my v card

... I lost it last week, and it was glorious.  I couldn't stop grinning.  Really, it was magical.  I had heard that once you know, you "know," but I didn't really know... until I knew.  Ya know?

The analogies could go on...  and on... and on.

I did my first vlookup last week (sorry to those who thought this post might be about something a little different).  Vlookup, in Excel, is the coolest thing I have learned in a really, really long time.  I am, without a doubt, a right-brainer - abhorrent to numbers, calculations, budgets, math, directions, formulas... you get the picture.  In college, I studied my butt off for a D in Accounting.  Those who know me, know that "D's" aren't really my thing (in more ways than one... What is going ON with this blog post?!?!) 

Anyway, I had always figured that Excel was better suited to left-brain people and found irony in the fact that I the only time I used Excel was to manage my personal budget (translation: I didn't use Excel very often at all).  Miraculously, my colleague is an Excel guru, and in the short time we've worked together, I've learned a boatload about what Excel could do for me, my client management and (perhaps most importantly) my sanity.  After sitting on the Excel sidelines for a few weeks watching magic happen, I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and give it a shot.

With some straightforward instruction, a little left-brain thinking and a few key strokes, I was able to isolate a small, detailed and specific group of people out of a file of hundreds.  It was incredible, and beat the heck out of ctrl-F for hours on end.  I was glowing for the rest of the afternoon.

I had no idea it could be so good.

trying my fictional hand

As I've mentioned, I recently signed myself up to write a serial fiction piece with some other writers from The Docket (a legal publication in Denver that tends to be less "legal" and more "publication," and never insists that I actually write about the law).  Anyway, I was writer number three in the series and hadn't read either of the pieces before me until about two days before my deadline.  As I've also mentioned, they say that in order to actually become a legit writer, you should drown yourself with hard-to-meet deadlines.  If on these deadlines, you can produce some decent work, you might have a shot at making writing more than just a hobby.  That's not, however, why I waited until the 11th hour to start my piece.  It had just been one of those weeks after one of those weeks after one of those weeks, and all of a sudden, my deadline was in my face and I was less than prepared.  To make matters worse, I wasn't thrilled about the topic: law school meets murder mystery - a somewhat cheesy whodunnit about cops, law students .... and mmmmuhrrr-der.  


So I did what I could do.  I set up shop at a really cute local wine bar that conveniently had a one-person table outside.  I ordered a great glass of wine, and I stopped thinking about it so much.

This piece isn't necessarily my greatest work.  But for my first published attempt at trying my hand at fiction, it worked out.  And more than anything, I learned an important lesson on this one (a lesson that I've also been learning recently in other areas of my life): Sometimes, it really is better to not have a plan.

Part I of the series can be found here.
Part II found here.

And now... Part III here. Ta da.

Murders final

the more things change...

…the more they sometimes actually really change.

My view of airports and airtime has shifted dramatically in the last 6 months.  It used to be that going to the airport was something I planned my entire day (or week) around.  Like, I have to go to the airport today for a flight, so I better make sure I don’t leave any dishes in the sink.  Or, I have to fly on Wednesday, so I better get a car wash tomorrow.  Or, I’m flying today, so I should really buy a pair of designer sunglasses at the airport.  I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but we do it.  Or, I used to do it, anyway. [OK, fine, in full disclosure, I may have purchased a pair of designer sunglasses at the airport yesterday on my way to Jacksonville.  An awesome, yet unnecessary, impulse buy.  I’ll also be honest and admit that the thought crossed my mind: If the plane goes down, this will have been a total waste of money.]  But for the most part, these thoughts rarely occur to me anymore.

Maybe it’s that, for the general population, flying is still a novelty, and for many, a nerve-inducing novelty.  I’m not the only person I know who thinks the more I fly, the less scary, the less out-of-the-ordinary, the less… justifying? it becomes.  All of a sudden, flying just became a part of the day-to-day, and 8 hours spent on two planes and in three airports (and that’s with everything being on schedule) trying to get home after a one day trip hardly seems like that big of a deal.  It’s an interesting paradigm shift for me. 

I spent a year living in Madrid and a summer living in Argentina.  During those times, I had the incredible opportunity to travel.  At the time I was doing it, I knew it was an incredible opportunity, but I didn’t, for one minute, think it might be my only opportunity to travel like that.  And, for the record, I’m beginning to resent my own lack of realistic-ness (realism?).  I often found it ironic that I had seen more of other continents than I had my own - traveled more in other countries than I had my own.  It feels like I’m chipping away at that dichotomy now week-by-week.  For better or worse.

What never ceases to amaze me in my travels… is mankind.  The human race is truly unbelievable.  And I don’t mean this in an awe-inspired “wow, we’ve really done some amazing things [insert 'electricity, space travel and the iPhone' here] while on this planet” kind of way.  I mean that in a “sometimes I’m surprised at the failure of Darwinism” kind of way.  In other words, the human race is not unbelievable, it’s un-be-LIEV-able.  Like the woman at the Jacksonville airport, screaming at her two sons (who were running AMUCK) while also screaming into the phone at her husband (ex-husband? boyfriend? parole officer? whatever.) about how she really, REALLY needed a [explicative] cigarette, but “they’re gunna make her [explicative] go through security again to have one.”  Now, I don’t have a problem with the F-bomb, per se.  I just had a problem with that woman.  Seriously lady… get a handle on your life.

Or what about the man de-boarding the plane ahead of me, who realized that the one roll-aboard left in the overhead compartment was not his?  He pushed me, with both hands, and proceeded to get in the face of the flight attendant standing behind me and scream at her like the missing bag was not only her fault, but also contained the life-saving serum to cure his inoperable, flesh-eating disease.  It was ridiculous.  After hearing a few F-bombs from him and a couple of “sir, please calm down’s” from the flight attendant, I got off the plane and entered the jetway to see a gentle-looking woman holding a similar-looking bag, patiently waiting to clear up this mess.  Guess what.  She accidentally grabbed the wrong bag as she got off the plane.  Calm the F down… sir.

And don’t even get me started about the guy sitting next to us at O’Brien’s eating (slurping, slopping, licking, picking) his buffalo wings.  Or the woman pretending not to hear her (way too old for this) child screaming “MOOOOOMMMMMYYYY” incessantly at the top of his lungs.  Or the kid sitting in the aisle seat of our row on a virtually empty plane who absolutely refused to move to his own row. 

I met some of the coolest people in the world (literally) while living and traveling abroad.  Mankind continually surprised me – in a beautiful way.  Traveling within my own country, however, has shocked and awed me in a significantly less desirable way.

 

I started out this blog post going in a very different direction.  I actually intended to write about how surprised I am at the way travel doesn’t “affect me” like it used to.  However, what started out with good intentions has clearly turned into a rant… which convinces me that perhaps traveling is taking its toll.  At least for today.  I’m exhausted and irritable.  Can you tell?  Don’t interrupt me when I’m asking a rhetorical question.