Thursday On My Mind: ULC = FMFC = Gone

Your Weekend Assignment #179: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: of all the days of the work week, which is your favorite? Yes, I know a lot of people will default toward Friday, because it's an easy one, but I hope you will actually put some thought into your response and give each day its due. If you finally settle on Friday, fair enough. But even Monday has its good points, you know?

Extra Credit: Name a song you like with a day of the week in it (you can include Saturdays and Sundays for consideration here).

Look, I'm going to dispose of this one quickly for a change, because I have something else to write about. Something important. See, as of today, it doesn't really matter to me what day of the week it is.

Historically, yes, Friday was the one, not because of the weekend per se, but because I could stay up all night and then sleep in. Monday's a good day when Heroes has a new episode, and Tuesday's a good day when House, MD is new. At one time it was a good day because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wednesday used to be great because of Quantum Leap, but that was a long time ago. Ditto Friday, same show. Going further back, Thursday used to be Barney Miller night. When I was at the University of Phoenix, I had class on the same weeknight for over a year, and liked it. Oddly, though, I can't remember whether it was Mondays or Thursdays. Thursdays, I think, but there were also a few Monday runs.

Okay, yeah. Friday, because of the all nighter thing. But I'm not especially enthusiastic about Friday at the moment. I'm even less enthusiastic about Thursday, because today was a Thursday. I can't really blame today on a column of my calendar, though.

I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
- Arthur Dent, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Thursday paper and today's paperwork, collected elsewhere

On this particular Thursday, I got up as usual, checked my email, got dressed and headed off to work, stopping off at McDonald's on the way for a Sausage McMuffin with Egg. (Note that I've banned bacon for the summer, as promised.) Then I got back in my car, which happened to be parked in front of the newspaper vending box. Glancing up as I prepared to back out of the space, I happened to see the newspaper headline above. Why is this significant? The answer requires that I shred the veil of playful secrecy surrounding the name of my employer.

Unnamed Largish Company = First Magnus Financial Corp

From February: the building on the left is First Magnus.

If you were hoping that perhaps I was with the CIA or some other exciting organization, then I apologize for disappointing you. First Magnus is a company that originates and sells home mortgages, on a wholesale and retail basis. Or, at least, it was. We all know how the real estate and mortgage markets have imploded this past year, but FMFC wasn't particularly into risky loans, and didn't hang onto them long enough for people to default on them. I thought we'd be okay. So did everyone else. But that headline sounded pretty dire. I bought the last newspaper in the box and drove to the office at Fifth and Wilmot.

A local tv news camera crew sets up in front of the FMFC entrance

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was that there was a Channel 4 News truck parked in the lot. The second thing I noticed was that there was ample parking available, at a time of day when I was used to driving around to find even one space in the entire lot.

The third thing I noticed was employees standing by the employee entrance, chatting, some of them next to carts full of boxes; and other employees carrying boxes to their cars. I went up to the door and asked an acquaintance to tell me exactly what was going on.

"It's over," she said. "An email went out last night. They're telling everyone to pack up their personal belongings, turn in their badges, and leave."


When a company collapses, the accounting people are always the last to go, right? Someone has to account for disposal of assets and final paychecks and so on. Yeah, well. Not this time. I went upstairs and made my boss give me the specific news for the accounting department, but it was the same as everyone else's.

Remember my tale of the ID badge, lost in the rain two years ago? The badge in the shot above is the one I gave the facilities guy who was guarding the door, helping people with their carts and making sure nobody stole anything. It's actually the third one I've had. I replaced the second one because my picture was all faded and awful, but this one was getting to be almost as bad. Now I don't have to replace it.


I managed to pack up my Intermediate Accounting textbook, my Lilo toy, Zorro, my plant (which has been looking rather sickly for two weeks), my Mary Poppins calendar, my plush Scamp, my small rotary fan, my CDs, my headphones and my recycling into a couple of boxes and bags I had at my desk. Afterward I found out that there were boxes available in the hall. Oh, well.

Brad, a science fiction fan from the next cubicle over, figured that his two years at First Magnus would be good for his employability. He was placed with the company by the same temping firm that got me my job. A few phone numbers and email addresses were exchanged, and everyone wished everyone luck. Then I went downstairs, borrowed a cart from the mail room, and took my stuff out to my car.

By the time I got to my next destination, my plant had no leaves left on it.

I've just realized that I left my Doctor Who CD in the computer's CD drive at work. Drat.

Unnamed Largish Company revealed at last - almost

As I drove away, I hurriedly snapped this photo of the sign by one of the entrances. For two years I've been avoiding taking pictures of anything with the company name, because I didn't want to name the company in this blog. When I shot this today, I was a little worried that someone would object to my taking the picture. So I rushed it, and failed to notice that I didn't get the whole sign into frame.

This sign counts as a fixed asset by the way, specifically tenant improvements. That was one of the things I did for the company, track fixed assets and reconcile the relevant accounts. I don't see this revelation as a company secret at this point, so there you are.

The employee entrance was considerably less idyllic today

I think I published this photo back in February, but with the company logo smudged out. Here is is again, unadulterated.

People from two different agencies that place accountants in temporary and temp-to-hire positions have been wonderful to me today, and expect to place me quickly. One of these agencies is in the same building as about a third of First Magnus's 800 local employees. The agency's people were downstairs for much of the day, counseling distraught ex-employees and offering to help. Fortunately for me, I don't go head to head with most of them in the Tucson job market. I'm not after a job in customer service, underwriting, funding, closing, or other mortgage-related positions. The number of actual accountants with FMFC was small enough that the job market should be able to swallow us fairly easily. I'm better qualified than most of the people I worked with directly, and the one temp agency that had me do a bunch of times tests was very impressed with my scores.

So I'm not worried - not more than 1% worried, anyway. John is shocked, but handling it well. I was doing well all day, very surprised (there was very little to suggest I needed to worry about the company's viability) but not really upset. As the day winds down, though, I guess you can say I'm a little depressed. But I'll be fine. Really, I will. I wish I could make myself tackle that Prince Talber scene, though, and avoid losing momentum with the novel edit. I don't seem to be up to it tonight, but I'll try again in a bit.

Let's do Scalzi's extra credit question to finish off. What weekday-featuring song do I especially like? Well, despite having Friday on My Mind by the Easybeats stuck in my head as I write this, the answer is Lady Madonna by the Beatles:

Tuesday afternoon is never ending
Wednesday morning papers didn't come
Thursday night your stockings needed mending
See how they run

Yeah, well.

Wednesday night the candles won't keep burning
Thursday morning paper gave the news
Friday morning got to call at Apple
I've got the blues.

Karen

Tucson's First Magnus Financial cuts off loan funding, sends workers home

Newly jobless pack up at Tucson headquarters

First Magnus chairman: Recent events 'a knock-out punch'

Confounded Conservator of Candlelight

The infamous fan, our relief and our nemesis

As I mentioned last night, tonight was the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, and I was scheduled to assist as crucifer at the St. Michael's 6:30 PM Mass. To an old lapsed Catholic like me, that name for Jesus's mother doesn't sound quite right, but this entry will not be about the nomenclature or theology of Mary, the existence of God or any of that stuff.

No, it's all about the candles.

In the summer especially, we tend to be shorthanded when it comes to acolytes to carry the cross and the candles or incense, or to ring bells and pass certain things to the priest during the Eucharistic Prayer. Kids graduate from school, families go on vacation, and some people just go off someplace where it's not 110 degrees. Proscovia, our Master of acolytes, takes stock of whoever has shown up on any given Sunday, how many we have on hand and who can be pulled out of the congregation to help out. Often she will either reassign us to better match the tasks to the available people, or tweak things so that one person is handling one role during some parts of the Mass, and taking on a different one at other times. I haven't had a week off from assisting at Mass all summer, and often I've either had to swap my cross-carrying for torch bearing, or done some of each. That's what carrying one of the candles during Mass is called: "torching," and the candle-on-a-stick is called a torch, and so is the person who carries it. No angry villagers, though.

Fast-burning candles are evidence of the moving air nearby.

The church has a swamp cooler or something of the sort, but not proper air conditioning. In the summer the sanctuary gets so hot that I've actually been sick to my stomach and felt feverish because of it. I always wear a sleeveless shirt to church, knowing it will almost certainly be covered up by the white vestment I wear, called an alb. That helps a bit, and so does the recent addition of a couple of fans at strategic points in the sanctuary, including this white one near where the crucifer and torches sit.

There's a problem, though. It's almost impossible to aim the fan so that it cools the acolytes without putting out the torches, or at least causing them to burn quickly and drip messily. I frequently have to cup my hand around the candle flame to protect it, and sometimes end up with wax on my hands or clothing. Despite these efforts, the flame seems to go out at least once a week. The first time this happened to me, ironically, was on Pentecost Sunday, the one day of the year that's most germane to the candle-bearing ritual.

Still, we can and do relight the candle when it goes out, using a match lit off the other person's candle (there are either two torches or, occasionally on major feast days, four of them). But what happens when both candles go out within seconds of each other? We carry the matches loose in the bowl of the candlestick, so there's nothing to strike them on. When both candles go out at once, as they did this past Sunday and again tonight, someone has to sneak off to the sacristy and bring back the matchbox. You can see the matchbox in the top picture above, left over from one such emergency in July.

So okay, I guess we can live with cupping a hand around the flame during the Eucharistic Prayer or the Gospel, and any other place that one of the fans is providing a bit of ventilation. But there's no excuse for what happened tonight. I managed to safely set my torch down in the rack, only to brush by the flame with my hand afterward, and accidentally put it out! Then I helped my fellow acolyte with the other torch, and promptly put that one out with the sleeve of my alb! I tell ya, I'm just no good at this torching stuff! The twelve year olds who do it on a regular basis are at least as good at it as I am. We sit and chuckle conspiratorially at each other as we struggle, and fail, to keep the candles lit.

But if Heirs of Mâvarin ever gets optioned as a major motion picture, I'm going to use part of the money to buy that church some decent air conditioning.

Speaking of Mâvarin, I am now over halfway through my edit and rewrite of Mages. I'm on Chapter 10 of Another Mâvarin, the 21st chapter overall, page 328 in the second volume and the 636th page out of (currently) 1178 pages in the nominal trilogy. Tonight I did two and a half chapters, finished two half-written scenes, double-checked a timing issue and corrected several chapters accordingly. I'm up to the following notation:

<--Wil Masan talks to Prince Talber. (finish)

Um, okay. But not tonight!

Karen

Here Comes the Rain Again

The high school side of the wash on Calle Betelgeux

Every time I think the monsoon is winding down, it proves it's not done yet with another storm - or at least an attempt at one, in town or otherwise. It rained a bit this afternoon, and when I went out this evening to buy a couple of BMTs from Subway, I was curious what the wash behind the school would look like. I had intended to go to the Subway near the Safeway, not the one near the high school; but I found myself heading for Calle Betelgeux anyway. I decided to go for it, and I'm glad I did. There was indeed a fair amount of water, not the most this summer but enough to be worth a few pictures.

The water flowing in the foreground is on Calle Betelgeux itself.

The two sides of the road have very different views of this wash, as you can see above. The north side is mostly a culvert, crossed by a blue steel bridge. The south side is more of an arroyo in its natural state. It retains water better than its concrete counterpart, and supports a nice little riparian habitat. Well, almost. It probably doesn't count as riparian if the water is intermittent and seasonal. Still, it's pretty lush, especially during the monsoon.

I've edited two more chapters of Another Mâvarin tonight, which is good because I have church tomorrow night (I'm scheduled to be crucifer for the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin) and will therefore get a late start on my evening's editing and rewriting. I wrote an entire short scene to fix yet another timing issue, smoothed over some minor continuity stuff, and in general had a wonderful time. I'm loving this! But now I have to post to the church news blog and go to bed. Good night!

Karen

P.S. I forgot to mention that there was a thunderstorm tonight as I was working on Mages. Tuffy was all insecure as usual, pawing at me and my chair and the box under my desk, but unable to communicate just what it is she thinks I can do to stop the scary thunder noises. She's dozing beside me now, but she'll move in a hurry when I get up to go to bed.

The Right Angle; Evidence of a Promise Kept

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Snap a picture of something at an angle. Don't tilt your camera, take a picture of something at an angle to your camera. Tilts, slopes, angles, inclines, downgrades -- they're all up for a picture.

What, you mean like this?

Probably hit by a truck at some point

The truth is, I've been overthinking this particular photo shoot concept. What does it mean, "at an angle to your camera?" Assuming the camera is aimed more or less parallel to the ground, then anything that isn't perpendicular to the ground, such as poles and buildings, is at an angle to it, or on a curve. And anyway, what about a right angle? That's an angle, too, the most famous angle of all. So perpendicular to the ground is at an angle, too. It's just not an unusual or unexpected angle.

Yep, overthinking.

Parking lot markings and curbstones at Cherrybell Station

I've taken something like 45 pictures over the last couple of days, many of them attempts to do something interesting with this angle theme. But I've decided to only use photos taken in and around Cherrybell Station at lunchtime today.

Speed bump and handicap access / crosswalk

Regular readers may remember the name Cherrybell Station on Cherrybell Strav. (Strav, in case you're wondering, is someone's bright idea of combining the terms "Street" and "Avenue" to denote a street that goes at an angle relative to the city's N-S-E-W grid.) It's the main post office, down off 22nd Street near the railroad bridge.

And this is why I was there. In that box on the counter, coincidentally at an angle relative to the camera, is the full manuscript of Heirs of Mâvarin, addressed to the Submission Editor at DAW Books. Also in there are my much agonized-over cover letter and a packet containing a return label and $9.00 in stamps, sufficient to cover postage on a Flat Rate Priority Mail box. Not enclosed: a return box (wouldn't fit) and a synopsis (they specifically say they want the full manuscript instead). The address label on the box is the one I printed off the USPS web site on Saturday; it's not dated so it should be okay - I hope!

Notice that just the little bit of an angle here has a huge effect on the perspective, and the apparent angles that the camera sees and, it seems to me, exaggerates. Really, you can have a camera straight on relative to something, and it's still not going to look parallel to the lens. Vanishing point, anyone?

Tonight I edited Chapter Five of Another Mâvarin, which is Chapter 16 of Mages of Mâvarin overall. I managed to complete an unfinished scene and fix some timing issues (again), and discovered another, major dating discrepancy that I have to fix in upcoming chapters. At the moment it only takes Cathma and Rani Lunder two days to complete a three day journey. Oops! Actually, it may be that the actual scenes are right but my date headers are wrong; I'll have to see. I use a "dateline" at the beginning of each chapter and whenever a new day begins, to help me (and possibly the reader) keep track of things. It's possible that I just failed to put one where a new day began, throwing off my subsequent datelines.

Still, I'm really, really happy with the way it's going.

A friend of mine occasionally sends me emails about what's "hot" in publishing right now, and asks me whether I can position the Mâvarin books accordingly. Is it supernatural romance? Is a tengrem a kind of werecreature? The answer to these questions tends to be "no." So it amuses and cheers me to stand in a theater hallway, looking at posters for several upcoming fantasy films, having just watched one of those films and seen the trailers for three others. Harry Potter sets records, and now suddenly every other fantasy series with kids or teenagers as protagonists is being made into a movie. And that professional writer at church, the one who read Harry Potter in Italy, referred to fantasy trilogies themselves as "hot." Heck, I have one of those. Kevin points out that the granddaddy of all fantasy trilogies, the one about that Frodo fellow and his friends, isn't really a trilogy at all, but just a really long novel in three volumes. Well, so is mine. Funny how that works.

Karen

A Quick Note Before Bed

Not much to report tonight, and I don't want to take the time anyway, losing more sleep to craft some long rant or photo essay. I mostly just have a few updates for you:


1. So That's "What!"

My friend Kevin told me today that someone told him that a section of roof had blown off my neighborhood Taco Bell. That's why they suddenly tore down a store that had been doing decent business.

2. Reporting as ordered.

Largely on Scalzi's recommendation in Whatever, I went to see Stardust today. I give it a B+. Good actors (De Niro was especially fun to watch, and the relative unknown in the lead role was delightfully Brendan Fraserish), likable characters and amusing moments, but somehow it didn't quite have the oomph for me.

3. Harry Potter in Italy

An acquaintance at church, a writer, told me today about his recent Harry Potterised vacation in Italy. He was staying in a medieval house in Tuscany with his wife and daughter, and they had nothing better to do at night than read the last Harry Potter book aloud to each other. Sounds like fun, especially in a house that, in his words, "looked like it would fit right in at Hogsmeade." He also reported seeing the English version of the book for sale in a number of stores, and one or more people reading it wherever he went. Neat! Personally, i just finished rereading the third book in the series.


4. No, I haven't forgotten. Not when I've just finished editing two chapters from Another Mâvarin (Chapters Three and Four, or Fourteen and Fifteen in the trilogy as a whole). My main issue with it at the moment is that four years ago at least, I moved a key scene from Chapter 19 or later all the way to Chapter Fourteen, causing serious continuity issues. I thought it made more sense for Lorsuma to start messing with Carli a few days earlier than previously established, but it doesn't seem worth all the collateral damage to the storyline. I think I'm going to give a plausible reason to delay her actions back to the later chapter.

And yes, I'll mail the package, and no, I really didn't have what I needed to mail it yesterday.

Good night!

Karen

What I Accomplished Today...And What I Didn't

The weird effect here is from a dirty window and accidental flash.

It's been an interesting day. I tried to mail my manuscript to DAW, took some amazing photos of clouds and mountains, called two friends long distance for no reason, and spent pretty much every other waking minute on Mages of Mâvarin.

Cherrybell Station, on Cherrybell Strav.

I expect you caught the word "tried" in the paragraph above. No, I didn't get it mailed. I packed it up, found a way to print labels (on plain paper, unfortunately) from the USPS site, and drove down to Cherrybell Station, the main post office here in Tucson. But there were two problems. One, I couldn't get the right Priority Mail box or envelope from the self-serve lobby, and two, anything over thirteen ounces now has to be given to a postal employee in person. My package will weigh over six pounds. So I'll have to do it on Monday.

22nd St. near Cherrybell, looking west

Cherrybell and 22nd again.

But I got it weighed properly, anyway, and I really enjoyed the drive down there and back, because the sky was as gorgeous as I've ever seen it. Most of the photos in this entry are unedited except for size and cropping and a "sharpen lightly". A few are lightened a bit, but really, the sky was pretty much like that. The monsoon isn't quite over yet, despite the fact that my car thermometer said 101 degrees. And clearly, it wasn't really a "dry heat".

On the 22nd St. railroad bridge, looking west

22nd St. railroad bridge, looking east

Back at home afterward, I moved some scenes around so I could end An Adept in Mâvarin with Chapter 11, and rewrote two scenes to give them more closure. As it stands now, Rani take a moment to consider the fact that if he walks in the Palace, terrible things are going to happen to him, because he's been warned and he knows his enemies are inside. Then he walks in anyway, because he's a hero and he has to try to save the country and the people he loves. The End.

The scenes that follow, in which Rani and Cathma and Crel are all kidnapped, Darsuma loses her battle for self-determination and Fabi encounters a mysterious man from his past, are all in Another Mâvarin now, where they belong. I even managed to even out some chapter lengths a bit, renamed two chapters to keep then thematically relevant, and did my first complete word count in probably about five years. The word count file, which has stopped crashing since that MS Office update, now reflects each individual volume of the trilogy, and every one of the 35 chapters is now labeled and paginated for the volume it's in, not just the trilogy as a whole. All my specialized formatting styles are now in use in each document, the two spaces after periods are now single spaces, and tabs at the beginnings of paragraphs have been replaced by indents. Ta-dah! And it only took all evening and half the night!

That's all right. It needed to be done; it's all stuff I've put off for years. Now I can concentrate on the actual text, the continuity and half-written scenes and such. And Adept is essentially done ready to go. With an ending, even! Hooray!

Karen

What? What? What?

On three different occasions now, the Tenth Doctor has reacted to some shocking discovery by exclaiming, "What?!" and again, "What?" and once more, "What?!!" The first time, a bride had suddenly appeared in the TARDIS and demanded to know where she was. The second time, Queen Elizabeth I (whom the Doctor had not yet met) called for the removal of the Doctor's head. The third time, the Titanic smashed through the wall of the TARDIS. Yes, I think all of those would qualify as surprises for him!

I felt like that this morning, a couple of times, albeit with less cause. First that was a piece of email, purportedly from "service@irs.gov," telling me to "Claim Your Tax Refund Now!" Yeah, like that's going to happen. The IRS doesn't need to reach me by email. They've got my address, and I got my refund months ago, thank you very much, deposited in our account. Still, don't you get teeny tiny doubts when some new phishing scheme surfaces, in case somehow it's really from the claimed organization? I do.

But that was nothing compared to the shock I received on the drive to work this morning. As I passed my local Taco Bell at 22nd and Wilmot, I saw this:

They were knocking down the Taco Bell! What? What? What?! This wasn't some failed business. This was a place that was always so busy at midday that I gave up trying to eat lunch there. Couldn't hack the line! But I bought dinner there just a week or two ago.


I turned right into the parking lot, but my camera eluded me when I reached in my purse for it. What? Figuring that I'd left my camera on my desk, I doubled back home for it. It wasn't there. What? Turned out it was in my purse after all, and I'd just wasted five minutes for no reason. What? But I drove back into the parking lot and grabbed this shot before going on to work.

By lunchtime, they had made a lot of progress on knocking down the rest of the building. I couldn't help thinking of their lunchtime patrons, heading over there for a grilled stuffed burrito and finding a pile of rubble instead. What?

This is not the first time I've been surprised by unexpected demolition at that particular shopping center. A couple years ago they knocked down an early 1960s diner, Cory's, leaving only the restaurant's sign. And a few years before that, they knocked down most of the north wing of the L-shaped shopping center. But those structures were relics, almost as old as I am. The Taco Bell wasn't anywhere near that old. Weird. Then again, neither was the Popeye's at Broadway and Campbell, which shut down the day after I broke my ankle in their parking lot about four or five years ago. What?

***

I'm on the last chapter of An Adept in Mâvarin, at least in theory. I'm on Chapter 13 anyway, the last chapter in my Adept folder. So far, though, the narrative doesn't feel remotely like the end of a first book in a trilogy. The plot of the second book has already started, all the characters are in trouble and it's getting worse (for Rani and Fabi at least), and there's no sense of closure. I'm not at all sure I've picked the right stopping point to shore up as the end of the volume, but I won't be sure until I get there, and maybe not even then. Maybe I should stop at the end of Chapter 12, or even Chapter 11. I'm going to have to be very clever, and probably teach myself a new writing competency or two, to pull this off. Gulp! What?

Karen