Life in Russia- 100 years ago (in color!)

I stumbled onto this link and I am just so amazed that I had to share the link. Those pictures are one word - FANTASTIC!

Call me whatever but I didn't even know color photography was available back then. Check it out.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html

Getting to work...or not.

I am a bit frazzled this morning. It’s taken me 2.5 hours to get to work. Now before I rant any further, let me give you a brief overview of my weekly commute to and from work. My job doesn’t have ample parking on site and therefore most employees have to park at the various off site parking locations. Living in Alexandria, the closest parking garage to me is Union Station which is EXACTLY 14 miles away from my house. The drive from my house is about 30 minutes in moderate traffic (but taking my awesome driving skills and Maxi into consideration, it can take me around 20 minutes to get there at times). I then catch the shuttle which runs every 10 minutes or 20, depending on which stop you catch it at. The drive from the last stop to my job is between 10 and 15 minutes depending on rush hour traffic.

Cut to “rainy” days (and I use the word rainy very very loosely). I just can’t wrap my mind around how traffic becomes such a nightmare at the least amount of precipitation. I have a few theories as to why this happens:

1. People think they (as well as their cars) are salt and they’re afraid of melting?
2. 95% of MARYLAND drivers are idiots- but that’s a given on any day.
3. Someone, I’m assuming the government, issues everyone with cars on rainy days.
4. There is a special place that only opens on rainy days and therefore people must get to this place? Kind of a you-snooze-you-loose situation. Gotta drop everything you’re doing and go to this special place or else you are out of luck.
5. People are really fascinated by rain while driving and really want to take it all in so they drive as slowly as possible not to miss a thing.

To make matters worse, I forgot to fill my tank before I hit the road and of course the low gas indicator lit up. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but as my luck will have it, I didn’t have my GPS with me which lead to immediate panic because I had no idea where the nearest gas station was! I then said a silent prayer- actually I said many prayers and the Good Lord heard my prayers. So 2.5 hours and 14 miles later, I am now at work. I just pray that rest of my day week is uneventful.

*Stepping off soap box *

Lunch

I had the most delicious lunch ever! I had this sandwich:

Picture borrowed from here

Corner Bakery Turkey Frisco, pickle wedge, bag of chips and an ice cold coke.


The deliciousness can be attributed to one of the following:

1. I was REALLY hungry.
2. It wasn't cafeteria food.
3. It had some of my favorite things: sun dried tomatoes, spinach, provolone cheese, asiago cheese bread.
4. Best of all, it was F.R.E.E.!

I devoured that bad boy with a smile on my face. Now back to work.

A Few Things on My Mind Today...

1. I just wish that the media would stop giving that idiot hick man (I refuse to refer to him as a pastor for the obvious reasons) who is planning on burning a Quran so much publicity. So much energy is being spent on that foolishness. I just wish the government could step in and arrest him or something but alas- the First Amendment.

2. Ghanaians [specifically those in Ghana] and phone etiquette: Scenario
Caller: Good afternoon can I speak with XYZ
Me: Hi, sorry XYZ is busy at the moment but I will let them know you called and have them call you back when they get some time.
Caller: Ok, I will call back in an hour.
Me confused and thinking: Errrr no, how about you DON'T CALL BACK IN AN HOUR. They will call you when they are good and ready.
Me: Well I'm not sure XYZ will be done in an hour so I will let XYZ know you called and have XYZ call you when they are done with what they are doing.
Caller: Ok.
True to their word, this person calls back exactly one hour later. Of course XYZ was still busy so I just ignored they call and they called back 3 MORE TIMES, BACK.TO.BACK. Sigh.

3. To all those people who were wishing for cooler weather, EAT YOUR FRIGGIN HEARTS OUT. Personally, I was hoping summer would stick around a little longer so I can complete all my summer MUST DO activities.

4. My phone only rings while I'm away from my desk, never when I'm at my desk and I'm terrible at checking messages. I just don't enjoy the task of having to play and listen to a voice mail especially when the voice mail happens to be the sound of someone hanging up the phone on the other end.