Martin Sheen sent me email! Kick ass!

Well, kinda.

From: "Martin Sheen" [info @ deanforamerica.com]
To: Kathryn [kkrueger @ exmsft.com]
Subject: A special message from Martin Sheen
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:31:10 -0400

Dear Kathryn,

I am writing you today as a fellow supporter of Howard Dean. It is now more important than ever that we stand up with him.

At yesterday's presidential debate in New York City, the Washington candidates continued their relentless attacks on Howard Dean. For the past month, the establishment candidates have been conducting orchestrated assaults on Dean's character, employing radio ads, speeches, direct mail, and a whisper campaign questioning the Governor's commitment to key Democratic values -- one of them has even created a website devoted exclusively to criticizing Howard Dean.

As Howard Dean said at the debate, "We need to remember that the enemy here is George Bush, not each other."

We need Howard Dean's bold leadership in the White House. Strong fundraising keeps our campaign's momentum going; it pays for much-needed media buys in key battleground states and it attracts new supporters to Howard Dean. And continuing strong fundraising will also help with the campaign's latest bold move: hiring a coordinator for each of Iowa's 99 counties.

There are five days left before the FEC filing deadline. I urge you to make a contribution now to help Governor Dean:

http://www.deanforamerica.com/contributetoday

I know that you have done a great deal to get Howard Dean to where he is today. But today and for the next five days the most important thing he needs is your financial support. Please join more than 150,000 Americans who have already contributed:

http://www.deanforamerica.com/contributetoday

Thank you for taking the time today to support Howard Dean.

Sincerely,
Martin Sheen

I guess he likes Dean too. Yay for Dean. Yay for Martin Sheen, the would-be-Canadian Dean-supporter best-ever-fictional-president (West Wing kicks ass!) who sent me email.

I finally rode the bus to work today!

Granted, Steve rode it also, and even walked with me to the bus stop, so it was significantly less scary.

That said, I still feel pretty proud of myself. Yay Kathryn! Way to conquer your fears.

I want to go home from work. But I'm waiting to start off a database restoration job. But I can't start it until I finish copying the database backup file over to my server, and that copy job has been going for 20 minutes already. It says "4 minutes remaining", but 10 minutes ago it said "7 minutes remaining". I don't think it knows what it's talking about.

I hate super-large files.

I hate waiting.

Oh well. Been looking at the Seattle Traffic Cameras and it looks like I'd just be leaving to sit in traffic anyhow. Bah.

I also hate bills. Why can't they just pay themselves?

I mean, I guess they can, with all those new-fangled bill-paying services. But I don't trust them. I don't like when money is automatically drawn from my accounts -- that just makes it easier to miss discrepancies.

So why can't I pay bills like, once every half year? So many bills, due so often... suckasaurus.

I hate traffic.

I meant to post at least part of this thread a while back:

________________________________________
From: Oliver Scholz
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 5:05 PM
To: Kathryn Krueger; Susan Boling; Former CRM Employees
Subject: RE: hmaun mnid

There is a word for that:
Dyslexia
:)
I had to go to extra classes as a kid to try to fix my dyslexia.

Welcome back Kathy! Glad to see you back at the company.
________________________________________
From: Kathryn Krueger
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 5:01 PM
To: Susan Boling; Former CRM Employees
Subject: RE: hmaun mnid

For me, it’s not jsut readnig – my mnid dosen’t bohrer tpynig or wirting all the letetrs in the rihgt oredr etiher. I’m alwyas misytpnig whree all the corerct ltteers are icnluedd, but not in the rgiht odrer. It eevn hapepns wehn I’m wriitng the old fasihoend way, with a pen and paepr. I don’t alawys hvae the frist and lsat lteters rgiht, thuogh – semitemos I yllatnedicca etirw sdrow sdrawkcab, os tsrif dna tsal era pilf deppolf.

________________________________________
From: Susan Boling
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 4:29 PM
To: Former CRM Employees
Subject: hmaun mnid

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in
waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total
mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe.

Then I saw that Brian had posted something almost identical to Susan's original mail on his blog in the meanwhile. Ha. I geuss geart mnids tinhk akile.

Oliver pointed a finger at me and claimed dyslexia because I accidentally type entire words backwards sometimes. I didn't think that was the sort of way in which dyslexia manifested itself. Hmm. I'll evah to research taht a tib more sometime.

Actor and activist Martin Sheen, who portrays a fictional US president on the television drama The West Wing, said when he crosses from the US to Canada he feels like he's left "the land of the lunatics".

I'm not the only one!

New processes implemented at work. I'm much busier, but much happier. They're helping smooth things out such that it's easier to get my work done and be more productive, and they're also positively affecting the way in which my officemate and I interract. Nice to have new processes actually help, instead of just bogging things down.

Happy happy me.

My name was lost, and now is found.

Another Kathryn joined my group this week. She does essentially the same job I do. And she goes by Kathryn, no nicknames. I've always preferred Kathryn at work -- I like the formality -- but now it's starting to get confusing.

So today I called up the Company_B helpdesk to have them change my display name on the network to Kathy, and I started signing my emails as Kathy, as well. Crazy. I feel like a different person.

I decided to go with Kathy at work instead of Kat, even though Kat seems to be my preferred name socially right now -- I wanted some separation from my social life. At work, I'm Kathy. And it's just my job, not my life. When I go home at the end of the day, I'll be someone else, and that's where the living will begin.

I've been having disturbing dreams lately.

The other night, I dreamed that I was on an airplane. A girl on the plane was being raped. Several people had pulled her down onto the aisle floor and were undressing her, touching her, violating her against her will. Everyone else on the plane, maybe 10-15 passengers in all, while perhaps not actively involved, were still aware of what was going on. Many were actively supporting it.

I was sitting a little ways away, to the front and to the left of everything that was happening. I have this vivid picture in my mind of the girl looking at me in a moment of utter desperation. Our eyes met...

And then I looked away. Pretended I didn't see. Kind of like when you walk by a homeless person on the street, and you walk by not making eye contact, pretending as if you don't see, so that you don't have to deal with it.

I felt so dirty. I still do, and it wasn't even real. And even now, the picture of this girl looking to me for help is burned into my mind.

I don't understand the King County Metro bus schedule pamphlets. They're like Greek to me. Only I think Greek might be slightly easier for me to translate.

This afternoon I pointed Brian to a link that I got quite a while back off of Salam Pax's blog, and then Brian linked it in one of his blog posts. I don't even know where Salam Pax got the link in the first place; I know he is an avid reader of any number of blogs, though, so it could have been anywhere. It's like Chutes and Ladders! Where will it go next?

A change of pace for Chris, who is apparently not a Lyle Lovett fan:

I don't wanna waste my time on simple little things
I'd rather stay here all the night with everyone who sings

Happy boys and happy girls will be
We are the happy boys and girls
Happy boys and happy girls will be
So happy yeah So so happy yeah
Happy boys and happy girls will be
We are the happy boys and girls
Happy boys and happy girls will be
Oh yeah
So happy

If I had a boat
I'd go out on the ocean
And if I had a pony
I'd ride him on my boat
And we could all together
Go out on the ocean
Me upon my pony on my boat

My ultimate team, ALLCAPS, had its first official game of the season today. We won, 15-10. Not a bad start.

Someone on the other team had a bad dive while defending and hurt his knee really badly. Two games so far this season -- we had a scrimage last week -- and both games, someone on the other team suffered a nasty injury. Not cool.

Both games, my left knee kept popping whenever I was running and cutting. Also not cool. I'm going to have to talk to a doctor about that, maybe.

Outside of that, today's game was good. I caught everything thrown to me, and completed all passes I made. We all started off kind of weak -- at halftime, we were only ahead 8-7 -- but we started playing pretty well together midway through the game. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season.

I've been having a bad day at work. A nasty, horrible day. Stupid ass politics -- I just want to do my job. Why should that be so hard?

Add in that I have cramps, I've been fighting with someone close to me, and Mr_X0 is being his usual pain-in-the-butt-self.

It's stupid, but when work gets bad like this I totally internalize it. If work is going poorly, I start feeling like my life sucks. I know that's uncool and irrational, but I seem to do it anyway.

Blah.

Trying to figure out the schedule for busing to work. I'm scared of the bus. A bus virgin. I wanted them to have a FAQ for people who were scared of public transit on their main page, but no such luck. I guess it isn't scary to most people.

Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

Johnny Cash died today. Brian Moore will be sad. I'm a little bummed about it.

Today is a dreary, drizzly, overcast day -- the sort that Seattle is famous for, and actually the first like it that we've had in months.

I forgot how slick the roads get. My car hydroplaned on the exit ramp this morning, coming off the highway on the way to work. I lost control and nearly spun into the edge rail, but managed to regain control before that happened, without incident. It was scary, though. I'm still just coming off the adrenaline high that comes with being scared out of one's wits.

Man, I am such a dork. I was at lunch today with Miles, and his recruiter happened to be eating at the same restaurant. After we finished we stopped by her table so that he could say hello. I was wearing my "CANADA" sweatshirt.

Miles recruiter, trying to make polite conversation, asked me, "So are you Canadian?"

"I wish I were," I replied.

Silence.

Her date coughed and attempted a smile. "Well, it's a start," she said.

Yeah. Great. Kathy is a dork.