Reunited and I feel good!

I helped a colleague today and it didn't involve toxicology, chemistry or science in anyway. Sitting in a kind of boring meeting that was lagging on longer than it should I noticed the very pretty earrings of a new engineer in another division. I don't know her name. She sits in on the meetings absorbing the goings on. Until she is comfortable with the proceedings she is always accompanied by a more senior engineer.
As my mind wandered during the meeting I noticed her earrings and her rings (engagement and wedding band) as I usually do. Earrings were pretty drop type with two ovals with etched designs. Couldn't make out the designs.

After the meeting let out I wandered down the hall to the staircases and kicked something on the ground. Picking it up it was an earring, drop type, two ovals with etched designs on them. I knew right away it belonged to this engineer. I had no idea what her name was...I ran into B who I told about the earring and she said let's see if D is here, she should know since she is branch chief who the new engineer is and where she sits. Sure enough D said, sure, let's go to her cubicle to bring it back to her. The engineer wasn't there but we left her a note to let her know I had found her earring. Then D and I began a conversation about lost earrings and singletons who had found new homes at the Salvation Army. I mentioned the ones I was wearing currently which are pair no. 2 of ones that A got me long ago and they are my hands down favorite everyday earrings. I lost the one only a few months after he got me the first pair. I lost them at the gym at UMCP when I swore I put them in my pants pocket and then put them in the locker but when I returned they were no where to be found. I even went back multiple times. That made me so sad. Jewelry lost is one of the saddest things.

So after an hour or so I checked my e-mail and got a message from the engineer who's earring I returned:

Hi Sara,

Thanks for finding my earring and getting it returned to me.

Glad I could reunite them...

her name is Eva.

Dear Amber...

...I miss you..I hope everything is wonderful where you are....Dr. Stumbaugh...

Warrior Dash 2011

My New Year's Resolution for 2011 (never too soon to have one, right?) is to go back to Krav Maga. As my GIS courses are winding down (I only have to take 1 or 2 more) I will have more time for self improvement of another sort next year. We are already signed up for agility class me and Casey for January - March one day a week so I need something else to keep me going. I will be busy but only on week nights. Thank goodness. I want to go to Krav Maga on any night when agility and rally aren't. So the other day I received a notice from my Krav Maga class about new schedules for January, Polar Bear Plunge nonsense (you'll never catch me doing that!) and another thing that caught my eye: Warrior Dash 2011. Now, I remember D from my the rally class I take Casey to telling us about this thing her husband did where he went through this crazy race where you get a warrior helmet at the end, a free shirt, medal and 1 free beer. I clicked the link to the Warrior Dash from my Krav Maga notice and read all the details .This thing looks so awesome. It's 3.11 miles of race in the wilderness (2011 in Mechanicsville, MD) and 8 obstacles of warrior level difficulty! Mud crawling, hay bale climbing, water trudging, rope climbing, fire jumping...real boot camp type stuff. When you complete the race in full you get  1 free beer (which I have already decided to give to A, 1 t-shirt, a medal and the best of all, a fuzzy viking helmet (horns and all)! How cool is that? I'm totally stoked to compete. I'm starting now to train...I'll have to add jumping jacks, squats and other things of that nature in my preparatory methods but I am so ready to do this.

I think the only thing I might have trouble with is the fire jumping...the flames look high...my legs are short...but I can do this...warrior style...aaarrrgggghhhhh!!

Prosperous Fish Swatch

Right before So a few days after I got back from SETAC this year I was loading some laundry into the dryer and my awesome fish watch that my friend got me busted! I caught the hinge of the watch on the door of the dryer and it fell apart. This made me incredibly sad! Not only was I out a watch but this was my swatch watch diver watch with fish on the band...see through and all in typical swatch watch fashion. I rummaged through my other watches but couldn't find one to wear that was working...my other cool glow in the dark vampire swatch watch needs a new battery, my Citizen dive watch my brother got me long ago was in need of a battery but when I took it to the Citizen counter at the mall they said they don't do that and I could take it to a kiosk but the last time I did that the a hole behind the counter mangled my K. Haring watch that also glowed in the dark and I still miss it.

So I thought where else to get a cool retro Swatch watch than Ebay...so off I went to peruse Ebay and I found this:

http://compare.ebay.com/like/150529958905?ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&rvr_id=182127029546&crlp=1_263602_304662&UA=WXI7&GUID=ba52cc8c12a0a0b3f8f2ce62ff8e2e84&itemid=150529958905&ff4=263602_304662

Perfect! I love it. Should I get it? Of course, there's a fish on it! So I went to buy it (no need to bid) and I went to use Pay Pal and it was still using my credit card that I previously had listed. I needed to change that. I tried to do so but Pay Pal has this thing where they want to make sure it is you so they "charge" you $1.95 and put a  little code next to that charge on your credit card statement to let you know. They say you can remove the charge (prove it's you) by logging in and typing the code in. That requires looking at your credit card statement. This was the middle of the month. I won't get a credit card statement for another few weeks. If you don't put the code in the charge is permanent!

Pay Pal is an asshole.

Anyway I frantically tried to get my credit card company statement online but Ihavent done that in a year so I didn't remember my password or login or anything...so that required me to call the credit card company, have them check my login, change my password, and then I could view my statement.

Then I had to change my credit card in Pay Pal to remove that nasty $1.95. But I had trouble doing this because the stupid browser kept telling me I had cookies not letting the page refresh...what? So I called Pay Pal. I called (after checking the area code) Nebraska...I was on the phone for 20 minutes with Maria who helped me fix everything. She was sort of annoying and had the worst customer service tone but I got the end result I wanted: removal of the  $1.95 charge.

So I bought my fish watch...it arrived yesterday...perfect! Brand new and I feel whole again with a fish watch on my wrist. But this watch has a crazy symbol on the front I don't know what it is. It looks cool. I tried to google it but didn't get the information I needed. Rather than walk around with a watch with a character on it I could not explain if someone asked me I decided to ask a work colleague. I looked for D or Y, they are both Chinese. I wasn't sure it was a Chinese character but I took the risk. I couldn't find either of them this morning (darn you toxicologists for being busy) but finally tracked down Y this afternoon. I asked him if he could translate the character for me. He said it means "fish"! Some characters in Japanese are Chinese in origin but of course he could tell this one meant "fish". How cool is that? I love my new watch!!!!

Yay!!!