Busy

What a crazy couple weeks. I'd address things chronologically, but everything is sort of a blur, so I'll just address things as they pop into my head.

• My eyes! I finally got my eyes lasered. It's really strange to be able to see. Even stranger to only be able to see halfway. My right eye is seeing things pretty well, but my left is lagging a bit behind. Things are just a little bit blurry. It's sort of like watching a 3-D movie with only half a pair of 3-D glasses. I get a little queasy just turning my head with my eyes open. On the plus side, I'm back to work and can mostly function.
• Speaking of work, I've now received about 1/4 of my returns this year. They're what you see in the picture above. Each folder represents about 10 hours of work to do.
• I have a new niece (with no name). I was finally able to see her last night for a few minutes. As Annie can attest, she's pretty cute. I can't wait to see her outside the hospital.
• Oh, on Sunday I was put into our ward's new bishopric as the 2nd councilor.
• As a result of that, our house is now off the market (well, that and because of the glut of short sales in our neighborhood). So now we can leave our house a little messy and start drawing up plans for our next home improvement project.
• It seems like there's a lot more going on, and maybe there is, but I sure can't remember right now.

Crawling Into My Den

It's that time of year again: Tax Season Hibernation. Tomorrow marks the first unofficial day of the busy season at work. From now until May 1st I'll be buried up to my eyeballs in tax returns, FERC forms, 10-k's, and tax area allocation reports.

Most years are busy enough, but this year we get to do it with one fewer appraiser in the division. That wouldn't be a big deal if we had a dozen or so appraisers, but when you start with 5 taking one away makes a bit of a difference.

I've been told to expect to work about a week's worth of overtime over the next two months.

It's really not that big a deal, I guess. A lot of people work that much and more. Heck, I used to work a lot more than that at other jobs, and they were physically demanding. I've gotta say, though, that I'm more exhausted after 40 hours of thinking than I ever was doing physical labor. The physical labor has a way of rejuvenating you, the thinking just sucks the life out of you.

So just a word of warning: you may not see me much for the next ten weeks. For many of you I'm sure that's an answer to prayer.

Good News! I'm Not Insane!

Well, at least in one area I'm not losing my mind. As I was sitting here in silence I remembered an odd "trick" I used to be able to do. The word "trick" is in quotation marks because, yes, it's something unique I can do, but nobody can see or hear me do it.

Ever since I can remember I've been able to make a rumbling noise in my head any time I wanted. It's like I flex some sort of muscle and and I hear a rumbling in my ears. I remember asking other people if they could do the same back when I was a little kid, but nobody could and they all thought I was crazy for even asking the question.

But today, when I remembered it, I realized that a lot has changed since I was a little kid: Al Gore created the internet. And with the internet I can type a question, however crazy, into Google or other similar search engine and get a response from anonymous strangers. Are these times we live in great or what?

It turns out that humans have what's called a Tensor Tympani Muscle in their ears (both of them), and that this muscle involuntarily contracts to help dampen chewing noises. It can also help dampen loud noises. But apparently there is a small group of people with the ability to flex this muscle voluntarily. I'm one of them. You can read all about it on Wikipedia here.

I don't know how many times I thought that I must just be crazy or something, or that something was seriously wrong with my head or ears. It's a nice skill to have, though, when people are talking to you and you don't really want to hear them. They can't tell you're doing it, but it sure helps drown them out.

It's just too bad there aren't special scholarships or other benefits for people with this ability. Is there anyone else out there able to do this? Or is it just me and a few other anonymous internet weirdos in an on-line forum?

Post Ideas

Yeah, so I can't think of anything to write about, even though I have all this time waiting for the dishwasher to finish its cycle so I can shove it back in place and run it again. Stupid leaky dishwasher. It's fixed, or at least it hasn't leaked since I finished fixing it, but I sure hate dealing with water-related fixes.

So I've been wandering around looking for something to write about. I even checked the pantry for ideas. No ideas there, but I did find some crackers to snack on.

Yep, nothing like sitting around watching a dishwasher run, eating crackers, listening to Pink Floyd and waiting for the FedEx guy to bring parts to fix the dryer.

I've gotta say, though, that I'm glad we decided to tile under the dishwasher when we put in the tile. That probably saved us some trouble.

Yeah, I'm still struggling to come up with something to write about. Maybe I'll just give up and do something else for awhile.

Or I could write about how, 3 months ago, I was told that I wouldn't have to go out of town for any classes this winter, but now I've been scheduled to go to two classes in February alone. I guess I should be glad to be able to attend some classes and learn something, but it sure is a bad time to be out of town. Not to mention the fact that the first class is in Logan. Really? Logan in February? I love Logan, don't get me wrong, but there are 11 better months a year to visit. It's hard to enjoy the Aggie ice cream when it's too cold for it to even melt in your mouth.

Still no leaks from the dishwasher, and it's nearing the end of its cycle.

In other news, the trees are really sneezing today.

It sounds like it's on its final drain. Still no leaks. Not even a drip. With any luck it'll work just the same when it's pushed back in place, which I'm going to go do right now...

Back to the Classics

Ouch

It may be a little hard to tell in this picture, but the part down below is supposed to look like the picture above. The little metal ball is no longer anywhere to be found, and the 1/2 inch solid metal shaft has been sheared off completely.

On the plus side, we now know why our dryer has been squeaking for years.

Favorite Commercial

If you know me at all, you know I have a pretty warped sense of humor. For some reason this commercial has always made me laugh. Not just a little chuckle, but a big old belly laugh. Maybe I'm a jerk for getting pleasure out of some kid's pain, but I think he deserved it.

Milwaukee

Maybe it's time to post something again. It has been almost a month since my last post. And, to be honest, I haven't had a post worth reading in nearly a year (some would argue much, much longer).

I'm not the kind of guy that likes to talk about what I've been doing. I'm more the kind of guy that likes to say quick-witted one-liners and then crawl back into my cave. Facebook is much better for one-liners, but it takes a lot of one-liners to actually say anything of value (some would argue that the sum total of all my facebook comments wouldn't add up to anything of value. I would be among them.)

I see that the trend right now--being the end of 2009 (or beginning of 2010, if you like to look at things like that)--is to give a recap of all the things that happened during the last year. While that would certainly be interesting, I'd like to do something a little different. I don't know what yet, though, so maybe I'll come back and edit this part after I see the direction this post goes.

Maybe I should talk about an experience that happened to me at church a couple weeks ago and go from there. Our Elder's Quorum is the best I've ever been in. Everybody gets along, is able to joke around with each other, but can be serious and spiritual when needed. Anyway, part of the cause of that is that we go around the room introducing ourselves whenever someone new comes into the ward (or from time to time just for fun). I was asked to share what my interests are and it took me a minute to come up with an answer.

It used to be that I felt defined by the things I did. Back when I played the guitar all the time I considered myself a guitar player. When I went out shooting guns every week I was a ... well, a gun enthusiast, I guess. When I was excitedly learning how to cook I was some sort of cooking person.

Those labels always bothered me, as do the labels we put on other people. How is it possible to define a person with 3 or 4 words? And are a person's hobbies really the defining factor in who they are?

Maybe. I'm not writing to give an answer, just to ask the question. I think back to all the people I've met (at least the few I remember) and look at how my perception of that person was ... not "tainted", but a similar word without the negative connotations. I'm not saying that it's bad to introduce someone to someone else by giving a short description of the person, but it's funny to me that those few words become forever associated with the person, at least in my own head.

And those associations can really make an impact on how people are perceived by others, for good or for bad.

I'm often introduced to people at work as "the computer guy" or a similar description. While that is indeed the one-faceted perception that most people have of me at work, it seems woefully insufficient to define who I am. There have been times that I've considered writing up a short essay explaining who I am and what defines me, and having a stack on my desk to hand out to people I meet, but I have a feeling that would seem a little odd (which might reinforce the topic of the essay).

Maybe a short video presentation would work, or some sort of audio recording.

I guess learning about who someone is will always take more than just a handshake and a few pleasantries. And maybe it's better that way. Maybe it's good that we don't all immediately know everything there is to know about other people. It lets us preserve our own personal identity and reveal it as we see fit to those with whom we interact. I definitely don't want strangers knowing as much about my personality as my wife does. And even my co-workers each have a different perception of who I am and what interests me.

Which brings us back to my earlier question: what are my interests?

My answer? Everything. I can't think of a single thing in the world that doesn't interest me in some way. I may not currently be pursuing many interests, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in things. There's no food that I don't want to try, no place that I don't want to go (except maybe Milwaukee), no sport that I don't want to participate in.

So how do you sum that all up in a single phrase during an introduction? "Hi. I'm Dan. I'm interested in everything...except maybe Milwaukee."

930042

Hey, if you know anyone looking for a 3 bed, 1 bath home in scenic Tooele, have them check this one out.

Pompei

Have you ever wanted to walk around Pompei, but you were here and Pompei obstinately refused to cross the ocean to visit you? Now you can see Pompei from the privacy of your own home thanks to Google.

Click here! Seriously! Just click!

Hopefully the link works.

It will take you to Pompei, at least on your computer. If you're not accustomed to Google Streetview, you can just click on the white arrows to move around. Or, if you want to change the angle of the camera, just grab the picture with the cursor and move it how you'd like it.

Also, if you'd like to move a lot, just grab that little guy in the bottom section and drop him where you'd like to go.

Anyway. If I'd known that this existed a couple months ago we could have saved ourselves a trip. Just kidding. It's not quite as good as the real thing, but at least there's not as much walking involved.