Posted by SewPixie on November 30th, 2008 in Daily Life, Shop
For a long weekend I sure was away from home a lot. Thanksgiving was planed to be spent with a bottle of wine and some pie. However, my friend Devon’s aunt had a lot of people cancel out with little to no notice so I was swept away with Devon and her mom to Case Grande to feast. Yummy! Many thanks to them for having me along.
Friday was shopping day…er…night. Candace stopped over at the house after she returned from Cottonwood and we all went through the ads and researching items. At midnight we went to go sit out in front of Ultimate Electronics as there was a sound system for sale that Candace wanted. I crocheted some hats and we all played on our phone. Hahaha and always wished that they would make sweatshirts for your legs. Yeah, people say silly things when they need sleep. After Ultimate (which once they opened we were out in 10 minutes) we went to JoAnn’s for their opening. After the insanity over flannel last year I skipped the prints and just nabbed the white I needed. Some yarn and frames later were in line and out. We stopped by Target but they wwere out of the XBoxes that Candace wanted and the lines were really long. Since there wasn’t anything we had to have right now we left and went to GameStop so Candace could get the XBox. And then…and then some sleep! Devon crashed on my couch and I got some sleep too. Devon’s birthday is early in the week so some of us went to dinner at Sabuki in Tempe and then went to see Transporter 3. And yes, of course there were plenty of excuses for Jason Statham to lose his shirt. hahahaha
So today was spent watching Dr. Who and getting ready for the shop opening. I finished up some more bags and decorated the hats I have ready. The plan is to make dinner and then get to work prepping the listings. I plan to have them all ready to list at 9pm my time. That will make is December 1st on the East Coast right?
Off to cooking I go! Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all! I for one am very thankful to be here.
Posted by SewPixie on November 25th, 2008 in Daily Life
Okay…so it is Picnic Day at work so this may be short. I am just so ticked off right now that I HAVE to vent. One of the things we support is a marketing campaign server. Yeah that’s right…it spews spam. We feel gross just having to support it. Anywho, there is one marketing jerk that..ugh..is just a liar! My co-worker was working with the support for this product all week because this jerk couldn’t get a detail report he wanted. I even started helping out to figure out what was up. Turned out that the detail report would not work because when they sent out the mailing the tag was not formatted right. The server had no way to give him that detail report without the key piece of into in the database column. But I did manage to find that the table had some information in it and if they did a custom report in the web interface they could get some information so it was not a total loss. The jerk replies to thank me for volunteering to do his reports and he has a meeting on Monday and needs them by then and here are a dozen mailings he needs it for. Um what? Excuse me?!
So we get that mess sorted out and then over the weekend my co-worker gets this email from a high up muckety muck that the jerk has told her that the detail report won’t work because that part of the server has been broke for a long time and we won’t fix it. WHAT?! Um no, server is fine, jerk’s formatting was not.
In the course of all this I found that another report that we had been doing for them can be done by them using the web interface. I take the mailings from a ticket they have in to us for that find of report and make and example on the web interface. They can get their data from that and also use it to learn how to adapt it for all future reports they need of that type. I send two emails about it to them all with the details. I closed the ticket just now and the jerk send an email wanting to know why it was closed when he didn’t’ get any email with the data in it. Um high dude, what about the two emails you got about it? UGH!!!
Posted by SewPixie on November 23rd, 2008 in Shop
I had the awesome Bullfrog Graphics at Etsy cut a new template for me. The new bags are slightly more narrow at the bottom for a more snuggly fit. The top is pretty much the same but with the power of laser cutting it is actually symmetrical which is making it far easier for me. I’m not a machine so I doubt any bag is 100% symmetrical when sewn but I can sure tell on some bags (I think it is my serger driving skills haha). They work just fine but I worry people will be ticked.
Anywho, I will be putting the older bags at a lower price in the new shop and the newer ones at the normal price. I will probably also mention something in the description.
Posted by SewPixie on November 19th, 2008 in Shop
Okay, I have set a date for the re-opening of the shop: December 1st. The shop has a new logo, new URL, and will have some new inventory. I think a free shipping promo may be in order for the first week or so.
Now to just get out of work and go sew!!!
Posted by SewPixie on November 17th, 2008 in Daily Life
YAY! I received my ITIL exam results this morning. I passed!! I missed one question, woot woot!
On the needles are several project still: Baby Surprise, Moebius wrap, Mystery KAL Blanket, Mystery KAL Bag (the one I started during the Ravelympics), and Bridget’s socks.
I am also working on inventory for the shop. The fabulous Rob at Bullfrog (where I got my stamp) is cutting me a new template for cutting out the back pieces so I’m pretty excited about that. In the mean time I am working on ones I have had cut for ages. Oh, and my new tags arrived so I will start to use those once my current ones are all gone.
Which leads me to a question about packaging. When I first started, the bags were wrapped in tissue paper. Then for a while I had plastic goody bags, and after that zip top bags. I like the zip top bags because it makes it easy to keep them lint free and visible. Plus, I figure the person can re-use the bag. I’ve been making stickers with my new stamp to put on the bags. THen I may punch a hole in the Moo cards and attach that to the zipper tab as the ‘tag’. Does the old tissue paper packaging seem more ’special’ or are zip top bags just fine?
Posted by SewPixie on November 8th, 2008 in Daily Life
I started off the day today by going to Dream Dinners with Candace. It is one of those places where you go to prepare a bunch of meals to take home and freeze. I’ve got over about a month’s worth of dinners in the freezer now, and my first one cooking right now. Overall it was pretty fun. It’s like home ec for grownups! You chose what meals you want to make from the menu and when you go in they have stations set up for the various recipes. You go from station to station and use the ingredients according to the recipe and put it all into bags and slap a direction label on it. Everyone has their own shelf in the freezer for their bags and at the end they check all your bags, help you put them into your cooler (or in my case…cardboard box) and off you go.
I was a pretty busy week over all. Wednesday-Friday I was working on Exchange 2007 training. Thursday was the get together for the TYF Mystery Blanket, and Friday I went to see Zach and Miri with Devon and Candace. I adore Kevin Smith movies. Now that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if it is yours…the movie is hysterical!
In shop news, the stamp from Bullfrog Creative Laserworks arrived with the new logo! It is awesome!!! I am waiting on new labels and new moo cards. I also of course need to get sewing so I need to do that too!
Posted by SewPixie on November 5th, 2008 in Daily Life
I am still in disbelief, worried that I will wake up and this is a dream. But, then again I doubt in my dream I’d still have to police the cat’s litter box. 
Wonderful quotes all over the place, especially over at Indecision 2008:
Michigan Avenue found south side teens and hipsters together on medians, singing the national anthem together, knowing all the words.
I don’t think I recall in my lifetime people “rioting” by getting together with people from vastly different walks of life and singing the anthem of their nation. How awesome!
In other news, I have a headache, Exchange 2007 training was okay today, my legs are sore from walking, I am going to the yarn shop tomorrow, and I still have not finished my Mystery KAL blanket. Oh yeah and I freaking HATE trying to print from my Windows VM in Parallels. Blank bleeping pages here at home. Rawr!
Posted by SewPixie on November 4th, 2008 in Daily Life
Okay so I felt dorky saying it but when it was called I thought of Star Wars.
David Alan Grier summed up what I was thinking:
Our President is smart again.
It’s like the end of the first Star Wars…. A New Hope.
And Obama promised his little girls a new puppy. I bet they are having the best night ever. Has to be really hard though since yesterday must have been so sad and hard for them with the loss in the family.
Posted by SewPixie on November 4th, 2008 in Daily Life
So people are starting to call it for Obama. WHEEEE!! I’m excited and nervous and a bit scared of nutjobs.
The Indecision ‘08 stuff on Comedy Central was AWESOME!!!!
“You brought a spoon to a spork fight” – Jon Stewart to Stephen Colbert
“Virginia has not gone Democratic I think since…” – Jon Stewart
“…since Joshua fought the battle of Jericho” – Stephen Colbert
Posted by SewPixie on November 4th, 2008 in Daily Life
I rolled out of bed a little after 6 this morning to scoot over to the polls. It was in a different spot this year for my precinct but I checked the sample ballot I was mailed and had the right place. Others….well they didn’t bother to check. Rather than being a bit annoyed that they hadn’t checked and realizing that after all just because ‘you always vote at yadda yadda school’ doesn’t mean you will be on the rolls for another precinct they wanted to scream and yet and blame everyone else. Really people? Really? No consideration at all for the poll workers nor for the poor souls that have to figure out all that stuff. Yeah, sometimes things get messed up and whops you have to go a few blocks over to vote, and yeah maybe someone should have come out a little earlier or put the map closer to the end of the line, but geez it was 6:30 in the morning and they were doing the best they could only having been open for a half hour so get over it. Ptttt
So an hour in line and then I scoot back home to get ready for work. I really thought I was going to be way late. I just barely caught the bus right after the one I normally take…yet I got to work at the same time. The connection bus must have been way early or way late, but hey I’ll take it.
Oh yes, and PowerShell sweetness of the day. Say you have a list of names and you want to look for things in that list within a larger file (or files). Easy peasy, and this probably isn’t even the easiest way to do it:
foreach ($line in gc c:\delmbox.txt) { gci * | select-string $line | fl pattern, path}
For each line in delmbox.txt it will get the contents of all the files in the current directory where it fines the line from delmbox.txt and format the results in a list showing the pattern (what you were looking for) and the path (which file it found it in). Right now I am working o having it show part of the line, but just the section I want. Too bad what I am looking is is not a csv file, that would make it way easier.