Brand loyalty

I took this pic rather a while ago, but I’m putting it up now because I’ve only just begun to use Jira and Confluence. I’m not sure I love them to buy a vanity plate in their honor.

That’s all I got, folks. It’s been quite the week.

Cleanup on Aisle 45*

Holy crap—not for nothing was #TrumpMeltdown trending on Twitter yesterday. Imma just leave you with this:

YouTube miracle

A while ago I wrote about how you can learn to repair pretty much anything via YouTube. No matter how arcane your problem, someone’s uploaded a homemade video on how to solve it.

Well, when I got home yesterday afternoon, the house seemed really warm, and when I lowered the thermostat, nothing happened. Believe me, yesterday was a day when you didn’t want your AC non-operational.

I’d had an issue some months ago when the thermostat just went blank, and YouTube showed me how to replace the batteries. I didn’t even know thermostats needed batteries—I don’t recall ever having to replace them before. So that was my starting point. But still nothing happened. And the actual temperature actually went up a degree while I was doing it.

Ulp. Off to YouTube.

I was watching some guy walk through the steps of determining why the blower might not be going on. After checking the circuit breaker (not tripped), he lost me when he hauled out some kind of electricometer and read out how many volts were dancing on the head of a pin, and then more dancing in the thermostat. I despaired: “Dude—I don’t want to take a course in being an electrician; I just want AC.”

And at that very moment, I heard the electronic click come from the thermostat. I ran to the front door, and hallelujah, the unit was working. I set the temp for four degrees lower than usual, just to make up for the panic.

God bless YouTube.

Food talk

My friend CA came over for breakfast Saturday morning. While she was here I fed my sourdough starter. If you recall, part of that process involves leaving the starter in a place where light won’t interfere with its absorption of the new flour. Here’s the conversation that took place:

CA: You’re putting it in the dark?

Me: Yes. It needs to be in a dark place to do its work.

CA: And you eat that?

Me:

Well, I guess I live on the edge.

Gratitude Monday: Still getting up

One more shoutout for a friend’s support in my recent, successful-beyond-all-hopes job search. Danger Girl was the statistics-and-analytics person in our business unit at the big software company in Seattle. I learned a lot from her and enjoyed her unique sense of humor. Two distinct characteristics: her strawberry blonde hair and her passion for Disney parks. If I ever wanted advice on any Magic Kingdom on any continent, I’d go to her for the straight scoop.

After I moved to the Valley They Call Silicon, we kept in touch mainly through social media. A few years ago she spied my post on fairy wings at IKEA wherein I decried the lack of colors like mauve. The next thing I knew, I received a pair of hand-painted mauve fairy wings:

(In retrospect, they look a bit like butterfly wings, which is certainly appropriate to the metamorphosis in my life.)

They’ve been the first piece of décor I’ve put out each time I’ve moved since then, and I always get a kick out of reliving the story as I pin them up on the wall.

When I needed a reference from the big software company for my last job, I called on Danger Girl, and she did a bang-up job. So when I was lining my ducks in a row this time, I reached out to ask her if she’d reprise, and indeed she would. But during that conversation, she said something that was a major part of my stars aligning:

In the course of telling her about #playingtowin, I cracked, “Kind of late to be learning this…” and she snapped right back: “It’s not too late if you can still get up.”

Boom.

That was a super-powerful insight, and I’ve been carrying it with me. I coach a friend of a certain age who’s been looking for a job for many months. On last week’s call I brought that up, and it was just as powerful for him. Danger Girl’s wisdom has become part of my legacy, and I’m grateful for her being my support.

Also: mauve fairy wings.