Justification(s) of the Day:

• If I drive the car to work, I can get cat food on the way home – we’re completely out, and they’ll appreciate me getting the food BEFORE I come home (and also I won’t have to take the stupid fucking bus)
• If I get an iPad, I can get electronic copies of a lot of the books on my shelves meaning I can donate them to others AND free up some precious shelf space – the Harry Potters and Stephen Kings take up most of one bookshelf alone! Buying an iPad would mean I have a CLEANER HOUSE!

Last night at the Police Museum, I got double-teamed by John Biehler and Tris Hussey. They both pulled out their iPads and spent a goodly amount of time showing me the many cool things you could do with it, and I could immediately envision where I could use the thing in my everyday life. I hadn’t actually ever played with one before last night, and was a little taken aback at how gorgeous the display was. John brought up the Marvel Comics app, and I nearly jizzed in my pants – godDAMN, that looked fine. It didn’t help my resolve all when John showed me the camera attachment either; instantly importing the pictures I had just taken with my Tiny Cam and editing them on the screen. Damnit, I already said I didn’t want or need an iPad – and now it’s all I can think about; the number of ways I could use it and how incredibly sexy it was (and would make me by association).

I am pretty much ruing in advance our trip to Portland; home of the tax-free shopping and plentiful Apple stores.

I’m officially on vacation as of 5pm today, and it’s not coming a moment too soon. I am perpetually annoyed at work, and I need a break – time to clear my head, shake off my angst and think about what I want to be when I grow up. I’m really frustrated with a lot of things right now, the least of which is not the fact that I was docked a day’s pay for being sick last week. We get sick days, but our HR person put me on some kind of sick day probation for being absent too much last year. Okay, fine – I get it; I’ll come in when I feel like shit and be useless for the entire day. Unfortunately, our HR person left the company a few months ago and her replacement doesn’t start for another two weeks. In the meantime, I’m flagged in our system as “sick = unpaid” and no one can remove it. I seethed for a little bit, then did some research – according to the office assistant, I took 10 sick days in 2009, and 1.5 days so far in 2010. 10 sick days is a LOT, but 5 of those don’t really count – I had the Piggy Sniffles, and the company-wide policy was that H1N1 didn’t count towards your sick days and for the love of god, don’t come into the office until you’ve got the all clear. Since I had The Talk, I’ve actually been really conscious of my absences and have worked through many migraines and sniffles so I wouldn’t be penalized. I’ve taken 1.5 sick days in 6 months, which I don’t think is out of line at all – yet I’m still being docked a chunk of pay for it, which bites.

Using this new thing called “Confrontation”, I talked to my boss about it then emailed him the cold hard facts. He’s passed the info along to the Ghost of Karen (our HR person is working on a contract basis until the new person starts), who will hopefully a) lift this ridiculous probation on how often I’m allowed to be sick and b) credit me back those 8 hours of pay. After tax, that’s a good-sized piece of the iPad I don’t want. They should give it back to me.

Tonight I pack and do laundry. Tomorrow, I get rid of this Dora the Explorer haircut. Saturday, we leave .. for FORKS. Expect pictures.