First Quote of The Year

Dale's quote of the day is as follows:

"This job is kind of like flying an airplane. It's hours and hours and hours and hours of boredom interspersed with a few moments of sheer terror."

We were talking about how there's nothing to do in the office until something goes wrong. Sigh, it's one of those days.

Heeeeyyyy Macarena!

Technology is acting up in the office today, and I was too busy facebooking to notice until I heard the following from Dale:

"I can't get into Quickbooks, Johnette can't get into Quickbooks, my computer is frozen... there's only one thing to do! Dance the Macarena!....... And then I need to go to the bank." 

And he pulls up and plays the Macarena song right on cue! Hahaha it was one of those "had to be there" moments.

GERD in 3..2..1 *blagh*

Today I came into my office and discovered a huge treat! Dale's famous home-made pickles! That's like a half-gallon of them, and they're for ME! Ever since I tried one of his pickles about a year ago, I have never purchased regular store-bought ones because they're just not the same thing. Once in a while Dale will share his pack lunch of pickles with me and I always savor the moment. I'm so crazy excited for this huge jar of pickles just for me! Plus... I kinda stopped by the gas station on my way into work and snagged a bag of Takis. Not the best combination for a healthy, heartburn-less esophagus, but oh well, I'll deal with the consequences later. 

As for now.... *munch, munch munch*

Where's Florida?

Oh the case of the Mondays... all anyone wants to do is curl up in bed for the rest of the day. 

Today in the office we are having issues with our faxes not going through to the National Marine Fisheries Service office located in Florida. I think all of their phones are down or something because all numbers we have called are dead. After about 15 minutes of muttering and trying to make phone calls Dale just exclaims: 

"I think Florida might have fallen into the ocean!" 

And we just accepted that as a reasonable explanation for uncooperative phone numbers and went on with our day.

On Manila Folders

Dale's quote of the day is as follows:

"Some day I'm going to remember to grab a handful of Manila folders and keep them by my desk so I don't have to get up each time I want one. Actually, maybe it's a good thing that I get up, I don't want to wind up looking like Cartman in South Park." 

Expert Advice

Absolutely NOTHING going on in the office today. As I am enthralled with a texting conversation with my mom I'm also listening to Dale think out loud in the background. I finally put my phone down and started listening in. This is what I caught:

"It's really bad when you answer yourself instead of just talking to yourself. Well... sometimes you just need expert advice..." 

Haha, I thought that was pretty good.

Hardly Working

Today is such a slowww day in the office. The busiest time is always the first week of the month, so things really calm down towards the end. This combined with our building's constant struggle with AC problems (translation: it's freaking hot in here) makes for rather comatose workers.
Dale and I have been sitting around (trying to be productive) and we both had cheese and crackers for lunch.

Whoever invented individual gourmet cheese wedges is a genius. The nearly silent monotony of mouse clicking was broken by Dale's quote of the day:

"Bleaghh I shouldn't have eaten so many crackers. But I did, AND I'M PROUD OF IT!"

And then back to silent clicking. I could take a nap if I had a neck pillow.

Office Moving Day!

We finally moved out of our office at the Coastal Bend Business Innovation Center (CBBIC from now on) and, contrary to popular belief, we didn't end up moving across the city. Instead, we opted to move ONE FLOOR down, into what Dale calls "The Serpentarium". For an exhibit-inspired floor, it aint half bad. See below: 

We have a "stress relief" area. Highly underused, but still nice.

Communal Putt-putt for anyone that actually has free time

And best of all... I got the biggest office on the floor! This actually used to belong to the building director.
*proceeds to feel important*

For some quirky architectural reason, my office has a balcony overlooking the first floor. I kinda love it. 

Today was a hard day of moving tons and tons of files and rearranging furniture, and we aren't even halfway done yet. I'd like to record some of the best quotes of the day: 

Director: That nice furniture is going to cost a little extra, just so you know.
Dale: That's alright, it's just money! And its not even my money!
Director: This is why it's great to do business with you. 

Michael: How's the temperature for ya?
Damaris: It's warm, but there's a nice breeze when I open this door.
Michael: Man, this building. They can fly drones to outer space, but they can't fix the AC. 

(After moving ginormous filing cabinets with much difficulty)
Michael: Well, at least gravity was in our favor. 

(When Michael saw me sitting under my desk hopelessly staring at a mess of wires)
Michael: Hey, Damaris, it might be a lot easier to use the computer if you were sitting on a chair, not on the floor.
Damaris: Thanks for the tip. 

Happy Birthday To Me

Of all the birthdays I've ever had, this year's was probably the least exciting one for one reason only: my brother left at 6am the next morning. On January 21 at around midnight I began receiving the usual deluge of "Happy Birthdays" from all kinds of wonderful people and automated emails, but I felt anything but happy. If anyone of you well-wishers is reading this today, I want to express my deepest gratitude for your friendship and love, and I regret not being appreciative of you that day. It is only now, 3 days later, that I have taken the first baby step in the 'healing process' of saying goodbye to Chris. I ate a slice of birthday cake my mom bought for me (first bite to eat in about 48 hours), I finished reading a book, I went to ATT go get Philip a new phone, and I deleted all the games Chris used to play on my phone, and I went shopping for a journal. 

Things are getting better! This morning I walked into my office and did two things before turning on my computer: 1) turned on a space heater by my feet and 2) made some very hot herbal tea. About 2 minutes after my de-thawing process had begun Dale walked in carrying a huge candle and a paper bag with an equally huge cinnamon bun. Here's the pic. 

Why does that look like such a forced smile? Because I COULDN'T FEEL MY FACE! And maybe because the hot wax burned my fingers and I destroyed my cinnamon bun trying to get it out of the bag, but I actually laughed a genuine laugh this morning. That's an achievement. Dale is such a great guy, he's brought me cinnamon buns multiple times and tells me funny stories to lighten the mood almost every day. Yay sugar for breakfast! 

The Serpentarium

In two weeks we are supposed to be relocating our offices to the second floor of this building, which is basically a long hallway with glass doors and walls leading into the offices. This description sucks, so I went downstairs and took a picture. Here it is:

Doesn't that remind you of a zoo's reptile exhibit? I was filing something in Dale's office when he told me we were "moving downstairs to the serpentarium", and Michael overheard. Naturally they both had to go off on this joke.

Michael: "I'm going to put a sign on Damaris' office that says DO NOT TAP ON GLASS"

Dale: "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE WORKERS"

Michael: "OBSERVED IN THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT"

Dale: "Heck we can even chop some tree logs and stick 'em in there!"  

Har har, so funny guys.

 

 

 

Dale's Monologue

Since I was supposed to move to San Antonio (no longer happening) and leave my office job (also no longer happening) Dale and Michael are conducting interviews today for several positions that need to be filled. About 20 minutes ago Dale went and sat by the window to keep a lookout for a woman that was supposed to arrive at 12PM. This was his monologue:

"I think that's her down there. Came in and parked sideways, took up two spots."

"Now she's looking for something in her trunk. She's probably messy."

"... Still looking. Wonder what's so important back there..."

"A notepad! After all this time she just took out a tiny little spiral notebook."

"Spat her gum out on the ground and walked away."

"Now she's walking towards the entrance reeaaal slow."

"Ran her fingers through them oleander leaves, that mean's she's a feeler."

"Alright, now she's squared her shoulders and she's walking towards the entrance with her chin up. That's got to be her. Nobody walks like that unless they're going to a job interview or to the gallows."

"But Michael's not here yet, what am I supposed to do to entertain her?"

(co-worker's response: Make her fill out a job application.)

"Yeah, good idea, that'll keep her busy."

As it turns out, this wasnt the woman we were waiting for. The real one showed up 30 minutes later and is currently cheerfully talking away (it sounds cheerful, anyway) in Michael's office.

He's got Personality

Today Dale asked me if that was my dog on a picture I'd posted on Facebook last Friday. It's this one:

Venom was sleeping on the carpet next to me while I watched a Disney favorite, UP. He woke up as soon as the dogs in it started barking and just sat there barking back at the TV until the scenes were over. It was pretty cute and funny... Dale thought so too. 

After a few stories about his Chihuahua, Dale quoted the following:

"Nobody will ever be able to convince me that animals don't have personalities. They just don't have vocal cords that work like ours."

I was heartfelt, because I couldn't agree more.

 

Excluders

Its quiet and peaceful in the office today, but probably not for long. Dale's quote of the day is as follows:

"You know what a turtle excluder is? For shrimping, when a turtle gets in the net it's thrown back out and we just keep the shrimp. We need a Miglini Excluder. When Michael comes in and sits at his desk, he get's kicked out of his desk and we don't see him for the rest of the day."

Dystopia

Dale's quote of the day is as follows: 

 "It's funny how we always start talking about Michael and then wind up talking about the apocalypse." 

Reason why this is hilarious: its super accurate

Video making

Packages come and go everyday in our office. Most of the time we just set them in our boss' office because its hunting equipment or some other random toy he found during his impulse Amazon shopping. Today though, I was accompanied up the elevator by a FedEx man with a dolly full of boxes meant for Great Sage (yeah, that's us). He dropped them off on our conference table (pictured) and I happily ignored them and went back to reducing PDF files.

A few minutes later our boss arrived and started tearing them open, and like anything else I ignored it and kept on staring blankly at my monitor. After some fiddling with the equipment he walked up to me, handed me a white umbrella, and said "Hey can you put this together for me? I'm not even going to tell you what it is, other than this white umbrella, you'll figure it out." 

Well... as it turns out... he purchased a green screen. Remember a few "Deal with Dale" posts ago where he sarcastically made a YouTube video advertising a Vessel Monitoring System? Well, it turns out that a real video needs to happen. Dale loves making videos using a green screen, so we think this was purchased simply for his benefit and amusement. 

Job Security

Today as I was casually perusing Pinterest and reducing PDF file sizes (both mind numbing exercises) Dale walked into the office and said "do whatever you gotta do to become a Notary Public by today." 

My reflexive response to any of these kinds of things is an "ok sure" and then frantically Google "how tos" to see how challenging the task actually is. In this case... not so much. 

So I should get my "notary stuff" in 10 to 14 business days, if all goes well. Steve said it's a feeling of empowerment having a stamp that has your name on it. I ordered mine with purple ink, I hope they don't mind. Hmm... does this give me the potential to get paid for signing stuff? 

Office Talk

Today Steve and Dale were talking about how they finish a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting, and then asked if my husband did anything like that. I responded with "I think he's smart enough not to do that when I'm in the house." After thinking about it a few more seconds I said "well, he'll do this thing where he'll finish an entire box of Cheez-Its in one sitting and won't leave any for me."
Both Steve and Dale chuckled with familiarity, and then they went off on how great Cheez-Its are. Here are a few quotes:

• "Walmart has the two pound package, that's where I buy em. HEB only has the one pound."
• "I used to end up with a pile of crumbs on my chest from eating a whole box during a movie. Just took the vacuum hose and sucked them all off before standing up."
• "And Cheez-Its are great, you get all your basic food groups! You get the cheese, you get the "its"..."
• "... you get the red, you get the yellow, you get the crunchy.... that's all you really need."

Oh men. I was warned that in 30 years I'd come home to my husband eating out of the tub of ice cream sitting in his underwear watching TV. Is it bad that I can already picture this? 

President Pickles

I work at an Innovation Center where people with new and innovative businesses ideas can join and get help with pretty much anything they need to get their companies started. We partner with the University and pretty much use grad students to do all the leg-work (this is how I found my job). Our company has officially "Graduated" from this program and now we have to move out of the building before the end of the year, so we've been frantically trying to find a new location.
Today while Johnette and I were focused on our jobs trying to get things done, Dale walked in with a very important announcement. He said "I have some news that will benefit You and You (pointing at each of us). As of September 1, 2013 it is officially legal to sell up to $50,000 worth of pickles (this is the part where we stopped taking him seriously and looked back at our computer screens) out of a house or garage and not have to pay taxes on them. This is a "new and innovative" idea that can help us stay another 3 years in this building if we want to."
This proclamation was followed with general laughter and then a quick dismissal. This is the most common reaction we all have to the Dale's news of the day. I have to say... if he was serious about selling his homemade pickles I'd totally be down for it, they're awesome. But as for now, I must focus on finding this company a new place to live before we're evicted :(

Vessel Monitoring System

For no good reason our boss asked Dale to make a YouTube video promoting a new VMS (vessel monitoring system) that we don't have yet, but will probably purchase at a discount rate from the company and then resell at a higher price. Dale's getting pretty annoyed with our boss' weird antics (this is a useless project) and made this video to send to him. Hopefully he gets the point... this isn't happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q5FTmZz0gk&feature=youtu.be

At 1:05 in the video you can see me laughing hysterically over Dale's right shoulder.
Today was a good day.

Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies

Today Dale came back from a shopping trip to HEB with nothing but coffee and a package of Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies. His direct quote was

Don't you dare try those, they're dangerous!

Nobody heeded his advice.