My mom is the coolest mom ever

This is my mom, getting sloshed at a martini tasting party with my dad on board a ship cruising the British Isles. (I'm just off-screen to your left. And yes, I was the one who brought them to the party.)

My mom is the coolest mom ever, reason #28327:
I went home last weekend (9/10) and she told me she was taking up knitting. We went to Wal-Mart, where she told me to choose a yarn color. I chose two, and she took the yarn.
I go back this past weekend (9/17) and she hands me the coolest scarf ever! 8 ft. long, some 18-20 inches wide. About twice as large as your average scarf, this is the scarf of titans. If Paul Bunyan had a mom as cool as mine, she'd make him this scarf. It can be used as a blanket, it's so big.
I've been showing it to people, and their reactions have been consistent: they want to steal it, they demand to know where I bought it, and when they hear that my mom made it, they all say "You have the coolest mom ever."

Thanks mom.

Student Life and Development

The paperwork has finally gone through payroll, so I am now officially working for Student Life and Development. Yay! Moreover, I'm making $10 an hour. Yay!

Now the bad news: all the cool restricted access databases I was supposed to use...have crashed. SO there's no way I can use them, nor can anybody else. So instead of doing the oh-so-productive work I was hired to do, I'm restricted to doing basic office duties. File this, copy that, answer the phone, etc. I was really hoping to be doing something innovative and fun, something other than the standard paper-pushing job that the undergrads are given. My boss was hoping the same thing, and he's gotten kind of mopey (he's also cursing Admissions, who apparently overloaded the system when they tried to do a full census after everyone was logged in.)

So, I'm making money. I just wish I was making money doing something that was obviously helpful and innovative.