weird occurrence #2 of 3

on saturday i talked with my neighbor a bit at his garage sale. he and his father are moving back home to south dakota and were planning on leaving yesterday or today. they packed up their pickup beds throughout the day on monday. on tuesday, their trucks were gone and their dumpster was filled in front of their garage. i assumed they were gone until i noticed a tv on the cement where they were loading their pickups. it was right by our duplex in the extra parking area at the end of the caldesac. theoretically someone else could have left it, but probably not. when i came home for lunch, it was still there. and was still there after work.

so i investigated. it could have been a pos that they simply couldn't fit in their dumpster, but it wasn't. other than the bird-crap and tree sap, it's a beautiful 26"-er with a bit of the plastic busted in the corner. and it is now in my garage. :) i haven't necessarily decided to keep it, but a bunch of my neighbors saw me tote it in and they didn't object. it sure beats the 13" i'm borrowing now...

(i would post a pic of it, but hello is having issues.)


in other news, we were in a wind advisory all day and it was chilly out as well. i listened to the radio a bit at 10.00 this morning. the deejay's were saying it was 63 degrees when they arrived at work and it was now 55. they thought we had already reached the high for the day. it was gray all day with consistent wind gusts of 55 mph. now we're in a frost advisory. i'm so glad fall arrives in nebraska before december, as it seems to in texas!

weird occurrence #1 of 3

so at least 3 really odd things have happened in the last two days...but i don't have time to type it all out tonight, so we'll do this in increments.

when mom came home from work yesterday, the garage door was open and there was a very recently used feminine product in the toilet. now, it wouldn't be terribly hard to explain the open garage door...something could have tripped a sensor or the electricity could have blipped or something. but...why would someone leave something in the bathroom??

i believe 4 people have keys to our house -- mom, my sister, my grandparents, and i. my sister and i were in class and work during the day. the grandparents didn't come in...and if they would have, they wouldn't have gone into the garage...and definitely wouldn't have left something in the toilet.

mom called the town cop. but he didn't do much because there were no signs of a break-in and nothing else was out-of-the-ordinary.

so i have a good story to tell and story will probably be on the front page of the prestigious the henderson news (not joking there).

i seriously need to clean my place. for awhile i was waiting until i had furniture, then a desk...now i have no excuse. i just have no motivation after running around all day at work to do anything at home. so...i decided that since i still claim to be a g2er and am still on the floor's mailing list, i am aiming to have the place clean by the time g2's RA checks the rooms and suites on the floor. hopefully i can have the basement clean as well, but the main floor definitely must be clean by then. after that, i will finally take some pics of my place for you all to see...

o, and a very happy birthday to Abbi!!

my new office, etc and the arrival of fall!!

the courthouse is in the beginning stages of a full renovation. (i think we're spending along the lines $14-$15 million in taxpayer money.) the building we're in now was wonderful when it was built in the '70's, but we have definitely outlived it. until last month, i had a ~15' x ~8' office and barely fit into it. then i was moved into a ~8' x ~9' hole of an office and barely have room to walk from the door to my desk.

so today i had a meeting to review the plans for the renovated IT dept. it was supposed to last 1/2 hr, but ended up being 1.5 hrs long! i wasn't sure if it was to inform me of what the dept would look like or if i would have a chance to give input, but it was definitely to give my input! right now, i'm the only one in the dept (but i'll most likely have an intern to help me soon!!). but obviously if we're spending this much money, we need to plan for 20-25 yrs down the road. so...drum roll please...i will have 3 offices, a workroom, and a storage room at my disposal (plus the server room and another room of storage in the basement)!! my office and workroom will be 17' x 9'. the two other offices will be smaller, but still larger than what i have now. i'm not a visionary at all...i typically try to make do with what i have without spending too much money, etc. but now i have to plan a department, which is awesome, but really overwhelming. as it is now, i will have 40" high counters on the two long walls of the work room, with one side being 30" deep and the other 20". there will be a shelf or two above the narrower counter. i think i'll have movable drawer/cabinet units under the counters, but i'm not sure yet. i kinda feel like a kid in a candy store...it's so cool! but i'm in phase 5 of 5 of the renovation, so somehow i'll have to be really patient...

after the meeting, i walked into the closest office and told them all about it! their response? "that's wonderful, but do you realize how long it will take before you move into it?" then i realized...i will be 29 or 30 by the time it'll be ready for me. that put a damper on things, but i'm still really excited! :)

in other news, lincoln hit 103 degrees today, which beat the record for the day by one degree. it hit 95 here. fall will arrive tomorrow, as we're only supposed to get to get to 68!! i forgot that summer ends earlier than november here. i love the midwest!! :)

yep, my heart definitely stopped...twice.

heart-stoppage #1:
:07 left. pitt had the ball. huskers were up by 1. 2nd down. they were 30-40 yds from their endzone. kicking a field goal with the wind.

the ball was hiked while the place-holder was watching the sideline. it bounced off his head and into the kicker's hands. he threw it downfield with no receiver in sight (it totally should have been an intentional grounding penalty).

i believe my heart started beating then.

heart-stoppage #2:
:01 left. 3rd down.

the place-holder was paying attention this time. for the second time in the game, the blackshirts (husker defense) blocked the field goal.

because we use tax money to buy what we need at the courthouse, we can't throw any of it away...even if it doesn't work at all. being in the IT dept, there was obviously plenty of things i got rid of this year. i submitted a few phones, some ups's, a digital camera, a microfilm machine (complete with extra supplies), a cd tower (24 cd drives stacked in a ~2'x2'x2' box), some printers, and a bunch of keyboards -- of of which no longer work. there was also a bunch of pc's and monitors that would be good for parts.

throughout the year, as Binit (the guy i took over for) and i run out of room in the office, we bring the stuff to a storage building near the sheriff's office...which is about 7 blocks from the courthouse. then on the friday before the auction, we move everything to the sheriff's impound lot where the auction is held.

whenever i've moved stuff to the storage location, someone always offers to get inmates from the county jail to help me. i always turn them down because i'm too uneasy about that. but yesterday the maintenance guy and i needed to move all of the IT equipment from the storage building to the impound lot and he got an inmate to help us. i was thankful the inmate was there because some of that stuff was really heavy, especially after lifting equipment for a few hours. he never said a word and didn't make eye contact with either one of us the whole time. i guess that makes sense, but it kinda caught me off-guard. as we were moving the stuff, i always sat in the back of the pickup with the equipment while the maintenance guy and the inmate sat in the cab. after a few trips back and forth, i realized that it is illegal to ride in the bed of a pickup in nebraska. and i am a county employee, moving county property, in a county-owned pickup, going between the sheriff's office and the sheriff's impound (which is 1-2 blocks). :)

anyways...after we finished moving all the equipment, i was sitting in my office and saw the inmate walk by with another inmate and a lietenant. the inmate who had helped us told the lietenant, "i couldn't believe all of the nice computers the county is getting rid of!" that was the first time i heard his voice...it was kinda wierd.

last year they auctioned most of the computer equipment off for $1 and still threw a bunch away. this year, i bought 4 monitors with 6 keyboards thrown in for $14. so it's not the nicest stuff. so if any of you are too far from lu to go dumpster diving for old IT equipment and would like me to pick something up for you, let me know...

i found out tonight how yummy blueberry muffin batter is! :)

2 tickets to the nebraska-wake forest game: $90
parking: $10
2 slices of pizza and a water: $7
5/8 tank of gas: $22.43
experiencing the sea of red for the first time: priceless

so my family started going to husker games only after i left for letourneau, making it impossible for me to join them. but a few weeks ago, a guy at work let me know that he had two available for game 2! so my brother and i are heading to lincoln on saturday!! waaa hoooooo!! :-d

i had an absolute blast last weekend hanging out with Becky!! we did all the normal things...hanging out at coffee shops, talking, making a walmart run, some entertaining photoshop action (which will elaborated on at a later date), and talking. but there were definitely plenty of firsts for both of us. there was the seatbelt violation that wasn't really, the purchase of snow pants in september (for skiing!!), the purchase of an outdoor grill, mattress shopping, and more talking about the future men in our lives than i knew could come out of the mouths of two chicks like us. there was also a bit of gourgeous hiking, which i might post some pics of later.

i realized this weekend that i am exactly where i want to be geographically. i absolutely love the mountains, but i don't belong among them for any longer than a few days. speaking of, i need to buy a few 4-day lift tickets!! I CAN'T WAIT TO SKI THIS WINTER!!

license plate ideas

i can't keep my same license plate when i get new ones in november. so i've decided to get a husker plate -- they look really cool and there are also other obvious reasons. :) so now i have to decide what to put on it. i've thought about "zjh" (zippy jean hesston) and also "zippy." the thing is that i don't necessarily want my co-workers to know me as zippy...something about it being much less professional i guess. zjh would be more discrete, so that's what i'm leading towards. but i don't want to decide this only have considered two options. so if you all have any ideas, feel free to comment or email me!