Weekend Summary in Gifs

Northern Ireland lost to Wales and are out of the Euro.

Ireland lost to France and are out of the Euro.

Attended friend's birthday tea party. There were lots of finger sandwiches and desserts.

The season six finale for Game of Thrones aired.

England lost to Iceland and are out of the Euros.

The weekend pretty much broke even. I'd write more but it's late, and I have to go to bed because I'm my boss this week.

Always With the Random

I didn't mean to just drop off the face of the blogosphere (again) after the last post but remember how many times I've mentioned "I'm busy"?  Yeah. That. Random catch-up post? Yup. Professionally written with logical segues? HA HA HA! Nope.

1. I (finally) finished recapping my trip to Ireland that I took in May. I know. Shocking! I wanted to start posting them once I was done, but I felt like I needed to remind people I had gone to Ireland and I wasn't just randomly posting about Ireland. By the way, you can find the two previous posts of this trip here.

2. Speaking of Ireland, my brother sent me this video:

Just watching that gives me chills!

Investec is the financial backers for the Monaghan GAA, and Gaelic Football is the GAA of note in Monaghan. I always preferred hurling growing up because of reasons, but in the last five years, Gaelic Football has started to grow on me. If you're curious as to what makes Gaelic football different from other versions of football, watch this video.

The poem recited in the video is by Patrick Kavanagh, who came from Monaghan and was the occasional drinking buddy of my granddad. If we ever go drinking, there is a good chance I'll sing Kavanagh's most famous poem, On Raglan Road, to you. It's kind of my drinking thing.

How convenient that my cousin lives close to Raglan Rd!

3. Remember when you wanted to be friends with someone in Grade One, you'd just go up to them on the playground and say do you want to be friends? and then (assuming they say 'yes') you're friends? I wish it was that easy as adults. Never mind having a talk with someone you're dating when you want to start being exclusive, we need to start having talks with acquaintances we want to be friends with. "So, I've been thinking a lot about us and where we're heading as social beings who interact..."

4. One of my favourite ways to unwind after a stressful day is to drink an entire box of wine plan possible vacation itineraries. This way of unwinding does play a part in why I haven't been blogging (as well as the whole leaving-work-at-6pm-every-day-when-I-actually-get-off-at-4) and it also means that I have a lot of tentative itineraries currently sitting on my computer. If you guys are looking for some travel ideas, shoot me a country. Chances are, I have an itinerary for it. I really should have gone into tourism. 

As dorky as Rick Steves is, I am madly jealous that he made travel his life.

5. If you haven't already seen it, you should go see Big Hero 6. And bring some tissues because

Random Post is Random

Busy life means Random Post!

1. Walking down the street after work today I overheard a guy tell his friend that he needed to renew his drivers license except "it's going to cost me $200 because I have an outstanding ticket. Plus there's the $45 renewal fee on top of that so that's like $350. Fuck. And I need my license for my lifestyle, man."

I know I occasionally count on my fingers when I do math, but I'm pretty sure that's not correct.

2. In the living-a-healthier-life department, I have temporarily lifted my monthly weight-loss goal in the sense that I'm still eating healthy, I'm still getting in some activity, but I'm not worrying about exactly how much I'm going down in a month. The point is to go down, and my weekly weigh-ins are doing that with enough regularity that I know I'm heading that way. But with everything going on right now at work, I just need to take a few things off my plate and worrying about hitting a specific number is an easy one to (temporarily) remove. You can fully expect to see it back on my plate after project launch.

3. Also in the living-a-healthier-life department, I've started running/jogging/occasionally-moving-faster-than-walking. Two of my friends suggested doing the resolution run on January 1st... and because I didn't think about the hangover factor, I thought that sounded like a good idea. I'm an idiot. At any rate, I pulled out one of my old walk-to-run programs then promptly ignored it. I headed out for a walk/run. When I felt like running, I did. When I felt like taking a walking break, I did. It felt great. I always enjoy running once I get into. I'm not going to lie and say that I love it and it's the best thing ever!!, but there's something calming about running. The repetitiveness of it allows me to focus on working through other things in my mind. I don't know why I don't find the same mental clarity when I'm walking, but I just don't. Still, as my oft-halted running attempts can attest to, I'm not the poster child for love-of-running! Who knows? Maybe the eighth time's the charm?

4. The Walking Dead and Supernatural both premiered this week. I LOVE FALL TV!! That is all.

5. I recently watched Band of Brothers, hence the gifs. Watch it. Right now Do it! That is all.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

On Friday night, I sat on my computer watching a green and black clock countdown to midnight at the end of the 2014 GISHWHES campaign. We had a flurry of last minute submissions from our Australian team mates and I was amazed at how much we had achieved in just a few short days. For a team of almost completely new participants - save two of our South Carolina team mates - I think we did really well.

I first heard about GISHWHES from William Shatner tweet. It was during last year's GISHWHES and it sounded interesting so I did a little investigation (I read www.gishwhes.com) to learn more then filed the information in the back of my mind as I may like to participate in a future event.

Three months ago, my friend Stephanie and I were talking about GISHWHES. A few days after our discussion (and while drinking my 5th cup of coffee), I texted Steph that we should totally do GISHWHES this year. To her credit, Steph's first response was 'really?' But when I confirmed I was on board, Steph ran with it.

When people asked what GISHWHES was, I always found myself at a loss to try and explain it. It was fun, it was crazy, it was the promoting of random acts of kindness, it was hysterical, it was the start of a few new friendships, it was art, it was being outside of your comfort zone. In short, it was one of the best ways I could think of to spend a week. Still not convinced? Well, then how about some stories and pictures?

ITEM 28. Stage a mini-newspaper boat regatta in a public fountain with at least four competing vessels. We must see intense competitiveness and gambling.

We convinced a family from Texas to help us. We wanted to have one of the boats on fire but it sank early in our shooting and so it never made the final cut.

ITEM 103. Using charcoal or chalk, stencil the term "D2N" on the exterior of a factory. (The "2" must be backwards, but I can't figure out how to do that on this keyboard.)

I can't state this enough, we think we're hilarious.

ITEM 86. Ask a senior citizen for their "buck list". Help them achieve one of the items on their bucket list.

A's neighbour wanted a new computer before she died. A helped her go and pick one out and bring it home. See? It wasn't all goofing around. Also, no pictures for this one because I don't know A well enough (and I don't know her neighbour at all) to go splashing their pictures around the internet.

ITEM 169. Jared Padelecki does not love Excel Documents. Post one to him on twitter that might change his opinion of Excel.

I love Excel. I use it as my default for program for anything that slight resembles a list. Excel is my secret lover that keeps me warm at night. Okay, maybe not quite. But I do really like it and think it is often underutilised by people who just don't understand how to use it.

The Supernatural cast (of which Jared and Misha - creator of GISHWHES - are members of) are known to prank each other a lot on set, so I created an Excel document that Jared could keep track of who and pranked him and who he had tracked. The function kept a running total and if someone had pranked him more than he had them, the difference would turn red so he'd know that he 'owed' them a prank.

Seriously, how can you not love Excel when it can do awesome things like that?

ITEM 41. Go through a TSA (or your country's equivalent) checkpoint dressed for snorkeling. Explain to the TSA what you're doing, prior to doing it. If they don't allow it, don't do it.

I saved this one for last because it makes me laugh the most of any of the challenges I did. We went to the US border check at the Victoria Clipper office. Big ups to the people there for making this happen. They were the ones that pointed out that no photos are allowed at the border check but they have a baggage scan just outside of the border check so, you know, would that be close enough? Yes. Yes, it would.

This is just a small sampling of items we completed (never mind the items on the list we didn't do). Being my first time doing GISHWHES, I really didn't understand exactly what I was getting myself into. And I can't wait to do it again next year.

I Need to Write the Dictionary

I've done it. It's happened. My life is complete. My name has become a noun.

At least, it has in my department. We have a new VP and when I asked my manager how her first meeting with him went, she replied "Ugh. I totally andread right in front of him."

Ha, ha, ha, ha, wait. What?

To andrea: make a fool of yourself in front of upper management.

My foray into the world of office-buffoonery started with an ill-timed f-bomb as the elevator doors opened to reveal our C.E.O. Whoops!

Then I made screaming noises and Chewbacca sounds in front of a project manager... twice... in the same day.

And I dribbled coffee down the front of my shirt saying hello to our C.F.O. before accidentally throwing a knife at him.

Those are just the first three incidents. I have - not on purpose despite my joking about it - pretty much said or done something stupid or silly in front of every upper manager in my office. It became a running joke at our weekly status meetings. "And what have you done to embarrass yourself this week, Andrea?"

Even some of upper management are in on the joke.

And now, my name has become a noun. I feel oddly proud about this.

Now, to go and andrea in front of the new VP...

Hey, I have a reputation to maintain!

(No, this post was not sponsored by Supernatural. I'm just catching up on Season 9 so...)

Question: Ever made a fool of yourself at work?