Author Archives: Marci

Letterboxing in February?

Posted in Day Trips, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel by

It’s true! I drove a few of my friends/coworkers out to Volcan Wilderness Preserve on Saturday where we snagged a bunch of nicely-placed letterboxes. We weren’t able to get all five of the boxes in the Grumpy Grandeur series because the trail leading to the mountain summit was closed for the winter rattlesnake hoe-down. But we did get three boxes, and it was a beautiful day. I also checked on the two boxes that I’d placed in the same area – they were doing pretty well with several visitors, although the actual container holding the first stamp was gone. Strangely, the stamp itself was just sitting right in its hiding spot. Weird!

After boxing Volcan, we found a couple more letterboxes – one near Dudley’s Baker and another near the Wild Animal Park. It was a great day, a mellow drive, and I’m glad I finally got out. It had been too long since I’d gone letterboxing!

Here we are – from left-to-right, Matt, Beck, me, Tricia, and Alyssa.

Guess What???

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

For a while I was feeling like this:

But now I’m feeling more like this:

You know why? Because the wildlife museum called me back about the the book I wrote in response to their questionnaire! Woohoo!!! So, I have kind of an “informal” phone call scheduled with them a week from Sunday, just to go over what the job is, living in the Bay Area, answer questions I have, etc. And if it still sounds good to me, I progress to the official phone interview. And after that, the in-person interview up in the Bay Area.

What I think is kind of funny is that I got zero response with the government applications I sent out, but I’ve got somebody interested from the first job I applied for in this new direction I’m headed. So maybe I’m onto something, eh? And even if I don’t get this job, I’m sure there are others out there for me – one that I will get.

Are your fingers still crossed for me? Good!

Not getting my hopes up…well, maybe a little!

Posted in Career, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Updates by

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted, Faithful Readers, but I have truly been very busy. I thought I’d share with you my New Years’ Resolution; I’m usually opposed to making Resolutions because I, of course, am Perfect Just As I Am and there’s usually no need to make such petty improvements. However, I’ve realized something during my Year of Miserableness, otherwise known as 2005 to the rest of you, that my friends are terribly important to me. So how about this:

– My Year of Awesomeness (a.k.a. 2006) New Years’ Resolution –
I will strive to keep in better contact with my friends and loved ones!
This Means You!
Aren’t You LUCKY????
I SURE AM!!!
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can share with all of you some potential brightness: I’ve applied for another job! I’m pretty excited about this one actually – it’s for an interpretive services manager at a wildlife museum in the Bay Area. I think it would be pretty cool to be there because I already know tons of people, and it would be between Mom and Anne and Paul. I actually made it past the first round of the selection process – that is, they didn’t take just one look at my resume and toss it in the good old circular file. Nope! They actually expressed some interest, and asked me to fill out a questionnaire along with some other hopefuls! So, 16 single-spaced typed pages of text and pictures later (that included a Kiss concert photo, by the way) I was told that I would be contacted “soon” about whether I advance to the phone interview or not. So wish me luck, eh? If I don’t make it – oh well – I’m kind of used to it by now. I’ve got some other fun jobs to apply for anyway.
We’ll chat again soon, no? And by the way, I’m pulling out the tough love on myself with the New Years’ Resolution: this blog does not count as “keeping in contact”. Ouch!

A Glimpse of Clarity!

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

Yesterday, while zoning in the trance-like state I am able to achieve while monitoring recorded phone calls for quality control, I suddenly found myself struck by an odd sense of clarity. This clarity, as you might have guessed, concerns my BIG question, What Should I Do With My Life.

Fortunately for me, Mom had given me a book for Christmas with this very title. I’ve only started reading it this past week, but I’ve been impressed by two points already. First, I’ve been scared that I just don’t want anything, that I have no more passion. That it has been beaten out of me. Not true! I learned that people who struggle always have passion – if they didn’t care about anything, there would be no struggle. So that’s important lesson number one.

The second thing I’ve realized is that I need to have fun. And that it will be possible for me to do this in my career. Basically, in applying for all these government jobs, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. I’ve always gotten everything I’ve truly wanted, and the reason I’ve been getting NO reponse to these applications is probably due to the fact that I don’t really want these jobs. In the past, I’ve truly enjoyed working – with animals, with writing, with being creative, with interacting with people while educating, with art. And there are jobs out there like this! For me!

So, I’ve decided to pursue a career in conservation education with zoos, museums or aquariums. There are lots of jobs posted on the AZA website, and several sound interesting. A couple even pay pretty well! I’ll be able to educate, entertain, utilize my creative talents, and work for a cause that I believe in. AND, I won’t be abandoning my education (Brett, if you’re reading this, those manuscripts are STILL on my list of things I want to finish – keep the faith!).

Well anyway, it was just a glimpse. Tomorrow the clouds might come in and I might decide to pursue telemarketing from a tiny, dark cubicle for my career. If that happens, either shoot me or point me to this blog entry. Thanks!

Ho ho ho (hey – are you talking about me???)

Posted in Animals, Cats, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Non-cats by

‘Twas a quiet Christmas this year: the warm glow of a muted TV, the happy hymns of James Brown’s Funky Christmas playing softly in the background, the smell of apple cider and cinnamon air freshener wafting through the air…and oh yeah…our mayhem-otic zoo of animals trying to destroy each and every present as we tried to unwrap them!!! Chaos reined in our living room, the cats shredding anything with ribbon on it, spacing out on catnip, the dogs trying to see if each package had a squeaky in it. Teddy Bear whining for more dog treats, Michael squawking to get out of the cage, and Leo…lurking in the back room just daring anyone to disturb him while he plotted…plotted for destruction.

Actually though, it was good – Mom and I got lots of great gifts; I think my favorite was an Indo Board that kind of simulates surfing or skateboarding – you have to balance on this roller thing and try not to kill yourself or damage the walls in the house when you fall off and the board goes careening out from under you. I’ll be posting pictures of me with broken limbs shortly…But I also got some PJ’s (thanks for supporting my lounging habit, all), and a watch jewelry box (woohoo! A nice organized home for my Swatch collection!), and various other fun things. After opening all the presents, Mom and I went up to Uncle Danbo’s house where he had bought and prepared a fabulous feast for us – turkey, green beans, cranberry sauce, candied yams, and cornbread. Yum! It was in fact the easiest holiday ever – no cooking, no cleaning up. Merry Christmas to us!

Anyway, we went to see “Memoirs of a Geisha” on Christmas Eve – excellent flick, you should go see it. It’s a little long and the book was better, but still outstanding if you like that sorta thing. And just so you can get a picture of how my weekend went, here’s a photo montage of Zoe during her reign of terror as we opened presents (yes, her eyes naturally have an evil glow about them that the camera captures quite nicely; this, my friends, is the horror I live with daily):

Oooooopss! Here are some pictures I forgot to post!

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by

 

 

 

 

Ok, so last in the beginning of November Miranda and her friend Aron came with me to the Wild Animal Park for a little bit of fun. While I’m working, there are a lot of parts of the park I don’t get to see, so I caught up on all the goings-on that I couldn’t check out while I was on the clock. We went on the 3D simulator ride, the carousel, spent some time in the petting kraal, and then went up on the hot-air balloon that takes you 400 feet up above the park. Here’s a picture I took of the campsite from above (it looks better at ground level, I tell you):

Here’s a frisky Desert Bighorn Sheep, and me with a little (actually quite fat) gazelle named socks.

Hakuna matada, man…hakuna matada.

Posted in Entertainment, Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Music and Dance by

Yesterday I went to see the Lion King with Bre and her family for her birthday. It was such an amazing show – it was performed live in downtown San Diego in the huge “broadway” theatre, which I had never been to before. The costumes and sets were absolutely incredible – they had antelopes, elephants, a rhino, zebra, and giraffes which were operated by people walking on all-fours using stilts! The costumes were a combination of makeup, clothing, and puppetry – the people actually had the body shapes of the animals, after they were all made up. We had seats in the very back, about as high up as you could possibly go, but it didn’t really matter because it was such a good show (although I wish I could’ve seen the detail on the costumes a bit better). It has been a while since I’ve done something cultural like that, and I’m so glad Bre invited me to go with her – we got all fancied up, and I liked seeing all the little kids there in their cute little outfits, too. Bre’s mom treated us to drinks (try carrying two full glasses up to the third floor balcony amidst screaming kids and women waiting in line for the restroom without spilling…) and dinner afterwards at the Olive Garden. I had my standard sausage and peppers with penne pasta – yum!

Thought you’d like the update – oh – and I finished my Christmas shopping for the year, too! But don’t get too excited – I’m rather poor this go-round, so I didn’t have very many presents to buy 😦

Back to work…

Enough with the recorded phone calls…

Posted in Career, Complainments, Me Me Me! by

Woohoo! They’ve finally decided to expand my duties at work, letting me climb out of the pit known as “listening to recorded phone calls for eight hours per day”. Someone in the department was let go, and they’ve decided to keep me on for a while so that I can pick up the slack. I’ll be trained on monitoring consolidation phone calls (yes, recorded ones…), but I do have a fun project that involves creating an intranet website. Because I’m working in the Quality Assurance/Compliance department, I’ve decided to call the site “QuAC Net” – on the home page there’s a rubber duck, and the whole site has a subtle (or not-so-subtle, as the case may be) duck theme. It’s pretty funny, and the boss likes it a lot!

In the meantime, I’ve applied for a few more jobs – I’m really excited about an application I put in for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as a communications coordinator. Lots of fun educational, writing, and media projects – I think it will be a good fit, if they decide to consider me. So keep your fingers crossed for me –

Yours truly,
Milto–I mean–Marci 🙂

Alright Already!!!

Posted in Career, Complainments, Me Me Me!, Updates by

I know, it has been a long time since I posted on my blog. But, seeing as how I’m a regular Joe Blow now with my regular Joe Blow job, I don’t have time for all this fancy high-tech frivolity. Work, tv, sleep. Work, tv, sleep. Work, tv, sleep. Oh yeah, and my internet connection has been on the fritz, too. And it’s still not completely fixed – for one, right now I’m connected with a rather short cable to my DSL modem, which is pretty darn inconvenient when you’re used to being wireless. Plus, my neck gave out this past week – I was essentially immobilized on Tuesday and missed work because I was having sharp unbearable stabbing pains in my neck and shoulders with every fraction of a movement I made. I went to the chiropractor for the first time ever on Tuesday and man, those were some scary sounds my neck made. Cracky, cracky!

Ok, so there’s the short update. I’ll write more when I get some time – I have some pictures to post, but in the meantime, here’s a good one for you, a little something called “I guess I could do worse and have this guy’s job” (compliments of Brenda):

Vroom vroom vroom…

Posted in Complainments, Me Me Me! by

I finally got around to taking my car in to the shop after three weeks of staring at my “Check Engine” light and nervously sitting in traffic for an hour and a half every day. It turns out that my temperature sensor was off, and my car was actually running a little bit cool. So, my garage guys replaced the temperature sensor, and I had them replace my fuel filter because I knew it needed to be changed. I also had them check all my belts to see if they could figure out the squealing noise I always hear, but they said everything looked fine. So, $271 later, my car seems to be in pretty good shape. And I’m about to pay off my car next month too! Woohoo!!!

I really like my garage – D. Mac in Escondido. I found them on the Car Talk website (you know, the NPR guys) and they had excellent comments in their listing. There was a huge opportunity for them to totally rip me off, but I really sense their honesty and integrity. If you’re in the area, definitely check them out!