I used to keep the specifics of what I do for cash money hidden, because it was more fun to hide behind the title of Astronaut than face the boring reality. I ditched the space suit once and for all several years ago, after a series of disastrous space missions that soured the idea for me – it’s hard to bring the funny when you’re being terrorized on a daily basis at work. I decided to be a Mad Scientist this time around, but eventually I dropped the pretense all together and let on that I actually work as a Technical Writer and IT Trainer. My loins are truly afire for the tech writing (I train because I have to); I strive to make documentation that isn’t a horrible chore to read. The company I work looks the other way a lot (it helps that everything I write is for internal use only), which means I get to reference nerdy things and pop culture in everything I do (including the famous “Choose Your Own Adventure” style manual for a particularly obnoxious procedure). I amuse myself on a daily basis, and I still like my job because I can put dumb things in my examples.

I’ve never put naked people in my documentation, though.

I’m a sucker for anything iPhone-camera related, and ordered this telephoto lens from Photojojo. It’s pretty awesome:

the burrard inlet, non zoomed and zoomed

.. but the makers of the lens win this round with their instructions:

naked bums not included

I’ve never put nudity in MY documentation. Clearly I need to step up my game. This round goes to them – the battle may be over, but they have not yet won the war. We’re launching a new billing system at work next week; my documentation is going to be so full of naked people it’ll be rated XXX and protested by church groups for generations to come. Oh, it’s on. It’s on like 50 meaty cocks slapping you in the face. BRING IT.

And, um, hello to the people from Vancouver is Awesome :D

Some people run with scissors, but that isn’t nearly hardcore enough for me – I defy safety and common sense by riding my scooter, without a helmet, while carrying scissors IN MY MOUTH*.

Oh yeah.

I’m the man.

I had several errands to run today, all with a connective tissue theme of making other people happy. One of the errands was to pick up the goodbye cake I ordered for our office assistant, who left the company today. I ordered a cake from Cupcakes, mostly because their website is fantastic – you can build the cake online from all available options, and the price is right there for you to see as you go. Plus, I know their goods are delicious and pretty AND I didn’t have to actually talk to anyone on the phone because I hate that.

Knowing that driving my car into the office for the sole purpose of fetching a cake would be a $40 endeavor, I opted to just take my scooter. After all, it’s just a cake and Lola’s bucket holds a surprising amount of stuff – it should be a snap!

Behold the snap:

I VASTLY underestimated the size of a 13″ cake, and there was no way it was going to fit in Lola’s bucket. It was also far too large to fit on the floorboard, which was Plan B. There was no one I could call for help, so I made an Executive Decision: the cake would go on the back of my two-person seat, and I would use gravity and sheer will to keep it in place. The Cupcake Girl was beside herself with hilarity and concern that anyone would be so ridiculous to attempt this, and was worried about the cake. She offered to get some string and came back with ribbon, tying the box down to my bars. It was precarious and risky and I spent the entire time terrified that I would crash and lose the cake or sit back too far and crush it with my mighty scooter armour, BUT! The Cupcake Girl’s ribbon and my extreme caution prevailed, and the cake arrived at my office in one delicious and huge piece:

Everything worked out perfectly, and I got to have delicious cake AND a hilarious story to go along with it. Today is a good day!

*: I do not advocate riding a scooter without a helmet, carrying scissors in your mouth, or any combination of the two – it was a desperate situation and the ride was about 100 feet. Normally I’d never do either of those things, and you really shouldn’t either.

A shapeless canvas sack is not a good way to transport liquid. I thought I’d save you the hassle and let you know – you’re welcome.

I’ve been riding Lola to work for the past week, and it’s been glorious. Yesterday and today in particular were really nice, and I truly hope this is a sign that the sunny, gorgeous springs we’re used to are here to stay. The riding has been great, but something seemed off somehow – and today I realized what that was.

Lola is missing her rainbow legwarmers!

She’s naked without them! I took them off last winter when I stopped riding for the year – they needed a good hard laundering as they were beyond filthy. I need to fix this, and soon. She looks so wrong without the rainbows! Lola is due for a bath, so I’ll wash her up this weekend and make her all pretty for the new riding season. It’s a silly thing, but I’m looking forward to it – I love how my scooter looks when she’s clean and gorgeous and silly.

*yawn*

hooray!

Today I am cheery.

As far as being humble goes, I really have no need for it. I’m awesome, and damn anyone who thinks otherwise. Yes, I truly enjoy being Kimli – it’s intensely amusing to be me, and I can only assume it’s just as great for those of you who get to be around me. I’m pretty perfect, actually. Completely fantastic in every way.

Except .. sometimes (like, twice in the last 30 years) I wish I was just a little less impetuous. Not much, mind you – just a little. A sliver. A speck. A tiny iota of being less hasty; the smallest modicum of prudence in my otherwise flawless presence. This would be a good thing, and could only serve to make me even more awesome than I am right now – and who wouldn’t want that? I’d get to be more awesome, and you would get to bask in the warm glow of all that is Kimli. It’s win win!

After brilliance struck with my parking idea on Monday, I immediately leapt into action: I signed up for a monthly parking pass, handed over my credit card and banking information, and canceled my current pass. It wasn’t until after I had done all this legwork that I came up for air and had a thought – was this something I could actually even do? Paying over $200/m for the option of parking the car if I didn’t want to scoot in to work was pretty dumb, so the only thing that would make this plan feasible would be the ability to park a second bike with my scooter for the same price. It’s a reasonable request – our two bikes take up less room than one car, and they’d generate a lot of goodwill and warm fuzzy feelings. They’d never turn that down, right? Of course I’d be able to do this! What a fantastic idea I had!

As it turns out, some places just don’t care about goodwill and warm fuzzy feelings (or turning down the harmless request of someone who will use the power of the internet to voice her displeasure in a witty, informative way). According to Metro Parking, it doesn’t matter if FIVE bikes can fit into one spot – they won’t allow multiple rides to share.

So, that’s that. I now have to jump through a thousand hoops to cancel the parking pass I signed up for with Metro, get a refund for the $68 they already charged me in signup fees, and monitor my accounts to make sure they don’t attempt to charge me for the parking I won’t be doing come May 1st. I also need to contact my current parking people to beg forgiveness and plead temporary insanity, and hope they’ll let me cancel the cancellation I sent in on Monday morning. So much backtracking; all of which could have been avoided if I had just been a tiny bit more prudent instead of jumping in blindly with my tits a-jigglin’.

I have excellent intentions, and most of the time my snap decisions to change the world work out just fine. Every once in a while though, it comes back to bite me in the ass. Like today. Ow, my ass.

Other than that, I’m pretty much perfect.

and famous. perfect and famous.

As I stood there in the cold, unforgiving rain, my skirt hiked up to dangerous levels and muttering venomous observations about the reputed sexual activity of no one in particular; a dirty hose in one hand and a rocket in the other, it suddenly dawned on me that I had no fucking idea what I was doing.

I don’t know how to check the air pressure on tires, or how to fill a tire with the right amount of air. I had Ed check Lola over the weekend and he said my tires were dangerously low, needing at least ten pounds of air per tire. He offered to do the filling for me, as I had plans that afternoon. I am not so much a feminist that I will not take advantage of a man willing to do my errands for me, so I gladly accepted his offer. There are some things I just don’t do, and dealing with tires is one of them (the other things I don’t do include Kraft Dinner, rimming, sneakers, and reality TV).

Unfortunately, a particularly fascinating NHL ’11 game or twenty came up and Ed forgot all about my tires. Fast forward to this morning, when a streak of stubbornness made it impossible for me to a) wake up on time and b) take transit to work – I was determined to ride today, because I am sick and fucking tired of not being able to scoot due to the rain. I am feeling some serious cabin fever from the lack of freedom, and I can’t take it anymore – so I rode into work, damning the rain and everything else around me. Since Ed didn’t put air in my tires, the job fell to me. No big deal – I’m an evolved and independent woman; proud and fierce and wholly capable. I can (in theory) make an entire new human being out of little more than a jelly sac and a teaspoon of man sauce; I should be able to put some damn air in my own tires. I don’t need a man! Hear me roar, and stuff!

Um, no. I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I think I got some air in the tires – the hose made a wooshing noise, and then the stick shot out further than it did before when I attached it to the nozzle somehow. This is all speculation, of course – for all I know, I actually removed air and now I’m riding even more dangerous than before. Who knew air and tires were so complicated? There ought to be a digital readout that tells you how much air you have and when you’re low. I ride a futurist triumph of form and function, and I demand that my scooter cater to my natural incompetence. Why should I have to LEARN? I want things or people to do these things for me!

Stupid tires. Stupid dirty hose. Stupid NHL ’11. I hate everything.

Ed promised me this week would be better than last, but my breakfast of a sausage biscuit from McDonald’s was missing a key ingredient – the sausage. What kind of week could I possibly have if, less than two hours into my Monday, I’ve already been deprived of sausage? I shudder to think. And I want sausage, damnit.

I try really hard not to complain about the weather, because I knew what I was in for when I decided I had to live in Vancouver – yes, it rains, and most of the time it’s not that bad. Things could always be worse; Calgary got hit with a huge snowstorm over the weekend .. but okay, ENOUGH with the rain. I can’t ride my scooter, I’m very grumpy all the time, and I want to do outdoor things in the sunshine. At least, I think I do – I can’t really remember what sunshine is. I think it was yellow? Maybe it smelled like cookies? I have sunglasses. I’d like to use them some day.

I’ve decided it would be an awesome thing to pay lots of money for parking; just over double what I currently pay. I’ve been crunching some numbers, see, and even though my parking is “only” $105 a month, we actually pay a great deal more than that. Ed usually rides to work when the damn sun is out, at a rate of $7.50 a day. Sometimes we drive – errands to run, fun things to attend, large unwieldy objects heading to and fro – which costs $15-$20 a day. And even if I ride every day and Ed takes the bus, he still has to buy tickets ($22 a week). All of that is a lot of money, to the point that paying $205 + taxes per month for parking is the lesser of two evils. I’m actually trying to work out some sneaky details that would allow us to park either the car or one/two scooters in our spot, giving us options for transportation. There’s nothing I hate more than paying to park the car when I already pay monthly for my scooter, so this would eliminate that double payment and make things easier when I inevitably have to go to Costco to pick up 90 sandwiches at the last damn minute.

Of course, this is all great in theory. I filled out the paperwork and made several balls start rolling this morning, but I don’t know if I can actually do this – see, I’ve never seen a motorcycle or scooter in the lot at all. There’s no signage saying it’s not allowed, but what if that’s an unwritten rule? What if they don’t allow me to do my super-awesome plan of one car or two scooters? What if they laugh at me and call me names? I need to talk to someone at the parking office and explain away my brilliant idea; somehow getting two tags for the price of one – but our scooters are small! You can fit 5 of us in one spot! My idea costs them nothing and generates goodwill for all of mankind (or just me; I’m that delusional)! WHY WON’T THEY LET ME DO IT?!

Jerks.

Oh wait, I haven’t asked yet. Here’s hoping they’re not jerks.

If this doesn’t work, I’m just going to relocate us to San Francisco; home of the $.25/h, 10-hour limit motorcycle parking.

I actually had a big April Fool’s prank planned at work – since I was going to be working late Thursday night to prepare for the intranet launch, I had planned to remove all my things from my desk. Every toy, picture, sticker, action figure, haunted portrait, and framed print of the guy who isn’t my father (it’s Hunter S. Thompson; everyone asks if it’s my dad for some reason) would be removed and replaced with nothing/actual work/a steaming cup of coffee. I was going to dress completely normal for today, and have my team act as though nothing was amiss. It would have been mildly amusing, but after yesterday’s catastrophe I was in no mood for fooling so I didn’t bother.

Still, I like to show SOME effort on this prankster holiday – so I’ve been walking around the office with this:

Lame, but surprisingly effective – everyone who’s seen it so far as done a double take and asked what the fuck. At work, I’m more known for my non-stop Diet Coke consumption than I am for my cleavage (mostly because it’d be highly inappropriate to say anything about it, but I dress the same at work as I do the rest of the time so it’s kind of booby around here), so this is as effectively shocking as my showing up to an event wearing a turtleneck and sneakers. I am sufficiently amused.