If you're going to the hood today, you probably need to bring your axe.

this is not me. but so you get the idea.

So. In Oregon this week for work. Loving the change of scenery, but me stomach is having a bit of a hard time adjusting to this new time zone. As a result, I keep getting hunger pangs at really odd hours. I spent most of Weds and Thurs in meetings, and was frequently seen leaning over to my boss to let him know I'm hungry. This starts roughly at 10am and continues on until he calls some sort of adjournment to the festivities for food, or shares with me some of the candy in his pocket, which he is not wont to do.

He calls me "tater tot" because once when we went out to eat for a work lunch I ordered tater tots, and he found this hilarious. But I am not ashamed, because tater tots are delish. fucking right.

So our days this week pretty much went like this

10am: Me, midmeeting, in a whisper "I'm hungry"
him, in his good old boy southern accent "tater tot, I swear. You're always hungry"
Me: "hmmph"
Me: "can I have a piece of that candy?"
him: "this is my last piece. no"
Me:"hmmph"

10:20am
Me: "Marc. really, I'm hungry"
him: "I know, tater tot."
Me: "hmmph"

etc and so on pretty much every 15 min or so. Misery loves company, and being hungry makes me sad. Suffering shared is suffering halved, so I try to keep him real involved.

noon
Me: "Marc, I think I'm dying. I'm starving. for real. please. Can you hear that? That's my stomach."
him: "Guys, I think we better break. Tater tot's hungry and she's freaking out."
Me: "It's true. I'm freaking out"
him: "She gets cranky when she's hungry. we better get her something to eat"
Me:"It's true. It makes me sad and angry. Can we stop at that Subway like RIGHT NOW?"

The upshot of this is that the customers we were visiting know him from way back and so because he thinks this is amusing, so do they. Next time I will go prepared, and bring my almond stash, which I almost always have in my work bag, specifically because I totally start to lose it when I'm hungry.

Hunger and the need to pee: I can not deal with these.

Friday, my meetings somehow got canceled and so I was able to skip out on the afternoon and go snowshoeing on Mt Hood. AWESOME.

You'll have to take my word for it until one of the people I went with sends me the pics I took when I commandeered his camera, but they're awesome. It was way fun, and I can now say I have:
-snowshoed
-explored Mt Hood
-glissaded
-learned and practiced the art of arresting a fall with an ice axe.

Again: fucking right.

Did you or did you not order the CODE RED?!

Monday, monday...dah dah daaaaaaaaah dah dah...

What I'm...

doing- working. gross. getting caught up on old biz and ready for my portland trip this week.

listening to- nothing. I'm out of Stern. Ahem...

cooking- delicious soup like the stuff HN and I had in Guatemala one really horrible day we had traveling all over. The soup saved the day.

thankful for- MLK. not only for the big stuff, but today, honestly, because it's a holiday and that means NSI is closed so I'm here and not there.

going to buy-a yarn ball winder. I tried to hand wind some last night. I f*cked it up. bad.

sad about- might not be able to go to Chile after all. NSI strikes again. big, HEAVING sigh.

McLobster

that is to say, disgusting yet intriguing These are 2 photos of my eye taken on a slit lamp, and then one I took of someone else. I've just learned how to use this instrument (the basics only) and am now obsessed with it. it's so gross and so cool all at once! I'm basically ready to begin a career in ophthalmic photography if this Project stuff falls through. there will be more of these later. As I said, I'm now obsessed

Extra super close up of my iris. SICK

Not so close up. Still cool though.

I took this one. I'm going to add a close up later, as well as some other peoples. It's amazing to me how different the different color pigments look.

A hip-hop MC performs with improvised rhyme and the spoken word, typically over a thumping beat.

TGIT. Have I mentioned lately that Thursday is my favorite day?

I will be glad to see this week go. It's been a little like Hell, only much much colder. It hasn't been all bad I'm sure, I just can't think of the good stuff right now. It's actually been workalicious because I have NSI coming inline for the "seriously this time, it's final" deployment in the next couple of months, plus my new project at Cool Portland Institution (CPI from now on) and my coworker is away on rendezvous in Cali with an "actress". (I have no idea how, but he totally said it with a straight face so I'm taking it as fact) What this means to me theoretically is that I have to cover his support calls. What this means in fact is that I have to clean up his mess. He's not what you call "bothered" by details. Details like SQL server opening databases ok, or clinical machines transmitting data. Sigh.
Like I said, I will be glad to see this week go.

Hmm. on deck for the weekend is supposed to be my debut at hot yoga, but I pinched a nerve in my neck so I'm not sure that's the right thing to do right now. Perhaps some Icy Hot and knitting is in order, I hear it's supposed to be CRAP for weather.

Other than that, I'm trying to plan a surprise for someone, but how do you plan a party when everyone's pissed at the guest of honor for not returning their phone calls? So far in response to my "Hi, we've never met, I'm your friend's girlfriend and I'm trying to have a party for him" mailing, I've gotten equal responses of "yeah I can make it" and "I've been trying to get in touch with the guy for 6mos where the hell has he been?" I think a special birthday boy I know might be getting a secretary for his birthday! Crap. Should I be discussing this here? hmmm....
I'm totally counting on him not being into the blog thing and having forgotten the address of this by now. Otherwise, I'm f'ed (and not in the good way).

the batphone's ringing, back to my crisis. sigh.

I AM the walrus.

I can break anything: it is my gift. Some people are good with babies; some people are really good at math. Me? I can f*ck up some software, given enough time and the littlest bit of knowledge. It's very satisfying to bomb out someone's hard work. Isn't that sick?!

On those occasions when I have the quiet and focus to sit down and really go elbows deep into work stuff, I can be a pretty f*cking mean QA machine. As today. I am currently basking in the glow that is a simultaneous App and SQL server meltdown. I killed .net and SQL 2005. I am so nerdly proud of myself it itches. I killed .NET so bad it doesn't even know it's dead.

I AM AWESOME

and clumsy. In my last note I alluded to but did not describe the fall I took the other day while out running. While I wait for .NET to figure out how dead it is, I have decided it's time for that perennial favorite The Artist's Rendering of the Incident.

To encapsulate the incident and set the scene, I should point out that I was running while looking at the toys all over the lawns of the houses I was near. I was not looking at the sidewalk. If I had been I would have noticed that tree roots were growing and making the sidewalk all crooked and stuff and that I needed to watch out. But I wasn't looking. So I didn't notice that. I noticed that the neighbors kid had a pretty sweet big wheel, I noticed some blocks and thought it was nice to see some wooden toys too, and wondered whether I would have hot chocolate or tea when I got home. Then the next thing I knew I was flying through the air screaming, and next thing after that I was on my back with a sore elbow. I had some momentum. Luckily I wasn't hurt too bad and since I don't run on my elbows I could keep going.

Here is the picture:

Notice my green shirt. My green shirt is AWESOME. It matches my green shoes and together these are integral parts of my very professional runner looking outfit. I wear it all the time. It smells a little but not too much.

My motivational speaking tour starts later!

First of all I would like to say happiness is a warm cookie and a hot cup of coffee when someone else does both the mess-making and the cleanup. This balmy Sunday finds me tucked back in the safest corner ever at a coffee shop. My seat is perfect: close to the exit, literally in a little nook big enough only for the table and chair I'm seated at. Said table and seat are elevated AND reside on a platform up a step from the floor so I have a bird's eye view. Primo people watching habitat, with the added bonus of there being no way anyone can sit next to me and ruin it by talking before I've finished my coffee. I really couldn't ask for anything more. Except perhaps the sight of HN, who is among the people I am watching, he having been moved to seek out a totally different ride as far as seating goes. He's a couch chiller. I have to appreciate a man who can and does detach himself to the other side of the room when we go somewhere together. Especially before my coffee.

Speaking of before my coffee, I have decided that nothing can ever happen before coffee. It's just stupid. The reaffirmation of this came this morning, when for some reason I decided to bump my evening run up to the morning and see how that suited me. Not at all is the answer. Given the fall I took the other day while ostensibly fully awake, I'm not sure why I was moved to try moving quickly before spending enough time waking up. Suffice it to say it's probably not my new routine to go running before coffee anymore.

What is apparently my new routine though is traveling. Back from a whirlwind NC tour, I'm getting ready to head to Oregon soon for a new project I'm beginning and I can't wait. Meetings have conveniently been scheduled for Weds-Friday, with plane and hotels being conveniently scheduled for Tuesday-Sunday. I'm looking forward to kicking it in Portland for the weekend. I've heard so much about it and I am pretty excited to go exploring, plus I have an in town tour guide hopefully ready to show me around. However if that falls through it seems like Portland is the kind of town it should happen in as I'm betting I can find enough to do there to occupy myself. And I love being on planes, because these days it's about the only time my work phone isn't ringing, and with no possibility of online access, my obligation to work is all but absent. That means it's knitting time! I don't have anything going but am planning on starting something before I go and undoubtedly finishing it while in transit.

There's also some South America looming in my future but until I've bought the ticket I'm laying low on the rooftop shouting bit.

In the "holy shit how far behind in life am I?" sweepstakes, here's the picture that was going to be on my Christmas card. I know you didn't get one. You're not alone, as I never got around to sending them out. Just imagine this coming in the mail ok? and with some witty caption that I'm not thinking of right now because I feel no obligation until coffee time has passed.

She will literally do anything for a cookie. I should be having more fun with this.

2008 it is then.

So far so good. It started a little rough, there was a BSOD and an important, open, unsaved document in notepad. Lesson learned.

Have run a few times though, and that's going ok. It's not as bad as it has been when I've tried to go back in times past, and with the cold snap we've had lately it's like the ultimate head rush. Sick I know, but I like it.

I've been slowly but surely cleaning up and organizing the office room. I don't know what it is about the prospect of moving that inspires me to finally unpack and live in a place, but there it is. I am seriously this time going to post pics of the office when it's done, which should be after tomorrow. Hopefully I will get to enjoy the new office for at least a couple of months before heading out. ha.

On deck for the weekend are 1)finishing a couple of knitted stuffs that just need buttons on, etc (somehow the hardest part for me) 2) finishing the quilt (seriously this time) and mailing people xmas and birthday presents (better late than never)

First I have to survive this day though. I'm at - you guessed it- NSI today and everyone's idiocy and surliness seem to have been renewed with the holidays. And they didn't need the help for the most part. My new year's resolution was to be nicer and less hateful of the complete and utter fuckups I encounter so regularly in this place. (ok I lied, I dont make resolutions. But I was going to try to be a better person) That's right out the window. It's easy not to hate them until I see them, or hear them as the case may be.
My *new* pseudo-resolution is to get them to sign enough binding documents that their uselessness isn't my problem. It's more work, but the next best thing to being there.

TGIF