Fangirlin' It

Wow, I didn't realise how long it had been since I last updated!  Nothing much to tell, but I figure I'll post anyway.  Work is still pretty good; we've hired a couple more paralegals, whom I like.  Half the office was out on Friday, which was kind of nice, since it was quiet, and kind of boring at the same time.  I'm house-sitting this weekend, and then Monday is my dad's birthday.  I'm making the most sinful non-chocolate dessert recipe in our family, my grandmother's goofy bars.

Today was my yearly shopping trip to the good mall.  I needed some more spring work trousers, and I was looking for a new purse as the ones I have are finally wearing out.  Since I got both of my old purses on sale and kept them for so many years, I was reluctant to spend a lot of money on a new one.  But I did have some coupons, so it wasn't as bad as it might have been.  I also paid way too much for a pair of khakis, but they're comfortable and look nice, so whatever.

It's a good sign when they start giving you more work, right?  I'm kind of brain dead these days after working on SBA liquidation plans.  The trouble is, they're long and not all that complicated unless you haven't been working on that loan very long (at all).  So I'm taking loans that I have maybe a passing familiarity with and am trying to detail our plan to liquidate the assets left, how the borrowers got into the state they're in, etc.  Fascinating, but very time-consuming and filled with 'I have no idea if that's what they're looking for, but whatever' moments. 

Right now I'm working on one where the obligors haven't given us any financial information (P&L statements, balance sheets, nothing) since loan origination in 2006.  And of course, since they're tens of thousands of dollars behind on their loan and also in delinquent property taxes up to their eyes (the IRS actually froze their accounts at one point), they're no longer talking to us.  So I'm having to guesstimate whether these people have anything other than the houses they put up as collateral for us to bother with.  It doesn't look like it.

But.  I have done one of these and have another to follow.  That's good, right?  I sure hope so!

At home, we went and got our Christmas tree on Saturday last, and got it up and all the 10,000-plus lights on it on Sunday (around watching the too-exciting Panthers game!).  Nice, but then that night we discovered the tree stand had been leaking onto our carpet (it went right through the protective mat) all day.  So the tree was sitting in the middle of the living room the last few days, waiting for the carpet to dry.  Dad had to pick the thing up, lights and all, to get it out of the stand and into the new one.  I went out on Sunday night to Lowe's to get a new one at 7:30 and it was already below freezing!  I want hazard pay for this. ;)

Mom and Dad are headed out of town this weekend, which is why we were in a bit of a hurry to get the lights on, as it takes both me and Mom to do it.  But the tree is the only decoration we've managed to get up so far.  I think it's going to go a lot slower this year with me working.

How are you doing, dear flisters?  It's been raining here since last night; the kind of really cold soaking (hovering around freezing or just above all day) that makes it miserable out.  I nearly hydroplaned off the road on the way in this morning, but lived to tell about it.

Finally! My Panthers won big time. It was a 38-0 thrashing of the NY Giants at home. I'm still so excited. It was our first win of the season, which makes it even better. Plus, the Georgia Bulldogs won yesterday pretty big, so it was a great weekend here in Carolina.

Hi, guys, it's, um, been a while?  Sorry.  You know how it is--you spend all day (literally) staring at a computer screen at work, and then don't really want to look at one at home, even for fun.  I thought I'd try to do like aadarshinah and post updates more regularly (not promising daily), so here goes.

Work is still pretty awesome.  I get to do so much fun stuff, and we keep hiring new people, which means I get to help them, too.  Nothing makes you feel good quite like being able to answer people's questions and solve their problems, which is essentially my job.  We did have a bit of a stir yesterday, though, in another part of the building.  We're in a big office building uptown (what this backward city calls 'downtown' anywhere else), and the bottom floor is a bank.  Apparently, yesterday morning a guy came in and gave one of the tellers a note demanding money.  He never showed a weapon, and no one was hurt, but they shut the branch down for a while, and we made the news.  I'm glad we're up on the 15th floor.  They haven't caught the guy yet as far as I know, but they had really good images, so it probably won't be long.

In exciting news, one of the attorneys who does work for us is flying in from CA this weekend and taking us to the Panthers game (the local NFL team)!  I'm a huge Panthers fan, have been since high school, so I'm really excited.  Apparently, these are pretty good seats.  Here's hoping my Cats can give me a win on my birthday!

I had lunch this weekend with my friend from school, which was fun.  She took me out for an early birthday lunch and we hung out for a while.  Life is pretty good.

How are you doing, internet friends?

I've been neglecting you terribly, I know, internet, but...

Yes, well.  This is an incredibly sleep-deprived entry, as I missed so much sleep last night.  The idiot speedway apparently has some kind of outdoor movie night now that they've got the biggest screen in the world, or something, so the damn movie could be heard all the way at my house last night, followed by freaking fireworks until past 11 pm; when you get up at seven every morning, that's not good.  Even after that, I couldn't seem to really sleep, and finally I gave up this morning around six-thirty.  So I'm really tired.

But.  Yesterday I went to the big bookstore in the mall which was having a one-day sale and bought several books.  One of them was a book by an author I'd never heard of, but I liked the sound of the summary, so I gave it a shot.  I love it.  Totally recommending this book here.  It's military sci-fi, so Stargate fans pay attention.  The author is Evan Currie, and the book is Into the Black: Odyssey One.  It's really good on the military stuff, including a section where he essentially says, yeah, combat pilots have to know almost as much about how their craft work as the people who built them, so they're anything but stupid (which, after some time in the SGA fandom, is refreshing--we all know how many fics treat the military as dumb, even pilots like Sheppard or Mitchell). 

The main premise is that, in a post-WWIII Earth, the North American Confederation sends out the brand-new space ship Odyssey, under the command of Eric Weston, on a shakedown cruise of the universe.  Weston was a former fighter jockey in the Marines, and there are lots of Special Forces members of our military as well as Canada's in his new crew.  There are some aspects that resonate a lot with the Stargate universe, but only on the surface.  It's a fascinating and compelling action read with linguistics, philosophy, combat tactics, tragedy, and triumph.  I won't give away any more of the plot, other than to say there are alien humans and alien beasties, and there's a war.  Um, it's a lot better than it sounds from my lame description?  Seriously, though, if you like the mix of military and science that marks the best of Stargate canon and fandom, I think you ought to give this book a go.  It's in paperback, so not as expensive, and I'm fairly sure there will be a sequel, since it's left very up-in-the-air as far as the ending goes.

Anyway, that was mostly the purpose of this post.  I'm a little over halfway through the book, which is nearly six hundred pages in an oversized paperback, though I peeked at the last page, as I am wont to do.  ;)  Which is how I know the ending.  And I'm still feeling compelled to read the rest because it's that good.  There's really interesting science, too; a lot of it is based on things I know are fairly current in actual science, like tachyon properties, and it makes nice extrapolations in the best tradition of the genre.  The alien society they encounter is interesting and somewhat mysterious, even at the end of the book, and the alien enemy is pretty frightening.

So.  What's on your summer reading list, guys?  I also picked up some more Discworld novels, which are an addiction of mine, and the latest Foreigner novel I'd been wanting to own since I read it back in March.  I had to stop myself from spending all of my first paycheck there, since it was only a week's pay.  I should get paid again at the end of this coming week, and it will be the normal two weeks' pay this time, which is good, since I keep having to buy gas for my car and it keeps getting more expensive.  :/ 

Well, in spite of the weather, I made it home alive today.  I ended up getting to work about 20 minutes early this morning because traffic actually co-operated fairly well, so I decided to leave work early.  That was a really good thing, because when I was within half a mile of the interstate exit I get off on to go home (so about five minutes from home), the skies--already ominous-looking--opened up and rain was falling sideways so hard we all were going about 15 miles an hour with our flashers going.  Fortunately, my car is low to the ground and has excellent traction, so all the ponding which was very deep in places didn't even make me hydroplane.

One of the poplars in our yard wasn't so lucky, though; the straight-line winds we had were gusting between 50 and 70 mph, about the force of a hurricane.  It brought down one of our trees in the backyard onto my old swingset. 

On the plus side, tomorrow is casual Friday, so I get to wear jeans and sneakers to the office, and then on Monday I have to drive to our office in Greenville (about two hours from here in good traffic) but I also get to wear jeans!  It's neat working uptown (this city is stupid and what most cities call downtown is uptown here), with the bronze elevators with neat designs on the doors and wood panelling inside and the marble floors, but it's expensive to park ($140/month) and you have to dress up.  Oh well.

I'm reposting this link to amycat8733's post on how to fix the US Congress:

Slap down the prima donnas.

And here is the best thing I've seen all day: Michele Bachmann is so crazy she's trying to hold paychecks hostage for silence on potential illegal campaign activities.  My favourite part is the "Rasputin-like" debate coach.  How does this bitch keep getting elected?  ::sporfle::

Well, here we all are, still alive; guess that'll put a temporary halt to those doomsdayers and save me from having to hear about stupid shit that doesn't make sense or matter--oh, wait, the news still reports on Congress.  Oh, well.

I had lunch and shopping with a friend yesterday; we had our customary Chinese from our favourite local place, and then did a little shopping in the rain.  It's turned cold (for here) now, though--the mountains might be getting some snow, I think.  Fortunately, I live about two hours south and east of the mountains, so it's just clear, windy, and cold here.

Happy Winter Solstice/Non-doomsday to all who celebrate such things!  It's hard to believe that there are only four days to Christmas.  We have a little bit of a light load under the tree this year, as we seem to have mostly given each other gifts during the year or bought things that the other person already knows about.  Although, Dad and I just decided to wrap a couple of those anyway, just to have more things under the tree.

I've been enjoying the holiday cards from friends and relatives.  It was funny, though; a couple weeks ago I got my first Christmas card of the season, and it was from the White House!  The cards, in case you haven't seen a picture of them, feature the First Dog, Bo, with a cute little scarf playing in the snow in front of the White House.  It's a really pretty painting.  The card will be going in the same envelope with the stuff I got from when my elementary school class wrote to the president back in the day.  I don't know what the other kids said in their letters, but I distinctly remember asking for a picture of Socks the cat.  I got both an autographed picture of President Clinton (ho-hum when you're that age) and an 'autographed' picture of Socks, which delighted me.  Of course, being nine, I didn't really know that they're signed by a robo-pen, but I still have them in the original envelope nearly twenty years later.  I'm still not sure how they managed to get a cat to agree to an ink-print of his paw, as just about every cat that's ever owned me would (rather justifiably, I think) claw you for that, but whatever.

In case I'm not in a posting mood in the next few days, I'll go ahead and wish all who celebrate a Merry Christmas and everyone a peaceful year to come.

Quickly, before I fall into bed and sleep for about 2 days straight, WE WON!!!!!  I mean, my home state eventually (after a long time) went for Romney, but we won the election, so that's okay.  I can breathe again, people, I'm not even exaggerating how much this means to me.  I put in a lot of hours and miles knocking on people's doors and making phone calls and entering data and all kinds of other things, so this one really counts.  And Romney's concession speech was actually decent.  If that Mitt Romney had actually run...well, he wouldn't have made it past the Tea Party, so it wouldn't matter.  Nonetheless, I thought both speeches were good, though the President's was inspiring and great.

And now, to sleep.  And may the rest of the world take the next four years to forget exactly how nutso America's brand of crazy can be.  I'd sure like to.