GetSheila

Life by the Numbers

1 preggers co-worker who looks so cute waddling around the office with her big belly, yet so tired and uncomfortable (It’s okay that I said “waddling” because she doesn’t read my blog. Shh…nobody tell her.)

2 computer monitors at work is still not enough. DAMN YOU, TECHNOLOGY.

3 days into a new anti-depressant regimen, 4 to 6 weeks before I stop wanting to kill people.

4 TV’s in the house and sometimes I don’t turn a single one on for days.

5 days too early to get the Kindle 2 $70 price drop refunded. Bastards.

6 months before tax season starts all over again. God I need a vacation.

7 days off remaining in the year for official holidays. Not that I’m counting.

8 glasses of water a day, even if I do have to pee every 10 minutes.

9 days later and still my neck and arm pain won’t go away. I start physical therapy this week. It sucks to get old yet I’m not even 50. Holy crap, is this what I have to look forward to? Come on, number 3!

10 pounds to lose. Okay more, but I am taking baby steps and setting achievable goals.

 

 

Technorati Tags: 10 things,lists,life by the numbers

My Tree Broke

My neighbor called me at work yesterday to tell me my tree broke.

 

The tree man comes today to perform surgery. I predict a much sunnier back yard in my future.

Click anywhere on the slideshow to jump to my Picasa WebAlbum and see the photos bigger.

 

Technorati Tags: broken tree,back yard,gardening

The great bacon mystery

Why is it that the phenomenon where food tastes better at a restaurant than it does at home does not hold true for bacon?

I would really like to know.

Technorati Tags: bacon mysteries,home cooked bacon vs. restaurant bacon

What happened to classic pumps?

Is it too much to ask for a simple, elegant pump with a 2 1/2 to 3 inch heel in camel?

Apparently, it is.

Case in point: the picture on the right is exactly what I am looking for, except for the 4” heel. I work in an office, not a bordello.

The highest heel I’ve worn in the past 5 years is 3 inches. If I suddenly jumped to 4 inches I would fall over and break something.

Or my feet would fall off by lunchtime, forcing me to hobble around on bloody stumps the rest of the afternoon. We already have to clean the carpets every 6 months due to client traffic so that simply will not do.

I’ve been to every shoe store in town and discovered a disturbing trend: if you are looking for a shoe somewhere between low-heel-square-toe-granny-hideous and come-fuck-me-you-might-as-well-I’d-rather-be-on-my-back-than-standing-in-these-ridiculously-high-hells-anyway, you are out of luck.

And if you want camel or nude or whatever fancy name they call that perfectly neutral color that complements your skin tone and blends into the background, fuggedaboudit.

And no, I will not spend $100 or more on a pair of shoes. Actually, I would, but they would have to be guaranteed both beautiful AND comfortable and I’m fairly certain there is no such animal.

I finally broke down and ordered some from Newport News with a 3 1/2 inch heel. We shall see how the look. And fit. And feel by lunchtime on the first day.

It’s hard being a girl.

 

Technorati Tags: camel pumps,high heel shoe woes

Another Blogoversary, but who’s counting?

Me, apparently. Look at that, another year has gone by.

Happy 4th Blogoversary to me!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging for 4 years. Admittedly, my posts have been few and far between this last year so can I really say I’ve been blogging all this time?

Yes. Yes I can.

In celebration of this eventful day, I had a massage. Actually it was to try to work out some weird arm pain I’ve been experiencing for about a week now but then I remembered it was my blogoversary so – yay! – a celebration.

It didn’t work, though. Bummer. I thought the pain had to do with my trapezius muscle but now it appears to be more of a neck thing, and perhaps nothing to do with muscles at all. Tilting my head back causes my right arm to ache to between the elbow and shoulder. Since it goes away when I tilt my neck back up to normal, it doesn’t appear to be the muscle.

Dr. Google’s diagnosis is something pinching a nerve, perhaps a herniated disc.

Dr. Google is gloom and doom. I need to stop consulting him.

In the meantime, I think I’ll go make myself a cake. Go have something chocolate yourself, won’t you?

 

Technorati Tags: blogoversary,neck pain

Sziraki Pleads Out

Here you go, my pretties:

Merced Sun-Star, Friday, Jun. 11, 2010 Kimberly Sziraki pleads no contest in $1.6 million embezzlement case By VICTOR A. PATTON - vpatton@mercedsun-star.com Embezzlement defendant Kimberly Sziraki pleaded no contest to four felony counts of embezzlement and theft Friday in Merced County Superior Court. She'd been charged with stealing $1.6 million from a Merced nut processing plant. As part of the plea agreement with prosecutors from the Merced County District Attorney's Office, Sziraki will be sentenced to between five and eight years in prison. She's scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Ronald Hansen on July 23. The remaining 13 counts Sziraki, 45, was facing were dismissed as part of the agreement. Prosecutors said Sziraki embezzled the $1.6 million between 2005 and 2008 from Central Valley Processing Acquisition Corp., a nut processing plant in Merced County where she worked as a manager. Chief Deputy District Attorney Mark Bacciarini said the lion's share of the money was spent on online gambling. She's married to Merced County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Sziraki. Prosecutors have said there's no evidence he was aware of the crimes. Before the plea deal, Sziraki was facing a maximum of 17 years in prison. Bacciarini said he'll push for Sziraki to serve a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. None of the stolen money has been recovered. "The damage in this case went beyond just the taking of the money," Bacciarini said. "We're talking about putting a business, its suppliers and employees in peril. It did a lot of damage to that company." John Garcia, Sziraki's attorney, said he'll urge Hansen to sentence his client to the minimum term, based on her otherwise clean criminal record and the fact she cooperated with investigators and admitted her crimes. Garcia said his client was in the grips of alcoholism, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and a number of "emotional and psychological conditions" when the crimes happened. "We plan on bringing an expert opinion at the time of sentencing with actual medical reports and doctors reports, psychological and otherwise, that will verify it," Garcia said. Still, Garcia acknowledged that the outcome for his client could have been worse, especially if she had gone to trial facing all 17 counts. "Under the plea arrangement, we were able to at least manage and control the amount of years she would get," Garcia said. "We thought this was the most prudent way to go with this case." Even though many of the counts were dismissed, Sziraki will probably be ordered to pay total restitution costs to the nut processor. The Merced County Office of Probation will submit a restitution report to Hansen before sentencing. Ken Spagnola, owner of Central Valley Processing Acquisition, said he's pleased with the resolution of the case. He hopes Sziraki will be sentenced to the maximum eight years in prison. "I'm glad things turned out the way they did," Spagnola said. "I was really nervous (prosecutors) were going to let her get off for nothing. She's done a horrible amount of damage. I feel she should pay for what she's done." Merced County has seen several high-profile embezzlement cases in recent years. In October, former Los Banos city employee Mary Ann Jones was sentenced to eight years in prison for stealing more than $1.7 million in cash from city coffers. In another case, Stockton resident Ajay Chandra was sentenced to four years, four months in prison for stealing $1.1 million from Central Valley Concrete and Trucking, where he worked as CFO. Bacciarini said prosecutors considered the resolution of similar cases in making the plea agreement with Sziraki's attorney. "We've got to be consistent, to punish similar conduct a similar way," Bacciarini said. Sziraki also pleaded to an enhancement as part of the agreement, admitting to stealing an amount above $500,000. She remains free on bail and isn't expected to be taken into custody until her July 23 sentencing. Reporter Victor A. Patton can be reached at (209) 385-2431 or vpatton@mercedsun-star.com. The online story is here, until the Sun-Star moves it and breads the link: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2010/06/11/1456054/kimberly-sziraki-pleads-no-contest.html#ixzz0qvp85REr

 

See comments already posted before I put this up starting here plus the two subsequent comments.

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Hat tip to mom and JCW, who sent me this link virtually at the same time. Sometimes I think I should read the paper more but then I remember I don’t have to because I have you guys.

Technorati Tags: sziraki,kim sziraki,kim walker,merced embezzlement,spagnola

Where's Waldo, er Tiger?

Here’s a hint:

Cat People: we just can’t get enough of our behbehs.

Technorati Tags: cats,tiger,kitties

Garage Sale, Anyone?

I am thinking about going garage saleing. Not today, of course. For heaven’s sake, I didn’t think of it until 8:00am and everyone knows all the great bargains are gone by 7:02, snatched up by the garage sale vultures who read the ad saying it starts at 7:00 so show up at 6:30, banging on the garage door to see if they can get an early peek. Then they make off with all the good stuff, leaving the dregs for people who eat breakfast.

So rude yet so cunning.

It has been almost three decades since I helped run a garage sale of my own. It was a fundraiser for the cheer and songleaders to raise money for cheerleading camp. What sticks out in my mind the most was the pilfering.

We were selling clothes for 25 cents yet people stole them rather than pay the quarter. I don’t get it.

Then there was the girl who bought a pair of very nice Candies slides – hey, it was the 80’s – and came back a few hours later wanting to return them. Uh, no, you cannot have your 75 cents back. Sorry.

She was probably diversion for the clothing pilferers. Next garage sale, I am soooo setting up a Nanny Cam.

Why am I thinking of going garage saleing? Because I need a patio table and chairs. My current patio table looks like this:

You see the problem. I saved it thinking I would Lt. Dan* it, which I may still do, but I really want a rectangular table. With the loooooong built in bench in my patio, a rectangular table would be a better fit.

I currently have a makeshift table and chairs but, well, you be the judge:

The table is really two heavy bistro tables that came with the house but require a tablecloth to hide the ugliness. The red metal chairs came with the house, too. I could refinish them but they would still be metal hence not very comfortable. As for the white plastic chairs, well, they’re plastic. I want something nice with swivel chairs all around covered in squishy, comfy fabric.

Or course what I want costs about $1,000 so, garage saleing anyone?

 

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*Forrest Gump to Lt. Dan: “You got new legs. New legs!” My wit, rapier-like yet obscure.

 

Technorati Tags: garage sale,garage saleing,patio furniture

The assimilation continues…

I bought a Kindle.

I know! The techno-assimilation never ends.

I swore I would never buy one because:

1. I like real books.
    
   I like the feel of them. I like the ability to flip around easily to, say, the last chapter to find out how it ends before returning to where I was and reading all the way through (blasphemous, I know.)
    
   Being surrounded by shelves full of books makes me feel smart and perhaps a bit elitist, though I own mostly paperbacks so it’s a poor man’s elitism. Bookshelves full of paperbacks is not nearly as elegant as bookshelves full of hardbacks.
   
    
2. I like to share books.
    
   I mostly only share books with my mom locally and my sister in Idaho, but if I have the latest book in a series we all read and cannot share it because it’s on my Kindle rather than a hard copy I can simply hand over, well, that would suck.
    
3. The price.
    
   $259 for the sole purpose of reading books I still have to pay for at $10 each? Oh, HELL no.
    

But then Mother’s Day rolled around and I thought, hey, mom LOVES to read and she does it almost exclusively in bed. Back problems force her to lie flat on her back in bed rather than sit up so she only reads paperbacks because she has trouble holding up heavy hardbacks. My recent switch to buying hardbacks to populate my bookshelves in  English Library style rather than Summer Beach Reading is problematic for sharing.

So, $259 for a Kindle 2 for mom? Pocket change.

I find it odd that I won’t spend $259 on myself but don’t blink when it’s for mom. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a martyr. I spend plenty o’ cash on electronic toys for myself but the Kindle was something I thought I could live without.

Oh how wrong I was. This is not a review of the Kindle. You can find plenty of those, including this Kindle vs.. iPad video that breaks down the pros and cons of each quite well:

 

What the Kindle did for me – and yes, I overcame my greed and finally gave it to my mom after a week of playing with it myself – was open my eyes to the world of eBooks.

I found this post about how to convert PDF and other eBook formats to be read on the Kindle, which uses Mobi Pocket Creator, and remembered I have Mobi Pocket Reader on my phone. A download here, a conversion there, and – voila! – I can now read eBooks on my Blackberry Bold. And that’s all I have been doing for the past two weeks. I thought the screen would be too tiny but it is not. I thought having to press a button to advance to the next page so frequently due to the small screen would be a nuisance, but I don’t even have to move my hand to hit the key. I do have a holding-up-the-phone-to-read-in-bed crick in my neck now but what a lovely excuse for a professional massage.

So I don’t actually own a Kindle but I do always have a book – or twelve – with me on my phone for those times when I’m stuck in line at the grocery store or waiting in the dentist’s office or sitting at my desk eating lunch.

I am doing so much more reading now. It doesn’t exactly help my couch potato status but I’m ignoring that. For now.

Next step: check out the local lending library and see if they are set up for eBooks. I hear they can put an expiration of some sort on downloads so the book returns itself to the library at the appointed time. SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.

 

Technorati Tags: Kindle,ebooks,ebooks on your phone,blackberry bold ebooks,mobi pocket reader,mobi pocket creator