Roomba Shaming 3: AAAAALFREEEEEED!!!!!!!

[The text of Alfred the Roomba's shaming sign: "I got a hold of my mom's Apple headphones and chewed them up."]

The other day at work, I got a notification on my phone saying that Alfred needed his main brushes cleaned out. I rolled my eyes, because I had just cleaned out his brushes earlier this week, and it sounded like he was being a drama queen.

I came home for lunch and found Alfred sitting in the middle of the living room floor. I rolled my eyes again. But then I looked up, and there in his vacuum tracks path, looking utterly steamrolled, was a white cord. My heart filled with dread.

I don't know how he got them, because I certainly didn't leave them on the floor. But Alfred made a snack out of my Apple headphones. You might notice that one of the ear buds has been chewed right off. Want to know where I found it?

Alfred, you jerk.

Fatherly Advice

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there! (Especially mine)

As part of our celebrations today, I reminisced with my father about some of the advice he's given me over the past five years. But I also wanted to give a special shout-out to some of the advice he gave me earlier in my life.

With zero context, I present to you three suggestions my father made to me before 2015:


1. Pull my finger.

2. Give that trash can a kiss.

3. Try this new pen I got- it writes in a really cool color.


(I might never forgive you, Dad. Happy Father's Day, though.)

Doggo Drawings

This morning, I am sitting at my laptop, waiting for my doctor to begin our appointment via Zoom.

This truly is a weird time we're living in.

But while I was sitting here, I had the urge to draw a picture of myself petting a dog, because I have had very little dog petting time since the world's current predicament began. And then I drew some other things that vaguely resemble dogs.

I tried several different iterations of "dog doodles" for the title of this post and found nothing that didn't sound disgusting.

Happy Friday.

Pixel Me

I made some Excel art during this morning's tag-up teleconference!

It's me, but pixelated! Ish.

I was disappointed to find that I couldn't just make squares by making the row height and column width the same number. Apparently they don't use the same scale. So I kind of just eyeballed it and dragged the column width down until it looked pretty much like a square, and then I made all the other columns that width, too.

In case you're curious, it ended up being: Row Height = 14.4, Column Width = 2.

Purple Mountain Majesties

I doodled a little during Bible study tonight. Due to the world's present difficulties, we're doing it over Discord, so nobody can see me drawing and accuse me of not paying attention. If you've hung around this blog a while, you'll know that it's quite the opposite!

From sea to shining seeeeeeeeeeaaa!

Twinkle, Twinkle

Here's another little drawing I made during a conference call. I hope your Monday was tolerable!

This Conference Call's a Beach

Since we're all teleworking due to the world's present difficulties, my teammates and our immediate supervisor have a conference call each morning to check in with each other, ask questions, and let each other know what we're up to.

I may or may not cry on the days it's cancelled. Quarantine is doing strange things to people, and you have no right to judge me.

I will readily admit I tend to talk a lot on these calls. I have issues, man. I have a lot of stuff going on. Also, I was trying to deal with the IRS for a few weeks, and that was stressful. I fully deserved some venting time for that.

(No offense, IRS. Thank you for depositing my stimulus check this week.)

But some days I'm not the one talking for hours on end. Sometimes it's my turn to say, "Yep, entering invoices today, that's all," and then sit back and politely listen to my coworkers talk about the frustrating reimbursements they're dealing with, or which payroll thing didn't get processed correctly, or what needs to be entered as a journal entry...

Finance is a large and terrifying machine. I am but one cog. I know my particular spins and whirs, and everything else is a mystery to me. So although I try to pay attention and do the verbal equivalents of nodding understandingly, my mind wanders a bit sometimes.

But you know what helps you pay attention during meetings?

Doodling!

And you know what I've recently pulled out of storage to help mark up digital invoices?

My Wacom drawing tablet!

And you know what the IT Department forgot to uninstall on my new work laptop?

Paint 3D!!!

I drew a picture of a beach during our call one day and emailed it to my boss and teammates to brighten up their dreary, rainy, isolated day. I don't know about them, but it sure cheered me up!