Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Lupus Walk


3 1/2 years ago, my sisters finance Tony was diagnosed with lupus. It is a common disease but unfortunately one of the least known about. Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which a person's immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own tissue. It can cause life-threatening damage to major organs such as the kidneys, lungs, heart and central nervous system.

There is no cure for lupus but there are many medications to help slow it's potentially devastating progress and help one to cope with the effects of the disease. There are a few different types of of lupus and unfortunately for Tony, he has systemic lupus that can effect almost any organ or organ system of the body.

In April 2008, Tony was hospitalized for the 3rd time as the lupus was attacking his heart and kidneys. None of the medications provided have worked so far and although Tony is out of the hospital, the lupus is far from being controlled.

Currently Tony is undergoing chemotherapy to try to kill off his immune system and essentially kill off the lupus. He feels very sick and has constant pain in his joints. We're all encouraging him to keep fighting and hoping that the chemotherapy will be the cure we've been looking for.

To help support a cure for Lupus, on Sunday, June 8th, the little piggy and I are walking in the 2008 Long Island Walk with Us to Cure Lupus Walkathon. If you would like to support our team or join us, follow the links below:


-S

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The tooth has arrived...

Finally, after suffering through months of teething, the little piggy popped a tooth this past Saturday and it looks like there are a few more to follow. Just in time as she started crawling around recently and now can use her tooth to bite the furniture instead of just gumming it. When I googled "eating furniture" I found that this is not typically a trait of human babies but it definitely happens often with dogs, cats and even cockatoos.

-s

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Priceless...

mini chair and table: $100
mini spoon and bowl: $10
sauce, cheese and bread: $2
second helping of pizza: $2

typical italian after eating: priceless


-s

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Loud Laugher

There's this guy that everyone has been talking about at work. They say that they can hear him laugh from across the building. Some people call him the Loud Laugher but seriously, I thought they were overreacting. Every other day I hear another tale of the Loud Laugher disrupting them or not allowing them to concentrate. People are planning desk moves to be moved away from him. Last week, a guy came over and said that the Loud Laugher was reported to Human Resources for laughing too loud.

I thought that this is all absurd! The poor guy is just trying to have a little fun at work. He's not beating people up, he's just laughing!!! How could people be so ridiculous. Besides, I can't hear him, so they must just be over sensitive.

Fast forward to today, actually just about 15 minutes ago. I'm sitting at my desk in my own little world and then I hear it. Not a chuckle but a bellow of a laugh. "Hoooaaahhh, Hoooaaahhh, Hoooaaahhh". It's not an evil laugh, more a very loud Santa Claus like laugh (like the Santa from the movie "The Christmas Story"). It's actually interesting so I follow the laugh. It goes on for about 5 minutes and I reach its source about a football field (American football guys) away from me. When I get there I nonchalantly try to pass by this guys desk so he doesn't realize I was on a laugh quest. But then, as he laughs again I almost shake from the vibration of his voice. This guy's amazing. There must be a trade for this, something he can do to "sell" his laugh. Really, he's taking LOL to a whole other level.

Well, now that I know he does exist. The Loud Laugher is about 100 yards away from me and can make me shiver even at this distance. Now I know what everyone was talking about. But it still makes me sad to say that everyone is being so mean to this jolly guy. Really, there are so many other things they can worry about than this guy laughing. Why do we always have to point out people who are different even if they are different in a good way. Take Matt Brown for instance. He and his mom get kicked out of a movie because he was laughing too loud. The kid was just laughing people! Get over it or go watch your movies at home!

It's becoming an epidemic. Soon they'll have laws on the books stating the highest allowed decibel level of laughter in an office or movie theater. Oh, it could be terrible... then we'd all have to have the "1 foot voice" that my 2nd grade teacher told us about (speak so that only a person 1 ft away from you can hear you).

I think I should buy everyone the book called "Too Loud Lilly". Then they'll realize that they're just being mean and the Loud Laugher is going to be a great ballerina/drama queen one day.

-s

Thursday, May 1, 2008

We do "The Wave"

I know I left the teaser on Home Depot Expo (HDE for short) and didn't actually blog about it yet, well, here's another teaser because I still haven't had a chance to go ape on their customer service staff and get my refund. Until then I can't email the CEO (thanks to Intern Jon, I have his email address) and I can't really tell you all the story. Soooo... on another note, I thought I'd share this fun tidbit with you all.

In my new role it's been very busy. A good busy though because I'm learning stuff and have lots of smart work to do (as opposed to the stupid work that I was asked to do in my old role). The new role even comes with some hidden, unforeseen benefits that I'm happy to report.

  • When someone leaves the group, has a milestone achievement or something, we celebrate! That means food, balloons and we all flock to the center of "the pit" (the low lying cubicles that house the teams working on the largest project) to line up for food. It's more like army ants than cows being herded. We're organized followers (or rather drinkers of the coolaid).
  • The leader of our group (the big kahuna) comes to some of our "all hands" meetings (btw, i really don't like that term "all hands" because some people may not have hands or may only have one hand and then will feel inadequate) and he actually does a motivational speech about how we need to stay positive, focus on our release, really be happy about our accomplishments. He makes us all feel good and doesn't actually beat anyone up and nobody spits when they talk. It's nice (weird I know).
  • We have more acronyms than development does. It's a bit crazy that a business group has more acronyms than an IT group.. very weird but true. I never thought it would happen but I like it because I'm starting to say sentences with minimal words like "Take the 07 WP and IR to BR and get a sign off" and people actually understand what I'm saying! My goal is to eliminate all the middle words and say only sentences with acronyms. Then I can officially be a part of generation z and IM people sentences of acronyms.
  • This is one of the best... every time our application successfully passes a phase in testing a bell is rung. It's kind of like one of those old school bells or rather a church bell. It says "dung" instead of "ring" or "jing-a-ling". The fun part about it is that my cube neighbor and I have started the clap and wave after the bell is tolled. We now have 4 rows of people in on this. It goes like this... "Dung", "Clap, clap, clap", "whoo hooo" (from Jim) and the wave continues on past me to Doug and then to some guy in the 4th row. Our goal is to make it all the way down the cubicles so that the guys in the pit can actually notice that we are a bit crazy. I think it will work. We may all have to add a "woo hoo" to get more attention though. I think we'll have a meeting about it.
  • And this is the best so far - every Thursday at 2:30 pm there's free ice cream!!! Now who can beat that! We of course all line up again like army ants waiting for Christine from the catering staff to come by with ice cream. Last week she was late an hour and there was almost a riot. To avoid the riot, some guy kept moving someone out of line so then everyone got confused and they didn't notice she was late.

This is so much better than what I just heard from a guy (we’ll call him Crazy Commuter or CC for short) in the old group. He just told me he didn’t get his paycheck. Sounds like things are going well over there! I also received good bye messages from 4 folks in the past two weeks. It’s going really well.

So, for the new group sign me up… I know, I sound like a groupie. But there's free ice cream!

-s