For those of you who know me personally, you probably haven’t seen much of me in the last week or so. Here’s what I’ve been up to.
First of all, I was scheduled to go to Chicago pretty much until December. Then at the last minute, and I mean last minute, plans got changed so I’m working out of Rockville, MD these days.
There’s pluses and minuses to that. The good news is that I am not disappearing for a week at a time on my family and shoving all personal chores and responsibilities off on Tamara. The bad news is that it’s an hour (and quite often more) commute to and from that location — for instance, I left at 4:30pm while feeling sick, and arrived home sharply at 6:00pm. I manage to pass away the hour and half by listening to audio programs on tape and CD. Currently, I’m working my way through the Old and New Testament.
The problem is the professional version of the Bible that I have seems to have been edited by a rookie. Chapters may end with the last word cut off, the volume isn’t constant, and sometimes it’s possible to detect editing. That’s kind of distracting from what should be a professional project.
One of my personal work habits is to have a copy of ICQ up and running; this lets people know where I am, that I’m safe (in the ever of sniper attacks), and they can get a message to me. The client site I’m at has a very strict firewall, and getting to the outside world is really difficult.
So, add some long days, an ugly commute, and no communication to the outside world, and you find that I’m not only physically but mentally exhausted by the time I get home. My week’s worth of emails and projects seem to backup more than a toilet being fed rolls of toilet paper by a two year old that’s just learned how to flush.
Friday was pretty cool. Jim and Loralie took Tamara and I out to the Melting Pot. It was Jim’s way of thanking Tamara for all her help, while blowing my weight-watchers diet straight back to hell.
Saturday started by sleeping in and recovering those lost hours from waking up between 5-5am to get to Rockville this past week, and going to Emily and De’s wedding! I played with Cora, but she didn’t seem to remember all that well who I was, although she remembered all the games we played and didn’t treat me like a stranger.
Michele M. was there looking hot in her kilt and chain mail head piece. We got into a bubble blowing fight which quickly degraded into flicking frosting at each other. I’m certain the more colorful version will appear in her journal.
Alan came over later, and we looked at hooking up a new phone switch. By the time we figured out just how much re-wiring was really necessary, we bailed on the idea for the night and went to get some ice-cream.
While at the mall we picked up some Godiva chocolate for Michele H. and delivered it to her work. Turns out it was a great idea as someone there stole her dinner.
Meanwhile, there’s about 2 hours of consciousness left in me, so I’m off to work on some personal projects for people.