Set Your Maturity Aside

I passed a new condo develoment while driving home last night. It has a big sign at the gate that reads, "Paseo del Sol: Adult Community."

Since I had just driven past an adult bookstore, you understand my confusion.

In Unrelated News
The local public radio station is in its fundraiser week. To get this, you also need to know that there is a town in New Mexico named Lamy (pronounced Lay-mee). Here's what I heard today:
Female announcer: We need to hear from Lamy this hour.
Male announcer: We heard from them earlier, I think.
Female announcer: No! I mean Lamy right now!
(...pause...)
Female announcer: I really didn't mean to go there.

Things I Never Said

I had a conversation the other day with my one of my godsons. We were discussing movies. I told him about a film that I thought he'd enjoy and he responded by saying, "Oh yeah, that's in my que." I don't think I even knew that word at age 7.

Next he said, "Now to completely change the subject..." Again, vocabulary and phraseology that I don't think was part of my repertoire at that age!

Meanwhile in ABQ, I passed another movie set on the way to work. Waiting for one of the stars to decide to visit the shelter or call to be hypnotized!

Not Nearly Clear Enough

I listened to an NPR report this morning covering the UN Baghdad bombing. The reporter stated that the explosion was "a near miss."

I wonder what that makes a "near hit." If a near miss is really a miss, then is a near hit really a hit?

It's like Abu of the Simpson's remarked, "What?! Inflammable means flammable? I love this country!"

Weatherwise here in ABQ, we had mid 70 degree and sunny days last weekend. Today it is snowing on the Sandia Mts. and raining here in the valley.

We Can Rebuild

Over 1,000 client files (each with 49 fields of data) have to be re-entered into our database. And I have a 45-page, $91,000 grant to write. Plus, I need to get a $15,000 bus contract signed; fill an empty staff position; get keys copied; lead a community inter-agency meeting; find a substitute for a staff person who is sick; and a pile of other officey stuff.

Did I mention that my assistant is on vacation in India until April? How about the executive director also being away on vacation?

I am calling in all of my substitutes and volunteers and am delegating like crazy. But if I haven't called you in a while, this is the reason. :)

Thoughts of Interest

I really like the new link that I posted under my profile. Be sure to check out what your own standing is in the world. One piece of vital information that it fails to calculate, however, is outstanding debt.

This got me to thinking about my credit cards, which led me to calculate current minimum payments along with the current interest rates. Here's what I found out if I just make minimum payments each month and never use the cards again:

• Credit Card A
  Will be paid off in 9 yrs 4 mos.
• Credit Card B
  Will be paid off in 10 yrs.
• Credit Card C
  Will be paid off in 45 yrs.

Making those same minimum payments without interest, the cards would be paid off as follows:

• Credit Card A
  Would be paid off in 3 yrs. 7 mos.
• Credit Card B
  Would be paid off in 3 yrs. 4 mos.
• Credit Card C
  Would be paid off in 4 yrs. 2 mos.

This has me beginning to investigate filing bankruptcy which is against my principles. But then over $6,000 is not really money that I borrowed; it is pure interest.

CRASH

I had a volunteer come by the shelter on Friday to help out. It became the perfect storm of calamity.

The organization has been trying to get a better server for years, but hasn't. My assistant was the first one to start backing up our database; but unbeknownst to any of us, she was only saving shortcuts and icons, not the actual data from the server. I invited an MBA student to come and teach me some about our Access database. She made a copy, but couldn't pull the information out to the copy without my logging in as administrator. Which I did.

And she deleted 3 years of all of the data for our shelter. Nearly 3,000 records with near-endless points of information.

The best computer recovery guy in the city says that it is not retrievable.

My weekend has been busy strategizing, but nothing resolved yet. This is a picture of my brain at the moment...

Priorities

The NM State Legislature, which is ending its yearly session tomorrow, has managed to get a lot of important things done. For example, the bolo tie is now our official state tie. How embarassing...I came to work wearing just a regular old tie.

(We also have a state cookie, a state question and a state insect, among many other official New Mexico things.)

Tabled for now is declaring Pluto to still be a planet. (Read the bill.) But there is still a day and a half, so don't give up hope yet.

--Thanks to Andy for the heads up about all of the happenings in my own backyard!

Film at 11

Check out what I'm watching right now in the column at the right. Then see if you can match each of these comments to the correct film. (There is one more film listed than there are review comments.)

• "Scary."
• "PBS Special."
• "My therapist made me watch it."

Speaking of films, I drove past another movie camp this morning. Hardly a week passes by without driving past some movie set or film company. Two studios are building sound stages in the area. Albuquerque has been high on the Hollywood choice of cities lately. "Wild Hogs" is the most recently released film that was shot completely in New Mexico.

Panaderia, Links, Et. Al.

Almost finishing my tax preparations this morning called for a celebration of sorts: a trip by my favorite panaderia, The Golden Crown Panaderia, to get a sweet potato empanada. This is a cool little local bakery that has been in business for 18 years. It is run by a father and son team who always hand out a free biscochito when you visit.

A couple of other of my favorite drop in spots:

Downtown Gourmet, where I buy cheese from all over the world (and the owner always hands out a huge amount of samplers.

The Middle East Bakery is my place to go for middle eastern groceries, fresh falafel, pita bread, Turkish coffee and lunch when I have the extra cash. (Link is a review post)

For all things German, including apples & cream horseradish sauce, I visit the Alpine Sausage Kitchen. (Link is just the street address.)

Beer: Chama River Micro-Brewery, where the only have four tap beers. That's it. You can bring your own food in to eat and can leave your mug on their shelf to use whenever you return. If they had a Web site, it would be bigger than the entire room (which has about 4 tables, plus the bar). Very cool.

Coffee: Still haven't found my perfect fit. Find myself going to the Blue Dragon when they have throat singing events; want to like Alfredo's but seating is too stiff; same for Irysh Mac's; Whitings is cool, but I seldom go for some reason. Typically, I stick to my own home brews and invite friends over or go to their places.

Hangout with a Book: Not a lot of selection here since Pearl's Dive closed. I usually end up at one of the Flying Star locations (see picture at right).

Groceries: Other than the specialty shops mentioned above, I go to La Montanita Co-op, where I am a member, and to the Talin Market. I hope to join Los Poblanos Organics soon, since I know the farm where most of the food is grown.

I'm not sure why all of this info is at the top of my head today. Maybe it's The 1950's Housewife thing, or that I'm just avoiding work at my desk. Anyway, I obviously enjoy local and off-the-beaten path joints around the city. Feel free to add others that you know and enjoy.

It's More Than Spam

Don't let the title throw you:
"The 1950's Housewife" is more than just Jello casseroles.

I'm adding this site to my list of "Other Links" that you will enjoy checking out.

End of the Week

I finally finished reading "The Name of the Rose". I had slowed down to make it last because it was such a good story. Never did find out the name of the rose.

Sign, Sign Everywhere's a Sign

I saw this posted outside a business the other day:

"Se abla espanol."

I'm glad that the sign didn't read:

"Espanol es escrito."

(Don't read Spanish? See Babelfish.)

You Read It Here First

Did you hear the report this morning on NPR about mindfulness?

If you read my post about confluence, you were way ahead of their game!