out more often).

My poor car is no longer but I am getting a new one and thankfully everyone was okay!! I already had a driving paranoia though so I don't think this is going to help.

Lesson Learned form Paranormal Activity

2009-10-31T12:59:00.001-07:00

I saw Paranormal Activity last night and the first half was incredibly boring (and the camera movements made me slightly nauseous) but the last half really freaked me out. I don't know what the filmmakers wanted me to learn from this movie but what I got out of it was that if I am ever in a relationship or living with someone who is haunted by a demon it's best to just cut my losses and leave them. I will definitely not be sticking around to film it.

Last, Last Weekend (My first post!)

2009-05-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend, I did a whole lot of nothing and it was great. I watched the rockets game, saw friends, bought some clothes, and most importantly slept. That's a pretty normal weekend for me but the weekend before that (last, last weekend) was jam packed and absolutely fabulous. Since Mandy (sorry it took me two weeks to do this:))made this fantastic blog for me so I can keep a record of my life, I felt I had to blog about it, moment by moment, so here goes:
Friday Night- Me and a friend went to see "Rent" on tour. I first saw Rent as a movie in 2006 and immediately fell in love with it (side note: while at the theatre my friend's car froze over and we used credit cars to de-ice it, being the unprepared college girls we were). I loved the movie and so when the next time I went to NYC I made sure to get tickets, and after seeing the show on its original stage, I loved the stage version even more. Which is why when I heard that not only was Rent on tour but that two of the original Broadway cast members (Roger and Mark) were in it I begged for tickets for Christmas, and my parents happily obliged. My friend had never seen the stage version so we were both really excited and the show blew both of us away more than we even expected. Getting to hear the original Roger and Mark sing 'What You Own' for one of the last times (the show closed this past year) was a once in a lifetime experience and that in itself would have made the weekend worth it but it wasn't over.
Saturday: This was my relaxing day. I slept until noon and went that night to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It was one of those movies where you knew how it was going to end the whole time but it was still exciting to get there and Matthew looked gorgeous (and extremely tan) like always. I definitely recommend it.
Sunday: This was the big day. I went to church in the morning and then took a nap in preparation for that night because that's when my sister and I went to see Kenny Chesney! I bought tickets the day they went on sale and had been counting down until the show because Kenny is my number one, all time favorite singer. I figured out that this was my 7th time to see him as I've been every summer since junior year of high school. I know he doesn't have the best voice but he loves what he does and when he gets on stage in those tight jeans all is forgiven. I go to a lot of concerts and I've seen all types of performances but Kenny definitely is one of the best and he didn't disappoint, last Sunday. From the second he came on stage with 'She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy' to the moment he finished signing autographs he never let up. He was full of energy and ran around the whole time. He sang all of his hits (except How Forever Feels, which I still can't figure out why that was left out) including my favorite Don't Happen Twice which he saved until near the end. The second he walked on stage my crappy week at work and the crappy week to come went away and I just got to have fun! It was one of his best shows and I was so happy I got to go and I have vowed to never miss a Kenny concert if he comes to my town.
By the time I got home from the concert it was after midnight so my weekend was over and it had been amazing. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to top that but now it's a challenge to see if I can:)