Out of town-ing: Michigan

Giant rolls of paper to be made into books!

Last week I went on my first business trip to visit one of our book printers! I'll admit it, I'm a big nerd. We got tours of the printing presses, the folders, the gathering machines, the binders, the stampers... it was really cool. I took so many pictures and asked my fair share of questions. It was fascinating to see how much work goes into the actual printing of a book--work done both by machine and by people.


The color mixing room.


Books go by on the belt after having the covers applied.

It was so cool. Yep, I'm a nerd.

I love Adobe

Why? Let me nerd out for a little here. I love Adobe because they created this little feature called "content-aware fill" that is changing my life. Seriously. No longer am I spending hours painstakingly pixel-painting the bleed onto old, ugly covers. Nope. Now I just click a few buttons and BAM, the computer does it for me - BETTER than me. (Which makes me tangentially wonder if I should be afraid of robot computers taking over the world.) Several hours of work just became 7 minutes. I love you, Adobe.

P.S. I've had the hiccups almost all afternoon. Loud ones. Sorry officemates!

The jumping 'i'

I was just sitting at work, doing my thing when I realized that the italic 'i' in Scala looks just like a person jumping for joy. Does it not?

Hi, I'm Ashley and I'm a nerd.

Friday!

Today I'm full of energy and raring to go. (I'm going to thank the coffee for that.) I've got a whole list of things to get done at work today and I'm going to check, it, off. Yay for a beautiful day! Yay for Friday! Yay for coffee!

The picture above is from Kate's birthday celebration last weekend. :)

Sighh...

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my dear co-worker and friend Amy got a fantastic new job. The bad news is that she's leaving me! Today is her last day and since she is a faithful reader of my blog I decided to give her a shout-out here.

Dear Amy,

Today is your last day here and I am reflecting on what my life will be like post-coworker-amy. After today I am going to have to make my own Jimmy John's account and build my own "favorite order" for gourmet sandwiches. Not to mention brave the strange JJ delivery guy who makes me so uncomfortable I lose my ability to tip correctly. I am going to have to find my own interesting articles, pictures, and stories to distract myself with during the day. I am going to have no idea what's going on in baseball. My lunch hours will be just me and my books. Who will I stop by and visit and catch up on the latest news with?? And who will explain to me how this place works and who all these people are?

Amy, I will miss you terribly! But I'm so excited for your new job. And I'm glad you'll still be in Chicago so we can be real friends. So goodbye (but not really) and GOOD LUCK (definitely)!

Love,
Ashley xoxo

I've got the power! (or not)

Today we had a power outage at work! It was probably the most exciting thing ever here. I got to go outside and read for 40 minutes while I waited for the power to come back on. I'm so thankful for life's small pleasures. (And also that it's summer not winter!)

Plus tomorrow is Friday. Yippee!

Reading List: The Shadow of the Wind & Lonesome Dove

I cannot recommend a book more highly than The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I devoured this book while on the beach in Hawaii. In addition to a powerful, entrancing story, it's one of the most well-written books I've read. It's a tale of books and mystery and romance all with the architecture of Barcelona dancing in the background. Seriously, go read it right now!


I'm currently reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty for a book club I'm in. (Live in Chicago? Want to join?) I'll admit I'm only 200 pages in (oh, by the way, it's like 800 pages long, so it's not for the faint of heart or short of attention span), but I'm already anticipating the next time I'll get to sit down with it. (Lunch break, come quickly!) It's got cowboys and deserts and adventure (at least I think there's a big adventure coming...) and even some romance. You should read it with me!

Side note related to this: In college sometimes the only thing that got me out of bed and motivated in the morning was the thought of Saga breakfasts. Thinking about triangle hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, and cheese gave me hope for the day (don't judge). This morning in the shower I was lacking motivation when suddenly I realized that once I got on the bus I could crack open Lonesome Dove and find out what happened next. Tada! Motivation.
Whatever it takes, right?

Blackhawks parade

Sooo, Chicago has a winning team. People are excited. People are gathering for the victory parade. Sadly, I still have to go to work.

What's that street? Oh, that's the street my bus was supposed to drive down this morning. Much to my/other passengers' surprise, we were rerouted. (Thanks to our internet STILL being down, I am in the dark about these sorts of things.)

[photo by Nancy Stone at the Chicago Tribune]

New things.

A short missive from my desk to say: Sometimes I feel like a bumbling idiot.

I've been given some new responsibilities at work recently and these new tasks are actually very exciting developments. However, they also make me feel completely lost as I maneuver totally new jobs and fumble my way through foreign procedures. It makes me feel like a bumbling idiot.

Okay, back to figuring things out...

A sight for sore eyes...

My new cube deco thanks to a man who retired from the Press a few years (?) ago. Every spring he comes in to give all the women a peony he cut from his yard. Isn't it pretty??


Yay lunch outside!

South Carolina

This weekend...

Mmmm... an espresso milkshake!


We take a photo on this bridge every time we're in Greenville. Cute, right?

Right now...
Construction crews are working on a new building next door to my office and are currently slamming the old foundations of a building from the Chicago Columbian Exposition. Annoying noise/vibration, but interesting historical tidbit!

Today...

Today it is... rainy & cold. And I am sleepy, excited to watch Glee tonight, & looking forward to a wedding with friends this weekend!!

Right now... a co-worker's children are visiting the office and the four year-old's voice is BOOMING all around. Kind of like her father when he talks on the phone... Funny how that works!

Afternoon pick me up

Every now and then, it's one of those afternoons. One of those can't-keep-your-eyes-open-to-save-your-life afternoons. And sometimes drastic measures are required. Like a trip down to the vending machine for a Coke. Today was one of those days.

Side note: When I looked for photos of Coke bottles I found this photo of the history of Coke bottles and thought it was pretty cool. Check out that square-ish one from way back when! [photo from here]

Cubicle Tags

I made some tags to organize my desk piles today in order to easily mark a book's progress from one stage to another. Here are three of the five...

Light spots for a gray day

Today the sky is the same color as the lake which is the same color as the dirty snow... gray. But, in spite of this, there are many things to feel sunshine-y about today:
1. It's FRIDAY! And it's a three day weekend.
2. I'm going to northern Michigan to my friend's cottage this weekend. I intend to sit by the fire with a book and some hot chocolate the whole time. It will be lovely.
3. On Fridays I treat myself to a latte on my way to work. Therefore, I have hot drink in hand- already!
4. It's still so much warmer there than it has been for the last few weeks. When the wind isn't whipping your skin off your face, there's always reason to be cheery.
5. Did I mention that it's Friday, a three day weekend, and that I'm going away with friends??
6. I have friends at work and friends on the train (not to mention the other places, but this is relatively new). I am so thankful for this everyday when I catch up with them, discuss the weather, and share our current reading lists.

And while I celebrate these lovely six things, I also remember to be thankful for the ways I have been blessed. Again and again. And again.

Reasons to like Monday

As much as I don't look forward to Monday, here are my reasons to talk myself into waking up anyway:

1. New episodes of my favorite podcast, This American Life.
2. Catching up on the news / emails.
3. Picking out something to wear. (This can also go on the reasons Mondays are terrible list. It just depends on how easy it is to accomplish.)
4. Monday evenings are usually very relaxing. Therefore, Monday morning = relaxing night is coming.

How's that for some positivity and optimism?
Monday Monday Monday.