I had nothing to do with this

By kate on March 17th, 2004

Two weeks ago, Steve and I were in a Brooklyn, New York bar with friends and we discovered this fascinating bit of graffiti in the (unisex) bathroom:

None of us could fully understand it, but I was pleased.

Filed under: about, ephemera | 1 Comment »

Off the cuff

By kate on March 16th, 2004

I think that the reason I don’t post very often in this journal is because I have this drive to polish everything to perfection before putting it up for public consumption. While that’s a good approach for my website, I know that Livejournals [where this was originally posted] are meant to be more immediate and informal.

So, I will make an attempt to be more off-the-cuff and post random thoughts and updates more often.

How much do you polish your entries?

Filed under: meta | 4 Comments »

Pictures from our trip

By kate on March 12th, 2004

You can see some pictures from our trip to Paris and NYC here.
(Note that the absolute minimum of time was taken to slap this together, so design was not really considered.)

Filed under: travel | 8 Comments »

How’s my eye?

By kate on February 21st, 2004

If you weren’t there and don’t know about it already, I got hit in the face with a soccer ball last night at our game. It was a hard kick straight from an opponent’s foot into my right eye. I was helped off the field and spent the last 15 minutes of the game in a lot of pain and tears (to try to flush out the grit).

When I got home, I called a nurseline that my work gives us, and the nurse said I should go to the emergency room because I still had a big spot in my vision two hours after the incident. The “24-hour health line” from my insurance provider concurred.

So with my ass (hopefully) covered as far as not having to pay for it, Steve kindly drove me to the UW Medical center emergency room at 12:45am last night. We arrived so late because of a very important refueling stop at Dick’s first. (Mmmm, I think the Dick’s Deluxe is my favorite hamburger of all.)

Anyway, the ER was deserted when we arrived, but four or five other patients showed up right afterwards, making for a long wait. I got taken back to a room pretty quick, but we were there three hours in all.

After cooperating with the med student who checked me out first, I got to talk to a real doctor who found I had some corneal abrasions as well as a couple particles still stuck in my cornea. He numbed my eye and removed them with a big Q-tip.

He and the med student shined the stupid light in my eye for a long, long, time as they assessed the scratches (which were there but not majorly serious).

Eventually, I left with a prescription for antibiotic eye ointment and painkillers for a serious bruise I got on my ribs (unrelated incident in the same game).

We got home at about 4am and still hadn’t showered after the soccer game.

Anyway, here’s a picture of my eye today. The picture doesn’t look as bad (in my opinion) as my actual eye, but here you go:

Filed under: body, eyes, sports | 4 Comments »

Shitty week, part three

By kate on January 8th, 2004

Today my office was blindsided by surprise layoffs.

I have already weathered one round a few months ago, where they got rid of most of one department. Today the powers that be decided to give the ax to seven people sprinkled throughout the company. (Fortunately, I was not one of them.)

Some of them, in my opinion, are quite valuable and will be sorely missed.

My boss was ~~fired~~ laid off on the day his first child is due. Brutal, huh? He’s an aspiring writer, so I’m hoping that this will be a catalyst for some good writing (and getting published).

I may just be speaking for myself, but those of us still employed are tiptoeing around, somewhat shell-shocked.

Filed under: life, work | 1 Comment »

Shitty week, part two

By kate on January 8th, 2004

Because I got into work at 1pm, I worked until 9:30pm. When I left and went down to the parking garage, I realized that my car alarm dongle was completely dead. I had no way to disable my car alarm.

I unlocked the car (setting off the alarm) and started the engine. The beeping changed, but continued. So, I closed the car and let the alarm finish its 30-second tirade.

I should mention that because I came from skiing, I didn’t have my regular card key. I checked out a temporary one from work, but it wasn’t the kind that lets me up the elevator after hours. So, I had to go into the lobby, and sweet-talk the security guard into letting me up the elevator. Luckily, he knew who I was from several months of “hello-goodbye” so he did.

I went back into the office and changed my cardkey for a better one. I found a screwdriver, opened the dongle, and found an “A23” battery. Of course none of those were lying around the office (I looked). I was in downtown Bellevue at 10pm, where hardly anything is open, and no car.

Luckily, one of my co-workers, Matt, lives very close to the office so I looked up his number and called him. He saved the day by coming over and driving me to a Safeway where (thankfully) they had A23 batteries.

I got home an hour and a half after leaving work.