Friday, February 03, 2006

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have low agreeableness. Your self interest comes first, and others come later, if at all. In general, you feel that people are not to be trusted. And you’re skeptical that anyone else really feels differently. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there’s no way you’ll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

[via Deb]

I’m not sure I like the new format. However, I understand the need to make huge changes to keep audience interest and also to shake up the players a bit. We’ll see how this plays out for the season.

I was making jewelry while it was on, so I was not actively watching, but my initial thoughts on some players are in the extended section…

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Don’t know if anyone is interested, but I thought I’d share the music that we had in the wedding ceremony. We used five recorded pieces and then had a pianist for the prelude and the hymn singing.

1. For the seating of the mothers we had Gabriel’s Oboe from Amy Grant’s A Christmas to Remember. I think it was originally part of the score for The Mission.

2. Our processional was a three parter with the flower girls preceeding the bridesmaids and me. The three older girls came in to Aquarium from Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals. I first heard it when it was used as part of the soundtrack in Babe. After that piece, CootieGirl came in without music because she was to ring a bell. Then the piece that the bridesmaids and I came in to was Highland Cathedral, also from AG’s A Christmas to Remember - all bagpipes and drums to herald our entrance. It’s a piece that builds, starting with a quiet lone bagpipe transitioning with the addition of the drums and a few more bagpipes until it reaches the majestic fullness with all of the orchestra. It was at that point that Dad and I came in and made our way to the stage.

3. After we said our vows and exchanged rings we had communion. For that time we had Hope of Israel playing - a sweet instrumental piano-orchestra piece from Michael W. Smith’s Christmastime. When it ended and folks were still partaking of communion, our pianist filled in with a lovely classical piece that fit perfectly (I can’t remember what it was though!).

4. Our recessional was also from Saint-Seans and Babe, Allegro-Maestoso from Symphony No. 3 in C Minor with organ. It has very majestic opening that was perfect to signal the end of the service but it had lovely quieter moments as well. Over the time we were engaged I really came to love that piece. It also served as the postlude of sorts since it is almost 8 minutes long. Once that ended, the celtic band kicked in.

Good news:

A sequel to one of 2005’s top grossers, the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” will begin production later this year. The first film’s cast, director and screenwriters have all signed on to return, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, the film’s backers, are said to be exploring a Christmas 2007 release for “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.”

Something to look forward to - HP5 will come out in 2007 as well as I understand it.

Beau and I have been reading Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional each day. He reads the morning devotional; I read the evening devotional. It’s become a sweet time that we both look forward to and try never to miss. You can find an online version here.

Prior to this I had never really read any Spurgeon. Shame that, he’s excellent - good theology and lyrical prose. With each reading I’ve been struck with God’s grace and love and tender mercy. And I’ve been challenged to a deeper love of Jesus.

Here’s an excerpt from last night’s reading:

Oh, how matchless thy love when, in a moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in my ears, “I am thine and thou art mine.” Kind were those accents when thou saidst, “The Father himself loveth you.” And sweet the moments, passing sweet, when thou declaredst to me “the love of the Spirit.” Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has unveiled thyself to me.

Beautiful.

Beau prefers that I not do this, but I plan to get my hair cut today. I grew it pretty long for the wedding, but I’m ready to get rid of a large chunk of the length. I’d usually go for a chin length bob, but I’ll compromise and keep it at about shoulder length.

So now to select the style.

Believe it or not, I’m leaning towards this look although I have bangs.

Thoughts?

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

We have a Major Trial starting up next week with jury selection. The defendent is a Major Player in the GWOT who pleaded guilty not so long ago to the crimes for which he was charged in the fall of 2001. (That is a hint and about all that I’ll give you - pay attention to the news and you’ll figure it out.) As a result, there is large interest in how this penalty phase will play out and so we’re expecting a heavy media presence in addition to the looky-loos and protesters. Roads will be closed around this place and with another agency’s newish campus nearby and hotel construction directly across from us, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people for the next couple of months.

The circus is coming, but I don’t think this one will be enjoyable in the least. 

My one and only shared thought on the State of the Union speech last night…

Is Hillary Clinton so humorless that she couldn’t muster the smallest of smiles at the joke about Bush 41 and her husband?

I’m thankful that I’m not her constituent.

That said, I’m cringing that I am a constituent of the guy the Dems chose to rebut - the new Governor of the Commonwealth, Tim Kaine. I can’t watch him because of the overacted facial expressions he employs when speaking in public.

So said Paul Harvey this morning as an under-the-breath mutter after his report on the Saddam Hussein trial. It’s not the first time he’s editorialized on that particular news item. One day a couple of weeks ago he said that the trial was a circus and that the world was laughing at us.

Mr. Harvey, you (and maybe the world as well) clearly do not understand this trial. We, the United States of America, are not presiding over the trial of Saddam Hussein. Iraq has a functional judiciary system and they are the ones presiding over the trial of their deposed dictator. The judge is an Iraqi, the lawyers are Iraqi (for the most part), the witnesses are Iraqi. The only role we, the United States of America, have is to provide security for the trial. Check your facts, sir, before you insert your uninformed opinion into your “news” reports. Thank you.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

So the nominations were announced today.

I couldn’t care less about any of them. And I doubt that I’ll watch the awards show in March.

I’m over Hollowood and the Cult of Celebrity. No, this statement does not include TV.

Update your virus checker software.

*Welcome Google pervs!

Click the link below for my 2 cents on last night’s episode…

We get the occasional kook caller at the office. Usually they’re quite amusing and a little sad. The call I just endured was aggravating because the lady refused to listen to me or to stop talking long enough for me to be able to end the call without just hanging up. So I let her ramble on about her “case” and her depression and her bank account and her conspiracy theories for a few minutes in silence. When she started to repeat her mantra, I cut in.

“Ma’am, you need to stop talking now.” She paused so I continued, “We cannot help you. I’m sorry for your suffering, but I’m ending this phone call right now, OK? I cannot allow you to go on with this any longer.”

“OK, thank you.” Click.

*sigh*

LATER (1:30pm): I was eating lunch with My Boss when one of the security guys wandered by and poked his head in the conference room doorway. “She called you again today,” he said to My Boss. “I tried to head her off, but she wouldn’t let me...”

“She got me!” I blurted out.

My Boss then informed me that this kook is a longtime regular, except that she normally calls one of our suboffices. She called the other suboffice last week a couple of times. Apparently, she knows half of the one office by name and has been locked up in that cellblock on a couple of the occasions that she ventured out to pay them a visit.

She mentioned that she could come in to our office if that would help. Uh oh…

LATERER (1:50pm): I just listened to a voicemail on My Boss’ phone. His kook is not the same lady that I talked to this morning. It looks like we each have our own special kook today.

LATERERER (4:30pm): My kook called back a little before 4pm. Amazingly, I recognized the phone number and then her voice when I answered the phone. This time I cut her off almost immediately when she asked to speak to “a marshal.” She was reluctant to specify her question for “a marshal” to which I told her that unless she gave an indication of why she was calling I was going to hang up. At that she rambled something about post traumatic stress disorder so I let her know that she needed to talk to a counselor. The she got weirder when she asked if I knew what a board room was and then turned irate when I didn’t define it properly, informed me that I do not really work for the federal government after all since I can’t identify a board room, and hung up on me. Go figure.

I wouldn’t call it a relapse so much as a migration from the common cold to sinusitis, of which I began to display the classic recognizable symptoms yesterday. Very pleasant. Add the low barometric pressure with the rain we have in your Nation’s Capital this morning and I feel like my head is going to implode.

Given that I just completed a round of antibiotics for my prior infection, I’m pretty sure that the variety I have is not bacterial but viral. But I’ll see where I am with this in a week or so before I call my doctor, as recommended by numerous websites.

Light blogging today since I don’t feel like sharing much except my complaints and I also have financial close out.

Oh, and it’s my one month anniversary today. Woo!

Monday, January 30, 2006

So we have a bit of a wedding gift dilemma. Because everyone was incredibly generous, the gift management got a little out of control. I did well keeping up with the thank you notes for the gifts we received before Christmas, but since then it became a hodge-podge of invoices/notes for things shipped to us that I keep in my daily tote bag and the neat list that my mother wrote when we opened the gifts received at the wedding itself after we got back from the honeymoon. I thought all gifts were accounted for, but they are not. Fortunately, I think we’ll be able to sort it out but here’s the confusion:

1. One lovely gift at the wedding that either had no card or got separated from its card.

2. Two cards with no gifts attached at the wedding.

3. An email notification of a gift purchased from a registry. We never really knew if that gift arrived because…

4. Several gifts were shipped to us that had no gift enclosure cards or any other indication from whom they came.

From that list we’ve only got 2 or 3 unreconciled things - the lovely gift with no card at the wedding and the two cards with no gifts at the wedding. However, I just nailed down a gift with one of those cards, which was part of item #3 - a phone call to that registry to inquire about that notification verified that we did indeed receive that gift. But it opened another question about the quantity received of that particular item because I know we received some of that item from more than allows for what we have. Are you confused yet? Anyhow, the mystery of item #1 is now clarified some because I’m pretty sure the other lone card from the wedding actually goes with item #1.

And we have so many thank you notes to write. If there is one piece of advice I can give to engaged couples and brides especially it is to keep up with your thank you notes as you receive gifts - don’t let more than a couple of weeks pass before you get them out because it won’t take long before you get behind and it seems overwhelming. You do not want to have to do all of your thank you notes after you’re married - you’ll be dealing with adjusting to your new home routine, which is fun but a huge time waster. But that’s another post for another day.

Funny related note: We attended a wedding in August and just received the thank you note from that couple last week. So I’m feeling pretty good that we may be able to get our notes out a little quicker than that.