I Puffy Heart Thunderstorms!

I love, love, love thunderstorms. Today is a great day for them. Storms have started popping up all around the area and I'm glued to my radar screen. I love the low rumble in the sky and the anticipation of it getting louder.

I also have to admit I hope for tornado warnings on days like these. I don't wish a tornado on anybody, but what's the harm in a nice open field tornado that storm chasers catch on camera? I'd love to do the same, but I'm not dumb. I don't have the training, so I won't go out. However....I just might step outside with my camera if I hear one's nearby. I'm just that drawn to them.

Well, looks like a warning popped up in a county west of here. I'm not sure what that'll mean for here, but I'd better stop typing and get to weather watching!

Hope everybody stays safe, but enjoys the show!

Oh and a shout out to Former Fembot...don't you miss Midwestern weather? :)

Banner ad wisdom

Do you ever click on those little rectangular banner ads that people use? Neither do I. But, we have plenty on our sites at Behemoth.

As I was trolling through a new homepage design today I got to thinking about something. How did the small banner ad size come about? I mean...it's dimensions are 160x106 (example to the right). Now the 160 pixels wide seems to make a fair amount of sense. But it's the 106 pixels high that's got me thinking. Why 106? Is there research out there that says that's the best size for optimum impact? Why not round it off to 100 or 110?

I know, I know, it's most likely because somebody's site design back in 1997 only allowed for something to be 106 pixels high. But who was that? And how did they standardize it so that everybody else would use that size from then on?

Yes, these are the things I think of on a long Friday afternoon. I have no desire to do any actual work and yet I don't want to waste any of my PTO. Instead, I'm "researching". Ah the wonderful world of eBusiness.

Excuse me whilst I complain a bit...

My back hurts. And I'm crabby. I know the reasons why, but that doesn't help. Maybe blogging will.

I have taken to sleeping in an awkward position, and thus the back problem. You're probably thinking...so don't sleep like that. Well, it's not as easy as that. I don't fall asleep in that position, but sometime during the night I wind up that way. So each consecutive night I do this, my back gets worse and worse. Hopefully my sleeping self will realize the damage it's doing and cease these nocturnal contortions.

As for being crabby...that's a myriad of reasons. Some hormonal, some related to the back, some are related to my new desk neighbor's (and general nemesis) voice. I know this crabbiness will pass and I just have to suffer through it. As for the causes...a few days time, some ibuprofen, and a good set of headphones will help reduce the problem.

I mentioned in a previous blog that I moved cubes at the office this week. Today is my second day in my new cube and it's still taking some adjustment time. I'm facing a different direction in my desk and so things are arranged differently. I never imagined how set in my ways I was when it comes to my desk. I know I'm not the only one. Other people around me have had similar changes and have complained as well. So at least I'm in good company.

And so...before I spiral downward even further in this pity post, I'll sign off for now.

Communing with nature?

Last night, due to the wonderfully warm weather, I slept with my windows open. The nice breeze drifting in was soothing and comforting.

Yes, a wonderful pathway to dreamland.

And then I was rudely awakened by some neighbor's dog outside barking his damn head off.

A morning person, I am not. Nor do I particularly enjoy the middle of the night. And so when I wake up from a nice sound slumber, I'm not really very happy.

Eventually this mutt from hell finally shut his yap, and I once again drifted off into dreams of varying things, blissfully passing the hours away. What were my dreams? I think they were pretty good. Maybe of earlier times when I was happy and at peace with the world. Or maybe of walking through meadows and picking wildflowers.

Then some damn birds started chirping! What is with birds? Why do the freakin' start chirping at 5 a.m.? Why?!!

Mondays

A new week begins. Sigh. I can't say as I'm all that looking forward to yet another week of sitting at this desk. I guess on Wednesday I move to a new desk, so that's exciting. Not really....it's exactly one row away. Seems like a huge waste of time and resources for this company, but what do I know.

Behemoth Financial is in a money crunch. We're supposed to be fiscally responsible and "Run it like you own it" and all that jazz. But how does wasting employee time to pack up and move one row over really make sense. Add to that the only real reason my team has to move is so that our team's VP can have a larger office....and you really begin to wonder about the management decisions around this place. Sure we can't give you bigger raises, but we sure can play musical cubes with an entire department.

I think Mondays really bring out my cynical side at work. :)

Why I stopped dating

So I figured I should share the story of my last Match.com dating experience. I previously wrote this up for a different blog, but wanted to take another crack at editing it as it's just that great of a story.

Lets start at the beginning. On Valentine's Day, in a moment of weakness, I decided to "wink" at "Dan" (name not really changed) on Match.com. The next day, he wrote back and we started emailing. He seemed normal enough at first. We emailed back and forth about different likes and interests we had. Then he mentioned he had a collection of over 11,000 comic books. OK. That's stereotypically a geeky thing, but not all that crazy. People have hobbies, right?

But then I noticed a rather annoying email quirk. He would interject "weeeeeeee!" after saying some things. Now....that's a bit weird (and 8-year-old girlish) but still not completely scary. Disturbing? Yes. Scary? No.

After about 5 emails, he started signing his emails "love". Uh....yeah. He explained he did it to all personal emails, but it's still...different. He still made the choice to tell a relative stranger he loved her. Disturbing? Yes. Scary? Maybe.

Something about him reminded me of a guy I used to date. He just had that same feminine manner about him. In fact he emailed me a question: "If you could go back and pick whether you wanted to be male or female and start all over again without knowing you changed, would you?" I said no. He said yes.

After a few more emails he made some comment (jokingly) about gerbils in his head that run things. While this was clearly a joke, he clung to the joke for an unnerving amount of time until it became rather insane. And then another email that just said "weeeeee!" I was officially getting a little wary (yes, I'm slow to learn).

We planned to meet for coffee. After a few unfortunate weather postponements we had the chance to meet for coffee. Briefly. 30 minutes to be exact. The coffee shop closed and booted us out. So, since I didn't feel I'd really been able to get to know him in that time, we decided to meet again later in the week.

He suggested we meet for a few games of pool and dinner and I thought that sounded like a decent plan. He was going to scope out pool halls in the area and get back to me. Well, I suggested a place and it was a good middle distance for us, but he still decided to scout out some locations. After finding a possibility (on the east side of the city), he said we could go there or where I suggested. I vetoed his pool hall in favor of Raccoon River. Call me a snob, but I'm not hanging out at a pool hall on the east side.

The evening started out pretty OK with dinner and chatting. Sure he giggles like an 8 year-old girl....but that's not too alarming, is it? Sure he says things like, "I'll be teasing you about this for many years". But it's nice that someone's considering a future, right?

Wrong.

We leave our restaurant table to head upstairs to the bar area to scope out a pool table and while chatting he strikes the final blow to any possibility of a relationship. He mentions that he collects stuffed animals. He keeps a "Blue Bear" on his bed. At this point I'm really crying inside. This can't be real. He IS an 8 year old girl. He giggles, says "weeee!" and has stuffed animals?! How do I get out of there?

I agree to an hour of pool (since that was the plan of the date). We play for a while and it was all innocent and fun, but in the end I was really just plotting how I could get out of there. Finally, I tell him I have a headache and want to go. At this point I can see freedom in front of me. Vowing to never date again, I wait for him to get his credit card back from the bartender (sneaking away would have been rude). As we walk out he tells me he wants to walk me to my car. Damn.

So, we walk to my car and as we approach my mind is in evasion mode. How can I avoid any good night kiss confrontation? Well, I started kicking the snow off my car while he follows me. I get to the driver side and open the door. I turn to him while half in my car and tell him I had a good evening and would talk to him later and jump in. Success!

He walks away. I sigh my relief. I wait a few seconds and pull out of my parking space and wind my way out of the parking garage. As I'm driving down to the exit I see him walking toward his mini-van (yeah, he drives a mini-van). I wave as I drive by and think to myself, "I wish I could set him up with Marcus."

She cut her hair

Well, I did it. I cut my hair. No, not just a trim. I took my very long hair (for me anyway) and cut about 7 inches off. It's now just past shoulder length. I think I like it, but I think it'll really take until I wash it and do it on my own until I decide if it was a good idea.

I needed to shorten it, that's for sure. But today I decided that I needed to lose a lot of the length. I can always grow it back if I want to. I also had them cut my bangs. They aren't quite bangs per se, but they're shorter than before.

Funny thing happened at Great Clips as I waited my turn to get my hair chopped off. (Yes, Great Clips. I don't have a regular place yet) So I decided to just stop at the Great Clips by Target. Anyway....I was sitting in the waiting area waiting for me turn when my sister walked in. Weird, huh? What are the odds that we'd go to the same place at the same time?

Well, that's all for my exciting Friday night. :)

She's an aunt

Yes, I have a nephew and a niece. I see Nephew often. Very often. My sister is pregnant with baby#2 and has horrible morning sickness constantly. So, every night I go pick up Nephew at daycare and take care of him until my sister's husband gets home from work. It's an easy gig and I love spending time with him.

And....he's blogging gold.

He's two. Need I say more? I'll mention him often I'm sure. For example, last night he was eating his new favorite snack, Dunkaroos. The kid LOVES frosting. He digs his fingers into the frosting, then says "Whoa....that's a lot!". Then proceeds to jam his finger into his mouth. Repeat the exact same sequence about 20 more times. But last night I was chatting with my sister while sitting with him. I figured he wasn't listening to me. (You'd think I'd have learned this lesson by now.) She was talking about some ailment or another and I comment, "That's weird." Next thing I hear is my little echo "That's weiwd." Then, because his new favorite thing to do is ask if he said something, he says, "Did I say 'That's weiwd'?". So I taught him his newest phrase. I hope he uses it somewhere special. :)

I also have a niece who lives in a different city. I don't get to see her as often, but she's great too. Niece is the smiliest, happiest baby I've ever met. She does have her mother's temper though. Luckily she doesn't show it often. Now if her mother could just learn that...

She uses highfalutin words

So I was thinking about my use of the word "behemoth". Most people would have just used the word large or some other plain word. I usually feel compelled to "up the ante" when it comes to words I use. I don't just do this in my writing. I'll do it as I'm speaking to someone. I suppose it can be fairly annoying. I know my sisters look at me like I'm crazy sometimes. Probably because they don't know the particular word I chose to inflict on them at that time, but still.

What is my predilection to use such terms? See....I did it again.

Maybe I'm just showing off. :) I do have a degree in English. Jealous? Oh yeah....I can tell. You're jealous.

She's a web geek

In honor of my blog name WebGal, I should explain a bit about that. I analyze and sometimes code websites for a living. What is analyzing a website? It means I use a tool called WebTrends to track how people visit a website. I look at where they go and what they do and how long they are there. It tells me where people click the most and how many people follow the path we want them to.

I work for a fairly well-known behemoth of a company, so we take this stuff pretty seriously.

I do like what I do (most of the time). It's very interesting to dig into the info and extract relevant information that can make our websites better. And let's face it, we can always get better. Especially at Behemoth Financial.

So...here's where I web-geeked yesterday (new verb...and I like it). I installed a free web analytic tool to my blog (Google Analytics) to do two things: 1) See if I get any traffic; and 2) see how this analytics tool works.

The results are astonishing. 8 visits since I installed it. That is pretty darn amazing. However, I imagine that traffic is me and regular reader. :)

Until I post again...

She writes

I guess I should start blogging. I read blogs. I enjoy reading blogs. Maybe I should try writing one. For anybody who stumbles upon this blog that doesn't know me, I'm not all that exciting.

There...now that I've lost that traffic I can get back to my regular reader. (no, that wasn't a typo)

So why do I think I should blog? I see the humorous side of almost anything and want to share my view with the world. I've had the good fortune (or misfortune) to do my share of online dating and have plenty of good stories to share here. I also have worked at quite a few jobs with complete nutjobs. And if that doesn't make me blog-worthy, I also spend a lot of time on the web (as it's my job) and so I read what other people write and it makes me want to put my own spin on things I read.

Hopefully I'll be a bit entertaining. I most certainly will entertain myself.