Symetrical Habits

We've done a lot to our house since we moved in. I guess I'm really only saying that because every other place we've lived hasn't been ours to improve, so we did even less then. We've painted about seven 11^ths of the house, put up one of the two ceiling fans we bought, re-sloped the side of our yard to draw water away from the house, hung shelves in the basement, and put a hook up next to the shower to hold our towels because the towel racks are on the other side of the room.

And honestly, my favorite so far has to be the towel hook. Half because of the pain usually involved in bending over to pick my towel up off of the floor, and half because of my OCD tendencies and very slight mysophobia. I'm not totally convinced that it's OCD as much as a love of symmetry.

• When I hang my towel on the rack to dry, it has to be reasonably even – I don't measure it, but I do make a fair effort to ensure that the front lines up with the back.
  
  
• When we got a toothbrush holder (like a covered cup with 4 holes on top) I originally put my toothbrush opposite Wifey's, and would always adjust it so that her side was as close as it could be to her sink, and my side was as close as it could be to mine. At some point I thought it would be a romantic gesture to move my toothbrush next to hers, and that's where it lives today. (I asked if she noticed I had moved my toothbrush and she did, but she didn't think it was that romantic. Women.) But if the cup gets turned too far to one side or the other I'm sure to adjust it.
  
  
• When I close the shower curtain, I know that pulling three rings to either side of the curtain rod will stretch out the curtain in the middle and put all the excess on the ends to help prevent water from splattering out on to the floor. I also wet the edge of the curtain and stick it to the wall.
  
  
• Open cabinets and drawers drive me nuts. Especially when they're almost closed but not quite. I make it my purpose in life to close them. Wifey was often guilty of this. Still is, actually, but I now that we're in the house I don't need to use the mirror over her dresser any more, so I just don't see it. She loves me anyway.
  
  

I'm not sure why I'm telling you all of this, other than I don't know what else to write about today. What weird habits do you have?

Hold the sarcasm

Being a picky eater and not eating fast food very often can be dangerous. I just got back from McDonalds where I ordered a couple of dollar-menu double-cheeseburgers and french fries, and it wasn't until I was walking back into the office that I realized I forgot to ask for my cheeseburgers without the pickles or onions.

While coming down the stairs I wondered if I had enough karma saved up to will away the pickles. I figured that I can deal with the onions, just please make the pickles go away. I was wrong on both counts. Not only are there pickles on my burgers, but there are more onions than ketchup. I've scraped most of that gunk off and I'm writing this with a mouth full of pickle-juice-tainted cheeseburger and the crunch of onions in every bite. Yum!

Moral of the story? Eat fast food more often!

^{Now if I could only convince the wife of that…}

I don't work at E-Tech any more

Today my company was officially bought by a larger version of ourselves. I won't get into all of the jargon and stuff we've been talking about around the office, but I'll simply leave it at this:

We, myself included, are excited about the acquisition. Among other things, it opens a lot of room for advancement within the company, as seen here:

By the time I got my shirt, all they had left were XL's. I swore I'd wear it at least once… I never said alone.

Perficient is a publicly traded company, so SEC regulations prohibited me from telling you until today. Wouldn't want you going out and buying Perficient stock and making a quick buck from the buzz.

We're told that (at least for now) there won't be any drastic culture changes. There will probably be a little bit of restructuring to fit their org-methodology. Who knows? Maybe even a promotion in it for your's truly! Not holding my breath, though. I'm happy doing what I do and as long as they let me keep on keepin' on I'll continue to be happy. I do want to advance in the company, but at this point I don't ever see myself taking on a role where I'm completely removed from programming. Surely there's more money to be had in management, but I'm still holding on to my ideals that happiness is more important than money and you can only buy so much happiness.