Cowbell Status Messages - So I wrote as my status message earlier this evening (on twitter, myspace, & facebook), "Now, with More Cowbell!" and a friend sent me a chat message later to ask "so what's with the cowbell?" Please, by all means, read the wikipedia entry I've linked above, if you've never seen the SNL (Saturday Night Live) skit from 2000 with Christopher Walken. The skit is fantastic, and is well described in wikipedia so I won't say much more about it. You won't likely find a video link anywhere online, because of copyright issues.

I was bouncing along as I drove to our baronial fighter practice, enjoying the music of Blue Fringe. One particularly upbeat song came on, and I could swear I heard cowbell. Later I heard a very clear ride-cymbal instead, so maybe I was mistaken, but it just made me exponentially happier to think that my new favorite band was *also* using cowbell in a song. *squee*

Work Expertise - There are many days when I feel like I'm a writer-on-call at work. I'm often waiting for new software to be what they call "code frozen" -- when the programmers and developers stop changing the new program, and I can count on it staying the same. In the meantime, I work on editing templates, building libraries, and helping people fix their Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. This morning, however, I actually felt like I was ahead of the curve for a change. A new project wants my assistance getting their training materials published. I'd reviewed her materials, the document repository, and came with a set of questions in hand. Turns out she was beyond impressed at my evaluation of her project, and I nearly bounced out of the meeting.

Then in the second meeting of the day, I knew there was going to be almost NOTHING for me to have to pay attention to. We're required to use an in-house appointment management system, and in my personal life, I prefer the integration of various calendars in Google Calendar (check it out, if you've never seen it). It can be synchronized with my cell phone, and accessed from any computer [unlike the work system]. So during my boring meeting, I entered everything on my work-system calendar into my Work calendar in Google. I know, sounds boring, but I felt so efficient! And I managed it all, while still listening to the techno-babble and chiming in when I was needed in the conversation. *squee*

It's nice to feel accomplished at work. All those computer programmers and rocket scientists, and today they needed *me* to be the expert. *beaming smile*

* * * * *

Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: old college friends, finding me on the internet