The Onion

How many of you read The Onion? If you're not reading it, you need to be. It's a fake newspaper that never fails to crack me up. You can get paper issues for free at newsstands throughout Old Town and DC. Or, you can read it online at theonion.com. You can even have a daily email sent to you with the main headlines My favorite section is "American Voices". This past week they "sold" the paper to the Chinese. The headlines coming out this week are even funnier than usual. Take this for example, "Clear American Sky A Constant Reminder Of Industrial Inferiority" or

The Following Are Examples Of American Weakness

The Lab

For those of you who don't know, I've spent the last five and a half years working for a defense contractor. The company is multi-national with over 100,000 employees. Our little piece of this pie was a lab located in Old Town. It was a small facility (yes, I do realize I'm using past tense, unfortunately, this was the past) with never more than 20 employees. It has been a wonderful place to work. 1. The work is incredibly interesting. I have to admit that not being a scientist or engineer, I didn't always understand the complexities of the work being done here. However, I did understand enough to know that really cool ideas were being tested here. Some worked better than others, but all of them had the potential to be outstanding. 2. THE PEOPLE ARE WONDERFUL. Never in my life have I gotten to work with such a good group of people. It takes a "special" type of person to do the kind of work we did here. Everyone is very social, fun, a little whacked in the head. Every day was filled with laughter and good-natured poking at each other. Soooo, I thought I'd share my top five memories of the lab. For those of you that work here, I would LOVE for you to share yours on here as well... :)
5. The second week after I started working there, I baked a cake for Mark's (the boss) birthday. I put the cake back in the kitchen so that we could sing and cut it at lunchtime. About 10 AM one of the guys came up to my office with the empty cake plate and said, "Thanks for the cake!" That's when I learned that all food not kept under lock and key was susceptible to immediate ingestion. These people can eat. Especially baked goods.
4. Being "Lab Mom" -- This obviously encompasses many little moments over the years. Mark christened me "Lab Mom" not long after I came here, and it stuck. Whether it was delivering hugs, slugs (sometimes necessary in good parenting), fussing about someone running with scissors, congratulations on a job well done, empathy when things weren't fantastic, hearing stories about wives, husbands, kids, parents, on and on -- that was my favorite part. I loved trying to "take care" of these people and having them take care of me too.
3. Big Rusty's Daughter's Wedding -- Wonderful night with a wonderful family, good food, great companionship, chance to dance with Dawn and Sarah. Too bad I had to leave early when 20 teenagers decided that my absence was a good time to overrun my home and refuse to leave!
2. BBQ/COPIER Destruction -- One of the Mikes (at any given time, at least 20% of our employees were named Mike) got married and he had lots of leftover meat from the reception. He pulled it all in, along with a charcoal grill, and we had a huge cookout in the parking lot. That part was fun, but the BEST part was that we got to destroy our old copier. I cannot tell you how many times that stupid freaking machine had me cursing a blue streak. It jammed approximately every 3.2 copies was constantly spitting out toner all over my clothes, especially if they were white or pastels. So, when the new one arrived, we all took turns beating the old one with a sledgehammer. What a feeling...
1. The World's Most Expensive Assembly Line -- The engineers here developed a type of bar armor called "L-Rod". It was initially used on Humvees, but is now used on many of the land vehicles found in the fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It's an important technology because it saves the lives of many, without hurting anyone. It's a lightweight bar armor that sits on vehicles so that when those vehicles are attacked by IEDs, the armor takes the brunt of the damage, protecting the vehicle itself, and more importantly, the people inside. After our first set of kits were manufactured, there were some things that didn't quite measure up to specs. So, everyone here walked over to the warehouse we have a few minutes away and starting fixing things. We had scientists, directors, engineers, technicians, our blaster. They even hired a temp to come in and man the laboratory so that all of us could go work in the warehouse. It was a very long, hot week. Our fingers became sliced to ribbons. We ordered food in and took short breaks, usually standing up to eat. It was wonderful. We worked so well together and we all felt good about what we were doing, knowing that our finished product would end up on vehicles being driven by the men in women who were serving our country. It was an amazing feeling. One I'll never forget.
Tied for #1. -- May 4, 2009 -- I'm sure you think that's strange, but this was the day when we had to pull together more than any other, and I think we did an amazing job. And after being quite certain that at least three of us had to be dead (or certainly gravely injured), I just feel so blessed that everyone was okay.





















I love you guys.

A Joke

I forgot Rule #1 about trying to engage your audience. Start with a joke.

Here's one of my favorites. So timely for me these days...

Why Parents Drink

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was
nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an Envelope, propped up
prominently on the pillow that was addressed to 'Dad.' With the worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read the letter.

Dear Dad:

It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my
new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you..

I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice.

But I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercing, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. But it's not only the passion.... Dad she's pregnant.

Stacy said that we will be very happy.

She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the whole
winter. We share a dream of having many more children.

Stacy has opened my eyes to the fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for cocaine and ecstasy.

In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better. She deserves it.

Don't worry Dad. I'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself.

Someday I'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can
get to know your grandchildren.

Love, Your Son John

PS. Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house.

I Just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a report
card. That's in my center desk drawer.

I love you.

Call me when it's safe to come home.

In The Beginning...

One of my co-workers started a blog to rant about whatever in life was annoying to her, so that she could save her husband, family, and friends from having to receive lengthy email rants. I thought it was a bloody brilliant idea, so I decided to be a copycat of her. I hope that my blog will be more "musings" and less "rants", but I suppose that depends on the given day.

So. My life currently: I work in a building that is slowly being emptied due to an "Incident" that occurred in early May. My attorneys say that I cannot go into further detail than that on a blog. If you're unaware of the "Incident", please feel free to ask me in person. Like the rest of the working-world right now, my future is unknown. Will I be picked up to work in another area? Will I be laid off? Both seem equally possible at this point. Somehow this does not completely freak me out. Maybe I am still in denial about the possibility of being unemployed. After all, I haven't been unemployed for so much as an hour since I graduated from high school. Part of me thinks it might be kind of nice to be laid off now and enjoy the rest of the summer. I can look for work after Joey goes back to school. Is that bad? Probably insane for a single mom to think that way. It's not as if the coffers are overflowing.

I currently live with my 15 year old son, Joey, my 85 year old mother who has early/middle stage Alzheimers, and my brother, Steve. Every day is an adventure with this group. I can honestly say that most days are good and can be downright entertaining. And I've discovered that the days that aren't good are due more to my attitude than to anything that's actually happened. When I approach things with the proper outlook, events are hilarious. When my outlook is poor, events seem much less than comical. It's something I work on. You let me know how I'm doing as time goes on.