donuts, super bowl party

 there was a super bowl party in the morning on another floor. i saw that i was caught up on my normal duties before i went there. i wasn't there for long, i ate a donut and was there for just a few minutes. the karaoke-loving manager was there as well and left about the same time as me, also having work to do. some had football jerseys on, but less than half. i said i don't have that many, but i do have plenty of baseball jerseys. the boss asked me to send an empty Fargo envelope by inter-office mail to an office on the other side of the metro area, an odd request to say the least. the manager from the Kansas City business line asked me about checks i had overnighted to Las Vegas late last week. i said that checks going to the same address are lumped together, to help save with the costs of overnighting. it was eleven checks in all, with various payee names on them. this was why there was the question, as the expected list when sending the tracking numbers was short. in the evening i did a little more than just watch 'big bang theory' reruns, and the news, as i found 'the Muppet show' when i was changing channels. Sabrina Carpenter was the main guest star, at least i have heard of her. the show was all right, but i noticed at times when the puppeteers weren't hiding their sticks that are used to control the puppets. 

printer stops, starts over

 a curious thing happened at work and i reported it when i noticed it. a check printer was printing a big Fargo file and for some reason it stopped before finishing and then started over. i knew to expect just under three thousand checks for this file, and when it said 'feed printer' after printing that many i knew something was wrong. i check the dashboard and this gives me the first and last check number in the file, this helps with when i investigate. found out there was over three hundred checks that i needed to re-print. thankful i caught it when i did as this held down how many 'duplicated' checks were printed. it was decidedly less than when this same thing happened more than two weeks ago. fewer to send to the shred bin then. there was a dial-in meeting that started mid-morning, and it was an all-colleague town hall meeting. some of the issues presented to the executive were typical, such as asking about layoffs as well as 'return to office'. i am used to working in the office every day of the week, same as branch employees, so working from home, the latter issue, does not apply to me. the month's envelope order arrived, just as the boss was asking about the printer. a check was picked up by the payroll manager for one of his reports. i don't care too much who picks up a check. i went to another floor to drop off checks, mailroom sent those to me, and they were ones i can't handle. one of them was a refund check. the newer colleague took ownership of them, i knew the team lead would be out of the office for the day. 

cat people movie

 in the evening i went to see the movie 'cat people' at the Trylon. i was interested in this one as i knew john heard is in it. i liked how it took place at the zoo in New Orleans, a city i have visited but i didn't make it to their zoo. since the movie was from 1982 i did notice some things that make it look dated now. there was an image of a now-defunct eastern airlines plane at the airport, along with a public payphone as well as a rotary dial phone in someone's home. and there were cigarette ads on billboards. it was a good story. i know i had seen a movie about a werewolf before, this would be the closest comparison. this would be the third Paul Schrader-directed movie i have seen there, the others being 'blue collar' and 'hardcore'. after getting home from the movie i ordered a ticket for another movie at this venue, a month away. at work i was asked to pull a check from the PDF file, and i did. then later on i was asked to send it out, but it was late in the day by then so it would have to go out the next day. not sure why there was a 'flip-flop' on this request. i was asked about fed-ex envelopes, i said i don't have that many but could use some more. so far i have used four, an average of one a month. one was used today, thankfully it is still 'few and far between' as we mostly use UPS for overnighting checks. i let the branch manager from my former worksite know that a check was on the way, likely for notary fees. and i sent a scan of returned checks to an office in suburban St. Louis, after seeing an email earlier about not seeing any for a while when i just send them regular mail. 

melania movie

 sometimes i have two-movie weekends, this was one of them. i went to see the documentary, 'Melania', about the first lady, this morning in Eagan. i figured there would be a slightly smaller crowd that early, even on the opening weekend. there was a decent crowd at this screening, and as usual i sat near the front of the auditorium. as a history major, i knew this would be a movie that i should see. and i like how Melania does honor those before her, as there is mention of some other first ladies. as expected, when her name is the movie title, it is mostly about her. sometimes a mention of her husband, and son. no doubt that one doesn't see things like what was shown too often, such as inside trump tower, showing campaign signs. there were no posters on display at this theater about this doc, likely because it was a doc. that genre usually doesn't bring big crowds to see it. thankful i saw it. nice thing about seeing it this early in the day was driving home to have lunch after it was done. i did some shredding of junk mail in the afternoon and then performed in the evening. i did stories about the bank, coffee and donuts, a meetup event, and attending the winter carnival. then i called my dad later on, a long call as usual. 

formula one movie

 this afternoon i went to see a movie, 'formula one', or 'F1', in Edina at Southdale mall. it was an IMAX screening, so i had to pay a little more. this is now the second of the best picture nominees that i have seen in the past year. i liked how quite a bit of the scenes were on the racetrack as it is a car racing movie after all. plenty of talent in this movie, as it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, a name i have heard of before with some popular TV shows. and it helped that Brad Pitt was the star. then there was music being done by Hans Zimmer, who has been around for a while, also doing the music for 'rain man'. after the movie, i was pleased to find a Kowalski's grocery store in the same mall. i got some cheese, some beef jerky, and a bottle of A and W root beer. then i went home. in the morning i went to the post office, an amazon order was picked up. then i dropped off recycle near the capitol and went to see the ice sculptures at the St. Paul winter carnival. one of them i didn't recognize at first, but there was more than one sculpture telling its story. then i looked closer and noticed the playing cards in front and a young lady and said, 'that's Alice in wonderland'. after that i saw the cheshire cat and mad hatter in the back. i got some fries and hot cocoa from two different food trucks nearby, although there was too much seasoning on the fries. there were dancers onstage inside the landmark center, one of them was dancing to Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean'. i saw some clowns inside a life-size snow globe and got a picture of it. at a table inside the same building, i saw a clown making buttons for kids. i already saw some smaller ones in a bag under the table, i asked for one and got it. i paid for just over an hour of parking, and it was long enough to see what i wanted to see. then it was on to Jersey Mike's for a sandwich as it was time for lunch. then i went home and rested a little while and went to Aldi for groceries before going to the movie. 

general strike number two

 i saw a posting in the skyway this morning saying there would be a general strike this afternoon, one week after the first one. it looked like there were fewer businesses deciding to close because of it. i saw a mailroom employee observing the crowd from the skyway level, and the dude left after a few minutes, saying he had work to do. i said, 'so do i'. this was near the end of my lunchtime, and it was around the time when the protest speeches began. i could see and hear more of it this time from the window in the office i use in the check shop. it was loud for about an hour and then that was it. i knew well enough to ignore it and get my work done. i made it to Walgreen in the morning as usual, after i had printed some check files and sent the scanned reject fax on to the shared box. since the first of the month is coming soon, i sent off the supply order. i liked seeing an email later in the day from the envelope company. it tells me the order was approved rather quickly, sometimes it waits for days if a senior leader is on vacation. in the evening i went to a meetup event at a micro-brewery, after watching 'big bang theory' reruns and having a meal. i spoke with a dude who had two dogs with him, both boxers. after being there for an hour, i had finished my beer and said i needed to go. i am used to getting groceries from Hy-Vee in Eagan, and i used a basket i had found while doing a morning walk this week. there was trash in it when found, so i dumped the trash in a barrel nearby and the basket was in the bathtub at home until i made my weekly trip there. not the first time i have returned a grocery basket that i had found. 

postcard reshuffle

 this week i picked up three postcards from a convenience store in the skyway, along with a bottle of Dunkin Donuts coffee. it led to me reshuffling my collection a little that i have in various photo albums. one was about winter fun in Minnesota, one was about the capital city of Saint Paul and pro hockey returning, and one said 'god bless America' with a bald eagle on it and mention of 9/11. i say it all the time and it is true, but sometimes i have to take some cards out in the name of 'stressing quality'. in this case, i moved some postcards bought in New Ulm into the album with the others from that town. and i decided to take out cards that were more about promoting events instead of depicting tourist sites that can be mailed. with some it was easy to boot them if it was events i didn't attend, or if i still had one promoting a certain site. it helps that postcards don't cost that much. and the promotional cards, those are free. also notable was taking the bus, and then the light rail, to work as i went out for a morning walk and a bus stop shelter said it was still subzero. not a big deal to me to give the car the day off. it led to me getting items out of a vending machine like before. at the bank in the breakroom, it was potato skins from TGI Fridays. while waiting at the airport for the transfer, it was double salami sticks. but in both cases this time, i paid cash. it saves me a little money as there is a fee to use a debit card. and much like before, it was nice to get two packs of salami sticks but i was expecting just one. at work i eliminated the backlog on the Fargo checks, there was a thousand left over from the previous day. i ran them through the machine in the morning first. late in the afternoon, a colleague from payroll showed up with tax forms. it is much lower volume this year, i was told just under three hundred, instead of thousands. it was due to automation. i said i would run them through the next morning but was told they just needed to go out by mid-February.